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Privacy-preserving recommendations in context-aware mobile environments
|
[
"Privacy",
"Context-awareness",
"User interface",
"Dummy-based",
"Mobile recommender systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The evolution of the concept of e-democracy and its related electronic government services has led to information overload and privacy issues (Drogkaris et al., 2013). Moreover, the information overload problem encountered in numerous online systems/services such as e-commerce and e-government, among others, has given rise to the use of recommender systems (Lu et al., 2015). Such systems have swiftly become necessary to the wider public but at the same time have contributed heavily to an increase in privacy concerns among service users. Recommender systems are algorithms and computer software that are designed to provide suggestions for products or services that could be of interest to a user of a website or an online application (Bobadilla et al., 2013; Konstan and Riedl, 2012). They are considered to be a subset of information retrieval systems whose job is to provide personalized recommendations to users and solve the information overload problem found in various online environments. Recommender systems are valuable to users that do not have the experience or the time to cope with the process of decision-making while using the Web, particularly where a choice of products or services is available. Recent advances in the field of mobile computing and the rapid evolution of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has led to the need for advances in the field of mobile recommender systems (Cao et al., 2014; Ahluwalia et al., 2014; Polatidis and Georgiadis, 2015; Ricci, 2010; del Carmen Rodriguez-Hernandez and Ilarri, 2016). The access to a mobile recommender system at any given point in time and location is called ubiquity; thus, an alternative term used to describe such systems is that of ubiquitous recommender systems (Mettouris and Papadopoulos, 2014). Additionally, the use of location data and the use of other contextual information, such as the time, weather information, physical conditions, social and others, have become common in mobile recommender systems (Mettouris and Papadopoulos, 2014).\n2. Factors affecting mobile recommender systems: A number of factors exist that can affect mobile recommender systems and their ability to provide accurate personalized recommendations. These include the recommendation method, the context and privacy concerns.\n3. Motivating scenario: This section describes a motivating scenario that illustrates the necessity for a privacy-preserving context-aware mobile recommendation architecture. The scenario shows the main benefits that a user can gain if a mobile recommender system is used and that a privacy-preserving system is necessary to assist the user in the process of gaining those benefits. We follow an example from a fictional user to describe the motivating scenario and we also assume the existence of a mobile application, MobiRec (Mobile Recommender), which can be installed in mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. This application recommends movies of interests to the user, considering past common ratings between users and available context parameters.\n4. Related work: A large number of different works exist that demonstrate the importance of privacy issues in different parts of the recommendations process (from the client part to the server part) in various domains. Mobile recommender systems are used in a variety of different domains, such as the one presented by Anacleto et al. (2014), where a mobile application is used to provide personalized sightseeing tours to its users. Another mobile application that is designed to provide context-aware tourism information to its user has been provided by Noguera et al. (2012). Colombo-Mendoza et al. (2015) proposed a context-aware, knowledge-based, mobile recommendation system for movie show times. Privacy is indeed an essential part of mobile recommender systems (del Carmen Rodriguez-Hernandez and Ilarri, 2016; Polatidis et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2013). However, there is a gap between recommender systems and mobile computing. For example, most of the related work is about the protection of personal user data, such as the ratings. Furthermore, protecting the user location is considered an important aspect in mobile computing services. Thus, in our proposed method, we aim to protect user privacy when contextual parameters are used to provide personalized recommendations in mobile environments. Moreover, our method also protects the privacy at the user interface level. Most of the privacy-protection methods for location-based services perform well for protecting the location of a user when only non-personalized services are requested; our approach delivers recommendations in mobile environments without losing any accuracy and at the same time preserves the privacy of the user at the context and interface levels. An example of preserving privacy in collaborative filtering is the use of distribution techniques that use an obfuscation scheme and a randomized dissemination protocol (Boutet et al., 2015). Also, the use of ratings' perturbations is a well-known approach that is used in collaborative filtering for personal data protection (Polat and Du, 2005). Additionally, other privacy protection approaches exist in recommender systems such as Aimeur et al. (2008) where the use of a semi-trusted third party is proposed. The data are split between the server and the semi-trusted third party; thus, no single entity can derive sensitive information and the system can work only if these two separate parties collaborate.\n5. Proposed method: Privacy is becoming increasingly important in mobile computing environments, including the field of recommender systems in such domains. However, efforts have been made toward solving the location-based services problem, which is only one of the many parameters of context that can be found in context-aware mobile recommender systems. A method that protects the user privacy when context parameters are used for mobile recommendations is proposed. Mobile recommender systems are based on a regular recommendation algorithm such as collaborative filtering, content-based filtering or a hybrid approach. Furthermore, a context-filtering method needs to be applied to sort the recommendations and propose the ones that are more relevant according to the contextual parameters. In our method, we use collaborative filtering with contextual post-filtering with an overview of the recommendation process taking place at the server and shown in Figure 2.\n6. Experimental evaluation: For the experimental evaluation, a Pentium i3 2.13 GHz with 4GB RAM, running Windows 8.1 was used. All the algorithms have been implemented in Java and used collaborative filtering with contextual post-filtering. Moreover, a mobile smartphone running android 5.0 was used.\n7. Conclusions and future work: Various online services, including m-commerce and m-government among others, use technologies such as mobile recommender systems that aim to solve the information overload problem of users using such a software system in their mobile device. Privacy, though, is an open issue and most privacy protection techniques have been based either on personal data, such as user ratings protection or use third-party systems for keeping private the exchange of information. Various privacy-protection methods are evolving, capable of preserving privacy at different parts of the recommendations process. If we consider privacy as one of the most important aspects in mobile recommender systems, we have to both protect privacy at the context and at the user interface level. Users are moving constantly among other people and their privacy should be respected both from other people and service providers. We proposed a practical and effective method that aims to protect privacy of contextual parameters and user interface found in context-aware mobile recommender systems, without the use of a third party. The proposed method automatically generates a set of realistic dummies that are sent from the client to the server, with the real values hidden between the dummy ones. Then the system, with a small utility cost, provides a set of recommendations to the client without any privacy risks. On completion, the client disregards the dummy recommendations, eliminating any surplus and/or confusing data.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to address privacy concerns that arise from the use of mobile recommender systems when processing contextual information relating to the user. Mobile recommender systems aim to solve the information overload problem by recommending products or services to users of Web services on mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, at any given point in time and in any possible location. They use recommendation methods, such as collaborative filtering or content-based filtering and use a considerable amount of contextual information to provide relevant recommendations. However, because of privacy concerns, users are not willing to provide the required personal information that would allow their views to be recorded and make these systems usable.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This work is focused on user privacy by providing a method for context privacy-preservation and privacy protection at user interface level. Thus, a set of algorithms that are part of the method has been designed with privacy protection in mind, which is done by using realistic dummy parameter creation. To demonstrate the applicability of the method, a relevant context-aware data set has been used to run performance and usability tests.\nFindings: The proposed method has been experimentally evaluated using performance and usability evaluation tests and is shown that with a small decrease in terms of performance, user privacy can be protected.\nOriginality/value: This is a novel research paper that proposed a method for protecting the privacy of mobile recommender systems users when context parameters are used.\n",
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Collaborative consumption: a business model analysis of second-hand fashion
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Business model",
"Collaborative consumption",
"Second-hand fashion stores"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, globalization has driven consumption of contemporary fashion products to the highest quantities in history. In the USA alone, the volume of post-consumer textile waste has increased by 40 percent from 1999 to 2009. Moreover, fashion apparel production and consumption depletes natural resources and generates unmanageable solid wastes (Ruppert-Stroescu et al., 2015; Pedersen and Andersen, 2015). Given this increase in textile waste, effective utilization of resources is one of the major challenges impacting the fashion industry. Hence, new sustainable business models and consumption patterns are being created to increase the lifecycle of products.\nLiterature review: Collaborative consumption\nMethodology: An exploratory study was conducted to address the gap in existing literature in the fashion redistribution markets. The study implemented a qualitative research design to gain deeper understanding of the second-hand fashion retail stores from the perspective of the owners/store managers from consignment and re-sale stores (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The in-depth interview method was adopted since the study is explorative in nature. Particularly, a qualitative methodology allows for an in-depth investigation of the human experience from the participants' point of view, and allows participants to present their life situations in their own words (Kvale, 2006). Thus, a qualitative methodology allows for a more comprehensive assessment of the second-hand store operations through the lens of the entrepreneur/manager. Upon the institutional review board approval from the university, a convenience sample of second-hand clothing stores was solicited through e-mail invitation, based on a list of second-hand stores located in the researchers' region. This sample was purposefully selected as these participants/sites fit the appropriate setting of the research question (Creswell and Creswell, 2018). After the initial recruitment, other respondents were recruited via snowball sampling, as a few of the representatives had friends who owned either a consignment shop or a re-sale store. Primary data collection included six one-on-one semi-structured, in-depth interviews with owners/store managers of the second-hand clothing stores based in the southeast region of the USA. Given the exploratory nature of the study, a smaller sample size was deemed appropriate since this research was drawn from a targeted population with shared experience. A smaller sample size allows for a more in-depth assessment within the behavioral context (Crouch and McKenzie, 2006). Table II includes information about each respondent, including second-hand store type and number of years in operation. To protect the anonymity of the stores and their respondents, pseudonyms were used.\nAnalysis of findings: Consistent with previous qualitative researchers (Hodges et al., 2015; Pedersen and Netter, 2015; Pal, 2016), the categorized and contrasted data have been presented as distinct areas of focus. The following areas are in line with the Osterwalder and Pigneur's (2010) business model. For the purpose of this study, two of the areas were combined: key partners and resources. This was done because the second-hand clothing retail supply chain involves business owners relying on key partnerships as a major resource to the business. Thus, following are the eight areas of focus that will be discussed to further explain the findings: CS, VP, CN, CR, RS, KR, KA, KP, and CoS.\nDiscussion: Given the widespread presence of second-hand clothing stores attracting a variety of customer segments, there is growing trend for this type of CC. The participants' responses suggested that starting a second-hand clothing store does not require big capital funds and are usually run as a single channel physical store. Thus, the data implies that these second-hand shops are ideal for entrepreneurs who do not have a large capital to start a business. Further, entrepreneurs could target either business model of consignment or re-sale store, given the best fit for their regional market. Although the costs incurred in operating second-hand stores are similar to traditional retail outlets, they do not make considerable profits like traditional retailers because the business model typically involves sharing profits through a 50:50 ratio system with the customers. Based on the analysis of the data of the components of the business model, we suggest the following potential strategies for the second-hand fashion stores.\nConclusion: The purpose of this paper was to explore the opportunities and challenges of the fashion redistribution markets by conducting an exploratory study on the second-hand fashion stores. The findings reveal that unlike traditional fashion stores, second-hand stores have customers as their primary partners and suppliers in the supply chain. Retaining existing customers and increasing profits are the primary challenges faced by second-hand retailers. Therefore, more focus on customer service and relationships may become a valuable resource to the business. Innovative revenue streams could help in increasing their profits and overcoming financial constraints. The analysis of the data also revealed that the second-hand stores offer considerable economic interests to customers by selling well-known brands at cheaper prices. Hence, consumers' economic benefits are the significant drivers of the second-hand fashion business. Our research findings, thus, confirm that this type of collaborative fashion consumption is a viable business model and fosters sustainability by increasing the product lifetime and reducing the post-consumer textile waste. Lastly, this study contributes to the CC literature by highlighting the economic values of the second-hand stores, and encourages apparel businesses in this field to rethink and further explore existing business practices and models. Our research also brings to light the need for more partnerships and knowledge sharing across the mainstream fashion industry and second-hand stores.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the business model of second-hand fashion stores and explore their challenges/opportunities and suggest potential strategies for second-hand fashion retail stores.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research method using in-depth interviews of convenience sample of owners/store managers from within the USA was employed.\nFindings: Contrasting the traditional retail stores, customers are the primary partners and suppliers of second-hand fashion stores. These stores retain minimal profits given a business model that typically involves sharing profits with customers. Cheaper price, thrill of finding great deals, value for brands and variety are the primary reasons mentioned by respondents for shopping at second-hand stores.\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations include the use of a convenience sample of store owners/managers as well as the research is limited to women and children's stores. Respondents of the study were from the same geographical region and the characteristics of the redistribution markets may vary in a different region.\nPractical implications: As a means to foster textile waste reduction through second-hand clothing business, these stores could adopt innovative revenue streams, additional partnerships, and improved fashion and store appeal that may be effective in increasing profits and the number of customers.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the early attempts to examine the business model of second-hand fashion stores, a form of collaborative consumption in the fashion context. The study contributes in promoting second-hand fashion stores as a sustainable business model in the fashion industry.\n",
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] |
Research in nonprofit human resource management from 2015 to 2018: Trends, insights, and opportunities
|
[
"Nonprofit organizations",
"Human resource management",
"Systematic review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What is nonprofit human resource management (HRM)? Is HRM in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) really all that different from managing people in for-profit or public organizations? What is there to be gained from nonprofit-specific HRM theories and empirical results above and beyond what already exists in other contexts? As scholars who study and teach human resource management across multiple sectors, we often encounter these and similar questions about our academic interest in nonprofit HRM and the nature of our work in that space. While it might be tempting to allow such inquiries to cause frustration, we have instead used them as educational opportunities to share what nonprofit HRM is, to describe the ways in which it is similar to and unique from HRM in other sectors and organizational contexts, and to discuss how nonprofit-specific HRM knowledge enriches people, organizations, and societies.\nData collection and inclusion strategy: In order to locate the relevant research, we employed a multi-stage process. First, we sought to identify journals where nonprofit HRM research is likely published. The International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) Website provides an international \"list of all journals that publish work in the areas of nonprofits and voluntary action\" (https://www.istr.org/page/Int_Journals?). From this listing we identified 22 journals. Next, we sought to identify journals likely to specifically publish HRM-related research (of any sort, nonprofit and not nonprofit). Using the Australian Business Dean Council's (ABDC) Journal Quality List (https://abdc.edu.au/research/abdc-journal-list/), we searched for journals using the keywords \"human resource,\" \"industrial relation,\" \"employ,\" and \"personnel.\" This procedure turned up 36 additional journals. Table I lists these 58 nonprofit, voluntary action, and human resource-related journals.Two graduate students pursuing degrees in HR and labor relations independently conducted a manual, issue-by-issue search through these 58 journals for the years 2015-2018, marking any articles that resembled a nonprofit HRM topic for further review. These research assistants were instructed to be liberal in their inclusion of articles, with the thought that the authors would later review each article granularly to make a final determination about inclusion. We used the following inclusion criteria: (1) an article needed to be about HR management or HR practices specifically, as opposed to management practices in general (e.g. leadership); (2) the organizational context must be nonprofit or deal with the nonprofit sector in some way (for-profit and public contexts were okay so long as nonprofits were also discussed, for example as part of a multi-sector comparison); (3) in instances where the organizational context under study was not explicitly stated as nonprofit and thus was unclear, articles must have mentioned nonprofit (or some variation, such as \"not-for-profit\" or \"third sector\") somewhere else within the article, such as in the literature review or during theoretical development; and (4) articles solely about volunteer management were excluded.To this final point, while managing volunteers is certainly part of the larger \"human resource\" management of most NPOs, it is so much so that the study and practice of volunteer management truly stands on its own. One might venture to guess that standalone volunteerism and volunteer management research is as plentiful as nonprofit HRM research, if not more. Studer (2016) noted that volunteer management (VM) in NPOs as a formalized approach to managing volunteer resources has been strongly influenced by HRM. A recent example of this is the application of strategic HRM models to volunteer management under the auspices of strategic VRM, or strategic volunteer resource management (Rogers et al., 2016). Just as there are qualities of individuals and organizations that differentiate HRM in the nonprofit and private and government sectors, there are characteristics that likely differentiate the management of employees and volunteers in NPOs. Thus, for our purposes we focus on the HR management of employees in nonprofits. All told, the graduate students flagged 213 articles from these 58 journals for further inspection.The next step was a university library database search using the EBSCO Academic Search Complete electronic database, which includes access to over 7,300 peer-reviewed academic journals across dozens of disciplines. We used the search terms \"nonprofit,\" \"human,\" and \"resource,\" and limited our search to the check-mark selection \"Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals\" and to years 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. This procedure yielded 255 articles, some of which overlapped with the findings of the by-hand search.A third individual (one of the authors) who was removed from the earlier article identification stages scanned all articles that turned up from those previous steps (the 213 from the by-hand search plus the 255 from the database search) to determine the appropriateness of each for final inclusion, according to the inclusion criteria noted above. The final result of this entire process was the selection of 67 articles to be included in our review, 58 from the by-hand review of NPO and HR journals and nine more from the EBSCO database query[1].\nTrends in nonprofit HRM research, 2015-2018: Nonprofit HRM research published between 2015 and 2018 covered a wide array of topic areas, employed varied methodologies, reflected global authorship and organizational contexts, utilized multi- and cross-disciplinary theoretical perspectives, and appeared in journals representing diverse academic fields. Table II presents a synthesis of the content of all 67 articles along the following dimensions: author(s), year of publication, journal, an abbreviated manuscript title, the HR variables directly and/or indirectly studied, the data and methods used, and a synopsis of the key findings. As mentioned earlier, this tabular presentation is lengthy and packed with detail, and we believe it can serve as a standalone resource for researchers looking to understand the most recent scholarship on nonprofit HRM. Therefore, the narrative discussion that follows provides a high-level snapshot of the content in these 67 articles. We invite readers looking for greater or comprehensive details to visit Table II and, if needed, the original article.Fourteen HR themes emerged from a careful review of the 67 articles by one of the authors and the two graduate assistants. The author read each article in its entirety, noting one or more HRM topics covered by or related to the article. A positivistic approach was used when identifying these HRM \"buckets\" - the author was not necessarily looking for new streams of HR research to emerge (though they would have documented them had one or more surfaced). Instead, the goal was to categorize each article along generally accepted functional areas within the academic field of HRM (such as staffing, training, compensation, and the like) in order to make the review understandable and applicable to the widest array of human resource scholars and practitioners. The initial categorization resulted in more than 14 discrete HRM topics, and the author combined related topics to create broad categories (for example, the topics compensation, benefits, incentives, rewards, and pay-for-performance were combined into a single theme). Once the HRM topics were identified and the combined themes were created by one of the study authors, the 67 articles were divided between the two graduate students (34 to one, and 33 to the other) and they were both instructed to mark which one or more of the 14 themes applied to each article. The author and graduate students were in near complete agreement, and discussed and resolved a handful of categorization differences.Table III lists these overarching HR themes, along with the number of articles that discuss said theme. In this table we have also listed which articles were grouped into each theme. The parenthetical numbers in Table III add up to more than 67 because some articles cover two or more themes. Table IV highlights publication frequency by journal. Five out of 24 journals account for more than half (63 percent) of the nonprofit HRM articles in our sample - Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership and Governance (14 articles); Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (10 articles); Nonprofit Management and Leadership (8 articles); International Journal of Human Resource Management (5 articles); and VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations (5 articles). The most-researched nonprofit HRM topic was training (not development, but training specifically). Twelve of the 67 articles discussed the antecedents, practice, and/or impact of training on NPOs. Discussed nearly as frequently were the related topics of turnover, turnover intentions, retention, and intention to stay (10 articles). From there, the number of articles per theme drops from eight all the way down to one (for unionization and labor relations). For illustrative purposes we briefly discuss some of the research from each theme, but do not cover every instance within each theme.Training\nThe uniqueness of HRM in nonprofits: six vignettes from the research: All of the articles in our sample provide excellent examples of how and why HRM research that is unique to the nonprofit sector is critical for shining light on otherwise imperceptible organizational realities. In the previous section we \"tabled\" six articles we believed to be exemplars of this sectoral uniqueness. In this section, we present each of these articles in greater detail.Interorganizational collaboration and information networking among small nonprofits\nFilling in gaps and leading the way: opportunities for nonprofit HRM research: In this final section we identify several HR-related topics that hold promise for scholars interested in the management of human resources in nonprofit organizations, and that we believe would add great value and understanding to the theory and practice of nonprofit HRM. We arrange our recommendations along two dimensions - those that fill in gaps as a result of a dearth of recent research on certain topics, and those that address real-world developments and allow nonprofit researchers to shed light on leading-edge practical realities.Gaps in recent nonprofit HRM research\nLimitations and conclusion: Despite our best efforts to be comprehensive and conclusive in our review, it is likely that we have not captured every single piece of nonprofit HR-related scholarship from 2015 to 2018 in our sample. This is the greatest limitation of this paper, and one that is true of any broad-based literature review attempt. Foundational decisions we made about inclusion strategy as well as steps taken during the review process itself necessarily influenced the accuracy of the depiction of nonprofit HRM research. For example, expanding our search period just one additional year to 2014 would have undoubtedly changed the landscaped of our findings at least a little bit, and perhaps much. So too would have creating a longer list of journals in Table I to choose from (by adding more management journals such as Academy of Management Journal, psychology journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, sociology journals such as American Journal of Sociology, economics journals such as American Economic Review, and so on), or searching more than just the EBSCO Academic Search Premier database for prospective articles to include. Further, choosing to integrate volunteer management articles into our analysis, while complicated, would have likely yielded awesome insights into the full spectrum of nonprofit people management strategies and practices. In the end, we made several judgment calls that carefully considered the costs and benefits of various approaches and are confident that what resulted is the creation of a comprehensive and accurate research tool which will enhance the work of anyone with an interest in nonprofit HRM.We set out to canvas the most recent scholarship in nonprofit HRM with the tripartite goal of identifying meaningful trends and topics, illustrating insights that demonstrate the unique value-add of third sector HR research, and illuminating research- and practice-based lines of inquiry for future nonprofit HRM scholarship. Our review turned up 67 peer-reviewed articles published in a diverse array of disciplinary journals, representing a global network of thinkers and writers, and reflecting rich theoretical and empirical traditions. Nearly every \"textbook\" HR topic was covered by these 67 articles, though some were addressed more frequently than others. We hope that the fruit of our labor represents a rigorous and balanced resource for scholars, students, and practitioners of nonprofit HRM for many years to come.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This paper systematically reviews the past four years of research on human resource management (HRM) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to better understand: (1) recent theoretical and empirical developments and where scholarship in the field is headed (i.e. trends); (2) what topics and findings are especially important to understanding how the thought and practice of nonprofit HRM differs from that in public and for-profit organizations (i.e. insights); and (3) what gaps exist in current knowledge and scholarship and some real-world, practice-driven developments in people management that illuminate promising future research directions (i.e. opportunities).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Sixty-seven peer-reviewed journal articles covering the period 2015-2018 were identified using a university library database search, as well as by-hand searches through every issue of 22 nonprofit and 36 human resources-related journals during the four-year period.\nFindings: The findings highlight strong continued interest by scholars in a wide range of nonprofit HRM issues, coverage of these issues by a worldwide network of researchers who bring global perspectives and contexts to the study of nonprofit HRM, and rich theoretical and methodological diversity. Yet, compared with the universe of possible human resource topics and several leading-edge developments in organizations and societies that might affect the way people are managed in nonprofits, the paper uncovers gaps in the most recent knowledge base.\nOriginality/value: The paper creates a compilation of the most recent nonprofit human resource research to be used as a tool for scholars, students, and practitioners for many years to come.\n",
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European SMEs and the Brazilian market: The key role of social networks
|
[
"SMEs",
"Brazil",
"Networks",
"Internationalization process",
"Path dependence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, business opportunities in Brazil have attracted a great deal of interest from Europeans. The management literature cites several factors as heightening this interest. Brazil is increasingly moving towards market orientation, and it has shown moderately high growth rates (5-7 per cent annually) since 2004 (Gupta et al., 2012 forthcoming; Luraschi, 2012). Furthermore, the increase in Brazilian gross domestic product and changes in Brazilian society, where the proportion of the population living under good economic conditions is rising, has increased the demand for high-quality European products. In addition, upcoming events, including the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, have highlighted potential business opportunities in several sectors (EIM Business & Policy Research, 2011).\n2. Theoretical framework: This section focuses on SMEs and their need to build legitimacy to offset their liabilities of newness and sameness. A path-dependent process is highlighted as the main factor in foreign SMEs' network creation in Brazil. In addition, this section stresses the pivotal role of network establishment for success in Brazil.\n3. Methodology and results: This section describes the methodology used for investigating the role of networks in doing business in Brazil as well as the main results. The data were gathered from interviews with 21 Italian and 24 French SMEs undertaken between June and August 2012.\n4. Discussion and concluding remarks: Network ties are recognized as vital for SMEs' internationalization. They enable the identification of global market opportunities and the extension of connections through trust-based interpersonal relationships and social contacts (Zhou et al., 2007; Johanson and Vahlne, 2009). As Johannisson (1998, 2000) indicates, context and social interaction seem to be particularly important for the development of entrepreneurial networks in Brazil. Throughout our interviews, the concept of networking was prominent in CEOs' perceptions. Some used the expression \"social network\" (Child and Rodrigues, 2007; Sorenson, 2003), while others discussed \"personal networks\" (Freeman et al., 2006). Some respondents viewed networking as having both formal and informal sides (Coviello and Martin, 1999). A complex reality that covers relationships ranging from \"personal contacts\" (e.g. a sporting club or a churrasco, which is a Brazilian barbecue party) to more professional networks (e.g. Rotary or the Chamber of Commerce) lies behind this semantic proliferation.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the importance of networking for Italian and French small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Brazil. Business opportunities in Brazil have attracted a significant amount of interest in recent years. The country is moving towards market orientation, and it has recently experienced higher growth rates. Furthermore, upcoming events, such as the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, are attracting a significant amount of attention given the emergence of potential business opportunities in several sectors. Nevertheless, European companies wishing to enter the Brazilian market should address several constraints, including high barriers to entry, an extensive bureaucracy and a culture quite different from those in Europe. In this context, networking seems to be vital for success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were gathered through a survey undertaken between June and August 2012. After the questionnaire was prepared, each company either received and responded to the questionnaire by e-mail or participated in a telephone interview. The questionnaire included multiple choice questions, most of which used a 5-point Likert scale. Some open-ended questions were included to collect insights from respondents. Representatives of 21 Italian and 24 French SMEs agreed to participate in the survey. Respondents were typically company presidents, chief executive officers or export department managers with experience in the Brazilian market.\nFindings: The results highlight the importance of social networks for the SMEs interviewed. The establishment of social networks is pivotal for successful business activities in Brazil, as they can help entrants decipher and understand how society and business work. In Brazil, social networks are built through a path-dependent process that requires time, patience and perseverance, as well as an ability to overcome liabilities of sameness. In this regard, a networking process that encompasses specific activities linked to the peculiarities of Brazil is essential, even if it seems to be a second-best solution, as in the case of the QWERTY keyboard. This process, which is the main characteristic of social networking in Brazil, necessitates not only the use of the Internet and information and communications technologies but also face-to-face contacts for building reputation, legitimacy and trust.\nOriginality/value: This paper extends the extant literature by investigating the importance of networking for Italian and French SMEs in Brazil. Brazil serves as an interesting and useful case that can deepen our knowledge about this aspect of international business. As highlighted by Jack et al. (2008) and Ruzzier et al. (2006), the knowledge and understanding of the networking process still suffers from several limitations despite the increased attention paid to this phenomenon.\n",
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The social-competitive innovation pyramid
|
[
"Corporate responsibility",
"Competitive strategy",
"Corporate strategy",
"Innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: What does integrating corporate responsibility (CR) policies into corporate strategy mean? How can social tensions be experienced practically in a business without conflicting with the very economic and competitive nature of the business environment? To be able to answer these questions, this article poses some logical questions by which top management can systematically meet the expectations of its social partners.\nThe conception of \"perceived\" CR: CR means the pressure on a company - and above all on its management - to go beyond legal requirements in order to satisfy not only the economic but also the legitimate social and environmental expectations of its internal and external stakeholders (Molteni, 2004)[1]. We want to define CR according to its voluntary nature, its distinction from charity - i.e. allocating only a minimal amount of working resources - and our inability to restrict CR simply to a number of practices, such as an ethical code, social and environment certification, the sustainability report and cause-related marketing.Here, CR is intended to be instrumental to achieve natural business aims (Donaldson and Preston, 1995). This means above all carrying out normal business by getting the best out of employees, contributing to economic development in a particular area, direct and indirect job-creation, and encouraging technical, organisational, commercial and business development in its own area.Today a firm needs to respond to both old and new elements, e.g. safety and job stability, the growing expectations of employees; the impact of the productive process and goods on the environment; the effect of advertising on public perception and, more generally, a company's communication policy; the individual and family needs of extra-community workers; the compromise between work and family life - particularly important for women; equal opportunities; problems linked to relocating production and using suppliers from countries with poor juridical systems; and finally the increase of \"responsible consumption\" and fair trade. This list could easily be continued ad infinitum. To show CR orientation in management means paying heed to a whole range of varied and evolving questions, which, if effectively answered, would be fundamental ingredients for business success (Post et al., 2002).CR and competitiveness can also be compatible and indeed reciprocally beneficial (Handy, 2002; Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). There are in fact many situations of potential synergy between social responsibility and business (Coda, 1988; Andreasen, 1996). However, this is not always the case, given that it depends on local conditions as well as the content and form of the various CR initiatives.In taking on an initiative aimed at satisfying the expectations of one or more groups of stakeholders we need to identify and evaluate the potential advantages to the company inherent in the project. We can break these advantages down into four areas:1. The company's reputation among its various partners (Brown, 1998; Griffin and Mahon, 1997; Hooghiemstra, 2000; Preston and O'Bannon, 1997).2. The motivation and degree of corporate identification felt by the employees at all levels. CR projects are often opportunities to promote or renew guidelines and values that determine corporate behaviour, creating a sense of \"belonging\" in its employees. Employee motivation can be vital for decreased staff turnover and increased productivity (Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Greening and Turban, 2000).The positive effects tend to increase in direct proportion to the employees' involvement in planning and implementing CR projects.3. Economic profile, by which we mean increasing revenues and/or reducing costs (Christmann, 2000; Klassen and Whybark, 1999; Marcus and Goodman, 1986).4. Self-realisation, given that the satisfying of expectations of one or other group of stakeholders can in itself mobilise top management.\nIdentification and evaluation of social expectations: The model presented in this article shows a logical process by which the top management of a corporation can make CR a distinctive part of corporate strategy (Figure 1).Given a competitive strategy (the variable on the left of Figure 1), the first step towards social responsibility is the activation of a dialogue mechanism with various groups of actors in order to identify principal areas of need. A clear and decisive understanding of social issues is indeed a condition to shape a more valid strategy for stakeholders, to pre-empt conflict and to help create cohesion around the corporate project.The aspirations and interests of stakeholders may be more or less clear and can be changed into explicit requests to the company. In certain cases they take the form of demands, of organised protests or of well-orchestrated press campaigns. In other cases, pressure groups find it hard to express their expectations due to a lack of influence and means. In yet other cases, interests may be latent, given that they have not been fully understood.To be able to understand stakeholders' needs, there are various tools available for corporations: one-to-one interviews (real or virtual), group interviews, focus groups, workshops, seminars, public meetings, questionnaire-based surveys (on paper, e-mail, or telephone), a free-phone number and internet listening points (Stakeholder Research Associates, Unep and Accountability, 2005).Before trying to respond to these social issues, the corporate executive must screen them using two criteria that we can call ethical and historical.First of all, not all demands that a company considers are necessarily legitimate under an ethical perspective. We therefore need to strip away cultural masks of neutrality that go along with most discussions of social responsibility. Adoption of CR, it is true, implies that the corporation has a certain degree of conformity to values that are gradually becoming important in its own field. However, this alignment to society's needs does not mean in itself that the action is a moral one. The stakeholders' expectations are not necessarily worthy, especially if they are expressed by a dominant culture. Just as a company does not exist in a vacuum and is subject to moral judgements, so the social-economic environment cannot be divorced from moral evaluation (Fisher and Lovell, 2003).For example, the economic demands of organised crime, even if widespread in certain contexts, are not legitimate expectations. Other areas are even more controversial, e.g. extending equal opportunities (pensions, health assistance, etc.) so as to recognise equal status of heterosexual and homosexual families. As is shown by the lively debate on this theme, if, on one hand, recognising rights that are not yet recognised in law may be considered an element of civil progress, on the other hand, it can also be a destabilising factor in society.Quite apart from a moral judgement we need to make a historical judgement, i.e. in terms of time and space as well as from a company's own point of view. Offering certain services (such as schools) to employees, which may in some circumstances be an excellent show of social responsibility, may seem, in other cases, to be meddling in things that have nothing to do with the company.\nThe social-competitive innovation pyramid: Once legitimate social needs have been identified for the corporate strategy, there is the problem of how to integrate them into this strategy. Here we have proposed a pyramid that identifies five efficiency levels in answering social needs (see the right-hand part of Figure 1). The highest level (known as social-competitive synthesis) shows the best response. When this is not practical, we need to go down a level and so on until we reach the fifth level. If this is not possible, we need to question the competitive strategy that the corporation intends to adopt.Level 1: social-competitive synthesis\nFinal considerations: The pyramid model of social-competitive innovation can be used in two different managerial circumstances. First, as we have already noted, it can be used to evaluate a competitive strategy that is already in force from a social point of view, thus making it more sensitive to social needs (and therefore more solid and sustainable from a market point of view).Second, it can be used for planning. When creating a development strategy it is very important also to consider social implications of the planned action. One of the difficulties to overcome here is the identification of stakeholders' expectations, given that the social repercussions of a new strategy have not yet been tested. The sensitivity of management can ease the difficulty of creating preliminary dialogue with stakeholders. Indeed, their ability to forecast social and environmental problems may well be enhanced, thanks to listening to external influences and talking with stakeholders. Once relevant social expectations have been identified, the issues we have outlined can have a double role: on one hand, to understand fully the repercussions of the strategy being considered and, on the other, to stimulate social creativity so as not to give up in the face of dilemmas between economic and social objectives.To conclude, CR is the search for innovative solutions to satisfy more effectively the expectations of one or more groups of stakeholders. It tends to make these solutions factors in developing the competitiveness of a company. Thus, the term corporate social responsibility has no \"negative\" connotation[7], in forbidding or limiting work, rather it becomes synonymous with business creativity aimed also at satisfying everyone's expectations[8].The creative factor should be introduced when talking about responsibility, as we must realise that perfection does not exist. In any situation, it is always possible to respect \"more\", to appreciate \"more\" and to satisfy \"more\". In this sense, social-competitive innovation can flourish more in situations where we are aware of its limits. Someone may be positively \"unsatisfied\" and so will be aware of new possibilities, will listen and will always look for new solutions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to define a logical process through which social needs can be investigated and integrated into corporate strategy, thus allowing management to meet the expectations of its stakeholder.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The process has been defined on the basis of a review of international literature that helped to identify the main problems related to the recognition of social expectations by the company and the implications of these expectations on the overall competitive strategy.\nFindings: - The research has lead to the construction of a framework to address social needs: the social-competitive innovation pyramid. It is shaped in order to help companies to understand their degrees of efficiency in responding to their partners' expectations. The pyramid identifies five efficiency levels. The highest one, named \"social competitive synthesis\", shows the best response to stakeholders' needs; the lowest level, \"temporary sacrifice of social expectations\", is the one where social expectations are sacrificed in the view of the companies strategy.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents corporate responsibility as an integral part of corporate strategy, so much so that it helps corporate management to find innovative solutions to fulfil stakeholder expectations. Therefore, corporate responsibility becomes a creative factor in developing competitiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Examining the relationship between business process improvement initiatives, information systems integration and customer focus: an empirical study
|
[
"Information systems",
"Information networks",
"Production improvement",
"Customer orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In recent years, information systems (ISs) integration and business process improvement initiatives (BPII) have become regarded as central for improving customer services and product/service innovation. A number of studies have demonstrated a positive and direct relationship between BPII and customer focus (Crosby, 1979; Deming, 1982, 1986; Garvin, 1988; Juran, 1992), and also for IS integration and customer focus (Keen, 1986). Several studies, however, argue that the effect of IS integration on customer focus is not independent of BPII. That means, the full benefit of IS integration on customer focus can be realized only when a firm begins to identify and transform its critical processes (Davenport, 1993; Hammer, 1990).Despite these crucial links between BPII, IS integration, and customer focus, the literature has not addressed these issues in great depth. Our goal in this study is to examine the relationship between BPII, IS integration, and customer focus. We believe this understanding is important from conceptual as well as practical perspectives. Conceptually, we first need to understand how BPII influences IS integration, improves customer service, prepares a firm to track customers' demands in products/service and delivers those products and services to the customers. From a practical point of view, we need to understand the significance of the relationship between BPII, IS integration, and customer focus.The recent literature argues that information technology (IT) does not bring worthwhile improvement in the strategic position of the firm. IT, at best, can be considered as an enabler. In this sense, if a business has already identified and analyzed the deficiencies in its operations by using IS, it can take proactive actions to improve its strategic position. However, using IS, without a goal and clear planning, is unlikely to provide any significant improvement in business operations and performance. To this end, we therefore, argue that IS integration mediates the relationship between BPII and customer focus.The main aim of this study is to examine the relationship between BPII, IS integration, and customer focus. On the basis of the framework as shown in Figure 1, we argue that BPII influences customer focus (Crosby, 1979; Deming, 1982, 1986) as well as IS integration (Davenport, 1993) and IS integration influences customer focus and IS integration mediates the relationship between BPII and customer focus (Bhatt and Stump, 2001; Kling and Scacchi, 1982). The next section provides a literature review. Then, we develop our framework and hypotheses. Later, we explain the research methodology and data analysis. Finally, discussions of the results and conclusions follow.\n2 Literature review: In this section, we review the characteristics of IS integration, BPII, and customer focus.2.1 Information systems (IS) integration\n3 Theoretical model: In this section, we develop our research model and hypotheses as explained below. Our original model is shown in Figure 1. A preliminary analysis of data, however, revealed that BPII was not a multidimensional construct as we expected. It was rather a single unidimensional factor. On the other hand, communication networks connectivity was not found to be a unidimensional factor, as we expected. It, rather, consisted of two factors: communication networks intrafirm connectivity and communication networks interfirms connectivity. The revised research model is shown in Figure 2.3.1 BPII and customer responsiveness\n4 Research methodology and data analysis: For this study, a mail survey was considered appropriate for data collection (Kerlinger, 1973; Kerlinger and Lee, 2000). The unit of analysis for the study is the division rather than a firm or supply chain, because BPII programs are initiated at the divisional level. Only after the success of pilot programs, is BPII initiated at the firm level (Davenport and Stoddard, 1994). When management adopts a BPII philosophy throughout the organization, organizations begin to make comprehensive changes to their policy towards suppliers. The focus, in this phase, becomes improvement not only to the division, but also to the improvement of upstream and downstream links of the value chain.However, the aim of the present study is not to study BPII attributes in-depth, but rather to explore the relationship between IS integration and BPII. Moreover, the effectiveness of a supply chain is largely determined by the extent to which different IS tools between a supplier and the organization are integrated for automatic order-entry, inventory replenishment, or design exchange and feedback (Bradley et al., 1993).4.1 Sample description\n5 Discussion: Overall, our results showed the positive relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service innovation. Therefore, improvement in business processes is not a cosmetic change, rather it brings changes in business perspectives about customer focus. By improving internal and external processes, a business becomes more agile and dynamic to meet customer demands in new products and services and also begins responses to customers concerns.Our results did not indicate any significant effects of communication networks integration (communication networks connectivity intrafirm, and interfirms) on customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. However, data integration and communication networks flexibility were found to significantly impact customer responsiveness and product/service development. A possible reason for these results could be that in complex situations, customers might like to talk to \"live\" persons in the company instead of using the automated systems. Certainly, communication networks connectivity can provide responses to routine questions, but when customers want responses to their specific questions they would still prefer talking to a knowledgeable service person on the other end. Similarly, we argue that product/service innovation is not a simple matter of communication process that can be transported through automated systems. Rather, innovation requires rich, face-to-face communication to sort out the problems and hitches in thousands of steps that are necessary in perfecting and bringing new products and services quickly in the market place.As we expected, data integration and communication networks flexibility were found to significantly affect customer focus factors. This means that by using shared-databases, a firm could be more effective in understanding customers' preferences in products and services and, accordingly, could respond to customers' concerns quickly and accurately. Similarly, the importance of communication networks flexibility seems to indicate that a flexible IS infrastructure could prove to be much more critical in meeting the changing needs of customers in a dynamic environment (Cross et al., 1997). If a firm is unable to modify its systems quickly, even the best systems become liabilities as the firm fails to capitalize on the dynamic needs of its customers. Therefore, we argue that a high level of communication networks flexibility is crucial for a firm to quickly adapt to dynamic needs of its customers.Regarding the mediating effects of IS integration factors, we found that all of the IS integration factors, except communication networks connectivity (interfirms), mediate the relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service innovation, respectively. The probable reasons for this could be that despite the latest surge of interests in the internet and extranets, a number of firms are still working through the proprietary systems such as EDI, and value added communication networks (VAN). These systems are typically controlled by one party, even though they are used by several firms. Some of the firms are pressed to use these systems to avoid the retaliatory measures imposed by other participants. In reality, therefore, it is unlikely that these kinds of systems can have a significant positive affect on customer focus, resulting from BPII. However, other IS integration factors, such as data integration, communication networks connectivity (intrafirm) and communication networks flexibility are owned by those firms who use them (Luftman and Brier, 1999). On this front, firms have far more latitude to change the rules and modify their systems to suit to their business needs. Therefore, we expect that data integration, communication networks connectivity (intrafirm), and communication networks flexibility will affect customer focus positively, resulting through BPII.\n6 Conclusions and limitations: The results of the study have significant implications for both management and academic communities. Our conceptual model clarifies the link between BPII, IS integration, and customer focus. In the present dynamic environments, businesses are pressed to build long-term relationships with their customers. In doing so, they use different mechanisms. BPII is such a long-term methodology to improve internal and external business processes that ultimately impact customer focus.In the IS management literature, there have been conflicting theories about the drivers of IT investment productivity improvement. Our findings provide additional insights to the debate over technological versus organizational imperatives underlying IT investments (Markus and Robey, 1988). The technological imperative takes an extreme position, while organizational imperative is more about organizational choice. Our results reconcile these contradictions and show how IS integration can be instrumental in impacting customer focus. At the same time, however, IS integration can be an organizational choice for mediating the relationship between BPII and customer focus. IS expertise is quite critical in mediating BPII and customer focus, because IS is likely to support the change process (Kling and Scacchi, 1982).The results of this study also clarify the crucial link between data integration, communication networks flexibility and customer focus. Because customer focus relates to meeting customers' dynamic needs, the role of shared-databases and flexible electronic networks becomes crucial. Our results support the view that the rapid growth in the use of computers and telecommunications by businesses is a competitive necessity. Only through the deployment of IS can organizations have the means to generate ongoing improvements in accuracy and timeliness to meet dynamic customer demands and sustain their competitive edges.The results of the study also show the mediating effect of data integration, communication networks connectivity (intrafirm) and communication networks flexibility with regard to customer focus, resulting from BPII. This shows that as businesses begin moving toward open-systems, they become more effective in tracking, understanding and meeting customer needs in product/services and in responding to customers' concerns.To business managers, the study offers several guidelines in understanding the role of IS integration in customer focus. Despite the existing debate of the effect of IT on business performance, management cannot deny the strategic potential of IT (Boynton, 1993). There are two reasons for suggesting this. First, though incompatible islands of IT may surely be a hindrance to customer focus, IS integration may improve on this and provide real-time support to customers' concerns and also support the business environment with collaboration (Sobek et al., 1999). An integrated network infrastructure provides support not only to improving business operations but also becomes essential for customer services. Second, an integrated network infrastructure offers consistent support to the operating people and management to deal with the dynamic environment. Thus, it facilitates the process of coordination, regardless of the physical locations and backgrounds (Tallon et al., 2000).6.1 Limitations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The goal is to examine the relationship between business process improvement initiatives (BPII), information systems (ISs) integration, and customer focus.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The data for the study were collected at the divisional levels from a list of \"Fortune 500\" firms. A total of 1,100 questionnaires were mailed to divisional managers and 115 responses were used for the data analysis.\nFindings: - The results of this study support the hypotheses that BPII directly affects customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. In addition, data integration and communication networks flexibility are found to significantly affect customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. Communication networks connectivity did not have any significant effect on customer responsiveness and product/service innovation, respectively. Data integration, intrafirm networks connectivity and networks flexibility are found to significantly mediate the relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service development, respectively. Interfirm networks connectivity was not found to significantly mediate the relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service development, respectively.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample consists of divisions of Fortune 500 firms. Second, the study is cross-sectional; therefore, it lacks the predictive power to find the long-term effects of BPII and IS integration on customer focus. A longitudinal study can be a future research endeavor to validate the results of the study.\nOriginality/value: - To business managers, the study clarifies the role of IS integration in customer focus.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Ecological and political economy lenses for school health education: a critical pedagogy shift
|
[
"Teaching",
"USA",
"Educational practice",
"Health education",
"Schools",
"Social change"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Schools carry a particular role in supporting child and adolescent health across the USA. As described in Gard and Pluim's (2014) critical history of US school health education, schools have long been used as instruments for public health interventions that are focused on individual behavior change. Schools are tasked with addressing complex health and social problems that get reduced to individual behaviors. Today, we have school health education curricula focused on decreasing rates of, for example, smoking, drug use, obesity, and pregnancy - and primarily through behavior change strategies. School health education is ripe for critical exploration that reconsiders what we are teaching students about health. More specifically, how might we best teach students to think critically about the complexities of health and all that influences health outcomes?\nUsing an ecological model: An ecological model allows for more critical approaches to health that go beyond superficial understandings of individual behavior as being the sole determinant of health (see Figure 1). The ecological approach that we propose here is grounded in two key assumptions: health and health behaviors are influenced by factors at the individual, interpersonal, community, institutional, and public policy levels; and these factors influence each other across the different levels (McLeroy et al., 1988; Sallis et al., 2008).\nLimitations and harms of an individual focus: Despite ongoing calls for ecological approaches in US health education - from Jane Addams and John Dewey in the early twenty-first century (Gard and Pluim, 2014) to countless educators of present day (Minkler, 1999; Sallis et al., 2008) - school health education curricula remain primarily focused on behavior change. One oft-repeated critique of behavior-focused health education concerns the unrealistic expectations and damaging effects of its suggestion that individuals are solely responsible for their health. As Minkler (1999) argues, \"an overriding emphasis on personal responsibility blames the victim, by ignoring the social context in which individual decision making and health-related action takes place\" (p. 126). Furthermore, simply teaching students about healthy behaviors has not proven effective in changing behaviors or, in the long run, in decreasing morbidity and mortality rates (Gard and Pluim, 2014; St Leger, 2004).\nWhat is health education for?: If behavior-focused curricula represent an inadequate approach to school health education, then what does a more comprehensive approach look like? To answer this, we first ask a critical question which has been raised by others (see Fitzpatrick and Tinning 2014; Leahy et al., 2016) - as health educators, are we educating for health and/or about health? Is our main purpose to teach students how to behave in ways that promote health, or do we aim to provide an education with health viewed as a subject of study through which students learn about their world and grow? As educators ourselves, we propose that teaching solely for health and not about health in its full ecological contexts is insufficient in the context of educational environments that purportedly aim to increase critical thinking, knowledge of disciplines, and understandings of the social and physical world. Quennerstedt et al. (2010) call for health education that shifts away from imposing pre-formed messages about individual health and moves to \"an approach to health education that takes as its starting point the learning that occurs in the lives of young people\" (p. 97), including the ecological influences in their own lives. Teaching about health in ways that consider all of the influencing contexts allows students to better understand the effects of social structures and systems and consider how those systems may be influenced for the betterment of individuals, communities, and society.\nPolitical economy as framework for health education: An ecological approach in school health education requires a theoretical framework that explains how social structures and systems influence health. Political economy theory provides a helpful framework for understanding these upstream influences and, in particular, how they create inequities that influence health. Framing health inequities as the result of the unequal distribution of power and wealth, using a political economy lens highlights four key constructs for best analyzing health outcomes: a historical analysis of the political and economic contexts of current health outcomes; the role of the state in framing, legitimating, and addressing health problems, the influences of organizational and structural power in creating, perpetuating, and countering inequities; and the relevance of consciousness raising for social change (Minkler et al., 1995). Overall, a political economy lens uses historical and structural analyses to identify the broader structural forces of power that disproportionately produce ill health among marginalized populations. Importantly, it also names the relevance of raising the public's critical consciousness and mobilizing people as a \"cohesive political force\" to challenge the inequities created by corporate and state power (Minkler et al., 1995, p. 117). One recent example is the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA, which has effectively raised critical consciousness about the disproportionate use of police violence against African Americans and has resulted in numerous actions across the country calling for police reform and even police abolition.\nPedagogical approaches for critical health education: Teaching critical understandings of health through ecological and political economy analyses requires pedagogical approaches consistent with such analyses. Furthermore, while teaching about the upstream influences on health is imperative, if we leave students with a sense that the doom and gloom posed by structural inequities perpetuated by powerful institutions and political systems is insurmountable, we risk damaging their sense of possibility, capacity, and control in their lives. Such lack of control can be toxic to individual and community health (Wallerstein and Bernstein, 1988) and certainly would not serve the aims of health education. Therefore, we need pedagogical approaches that allow students to not only gain critical understandings of these upstream influences on health, but also gain confidence in their agency and ability to effect change where possible. Importantly, this approach must be walked with care to avoid contradicting an ecological understanding of social determinants by suggesting that they can all be overcome through individual action.\nA commitment to education, equity, and ethics: We have argued here for critical health education that embraces ecological approaches, political economy frameworks, and critical pedagogies. Ultimately, we see the imperative of critical health education in its support of three key values that we hold dearly in health education work - education, equity, and ethics.\nConclusion: As we began this paper in the fall of 2016, US presidential candidate Donald Trump was stirring up a toxic frenzy of hatred toward immigrants, Muslims, women, African Americans, disabled people, and others through his bigoted and inflammatory campaign speeches. The millions who supported his candidacy embodied a rising level of distrust, desperation, and fanaticism that was (and is) fueled by ideological discourses of fear, individualism, racism, and xenophobia. As we complete this paper in the summer of 2017, Donald Trump has been elected as the President of the USA. As reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center (2016), within the first 10 days of his election, there were 867 reported incidents of harassment or intimidation across the country, and \"many harassers invoked Trump's name during assaults, making it clear that the outbreak of hate stemmed in part from his electoral success.\" White nationalist and white supremacists groups, embolden by his election, now tour college campuses to recruit members and sometimes incite race riots (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2017). In the meantime, the Trump administration's policies regarding immigration, the environment, criminal justice, and international relations demonstrate that his campaign promises were not just words; they are now policies. Similar trends have been seen in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere as global austerity, and the rise of far right and neo-fascist entities play out in the banning of Muslim immigrants, repeals of anti-racism legislation, attacks on labor unions, and nationalistic discourses (Passant, 2016).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically examine school health education in the USA and present alternative approaches for more critical and comprehensive health education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An ecological model framework is used to identify the limitations and opportunities for improvement in school health education in the USA. An argument is made for school health education that embraces ecological approaches, political economy theory, and critical pedagogies.\nFindings: US schools have been tasked with providing health education that is primarily rooted in individualistic approaches. Often missing from this education is recognition of the social and structural determinants of health that greatly influence one's ability to practice the health behaviors promoted in schools. This raises pedagogical and ethical concerns, which can be addressed by teaching health education that is grounded in ecological and political economy understandings of health and in critical pedagogies that allow students to more comprehensively and accurately understand health, how their worlds influence health, and their agency within those worlds.\nPractical implications: This paper offers justification for a critical model of school health education and for the professional preparation of school health educators that is grounded in critical pedagogy and ecological approaches.\nOriginality/value: This work complements other research on critical health education by adding explicit integration of the ecological model and the political economy theory within critical pedagogies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Red tape and transformational leadership: an organizational echelons perspective
|
[
"South Korea",
"Transformational leadership",
"Moderation",
"Public administration",
"Public management",
"Organizational echelons",
"Red tape"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational red tape, defined as \"rules, regulations, and procedures that remain in force and entail a compliance burden, but do not advance the legitimate purposes the rules were intended to serve\" (Bozeman, 2000, p. 12), is a pathological organizational phenomenon linked to negative organization and employee-level outcomes (Bozeman and Feeney, 2011; Brewer and Walker, 2009; DeHart-Davis and Pandey, 2005). Rules may be dysfunctional from their inception or lose their effectiveness over time (Bozeman, 1993; Bozeman and Anderson, 2016), however, their status as dysfunctional is derived as much from their social context as their objective character (Bozeman and Feeney, 2011). By building on this insight and conceptualizing red tape as a stakeholder-based experience (Bozeman, 1993), interesting paths of inquiry may be opened to address the origins of red tape and its consequences in new ways (Bozeman and Anderson, 2016; Kaufmann and Feeney, 2014; Scott and Pandey, 2005; Walker and Brewer, 2008). Crucially, the stakeholder conception of red tape implies that evaluations of red tape are not fully dependent on interactions with objective rules but rather also on a broader spectrum of organizational phenomena that frame how employees perceive their work context. While rules are often imposed on the organization from without as instruments of control (Stazyk et al., 2011; Wilson, 1989), better understanding how the organizational context shapes employee perception of rules can help leaders promote positive work attitudes and performance.\nLiterature review: red tape, leadership, and organizational echelons: Red tape: the concept, its origins, and consequences\nData and methods: Data\nAnalysis results: Descriptive statistics and correlations\nDiscussion and concluding remarks: This study argued that the effects of transformational leadership on perceptions of red tape are dependent on the organizational echelon occupied by the follower. The results suggest that transformational leadership has a negative influence on red tape perceptions for high ranking civil servants, but little influence on the perceptions of frontline employees. This study contributes to the literature in a number of ways, including addressing a call by Moynihan et al. (2012) to verify the relationship between transformational leadership and red tape across organizational levels and by using different samples of respondents. The results suggest that the relationship needs qualification. Before discussing the contributions of this study and paths for future research in more detail, however, it should be noted that, like Moynihan et al.'s (2012) original article, this study uses variables drawn from a single cross-sectional survey dataset to test a key hypothesis. This is a limitation of the analysis, as cross-sectional, single source data both preclude a more rigorous demonstration of causality as well as introduce the threat of biased results based on common method variance (Meier and O'Toole, 2013). While testing the theory in an alternative context demonstrates a level of external validity for the original results, future studies should adopt a research approach that allows for stronger causal inferences to be made.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using the concept red tape, the purpose of this paper is to understand how job context, and especially hierarchical position, shapes the effects of transformational leadership on employee rule perception.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of South Korean central government employees across a range of organizations and hierarchical positions is used to capture perception of rule dysfunction and leadership. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to test the hypotheses generated from a review of relevant literature.\nFindings: The analysis suggests that perceived transformational leadership behaviors are associated with weakened perception of rule dysfunction. However, this relationship is relevant only for employees at higher echelons of the organization, which in turn suggests that the rule perception of frontline employees is determined by other factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The principle limitation of this study is its use of cross-sectional data, which precludes the demonstration of causal influence between the dependent and independent variables.\nOriginality/value: This study makes several contributions to the literature. Most importantly, while it has been found that characteristics at the organization level influence the effects of transformational leadership, the present study extends this theory to individual job context by incorporating hierarchical level into the analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Authentic leadership and employee creativity: testing the multilevel mediation model
|
[
"LMX",
"Creativity",
"Authentic leadership",
"Psychological safety",
"Thriving"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the competitive global business environment, creativity (the generation of novel and useful ideas; Amabile, 1988), has been regarded as a key building block for organizational innovation, which enhances the adaptability of an organization (Tierney et al., 1999). When individual creativity is enacted in a team context, team leaders' leadership behaviors, as one of the most relevant contextual factors, often largely support, suppress, facilitate, or inhibit creativity at work (e.g. Liu et al., 2012; Tung and Yu, 2016; Zhang and Bartol, 2010).\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses: Consistent with previous studies (Amabile, 1988; Zhou and Shalley, 2003), this study defines creativity as the development of novel and useful ideas that solve workplace challenges, thereby providing tangible and useful outcomes for an organization. Although creativity can be considered as both an outcome and a process (Shalley and Zhou, 2008), this study, following from the aforementioned description of creativity, treats individual creativity, namely, the extent to which novel and useful ideas are produced by employees, as outcomes.\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResult: Table I presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables. The interpretation of Table I should be cautioned because the simple correlations do not account for the nesting effect in this study (Chen and Bliese, 2002). To test these mediating relationships, the dependent variable, individual creativity, was first regressed on the independent variable, authentic leadership. As expected, individual creativity was significantly and positively related to authentic leadership (g=0.14, p<0.05).\nDiscussion: Interest in how authentic leadership influences employee creativity has been increasing (Cerne et al., 2013; Rego et al., 2014). This study contributes to this field by explicating a broader set of individual and team-level mechanisms through which authentic leadership influences followers' individual creativity, as well as, by elucidating the mediating role of thriving at work in these mechanisms. As hypothesized, this study found that LMX and employee thriving at work sequentially mediated the positive relationship between authentic leadership and individual creativity. Furthermore, authentic leadership is positively related to team psychological safety climate, which in turn is positively related to employee thriving at work. Moreover, this study found that authentic leadership moderated the indirect relationship between LMX and individual creativity through employee thriving at work, such that the positive indirect relationship of LMX with individual creativity strengthened when authentic leadership increased.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel framework to further explicate how team leaders' authentic leadership is related to their followers' individual creativity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a questionnaire survey/analysis of analyses of multisource and lagged data from 63 team leaders and 428 followers in Taiwan.\nFindings: The findings demonstrated that leader-member exchange (LMX) and team psychological safe climate mediated the positive relationship of authentic leadership on followers thriving at work. Furthermore, employee thriving at work sequentially mediated the positive relationship between authentic leadership and employee creativity. The author also found that indirect relationship of LMX with employee creativity through thriving at work was stronger when authentic leadership was higher.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the existing understanding that authentic leadership relates to individual creativity through three multilevel mechanisms: leaders modeling their authenticity to develop and maintain their dyad-level exchange relationships with their followers (LMX), motivating the team, captured by team-level psychological safe climate and its members, reflected by employee-level thriving at work, and facilitating the relationship between LMX and employee thriving at work.\n",
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Mother-adolescent daughter identity interplay processes
|
[
"Adolescent",
"Conflict",
"Shopping",
"Mother-daughter shopping",
"Shopping companion"
] |
[
{
"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.\nBackground: Mothers and daughters are important shopping companions with close ties, meaning that they can provide each other with advice and moral support while shopping (Kiecker and Hartman, 1994). Sometimes, girls shop with friends to find what they want but make the actual purchase with a parent (Haytko and Baker, 2004). When mothers and daughters have similar tastes and styles, shopping together for clothes is increased (Gavish et al., 2010) and mothers' apparel consumption behaviors can even be shaped by their daughters (Gentina et al., 2013).\nMethod: Using a phenomenological research approach focusing on the perspectives of both parties (van Manen, 1990), an understanding of mother-daughter identity interplay through the clothes shopping experience emerged. Using grounded theory, the researchers approached data collection without strongly formed prior conceptualizations (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Although ground theory was used, it should be noted that during and after the data collection process, we began to recognize that some of the themes that emerged tied into existing mother-daughter relationship theories (Boyd, 1989; Flax, 1978) and especially into the issue of family identity interplay as addressed by Epp and Price (2008). Theoretical sampling, where concepts that emerge from the interviews guide future data collection, guided the recruitment of participants (Corbin and Strauss 2008, p. 144). In-depth interviews with adolescent girls, mothers of adolescent girls and retail employees of stores targeting adolescent girls were conducted to gain insight into the nuances and interplay of their shopping experiences. Respondents included a mix of middle-school (USA grades 6-8) and high-school girls (USA grades 9-12) and mothers of adolescent girls in both groups to gather a wide range of responses (Haytko and Baker, 2004). Further, given Haytko and Baker's finding of significant differences in mall shopping behaviors by educational cohort, we ensured that we sampled adequately within each group (middle-school and high-school girls), as well as setting a goal to examine the findings relative to these two groups. Ten pairs of mothers and daughters were interviewed to obtain a dyadic (or paired) perspective (eight were joint interviews; two mother and daughter pairs were interviewed separately). Further, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with seven adolescent girls and nine mothers of adolescent girls. These girls and mothers were not related but served as further data points on the issue of mother-daughter shopping without the potential influence of the other party being present. Thus, a total of 28 interviews ensued (8 joint and 20 individual depth interviews - 11 mothers and 9 daughters). The girls (or the girls of mothers interviewed) ranged in age from 11 to 18 years old, with half in middle school and the other half in high school. The mothers ranged in age from 35 to 53. The sample is primarily white, with three black and two Asian interviewees. The daughters received a $5 to $10 incentive for participation; mothers did not receive any incentive. A convenience sample of eight front-line employees employed by a variety of retailers focusing on the appropriate age groups was also interviewed. These employees were approached at their store of employment and interviewed at the mall where they work. The retailers represented six different retail stores across three malls. Appropriate institutional review board procedures were followed to obtain parental consent and participants' assent. Interviewing at three levels of respondents allows for deeper insights into the mother-adolescent daughter shopping experience (Gavish et al., 2010).\nFindings and discussion: The mother-adolescent daughter -shopping trip provides mothers and daughters the opportunity to engage in several key developmental experiences that are important for daughters in their identity development, both as consumers and individuals. Three broad interplay processes emerged from the analysis of the data, with sub-dimensions also developed and presented here. The first interplay process is the conflict and struggle that occurs relative to the shopping trip as the daughter goes through the process of separating from her mother and forming a unique identity. The second interplay process is the development of the daughter as her mother educates and influences her and the daughter uses (or rejects) this knowledge. Interestingly, some daughters also attempt to educate and influence their mothers while shopping. The third interplay process is the bonding, which tends to strength relational ties, that occurs between mother and daughter as they shop for clothing.\nConflict and struggle: While not all mother-daughter shopping trips involve conflict, the interviews reveal that conflict is central to the mother-daughter shopping experience. Conflict represents the degree to which mother and daughter disagree while shopping. This conflict is consistent with research that shows conflicts are more common between mothers and daughters than between all other parent-adolescent combinations (Collins and Russell, 1991) and that the search and purchase of apparel can be a source of conflict between mother and daughter (Boyd, 1989).\nEducation and influence: Shopping together offers mothers and adolescent daughters an opportunity to exchange shopping-related information with one another. Mothers attempt to educate and influence their daughters as to how to shop smartly, including how to spend money wisely and understand merchandise quality, a finding consistent with research on consumer socialization (Moschis and Churchill, 1978). Middle-school girls may not always understand the concepts of budget and quality. Daughters seem to understand budgeting in terms of a spending limit, rather than why budgets need to be set and how to manage the shopping budget effectively. For example:\nBonding: Shopping also creates a chance for mothers and daughters to bond so as to develop deeper ties, a view of shopping together that both mothers and daughters share across both educational cohorts. Bonding involves a strengthening of the mother-daughter relationship through shared processes and interactions. In this case, mothers and daughters bond by spending time with one another through the shared shopping experience. When conflict is reduced, increased bonding can occur. The education processes between mother and daughter can also increase bonding when the experience is positive.\nShopping trip outcomes: When mother and daughter have a positive shopping trip (i.e. conflict is avoided or resolved, bonding is high, and/or positive education processes occur) many positive retail-related outcomes can occur including increased: shopping trip enjoyment/excitement, time spent shopping, money spent, desire to stay, purchases made, number (and perhaps variety) of stores visited and future mother-daughter shopping. When mother and daughter resolve their conflicts, they can focus on specific shopping tasks, resulting in increased purchases made and more money spent. When mother and daughter do not resolve their conflict, they often prematurely end the shopping trip. When positive education and influence occurs, the time spent shopping and money spent may increase. When mother and daughter feel positively bonded during the shopping trip, they may experience increased shopping trip enjoyment and excitement, which can increase future mother-daughter shopping.\nConclusions: In this paper, an organized framework of mother-daughter shopping is offered. This framework enhances our understanding of how adolescent girls develop both as individuals and as consumers through their shopping interactions and processes with their mothers. The findings reveal that this identity formation is impacted by the shared processes while shopping together (i.e. conflict, education and influence and bonding), further enhancing our understanding of family identity interplay (Epp and Price, 2008). As noted by Epp and Price (2008, p. 57), \"[...] smaller collectivities [within the family] develop relational identities based on their own history of shared processes\". Our findings extend our understanding of one family collectivity, mothers and adolescent daughters and show how their relational identity develops while shopping together. Mothers and adolescent daughters use shopping together to navigate relational conflict, to influence each other's identity, and to build bonds between each other.\nManagerial implications: The findings provide several interesting insights for retail managers in developing their marketing strategies. Managers can help mother-daughter pairs reduce conflicts while shopping together in several ways. Often, mothers dislike stores with atmospheres that irritate them. Retail stores should examine their atmospheric elements carefully to ensure that they are not alienating one party in their attempts to appeal to the other. Retailers should ensure that both the mother and daughter are comfortable shopping in the store, which may increase the time spent shopping, positive emotions and overall sales. Aeropostale currently recognizes this priority by focusing on promotions aimed at mothers and encouraging their staff to TTM: target the mom (Holmes, 2009); other retailers would be wise to consider such strategies, given the importance of mothers as illustrated here. These measures appear especially important, given the recent decline of popular teen brands, including Abercrombie and Fitch whose sales declined 12 per cent in third quarter 2014; in response, the company announced a revamp of its store atmosphere to be brighter with quieter music and reduced scent (Lopez and Peterson, 2014) in a move to attract back adolescent consumers and seemingly, their parents.\nLimitations and future research: This study provides the first in-depth look at the identity interplay processes involved in the mother-daughter shopping trip experience. Like all studies, this study has limitations, which also open avenues for future research. Snowball sampling is used, which tends to produce a homogenous sample. This sample is composed of primarily Caucasian participants and interviews were limited to several southern towns and cities in one state. However, no a priori reason exists to believe that adolescent girls and their mothers in the sample would differ on these issues across geographic locations or income status, although future studies should confirm these findings as well as examine potential differences based on ethnicity, income level or cultural heritage. Future research could study mother-daughter shopping longitudinally, such as interviewing mother and daughter before shopping, observing the pair while shopping and interviewing the pair after the shopping trip. While over a third of the data involved paired mothers and daughters (either interviewed together or separately), the remainder of the data involved one-on-one individuals with either mothers or daughters, who were unrelated. While concerns about the different approaches used can be raised, no appreciable differences were noted based on an examination of the related-paired data versus the un-related mother and daughter interviews in regards to theme and cohort differences, providing encouragement as to the robustness of the data and findings.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the mother-adolescent daughter shopping trip to better understand the experiences and process that occur during these shopping trips. Adolescent girls and their mothers are an important shopping companion pair that has received minimal study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research investigates the mother-adolescent daughter shopping trip using in-depth interviews with 28 mothers, adolescent daughters and retail employees in the USA.\nFindings: The interviews reveal that the mother-adolescent daughter shopping trip consists of three important developmental experiences: conflict and struggle, education and influence and bonding between mother and daughter. Similarities and differences between middle- and high-school daughters relative to these issues are explored.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to bring together the interplay processes of conflict, education and influence and bonding during mother-adolescent daughter shopping trips. This study extends research regarding family identity interplay, companion shopping, adolescent identity development and consumer socialization. The authors find that the mother-adolescent daughter shopping trip involves daughters' efforts to separate from their mothers and form their own identities, often producing struggle and conflicts; daughters developing as consumers and individuals; and an opportunity to bond.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological wellbeing
|
[
"Emotional intelligence",
"Self esteem",
"Individual psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The 1990s were witness to a growing interest on the part of scholars and practitioners alike in the construct of emotional intelligence. This interest reflects the theoretical proposition that individuals who are high in emotional intelligence are likely to experience more success in work-related and non-work aspects of life than low-emotionally intelligent individuals. Considering that workplace can pose considerable difficulties and distress on employees, as well as need to create a more occupationally healthy work environment (Probst and Brubaker, 2001), it is important to study the extent to which employees who scored higher in emotional intelligence experience better psychological wellbeing.Despite the surge of interest in emotional intelligence, researchers acknowledge that this concept is still in its early stages (see Davies et al., 1998; Mayer et al., 2001; Zeidner et al., 2004). As observed by Palmer et al. (2002), efforts thus far have mainly concentrated on the development of the theoretical basis of the construct of emotional intelligence (e.g. Mayer and Salovey, 1997; Salovey and Mayer, 1990), and valid measures of emotional intelligence (e.g. Mayer et al., 2002; Schutte et al., 1998; Wong and Law, 2002).Additionally, empirical evidence is still needed to determine the importance of emotional intelligence for explaining emotional reactions and behaviors (Jordan et al., 2002) and achieving success in various aspects of work (Abraham, 1999) and life. Despite the claims that emotional intelligence may contribute to explaining emotional deficits, little research has been produced that demonstrates the value of emotional intelligence in this respect (Mayer et al., 2002; Palmer et al., 2002).The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and four dimensions of psychological wellbeing. By surveying individuals employed in a variety of organizations in Israel at two points in time, we aimed to overcome the limitations associated with the cross-sectional design that characterize previous studies in our field. We also attempt to provide more comprehensive evidence by investigating psychological wellbeing as a multidimensional construct encompassing life satisfaction, self-acceptance, self-esteem, and somatic complaints.\nTheory development and hypotheses: Emotional intelligence\nMethod: Participants and data collection\nResults: Table I reports the means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients of the research variables. The results in Table I also provide preliminary support for the significant correlations between emotional intelligence and life satisfaction (r = 0.40, p < 0.001), self-acceptance (r = 0.25, p < 0.01), somatic complaints (r = 0.17, p < 0.05), and self-esteem (r = 0.43, p < 0.001).Table II presents the results of four hierarchical regression models. Model 1 provides support for H1, which posited a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and life satisfaction (b=0.46, p < 0.001). Emotional intelligence contributed an additional 12 percent of variance after the control variables had been accounted for. H2, which postulated a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and self-acceptance, was also supported (b = 0.23, p < 0.01) (see Model 2). The results of Model 3 indicated a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and self-esteem (b = 0.40, p < 0.01), and contributed an additional 15 percent of the total variance after the control variables had been accounted for. Model 4 provides only marginal support for H3, which posited a negative and marginally significant association between emotional intelligence and somatic complaints (b = -0.16, p = 0.07).The data from this study also yielded additional interesting findings. The results in Table II indicate that individuals with a higher level of education show a significantly higher level of life satisfaction (b =0.20, p < 0.05) and self-acceptance (b=0.36, p < 0.001). In addition, the findings indicate that individuals who have been with their organization for a longer period of time report a higher level of life satisfaction (b=0.27, p < 0.05), self-acceptance (b=0.28, p < 0.01), and self-esteem (b=0.25, p < 0.05).\nDiscussion: The present study joins a growing body of literature seeking to determine the role of emotional intelligence in explaining individuals' success and wellness. More specifically, the goal of the study was to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and various aspects of psychological wellbeing among employees who work for diverse organizations in Israel.The findings of this study support the core proposition of the theory; namely, the significant role of emotional intelligence in experiencing a sense of wellbeing. We found that individuals reporting higher EI reported higher levels of life satisfaction, self-acceptance, and self-esteem than individuals who are relatively low in emotional intelligence. A marginal significant relationship was found between emotional intelligence and somatic complaints. Particularly notable are the findings that emotional intelligence may be an important predictor of both life satisfaction and self-esteem; these results were revealed through a careful empirical examination. Data on emotional intelligence were collected about three weeks prior to the data collection on individual wellbeing, hence overcoming limitations associated with previous studies in which data were collected at only one point in time.Although the literature puts forward examinations for the relationship between emotional intelligence and a sense of wellbeing, these studies have tended to focus on specific dimensions of wellbeing (e.g. life satisfaction (Palmer et al., 2002); positive relations with others, (Lopes et al., 2003)] rather than on exploring the construct in its various dimensions. Following Ruderman and colleagues (2002), the current study presents an examination of Ryff's (1989, 1995) conceptualization of psychological wellbeing. By extension, our study may facilitate research on the extent to which emotional intelligence contributes, beyond personality traits, to explaining the psychological wellbeing of employed individuals. This is very important issue considering Brackett and Mayer's (2003) report of an overlap between emotional intelligence and psychological wellbeing.This study may also capture important implications for the functioning of employees at work. Employees experiencing wellbeing may function better than employees who experience emotional deficit. Lopes et al. (2003) reported that college students who are high in emotional intelligence exhibit a high level of quality social relationships. The work structure in today's knowledge-based economy is undergoing radical transformations. Collaborative behaviors (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001) and the establishment and maintenance of quality social relationships (Lopes et al., 2003), which are affected by emotional intelligence, are essential.Several limitations constrain the interpretation and application of the findings. One should be cautious in generalizing the results of this study, as cultural differences have not been considered. Future studies investigating emotional intelligence and psychological wellbeing using a cross-cultural design should enable a major contribution to making generalizations. In addition, although previous studies provided relatively sound psychometrics for the Schutte et al. (1998) self-report scale of emotional intelligence, it would be worthwhile to explore other alternative measures of emotional intelligence to predict psychological wellbeing. In addition, we have not examined possible moderators of the emotional intelligence-psychological wellbeing relationship, nor have we explored other predictors of wellbeing (i.e. both work-related aspects (e.g. organizational care and support) and non-work-related aspects (i.e. family issues)) that may explain additional variance in psychological wellbeing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Theory suggests that highly emotionally intelligent individuals are likely to experience psychological wellbeing at a higher level than individuals who are low in emotional intelligence. This study aims to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and four aspects of psychological wellbeing (self-acceptance, life satisfaction, somatic complaints and self-esteem).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from employees through two different structured surveys administered at two points in time.\nFindings: - The results of four hierarchical regression models provide, in general, support for the positive association between emotional intelligence and psychological wellbeing components - self-esteem, life satisfaction, and self-acceptance. Only marginal significant support was found for the negative relationship between emotional intelligence and somatic complaints.\nOriginality/value: - The present study contributes to a growing body of literature seeking to determine the role of emotional intelligence in explaining individuals' wellbeing at work. In addition, the study indicates that employees who experience a psychological state of wellbeing may function better than employees who experience emotional deficit.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Occupational dream pursuit: decision making and consumption behaviors
|
[
"Consumption",
"Personal growth",
"Positive emotions",
"Occupational dream pursuit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What a man can be, he must be (Abraham Maslow).\nConceptual background: Occupational dream pursuit versus goals\nMethodology: To understand the ODP process, a hermeneutical interpretive approach was used (Thompson, 1997). Existential-phenomenological interviews were conducted to generate textual data for analysis. Such an approach allowed for a more comprehensive discovery of individuals' thoughts, feelings and behaviors.\nOccupational dream narratives: In this study, informants included a diverse array of dream aspirants (e.g. opera singer, real estate agent, doctoral student, minister; Table I). The narratives of the informants uncovered psychological, social and behavioral aspects of the ODP process. Informants revealed the emotional jubilation and challenges encountered while working toward their dreams, as well as the growth and developmental processes undergone to achieve them. Through the informants' narratives, common themes emerged with respect to the dream pursuit journey, and these themes offered a fluid interpretation of the stages involved in the ODP process: revelation, inciting action, development, maintenance and evolution. At each stage, specific consumption motives and behaviors predominated (Table II). These themes, including the consumption, psychological and developmental processes that take place at each stage, are delineated through the narratives of the informants.\nDiscussion: This research explored how individuals achieve occupational dreams and the consumption processes that take place during the dream pursuit process. Although conventional wisdom acknowledges the importance of dream actualization, limited behavioral research has explored the nuances of ODP with regard to decision-making and consumption. This research highlights stages involved in the ODP process, as well as the role of consumption, emotional and cognitive factors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the stages involved in occupational dream pursuit (ODP). In this study, dreams are studied in the context of life-changing, occupational endeavors. The judgment and decision-making that fuels the process and the consumption motives that appear throughout the various stages of the journey are examined through the narratives of individuals living out their career-related dreams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Open-ended interviews were conducted with individuals who were embarking on a life-changing career attainment experience. The narratives of these informants uncovered psychological, social and behavioral aspects of the dream pursuit process.\nFindings: Through the informants' narratives, common themes emerged with respect to the ODP journey, and these themes offered a fluid interpretation of the stages involved in the dream pursuit process: revelation, inciting action, development, maintenance and evolution. At each stage, specific consumption motives and behaviors predominate. These themes, including the consumption, psychological and developmental processes that take place at each stage, are discussed through the narratives of the informants.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study highlights the role of positive emotions, personal growth, consumption motives and behaviors in ODP.\nOriginality/value: Dreams give individuals a sense of purpose and being. Although conventional wisdom acknowledges the importance of dream actualization, limited behavioral research has explored the nuances of ODP with regard to decision-making and consumption.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Reliability assessment for one-shot product with Weibull lifetime components
|
[
"Product reliability",
"Monte Carlo simulation",
"Quality assessment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the reliability field, any products can be simply divided into two groups: repairable products and non-repairable products. In our daily life, many products belong to non-repairable products such as light bulbs, fuses, dry batteries, fireworks, semiconductors, etc. The non-repairable products are usually referred to as one-shot products, or failed products that are not worth repairing. An one-shot product is usually required to perform a function once only since its use is normally accompanied by an irreversible reaction or process, e.g. chemical reaction or physical destruction (Vintr and Valis, 2007). However, most one-shot products being stored or deployed are usually not under continuous surveillance. The failed products can only be found by inspection or at the beginning of operation. For such conditions, failure time was known only before its inspection time. Therefore, assessing the reliability of one-shot products is getting more attention.Basically, the common types of lifetime data can be simply divided into three types: complete data, censored data and inspection data (see Figure 1). Complete data indicate the lifetime of one sample unit observed. The censored data include the lifetime of samples that have failed with unobserved failure time when a censoring occurs in the lifetime. The inspection data denote the failure of products found only on inspection. The inspection data are divided into two groups: quantal-response data and interval data. Nelson (1982) defined:If a unit is found failed, one knows only that its failure time was before its inspection time. Similarly, if a unit is found unfailed, one knows only that its failure time is beyond its inspection time. Such inspection data are called quantal-response data.According to the above definition and the characteristics of one-shot products, we understand that the failed type of data of one-shot products conforms to the definition of quantal-response data.Through the paper survey, the previous literature shows that the complete data and censored data in reliability analysis have been studied extensively. Most studies concentrate on estimating the reliability of components and developing models for different types of system data. However, few studies have emphasized in the inspection data field. For instance, Miyakawa (1984) considered a two-component series system with exponentially distributed component lifetime, assuming that the failure time is originated from the same population as the complete data. He derived the mean lifetime of component using the method of maximum likelihood and had a closed-form expression. In practice, collecting such complete data is extremely difficult and most of those are generally incomplete. Usher and Hodgson (1988) extended Miyakawa's results to a three-component series system for masked system life-test data, assuming constant failure rates. They derived MLE and used closed-form expressions for several special cases. Ishioka and Nonaka (1991) assumed a two-component series system with the life of each component following Weibull distributions. They proposed a method to obtain the MLE of Weibull parameters of the two components smoothly. The method is applicable not only to complete data but also to randomly censored data. Guess et al. (1991) extended and clarified the derivation of the likelihood function in masked life data assuming that masking is independent of the cause of failure. Hwang and Ke (1993) proposed a technique for the application of the maximum likelihood method for the three-parameter Weibull distribution on life fitting and for the reliability estimation of quantal-response data. The technique provides a modified model and an iterative procedure of a convergent solution for the Weibull parameter estimation. Usher (1996) employed an iterative maximum likelihood procedure in the case of two-component series systems assuming that lifetime of components follow Weibull distributions. Usher illustrated his methodology with a straightforward example. Sarhan (2001) assumed the lifetime of components with constant and exponentially distributed failure rates. Sarhan computed the maximum likelihood and Bayes estimates of component reliabilities in the case of an n-component series system with masked data. In 2003, Sarhan (2003) extended to suggest a system of n independent and non-identical components connected in series. The component lifetimes of the system are assumed to be in a Weibull distribution. He presented the closed-form of the maximum likelihood estimates under certain assumptions. Chen et al. (2008) proposed optimal inspection polices for reliability analysis of quantal-response product with Weibull lifetime components. They applied Monte Carlo simulation for various sampling sizes and inspection time conditions to investigate the optimal inspection conditions of quantal-response data in reliability analysis.Because of few references on the inspection data field, we can only learn the courses of studies from other resources, e.g. complete data field, or censored data field, to establish model. This study applies a competing failure model to an m-component series system, and derives a maximum likelihood estimator for quantal-response data with Weibull lifetime components. The statistical properties of the maximum likelihood estimators are investigated using a Monte Carlo simulation. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is acronym & notation. Section 3 presents the derivation of MLEs. Section 4, uses a numerical example to illustrate a two-component series system assuming of Weibull component lifetime distribution. This example compares the statistical properties of the maximum likelihood estimators under different simulated sample sizes for two-stage and three-stage inspection scheme. Conclusions are finally drawn in Section 5.\n2. Acronyms and notation: Acronyms\n3. The MLEs for quantal-response data: We assume that a sample of n statistically identical systems is observed at inspection time according to the inspection scheme. Each system containing m different components in series was placed for inspection (see Figure 2). The component, which causes a series-system failure, was observed and identified, and then the lifetime of the system was recorded. The lifetime of the failure system is equal to the minimum lifetime of m independent different components in series. Therefore, under competing failure model, let Ti denote the lifetime of the ith system, i=1, 2... n, and Tij indicates the lifetime of component j in the ith system, j=1, 2, ... , m. That is: Equation 1 We also assume that the lifetime of component j follows Weibull distribution, Weibull (T; 1/lj, bj), with pdf, fj(Ti), and cdf, Fj(Ti), as follows: Equation 2 Equation 3 When we inspect the ith system, i=1, 2, ... , n, and if it is functioning, we will get the survival function of component j in the ith series-system beyond the inspection time, Ti, in the following form: Equation 4 According to equation (3), we can obtain the survival function of the ith system that consists of m independent different components connected in series at inspection time Ti, and reliability function of the ith system is as shown in equation (4): Equation 5 If the ith system was inspected failure caused by the component j, it indicated that its failure time was before the inspection time. Therefore, we get the cumulative distribution function of component j in the ith series-system in equation (5): Equation 6 According to equation (5), we also can obtain the cumulative distribution function of the ith system at inspection time Ti, under the condition that the component j caused the ith system failure: Equation 7 Following equations (4) and (6), the likelihood function for a full sample of n independent and identical systems can be stated as equation (7): (Gertsbakh, 2000; Pan et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2008): Equation 8 The log-likelihood function becomes: Equation 9 The MLEs of lj, bj (j=1, 2... m), denoted as l^j, b^j, are the values that maximize L and satisfy the following likelihood equations (9): Equation 10 Then using equations (8) and (9), the likelihood equations can be derived as: Equation 11 Equation 12 However, close-form solutions of MLEs of lj and bj, j=1, 2 ... m, are intractable.Case studies\n4. Simulation: Simulation is a way to observe the system model \"in action\" directly. Therefore we use simulation to investigate the behavior of a series system consisting of two independent components with Weibull distribution lifetimes, and with life test data attributed as quantal-response data. From the simulation results, we can illustrate that the maximum likelihood estimators of parameters of Weibull distribution for the quantal-response data are derived correctly. Due to our study based on the system that consists of m independent different components connected in series in the equations (10) and (11), the likelihood equations of a two-component series system are simplified as equations (16) and (17): Equation 17 Equation 18 The Monte Carlo simulation was performed to study the statistical properties of the maximum likelihood estimators of lj and bj, (j=1, 2). A different number of samples were simulated from the identical population under fixed replications (i.e. 100 replications). The simulated data were substituted into equations (16), (17) to solve the parametersl^1, l^2, b^1 and b^2. Statistical analyses of parameter estimators including point and interval estimations have been carried out.The different sample size was applied to illustrate the statistical properties of the maximum likelihood estimators under two-stage and three-stage inspection schemes.Two-stage inspection scheme\n5. Conclusions: Most analyses of life data assume that each failure time is known precisely. Such analyses are incorrect for inspection data, since only the interval in which a failure has occurred is known. In this study, Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that the average estimated mean of MLEs of Weibull parameters, i.e. l^j and b^j, (j=1, 2), gradually approximate to the true values of lj and bj, (j=1, 2) under rising sample sizes, and the MLEs of Weibull parameters are included in the confidence intervals. When the sample size enlarges, the precision and accuracy of the MLEs of parameters rise. Furthermore, the standard deviations of MLEs of Weibull parameters for the two-stage inspection scheme are smaller than those for the three-stage inspection scheme. Thus, under the same sample sizes, a large number of sampling times will lead to bigger variances.The numerical example results show that the maximum likelihood estimators of parameters of Weibull distribution for the quantal-response data are derived correctly. This study results suggest that reliability data analysis of one-shot products (i.e. fireworks, ammunitions, injectors, airbags, and etc) with Weibull component lifetime distribution should be applied.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In daily life, many products, such as light bulbs, fuses, dry batteries, fireworks, semiconductors, are non-repairable. The non-repairable products are usually referred to as one-shot products, or as failed products that are not worth repairing. A one-shot product is usually required to perform a function once only since its use is normally accompanied by an irreversible reaction or process, e.g. chemical reaction or physical destruction. However, most one-shot products being stored or deployed are usually not under continuous surveillance. The failed products can only be found by inspection or at the beginning of operation. Therefore, this paper seeks to assess the reliability of one-shot products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study considers a series system consisting of m components with lifetime following Weibull distribution, and applies a competing failure model to investigate the proposed series system for one-shot products. The maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) of parameters of the Weibull distribution based on the quantal-response data in the proposed series system are derived. The model is illustrated with a two-component series system, and the statistical properties of the MLEs are investigated by Monte Carlo simulation under the two-stage inspection scheme and the three-stage inspection scheme.\nFindings: - Simulation results reveal not only that the MLEs of Weibull parameters gradually approximate the true values of Weibull parameters under rising sample sizes, but also that the precision and accuracy of the MLEs of parameters increase with an increasing sample size. Furthermore, the standard deviations of MLEs of Weibull parameters for the two-stage inspection scheme are smaller than those for the three-stage inspection scheme.\nOriginality/value: - The paper focuses on the reliability assessment of one-shot products, e.g. firework, ammunition, airbag, injector, dry battery, with Weibull components lifetime distribution.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of strategic organizational orientations on green supply chain management and firm performance
|
[
"Green supply chain management",
"Environment",
"Resource-based theory",
"Strategic decisions",
"Environmental orientation",
"Strategic capabilities",
"Strategic choice theory",
"Supply chain orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Green supply chain management (SCM) initiatives are increasingly on the agenda of many organizations (Tate et al., 2010; Zhu et al., 2013). Managers are motivated by the potential benefits associated with green SCM, including enhanced reputation, increased efficiency, effectiveness, differentiation, and revenue growth (Rao and Holt, 2005; Wu and Pagell, 2011; Golicic and Smith, 2013). The potential for economic benefits is key for managerial adoption of green practices and the appropriate allocation of resources. Furthermore, being \"green\" is also important from a long-term economic perspective - without natural resources, business, and consumption of goods is severely constrained (Bell et al., 2013). Yet, managers remain highly influenced and rewarded by the notion popularized by famed American economist, Milton Friedman, that the business of business is business (i.e. to create profits) and because of this, minimize attention on other conflicting priorities such as environmental issues (Friedman, 1962; Busch et al., 2015).\nTheoretical development and hypotheses: The RBT posits that firms compete based on the possession of unique strategic capabilities and assumes that capability heterogeneity among firms helps explain differences in performance (Barney, 1991; Sirmon et al., 2007). Green SCM is a strategic capability because it is considered to be valuable, rare, inimitable, and able to be exploited by an organization (Barney, 1986; Vachon and Klassen, 2006; Shi et al., 2012). Furthermore, green SCM is considered to be an intangible strategic capability and therefore, more difficult to replicate (Chan et al., 2012). These qualities make managers more likely to exploit green SCM practices to create an enduring advantage for their firms and to continuously improve and adapt them to the changing external environment (Hall, 1993).\nMethodology: Supply chain executives served as key informants at US manufacturing firms to provide their perceptions of their firms' practices and strategies via an online survey. Responses were interpreted at a firm-level unit of analysis, consistent with previous research (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004; Zhu et al., 2008). After pretesting the survey instrument with supply chain managers to ensure clarity and face validity of the measurement items (Dillman, 2000), the survey was e-mailed to 3,332 supply chain executives at large (\nPost hoc analysis: Two findings from the results did not match the a priori theoretical model of green SCM. These findings were unexpected, given previous empirical studies, and encouraged further investigation. The first was the lack of support for H1. SCO does not appear to be a direct antecedent to valuable green SCM practices, as predicted. Additional data analysis was therefore conducted to determine if SCO might influence green SCM indirectly, mediated by EO.\nDiscussion and implications: The purpose of this research was to answer the research question:\nFuture research agenda: Several future research opportunities arise from the current work. First, because of the dynamic nature of green SCM, the current use of cross-sectional survey data can only suggest the nature of strategic changes in response to changes in the business environment. Longitudinal research will aid in understanding performance implications of green SCM that cannot be captured in static or relatively short time periods. A longitudinal approach will help uncover how managers' attitudes toward green SCM practices are affected by changes in regulation, stakeholder demands, corporate culture, technological advancements, state of the economy, and the competitive position of the firm (Bansal and Roth, 2000).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Empirical research provides evidence that green supply chain management (SCM) practices positively impact firm performance. Yet, questions remain regarding how firms configure their organizations and design green practices to achieve improved performance, especially in light of a constantly changing business environment. This research uses the resource-based and strategic choice theories to better understand the antecedent roles of two strategic orientations, supply chain orientation (SCO) and environmental orientation (EO), on both the implementation and outcomes of green SCM practices. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey responses from 367 supply chain managers are tested through structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Findings suggest that a combination of SCO and EO capabilities positively influence the implementation of green SCM practices, and positively impact firm performance. Results also suggest that the capability bundle of SCO, EO, and green SCM should be adaptable to the changing business environment.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes through the combination of the resource-based theory, supported by strategic choice theory, to better understand how managers configure and re-configure valuable green-related capabilities to adapt to the constantly changing business environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
From informational towards transformational advertising strategies? A content analysis of Belgian food magazine advertisements
|
[
"Food advertising",
"Informational appeals",
"Transformational appeals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The World Health Organization (2014) has declared obesity a public health epidemic: the worldwide incidence of obesity more than doubled between 1980 and 2014. In Europe, 62 percent of the adult population are overweight, and 25 percent are obese (WHO, 2014). Countering this epidemic is critical because excess weight and obesity are major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular problems and cancer (Kelly et al., 2008). Of particular importance in the fight against obesity are those segments of the population with low interest in health issues (e.g. general health, diet, and natural products) (Zandstra et al., 2001).\nMaterial and methods: Sample of advertisements\nResults: Coding reliability\nDiscussion and conclusion: The content analysis provided insights on the informational and transformational advertising strategies used in contemporary Western (European) food advertising. Specifically, this study shed light on the different strategies adopted in advertising for healthy vs unhealthy foods. Among healthy food advertisements, the informational approach was significantly more prevalent than the transformational approach. The informational dimensions, i.e., product information and sensorial information, were significantly more pronounced than each of the three transformational dimensions, i.e., human appearance, human creation and warmth. The opposite pattern was observed among unhealthy food advertisements, in which the transformational dimensions were more prominent than the informational dimensions. The direct comparison of healthy and unhealthy food advertisements further confirmed that the healthy food advertisements were more informational than the unhealthy food advertisements, whereas the unhealthy food advertisements were more transformational than the healthy food advertisements.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to perform a preliminary examination of informational and transformational advertising appeals in contemporary advertisements for healthy and unhealthy foods.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Western (European) food advertisements published in Belgian food magazines were content analyzed to identify informational and transformational advertising appeals. Belgian food advertising was selected as an adequate representation of Western (European) food advertising because marketing in Belgium is permeated by international influences (cf. Belgian Federal Government). Advertisements were sampled from three magazines over a period of five years, from January 2009 to December 2013. The sample comprised 325 unique advertisements, including 159 for healthy foods and 166 for unhealthy foods.\nFindings: The results of the content analysis indicated that healthy food advertisements in Belgium are mainly informational, whereas unhealthy food advertisements are mainly transformational.\nOriginality/value: This preliminary examination of informational and transformational advertising appeals in contemporary healthy food and unhealthy food advertisements shows that healthy food advertisements in Belgium are mainly informational, whereas the segment of consumers which is precarious - people low-involved with healthy food - are mainly attracted by transformational advertising appeals. The contrasting transformational strategy of unhealthy-food advertisements can provide inspiration for healthy food advertisers to help increase healthy food consumption.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How did the publication of the book The Machine That Changed The World change management thinking? Exploring 25 years of lean literature
|
[
"Lean",
"Diffusion",
"Improvement",
"Literature review",
"Toyota Production System",
"TPS"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background and context: The term Lean entered the management lexicon via a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), named John Krafcik, working on International Motor Vehicle Programme (IMVP). In Krafcik's (1988)\n2. Methodology: The research was carried out by a systematic literature review guided by Hart (1998). \"The systematic literature review is a method of locating, appraising and synthesising evidence\" (Pettigrew et al., 2001). Four databases were selected for final use: ABI/INFORM Global (Proquest), Emerald library, EBSCO Business Source Premier (BSP) and Google Scholar. In addition numerous management journals were studied to identify trends in industry-specific sectors.\n3. Findings: To answer the first question \"has Lean diffused over time?\" we look first at the growth and spread of Lean publications in the LPD.\n4. Conclusions: From the evidence in the literature Lean has clearly spread well beyond the traditional Japanese automotive manufacturing roots and has evolved over time from a generic description of TPS to a particular type of organisational and management intervention focused on best practice and process improvement methodologies adopted, and adapted, by public and private sector organisations around the world. From a systematic review of the extant literature published on Lean from 1988 to 2013, we have identified four key themes that have emerged: Lean as a representation of TPS which highlighted the origins and antecedents of Lean; Lean as a process improvement methodology which highlighted the need to compare Lean with other process improvement methodologies; Lean as a movement which highlighted the characteristics of Lean's evolution over time; and Lean as academic body of literature which highlighted the diversity of perspective and opinion that Lean has inspired. These themes relate to observed regularities, which contributed to the emergence and establishment of Lean as a management improvement paradigm that diffused from automobile manufacturing to all industries in all sectors around the world. Duguay et al. (1997) noted this paradigm shift from mass production and argued that the era of mass production as the dominant production paradigm ended in the 1980s and was succeeded by a new, customer-focused paradigm. They further argue that the proliferation of improvement methodologies in the late 1990s could be associated with paradigmatic chaos (Kuhn, 1962 cited in Duguay et al., 1997) from which the new paradigm emerged. They contend we have now entered the era (twenty-first century) where Lean and flexible producers dominate.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to take a critical, analytical approach to explore the growth and spread of Lean through the academic and practitioner community over the last 25 years to understand the impact of the book The Machine that Changed the World on management thinking.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A comprehensive and systematic review of the extant literature of lean was undertaken and analysed critically to observe patterns and trends that could explain the acceptance of Lean as an operations management philosophy. The review spans from 1987 to 2013. To enable us to effectively manage and understand the diffusion of this literature a database, the Lean Publications Database, was constructed. The number of publications has been adjusted to compensate for growth in the total number of articles published in the same period.\nFindings: Lean has evolved to be one of the best-known, yet fiercely debated, process improvement methodologies. It emerged during a proliferation of such methodologies in the business and management literature. Lean has developed from a generic description of Toyota Production System (TPS) to a particular type of organisational and management intervention focused on best practice and process improvement methodologies.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the Lean literature, from the perspective of Lean as the unit of analysis. It covers both sides of the academic debate and categorises the progression of Lean from its origins as a generic description of TPS to a movement that has changed management systems in many and diverse sectors.\nPractical implications: This paper demonstrates how Lean research, application and thinking has evolved over 25 years from its origins in Japanese auto-manufacturing to a holistic value system that is applicable to all business sectors, both private and public.\nOriginality/value: In most empirical studies on Lean, the unit of analysis is the organisation. In this study, the unit of analysis is the Lean phenomenon itself. This paper examines the impact of The Machine that Changed the World on management thinking. In addition, it presents a step to developing an underpinning theory by linking Lean to the Theory of Swift, Even Flow. As such it is of interest to academics in the field of operations management and offers a contribution to knowledge. It is also likely to be of interest to policy makers. Considerable amounts of public money have been spent, and continue to be spent, on promoting Lean. Taxpayers and policymakers are likely to be interested in whether that expenditure is justifiable. 25 years of publications have been analysed to provide clarity around this popular approach to organisational improvement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The relationship of personality to cognitive characteristics and SME performance in Tanzania
|
[
"Tanzania",
"Personality traits",
"Cognitive characteristics",
"SMEs performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The question of why some firms grow while others do not is one of the most intriguing in the field of entrepreneurship. Researchers addressing this question have investigated a wide variety of factors potentially influencing firm performance (Storey, 1994; Baum et al., 2001; Lee and Tsang, 2001; Baum and Locke, 2004; Barringer et al., 2005; Aidis and Mickiewicz, 2006; Lim et al., 2008; Danso et al., 2016). These factors range from the entrepreneur's characteristics to issues related to the environment in which these businesses operate. Given the crucial role played by individuals, several studies worldwide have acknowledged the importance of entrepreneurs for small and medium enterprises' (SMEs') growth. Accordingly, Kuratko and Hodgetts (2001) propose that the effectiveness of programmes aimed at developing SMEs depends on a thorough understanding of owner-managers' (entrepreneurs') characteristics. In fact, most SMEs depend on the entrepreneur for their survival and development (Frese, 2000). Without that individual, not much happens in the firm as the entrepreneur is usually responsible for making important decisions concerning products, markets, employees' motivation, expansion plans, and other strategic matters (Frese, 2000). This suggests that a large proportion of the performance difference among SMEs could be explained by individual entrepreneurs (Hall, 1995; Shane, 2007; Zhao et al., 2010; Danso et al., 2016). Little exploration of this topic has focussed on Africa and, in particular, Tanzania. Furthermore, most of the previous research regarding personal characteristics and SME performance has only examined direct effects between the two, reporting mixed results (Cooper et al., 1992; Koh, 1996; Begley and Boyd, 1987; Cromie, 2000; Watson et al., 2003; Pinho and Sampaio, 2014; Asah et al., 2015). Due of these inconclusive results, there has been a shift from personality traits to a cognitive approach focussing on what entrepreneurs does, as opposed to who they are (Gartner, 1988), with focus, hence, turning to investigate behaviour, motivation, and cognition. Among the modern approaches to have received attention in entrepreneurship are the cognitive models of entrepreneurial behaviour, which focus on understanding how entrepreneurs think and behave and why they act as they do (Delmar, 2000; Zhao et al., 2010; Leutner et al., 2014; Vimolwan and Nusrat, 2017). However, this approach fails to properly address the source of cognitive properties, namely, why certain people develop particular cognitive properties that favour recognising opportunities and, hence, perform better than others (Danso et al., 2016).\nLiterature review: For decades, researchers have sought to identify certain characteristics common to entrepreneurs. Their approach traditionally was grounded in the study of successful entrepreneurs who tend to show similar characteristics, focussing on which of these characteristics can be used to distinguish them from the general population (Koh, 1996; Littunen, 2000; Rauch and Frese, 2007a; Chell, 2008; Hajizadeh and Zali, 2016; Danso et al., 2016; Robert, 2017). However, researchers such as Gartner (1988) and Timmons (1990) have challenged this approach. Among their key criticisms is researchers' tendency to derive characteristics based on the distinction between entrepreneurs and managers, with the assumption that some characteristics are unique to the former (Chell et al., 1991). In reality, these characteristics may also be common to successful individuals other than entrepreneurs (Robinson et al., 1991; Zhao et al., 2010; Adomako et al., 2016; Robert, 2017). Thus, these characteristics may be important for distinguishing successful from unsuccessful people. Other scholars have raised concerns regarding the instruments used to measure these characteristics (Robinson et al., 1991; Frese, 2007; Vimolwan and Nusrat, 2017). Indeed, they suggest that most of the instruments used to measure personality traits lack convergent validity. Responding to this issue, Rauch and Frese (2007a, b) suggest researchers should use specific traits linked to entrepreneurial tasks. In addition, they should use a questionnaire that has been previously tested (Gartner, 1988; Robinson et al., 1991; Chell, 2008; Zhao et al., 2010; Zhang and Bruning, 2011).\n3. Methodology: This study's survey was conducted through a listed questionnaire adopted from previous studies in the field of personality traits and cognitive characteristics. Data were collected by means of self-administered questionnaires. The study was conducted in four urban areas: Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Morogoro, and Iringa. The reasons for choosing these towns are as follows. Dar es Salaam was selected because it is the largest commercial city in Tanzania, with more than three million people and most of the SMEs in this urban area. Arusha is regarded as second to Dar es Salaam in commercial activities, while the urban area of Iringa supplies timber. Finally, Morogoro was chosen due to its strategic location between Dar es Salaam and Iringa. This geographical area has been chosen as it contains a large number of Tanzania's SMEs. A major difficulty in studying SMEs in most African countries (including Tanzania) is the absence of a proper sampling framework. Consequently, researchers are forced to use non-probability sampling, namely, purposeful sampling. This approach is commonly used in Tanzania, due to the lack of an accurate and up-to-date sampling framework (Nchimbi, 2002; Isaga et al., 2015). With this approach, efforts are, therefore, made to approach the respondents who best fit the research objectives. Since this study aimed to examine entrepreneurial characteristics, each respondent selected had to be the owner-manager of a firm (or one of them, if a firm had more than one owner-manager).\n4. Findings: The data analysis involved four main phases: data preparation, descriptive analysis, factor analysis, and hypothesis testing. Data preparation was undertaken soon after completion of the fieldwork: responses from all 300 questionnaires were entered into the computer using SPSS software. Thereafter, descriptive analysis, factor analysis, and hypothesis testing were performed.\n5. Discussion: This paper examined the mediating effect of cognitive characteristics on the relationship between owner-managers' personality traits and SME performance. As entrepreneurship researchers have previously indicated, personality traits likely work in conjunction with other factors in explaining firm performance (Krauss et al., 2005; Rauch and Frese, 2007a, b; Shane, 2007; Chell, 2008; Rauch et al., 2009; Yan, 2010; Adomako et al., 2016; Bajwa et al., 2017). Alternatively, other factors may mediate the relationship between personality traits and SME performance. This study considers whether personality traits work through cognitive characteristics in explaining SME performance. The study's findings provide strong support for the hypothesised relationship. When entrepreneurs' characteristics were examined simultaneously through SEM, the direct relationship between personality traits and SME performance was very weak. However, personality traits were found to relate significantly to cognitive characteristics. This confirms propositions that traits may better predict entrepreneurial cognitive processes, rather these processes' outcomes, such as SME performance (Yan, 2010; Adomako et al., 2016; Bajwa et al., 2017). Thus, without cognitive characteristics, personality traits may have a minimal or no effect on SME performance. This is consistent with the previous findings and suggestions that such factors as personality traits affect SME performance through other variables (Baum et al., 2001; Baum and Locke, 2004; Poon et al., 2006; Doris and Irena, 2013; Zhao et al., 2010; Ignas, 2012; Adomako et al., 2016). In addition, this finding implies that cognitive characteristics are necessary mediators of the link between personality traits and SME performance. This finding justifies the suggestion by previous scholars (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Rauch and Frese, 2007b; Yan, 2010; Zhao et al., 2010; Bajwa et al., 2017) that personality traits should be included in studies aiming to understand the process of developing success.\n6. Conclusion and policy implications: By combining personality and cognitive characteristics, this study developed a comprehensive model, facilitating understanding of the relationship between owner-managers' characteristics and SME performance. Furthermore, based on survey data collected from 300 SME owner-managers in the furniture industry, distributed among four different urban areas in Tanzania, several hypotheses were tested and found to be supported, including the mediating role of cognitive characteristics in the relationship between personality traits and SME performance. This study contributes towards existing psychological literature by identifying a few specific personality traits which, matched with the task of entrepreneurship, can effectively predict entrepreneurial performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Focussing on the relationship between personality traits and small and medium enterprise (SME) performance in Tanzania's furniture sector, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of cognitive characteristics as a mediating variable.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 300 SMEs in furniture sectors from four different regions in Tanzania were involved in this study. Structural equation modelling approach was used to test simultaneously the direct and the indirect effects of the characteristics of the entrepreneurs on the SMEs performance.\nFindings: The findings show that personality traits have a significant influence on SMEs performance through cognitive characteristics.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study's data were collected from businesses in only one industry (furniture) in Tanzania. Future research may extend the approach to other business sectors.\nPractical implications: Since entrepreneurial characteristics are considered an important driver of a country's economic development and performance, it is hoped that governments and sector associations implement suitable policies and incentives to develop an entrepreneurial culture among citizens.\nOriginality/value: Current knowledge about entrepreneurial characteristics and their relationship with SME performance in developing countries, especially Tanzania, is very limited. The present study suggests that cognitive characteristics are necessary mediators of the link between personality traits and SME performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Baptists in Burma: collaboratively mapping missionary archives
|
[
"Religion",
"Archives",
"Mapping",
"Digital humanities",
"Grants",
"Liberal arts colleges"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2013, the Five Colleges of Ohio, a higher learning consortium consisting of Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and The College of Wooster, was awarded a three-year grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen the digital capabilities of the libraries and embed the use of digital scholarship practices into the liberal arts curriculum. Entitled \"Digital Collections: from Projects to Pedagogy and Scholarship\", this grant focused on the creation of digital resources to enhance faculty and student research, teaching and learning using emerging aspects of media literacy, scholarly communication, information literacy, information management and digital publishing.\nHistory of Baptists and Denison: American Baptist missionary activity in Burma began with the arrival of Adoniram and Ann Judson in 1813. Though it would take five years for Judson to receive his first Christian convert, Maung Nau, Burma became a prime destination for American Baptist Missionaries in the nineteenth century (Yeh and Chun, 2013, p. 93). It was during this period, in 1831, that Denison University was founded in the Baptist tradition as the Granville Literary and Theological Institution. In 1854, the name would officially change to Denison University in honor of William S. Denison, a local farmer who donated $10,000 to sustain the college (Memorial Volume of Denison University, Denison University, p. 7). However, affiliation with the Baptist tradition would remain until the 1960s when the Board of Trustees voted to become a nondenominational undergraduate institution (Chessman and Southgate, 1981, p. 177).\nBuilding a continuum of collaboration: The Five Colleges of Ohio have a long history of collaboration. Etymologically, collaboration is based on the Latin collaborare, a noun of action implying laboring together (Collaboration, N., OED Online, 2015). However, since its incorporation in 1995, deep collaboration between the five colleges has developed on a continuum over time, evolving from coordinating annual speakers' exchange across campuses to building a merged library catalog. Thinking of collaboration as a continuum is a useful heuristic for developing and sustaining partnerships across institutions. In Beyond the Silos of the LAMS: Collaboration Among Libraries, Archives and Museum, Diane Zurich and her team at Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) identify five stages on the continuum to convergence (Zorich et al., 2008, p. 11):\nMutual knowledge and communication: During the contact and communication phase, mutual knowledge, information that communicating parties share in common and know they share, has been recognized as the key to sustaining a multi-institutional project. Mutual knowledge becomes paramount when constituents are geographically dispersed. While moving through the collaboration continuum, maintaining mutual knowledge has been identified as the most important factor in building toward convergence. In her landmark article published in Organization Science, Catherine Durnell Cramton identified mutual knowledge as the central problem in geographically dispersed collaboration, leading to a lack of project sustainability (Cramton, 2001, p. 73). Analyzing 13 dispersed collaboration projects, she identified five types of problems that threaten the sustainability of mutual knowledge (Cramton, 2001, pp. 82-86):\nDigital infrastructure: Though points of contact and cooperation were formally and informally agreed upon among the collaborators, full collaboration between partner institutions would not be realized until the project developed a process of shared creation. As Zurich et al. point out:\nMetadata: Through a series of conversations and meetings, the decision to centralize disparate collection into ContentDM streamlined the process of working across multiple digital repositories, but creating intellectual authority over individual items distributed across multiple institutions provided a challenge. Unfortunately, descriptive standards and metadata are not consistent across libraries, archives and museums. In 2005, the Research Libraries Group produced the Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for RLG Cultural Materials Report, explicating the convergence and divergence of taxonomies(RLG, 2005). Though each field understands metadata in four components, data structure, data content, data format and data exchange, each uses various standards for each component. Writing in First Monday, Mary W. Ellings and Gunter Waibel provide the following example (Elings and Waibel, 2015, p. 2).\nThe spatial turn (Axis Maps): Whereas metadata is the foundation upon which a digital project is built, a graphical user interface is the mediated expression of data to the user. From the very beginning, the project team envisioned an immersive interactive map, allowing users to \"follow the trail\" of the missionaries through their letters and photographs, while also giving context to their geographic and cultural constraints. Without explicitly using the term, the grant proposal classified the project under the domain of geohumanities. In the introduction to GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place, Dear et al. briefly define this emerging discipline:\nScaling adaptive design in stages: Writing in Digital Humanities Quarterly about her experience working as a project manager for the William Blake Archive, a hypermedia archive sponsored by the Library of Congress and supported by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of Rochester and the Scholarly Editions and Translations Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ashley Reed writes:\nDesigning for curricular integration: In his introduction to the edited volume, Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics, Brett D. Hirsch writes, \"Whether horizontal or vertical, through self-learning, peer-to-peer learning, or more formal institutional structures of learning, pedagogy is at the heart of the digital humanities\" (Hirsch, 2012, p. 3). The pedagogical component to this project, even more so than scalability, was the impetus for constructing an immersive GIS-based interface. The ability to adapt institutional history into a transformative pedagogical tool, bringing current students into scholastic conversation with alumni who walked on this campus almost 150 years before them, forms the heart of the project.\nSustainability and next steps: In The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper writes, \"Software development lacks one key element - an understanding of what it means to be 'Done'\" (Cooper, 2004, p. 68). The same can be said for multi-institutional digital projects. On the continuum of collaboration, convergence is the desired endpoint: a point in which collaboration is so engrained that the workflow and resource is implicitly assumed and the project is collectively owned by its constituents (Zorich et al., 2008, p. 12). Convergence, however, evolves over time as projects endure shifts in institutional culture, long-term planning and personnel changes. More often, practical matters will bring an end to any project: the grant cycle ends, loss of key project members or changes to institutional strategic plans. However, as Matthew Kirschenbaum writes in Done: Finishing Projects in the Digital Humanities:\nConclusion: As Matthew Kirschenbaum writes, \"[...] let us admit, [it is] usually more exciting to begin something than to finish it\" (Kirschenbaum, 2015, p. 2). The project team experienced the initial excitement of gathering missionary materials from the Denison University Archives, digging through the donor files of the Denison University Museum, uncovering a historic map of Burma in the special collections at Northern Illinois University, poring over nineteenth-century missionary registry files at the ABHS and uncovering handwritten postcards from Denison-affiliated missionaries in the Yale Divinity Library and writing the grant proposal. However, after all the conversations with collaborators, presentations to administrators and public announcements celebrating the attainment of the grant, the collaborators experienced the less glamorous work of managing a multi-institutional project.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this case study is to discuss and analyze the process of developing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital humanities projects across several institutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This case study will provide an overview of a multi-institutional digital humanities project from the planning phase to implementation. In particular, this case study will discuss identifying institutional partners, collaborating with a design, designing for curricular integration and best practices for sustaining a project of this size and scope.\nFindings: Sustainable collaboration develops slowly over time. Communication and consensus-building are key components to completing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital project. Scalable design is a crucial step in planning for project expansion.\nOriginality/value: Though many journal articles articulate \"best practices\" for collaboration among geographically dispersed institutions, very few case studies discuss \"best practices\" within the context of project development, from initial idea to completion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategic human capital management for a new University: a case study of Suan Dusit Rajabhat University
|
[
"Human capital",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Key success factors",
"New university",
"Strategic human capital management",
"Talent capability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The administration of all Rajabhat Universities operates under the principles in the Rajabhat Universities Act 2004. According to the Act, the universities are compared with a juristic person who has an administrative strategy as a key factor. However, the universities must develop their expertise in the aspect of human capital (Thepseng, 2010; Chaichankul, 2012, pp. 11-13). As a matter of fact, the government still controls the university in the operations of manpower and budget (Kitratporn, 2012, p. 207). Because of some internal changes, the university needs to exercise independent control over its day-to-day operations. For this reason, the university has to develop human capital management strategy to specify the direction of changes in the aspects of structure, technology, working processes, staff, culture and work performances (Withers et al., 2010, pp. 13-15). Ulrich et al. (2012, pp.19, 244) suggested human resources (HR) management strategy which focused on outside-in perspectives and specified that the HR structure must be fit with organizational structures and decentralize HR structures for business units. Therefore, the strategic human capital management (SHCM)[1] must be set in accordance with the context of strategies and the objectives of the organization, as well as HR operations (Compton, 2009, p. 82; Wei, 2006, p. 49).\n2. Purpose of research: The research aimed to study the key success factors (KSFs) of the human capital management that determine the direction and context of a new university and formulate SHCM at the strategic and operational levels. The research also makes a proposal for the specific structure and systems of HR management that support SHCM for a new university like SDU.\n3. Scope of the study: The population of this research was 1,870 people of the Suan Dusit community. The sample groups included 17 key informants consisting of a committee of University Council, senior- and middle-level executives and consultants and 275 quantitative samples systematically selected from the population. The research was conducted in a 12-month period (February 2013-January 2014).\n4. Literature review: The explanation of HR in business states the role and function of HR, but there is not much progress about the HR model. The researcher synthesized the framework of HR theories of business in Thailand from 1998-2006 and categorized them into four phases of an HR model. The first phase is relevant to the personnel models, which are in the cycle of personnel management of Fombrun et al. (1984). The second phase is HR strategic management according to four tasks, namely, the processes of selection, development, retention and utilization. The third phase is human capital. At this phase, the model of SHCM, which is competency based/driven, and the changing concept of business alliance, is used in HR management as strategic partners. The fourth phase is intellectual capital, of which the model is composed of four factors: leadership capital, relationship capital, organization and human resources capital. Additionally, the researcher studied the directions and the roles of HR management in the next decade and found three levels of HR management activities. These included the levels of strategy, service and personnel administration. The core of HR management was in four scopes of concepts: the concept of human capital, the focus of human capital, the human capital management and the measurement of human capital management (PMAT, 2005, p. 242; Thienphut et al., 1998, abstract; Thienphut, 2008, pp. 73-76, 2013, pp. 76, 86-88, 303).\n5. Research methodology: The researchers conducted the study with mixed methodologies research to develop SHCM for a new university using the following the four stages:\n6. Research findings: The research findings on a SHCM for a new university: a case study on SDU revealed the following.\n7. Research discussion: Topics to be discussed include the following:\n8. Conclusions and recommendations: 8.1 Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to study the key success factors (KSFs) that determine the direction and context of a new university, Suan Dusit Rajabhat University (SDU), to formulate strategic human capital management (SHCM) for the university, and also to recommend a proposal for the human resources (HR) structure and systems that supports SHCM for a new university.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used mixed methods. There were four steps, including documentary research to develop a draft of SHCM prototype, in-depth interview and knowledge-sharing technique with 17 key informants to develop the underlying final SHCM prototype, collecting the quantitative data from a questionnaire to develop a prototype of SHCM, and validation and confirmation of the suitability and feasibility of SHCM for a new university by using a focus group and knowledge-sharing technique with 14 HR experts and re-confirm for practical implementation with SDU's executive team.\nFindings: The four KSFs were university positioning, talent capability, harmonization, and transformation. The SHCM formulation was categorized into two sections: components including strategy on thinking and planning, implementation and measurement; and procedures including HR policy committee, strategic and operational HR management. The HR proposal for implementation was emerging.\nOriginality/value: The tacit knowledge in SHCM, including human capital-centric driving for KSFs and innovative HR in university transformation comprising of the strategic and operational levels, was revealed.\n",
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] |
A mass customised supply chain for the fashion system at the design-production interface
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Fashion design",
"Decision making"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Under constantly changing conditions of increasing demand fragmentation, product proliferation, information explosion, global competition, and pressurised time-to-market, the fashion apparel industries are restructuring to maintain customers and sustain competitiveness. Efforts spanning operational, organisational, and technological changes have been made in different sectors and regions of the global supply chain (Winterton and Winterton, 1997). And mass customisation, following just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), quick response (QR) etc. looks increasingly convincing as an emerging paradigm, yielding potential solutions from market to manufacturing to management. The system begins and ends with customers, enabled by information technology, and most research on mass customisation hitherto has focused on consumers' or marketing perspectives (Peavy, 1996; Fiore, 2000; Anderson-Connell et al., 2002; Bardakci and Whitelock, 2003), and on technological advancements (Istook, 2002; Tait, 2001). Little feasible application has been developed in the total process of industry supply chain. Moreover, research and practice in search of solutions remain on either side of the great divide between design and production.This research focuses on this interface between design and production where numerous crucial issues lie, and expands on possibilities of mass customisation by finding key stages in the supply chain where information on customers' preferences and requirements can be incorporated into producers' design and production decisions. The objective is to provide a mutually beneficial relationship of collaborative mass customisation where producers' advance \"order in the dark\" can be decreased and customers' satisfaction increased; achieving quicker time to market and reduced usage of resource.\nLiterature review: Design process and supply push\nConceptual overview and methodology: This study investigates a neglected area of the design-production interface. It engages with real world processes, workings, and relationships on the \"producers\" side of the fashion system, i.e. the fashion apparel industries. Nonmathematical qualitative methods were therefore chosen in order to interpret raw data collected in the field research. This allows the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of complex issues (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) which the \"producers\" face both internally and externally; on a macro and on a micro level. Information gained is then organised into a theoretical explanatory scheme to allow subsequent fostering of further development in mass customisation. The research was conducted in five stages: two secondary and two primary research stages followed by analysis.Secondary research\nResults and discussion: Anderson-Connell et al.'s (2002) research concluded that consumers are interested in expressing their personal preferences in customised apparel, and sees expanded search and selection capability as important. Advances in technology are providing significant new opportunities for all industry players both internally and externally. On a system level, Forza and Vinelli (2000) argued that continuous transmission of information from customers throughout all the links in the supply chain can improve time to market, quality of service, and reducing overall entrepreneurial risk.Communication interface\nConclusions and further work: This study found that mass customisation in the existing literature needs more attention to implementation strategies as a total process for the fashion system, and recognised a missing link of design development in the supply chain - a crucial phase between conceptual design and production where the three key players of designers/brand houses, textile suppliers, and garment manufacturers converge. Sampled companies expressed the need for knowledge on customers' real preferences and requirements in order to make better judgments in their individual and collective design development and production processes. An amalgamated process map with reference to calendar time of the industry cycle was devised. This demonstrates, firstly, that the communication interfaces must be streamlined by eliminating duplicate processes and setting collective specifications and approval standards between designers/brand house and textiles suppliers, and between designers/brand houses and garment manufacturers, in order to compress design development time. Secondly, at the \"integrated decision points\", customers' choice can be strategically incorporated into the series of selection and screening processes, which producers' currently conduct on behalf of customers in the dark. These are \"integrated decision points\", defined by the balance of forces between producers' supply push and customers' demand pull, are locations in the time-based fashion system supply chain, where information on consumers preferences and requirements can be input into the synthesis of design and production specification and approval. By reducing the time from design to production, customers' real demand can be gathered at different stages throughout the total process and closer to the time of producers' real supply, as opposed to some six months in advance - thereby creating a feedback chain to activate collaborative mass customisation.This conceptual model for implementing collaborative mass customisation presents the possibilities for a mutually beneficial \"prosumer\" (Moffat, 1990) relationship where there is reduced risk for producers and increased satisfaction for customers. Further work on collection and utilisation of customers' information, as well as on planning and configuration of the total design process, needs to be done in order to diminish potential obstacles in the steep learning curve facing both customers and producers. Nevertheless, the example in which the internet changed e-commerce and the subsequent behaviour of both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customers (B2C) at speed to allow speculators to draw faith in that both the fashion apparel industry and market are ripe for mass customisation implementation.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - The objective of the research is to develop implementation strategies for producers at the fashion apparel supply chain upstream, in order to move towards a more coordinated, streamlined and responsive process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Qualitative action research was conducted using non-participatory observations on sampled producers, following a literature review on the design process and mass customization.\nFindings: - Main activities with contributing factors that funnel in and out of this crucial junction are mapped and broken down into a series of processes that involve producers' selection and customers' choice, where decisions are currently made based on informal correlation of supply push and demand pull, months ahead of end-users' (\"customers\" hereon) real demand. Key \"integrated decision points\" where customers' input is identified and can be introduced into the outbound supply chain.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This conceptual model offers the possibilities for implementing collaborative mass customization with reduced risk for producers and increased satisfaction for customers. However, producers' resistance to change from existing work methods may present potential obstacles. Further work is to be done on collecting, utilizing, and transforming customers' data in order to inform the total design process effectively and comprehensively.\nOriginality/value: - The results of the \"integrated decision pulse point map\" proposed by this paper provide a threshold to the benefits of mass customization at the heart of the fashion system.\n",
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] |
How brand orientation impacts B2B service brand equity? An empirical study among Chinese firms
|
[
"Brand orientation",
"Empirical study",
"Brand equity",
"Chinese firms",
"B2B services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The formation and enhancement of brand equity are vital for company's success in the contemporary business environment (Backhaus et al., 2011). It is widely acknowledged that the benefits of effectively managing brand equity include improving customer's willingness to pay premium price, positive word-of-mouth, attracting new and retaining loyal customers (Netemeyer et al., 2004), which consecutively create opportunities for generating better firm performance. Therefore, brand equity has been increasingly regarded as offering a crucial point of differentiation and a key source of sustainable competitive advantage for companies (Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2007).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Industrial brand equity\n3. Conceptual framework and research hypotheses: 3.1 Conceptual framework\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Measurement scales\n5. Research findings: 5.1 Reliabilities and validities of measurement scales\n6. Conclusions and discussion: 6.1 Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to explore how brand orientation impacts brand equity via internal branding, presented brand, word-of-mouth and customer experience from stakeholder interaction perspective in industrial services context. Brand orientation has emerged as an attractive business philosophy for industrial service companies who believe that brand plays an influential role in delivering customer value and improving firm's performance. However, the impact of brand orientation upon brand equity is not clear yet, and the active roles of multiple stakeholders in co-creating brand equity are largely neglected in business-to-business (B2B) branding literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 258 pairs of firms located in mainland China. A total of nine research hypotheses related to how brand orientation impacts B2B service brand equity were examined by structural equation modeling technique.\nFindings: The research findings indicate: a company with high level of brand orientation will both actively communicate its brand to customers and implement internal branding among employees; internal branding enhances willingness and skills of service employees so that they can provide customers with excellent service experience, which will lead to positive word-of-mouth; effective brand communication, pleasant customer experience and favorable word-of-mouth can result in positive brand association in the mind of customers and finally build up corporate brand equity.\nResearch limitations/implications: The major limitation of this paper is that some other potential stakeholders and additional interactive processes among organization, employees and customers, which have potential to impact brand equity, are not included in the model.\nOriginality/value: This study makes theoretical contribution by addressing the gaps in the branding literature with respect to industrial services context and stakeholder interaction perspective. It also provides practical implications for B2B service firms as to how to develop a strong brand by implementing brand orientation within the network of core stakeholders.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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"We've never measured it, but it brings in a lot of business": Participatory sport events and tourism
|
[
"Destination marketing",
"Event leveraging",
"Event tourism",
"Participatory sport events"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sport events have been recognized as \"valuable catalysts for economic development\" and consequently have been integrated into the tourism and destination marketing strategies of many of the world's cities and regions (O'Brien and Chalip, 2008, p. 318). However, the dominant focus of much sport event research has been elite/professional events such as the Olympic Games or football World Cup (Djaballah et al., 2015), and until recently, the management and impacts of smaller participatory sport events (PSEs) have not attracted the same level of attention.\nParticipatory sport events and tourism: Large-scale, professional sporting events may result in negative outcomes for host destinations, including the draining of public monies to finance event infrastructure, increases in the price of services and environmental damage (Gibson et al., 2012; Preuss, 2007). In contrast, smaller events are more likely to use existing resources (Gursoy et al., 2004) and do not come with the same degree of financial risk to the host community (Deron and VanWynsberghe, 2015). Therefore, Gibson et al. (2012, p. 160) proposed, \"a small-scale sports event portfolio consistent with a community's infrastructure and human and cultural capital may be a viable form of sustainable tourism development\". This suggestion could apply to PSEs, which typically use outdoor spaces and have low or temporary infrastructure requirements (Herrick, 2015). Further, reflecting a trend in the event industry highlighted by Getz and Page (2016), many PSEs are organized by professionals and entrepreneurs for instrumental purposes, such as profit generation or charity-fundraising (Berridge, 2014; Herrick, 2015) and may not be as reliant on public monies as major events.\nEvent leveraging for host destinations: The likelihood of long-term, positive event outcomes is greatly increased if such outcomes are proactively planned for prior to an event (Chalip, 2004; Green, 2001; O'Brien and Chalip, 2008). Event leveraging involves looking forward during the planning of an event to strategically incorporate actions that ensure the host community can derive and maximize sustainable benefits (O'Brien, 2007). Chalip (2004) and O'Brien and Chalip (2008) argued that the likelihood of ongoing public and private support for an event connects to the outcomes generated by the event, the durability of such outcomes and the extent to which the event satisfies the needs of key stakeholders. Hence, Chalip (2004) proposed a model for host destination economic leverage, empirically supported by O'Brien (2007), which proposes how events can be used to generate both short- and long-term benefits for a host destination.\nMethod: To achieve the aims of this exploratory empirical study, a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis was adopted for two reasons (Creswell, 2003; Miles et al., 2014):\nFindings: This section begins with descriptive results which provide contextual detail necessary for interpreting the six, emergent thematic categories derived from the data analysis:\nDiscussion: This research examined the largely overlooked, supply-side perspectives of PSE organizers on the purpose, design and intended outcomes of their events. In particular, this paper focused on PSE organizers' viewpoints on the potential connections between their events and tourism. The viewpoints of PSE organizers are worth understanding because organizers play a pivotal role in the development of events and therefore influence the delivery of anticipated benefits to event host destinations. Past research indicates that strategic pre-event planning increases the likelihood of events delivering positive outcomes (Chalip, 2004). Yet, this research indicated that PSE organizers might have limited awareness of, or interest in the ways their events can be used for sustainable tourism development and are therefore unlikely to consider tourism outcomes in their pre-event planning. Instead, PSE organizers placed greatest emphasis on attracting and satisfying participants and overcoming logistical challenges in event delivery. Their central goal was creating positive event experiences, as satisfied customers were an important source of competitive advantage in the crowded UK PSE marketplace. The findings of this research have several practical and theoretical implications.\nConclusion: Tourism and destination marketing outcomes are not necessarily a direct consideration of PSE organizers when planning their events. Organizers may focus on managing event delivery challenges and may not understand how their events can support the agendas of tourism stakeholders in the host destination. However, the strategies used by organizers to attract participants (such as emphasizing attractive or unique location features), as well as to ensure a positive event experience (such as running social events in conjunction with the sporting contest), may serve to attract active sport tourists and indirectly promote the event destination. Hence, this research illustrates that it is possible for PSE organizers to play a role in host destination event leveraging (Chalip's, 2004 model), without distracting from their core focus on managing event logistics to deliver successful events. However, this research also raises questions about whether PSE organizers should be held accountable for generating tourism outcomes and highlights that event organizers are not ideally placed to assume responsibility for all leveraging activities. To truly maximize the tourism potential of their events some PSE organizers may require greater levels of streamlined assistance from tourism organizations. The best outcomes for host destinations may be produced by educating and supporting PSE organizers in relation to only those facets of event leveraging they can control or directly influence.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine participatory sport event organizers' perspectives on potential connections between their events and tourism and destination marketing outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative study entailed in-depth interviews with participatory sport event organizers in the United Kingdom, coupled with thematic analysis of event websites and social media. The paper uses Chalip's (2004) model for host community event leveraging to interpret findings.\nFindings: Event organizers focused on attracting participants and delivering positive experiences, rather than on stimulating tourism-related outcomes. However, organizers used a range of strategies to attract participants, such as emphasizing attractive and unique location features, which could also serve to entice active sport tourists and promote the event host destination.\nResearch limitations/implications: Participatory sport event organizers may not prioritize or even sufficiently understand the potential for their events to generate tourism outcomes. For organizers confronted with operating constraints and event delivery challenges, it may be difficult to find the time, and practical ways, to satisfy the needs of tourism stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: The unique contribution of this paper is its focus on supply-side perspectives on the role of participatory sport events as tourism catalysts, and its examination of the potential for such small-scale events to contribute to sustainable tourism development. This paper also considers the nature of event organizers' role in implementation of Chalip's (2004) model for host community event leveraging.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A multi-dimensional approach to consumer motivation: exploring economic, hedonic, and normative consumption goals
|
[
"Factor analysis",
"Scale development",
"Consumer goals",
"Consumer motivation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Human behavior is purposeful and goal-driven, performed as a means toward some end (Moskowitz and Grant, 2009), and consumer behavior is no exception (Bagozzi, 1993). When a goal becomes active, tension arises based on the discrepancy between the current state and the desired state (Carver and Scheier, 1981). To reduce this discrepancy, cognitive resources - attention, information processing, knowledge, attitudes and motivation - are mobilized and directed, helping people identify feasible means (Janiszewski, 2008) and determine their value (Kruglanski et al., 2002), based on whether they are conducive or detrimental to the fulfillment of the active goals (Forster et al., 2007). This process constructs and reconstructs perceptions of value independently of pre-existing preferences (Custer and Aarts, 2005).\nThe master goals: The gain goal\nItem generation: The list of items was generated in a top-down fashion, following a careful reading of the literature on the three master goals and their possible sub-goals (Lindenberg, 2001a, 2001b, 2006; Lindenberg and Steg, 2007; Steg and Vlek, 2009), as well as similar concepts in the literature (Ajzen, 1991; Babin et al., 1994; Schwartz, 1977). Items were generated to cover key aspects of the master goals, while, at the same time, being nuanced enough to allow for the emergence of sub-goals, as described in goal framing theory (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007). For example, items dealing with saving money (e.g. \"Use your money in a frugal and price conscious way\"), improving one's economy (\"Maintain or improve your economy\"), as well as securing one's future needs (\"Use your money for something that you may need in the future [but perhaps not right now]\"), were generated to cover the gain goal. In a similar fashion, items on improving one's mood, seeking excitement and avoiding discomfort were generated to cover the hedonic goal, and items on appropriateness, moral obligations and social norms to cover the normative goal.\nStudy 1: The purpose of Study 1 was to explore the dimensionality of the three master goals. A total of 207 participants were recruited from a pool of voluntary research participants at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three consumption contexts, namely, food consumption, leisure time consumption and choice of savings and investments. These contexts were chosen as they represent different aspects of household consumption, and should therefore increase the generality of the emerging structure. The participants were e-mailed a link to the online questionnaire, in which their assigned context was introduced (e.g. \"Imagine that you're on the way to a grocery store to buy food and other necessary consumables. What would you buy, based on what you have or do not have at home right now?\"). The list of items was presented with the following question: \"When you decided how you would use your money, how important was it for you to [...]\", followed by the 36 items which made up the continuation of the question (e.g. \"Maintain or improve your economy\"). The perceived importance of the items was rated on a five-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all important) to 4 (very important).\nStudy 2: The purpose of Study 2 was to confirm the emergent five factor structure from Study 1. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on a new sample, consisting of a total of 255 participants, recruited from a pool of voluntary research participants at Karlstad University, Sweden. Convergent, discriminant and criterion-related validity of the five dimensions was also assessed.\nStudy 3: The purpose of Study 3 was to further test the convergent and discriminant validity of the dimensions, as well as to fully test the construct validity of the five dimensions. A total of 269 participants were recruited from a pool of voluntary research participants at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The participants were e-mailed a link to the online questionnaire, in which they were asked where they would like to travel, and what they would like to do at the destination, as if they were planning a vacation right now. The remainder of the questionnaire was divided into three parts, plus a follow-up questionnaire filled out approximately one week later. In the first part, the participants were asked to rate the importance of the items in the 27-item scale from Study 2 (Appendix 1) in relation to the described vacation travel context. Three one-item measures representing the three master goals (gain: \"Guard or improve your resources\"; hedonic \"Feel better right now\"; and normative \"Act appropriately\") were also included among the 27 items, and rated on the same scale. The purpose of these items was to assess the relationship between the five emergent dimensions and the original master goals as described in goal framing theory (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007).\nGeneral discussion: The aim of the present research was to explore the dimensionality of the three master goals described in goal-framing theory (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007), and, in doing so, develop an integrative and multi-dimensional measure of consumer goals. Five distinct dimensions emerged in Study 1, which could be confirmed in Study 2, and validated in Study 3.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of the present research is to explore the (multi-) dimensionality of the highly influential gain, hedonic and normative master goals. Despite being important drivers of consumer behavior, few attempts have been made to incorporate these goals into a single measure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Across three studies, the dimensionality of the gain, hedonic, and normative master goals are explored (Study 1), confirmed (Study 2) and validated (Study 3).\nFindings: A structure of five distinct sub-goals emerged, which were shown to be related to the original higher-order goals: thrift and safety (related to the gain goal), moral and social norms (related to the normative goal) and instant gratification (related to the hedonic goal). These five dimensions were shown to have satisfactory convergent, discriminant and construct validity.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present research shows that consumer motivation is multi-dimensional, and that a distinction should be made not only between higher-order utilitarian, hedonic and normative determinants but also between their corresponding sub-goals, such as social and moral norms. A multi-dimensional approach to consumer motivation should prove useful in standard marketing research, as well as in the segmentation of consumer groups, products and settings.\nOriginality/value: The emergent dimensions encompass a broad range of research, from economics and marketing, to social and environmental psychology, providing consumer researchers and practitioners alike a more nuanced and psychologically accurate view on consumer motivation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Board role performance and compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements among microfinance institutions in Uganda
|
[
"Board roles",
"IFRS disclosure requirements",
"Micro-finance institutions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) disclosure requirements has become widespread with 166 countries requiring listed companies to prepare financial reports based on the IFRS framework (IASB, 2019a). Among these countries is Uganda, where the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) adopted the IFRSs in 1998, and subsequently, other standards such as the IFRS for SMEs, International Standards on Auditing and International Public Sector Accounting Standards. The use of IFRSs has become imperative as they strengthen accountability and reduce the information gap between the providers of capital and the people to whom they have entrusted their money (IASB, 2019b). Empirical findings reveal that the use of IFRSs increases faithful representation, relevance of financial information, timely recognition of losses and reduces earnings management (Barth et al., 2008; Krismiaji et al., 2016). Additionally, Brochet et al. (2012) established that IFRS adoption reduces abnormal returns to insider purchases and increases the comparability of financial information leading to capital market benefits. It is, therefore, expected that the use of IFRSs by microfinance institutions (MFIs) increases the comparability of financial statements and improves disclosure of financial information thereby creating wider opportunities for access to capital.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Study setting\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Design and sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Discussion of findings: One of the objectives of this paper was to find out the currently performed board roles. Using XL STAT partial least squares, 8 out of 20 roles were confirmed. Findings from the questionnaire and interviews indicate that the main roles of the board broadly include monitoring management performance, recruitment of senior managers, providing linkages, establishing and approving policies and shaping and review of strategies. More so, in-depth explanations revealed that linkages expected from boards are skewed on the financing aspects while monitoring management performance is majorly based on key financial ratios and performance indicators, carried out mainly by the sub-committees of the board. Further, the board guides on the strategic direction and management develops a detailed strategic and work plan, later reviewed by the board. The success of the implementation of the strategy is based on the achievement of the expected performance indicators such as growth in savings, increase in membership, loan portfolio growth, etc.\n6. Summary and conclusion: The purpose of this study was twofold. First, to explore the perceived board roles. Second, to investigate the relationship between board role performance and compliance with IFRSs disclosure requirements. The performed roles of the board included monitoring management performance, recruitment of senior managers, providing linkages, establishing and approving policies and shaping and review of strategies. The results show that board role performance is significantly associated with compliance with IFRSs disclosure requirements. Further analysis also showed that among the board roles, only the control role that is associated with compliance with IFRSs disclosure requirements. Other roles such as the service and strategic role insignificantly contribute to compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. Among the control variables, size and membership to AMFIU were significantly associated with disclosure.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper was twofold. First, to explore the currently performed board roles. Second, to investigate the relationship between board role performance and compliance with international financial reporting standard (IFRS) disclosure requirements among microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Uganda.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a mixed methods research design. The relationship between board role performance and compliance with IFRSs requirements was tested using Partial Least Squares. Confirmatory Factory Analysis and interviews were conducted to establish the performed board roles.\nFindings: The findings suggest that among the known board roles of strategic, service and control, the control role is mostly performed. Results further suggest that board role performance is a significant predictor of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. In terms of control variables, MFI size and membership to the Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda were significant. Other control variables (liquidity, leverage and profitability) are not significantly associated with compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements.\nResearch limitations/implications: Compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements was based on one financial year owing to a lack of data for many years.\nPractical implications: The results are important for governing boards regarding improving compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. The results specifically suggest that MFIs' boards must focus on performing the control role if compliance with IFRS disclosures requirements is to improve.\nOriginality/value: This paper is original because it uses perceptions to measure board role performance, unlike previous studies that used proxies such as board size and proportion of non-executive directors to infer board role performance. The study also reveals that it is only the control role that is important in enhancing compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. Such evidence does not currently exist.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Rural community tourism and sustainable advantages in Nicaragua
|
[
"Developing countries",
"Resource-based theory",
"Sustainable tourism",
"Community life",
"Rural community tourism",
"Sustainable advantages"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The capacity of tourism to improve the living conditions of people has resulted in the emergence of new destinations all over the world, with a number of developing countries entering the tourism market recently (UNWTO, 2018). For many of these countries, rural tourism has become an important product, allowing the local communities to share their natural environments with tourists seeking for more authentic experiences (Chin et al., 2017). Tourism initiatives help rural communities to diversify their sources of income, creating new jobs and avoiding the flight of young people to urban areas (Mair, 2006). In this context, Central America continues to grow in popularity as a tourism destination because of cultural and natural attractions, biodiversity and affordability (Hunt et al., 2015). Nicaragua is becoming an attractive option in the region, with 1.8 million visitors and 18 per cent of growth rate in international arrivals in 2017 (LaVanchy, 2017; Usher and Kerstetter, 2014). Rural community tourism (RCT) is an experience of community-based tourism present in Nicaragua since more than two decades ago (Lopez-Guzman and Sanchez-Canizares, 2009). In RCT projects, the local population retains substantial control and capacity of decision over the tourism planning process (Razzaq et al., 2013; Inostroza, 2008). The current investigation focuses on the study of RCT experiences in Nicaragua with the objective of better understanding how this type of projects could help to consolidate a wider notion of sustainable tourism. The contribution to the literature comes from a number of sides.\n2. Theoretical framework and research: 2.1 Community-based tourism and sustainability\n3. Data issues and methodology: The research study focuses on the analysis of rural community tourism projects taking place in the West of Nicaragua. Following a directory of the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism (INTUR), a number of communities that actively engaged in this type of projects were selected to better understand the variables underlying these successful stories. A previous work of identification of the successful communities was carried out with the help of the governmental technicians and the community leaders. No other stakeholders participate in these RCT experiences, so these are the two main groups included in the study. Two departments were finally selected according to the relevance of their RCT projects and representativeness inside the country geography, namely, Leon and Chinandega (Figure 2). Other communities were identified in the country, although a deficient accessibility situation prevented to include them in the study. After initial direct interviews with the key agents, a questionnaire to gather data for the analysis was designed. At a first stage, a pilot work was conducted to identify the relevant indicators for the questionnaire while conducting a pilot test on their performance. As a result, minor modifications were made by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, removing a few redundant items based on non-significant factor loadings.\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Analysis of the measurement model\n5. Conclusions and implications: 5.1 Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Rural community tourism (RCT) represents an experience of community-based tourism where local population retains control over the process and the bulk of benefits. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the study of successful RCT experiences in Nicaragua to enlarge the literature of tourism sustainability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applying the resource-based theory of the firm to tourism, the paper defines a theoretical framework where local resources and capabilities combined through organization and strategic actions result in competitive advantages at the community level reinforcing its sustainable dimension. The model is tested empirically through Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) modelling for Nicaraguan RCT experiences.\nFindings: Main findings show a good performance of empirical results, with the community dimension representing the cornerstone of the RCT project. Results remark how the presence of community tangible and intangible resources and capabilities are combined and exploited in tourism initiatives through strategies that put the preservation of the community as the central objective. This process leads to the emergence of competitive advantages that promote the sustainability of the community lifestyle, ensuring a durable approach of the rural tourism initiatives. Other interesting findings show how this type of RCT projects also promote the integration of weak rural collectives, like women and young people, or the pivotal cooperation emerging between public and private actors.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a novel framework to better understand some of the key pieces ensuring the sustainability of tourism initiatives. This theoretical setting has been applied to the case of rural areas at developing countries but could be enlarged to other contexts at developed countries having to deal with mass tourism and important related negative impacts of these activities. In sum, the main value of the paper is to provide a framework helping to identify the context that is needed to implement successful sustainable tourism experiences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The capital structure dynamics of Malaysian firms: timing behavior vs adjustment toward the target
|
[
"Speed of adjustment",
"Dynamic capital structure",
"GMM system",
"Trade-off theory",
"Market timing theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Equity market timing and trade-off theories get an increasing interest in the capital structure literature for the entire last decade. Market timing theory (Baker and Wurgler, 2002) suggests that firms can recognize times of mispricing of their own stock and time their issuing (repurchasing) activity accordingly. In this theory, firms are indifferent toward any target leverage and no steady adjustment toward any target should be noticed. Instead, changes in leverage are largely dominated by successive timing activities. On the other hand, the trade-off theory includes a family of models, both static and dynamic, in which firms attempt to balance the advantages against the costs associated with borrowing by keeping the leverage ratio at a certain target level (Baxter, 1967; Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Leary and Roberts, 2005). In the dynamic version of trade-off theory, any deviation from the target leverage is costly and requires a quick action to adjust to the target.\n2. Background: Adjustment toward the target leverage is a behavior expected by a set of capital structure theories that assume the existence of a target leverage and that the deviation from the target is costly. Examples of these theories include trade-off theory (Baxter, 1967; Kraus and Litzenberger, 1973), agency theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976) and free cash flow theory (Jensen, 1986). Extant literature generally supports the existence of long-run target leverage and agrees on the notion that a typical firm adjust to that target gradually at a certain SOA but the magnitude of this SOA is not a settled issue (Frank and Goyal, 2007). Extreme finding of high SOA of about 80 percent yearly is found by De Miguel and Pindado (2001) while no adjustment is found by Baker and Wurgler (2002). Alti (2006) and Flannery and Rangan (2006) both documented a relatively rapid SOA which they interpreted in favor of trade-off theory. In contrast, Fama and French (2002) and Kayhan and Titman (2007) find only slow SOA which indicates that trade-off factors may be only secondary aspects in the capital structure decisions.\n3. Methodology: In this section, the empirical approach of this paper is discussed. This includes the discussion of variables, models, econometrics, and model diagnostics.\n4. Data: The data of this research include all firms available in Thomson Financial Worldscope Database[1] for the Malaysian market during the period of 1992-2009. Data before 1992 are often missing and hence, returning earlier than that year is not feasible. Financial firms are excluded since their capital structure reflects special regulations more than independent policy. Moreover, to reduce the effect of outliers, this research will follow Baker and Wurgler (2002) and Hovakimian (2006) in restricting the sample by excluding the firm-year observations where:\n5. Descriptive statistics: The descriptive statistics for the variables used in this research are presented in Table I. The mean, median, maximum, minimum, standard deviation and the number of observations for each variable are reported. Moreover, Figure 1 presents the evolution of the mean of the variables from year to year with the solid line. A one standard deviation interval is also presented with the dotted lines.\n6. Estimation results and discussion: 6.1 Trade-off vs timing motives\n7. Conclusions: Using an estimator that is found to be more efficient for estimating dynamic panel data with short time dimension, that is system GMM; this study reveals that Malaysian firms are adjusting their capital structure to the target but at a slow rate. At the same time, firms consider timing of the market conditions as an important factor when making financial decisions. This study finds evidence for asymmetric timing behavior as well as targeting behavior between firms over- and underleveraged. Specifically, overleveraged firms adjust to the target faster and they are less concern with timing. On the other side, underleveraged firms adjust slower but they consider timing more seriously. This behavior is likely to result from taking into account all the costs and benefits of being at the target, adjustment toward the target and timing opportunities. Deviating from the target to the upper side is likely to be more costly than deviating below the target because bankruptcy costs and agency costs of debt will intensify quickly as the firm deviates more above the target. Hence, overleveraged firms need to adjust faster to reduce these costs despite the market conditions. Underleveraged firms are less urged to adjust and hence it is feasible for them to consider market conditions more in their financing decisions. These results are confirmed in the short run as well as long run modeling.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the timing behavior and the adjustment toward the target of capital structure interact with each other in the capital structure decisions. Past literature finds that both timing and targeting are significant in determining the leverage ratio which is inconsistent with any standalone framework. This study argues that the preference of the firm for timing behavior or targeting behavior depends on the cost of deviation from the target. Since the cost of deviation from the target is likely to be asymmetric between overleveraged and underleveraged firms, the direction of the deviation from the target leverage is expected to alter the preference toward timing or targeting in the capital structure decision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used the GMM system estimators with the Malaysian data for the period of 1992-2009 to fit a standard partial adjustment model and to estimate the speed of adjustment (SOA) of capital structure.\nFindings: This study finds that Malaysian firms, on average, adjust their leverage at a slow speed of 12.7 percent annually and this rate increased to 14.2 percent when the timing variable is accounted for. Moreover, the SOA is found to be significantly higher and the timing role is lower for overleveraged firms compared with underleveraged firms. Overleveraged firms seem to find less flexibility to time the market as more pressure is exerted on them to return to the target regardless the timing opportunities because of the higher costs of deviation from the target leverage. Underleveraged firms place lower priority to rebalance toward the target compared with overleveraged firms as the costs of being underleveraged are lower and hence, these firms have more flexibility to time the market.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of this study support that firms consider both targeting and timing in their financing decisions. No standalone theory can interpret the full spectrum of empirical results. The empirical work is based on partial adjustment model of leverage; however, this model has been criticized by inability to distinguish between active adjustment behavior and mechanical mean reversion. This is an avenue for future research.\nOriginality/value: This study investigates if targeting and timing behaviors are mutually exclusive as theoretically expected or they can coexist. A theoretical explanation and an empirical investigation support the conclusion that firms consider both targeting and timing in their financing decisions. This study provides evidence from Malaysian firms that are characterized by concentrated ownership structure and separation of cash flow rights and control rights of the firm due to pyramid ownership structure. Therefore, it provides evidence on how environmental characteristics may affect the capital structure determinants of the firm.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Non-price competition in the US airline industry: a VAR model
|
[
"Airline industry",
"Flight delays",
"Passenger complaints",
"Quality competition",
"VAR model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Firms compete with one another in many ways. After price, product quality is arguably the most important aspect of competition. This is especially true in oligopolistic industries where competition is characterized by strategic interaction between firms. While price is relatively easy to observe, quality is more difficult to quantify in most industries. Using the major domestic airlines in the USA, this study quantifies the interactions between firms when setting product quality.\n2. A VAR model of non-price competition in the airline industry: n the case of the US airline industry, five carriers have a combined market share of 69.5 percent. Southwest has a market share of 16.9 percent while Delta's market share is 16.8 percent. The market shares of United, American, and US Airways, are 15.1, 12.4, and 8.3 percent, respectively[1]. This high degree of market concentration in the US airline industry has led researchers to examine price and non-price competition from both a theoretical and empirical viewpoint.\n3. Empirical findings: 3.1 Data description\n4. Conclusions: The number of passenger complaints against an airline can be influenced by the airline, as can the number of carrier-caused flight delays, but not without cost. Airlines can increase the size of their staff to help resolve passenger problems such as flight changes or missed flights and to reduce the amount of time taken to clean and maintain planes between landings and takeoffs. They can schedule preventative maintenance more regularly. Airlines can also reduce the number of tickets sold to avoid problems with overbooking.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which major US airlines respond to one another in quality of service improvements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Utilizing monthly data, the authors estimate a five-equation vector autoregressive model to determine which airline leads or follows others in quality of service improvements.\nFindings: This study found that the five major airlines make interrelated decisions when responding to customer complaints concerning flight problems, over-sales, reservations, ticketing, boarding, and customer service. Every airline either responds to or influences the changes in customer complaints faced by at least one other airline, while some airlines do both. However, only one such relationship was found when examining if airlines change the percent of flight delays they have control over in response to changes in flight delays faced by another airline.\nPractical implications: The number of passenger complaints against an airline can be influenced by the airline, as can the number of carrier-caused flight delays. The industry leaders in responsiveness to consumer complaints are US Airways and United. However, airlines do not, as a group, respond to the carrier-caused delays of their competitors. The prescription to improve airline service vis-a-vis flight delays is simple: tell passengers why flights are delayed. To protect or gain market share, airlines would compete for customers by minimizing flight delays in a similar manor to how they respond to customer complaints.\nOriginality/value: No other paper that the authors are aware of has addressed the issue of identifying leaders and followers in the US airline industry regarding changes in service quality as reflected by changes in passenger complaints and flight delays.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Where good ERP implementations go bad: a case for continuity
|
[
"Resource management",
"Change management",
"Technology‐led strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The implementation of a large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) system involves considerable process analysis and redesign, new work procedures, and employee retraining. Introducing new technology often requires departments and users to change their business processes. The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) undertook this type of dramatic change when it migrated from legacy business systems to an Oracle financial and HR ERP system. The magnitude of the change was significant, encompassing such transformations as organizational restructuring and the introduction of new procedures and technologies.\nBackground: An initiative to replace the computer systems for financial, procurement, and HR processes had been underway in the DISD since the fall of 1999. Using appropriate state and institutional criteria to identify qualified providers, the DISD replaced its legacy systems with an Oracle ERP solution. IBM was chosen to provide consulting services to implement Oracle's financials, procurement, human resources, and payroll applications.During the project implementation, the goal was migration from outdated legacy systems technology to a web-accessible database and application software technology. Changing the district's business technology was at the center of the project's mission (Frantz et al., 2002). Thus, for the participants in the initial stages of the implementation, understanding and describing the old technology was as important as embracing and learning the new technology. Although the technological tools were at the core of the transition, the entire business culture of the district changed, as well (Hamel, 2000).During the 17-month HR/finance ERP system implementation, the union of goals for the K-12 school and for the financial, HR, technology and administrative staff proved difficult because academic departments and more business-oriented entities typically work with different operational goals. School business operations have the bottom line as their goal (i.e. reducing costs in order to balance the annual budget), while the educational mission centers on insuring that all students will attend and graduate from school (Picus and Blair, 2004). Although different at a superficial level, the similarities are significant when the idea of return-on-investment is included. The continued monitoring of the expenditure of budgeted funds creates a need for accountability at every level of an educational institution (Bushweller, 2000). The implementation of the Oracle HR/finance system was seen by the district's administration as a major objective in the goal of improving fiscal accountability and greater operational efficiency.The changes in business practices and culture of the DISD were significant. The change management, communication, and training components of the ERP system's implementation plan would provide numerous challenges (Pare, 2001). The complexity and depth were epitomized by the necessity of training more than 1,200 employees to use a web-based system. According to user survey responses just prior to the implementation, only 60 percent of the DISD employees dedicated to business system tasks responded that they regularly used the internet. Meeting the implementation timetable for financial systems and the HR and payroll applications also presented opportunities in overcoming numerous hurdles.Despite these challenges, the DISD Oracle HR/finance system was fully implemented on schedule and was considered by the district administration at the time to be a milestone for technical system and business environment change processes. Yet, many ongoing issues, as evident from post-implementation survey responses and results, still exist. While change initiatives can be imposed by the administration in a public school district, such change will not necessarily be accepted or instituted by those most affected or most responsible for the overall success of the implementation (Senge et al., 1999).According to the analysis of the post-implementation concerns questionnaire results, the DISD employees expressed specific concerns about a lack of information regarding the post-implementation business continuity processes and the functionality of the system itself. By gaining additional insight and a better understanding of the concerns of DISD employees in relation to the Oracle system's ongoing use, district administration should use the information to assist in developing and applying appropriate continuity planning and intervention where and when required (Drucker, 1999).\nEmployees' concerns questionnaire responses: To address the DISD employees' post-implementation and system use concerns, the following question summarized the researcher's goal: what other issues or concerns are seen as significant to the selected DISD administrative and clerical employees, as determined by the responses to the open-ended question section of the SoCQ?For this analysis, the researcher compiled the responses to the \"Additional Comments\" criteria voluntarily provided by participants on the last section of the SoCQ. The researcher compared responses for similarities and trends, then compiled a frequency of responses table for each identified criteria and performed a comparative analysis.Responses to the open-ended Additional Comments section of the SoCQ provide a subjective qualitative assessment of employees' concerns. Responses were sorted and categorized as falling into one of the following five areas of concern: system, application, training, time, and expression of generalized negativity and dissatisfaction towards the system. This qualitative analysis and subsequent interpretation of the responses overall provided an opportunity for the researcher to further comprehend other quantitative SoCQ data derived.According to SoCQ guidelines (Hall et al., 1998), a section labeled \"Additional Comments\" was incorporated in the survey to obtain voluntary, open-ended responses. For this section, the following statement was intended to solicit personal concerns and issues from the subjects other than those identified in the standard SoCQ questions:Please take this opportunity to voice any additional comments. Your comments may refer to any item on the questionnaire or any other issue or concern you may have regarding the DISD Financial and HR system and its implementation.A total of 68 of the total survey respondents provided responses to this section of the SoCQ. Since categorization by location or job responsibility was not a key demographic component for these responses, all contributed comments were considered. Overall, the survey responses indicated that respondents had significant concerns regardless of location or job category, and that most of the concerns or issues stated indicated problems directly related to the system and its processes, and not to unrelated work environment issues.Some subjects provided multiple comments, and all responses were included in answering this research question. The comments were organized into five categories: system issues (23); application issues (20); training issues (11); time issues (7); and generally negative comments, with no specific issue mentioned (7). Table I provides a summary of responses to the open-ended opportunity for comments, grouped by the identified categories.System issues\nFindings: RQ1. What other issues or concerns are seen as significant to the selected DISD administrative and clerical employees, as determined by the responses to the open-ended question section of the SoCQ?The findings for the RQ1 is summarized as follows:* A total of 68 of the total survey respondents contributed to the open-ended section of the SoCQ.* Responses were organized into five categories: system issues; application issues; training issues; time issues; and generally negative comments, with no specific issue mentioned.* A total of 23 of the 68 (34 percent) responses to the open-ended section indicated that the greatest concerns were in the system issues category.* A total of 20 of the 68 (30 percent) responses focused on application issues.* Nine respondents indicated concerns about training received or not received during and after the implementation (13 percent).* Seven respondents (10 percent) were critical of the time required to use the system.* Seven respondents' (10 percent) primary concern reflected skepticism about the district management's ability to manage the HR/finance system.A total of 43 of the 68 comments indicated the user was concerned with a lack of understanding or appropriate information in regards to the system or its use. The 11 responses indicating training or a lack of training as a primary concern also reveal a need for information and better understanding. The remaining 14 of the 68 comments focusing on the impact of the systems' implementation on the individual's time or generally negative responses indicate a level of concern with personal issues.The common threads running through the 68 open-ended comments received from the employees' surveyed were that a lack of information contributed to the employees' reluctance to embrace the use of this system and attitudes towards the system and its implementation were generally negative in regards to its value and potential benefits. Frequent concerns expressed in the comments centered on system availability and that individual employees at the campuses and departments would be ultimately held responsible for the tasks and processes made more difficult by system glitches and downtime, regardless of the system's operability in accomplishing their assigned tasks. Concerns in the comments also focused on what the individuals' considered to be a lack of responsiveness to user difficulties by the business systems' staff. Employees generally expressed what they perceived as a lack of support on behalf of district management in assisting their understanding and implementation of the system.In the subjective interpretation of the open-ended comment component of the SoCQ, DISD employees indicated a certain amount of resistance to the acceptance and use of the district's HR/finance system due to the perceived failure of the district administration to adequately inform and train them on the system's use after the system's initial implementation.\nConclusions: Based on the findings, the following conclusions were drawn:1. The SoCQ profiles generated categorized DISD ERP system users/employees as a nonuser group with a pervasive negative opinion and a tendency of resistance towards the ongoing HR/finance system implementation. It is therefore imperative that the DISD administration take steps to increase communication between the departments responsible for the implementation, actively seek input from system users on an ongoing basis, and provide opportunities such as training and informational Q&A sessions to improve the availability of information to system users.2. Since the DISD did not have a post-implementation plan, efforts to understand and maximize the system's capabilities were fragmented and had no formal support from district administration. Instead, each department or individual employee worked independently to increase the effectiveness of business processes through use of the system's technology. Employees surveyed did not fully understand the changes, threatening the long-range success of the system. The DISD administration should immediately undertake the development of a comprehensive post-implementation plan for the HR/finance system, in collaboration with all system users and stakeholders' input.3. Multiple factors in the DISD contributed to the generally negative attitudes and perceptions of DISD core user employees toward the implementation of the Oracle HR/finance system. These factors were identified as:* A lack of appropriate information and training in preparing employees for the system and process changes after the system's deployment.* The perceived instability and uncertainty in regards to employees' job responsibilities associated with the system implementation.* A lack of trust in the district administration's commitment to adequately support the employees during the implementation.Based on these conclusions, the DISD administration should develop a multi-faceted approach to disseminating information about the Oracle HR/finance system and its implementation in a timely manner; provide opportunities and resources for training; and create a blueprint for the ongoing implementation of the system, including employees' specific roles and responsibilities in the system's processes and workflow, with identified support resources at all levels.\nRecommendations: The following recommendations consist of prescribed activities or actions intended to result in desirable outcomes, based on the research findings presented. The primary objective of these recommendations is to enhance the ongoing implementation of the Oracle financial and HR System in the DISD. In order to achieve this objective, three general recommendations are made to the administration at the DISD. These recommendations were determined by an analysis of the data from the SoCQ and by a review of best practices regarding the implementation of ERP systems, change management theories, and CBAM interventions in various environments.Based on the results of the study, the recommended guidelines were developed in the areas of:* communication;* training; and* implementation management.Recommendation 1: communication\nSummary of recommendations: The recommended guidelines are summarized as follows:Recommended guideline 1: communications\nSummary: This research indicates that the DISD employees' negative bias about the use of the Oracle HR/finance system does not stem from localized and administrative issues but, rather, mostly on technical and non-technical issues regarding the implementation and post-implementation factors. As of this study, the district had yet to develop a viable change control policy for the ongoing development of the HR/finance system, which continuously requires upgrades and technical \"patching,\" often altering what the user sees and does. Since many of the HR/finance system applications are used by more than one department, the policy should come from the DISD administrative leadership and should be developed in a collaborative environment with active participation from all departments and campuses, i.e. the stakeholders in the system's effective use.Such a policy, and its consistent application, is critical to the success of the ongoing implementation and deployment, and may well shape the future of not only the technology and business departments, who are directly responsible for implementing any changes to the system, but also associated user training in the district. In addition to the general alignment of appropriate responsibilities and roles, the policy should include the establishment of a disciplined, prescribed approach to managing changes to protocols and system configuration procedures.Once the change control policy for the HR/finance system is approved and disseminated, a newly revised implementation/deployment plan should quickly follow, consisting of a flexible, frequently reviewed plan to address issues regarding changes to the Oracle database and applications. In addition to the district's business and technology departments, key stakeholders in the process, the school campuses and other end-user departments, should routinely provide input regarding ongoing training needs and user concerns in adopting changes to the system. To achieve maximum user buy-in and effectiveness, the DISD post-implementation plan for the business systems should not be produced in relative isolation, but in a collaborative and openly communicative environment, based on an actual needs assessment. The critical nature of the implementation plan requires stakeholder consideration in the developmental process.Therefore, understanding the impact of such potentially significant change by measuring a user community's overall perception and level of use is a key component in facilitating the DISD's proactive monitoring of users' progress. Introducing appropriate intervention strategies based on this understanding will enhance the ongoing deployment of the district's HR/finance system, and can also provide guidance for future implementations in similar organizational and institutional environments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine the concerns of administrative and clerical employees towards a web-based business system and associated training which were not identified either before or during an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. Post-implementation analyses revealed that while an implementation can be deemed a success immediately following go-live dates, long-term planning is essential to maintain change management continuity for administrators and employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The stages of concern component of the concerns-based adoption model offered a method of analysis of the Dallas, Texas, Independent School District's employees to identify the perceptions and levels of acceptance of the users in regards to the implementation of an ERP system in a public school district.\nFindings: - The findings for the research questions assisted in interpreting and categorizing the responses to the open-ended portion of the stages of concern questionnaire; and providing recommended guidelines for future ERP implementations in similar environments.\nPractical implications: - The paper shows how leaders in an organization must understand the employees' perceptions of the changes taking place in an ERP implementation and post-implementation. Based on the findings, a summary, conclusion, and recommendations for further research are provided to assist K-12 districts in planning for ERP implementations.\nOriginality/value: - The significance of this study encompasses the impact of the integration of new technology with various associated people, processes, and systems. Understanding the impact of such potentially significant change by measuring a user community's overall perception and level of acceptance is a key component in providing guidance for future implementations in similar organizational and institutional environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Socio-economic factors determining adult literacy in developing countries
|
[
"Literacy",
"Adults",
"Developing countries",
"Social economics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Adult literacy is a crucial life skill, which enables individuals to participate more fully in the practices of their community. However, there are dramatic differences in literacy levels observed around the world, such as between developed and developing countries and between males and females. In fact, literacy level of a country or a society or a group of people is assumed to reflect the quality of human capital of the country or society or group of people. Literacy is accepted as an indispensable component of human development. Illiteracy or the absence of literacy is considered as the greatest impediment to human development.Literacy acts in a number of ways. It has been observed that where literacy rates are higher, population growth rates are low, making economic growth faster even with limited resources. Literacy makes the task of social transformation relatively easier. Diversification of economic activities opens up new opportunities of gainful employment, but it is possible only if the prospective employees are literate. More and better education is a prerequisite for rapid economic development around the world. Education stimulates economic growth and improves people's lives through many channels: by increasing the efficiency of the labor force, by fostering democracy (Barro, 1996) and thus creating better conditions for good governance, by improving health, by enhancing equality (Agnihon et al., 1999) and so on. Therefore, an attempt to find the factors behind adult literacy is of importance not only as a constituent indicator of human development index, but also through its various contributions towards economic growth. In this context we discuss a few background alternative theories.There are several alternative explanations of cross-national variation in quality of life. Consequently there arose a number of theories. These include modernization theory, dependency/world systems theory, developmental state theory and new human ecology theory. We consider these theories for analyzing determining factors behind adult literacy. We also take into account convergence-divergence theory as an explanation of adult literacy. The following few paragraphs provide a brief account of the above-mentioned theories.Modernization theory\nData and sample: The Human Development Report (UNDP, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002) divides the countries of the world into three broad groups: high human development (which consists of countries having a human development index above 0.800), medium human development (which consists of countries with human development index between 0.500 and 0.799) and low human development (which consists of countries with a human development index below 0.499). Our sample comprises of 56 countries belonging to the last two groups, having a human development index below 0.800 in 1999. The sample has been drawn from all regions over the world. It excludes only little countries because in those countries most of the data are based on extremely little primary data. Most of the data have been collected from Human Development Report 2001 (UNDP, 2001). Different previous issues of the same publication are also used to collect data. Some data are taken from different issues of the World Development Reports and different editions of the World Tables (World Bank, 1992, 1993, 2001). The data set includes ADL99 and nine explanatory variables for the countries for which data are available for 1999. The initial period is taken as 1975.\nMethod of analysis: This study assumes that the adult literacy rate is a function of the eight (including lagged variables) explanatory variables as mentioned in the previous section. Ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression equation of the following form has been estimated. The basic equation presenting the relation between ADLI99 and the determining variables is as follows:Equation 1We estimate equation 1 for the FULL sample as well as for MHD and LHD samples.All of the eight predictor variables do not have significant coefficients for any of the sample. Therefore, for the purpose of analysis a question of choice of variables for each of the sample arises. In this respect, the best procedure involves in fitting all possible subset of equations to a given body of data. With q variables the total number of equations required to be fitted is 2q (including an equation that contains all the variables and another that contains no variable). This method clearly gives an analyst the maximum amount of information available concerning the nature of relationships between the dependent variable (Y) and the set of explanatory variables (Xs). However, the number of equations and the supplementary information that must be looked at may be prohibitively large. An efficient way of using the results from fitting all possible equations is to pick out the three \"best\" equations containing a specific number of variables. But when the number of variables is large, the evaluation of all possible equations may not be perfectly feasible. In this particular case the number of equations to be computed and to be analyzed is 28 for each of the five kinds of samples (i.e. 5 x 28 equations). Therefore, in order to find out the determinants of ADLI99 for each sample, we have to think of some other appropriate method. Backward elimination procedure has been tried in this study. This procedure starts with the full equation and successively drops one variable at a time. The variables are dropped on the basis of their contribution to the reduction of error sum of squares. The first variable deleted is the one with the smallest contribution to the reduction of error sum of squares. This is equivalent to deleting the variable, which has the smallest t-ratio in the equation. If all the t-tests are significant, the full set of variables is retained in the equation. Assuming that there is one or more variables having insignificant t-ratios, the procedure operates by dropping the variable with the smallest insignificant t-ratio. The equation with remaining variables is then fitted and the t-tests for new regression coefficients are examined. The procedure is terminated when all the t-tests are significant or all variables have been deleted. Accordingly for different samples we end with different sets of variables having all coefficients significant.\nResults and discussions: Results have been discussed in three parts for three types of samples: FULL, MHD and LHD.FULL sample\nSalient features of the results: First, results of determinants of adult literacy for all types of samples shed light on the importance of the initial level of adult literacy (ADLI75) and population growth over the period (POP75-99) (see Table X).Second, short-term economic growth (PCGDPGR90-99) has a significant positive impact on ADLI99 in case of full sample, medium human development and non-high human development samples.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study attempts to find the socio-economic factors behind the differential achievement level in adult literacy in developing countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Considers a number of theories. These include modernization theory, dependency/world systems theory, developmental state theory, new human ecology theory and convergence-divergence theory as an explanation of the differential level of adult literacy rate.\nFindings: - The findings reveal the importance of the initial level of adult literacy and the population growth. Similarly short-term economic growth has a significant impact on the initial level of adult literacy, and the medium human development and low human development samples\nOriginality/value: - This attempt to find the factors behind adult literacy is of importance not only as a constituent indicator of the human development index, but also through its various contributions towards economic growth.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Collaborative learning methods and multimedia tools for the education and training of instructors: The case of FIFA referee technical instructors
|
[
"VAR",
"Collaborative learning",
"FIFA",
"Interactive multimedia",
"Learning platform",
"Soccer refereeing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and state of the art: In recent years, collaborative learning, motivated mainly by the paradigm of social constructivism, has been extended as a way to optimize learning by using technologies designed to foster interaction between students and enhance knowledge construction resulting from their collective activity. Social constructivism (Vygotsky, 2000) states that culture and context influence the building up of knowledge, understanding the learning process not as a single internal process but as the result of a social interrelation of people who share, compare and discuss ideas. Through these social interactions, knowledge is incorporated (or internalized) into the mental system of each individual. Knowledge, thus, cannot be taught but only learned (or constructed) (Candy, 1991). Constructivism holds that interactive activities in which learners play active roles can engage and motivate learning more effectively than activities where learners are passive (Zhang et al., 2006). For some researchers constructivism has become a philosophy that supports values such as collaboration, reflectivity, active engagement and pluralism (Lebow, 1993).\nMaterial and method: Interactive multimedia tools\nProcedure: A qualitative research design consisting of group discussion was adopted in the present study. During the courses, each group had a room and a coordinator who assumed tasks related to the moderation of the interventions in the group, handled the presentation of the learning resources during the group work, and managed the time allotted for that group. Finally, the coordinators of the groups compiled their decisions and transferred the general conclusions to the overall coordinator for each course.\nResults and discussion: In this work, the collaborative learning activities carried out by elite FIFA referee technical instructors from the six FIFA confederations are analyzed. These activities, based on \"learning by doing\" were carried out using different interactive multimedia teaching materials created by FIFA.\nConclusions: The marked presence of elite instructors, referees and assistant referees in international media has prompted an increase in the commitment toward the design of learning tools and methodologies that allow criteria to be unified and a consensus to be established for decision making on the field of play. The importance of uniformity in decision making is much more important and necessary now with the approval of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in March of 2018, where off-of field review is made by officials who are analyzing live soccer matches. In this sense, the advances provided by the new technologies have been used by this community to extend their learning activities beyond traditional training in the field.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new collaborative learning methods and tools used by elite FIFA referee technical instructors, referees and assistant referees to master the Laws of the Game. These tools allow instructors to learn through practical exercises off the field of play, while they carry out activities in a participative context in which they can share and improve their knowledge regarding the Laws of the Game and consequently the interpretations and the considerations soccer referees throughout the world use to make decisions on the field of play.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this work, we assess a collaborative learning experience that took place during the annual FIFA FUTURO III courses that FIFA provided to FIFA referee technical instructors from its six confederations between 2013 and 2015, where 48 referee technical instructors selected from 211 national associations participated. These instructors constitute the elite of FIFA's professional training and development chain. They teach other referee technical instructors who will then instruct international referees and assistant referees all over the world with the aim of achieving uniformity when applying the Laws of the Game.\nFindings: The course participants showed a high degree of satisfaction with respect to these materials and methods, especially regarding the possibilities they offer for organizing group discussions and for \"learning by doing,\" and a lack of skills in ICT management has been detected for some participants, who have shown a willingness and interest to improve their skills in this field.\nResearch limitations/implications: The training and education of soccer referees is one of the most heterogeneous training processes in the world. This complex task is even more difficult because of the growing demand for video technology in referee decision making where successful teamwork requires a high level of communication and agreement among its members.\nPractical implications: With 211 associations, FIFA is one of the largest organizations in the world. In international competitions such as the FIFA World Cup, the referees' decisions are analyzed by media, thousands of fans and millions of viewers. Preparing new professionals for match analysis, interpretation of Laws of the Game and working in a team is a priority for FIFA and the world of soccer.\nOriginality/value: It is the first time that collaborative learning methods are used with interactive multimedia tools that facilitate collaborative work in the training environment of soccer referee instructors, international soccer referees and assistant referees. This paper establishes a basis and a reference for future research on the effectiveness of the new collaborative technologies used by FIFA for the training of international referees and assistant referees in general.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The everyday life information seeking behaviours of first-time mothers
|
[
"Social interaction",
"UK",
"Healthcare",
"Parenting",
"Information seeking behaviour",
"Information services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Becoming a mother is a major life event which affects a woman's concept of identity, and in relation, her self-perceived information needs which grow significantly alongside her new responsibilities (McKellar et al., 2009; Hjalmhult and Lomborg, 2012). Particularly heavy demands are placed upon first-time mothers, who are more prone to post-natal depression than multiparous women (Leahy Warren, 2005).\n2. Related work: McKenzie (2002, 2003) conducted a series of interviews with 19 Canadian women aged 19-40 pregnant with twins, and one-third existing mothers; with a particular interest in practitioner-patient communication. McKenzie reports that \"typical\" accounts of mothers' information seeking presented \"a saga of active, incidental and serendipitous information practices being repeatedly foiled by barriers\" (McKenzie, 2003, p. 23). Barriers reported include instances of failing to \"connect\", non-disclosure or evasiveness, and hesitant question and answers sessions (McKenzie, 2002). McKenzie (2002) states that mothers' information seeking may be shaped by wariness of how the act may be construed by others' ideas of \"when and how [mothers] should and should not ask questions\" (p. 37). However, few concrete examples of this effect and how it may inhibit information seeking are provided. Furthermore, McKenzie (2003) cautions that certain elements of her work may not be applicable to other experiences of motherhood since they are bound to the \"physical characteristics and social meaning of multiple pregnancy\" (p. 37), and a participant group \"older and better educated than average\" (p. 23).\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Background context - post-natal support in the UK\n4. Findings: 4.1. Sample and demographics\n5. Discussion: 5.1. Information needs and source preferences\n6. Limitations: Similar to previous studies (e.g. McKenzie, 2002; Fisher and Landry, 2007), mothers in this study were older and well-educated. While gatekeepers highlighted concerns regarding isolation, stress and information literacy, it is notable that the mothers themselves did not report such issues to any significant degree. This would suggest there may have been local mothers experiencing significant information barriers, who were not actively engaged with support groups or services, and whose information needs and seeking preferences have not yet been fully identified.\n7. Conclusions: In the first year of their infants' lives, mothers' information needs are multiple, interrelated, and at times difficult to distinguish from one another. Their accounts contain instances of confusion, tension, conflict and information overload. They place significant importance on the experiential nature of information received from other mothers and family, and in relation, a support group where they feel welcomed and accepted.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the everyday life information seeking behaviours of first-time mothers, as they encounter new, significant and pressing information needs which arise alongside their new responsibilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach combined narrative interviews with participatory methods to facilitate engagement and remain sensitive to the social context.\nFindings: Mothers particularly valued the experiential nature of information received from peers or family members. However, fear of judgement influenced their use of interpersonal sources, both on- and off-line. Their accounts of information seeking contained instances of confusion, tension, conflict and information overload. Feeling under pressure to be \"good mothers\", they withheld information needs from others, including healthcare professionals.\nResearch limitations/implications: There was a notable absence of younger (\nPractical implications: The findings show how social support groups can mitigate for societal pressures which impact upon mothers' information behaviour, allowing them to connect and share information within a trusted environment. The study highlights the importance of healthcare and information services professionals remaining sensitive to such pressures. Relatedly, the finding that public libraries are used very little has implications for audience engagement and service provision.\nOriginality/value: Focused upon first-time mothers' information behaviours during the early stages of parenthood, the study provides insight into how relationships and experiences with others influence information seeking behaviours. It provides evidence that fear of judgement can influence information seeking behaviour, helping us to understand why some information sources, although considered important and useful, can be used very little.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Tracking the Covid zones through geo-fencing technique
|
[
"Geo-fencing",
"Covid",
"Mobile network",
"Pandemic",
"Monitor",
"Alert"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Geo-fence denotes the virtual perimeter with a predefined set of boundaries in a geographical area. It is widely used in location-based services and it is called geo-fencing technique. It is widely used in Android and IOS systems. Because of the rapid growth and advancement in mobile technologies, geo-fencing has penetrated in many domains and has been applied in various scientific and social applications. It is generally used to monitor human beings or a device that enters a particular geographical area. Active geo-fencing technique is applied in smartphone applications to track various location-based services. Passive fencing depends on internet connectivity either through Wi-Fi or cellular mode and is used in services and applications that always work in background. Few real-time applications of geo-fencing are location tracking, child monitoring, traffic monitoring and also it is used in drone monitoring and human resource monitoring and location-based marketing.\n2. Related works: Dabh (2016) had elaborated about the meaning, applications and the ways of using geo-fencing technique. This provides a clear understanding about the concept of geo-fencing to the readers. Rahate and Shaikh (2016) had described about the geo-fencing technology and its working methodology. The design of mobile clients was explained well by the authors. Karim and Singh (2013) had designed an embedded system for vehicles to detect road accidents quickly. Shock sensors and liquid crystal displays were used for efficient functioning of the system. Mohite et al. (2016) had used sentiment analysis to monitor the user's location. Mobile is used as a thin client to locate itself in a geo-fence. Apart from identifying the user's location the system also helps to notify about the activities to be done by the user at a specific location.\n3. Methodology: The workflow of the proposed methodology is explained in nine steps and is shown in Figure 1. It shows the various processes that will be carried out to track the Covid zones using geo-fencing technology. The various steps followed in implementing this methodology in developing an application is shown in Figure 1 and is explained in the following section.\n4. Results and discussions: In the application-tracking module, the Covid team can request the service operator for the updates. The Covid team has to enter the mobile number of the suspect and the required date of tracking, then request the service operator for the updates. The functioning of the tracking module is shown in Figure 3. The service operator has to process the request updates. The location of the network towers will be displayed after the processing. The display of network operators is shown in Figure 4. Then the required region can be geo-fenced by the Covid team by calculating the time interval between the two locations and can fix the range of spread. The Covid team can track the new suspects for the communal spread with the help of mobile network service operators. Once the suspects are tracked, then alert boundaries are fenced and the range possible suspects can be tracked by having the list of active mobile users in the particular geo-fenced area. The geo-fence is illustrated in Figure 5.\n5. Conclusion: The proposed methodologies will be an effective way to track the Covid's communal spread. But the workflow of the system demands the required data sets and permission in legal manner to set up the environment that maintains the constitutional law and order in practice. The application developed was a prototype to display how it works if the required data sets are provided by the government. There are several tracking models that are released across the world such as Aarogya setu (India), Trace together (Singapore) and Hagmen (Israel). All these models are based on Bluetooth proximity identification; though Bluetooth proximity identification is helpful for high range in a short distance, the privacy concern is a debatable one. Using modern technology, it is so easy to crack the individual gadgets and with Bluetooth enabling, it makes things even worse. Thus, it is important to maintain the tracking a safer and secure one and another issue with those Bluetooth-based applications is that tracking can be done only if the user enabled the Bluetooth option, if not the entire functioning would become a mess. The proposed methodology of tracking without Bluetooth will ensure data security also.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Because of the outbreak of Covid 19, the entire world is thinking of new strategies, preventive measures to safeguard the human life from the widespread of the pandemic. The areas where people are affected are marked as containment zones and people are not allowed to exit out of those areas. Similarly, new people are not allowed to enter inside those areas. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to track the Covid zones, to enhance and tighten the security measures. A geo-fence is created for the containment zone. The person who enters or exits out of that particular zone will be monitored and alert message will be sent to that person's mobile.\nDesign/methodology/approach: After tracking the location of a suspicious individual, the geo-fenced layer is mapped in the area and then the virtual perimeter is used for further trapping process. This geo-fenced layer can be viewed by the citizens as soon as it is updated by the Covid monitoring team. The geo-fencing is a concept of building a virtual perimeter area. This virtual perimeter monitoring system helps in monitoring the containment zones effectively. It reduces operational costs by using an automated system based on wireless infrastructure. It also alerts the authorities immediately to catch the violators. Thus, it helps to speed up the process of inspecting the containment zones and monitoring the individuals who violate the rules given by government.\nFindings: The proposed methodologies will be an effective way to track the Covid's communal spread. But the workflow of the system demands the required data sets and permission in legal manner to set up the environment that maintains the constitutional law and order in practice. The application developed was a prototype to display how it works if the required data sets are provided by the government. There are several tracking models that are released across the world such as Aarogya setu (India), Trace together (Singapore) and Hagmen (Israel). All these models are based on Bluetooth proximity identification; though Bluetooth proximity identification is helpful for high range in a short distance, the privacy concern is debatable one. Using modern technology, it is so easy to crack the individual gadgets and with Bluetooth enabling it makes things even worse. Thus, it is important to maintain the tracking a safer and secure one, and another issue with those Bluetooth-based applications is that tracking can be done only if the user enabled the Bluetooth option, if not the entire functioning would become a mess. The proposed methodology of tracking without Bluetooth will ensure data security also.\nOriginality/value: This was developed as a project by our third-year students of the Department of Information Technology of our college.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Skill mapping for blue-collar employees and organisational performance: A qualitative assessment
|
[
"Defects",
"Quality",
"Blue-collar employee"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The focus of human resource (HR) management has shifted from recruitment, selection, induction, training and calculation of salary to developing key policies that facilitate in implementing the business strategies in an effective manner. In the current scenario, the HR department aims at working on improving the skill level of the employees by offering a favorable and conducive work environment that provides the employees to take part in planning and decision making in an organization. On the whole, the key activities of HR need to be focused on regularly upgrading the skill level of the workers by understanding their professional needs and by increasing the level of their motivation. So skill mapping becomes an important part in a manufacturing organization. Both skill mapping and fair performance appraisal is the need of the hour due to increasing competition and is vital for a manufacturing organization to achieve higher organizational performance. Performance appraisal is a set of parameters that are employed to measure the performance of employees. The implementation of such tools facilitates an organization to ensure higher levels of engagement among the workers, which as a result will assist to ensure higher organizational performance.\n2. Problem statement: Based on the detailed introduction of each concept, it is evident that the performance management system is a much-evolved concept and most of the companies are using the same for white-collar employees. However, employees in blue-collar segment generally remain out of the purview of structured performance management system. Another fact that is evident is the structured skill mapping process has a positive correlation with organization performance. In addition, the skill mapping system which provides an objective understanding of worker's skill level also helps in driving structured capability programs for the workers. A formal and structure performance system clubbed with a robust skill mapping will help in improving the company's performance on key indicators. Several studies are done on measuring the performance of an organization and the white-collar employees (Propper and Wilson, 2003; Said et al., 2003), however, a few studies are found with blue-collar employees as target. This is a crucial question which needs to be addressed despite the fact that in most of the studies, a lot of importance has been placed on accurate measurements of organizational performance.\n3. Rationale of the study: The present study is of interest to researchers who are trying to understand the system for skill mapping and utilization of appraisal inputs in improving organizational performance. This study is also expected to be of interest to HR managers and organizations employing blue-collar employees in large numbers and workers play an important role in driving productivity and efficiencies. Most of the companies have evolved appraisal and skill mapping for white-collar workers but not for blue-collar employees. Previous studies also indicate that blue-collar employees are not studied by the researchers during the past several years (Mcleod et al., 2012; Nielsen and Abildgaard, 2012; Strandholm et al., 2013). The present study will focus on understanding the ideal system for evaluation of the skill mapping of blue-collar employees and its impact on the organizational performance. The key research questions which will be addressed in the study are:\n4. Objectives of the study: The purpose of the paper is to understand the skill mapping process for the blue-collar employees in a manufacturing organization and its relationship with the organizational performance. The major objectives of the study are as follows:\n5. Literature review and research framework: An important aspect while examining the linkage of skill mapping and organizational performance is to develop a robust theoretical basis that enables the study to develop the hypothesis. While doing so, initially there is a need to clarify the concept of skill mapping and organizational performance.\n6. Research methodology: The aim of the study is to explore the skill mapping process for the blue-collar employees in a manufacturing organization as a case study approach and its influence on the organizational performance. The following hypotheses are formulated.\n7. Results and discussions: H1. The performance appraisal has a role in identifying development inputs.\n8. Conclusion: The role of the supervisor in appraisal and skill mapping is very important in the whole process. The supervisor ascertains the training needs of each individual for his/her development. Moreover, during the year, the supervisor also provides functional training to the blue-collar employees to fulfill their training need and improve their performance.\n9. Recommendations: Based on the conclusion drawn, the following recommendations are provided:\n10. Implications of research: The present study is of interest to researchers who are trying to understand the system for skill mapping and utilization of appraisal inputs in improving organizational performance. The present research also validates the goal setting theory and this theory best compliments the concept of appraisal, skill mapping and organizational performance. This is because the goals are the performance benchmarks to which the individuals and the organizations have agreed upon. The setting of a goal that is both specific and challenging leads to an increase in performance because it makes clear to the individual what he is supposed to do. This in turn may provide the blue-collar employees with a sense of achievement, recognition and commitment in that he can compare how well he is doing now vs how well he has done in the past and in some instances, how well he is doing in comparison to others. Thus, the worker is not only incited to expend greater effort, but he may devise better or more creative tactics for attaining the goal. This may reflect in the performance of an organization.\n11. Limitations and future scope: The study has been conducted to evaluate the skill mapping process for the blue-collar employees and its impact on organization's performance, hence the findings of the study may not be applicable to other categories of employees. This is one major limitation of the study. Also, some of the findings are based on the interview method and hence depend entirely on the perception of people being interviewed especially on some observations. The future researchers are encouraged to do a similar study by taking into account different companies in the manufacturing industry and also should consider other segments of the employees such as white-collar employees.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the skill mapping process in a manufacturing organization and to examine its relationship with the select performance indicators, such as quality and defects. This paper also explores the role of the supervisor in the whole process of skill mapping of the blue-collar employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a case-based approach and the company selected is Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Swaraj Division, located in Phase 4, Industrial Area, Mohali (Punjab). The qualitative aspect of the paper is based on ten semi-structured interviews of the senior-level managers. These interviews are conducted in order to understand the role of the supervisor in skill mapping process and its relationship with the organizational performance. The quantitative aspect is based on the regression analysis to find out the impact of skill index on select performance indicators.\nFindings: The results of the study indicate that the role of the supervisor in performance appraisal is very important in the whole process of skill mapping. Swaraj is an example where a robust skill mapping process for blue-collar employees have supported the business in improving the skill of employees and consequently supporting the business to perform well on key deliverables, such as better quality and less defects. The select variables are inter-correlated and variations in the select organizational performance indicators (production and defects) are due to variations in the skill index of the blue-collar employees in the manufacturing organization. The performance indicators of the manufacturing organization in terms of manufacturing defects have declined and also the production has increased, which is a good indicator for the organization.\nPractical implications: The present study is of interest to researchers who are trying to understand the system for skill mapping and utilization of appraisal inputs in improving organizational performance.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' best knowledge, this paper is one of the first to address the skill mapping process in a manufacturing organization especially for the blue-collar employees.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Organizational knowledge generation: lessons from online communities
|
[
"Decision making",
"Knowledge-based systems",
"Collaboration",
"Knowledge mapping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations are constantly generating knowledge in various forms. The perspective of the knowledge view of the firm is predicated on the ability of organizations to capture and reuse such knowledge in order to unlock innovation potentials (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) and gain competitive advantage over other firms (Apostolou and Mentzas, 2003; Argote and Ingram, 2000; Dosi et al., 2008; Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992). How best to manage an organization's knowledge has led researchers to explore the field from various angles ranging from theoretical frameworks (Nonaka, 1994) and models (March, 1991; Tsoukas, 2009), to systems and methodologies (Lee and Hong, 2002) that support business processes and product development. Today's internet and web technologies are evolving at a fast pace. The web has been quickly moving from an environment where users were passive consumers of information, to more engaged entities that are actively collaborating and creating content. This trend has drawn the attention of many researchers to study the exchange of knowledge in online communities (Ardichvili et al., 2006; Awazu and Desouza, 2004; Faraj et al., 2011).\n2. Theoretical framework: How best to develop and manage organizational knowledge has been investigated from a variety of perspectives. When it emerged, the knowledge management field was focussing on the knowledge created within the organization. Researchers have investigated aspects ranging from knowledge creation (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka, 1994), to its impact on the organization's performance and learning (Levine and Prietula, 2012; Song and Kolb, 2013). With the evolution of web technologies and online platforms, studying knowledge exchange in online communities has generated increased interest (Chiu et al., 2006; Faraj et al., 2011; Wasko and Faraj, 2005). In this section we give an overview of the works that target internal organizational knowledge, followed by other approaches that study knowledge flows in online communities. The goal of this joint analysis is to establish the compatibility between knowledge representation and flows between the organizational and online community settings. We rely on the existing approaches to propose a new framework that supports the generation of organizational knowledge aligned with external consumable knowledge.\n3. Challenges of organizational knowledge in today's environment: In global environments, managing knowledge faces various challenges (Denizhan Kalkan, 2008). Given that organizations have continuously been seeking better ways to manage their knowledge, much of the solutions currently present in organizations are optimized to internal needs and processes. With time, knowledge flows are built on, and support, a firm's daily operations. These processes are often coupled with the formation of communities of practice based on task demands or expertise. As a result, knowledge exchange channels become hardwired around the regular interactions between the organization's stakeholders. For example, it is normal to expect minutes of meetings to be circulated to the involved parties in the form of reports or e-mails. Regular meetings are held among specific groups, around which specialized knowledge gets locked. With time, exchanged knowledge gets accumulated deep into organizations' sources, making it hard to find, share and reuse, especially in online environments where most of the interaction is moving. So the question is how can organizations enhance their ability to capture their internal knowledge and bridge with the online knowledge environment? We believe that this complex undertaking involves the following main challenges.\n4. Proposed approach: In this part of the paper we present our observations from online communities, which lead to a methodology for creating knowledge suitable for inter and intra-organization environments.\n5. Applying the proposed approach in the context of an organization: Following our proposed approach and framework, we assess the feasibility of this methodology on a process that involves a service undergoing changes proposed and analyzed by various entities within an organization. In this section we first describe the use-case and scenario used. We then discuss the proposed methodology applied in this context.\n6. Future research directions: Online communities are providing new insights on how organizations succeed or fail in fulfilling certain objectives. With the increased sophistication of online tools, techniques for data capturing and representation are also evolving. We see potential research opportunities that can be pursued in various directions. We focus in this section on four trends that we believe are relevant to the field.\n7. Conclusion: Knowledge is constantly created within the context of any organization's operations. Online communities are shifting a substantial part of organizational knowledge outside the internal channels of knowledge exchange. With time, the boundaries of internal and external organizational knowledge are disappearing. Hence organizations are more and more required to publish their knowledge in ways that can be connected to external environments. However, the challenges involved add further considerations to the process of knowledge creation. We identified the need to handle knowledge elicitation, encoding, sharing and semantic consistency, to better exploit the knowledge from within and outside the organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Knowledge capturing and sharing within an organization have been extensively studied in the literature. In this stream of work, an influential focus is on the process of encoding and managing knowledge to enable effective reuse within the organization. With the advancement of internet and web technologies, there is an increased interest in the study of knowledge flows in online communities. The authors highlight in this paper the fact that the boundaries between internal and external organizational knowledge are disappearing, mainly due to the extensive use of online-based platforms to support organizational operations. The authors believe that this will affect the activities of knowledge management in today's businesses. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for organizations on how to bridge their internal and external knowledge using an integrated semantic approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper the authors review two classes of approaches, those that target internal organizational knowledge, and those that target online knowledge flow processes. Then the authors identify the challenges involved in today's knowledge environments. To address those challenges, the authors propose a framework to bridge and integrate internal and external organizational knowledge. The authors map the activities handled in the framework to the existing knowledge management activities identified from the literature, and highlight how emerging technologies are used to support such activities along the knowledge management process. The authors apply the approach in the context of an organization's process that heavily depends on the appropriate alignment of internal and external knowledge. The authors focus on the use of emerging technologies that support collaboration and the generation of explicit and reusable semantics.\nFindings: Interaction points within organizations can be used to define the scope of knowledge exchanged. Following a methodology around the proposed framework, it is feasible to create conceptual connections around internal and external knowledge through explicit semantics. Such connections that are created to support online communities' knowledge exchange can be applied to internal organizational knowledge, and used as a bridge to external knowledge sources.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a roadmap for organizations on how to manage organizational knowledge processes in a coherent and collaborative semantic platform, with a view to what is available outside the boundaries of an organization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The changing price of brand loyalty under perceived time pressure
|
[
"Pricing",
"Premium pricing",
"Brand loyalty",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe problem: Companies spend billions of dollars in advertising to develop their brands. Unlike direct response advertising, however, the link between brand-building investments and improved profits is hard to quantify. This study quantifies brand equity as the amount a customer is willing to spend, over expectations, in order to stay with the brand. And it then looks at how that incremental price varies when the consumer is under perceived time pressure (PTP).\nThe value of brands: One of the leading views of brand equity is that it represents the difference in consumer response to marketing activity for one brand over another, or over an unknown brand (Keller, 1993; Hoeffler and Keller, 2003). That difference can be either positive or negative, with the latter leading to negative brand equity.Known, respected brands command a large number of advantages over unknown brands, including:* competitive-set inclusion (Simonson et al., 1988);* loss aversion protection (Dhar and Simonson, 1992);* positive attitude carry-over (Raj and Stoner, 1996; Jensen and Drozdenko, 2004; Chattopadhyay and Basu, 1990); and* reduced search time (Dodds et al., 1991.)There are a number of studies (Agrawal, 1996; Park and Srinivasan, 1994; Blattberg and Wisniewski, 1989) which show an asymmetric effect: top-tier brand promotions attract purchasers of lower-level brands, but lower-level brand promotions do not equally attract purchasers of top-tier brands. Sivakumar and Raj (1997) found the same asymmetry to exist for price increases. This leads to another view of brand equity, i.e. that it is the amount of price premium one brand can command over unknown brands.Kalyanaram and Little (1994) found that brand-loyal customers have a wider range of acceptable prices. They postulate that brand loyal customers may have an internal reference price of whatever that brand charges, and judge other brands from that reference price. Chance and French (1972) put a price value on preferred brands by surveying consumers about their willingness to switch grocery brands for a lower price. They first asked subjects for brand preferences in seven different product types. Then they asked how big a price break respondents would require to switch to a different brand. The most interesting result from this study was a \"U\"-shaped response over both income categories and education. The lowest and the highest income and education groups were willing to switch for a much smaller price break than those in the middle income or education groups. Further, the education effect persisted independent of income levels.Court et al. (1996) examined 27 case studies with over 5,000 customer interviews in the USA, Asia and Europe. They found price premiums for the strongest brands of 5 percent over the second brand and 19 percent over the weakest. Those premiums varied substantially by product. For example, the price advantages for the strongest brands in food/beverage were just 0.69 percent over the second brand and 0.95 percent over the weakest brands. For two strong brands of computers, the price premiums from consumers were 2 percent and 24 percent over the next brands and 55 percent and 52 percent over the weakest.\nPerceived time pressure (PTP): Where time is at a premium, brand loyalty is one method of reducing the pressure (Jacoby et al., 1976). Roselius (1971) ranked risk reduction methods and found that brand loyalty was significantly more favorable for reducing time-loss risk than any other relievers. Myers (1967) found brand loyalty significantly more often among working women than among women who stay at home, a finding independent of household income differences.Do consumers under time pressure change their modes of consumption and/or shopping? Marquis (2005) found that 39 percent of Canadians attribute lack of time to their decision to not prepare a meal at home. Alreck and Settle (2002) found that people who work more than 40 hours a week were significantly more likely to buy online or shop at the closest stores to save time, but not more likely to shop from catalogs. Maher et al. (1997), however, found no significant link between reported time pressure and either online or catalog shopping.Iyer (1989) found the higher the PTP, the lower the number of unplanned purchases made in a grocery. A number of subsequent studies (Beatty and Ferrell, 1998; Vermeir and Van Kenhove, 2005; Schmidt and Spreng, 1996) found PTP to be inversely correlated with in-store browsing and external information searches. Beatty and Smith (1987) found PTP to be inversely correlated with multiple shopping visits. However, Putrevu and Ratchford (1997) found PTP to be not statistically significant for their search-time model.This study extends PTP research. Instead of looking at the degree to which PTP limits search, it instead looks at the dollar value consumers with PTP will pay to avoid any additional search whatsoever.\nMethodology: An online survey was completed by a convenience sample of 385 consumers who were friends, family, or acquaintances of consumer behavior students at two colleges in Fairfield County, CT. Subjects were asked if they have a preferred brand in each of the ten product categories. If not, they were asked to check if either of two statements applied to them:1. I would buy the cheapest brand whose name I recognize; or2. I would buy the cheapest brand even if I never heard of the brand.Respondents were also asked (unprompted) what they would expect to pay for ten different products (watch, vitamins, toothpaste, tires, shoes, shirt/blouse, MP3 player, HDTV, deodorant and cereal).Subjects who identified themselves as brand-loyal were asked to imagine they were at the store, ready to purchase, only to discover the price was more than they had expected. They were then asked: \"How much extra would you pay for your brand if you were rushed for time?\" and \"How much extra would you pay if a new [product] was not immediately necessary?\". Both these questions were unprompted, so that respondents could enter any dollar amount - including a zero.\nResults: Only a small percentage of respondents who identified themselves as not brand loyal were bargain shoppers, driven by the thrill of finding the lowest price, as identified by prospect theory (Krishnamurthi et al., 1992; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Grewal et al., 1998). Just 14-43 percent of the non-brand-loyal subjects said they would buy the cheapest brand even if the had never heard of it before. Instead, 57-86 percent said they wanted to at least recognize the brand name before buying the lowest-priced product (see Figure 1).For those subjects identifying themselves as brand loyal, two new variables were calculated - the percentage they were willing to pay in each of the situations (rushed or not-rushed) above what they had originally expected to pay. Additionally, a third variable was computed using the difference between these percentages.A repeated-measures MANOVA was computed using SPSS with two levels of situation (rush and not-rushed) and ten levels of product categories. The results of this MANOVA are presented in Table I. Note that all effects were statistically significant at less than the 0.05 level.Overall, the mean percentage that respondents were willing to pay above the expected price was 15.4 percent for the not rushed situation and 37.0 percent for the rushed situation. That is, for all products combined, respondents in a not-rushed situation were willing to pay 15.4 percent more than what they originally expected for a preferred brand and more than twice that percentage in a rushed situation.These percentages also varied significantly by product category, with HDTVs showing the smallest price premium (Figure 2 shows the percentage premium for each product category in each condition).The results from this study were then correlated with risk measures derived from two previous studies. These recent studies (within the last two years) totaled 675 respondents who rated products by their financial, physical, social/psychological and performance risks. The strongest relationship (p<0.05) was found between financial risk and the computed price premium measure (the difference between the rushed and not rush situation; see Figure 3). The other relationships between risk type and price premium were not statistically significant.\nDiscussion: This study looked at brand equity as the additional amount (or nothing) a consumer was willing to pay over their expected price in order to purchase their preferred brand. The unprompted dollar amounts were then translated to a percentage increase over each respondent's unprompted \"expected to pay\" amount.Overall, for all the product categories examined in this study, consumers with brand preferences were willing to pay a 15 percent premium. The amount varied significantly by product category, ranging from 9 percent for HDTVs up to 22 percent for a shirt/blouse (see Figure 2). This is comparable to the findings of Court et al. (1996). While most of their surveyed products were business-to-business, they did find a consumer price advantage for cars of 2 percent (over second brand) to 20 percent (over weakest brand), 2 percent and 55 percent, respectively, for computer electronics, and just 0.7 percent and 1 percent, respectively, for food/beverages. In markets where leading brands are priced identically to weaker brands, those companies may have found it more profitable to spend their brand equity in getting additional sales instead of getting a higher price.This study also looked at the effects of perceived time pressure (PTP) on brand equity. Consumers under PTP were willing to pay 37 percent more for their preferred brand. In all ten product examples, consumers were willing to pay a significantly higher price premium over expectations than they were with no PTP. The increments ranged from 19 percent for HDTVs up to 53 percent for a shirt/blouse.The amount of price premium consumers were willing to pay correlated negatively with the perceived financial risk of the product (see Figure 3). Thus the higher the price of the product, the lower the price premium consumers were willing to pay, with one significant exception - tires. The four products where consumers were willing to pay the highest premiums were:1. shirts (22 percent not rushed, and 53 percent rushed);2. toothpaste (19 percent and 48 percent);3. deodorant (17 percent and 47 percent); and4. tires (17 percent and 47 percent).The study also looked at consumers who identified themselves as not brand-loyal. Only a small percentage of these consumers were the prototypical bargain shoppers identified in prospect theory, who seek the best price regardless of brand. By far the largest numbers in this group were what might be coined \"brand-aware bargain shoppers\", a group who sought the lowest price as long as they recognized the brand name (see Figure 1). In the product category of shirt/blouse, brand name was less important, as pure bargain shoppers rose to a level double that of any other product category; 43 percent did not care if they recognized the brand.\nManagerial implications: The findings of this study are consistent with past studies (e.g. Court et al., 1996) that indicated that consumers are willing to pay a premium for preferred brands. Further, this study expanded the scope of the literature and demonstrated that a time-pressure situation significantly increases the premium that consumers are willing to pay. When examining the results from a managerial perspective, it should be emphasized that the amount of the price premium is dependent upon product category. For example, lower-priced more personal items, such as a shirt, toothpaste and deodorant were found to have the greatest premium while more expensive items such as the HDTV, watch and MP3 player showed lower price premiums.Possibly consumers examine the urgency of the buying situation more carefully as the price of the item increases. A price differential of a few dollars would not deter consumers from selecting a preferred brand even if the percentage increase above the expected price is substantial. In a comparable situation, consumers in an airport often pay a 300 percent or higher premium for personal, low-priced, items such as deodorant. In both cases, the extra dollar or two is deemed insignificant given the situations. However, in the case of products that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, the absolute dollar increase may be a substantial deterrent to purchase. This conclusion is also supported by examining the relationship between financial risk and price premium. As the financial risk increases, the premium consumers are willing to pay decreases.The exception to this financial risk theory is tires. Tires have a greater financial risk compared to many product categories examined in this study but also had one of the highest premiums willing to be paid in the PTP situation. Based on past research by the authors and informal subsequent discussions with marketing students, we found some possible reasons for this higher premium for tires. These possibilities include:* consumer ignorance of what constitutes good quality for tires - coupled with a strong concern for physical safety if the tires are not \"good quality\";* the necessity of tires (and the car) to get a person to work; and* a dependence on tire dealers to tell consumers what must be paid for safety - coupled with a greater ignorance of tire pricing.While this study uses a convenience sample, and would thus benefit from further studies, the findings do raise questions as to the possibility of attempting to manipulate urgency prior to, or at point of purchase. For example, might leading brands find limited-time offers with a very low discount generate the same unit sales as larger discounts without the time-limitation? This may be the strategy that a luxury brand such as Infinity auto is attempting to implement with its \"limited engagement event\". If time-limitations raise the threshold of what consumers will pay for preferred brands, preferred-brand marketers could raise the net price captured by their products.Additionally, can (or should) marketers of brands with strong loyalty develop communication strategies that focus on perceived time pressure for consumers? For example, a strategy that acknowledges that consumers are too busy to spend time searching for an acceptable alternative to their preferred product may help to maintain a higher price premium.Purdue recognized, as did other leading brands, that they are selling not only the product (chicken) but peace of mind. Under PTP, a preferred brand is selling the product, peace of mind, and also freedom from the time requirements and hassle of searching for a satisfactory alternative.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study sets out to investigate the price premium brand-loyal customers would be willing to pay over expectations in order to remain loyal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 385 consumers were asked price expectations and brand preferences for ten different products. Non-brand-loyal consumers were asked whether they would buy the cheapest brand or the cheapest brand with a name they recognized. Brand-loyal consumers were asked to imagine they went to buy each product only to discover a higher price than expected. These consumers gave the maximum price they would pay to buy their preferred brands under two conditions - time pressured and not.\nFindings: - For non-brand-loyal consumers, just 14-43 percent (depending on the product) would buy the cheapest offering, while 57-86 percent would buy the cheapest brand whose name they recognized. Brand-loyal consumers would pay a mean of 15.4 percent more than expected (not rushed) or 37.0 percent (rushed). Findings differed by product category with HDTVs garnering just an 8.8 percent price premium (not rushed) and 19.1 percent (rushed), while shirts/blouses showed the highest (21.9 percent not rushed and 53.2 percent rushed).\nResearch limitations/implications: - It is unknown how consumers would respond to categories not studied.\nPractical implications: - Recognizable brand names are able to attract more buyers than lower-priced unknown brands, even among \"bargain shoppers\". Consumers are willing to pay more to buy preferred brands, and even more in rushed situations.\nOriginality/value: - This study puts a dollar value on consumers' desires to avoid search under time pressure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Hiring retirees: impact of age norms and stereotypes
|
[
"Older workers",
"Recruitment",
"Social norms",
"Stereotypes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Changes in the population structure and the ageing workforce suggest that employers may need to retain and hire more older workers (Elster, 1989). Bridge employment, i.e. employment that occurs between career jobs and permanent retirement (Wang and Shultz, 2010), is expected to help close the gap in labour force supply that will occur along with the retirement of the baby-boomers (Wang et al., 2008). As retirement has come to be seen as a more dynamic and gradual transition from a working to a non-working life, a growing number of older workers may opt for bridge employment in the future.\nTheory: There are three types of factors that intertwine in the recruitment process:\nData and methods: For this study we used a multi-method approach, combining survey research (Study 1) with a factorial study (Study 2). First a survey was administered to managers and one month later the same managers were approached again to complete a vignette study. By introducing a monthly gap between the studies we limited the risk of bias related to potential carryover effects (Leeuw et al., 2008). Moreover, this approach, with a semi-panel design, is well suited to analyse the effect of stereotypes and norms on (hypothetical) behaviour. Liefbroer and Billari (2010) suggested that to properly analyse the effect of norms on behaviour, the perception of norms needs to be observed before the actual behaviour.\nResults: Table III presents the results of our analyses. Model 1 contains only fixed and random effects of the intercept. Intra-class correlation shows that this level accounts for 38.3 per cent of the total variance in hiring scores. The intercept illustrates that on average the hiring desirability was rather low and took a value of 4.1 (on a scale ranging from 1 to 11).\nDiscussion and conclusions: The central issue addressed in this article was how general attitudes towards older workers influence managers' hiring decisions. We found that managers with higher age norms (i.e. when a person is too old to work for 20 hours a week) were more inclined to hire early retirees. The impact of age norms clearly identifies existence of time schedules. As indicated by life-course scholars, there are informal expectations as to when behaviour should occur (Settersten, 1998), and such norms exert significant influence on life-transition behaviour (Settersten and Hagestad, 1996; van Solinge and Henkens, 2007). Our findings thus lend support to this notion, and corroborate the link between social norms and human actions that has been suggested by many theorists (Coleman, 1990; Etzioni, 2000).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the role of managers in the re-employment of early retirees and focuses on the effect of managers' age norms and stereotypes on managers' employment decisions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A combination of a factorial study and a survey was conducted. First, information on the age norms and stereotypes was collected. Secondly, profiles of hypothetical retired job applicants were presented to the employers, who were asked to make a specific hiring decision. The information collected during both studies was combined in the analysis and multilevel models were estimated.\nFindings: The results indicate that higher age norms (defined as age at which somebody is believed to be unable to work for 20 hours a week or more) result in a higher propensity to hire an early retiree. Stereotypes, by contrast, do not influence managers' decisions. Early retirees' chances for re-employment are also related to their own circumstances (physical appearance and relevant experience) and organisational forces, as they are hired when organisations face labour force shortages.\nResearch limitations/implications: With the use of vignettes study the authors deal with a hypothetical hiring situation.\nOriginality/value: Although the effect of attitudes has been often suggested, not much empirical evidence has been presented to support this notion. This study estimates the effect of age norms and stereotypes on hiring decision.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The financial crisis as a wake-up call: corporate governance and bank performance in an emerging economy
|
[
"Kazakhstan",
"Financial crisis",
"Emerging economies",
"Bank performance",
"Corporate governance reforms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper investigates the effects of corporate governance (CG) practices on bank performance in Kazakhstan before, during and after the recent financial crisis. The impact of CG on accounting and market performance is still a subject of debate in the academic literature. Prior studies on the relationship between CG practices and firm performance have provided mixed results. Al-Hussein and Johnson (2009), Gompers et al. (2003), Jackling and Johl (2009), Orazalin et al. (2016) and Wang et al. (2012) provide evidence that effective CG leads to better firm performance. Other studies, across a range of market settings, provide no conclusive evidence that better CG improves firm performance (Bhagat and Bolton, 2008; Core et al., 2006). This indicates that global investors still remain skeptical about the strong and positive association between CG and performance measurements.\n2. Theoretical background, literature review and hypotheses development: Macey and O'Hara (2003) argue that a broader view of CG should be adopted for banking institutions because of specific contractual forms of bank activities, and therefore, CG mechanisms for banks should encapsulate depositors as well as shareholders. Arun and Turner (2004) support this notion and suggest that the unique nature of banking institutions requires not only a broader view of CG but also government intervention to control the behavior of bank management. They also assert that the special nature of banking institutions is such that regulation is necessary to protect depositors and the whole financial system in general. Claessens and Yurtoglu (2013) argue that better CG adds to the organization and more broadly to all stakeholders through more efficient managerial mechanisms, better ownership structures, better resources allocation, better labor policies and other efficiency improvements. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS, 2010) promotes sound CG practices for banking organizations and provides suggestions for enhancing CG in terms of board practices, senior management, risk management and internal controls, compensation, complex or opaque corporate structures and disclosure and transparency. Considering these definitions, a good CG could be defined as a set of systems, policies, procedures, processes and practices through which banks possess positive relationships with all stakeholders and exercise relevant power in managing assets and resources to maximize their contribution to the overall economy, together with improved accountability, optimal use of scarce resources and effective internal control system. Prior studies suggest that financial institutions with better CG mechanisms in terms of board characteristics, board-level committees, the role of multiple shareholders, executives' qualification, internal control system and corporate disclosure practices, all of which characterize good CG, yield better performance over time (Liang et al., 2013; Orazalin et al., 2016; Peni and Vahamaa, 2012; Saghi-Zedek and Tarazi, 2014; Wang et al., 2012).\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 Sample selection\n4. Findings and analysis: Table III presents the descriptive statistics for the operating performance variables in each period. As shown in Panel A, the mean value of capital adequacy is 31.14 per cent and ranges from -14.90 to 93.26 per cent. The Wilcoxon rank sum test shows that mean value of CAPAD is not significantly different from the mean value of 31.52 per cent during the crisis period. The minimum negative values of -14.90 per cent and -46.59 per cent post-crisis and during the crisis, respectively, indicate that the financial crisis had a negative effect on the capital structure of major commercial banks.\n5. Conclusion: The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of different sets of CG practices on the operating performance of commercial banks in Kazakhstan in different time periods. The empirical results show that Kazakh banks with better CG achieved higher profitability, better management quality and higher liquidity risks after the crisis. These results are consistent with the findings of previous studies in both developed and developing markets (Brown and Caylor, 2006; Garay and Gonzalez, 2008; Abdallah and Ismail, 2017) and suggest that effective CG mechanisms lead to better performance, thus supporting the resource-based theory. Overall, our findings support the empirical results of Orazalin et al. (2016), Peni and Vahamaa (2012) and Wang et al. (2012) and confirm that banks with better CG mechanisms exhibited higher operating performance in the post-crisis period in the context of Kazakhstan. The empirical findings for the period during the crisis suggest that a composite measure of CG had a positive impact on the profitability of Kazakh banks. In terms of the pre-crisis period, the results suggest that Kazakh banks with better CG practices improved their earnings by taking more risks through their lending and borrowing activities. Overall, our findings support the resource-based theory and suggest that changes in CG codes, board characteristics, ownership structures, disclosure requirements and board members' competencies over time had a significant influence on CG practices and subsequently improved the performance of Kazakh banks in different time periods differently.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the effects of different sets of corporate governance (CG) practices on bank performance before, during and after the financial crisis. The study proposes some policy measures for improved CG practices to protect banks from the detrimental effects of future financial crises and economic meltdowns in the context of emerging markets such as Kazakhstan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study analyses data from all commercial banks listed in Kazakhstan Stock Exchange for the pre-economic crisis, during the crisis and after the economic crisis periods. The study uses the panel regression model to control unobserved time-constant heterogeneity.\nFindings: The study found that better CG practices led to better operating performance of the banks after the financial crisis periods. The changes in CG codes, board structures, disclosure requirements and board members' competencies over time had a significant influence on CG practices and subsequently improved operating performance of the banks.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to examine the effects of CG practices on bank performance in central Asian transition economies, which are still heavily influenced by Soviet heritage and legacy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Explorations of employee-based brand equity in the banking industry from a perceived-leadership perspective
|
[
"Person–job fit",
"Person–group fit",
"Brand-specific TFL",
"Brand-specific TRL",
"Employee-based brand equity",
"Employees’ perceived brand value congruence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Because previous studies on brand equity (BE) have focused on consumers' perceptions (Baalbaki and Guzman, 2016) under exposure to brand-marketing stimuli (Liu et al., 2017; Tasci, 2018; Charles and Zavala, 2017; Wang et al., 2009), they have often used financial performance indicators to evaluate brand value (Charles and Zavala, 2017; Wang et al., 2009; Aaker, 1996; De Chernatony and Cottam, 2006; Keller, 1993; Tasci, 2018). The amount of academic attention being paid to brand management (Piehler et al., 2018) is growing and has prompted numerous researchers to expand the types of indicators used to measure brand value from solely financial to include nonfinancial indicators such as stakeholders' (customers' and shareholders') evaluations of brand value (De Chernatony and Cottam, 2006; Jones, 2005) as well.\nLiterature review: Employee-based brand equity\nResearch methodology: Participants and procedures\nResults: IBM SPSS AMOS 20.0 was used to test the measurement models. Five confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Model-fit measures (kh2/df, the goodness-of-fit index, the normed fit index, the adjusted goodness-of-fit index and the root mean square residual) were calculated to estimate the model's overall goodness of fit, and all values exceeded their respective common acceptance levels (Hair et al., 2006), indicating the overall acceptability of the hypothesized model (see Figure 1).\nConclusion: In the past few decades, the issue of bank branding has received wider attention. The research can be divided into two streams. One looks at the topic from the consumer-based BE perspective, addressing how it differs across three types of banks (state, private and foreign) (Pinar et al., 2012), customers' perceived experiences with various BE dimensions (Pinar et al., 2016), and the difficulties of bank branding due to the intangibility of bank services or a lack of product differentiation between competing bank brands (Bravo-Biosca et al., 2016; O'Loughlin and Szmigin, 2005). This stream has also revealed how banks manage their brands to enhance customers' brand perceptions. Mogaji and Danbury (2017) explored how UK banks use emotional appeals in their advertisements and how this shapes consumers' attitudes toward their brands. Amoako et al. (2017) investigated the mediating role of brand preference on the relationship between bank advertising and customer loyalty in Ghana's banking industry. Yoganathan et al. (2015) investigated the influence of relationship marketing orientation on BE in the banking industry. They also examined the influence of its dimensions (trust, bonding, communication, shared values, empathy and reciprocity) on the development of BE in banks. Narteh (2018) examined the relationship between BE and financial performance, and the moderating role of brand likeability in the retail banking sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how brand-specific transformational leadership (TFL) and transactional leadership (TRL) enhance employee-based brand equity (EBBE) by influencing employees' perceived brand value congruence (EPBVC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study employed hierarchical linear modeling and chose moderating variables that are primarily related to the working environment: person-job fit (PJF) and person-group fit (PGF). The sample included managers and employees of the largest domestic bank in Taiwan.\nFindings: Questionnaires were distributed to banking staff in the service industry. The results imply that both brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL require the mediation of PJF and PGF to influence EBBE, which then influences brand equity. Without these mediators, brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL have no effects on EBBE.\nOriginality/value: Compared to the results from other studies, these results imply a unique discovery that both brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL require the mediation of PJF and PGF to influence EPBVC, which in turn influences EBBE. Without these mediators, brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL do not have any effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managers' perception of mobile technology adoption in the Life Insurance industry
|
[
"Perceptions",
"Competences",
"Mobile communications",
"Perceived usefulness",
"Perceived ease of use",
"Individual differences",
"Perceived cost",
"Diffusion theory",
"Disruptive technologies",
"Perceived performance risk",
"Perceived complexity",
"Technology acceptance model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Malik et al. (2013) posit that mobile technology refers to the pairing of mobile devices with commercial transactions, giving customer service anywhere and anytime through a wireless, internet enabled device and without use of a computer. According to Sadia (2011) mobile technology is used for providing the web based services to the users by using web and wireless networks through mobiles. Kim (2009) defines mobile technology as mobility by the user's physical movement. Mobile technology is still in its infancy stage in the Life insurance market whereby limited insurance products are offered through the use of mobile technology. Many insurers are still in the process of implementing the new possibilities provided by technology and testing innovative business models (Siau et al., 2003). Masinge (2010) suggests that mobile technology is the next big wave of business. A number of mobile commerce applications have been developed and are already in use, covering a wide range of business functions from advertising, to banking and insurance. Consumers are likely to try, discuss or observe the usage of mobile technology for commerce. It is not clear, however, whether such exposure to mobile technology will affect mobile adoption (Khalifa and Cheng, 2002). Hence, the researchers sought to identify the factors that are important for the adoption of mobile technology in the Life Insurance industry.\n2. Literature review: This section examines evidence from the literature, with special reference to the impact of perception and attitude about the attributes of technology adoption. The attributes of technology to be reviewed include ease of use, usefulness, risk, cost and complexity. Individual characteristics such age, gender differences, level of education, work experience and culture are also discussed that could contribute to this perception and the eventual adoption of the technology. IT managers have the opportunity to explore opportunities and challenges that may influence the adoption. It should be noted that perceived factors such as complexity, security, risk, cost, ease of use and usefulness are some of the key challenges managers have to consider in their pursuit of adoption. Therefore, in order to effectively adopt, manage and use mobile technology, managers may benefit from gaining insight regarding their perceptions of mobile technology.\n3. Methodology: The research framework was tested using sample senior Information Technology (IT) managers in the Life Insurance industry in South Africa. Senior IT managers are appropriate for this study as they represent the decision makers for IT. For the purpose of this research, a descriptive, cross-sectional survey was selected because it is a convenient way of utilising an IT manager's time. First, by employing a cross-sectional study design we were able to gather information from a representative sample of the IT managers in the Life Insurance industry. The rationale for using this sampling method was to fulfil a particular purpose, which included the factors that influence mobile technology adoption. Respondents were selected who were willing to provide information based on their knowledge or experience in the field of mobile technology.\n4. Data analysis and results: Bivariate analysis in this study explored the relationship between the demographic factors and mediating factors on mobile technology adoption.\n5. Discussion: This research has identified that perceived risk is an important determinant that could hinder the adoption of mobile technology in South Africa. Security, such as providing data through mobile devices, data management and data accessibility are some of the factors concerning IT managers. Although factors of perceived cost, perceived complexity, PEOU and PU are important factors, they are not as critical as perceived risk.\n6. Conclusion: While the differences in the levels of satisfaction about the perceived factors are not significantly different, a slightly larger portion of the males are not concerned about the adoption of mobile technology. Irrespective of the levels of education, size of the organisation, number of years employed in an organisation, structure or culture of the organisation, mobile technology adoption is not a concern. Social factors such as expert's encouragement and competition in the industry would be a key factor in driving the adoption of mobile technology. IT managers are encouraged by expert opinions to adopt mobile technology as this is probably what competitors are using to keep abreast of the technology curve.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence the adoption of mobile technology by considering the information technology (IT) managers' perception. The research identified the key challenges managers faced and whether management would adopt mobile technology or not.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach was used for this research, whereby an explanatory research was utilised. Questionnaires were developed and distributed to respondents who were in management and leadership positions and who were responsible for IT within their organisations. Demographic variables of age, gender differences, level of education, level of experience and culture were tested for association to the perceived factors and adoption. A kh2 of association was used to test the association between demographic variables and mobile technology adoption.\nFindings: The results found that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived complexity and perceived cost are important factors for adoption. However, perceived risk was a key factor in the adoption of mobile technology. Mobile strategy adoption must consider perceived risk factors central to the adoption. The younger generation (20 to 40) years found it easier to adopt technology than the older generation of 41 years and older. Individuals with a post matriculation level of education understood the importance of risk and cost required for adoption.\nResearch limitations/implications: Purposive sampling from a single industry (Life Insurance) was used. Limited literature was available regarding managers perception of mobile technology adoption in the Life Insurance industry.\nPractical implications: The research offers managers insight into the important factors that need to be considered in adopting mobile technology.\nOriginality/value: With mobile technology being pervasive, the research seeks to provide managers with the insight in managing the adoption of the technology.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Competition and constraint: Economic globalization and human resource practices in 23 European countries
|
[
"Globalization",
"Human resource management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Several researchers argue that economic globalization has an impact on the organization of work (Gunter and Van der Hoeven, 2004; Hage, 1999; Jackson and Schuler, 1995; Stone and Deadrick, 2015), for example because it decreases the stability of organizational environments due to downsizing, mergers, acquisitions, and other types of structural changes (Ashford et al., 1989; Davy et al., 1997). Economic globalization is a general term referring to world market integration. Two basic forms of economic globalization are: trade openness, entailing the imports and exports of a country; and foreign direct investments (FDI), referring to the extent to which companies are owned by an entity in another country (Dreher et al., 2008; De Beer and Koster, 2009).\nTheoretical background: HR practices\nMethods: Data from three sources are combined to test the hypotheses. The European social survey (ESS) contains individual level data. The ESS is a large-scale survey investigating the attitudes, beliefs, and behavior patterns of people in Europe and has been held every two years since 2002. The questionnaire consists of a core module - repeated each round covering topics like education, occupation, and financial circumstances - and rotating modules containing questions that change each round. Round 5 of the ESS, which was held in 2010 and 2011, includes the module \"Family, work and wellbeing\" with questions about people's work.\nResults: Descriptive results\nDiscussion and conclusion: Implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate three distinct hypotheses about the relationship between human resource (HR) practices (discretion and skill enhancement) and the level of trade openness and foreign direct investments of countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study applies multilevel analysis using data of 16,701 employees living in 23 European countries.\nFindings: Based on the multilevel analysis mixed support is found for the hypothesis stating that economic openness is curvilinearly related (an inverted U) to the use of HR practices. While this holds for discretion, it does not for skill enhancement.\nOriginality/value: While economic globalization is often mentioned as an important factor in understanding organizational relations, there have only been few international comparative studies explicitly linking measures of economic openness and HR practices. This study investigate whether economic globalization is important or not.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Discovering digital business models in traditional industries
|
[
"Digital business models",
"Business model innovation",
"Digital transformation",
"Taxonomy development",
"Personal mobility sector",
"Passenger transport",
"Automotive",
"Transportation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent advances in digital technologies, comprising information, computing, communication and connectivity, have led to new opportunities for business model innovation (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). While managers from IT companies, such as Facebook, Google and Apple, successfully utilize these technologies to form new global ecosystems, managers from traditional sectors often struggle to understand innovation logic that may deviate fundamentally from their previous knowledge. Hence, new digital business models have already changed the balance of power for sectors such as media and retail (Veit et al., 2014).\nWhat is a digital business model?: The business model concept is a useful lens for better understanding the business logic of a company by describing how value is created, delivered and captured (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010). A business model can be categorized as digital if digital technologies trigger fundamental changes in these value dimensions (Veit et al., 2014).\nHow to discover digital business models?: There are four iterative phases for innovating new digital business models: discovery, development, diffusion and evaluation of impact (Fichman et al., 2014). The main contribution of this paper is relevant to the discovery phase, i.e. the creation of new ideas or the adaptation of existing external ideas. The successive phases might be supported better by other tools and methods (e.g. business model roadmapping by de Reuver et al. (2013)).\nConclusion: In the future, digital strategy can no longer be viewed separately from the business strategy (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). The pervasive diffusion of digital technologies leads to new business models in almost every industry by affording new ways of value creation, delivery and capture (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014). The awareness of these opportunities and risks is particularly important for managers from traditional industries as the underlying logics of digital business models are often fundamentally different from what they have been used to. Thus, managers from these industries require tools and methods guiding them through the transformation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide managers from traditional industries with a blueprint to systematically analyze and discover digital business models and, thus, better cope with the digital transformation of their industrial businesses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed blueprint is built on state-of-the-art research on digital business model innovation and a rigorous taxonomy-building approach. The process is demonstrated through a simplified case study of a passenger transport company.\nFindings: The process involves three steps: identifying existing products and services, deconstructing business models and discovering new configurations. The managers from the case company very positively evaluated the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed procedure.\nOriginality/value: The proven methodology relates the generic components of digital business models to a specific firm's context, listing the solution space for each relevant dimension. The resulting framework aids in better understanding the existing business models and serves as a tool for the systematic discovery of new models.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Assessing disciplinary differences in information literacy teaching materials
|
[
"Content analysis",
"Information literacy",
"Perceptions",
"Assessment",
"Disciplinary differences",
"Teaching materials"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Emerging from its early origins in the user training in libraries (Tiefel, 1995), the concept of information literacy (IL) has seen constant developments. Today, there are several definitions for the term IL, which overlaps with the concepts of media literacy, computer literacy, internet literacy and digital literacy (Ala-Mutka, 2011). A common definition of IL has been published by the American Association of College and Research Libraries, which was last updated in 2016. Accordingly, \"Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning\" (ACRL, 2016). This definition is also the relevant IL definition used for this study. Today, IL can be considered as a necessary skill of the white-collar workforce (Bruce, 1999; Edmunds and Morris, 2000; Klusek and Bornstein, 2006). Nevertheless, several studies have found IL skills of students to be weak. For example, students seem to have trouble using Boolean operators, organizing literature and tend not to know the appropriate sources for finding scientific literature (Skipton and Bail, 2014; Maurer et al., 2016). Additionally, students tend to overestimate their IL skills (Michalak and Rysavy, 2016). Libraries are aware of this issue and make efforts to develop solutions in order to remedy the situation but are not always successful due to a lack of awareness by students and the incompatibility of such programs with their needs (Yevelson-Shorsher and Bronstein, 2018). Web-based approaches through freely accessible massive open online courses (MOOCs) are increasingly discussed as a possible solution to improve student learning (Gore, 2014; Massis, 2013).\nLiterature review: Several recent studies compared the perceptions of scholars toward IL among different disciplines. Interviews with academics in the UK showed that their perception of IL is partly similar to but partly also significantly different from librarian-generated frameworks and standards. The research implies significant disciplinary differences in IL perceptions and therefore suggests further research to identify those (Boon et al., 2007). Similar results were shown by a study that conducted interviews at the City University of New York with the aim to examine disciplinary differences in IL perception between instructors and professionals in library and information science (Cope and Sanabria, 2014). Another study conducted semi-structured interviews among 24 faculty members from different disciplines at a public research university in Canada. The findings showed that faculty members perceive IL as a central skill for students. However, they also showed disciplinary differences regarding which skill-sets are perceived as less and which as more important. Academic reading is found to be more important by the faculty in business, social sciences and the humanities, while abilities to search for information sources are found to be less important among the science and business disciplines (Bury, 2016).\nMethodology: For identifying disciplinary differences and similarities in emphasized IL skills, eight issues of the German language publication series Erfolgreich recherchieren (Succesful Research Strategies) by De Gruyter are compared. This book series aims to provide students at all levels a quick and professional overview of a subject. It describes how to use library resources successfully - whether in the physical or digital realm (De Gruyter, 2019). This book series is the only one of this kind in German language and according to the search engines of the national library networks of Austria, Germany and Switzerland available in the libraries of the major higher education institutions in these countries. Each issue is covering IL in the context of a different discipline. For the purpose of this study, issues for the disciplines of political and social sciences, economics, educational sciences, law, mathematics, life sciences, history and German studies have been selected. All of these books are authored by experts in IL in the respective field and follow a similar structure: they start with a chapter on basic knowledge, followed by a chapter on advanced knowledge and conclude with a chapter on processing information. While the titles of the main chapters are the same for all issues, the sub-chapters and detailed contents vary. The advantage of analyzing one book per discipline out of a single book series edited by authors from one cultural and lingual area is the higher comparability of the results. However, differences between the books might also reflect the individual perceptions of their authors and must not essentially be differences between the disciplines in general. It might also be possible that the authors had to follow guidelines provided by the publisher that lead to similarities between the books that must not essentially reflect similarities between the disciplines in general. Table I gives an overview of the analyzed books which have all been published between 2012 and 2014.\nResearch results: The results reveal that there are several similarities and differences between the various disciplines. Figure 1 gives an overview of the most mentioned categories within each discipline. It shows the number of codings per category and discipline. The percentage of the codings per category in relation to the sum of all codings for each discipline is represented by the size of the red dots. To allow better readability, the performance indicators of the ACRL (2000) standards are summarized in shorter umbrella terms in the first column of the table.\nConclusions, limitations and further research: The aim of this paper is to examine existing teaching materials on IL out of various disciplines to find similarities and differences among emphasized IL skills. It presents a structuring content analysis of eight issues of the German language publication series Erfolgreich recherchieren (Succesful Research Strategies) covering the disciplines of political and social sciences, economics, educational sciences, law sciences, mathematics, life sciences, history and German studies. Thus, this paper makes the following main contributions to current literature on discipline-specific IL facilitation: first, it reveals that the biggest differences among the disciplines are found concerning the determination of the nature and extent of the needed information, especially in the area of identifying potential sources of information. Databases appear to be the most important information sources in most of the disciplines. In law sciences, comments, opinions and jurisdictions also play an important role, while in economics and mathematics, internet search engines and web portals are also covered in more detail. In the humanities, the focus appears to be on completely different sources, including source editions, reference works, bibliographies and library catalogs. Second, it shows that some of the disciplines put a greater focus on international sources, while other disciplines put a greater focus on country- and language-specific ones. Third, the criteria to define the appropriate retrieval systems differ among the disciplines. In the humanities, the focus is on criteria for selecting appropriate reference works and bibliographic databases, while in law sciences, the focus is on appropriate databases for each legal field. Fourth, the analysis shows that the approaches to narrow the search results vary among the disciplines. While in history, eras might be used to narrow the search results, it might be legal fields in law sciences. In economics, time periods and regions might be considered as criteria to filter statistical databases. In law sciences, document numbers that classify specific types of documents might also be used. Fifth, it reveals that the critical evaluation of sources is addressed in all disciplines but relates to different contexts. In German studies, the cultural background should be considered, while history focuses on the life circumstances of when the sources were produced. In science-related disciplines and economics, it should be considered who funded the research, and the background of statistical data sources must be looked at. In law sciences, the hierarchy of norms and how the law was developed should be considered.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to uncover similarities and differences among emphasized information literacy (IL) skills for the disciplines of political- and social sciences, economics, educational sciences, law sciences, mathematics, life sciences, history and German studies, based on an analysis of IL teaching materials.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Eight issues of the German language publication series Erfolgreich recherchieren (Succesful Research Strategies) are compared by using a structuring content analysis. The category system is based on the IL standards and performance indicators of the Association of College and Research Libraries (2000), extended with additional categories.\nFindings: The results, first, suggest that the biggest similarities and differences among the disciplines are found concerning the determination of the nature and extent of the needed information, especially in the area of identifying potential sources of information. Second, some of the disciplines focus more on international sources, whereas others focus on country- and language-specific sources. Third, the criteria to define the appropriate retrieval system differ among the various disciplines. Fourth, approaches to narrow the search results differ among the various disciplines. Fifth, the critical evaluation of sources is addressed in all disciplines but relates to different contexts.\nResearch limitations/implications: This approach only addresses one book per discipline out of a German language book series. Further research is needed.\nOriginality/value: This paper is unique in its approach and one of few papers on disciplinary differences in IL perception.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Observations of acoustic emission in a hydrodynamic bearing
|
[
"Condition monitoring",
"Hydrodynamics",
"Bearings"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Acoustic emission (AE) is defined as the range of phenomena that results in the generation of structure- and fluid-borne propagating waves due to the rapid release of energy from localised sources within and/or, on the surface of a material (ISO 20096, 2007). The typical frequency content of AE is within the range of 100 kHz-1 MHz. The AE technology is continually developing into a complimentary technology to other condition monitoring technologies such as vibration analysis (Mba and Rao, 2006; Holroyd and Randall, 1993).In the application of AE to hydrodynamic bearings (journal bearings), Sato (1990) was the first investigator that directly addressed monitoring the integrity of such bearings with AE. Typical problems that are associated with journal bearings include wear and metal wipe which is a direct consequence of the shaft making contact with the journal. Such frictional contact is a prime source of AE. Others (Leahy and Mba, 2006; Wang and Chu, 2001) have applied the AE technology to shaft-seal rubbing in large power generation turbines. Leahy et al. (2006a, b) undertook the most realistic controlled verification of applicability of AE to shaft seal rubbing and Al Shaikh Mubarak et al. (2003) attempted to apply the technology for monitoring blade rubbing. Whilst in all the cases highlighted above the measurement of AE was predominately made at the journal bearing housing, no attempt was made to understand the factors that govern the generation of AE within the bearing as a function of the operational variables such as load, film thickness and speed. The aim of this investigation is to ascertain the relationship between rotational speed, applied load, theoretical film thickness and AE r.m.s for hydrodynamic bearing, which hitherto has not been explored.\nExperimental programme: The hydrodynamic bearing test rig employed for this study had an operational speed range of between 500 and 4,000 rpm. The test bearing had a radius of 40 mm, length of 80 mm and a recommended radial clearance of 0.04 mm. The bearing was lubricated with Castrol Magna BD 68 (ISO 32) with a base oil kinematic viscosity at 40 and 100degC of 68 and 8.8 cSt, respectively. For these tests, a maximum load of 800 N was applied. One of the fundamental reasons for testing under very lightly loaded conditions was to ensure that a minimum film thickness of the test bearings was much larger than the surface roughness of the bearing (3 mm Ra). Conditions were to ensure that a minimum film thickness of the test bearings was much larger than the surface roughness of the bearing (3 mm Ra).Two physical acoustics PICO type sensors (200-750 kHz frequency bandwidth) were placed directly onto the test bearing at each end (Figure 1). The sensor output was amplified at 40 dB. The \"PICO\" type sensor was employed due to its size (5 mm in diameter and 5 mm in height) making it suitable for placement in confined areas.In addition, two thermocouples used for measuring the journal temperature during the tests were welded onto the bearing race adjacent to the AE sensors. The test conditions investigated included five rotational speeds 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000 rpm and six load conditions, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800 N. Loading was accomplished by placing weights onto a load plate linked to the rotating shaft either side of the test bearing (Figure 2). As such for a test condition of 800 N, 400 N force was applied to each loading plate. AE r.m.s values were calculated in real time by the analogue-to-digital converter over a time constant of 10 ms and at a sampling rate of 100 Hz. AE waveforms were sampled at 2 MHz (Figure 1).For this investigation, tests involved varying the applied bearing load for fixed rotational speed whilst recording the AE r.m.s activity; each load condition was investigated under near constant temperatures. This was done in an attempt to eliminate the influence of temperature during the tests. Prior to performing the tests, the temperature of the test bearing was raised to approximately 40degC; this was achieved by running the test-rig in excess of 1,000 rpm at 100 N. As soon as the desired temperature was reached, the test sequence began. The test involved running the bearing at five rotational speeds and increasing the radial load, starting at 150 N, and increasing the load in 50 N increments every 5 min to a maximum of 400 N. The five speed conditions investigated were, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, and 4,000 rpm. The test simulations under each load and speed condition was maintained at 5 min as longer operation would have significantly comprised the authors attempts to maintain near isothermal conditions. Over four experimental tests programmes were undertaken where the experimental procedure described was repeated.\nResults and discussions: The results of this test are shown in Figures 3-5. Figure 3 shows observations of theoretical minimum film thickness (h0) and AE r.m.s measured on the bearing for a fixed speed condition. It is evident that an increase in load resulted in a decrease in theoretical minimum film thicknesses and a corresponding increase in measured AE r.m.s values. This highlighted the sensitivity of the AE technology is discriminating such small differences in film thickness. Also, it must be noted that during these test conditions, the temperature varied by a maximum of approximately +-3degC. All calculations of minimum film thickness and power losses were based on well-established procedures (Someya et al., 1989).From Figure 4, it was noted that the change in load had a negligible influence on the level of AE activity for that particular speed condition, however, the change in rotational speed increased AE levels significantly even though the actual predicted change in minimum film thickness with increased speed was of the order of less than 1 per cent for the tests conditions (Table AI in the Appendix). The corresponding increase in AE levels from changes in speed were in the order of over 150 per cent on average (Table AII in the Appendix). The authors attribute this significant change to the shearing effect of the lubricant which is a function of the rotational speed. As with hydrodynamic bearings, there is no asperity contact and the corresponding increase in AE levels is attributed to the friction associated with the shearing of the lubricant. The values of AE r.m.s and minimum film thickness shown in Figures 3 and 4 were obtained by averaging all AE r.m.s and ho values measured and calculated over the specific load condition.Observations showed AE levels increased with power losses (Figure 5) and averaged data are given in the Appendix, Table AIII. All calculations of power loss at every test condition are shown in Figure 5. It is worth stating that due to the minimal influence of load on film thickness under these test conditions, the power losses associated with varying loads, at the same speed condition, was very similar (Figure 5). The increase in AE with power loss was not surprising given that increase in speed results in more power loss due to the increased friction in the shearing of the lubricant. A reduced minimum film thickness causes increased power losses and such energy losses are noted by an increase in AE r.m.s levels. A relationship between the power losses and AE r.m.s levels was determined: Equation 1 where W = power loss (kW), A=0.006, B=0.005, C=0.01 and D=0.01.This equation holds based on the assumption that the load has minimal influence on the film thickness which is the case for this investigation.\nRubbing test: A presumption made for most of the results presented is that under hydrodynamic conditions there is no asperity contact between the rotating shaft the bearing. It was thought prudent to assess the sensitivity of the AE measurements to the onset of contact between the shaft and the journal. In the rubbing tests, the shaft was forced to rub against the journal. This was achieved by slowly increasing the load on the bearing at the drive end only; the loading of the bearing was changed rapidly at incremental values of 50 N force to a maximum load of 400 N. Initially, the test was run at 1,000 rpm (16.67 Hz) with a 50 N load for 5 min, after which 50 N increments were made within a 2 min time frame to the maximum load of 400 N at the drive end only.Interestingly, at 350 N a significant increase in AE levels was noted (Figure 6). In addition, AE waveforms were acquired at each force increment as shown in Figure 6. It was noted that associated with the rise in AE levels the AE waveform was modulated at the rotational shaft speed (Figures 6 and 7). Figure 7 shows a few AE waveforms showing varying degrees of amplitude of the modulated waveform, which is postulated to be a function of the intensity of the rub. Such observations validate the results of others (Sato, 1990; Leahy and Mba, 2006) as indicative of a rubbing contact within the journal.\nConclusions: The observations presented have confirmed that in a properly maintained hydrodynamic lubrication regime a principal source of AE is the friction in the shearing of the lubricant. It has been shown that an increase in running speed generates higher AE activity in comparison to an increase in bearing load. This is attributed to the powers losses as a direct result of shearing of the lubricant film. Lastly, the application of AE to detection of bearing wipe has been demonstrated and further research is needed to fully understand the influence of operational variables on AE over a much broader operating range, including oil viscosity and bearing material effects.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - Numerous studies have been conducted in the field of acoustic emission (AE) technology applied to rotating machine fault diagnosis. Principally, most of the work to date has been focused on correlating AE activity to the defect condition on rolling element bearings with limited investigations on hydrodynamic bearings. This paper aims to address this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper presents experimental tests aimed at understanding the influence of speed and load on generation of AE in a hydrodynamic bearing.\nFindings: - The research presented shows that the power losses associated which hydrodynamic bearing has a direct influence on the generation of AE.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further research should include the application of the proposed methodology on a broad range of operational machines employing hydrodynamic bearings.\nPractical implications: - In developing the AE technology for monitoring hydrodynamic bearings operated under variable speed and load conditions, it is essential that a relationship between the operational variables and the generation of AE is established, and this paper explores such a relationship.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents the first known correlation between AEs and the operating parameters of a hydrodynamic bearing.\n",
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Achieving continued usage in online banking: a post-adoption study
|
[
"Online banking",
"TAM",
"Co-creation",
"SEM",
"Post-adoption",
"Continuance intention",
"Continued usage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Digitalisation of financial systems pressures banks to undergo the largest transformation in their history (Laukkanen, 2017), moving from physical brick-and-mortar stores to virtual environments (Martovoy and Santos, 2012). As one of the main drivers of digitalisation, online banking has become commonly accepted (Patel and Patel, 2018) and is integral to customers' lives, largely because it offers round-the-clock availability, easy transactions and avoidance of queues (Al-Somali et al., 2009). Online banking refers to a secure website offered by the bank to conduct financial transactions and leverage other financial services; it can be accessed via internet banking over a laptop or desktop PC or via m-banking over mobile devices (Lee, 2009; Martins et al., 2014; Shaikh and Karjaluoto, 2015). Compared with online purchases, online banking adoption is more complex, because it usually implies a long term, relational exchange between the customer and the bank (Lee, 2009). The adoption decision of online banking and the factors influencing it thus have received substantial attention from financial services scholars, whereas the post-adoption phase - or the period after the initial adoption decision - largely has been ignored (Al-Somali et al., 2009; Jasperson et al., 2005; Lee, 2009; Martins et al., 2014; Tam and Oliveira, 2017a). Yet customers may start using more functional digital features only in the post-adoption phase, after they have gained some experience with online banking (Hsieh et al., 2011; Tam and Oliveira, 2017b). Continued usage throughout the post-adoption phase ultimately determines the success of online banking (Patel and Patel, 2018).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: Ample literature has focused on the adoption of technological, information-rich services and the factors leading up to the adoption decision (Patel and Patel, 2018). In the domain of information systems research, technology adoption has been one of the most widely and comprehensively studied topics with extant literature exploring it on the individual, group, and organisational levels (Venkatesh, 2006). Especially research on the individual-level technology adoption is one of the most thoroughly researched streams in terms of the drivers of adoption and adoption decisions (Venkatesh, 2006). Originating from social psychology (Venkatesh et al., 2007), some of the most prominent theories and models to explore information technology adoption have been the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), the TAM (Davis et al., 1989; Davis, 1993), the theory of planned behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991), the decomposed TPB (Taylor and Todd, 1995), the extended TAM (TAM2; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000), the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al., 2003), the TAM3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008) and the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2; Venkatesh et al., 2012). Among these extensively studied theories and models, the TAM has been the dominant model to understand technology adoption and the factors leading up to the adoption decision (Tam and Oliveira, 2017a; Venkatesh et al., 2007; Venkatesh and Bala, 2008). Based on the TRA of Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), the TAM predicts that external variables influence cognitive responses (perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use), which triggers an affective response (attitude towards using), which in turn forms intentions (behavioural intentions to use), and ultimately determines behaviour (actual system use) (Davis et al., 1989; Davis, 1993).\n3. Methodology: To develop and test the proposed model of drivers, attitudes and behaviours in the post-adoption phase of a co-creative feature of online banking, the data collection was quantitative and cross-sectional.\n4. Analysis and results: The test of the conceptual model relied on structural equation modelling (SEM) in AMOS Version 25. For this research, the parameter estimation of SEM entails applying a maximum likelihood estimation to the covariance matrix.\n5. Discussion and implications: The main objective of this study was to develop and test a model of drivers, attitudes and behaviours in the post-adoption phase of a co-creative feature of online banking. To achieve this objective, the authors developed a new model for the post-adoption phase of the e-postbox, which includes post-adoption drivers, post-adoption attitudes and post-adoption behaviours, and then empirically validated this model. The collected data (n=750) of current customers of the e-postbox of a large German bank indicate that post-adoption drivers (receiving WOM, affective commitment, perceived usefulness and customisation) and post-adoption attitudes (attitude towards using the e-postbox) influence post-adoption behaviours (continuance intention, actual usage and sending WOM).\n6. Conclusion: The adoption of online banking and the factors leading to it have received ample research attention, to the neglect of the post-adoption phase that follows after the initial adoption decision. However, the post-adoption phase is critical for banks that face volatile customer demands and increasing competition, because continued usage of online banking increases the potential to develop long term, mutually beneficial customer-bank relationships, which ultimately determine a bank's success. To help banks foster customers' continued usage of their online banking services and attract new customers, this study has developed and tested a model of drivers, attitudes and behaviours in the post-adoption phase of a co-creative feature of online banking, namely, the e-postbox. The empirical analysis identifies three types of post-adoption drivers that influence post-adoption attitudes and behaviours: task-related drivers, such as perceived usefulness and customisation of the e-postbox; organisation-related drivers, such as customers' affective commitment to the bank; and interpersonal communication-related drivers, such as receiving WOM. This research evidences effects of the post-adoption drivers on the post-adoption attitude towards using the e-postbox and further on three post-adoption behaviours (intention to continue using the e-postbox, actual usage of the e-postbox and sending WOM). Finally, this study shows that age has a significant effect on several constructs and relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Despite ample research on the adoption of online banking, the post-adoption phase remains largely neglected. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptual model to investigate drivers, attitudes and behaviours in the post-adoption phase of the e-postbox, a co-creative online banking feature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research from bank marketing, services marketing, information systems and relationship management informs the proposed post-adoption model. Empirical tests rely on structural equation modelling and a sample of 750 current customers of the e-postbox of a large German bank.\nFindings: The proposed model provides a multifaceted view of the post-adoption phase, including task-related, organisation-related and interpersonal communication-related drivers. This study reveals the importance of integrating dual interpersonal communication as a post-adoption driver and a post-adoption behaviour. It also extends the technology acceptance model by applying it to the post-adoption phase. Significant effects of age further suggest that younger customers express the most favourable attitudes towards and highest intentions to continue using the e-postbox; interestingly, older customers use it more and share more word-of-mouth.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper develops a post-adoption model that highlights the importance of continued usage for successful co-creation between the bank and its customers.\nPractical implications: Managers can encourage continued usage during the post-adoption phase of a co-creative, digitalised service, which determines the retention of current customers and opportunities to attain new customers.\nOriginality/value: This study defines and establishes constructs for the post-adoption phase and categorises them according to post-adoption drivers, attitudes and behaviours.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Management history: an umbrella model
|
[
"Management history",
"Management theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whatever the intended interpretation, this well-known phrase communicates the idea that the past serves as an accurate prologue and interpreter for the present as well as the future. Plutarch, centuries ago, observed:To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.\nConclusion: This paper traces the evolution of thought, one theory building upon another, which has transcended management texts for decades. Conventional wisdom tells us that this evolution has been complete, that man and the manager have developed from its origins of worker distrust and control to a place of empowerment, autonomy, and value. This, however, leaves the traditional student at odds with the reality of the workplace. Increasingly current compilers of business literature try to close the gap by providing classic articles along with those describing more recent theories. They recognize that in order to understand the values that are currently expressed in the workplace and to recognize the emerging trends, it is important to have an historical foundation (Kolb et al., 1995). Management Historian Chuck Wrege further insists that our students learn management history as a means of developing more critical attitudes about what they are reading (Wrege, 2002). The Arthur Schlesingers, junior and senior, suggest the hypothesis that the cycle of intent (value orientation) appear to be 12 to 16 years in duration. Therefore, it makes sense that management's view of the needs of the workforce would be repetitive and that at any one point in time there would be a diversity of views.It is the hope of this author that academics will request and support a return to the basics of management history in our textbooks and supplementary material. McGraw-Hill provides a brief video segment on the evolution of management to accompany a basic management textbook. Daniel Wren's The Evolution Thought is available in a fifth edition. There are affordable individual DVDs in the oral history project. Each DVD is a separate interview with a senior management theorist, e.g. Fred Fiedler, Victor Vroom, Lymon Porter, etc. This project is undertaken by the Management History Division of the Academy of Management. It is anticipated that as students learn more about management history, they can expand on this paper's historical model. Then as they read the daily news stories of corporate events, students can see with clarity that truly \"the more things change, the more they stay the same.\" CEOs from all industries tend, over time, to exhibit a strong sense of one of the model's frames, bending to his or her most basic human traits. An historical framework, that canvasses humanity from Machiavelli to Greenleaf, affords the contemporary student and worker a better footing upon which to engage the realities of the day.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To assist colleagues in tying current ideas to previously established practices. To generate discussion of the current relevance of students' understanding management history.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A review of representative classic theorists with an eye toward matching their behavior to that of current newsmakers. This is presented in a model to insure that like areas are compared.\nFindings: - The past is in the present. Although we may live in the day of \"enlightened\" \"collaborative\" management; there are still successful people who operate differently.\nPractical implications: - Readers of the paper will be able to make immediate application of the model.\nOriginality/value: - Even presentation of the obvious has value. The model format is a dynamic document that others can use and improve upon.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors influencing early stage healthcare-academia partnerships
|
[
"Research",
"Implementation",
"Education",
"Partnerships",
"Primary healthcare",
"Clinical training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Primary healthcare is challenged by difficulties in providing evidence-based medicine (Grol and Grimshaw, 2003) to achieve continuous quality improvement (Bailie et al., 2013; Meyers and Parchman, 2011) and improve staff recruitment (Verma et al., 2016), although partnerships between primary healthcare and academia have surfaced to address these challenges (Rycroft-Malone et al., 2013; Ovretveit et al., 2014; Mold and Peterson, 2005). It is plausible that such partnerships could make research more clinically relevant, more actionable and more easily applied in practice (Kutner et al., 2005). They might also contribute to integrating quality improvement initiatives into practice (Mold and Peterson, 2005) and facilitating a culture that is responsive to change (Rycroft-Malone et al., 2013). Through these effects, partnerships could promote primary healthcare as an attractive workplace (Verma et al., 2016).\nLiterature review: Previous studies on healthcare-academia partnership implementation in primary healthcare identified factors related to all three strategic change model dimensions. Related to content, agreeing that collaboration is important, shared goals and mutual understanding have been reported as influential (Graham et al., 2007; Bodenheimer et al., 2005; Mold and Peterson, 2005). Rycroft-Malone et al. (2013) found that practitioners and researchers having different agendas had a negative impact on the motivation to participate, resulting in disparate understanding of partnership outcomes and goals, and this in turn had adverse consequences regarding belonging to the partnership and raised concerns among practitioners about how to fit in.Rycroft-Malone et al. (2013) observed that having disparate agendas influenced views about what to achieve (e.g. deciding to focus on improving patient outcomes or promote academic publications).\nMethods: Setting\nFindings: Content\nDiscussion: Our findings show that early stage healthcare-academia partnerships are influenced by combined factors related to content, context and process, and that these factors can help or hinder. Several intermediate outcomes were identified that seemed to interact with and affect the direction in the subsequent implementation stages. Our investigation provides additional insights about factor nature and interaction, and their influence on partnerships between primary healthcare and academia. The results show considerable variation between factors, ranging from system level, such as \"a conflicting, non-supportive reimbursement system\", to local conditions, such as \"facilities fit for purpose\". Based on our findings, it seems that these factors are already present at an early APHN implementation stage. The discrete factors that we identified concur with factors previously found to influence implementation (Drake et al., 2003; Rycroft-Malone et al., 2013; Peterson et al., 2012; Hayes et al., 2011; Graham et al., 2007; Calmbach et al., 2012; Kutner et al., 2005; Green et al., 2005). For example, our data suggest that it is essential to match the change initiative with sufficient resources. Likewise, the connection between available resources and partnership engagement was emphasised by Rycroft-Malone et al. (2013). These investigators further stressed that physical integration between a partnership initiative and a healthcare practice is a prerequisite for, as well as a function of, partnership implementation. Our informants reported that established collaborations influenced the APHN implementation and in general the new partnership was considered to add to previous priorities. Corresponding to these findings, Sibbald et al. (2014) concluded that most partnerships are initiated based on established relationships and partnerships.\nConclusions: Our aim was to explore factors that influence early implementation and intermediate outcomes in a primary healthcare-academia partnership. Findings show that early stage partnerships are influenced by combined factors related to content, context and process. Our study increases the understanding of interactions between various factors and how they might influence the early implementation of a partnership between healthcare services and academia in a primary healthcare setting. Our findings imply that healthcare professionals need to be prepared to continuously and systematically monitor and adapt to factors that help or hinder implementation. These insights can be used to optimise early implementation, although it will be necessary to perform further studies in this context to elucidate influencing factors and action models, and strategies for implementing healthcare improvement.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore factors influencing early implementation and intermediate outcomes of a healthcare-academia partnership in a primary healthcare setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Academic Primary Healthcare Network (APHN) initiative was launched in 2011 in Stockholm County, Sweden and included 201 primary healthcare centres. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2013-2014 with all coordinating managers (n=8) and coordinators (n=4). A strategic change model framework was used to collect and analyse data.\nFindings: Several factors were identified to aid early implementation: assignment and guidelines that allowed flexibility; supportive management; dedicated staff; facilities that enabled APHN actions to be integrated into healthcare practice; and positive experiences from research and educational activities. Implementation was hindered by: discrepancies between objectives and resources; underspecified guidelines that trigger passivity; limited research and educational activities; a conflicting non-supportive reimbursement system; limited planning; and organisational fragmentation. Intermediate outcomes revealed that various actions, informed by the APHN assignment, were launched in all APHNs.\nPractical implications: The findings can be rendered applicable by preparing stakeholders in healthcare services to optimise early implementation of healthcare-academia partnerships.\nOriginality/value: This study increases understanding of interactions between factors that influence early stage partnerships between healthcare services and academia in primary healthcare settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Data mining techniques for HIV/AIDS data management in Thailand
|
[
"Data collection",
"HIV",
"Diseases",
"Thailand"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and background: In 1983 the first case of HIV/AIDS came to the knowledge of the World Health Organization (WHO). Soon after this the WHO declared it as an epidemic disease. In the case of Thailand, the first case of AIDS was reported in 1984, and by April 2000 there had been a total of 590,990 reported cases (Phoolcharoen, 1998). Thus, under the ministry of public health, the Thailand government through the communicable disease control (CDC) department implemented activities for monitoring and managing HIV/AIDS evolution and awareness by setting up a 24-hour emergency unit to collate, analyse and report the situation to both policy makers and implementers in particular, and to the world in general. By 1985 all Thailand provincial health care offices had regulations requiring physicians and other health-care providers to report AIDS cases directly to Ministry of Public Health or local health offices. HIV continues to spread around the world and it is estimated that in recent times, one in every 100 adults in the most sexually active age bracket (15-49) is infected with HIV (Phoolcharoen, 1998). HIV infections are concentrated in the developing world, mostly in countries least able to afford to care for infected people. In fact, 68 per cent of people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa and the developing countries of Asia, which between them account for less than 10 percent of the global gross national product (report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic as of June 1998, UNAIDS and WHO).Since 1991, the Thailand government has relied on the AIDS voluntary reporting system, whereby health institutions and physicians are encouraged to report the specific details of AIDS cases anonymously to the Ministry of Public Health. As with any other country in the absence of systematic screening for HIV, the actual number of cases of HIV infection in Thailand is believed to be considerably higher than the number of officially reported cases. It is very likely that the current statistics may not reveal the true level of infection due to under-reporting of AIDS cases from hospitals.The American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention recognised a need for a reporting tool for epidemiological data. This led to the development in the 1980s of Epi-Info (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.). In 1988 Epi-Info was developed further at the World Health Organization in Geneva. This led to a greater global awareness of Epi-Info and its uses, leading it to become one of the standard products used by heath organizations. This allowed scientists to share information between Epi-Info systems and expand their research beyond their own data stores. However, its nature does not allow for sophisticated data analysis and pattern identification.Huge amounts of data have been collected through the advances in database technologies and data collection techniques. Data about HIV/AIDS form no exception. This explosive growth of data creates the necessity of automated knowledge discovery from data. Up to now there have not been any studies trying to identify patterns in HIV/AIDS data. The analysis of the categories of people affected more has been largely empirical as has been the symptoms that people may have as a result of other symptoms. The work reported in this paper concentrates on applying data mining techniques to HIV/AIDS data from Thailand and utilising the data mining results for the management of HIV/AIDS. The study applies clustering in order to identify exact characteristics of categories of people affected by the disease. It also applies association rule mining to identify symptoms that may follow a set of existing ones. Identification of these patterns can be used to target resources at precursor symptoms and also for the monitoring of the disease. The rest of this paper is organised as follows. The following section describes relevant work in applying intelligent systems techniques to HIV/AIDS data. The remaining sections report on the techniques used as part of this study, details the results obtained and their significance within a disease management context. Finally the last section reports on further work that needs to be carried out in this area.\nRelevant work: HIV infection and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) are a major health problem worldwide. In the early 1970s, the idea of intelligent systems was viewed as a theoretical foundation for building machine learning systems. It was proven to have many limitations. Recent neural network (NNs) and fuzzy logic (FL) research has overcome some early limitations. Since the development of the NNs, they have received considerable attention and have been applied to a variety of problems in classification and prediction. NNs have been applied successfully for development of nonparametric statistical models. More reliable outcome research has been explored in the area of pattern classification and pattern prediction. One of the advanced features is the development of a back propagation algorithm (BP) in a learning mechanism to train multi-layer networks. Many studies have applied an NN model to classify and to predict desired solutions or to improve methodological aspects (Faraggi and Simon, 1995). In spite of the successful application in such models, scant attention has been made to the HIV/AIDS prevention and care planning area. Few years ago, a study of an NN application to the classification of the functional health status of AIDS/HIV patients was explored (Kwak and Lee, 1997). Recently, a study presented an application of neural networks to classify and predict the symptomatic status of HIV/AIDS patients (Lee and Park, 2001). A neural network model was developed and analysed. Several different neural network topologies were applied to ACSUS datasets in order to demonstrate the neural network's capability. Neural networks are known to be able to identify relationships even when some of the input data are very complex, ill defined, and ill structured. One of the advantages of an NN is that it can discriminate linearly inseparable data. That study made a substantial contribution to the HIV/AIDS care and prevention planning area by comparing the impact of various NN methodologies on the classification of HIV/AIDS-related persons.Over the last decade, the mathematical literature on uncertainty has also grown considerably, especially in system modelling, optimisation, control, and pattern recognition areas, to mention a few. Several authors have advocated the use of fuzzy set theory in epidemiology problems (Jafelice et al., 2002) and population dynamics (Krivan and Colombo, 1998). Since the advent of the HIV infection, mathematical models have been developed to describe its dynamics (Novak and Bangham, 1996). Fuzzy set theory was utilised to deal with the uncertain nature of evolution from positive HIV population to AIDS manifestation (Jafelice et al., 2004). In particular, parameter l, the transference rate of the classical Anderson's model (Murray, 1990), was viewed as a linguistic variable whose values are fuzzy sets that depend on the viral load u and CD4+ level. CD4+ is the main T lymphocyte attacked by the HIV retrovirus when it reaches the bloodstream. The notion of transference rate l as a linguistic variable with fuzzy values captures its biological meaning more faithfully to classify the disease stages and to help decide when the anti-retroviral therapy should be used. In addition, from the transference rate and approximate values of viral load, it was shown how the expected value of the proportion of symptomatic population can be found for each time instant t>0.However, these studies do not consider the transference rate of symptomatic to asymptomatic individuals considering populations with regular adhesion to treatment, and do not also provide a \"linguistic\" form of association rules in order to model HIV positive populations with irregular adhesion to anti-retroviral therapy. Hence, it is of great importance that tools that exploit information derived from the association processing rule mining should be developed. Such implementation can certainly make a significant difference in the way that symptoms could be targeted.\nData mining: The data mining experiments were performed by utilising IBM's Intelligent Miner (IBM, 1999). The dataset was imported into a database system so that input files could be created for use within intelligent miner. As each record was imported it was cleansed of erroneous values, data inconsistencies, and formatting discrepancies. At the first instance any records that contain outliers (items that deviate by a significant amount from the norm) were not excluded, because they may be indicative of a true situation and should only be eliminated later if they distort the patterns sufficiently for it to be necessary for investigation to prove their veracity. The \"cleaned\" data was processed through the Intelligent Miner system using two methodologies:1. Searching for patterns that theoretically should exist (e.g. there is a probability of x per cent that symptom A leads to symptom B thereby causing symptom C).2. Allowing the Intelligent Miner to search for patterns and examining them for relevance and significance.The data needed, as part of data pre-processing, to be transformed into a mainstream database format so that they could be used for further analysis. Following the data transformation, the database schema is shown in Figure 1. The populated database consists of 250,000 anonymised records.Clustering\nConclusions and further work: The results of this study have shown that the information derived from clustering and association rule mining, can make a significant difference in the way that symptoms can be targeted. This alone will have a positive effect on the methodologies promoted to reduce the effects of the AIDS/HIV pandemic. The association rules themselves can be disseminated to medical workers, allowing them to anticipate and prevent further symptoms that would normally develop; at the same time, the abridged information provided to management teams will allow a better understanding and therefore improved strategies.A disease is very dynamic in its effects and in the data needs it can generate. As soon as a disease approaches a size when it requires a dedicated management approach (such as that taken with AIDS/HIV) then it is vital to collate as much relevant data as possible, ensuring that management directives can be properly applied. This has become an urgent need; to collect and analyse systematically the information needed for the dual purpose of projecting epidemic trends and targeting prevention toward factors that seem to influence the vulnerability of the population to the further and possibly rapid spread of AIDS/HIV. During this study, we have determined that the clustering function provides for swift summaries of such information in an easily digested form. Therefore this research advocates the use of data mining as an approach that can be used to expedite the initial stages of information analysis in order that the results obtained may be more thoroughly investigated.This study can be adopted to implement a quality monitoring system. Regular applications of clustering can determine if the disease if affecting other categories of the population and also identify data collection and correctness issues. Regular application of association rule mining can determine if the strategies developed as part of a previous mining exercise are working and in addition to identify early if other symptoms become more prevalent and require prioritisation.As part of the mining process, outliers (attributes with data outside the general range) are identified. These are worthy of immediate investigation for two reasons. Firstly because they are indicators of poor data quality and this needs to be corrected as soon as it is identified. Effective data quality monitoring allows proactive detection and correction of data anomalies that otherwise might become a severe problem, e.g. if being discovered too late for easy correction or, even worse, if the deficient data has already been used for decision making. Secondly where they are investigated and found to be valid data, this is cause for concern as they show there is either unusually high or low instances of the reported symptoms. The higher reporting needs immediate action as there is obviously a greater problem in that case, the lower needs investigation as to why they are so low, e.g. is there a local practice that treats the symptoms more effectively than national methods.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper investigates, through the use of data mining techniques, patterns in HIV/AIDS patient data. These patterns can be used for better management of the disease and more appropriate targeting of resources.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 250,000 anonymised records from HIV/AIDS patients in Thailand were imported into a database. IBM's Intelligent Miner was used for clustering and association rule discovery.\nFindings: - Clustering highlighted groups of patients with common characteristics and also errors in data. Association rules identified associations that were not expected in the data and were different from traditional reporting mechanisms utilised by medical practitioners. It also allowed the identification of symptoms that co-exist or are precursors of other symptoms.\nOriginality/value: - Identification of symptoms that are precursors of other symptoms can allow the targeting of the former so that the later symptoms can be avoided. This study shows that providing a pragmatic and targeted approach to the management of resources available for HIV/AIDS treatment can provide a much better service, while at the same time reducing the expense of that service. This study can also be used as a means of implementing a quality monitoring system to target available resources.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Cultural and organizational integration in cross-border M&A deals: The comparative study of acquisitions made by EMNEs from China and Russia
|
[
"China",
"Russia",
"Cross-border M&A",
"Integration process",
"Emerging MNE"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs) acquisition is one of the most preferable strategies while going abroad. Since 2003-2004 EMNEs have actively been penetrating into foreign markets and invest abroad. Choosing mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as an entry mode, EMNEs benefit from various advantages on the acquirer, including enhanced competitiveness, synergies between assets, cost reduction, improved reputation, access to new product lines, technologies, capacities, markets and industries, and reduction in the number of competitors (Kalotay and Panibratov, 2013). On the other hand, acquisitions also imply additional challenges and potential risks, especially when the acquiring counterpart operates in the foreign country.\nLiterature review: Cultural integration in M&A deals\nMethodology: Case companies selection\nCase study: Chinese and Russian M&A abroad: Chinese context for cross-border M&A\nFindings: Analysis of four case studies of cross-border M&A deals of Russian and Chinese MNEs enables for better understanding of the integration process in M&A deals of companies from emerging markets in more details. Each case was considered from the standpoint of cultural differences resulting from national cultures comparison, and the deal result was evaluated through the lenses of the organizational integration process initiated by acquiring company.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Having discussed all the above factors, in Table V we finally point out those elements that were derived from the case studies' analysis only, without having any strong support in the literature. Interesting is that all the factors derived empirically are of high importance for the deal integration result!\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify key factors that influence the integration process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals of emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs). The research questions are: how national and organizational culture coupled with other organizational characteristics influence M&A deals of EMNEs? Which factors influence the process of cultural and organizational integration in cross-border M&A deals, initiated by EMNEs? What is the effect and consequences that different integration factors have on cross-border M&A deals by EMNEs?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a multiple case study research, considering cross-border deals of Chinese and Russian firms separately. Each block consists of two cases, describing M&A integration of companies operating in two sectors: high technology and finance. The authors obtained the data for case studies from companies' official websites, annual reports, press releases, other official documents where companies were mentioned, business-media sources (newspapers and magazines), published interviews, documented speeches, letters, laws, as well as through blogs and social networks. The authors have also used the published information from articles, books, databases, and previously conducted case studies.\nFindings: The authors have identified the factors influencing deals' results of Chinese and Russian MNEs, with explanation based on case studies' analysis. The full list of factors is presented in Table IV in the manuscript. The authors have also identified the set of elements that were derived from the case studies' analysis only, without having any strong support in the literature, such as changes at a senior management level, educational and business exchanges, CSR policy, and the government involvement.\nOriginality/value: The authors have identified the key factors that influence integration of emerging market firms in cross-border M&A deal. The list of factors was adjusted and actualized in accordance with the results of four cases of cross-border M&A deals of Chinese or Russian companies. As a result, the authors founded the combination of characteristics of cultural and organizational integration process of firms from China and Russia.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How diverse is corporate brand management research? Comparing schools of corporate brand management with approaches to corporate strategy
|
[
"Corporate strategy",
"Corporate branding",
"Brand management",
"Brand co-creation",
"Strategy descriptor cube"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate strategy (CS) and corporate brand management (CBM) are well-developed disciplines in modern management science. Apparently, they show much resemblance in their concerns (Ind, 1997): both concern top-level evaluations regarding how to adjust an organization within a market context (Hatch and Schultz, 2003) and discuss how competitive advantage can be achieved (Porter, 1980; Aaker, 1989). Therefore, common sense suggests that related research should not perpetuate as two isolated lines of investigation but should be intertwined, with many references to each other (Louro and Cunha, 2001). In this regard, among brand management scholars and practitioners, not many would neglect the strategic nature of CBM (Balmer and Wang, 2016).\n2. Capturing the fundamental perspectives of approaches to corporate strategy: 2.1 General concept of strategy and scope of corporate strategy\n3. Inventory of current corporate brand management research: 3.1 Nature and origin of corporate brand management\n4. Contrasting brand management schools with strategy research approaches: 4.1 Idea and findings\n5. Concluding remarks: The paper began with the notion that CBM research and CS research are isolated lines of investigation. It aimed to contrast CBM research directions with major approaches to CS research to reveal parallels and differences among these perspectives. Fundamental views on strategy were hence condensed into the SDC, which emerged as an important tool to characterize issues of strategy. The tool was then used to describe and typify CBM schools. This approach led to a new landscape of CBM research, which might provide an impetus for further CBM research. The main findings indicate that CBM research tends to be one sided and that it may run the risk of being blinkered. Intensifying efforts in widening such research approaches might be a notable effort. It also appears that the co-creative school might be capable of challenging and inspiring future CBM research efforts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper contrasts research streams in corporate brand management (CBM) with perspectives on corporate strategy (CS). The aim is to examine whether CBM research is as diverse as research on CS and to identify potentially new research perspectives within CBM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, the main dimensions to capture approaches and directions in general strategy research are carved out and integrated into a framework for subsequent analysis (strategy descriptor cube). Second, research streams within CBM are clustered into predominating schools. Third, the framework is then used to classify the identified schools, allowing further evaluation. In doing so, an innovative view on the status of and developments in CBM research is provided.\nFindings: Most schools of CBM are built on rational and prescriptive approaches, while political and emergent conceptions are hardly addressed. Thus, from the strategy-derived dimensions, approaches to CBM are surprisingly homogenous, with only one school diverging from the dominating pattern. A variety of perspectives as found in strategy research cannot be validated for CBM. Alternative conceptualizations to CBM in terms of assumptions about the genesis of strategic directions and the perspective of analysis might provide impetus for progress in CBM research.\nResearch limitations/implications: The question arises why emergent and political perspectives have not been seriously pursued in the past decades of brand research. Researchers might seize opportunities to be further stimulated from the many faceted research approaches in CS. Further dimensions for description, as well as alternative clusterings of CBM schools, should be discussed.\nPractical implications: A broadening of perspectives, including potentially a more attentive reception of agile trends in CBM, might become increasingly relevant for CBM practitioners. As new realities shape the present and future of corporate brand building, new paradigms should be explored and tested.\nOriginality/value: The corporate brand strategy link is evidently important; however, to date, few papers have such a focus. This is the first paper to apply reasoning and perspectives that have contributed to significant developments in CS research to the current situation in CBM research. It introduces a novel way to analyze and discuss developments between and within CBM schools.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The process evaluation of a school-based physical activity intervention: influencing factors and potential consequences of implementation
|
[
"Process evaluation",
"School",
"Intervention",
"Physical activity",
"Implementation",
"Qualitative methods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Schools are considered viable settings for intervention, reaching children and adolescents irrespective of sex, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Studies evaluating school-based physical activity (PA) interventions have largely examined whether the interventions affect students' academic achievement (Norris et al., 2015), physical activity and fitness (Kriemler et al., 2011) or mental health (Smith et al., 2018; Lubans et al., 2016). The way in which such interventions are implemented may partly determine their effectiveness (Durlak and Dupre, 2008). However, monitoring and evaluating implementations has not been prioritized in school-based PA intervention research (Naylor et al., 2015; Watson et al., 2017; Daly-Smith et al., 2018), increasing the risk of a type 3 error (Dobson and Cook, 1980). A type 3 error can occur when researchers dismiss a potentially effective intervention based on unsatisfactory results, when, in fact, the results were caused by poor implementation and not the intervention itself. Among the existing studies evaluating school-based PA interventions, only a few have addressed the link between implementation and outcome (Naylor et al., 2015), thus limiting our understanding of their relationship.Recent reviews of school-based PA interventions have shown mixed results in terms of physical, mental and cognitive outcomes (Demetriou and Honer, 2012; Daly-Smith et al., 2018; Watson et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2018; Hynynen et al., 2016). One reason for this may have to do with the difference between efficacy and effectiveness. Efficacy refers to an intervention's effect under ideal circumstances, while effectiveness refers to an intervention's effect under real-life conditions (Revicki and Frank, 1999). Conducting interventions in real-life conditions, such as in schools, makes it more difficult to assess effects, since variables outside the researcher's control may come into play. Additionally, schools are complex social systems (Moore et al., 2019), because the individual agents (e.g. students, teachers) within the system are \"numerous, dynamic, autonomous, highly interactive, learning and adaptive\" (Keshavarz et al., 2010). These agents and other school factors can influence implementation (Clarke, 2010). For instance, in their review of school-based PA interventions, Naylor et al. (2015) identified 20 factors that could hamper implementation. \"Limited time\" was the most frequently mentioned factor, followed by \"lack of resources,\" \"lesson scheduling\" and \"weather.\" The outcomes from a school-based cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) may, therefore, have more to do with the specific school context than the intervention itself.Interventions can also be complex, posing further challenges to evaluating outcomes (Craig et al., 2008). When a complex intervention is introduced in several unique complex contexts, dynamic processes and interactions can lead to the intervention evolving differently in the different contexts. This could in turn influence the intervention outcomes (Hawe et al., 2009) and obstruct researchers' ability to make causal inferences (Rickles, 2009). However, by monitoring and evaluating the process of implementation, we can improve our ability to interpret outcomes and causes (Oakley et al., 2006; Tarp et al., 2016).This paper reports on the process evaluation of the \"Don't worry, be happy\" (DWBH) intervention, one of two separate intervention arms in a cluster RCT called School in Motion (ScIM). ScIM was designed to assess whether 120 min of additional weekly school time PA affected students' academic achievement, learning environment, physical fitness, PA levels and mental health. The findings of the process evaluation should be used as a supplementary tool when interpreting the outcomes of the ScIM study, which will be published in upcoming papers.Aim and research questions\nTheoretical background: The purpose of a process evaluation is to \"explore the implementation, receipt, and setting of an intervention and help in the interpretation of the outcome results\" (Oakley et al., 2006). The DWBH intervention can be seen as a complex intervention, which according to Craig et al. (2008), is characterized by (1) the number of interacting components, (2) the number and difficulty of behaviors required by those delivering or receiving the intervention, (3) the number of groups or organizational levels targeted by the intervention, (4) the number and variability of outcomes and (5) the degree of flexibility. The present study understands implementation as defined by Durlak (2016): \"...the ways a programme is put into practice and delivered to participants.\" According to Durlak and Dupre (2008), implementation consists of eight separate but overlapping aspects. The present study addresses five: fidelity, adaptation, quality, responsiveness and dose delivered. Dose received does not fall under implementation as defined by Durlak (2016) but has been included as a sixth aspect in this evaluation to help understand how relevant the intervention is to the target participants (Linnan and Steckler, 2002). While dose delivered refers to the specific amount of intervention that has been provided to its participants, dose received refers to actual participation or attendance (Berkel et al., 2011). Including both can offer important information about their relationship.Besides dose received, focusing on the aforementioned aspects draws on the argumentation by Berkel et al. (2011), that they \"occur within the delivery of program sessions, and as a result, constitute potential sources of disconnect between the program as designed and that which is implemented\". While fidelity, adaptation, quality and dose delivered are mainly determined by the intervention providers, responsiveness and dose received are determined by the participants, allowing us to examine the dynamic relationship between provider and participant, who can influence each other and ultimately, the intervention results (Berkel et al., 2011). Evaluating quality has been neglected in previous implementation evaluations of school-based PA interventions (Naylor et al., 2015). Humphrey et al. (2017) argue, however, that quality may be more important than fidelity and dose when it comes to impacting study outcomes; so this aspect was included. The other three aspects of implementation - differentiation, monitoring control and reach - can also influence the outcomes, but are not explicitly part of the program delivery or the relationship between provider and participant. We therefore chose not to focus on these aspects.\nMethods: The School in Motion study\nResults: In the following section, results are presented within the context of the main factors that were found to influence fidelity, adaptation, quality, responsiveness and dose delivered/received. Average dose delivered in the five schools that were not included in the process evaluation was 80%.Frame factors\nDiscussion: The main findings show large differences between schools regarding how DWBH was implemented and how various factors influenced the implementation. Schools 1 and 4 made minor adaptations in the way DWBH was organized, and these were positively received by the students. Intervention characteristics, spacious facilities, scheduling and participant and provider characteristics positively influenced all aspects of implementation. School 2 made major adaptations to how DWBH was scheduled, which reduced both i responsiveness and fidelity. Additionally, limited facilities and participant and provider characteristics negatively impacted fidelity, quality and dose received. School 2 was the only school where the intervention was negatively received. School 3 made one major adaptation in how DWBH was organized, and it was poorly received by the students. The intervention itself was otherwise positively received. Limited facilities and scheduling negatively impacted fidelity. Intervention, participant and provider characteristics positively influenced responsiveness, quality and perhaps also dose received.Reasons for and consequences of adaptations\nConclusion: This process evaluation showed that two out of four qualitatively examined schools delivered the intervention with high fidelity, quality, dose delivered and dose received, while obtaining positive responsiveness from participants and providers. The other two schools had major adaptations and limitations and delivered the intervention with varying fidelity, quality, dose delivered and dose received. Frame factors, intervention characteristics, participant characteristics and provider characteristics influenced implementation, and differences between schools may impact the intervention outcomes. Positive adaptations were made in schools that were likely to succeed anyway, based on their preconditions, while negative adaptations were made in schools that, based on their preconditions, were less likely to succeed. The results indicate that adequate facilities and scheduling that did not affect participants' leisure time were important to ensure that the intervention was positively received. Negative responsiveness negatively influenced dose received. Future school-based PA interventions should be designed to generate positive response, perhaps by organizing student-led lessons. However, if responses are negative in certain schools, providers, researchers and students should cooperate to adapt the intervention in order to make it more relevant and suitable. Careful monitoring of multiple aspects of implementation is key to be able to act upon such responses. We therefore recommend that qualitative process evaluations are conducted on future trials involving school-based PA interventions.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper evaluates the implementation of a school-based physical activity intervention and discusses how the intervention outcomes can be influenced by the implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In four of the nine lower secondary schools in which the intervention was conducted, the authors examined implementation fidelity, adaptation, quality, responsiveness and dose received. The authors conducted focus group interviews with teachers (n = 8) and students (n = 46) and made observations. Dose delivered was examined quantitatively, with weekly registrations.\nFindings: Results showed that two out of four schools made few and positive adaptations, implemented the intervention with high fidelity and quality and responded positively. Four main factors were found to influence implementation: frame factors, intervention characteristics, participant characteristics and provider characteristics.\nResearch limitations/implications: A cross-sectional design was used and may not represent implementation throughout the whole school year.\nPractical implications: In terms of large-scale implementation, the intervention may be generalizable. However, intervention criteria such as adequate facilities and a flexible timetable may be unattainable for some schools. The intervention can be adapted without compromising its purpose, but adaptations should be a result of cooperation between students and teachers.\nOriginality/value: Process evaluations on this topic are rare. This study adds to a limited knowledge base concerning what factors may influence implementation of school-based physical activity interventions for adolescents.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Situational factors in alcoholic beverage consumption: Examining the influence of the place of consumption
|
[
"Consumption",
"Place",
"Situational factors",
"Alcoholic beverages"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food and beverage consumption behaviour is influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as situational variables. More specifically, the alcoholic beverage consumption situation may include factors such as the consumer physical location, the type and number of persons present, the day of the week, the occasion of use and even time of the day (Silva, Jager, Van Zyl, Voss, Pintado, Hogg and De Graaf, 2017). For this reason, the situational variables of alcoholic beverage consumption have become a quite complex aspect of consumer behaviour.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Situational factors that influence consumption: a theoretical framework\n3. Research hypotheses development: 3.1 Product perceived quality\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Variables and scale development\n5. Results: 5.1 Analysis of the measurement model\n6. Conclusions: The consumption of alcoholic beverages is situationally specific, so we can expect that the beverage consumption behaviour is closely related to the place of consumption. In this context, this research addresses the issue of the situational context surrounding alcoholic beverage consumption, focussing on the place of consumption distinguishing between home and hostelry consumption. Our findings support that the place of consumption influences the alcoholic beverage consumption behaviour, and more specifically the beverage purchase intention and the willingness to pay a premium price.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Situational factors influence food and drink consumption, being how, when and where, not fully researched. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to address the influence of \"where\" in alcoholic beverage consumption. That is, the authors examine the influence of the place of consumption, comparing consumer behaviour at home and at hostelry outlets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, beer was selected as the alcoholic beverage category. Then, a conceptual model of consumer behaviour was proposed and empirically tested through multi-group structural equation modelling (SEM) on a sample of 525 beer consumers (home consumers=209 and hostelry consumers=316.\nFindings: The findings show that the place of consumption influences alcoholic beverage consumer behaviour. While home consumers demand value for money, hostelry consumers seek for product perceived quality.\nPractical implications: This research suggests the applicability of situational factors to the beverages market, providing a starting point for situational segmentation.\nOriginality/value: The authors' major contribution is the empirical examination into how alcoholic beverage consumption behaviour is situational dependent.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in promoting citizen participation: A survey study of local government institutions of Punjab, Pakistan
|
[
"Pakistan",
"Local government",
"Citizen participation",
"Community-based organizations (CBOs)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Citizen participation is the sine qua non for development. Citizen participation is the behavior or activity of citizen as groups and individuals in the process of decision-making to impact the issues that are challenging to the disadvantaged communities (Ohmer, 2010). Citizens may participate in the development and policies of local government through a number of behaviors and activities which include meeting with the legislator of the locality to convey disagreement or support for a specific policy position (Cohen and Dawson, 1993; Rafique et al., 2016), attending some public meetings to communicate their opinion on local or district problems (Maier, 2001; Weber et al., 2003), partaking in the political campaign through voluntary or financial means (Brady et al., 1995), and choosing their preferred candidates through voting for the local government (Casciano, 2007; Lelieveldt, 2004; Weber et al., 2003). The threefold argument for the citizen participation in local government suggests that it would increase the efficacy and efficiency of public services. Moreover, it will make local government more accountable and finally, it will deepen the participatory development and democratic approach (Gaventa, 2004; Gaventa and Valderrama, 1999). On the contrary, literature also suggests that citizen participation is empowering the political elite instead of leading toward inclusive development (Irvin and Stansbury, 2004; Johnson and Wilson, 2000).\n2. Literature review: Most of the world specifically global south is experiencing a welfare crisis. The reasons given in the literature includes that welfare systems are very expensive to be run by the state solely. Second, welfare programs success rate is very low and third, public sector do not enjoy support or legitimacy (Kangas and Palme, 2009; Schartau, 2009). The solution to these problems is to see the personal social services as a mixed economy of welfare. Public services are being forced to become more efficient and to manage with fewer resources. CBOs can play their role effectively where government is not successful. The idea of welfare pluralism is one of these policies that seem to be globally spread and cherished and also useful for different purposes (Schartau, 2009). Concepts of \"welfare pluralism\" and \"the mixed economy focuses on a reduced role for state intervention in welfare and greater emphasis on voluntary action\" (Beresford and Croft, 1983). Most previous research on CBOs has focused on three two activities, examining CBOs as sites from which to address the individual needs of poor people, repair the frayed social fabric of poor neighborhoods and examining the political work of CBOs (Marwell, 2004). In Pakistan's context, to take into account the CBO's decisive impact on the local governance and citizen participation and empowerment, we use a theoretical framework that allowed us to analyze the complex interactions among the stakeholders operating within the processes of crafting the institutional and organizational forms that structure society. Thus, this paper is based on the \"welfare pluralism\" - whereby stakeholders have the capacity to transform social relationships, particularly in their dealings with the government or among groups in society.\n3. Methods: Primary data were collected through opinion survey comprising both open ended and closed end questions from Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan from September 2015 to March 2016. Punjab is the largest province of Pakistan and it comprises 36 districts with the independent local government institutions. These institutions are working under the guidelines specified by Local Government Act, 2013. As all these 36 districts have the same independent local government with more or less same functions and infrastructure, therefore, due to financial constraints and limited time frame, one district Gujranwala (out of 36 districts) was chosen as the case study. The target population was all the local citizens of selected tehsils, local government officials and members of CBOs. The sample from local citizens has been collected on the basis of simple random sampling while sample from the members of CBOs and local government officials was collected on the basis of stratified sampling. Stratified random sampling from CBOs and local government officials was advantageous as it ensured that this subgroup within the population received proper representation and selection of systematic sample. Based on Yamane's (1967) formula, at 95% confidential level and 0.5% confidential interval used for determining sampling size, the sample for the collection of data from local citizens was 384 while from that of CBOs was 88. A total number of 472 questionnaires were administered. Table III gives the detailed overview of the sample from each strata.\n4. Findings and discussions: Findings are presented in two different sections that include mobilizing public involvement and influencing decision making. The viewpoints of stakeholders are presented under these sections.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: There is no doubt that the increase of CBOs may have a positive and noteworthy impact on participatory development. This is also evident that inclusion of CBOs in governance settings if different countries has changed the landscape of governance and development. But specifically, in the case of Gujranwala Pakistan, CBOs have failed in making meaningful impacts. The findings from this chapter suggest that CSO's work in not deep rooted in Citizens' daily realities and struggle.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The current paper is an attempt to evaluate the role of CBOs in promoting citizen participation in the decision-making process of local government institutions of Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. Among the most used evaluation techniques of participatory citizenship, the researchers have used an outcome driven approach based on \"social goals.\" Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which CBOs have been effectual for the promotion of participatory citizenship in decision making of local government institutions in Punjab, Pakistan. In addition, the paper also explores the influence and success level of CBOs in incorporating the preferences and needs of public in decision-making of local government services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, data have been collected through a self-administered survey questionnaire including both open and close-ended questions. A total of 424 questionnaires were collected from citizens, local government officials and CBO members. Standard survey techniques such as frequency distribution and comparative analyses were used for data analysis.\nFindings: In assessing the role of CBOs in educating all the stakeholders and the general public as well as to ascertain the incorporation of public needs and values into local government decision making, the paper finds that the effectiveness of CBOs is very low to fulfill its objectives. The study suggests the need to have more programs to educate CBOs, enhance public awareness campaigns and also to put into place proper mechanisms to incorporate and evaluate the public needs.\nOriginality/value: This paper fulfills the much-needed research gap by the exploring the unknown contribution of CBOs in Pakistan. The paper has added value to the current literature by highlighting that unless there is strong political will and eagerness of local bureaucracy to give up their powers, the inclusion of citizen participation through CBOs in decision making of local government would just be a futile exercise.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Transmission of information about consumer product quality and safety: a social media perspective
|
[
"Social media",
"Complex network",
"Public opinion",
"Government intervention",
"Consumer product quality and safety",
"Information transmission"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Quality and safety are arguably the most primary concerns for consumer products (Li et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2012a, 2012b). With the economic globalization, the concern on quality and safety of consumer products is growing. Product quality and safety are the core interests of manufacturing enterprises and consumers (Li, 2013a). However, the number of product recalls around the world has been increasing (Li, 2013b). The product harm scandals are the headlines on mainstream media from time to time, involving products range from toxic toy to peanut butter (Tse and Tan, 2011). For example, the Mattel recalled more than 21 million toys worldwide in 2007, and the causes were that the paints of these toys contained lead or they had tiny and detachable parts that could be swallowed by kids easily (Mattel Recalls, 2007). Consumer product quality and safety incidents have surged recently in China as well, including faucets containing lead above the approved level and school uniforms containing poisonous substances, with the sales of Kumho Tires and Da Vinci Furniture plunging. These incidents affect the economy and people's daily lives considerably. Because information about consumer product quality and safety is consumed by an extensive audience, it easily attracts the public's attention and therefore, has great social influence. Therefore, such information becomes the focus of public opinion and attracts attention from the governments too.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Information transmission in social media\n3. Complex network-based information transmission models: Different from content-based organizational network, social media consist of users. Participated users join social media, release personal information and content and connect with anyone who has a relation with them. Therefore, social media comprise users and connections. Suppose there are n members in a social media, of which the ith member is Ai (i = 1, ... n) and the relation between Ai and Aj is rij , then the social media can be represented as a form of matrix, E = (rij)nxn:\n4. A case study: MATLAB simulation experiments are adopted to verify the proposed models. We chose the well-recognized scale-free model proposed by Barabasi and Albert because it reflects the high heterogeneity structure of interpersonal network in social media context. The basic data of the network are as follows: the total number of nodes is 1,000; the average degree is 14.85; the most degree is 334; the clustering coefficient is 0.0838189.\n5. Conclusion: Product quality and safety directly affect our daily lives (Lima, 2016; Xu, 2011a; Xu et al., 2007; Yu et al. 2014). As Wang et al. (2012 a, 2012b) point out, consumers are very sensitive to the increased number of product safety incidents and product recalls, therefore more and more customers dig for the related information to avoid the products and brands associated with the safety incidents or potential risks. As such, public opinion plays a key role in the dissemination of information about consumer product quality and safety. In recent years, the fast-growing social media has become an import platform for firms for releasing product quality and safety information and for firms and government for hearing public opinion. However, research on social-media based dissemination of information about consumer product quality and safety incidents are still rare. More important, evolutionary mechanisms of network model need improvement to reflect the true characteristics of social media. Accordingly, based on the theory of complex network, this paper proposes two information transmission models, one with government intervention and the other without government intervention, for analyzing how information about consumer product quality and safety disseminate and forming public opinion in social media. To verify the proposed models, a simulation case study based on the Barabasi and Albert (1999) model is conducted in MATLAB. Specifically, government intervention in social media is evaluated, including intervention time, the influence of government information platform, network connection characteristics, public inform will and transmission will. Results of the simulation indicate that the proposed models are capable of supporting decision-making regarding the information dissemination and management about consumer product quality and safety in social media.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to the information about consumer product quality and safety that can easily attract public attention and become the focus of public opinion. In recent years, the fast-growing social media have become an import platform for firms for releasing product quality and safety information and for firms and governments to hear public opinion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To explore how information about consumer product quality and safety gets disseminated and a public opinion is formed in social media, this paper proposes two information transmission models, one with government intervention and the other without government intervention, based on the theory of complex network. A simulation case study in MATLAB is conducted to verify the proposed models.\nFindings: Information transmission models were constructed, one without government intervention and one with government intervention. The influence of information transmission with government intervention was analyzed. MATLAB was used to simulate the Barabasi and Albert (BA)-based model to consider event information level, government information level and possible panic population proportion. The government intervention effect was evaluated.\nOriginality/value: Based on a complex network, the derived transmission rule can provide decision-making support for monitoring and managing Web information of consumer product quality and safety.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine: an exploratory approach
|
[
"Italy",
"Surveys",
"Wines",
"Structural equation models",
"Environment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over recent years, much research has found evidence that consumers are interested in buying more \"sustainable\" products (Darnall et al., 2012). Sustainable practices, addressing not only the environmental issues but also the social and economic ones (according to the definition of sustainability given by United Nations, 2005), are becoming increasingly recognized and adopted over the whole agri-food sector (Jones, 2012). Therefore, the food sector, including the wine industry, is seeing the growth of labelling schemes, awarding a specific symbol for those products judged less environmentally or socially harmful, according to specific sustainability criteria (Dendler, 2014). The reason for this phenomenon is due to the inclusion of logos and symbols which could provide an effective tool to inform consumers and help them make informed choices and lead them to buy environmentally sustainable product (Ginon et al., 2014).\n2. Literature review: Viticulture and winemaking were among the first activities in the agricultural sector to integrate sustainability principles into the entire production chain (Jones, 2012).\n3. Research hypothesis: A model to test the variables affecting consumers attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine and the importance of sustainable aspects during the wine purchase has been developed. Based on background research and literature reviewed in the previous section, ten hypotheses are put forward to be tested.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Descriptive analysis\n6. Conclusions: The structural equation analysis yielded results useful for the interpretation of the following points. First, the purpose of this research was to investigate how environmental values and beliefs about sustainable labelling shape consumer attitude towards sustainable wine, and the importance of sustainable aspects during wine purchase.\n7. Limitations and future research: The purpose of this work was to focus on environmental concerns as a predictor for a specific attitude towards sustainable wine. In future, it might be interesting to examine and incorporate other values and attributes more closely related to consumer choice of wine (i.e. brand).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate, using an exploratory approach, how environmental values and beliefs about sustainable labelling shape consumer attitude towards sustainable wine.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected with an online survey from 495 Italian wine drinkers in 2013. The survey was advertised through websites, blogs, social networks and emails. Based on background research and literature review, ten hypotheses were tested. Then a structural equation model was constructed using latent variables to test the causal links specified in the model.\nFindings: The results show that attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine is shaped by both environmental and quality beliefs about sustainable wine, while it is not affected by the economic dimension of sustainability. In addition, age appears to have a slight effect on attitude because young consumers seem to be more interested in sustainability aspects of food products than older people are.\nPractical implications: The paper suggests that company communication strategies should focus on sustainable issues to meet the requirements of environmentally conscious consumers. At the same time, sustainable certification on wine labels may help wineries to become more competitive using verifiable sustainable claims to differentiate their products.\nOriginality/value: The work adds to the literature on wine marketing by evaluating which variables influence consumer attitude towards sustainable-labelled wine and, at the same time, to what extent sustainable aspects are important during wine purchase.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An empirical investigation of critical success factors influencing the successful TQM implementation for firms with different strategic orientation
|
[
"Strategy",
"CSFs",
"Defenders",
"Innovators",
"Prospectors",
"TQM implementation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and literature review: 1.1 Total quality management (TQM)\n2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses development: As with the TQM CSFs with the strategy of the firms, we express our effort to identify the practices and constituents which required ensuring a successful implementation of TQM. Each CSF has its significant role and importance with a strategy of the firm. The TQM CSFs in strategy-type firms are broadly classified under innovators, prospectors, and defenders which are discussed below. We have proposed the theoretical framework that relates the CSFs with the strategic orientation of the firms.\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Data collection and measurement scale\n4. Data analysis and results: The purpose of ANOVA is to see more than two groups differ on the variables under consideration. In this method, we observe the difference in the mean value of the dependent variable combined with the effect of the controlled independent, after considering the effect of uncontrolled independent variable (Malhotra and Dash, 2011). Before going to apply the ANOVA, we have to test the different assumption of one-way ANOVA as the scale of measurement, an assumption of independence, no significant outliers, and assumption of normal distribution and homogeneity of variance. The Shapiro-Wilk test and Levene's test was conducted to see the normality and equal variance, respectively. Levene's F-test for equality of variance is used to test the homogeneity of variance. In case of Levene's test, if the level of significant is set at a0.05, then it is considered as \"met the assumption of homogeneity of variance\" while if the significance level (p-value) is lower than a priori a-value 0.05, called unequal variance, then it is considered as \"not met the assumption of homogeneity of variance.\" The summary of the Shapiro-Wilk test and Levene's test are given in Tables IV and V, respectively.\n5. Discussion and findings: There are 20 constructs corresponding to 20 CSFs of TQM implementation considered in the study. A few theoretical frameworks were validated using empirical data. The present study was focused on the importance of CSFs among all three type organizations.\n6. Conclusion: To conclude in detail, we start with the CSFs in which we have empirically conducted this research by considering and suggesting the organizational strategy and 20 TQM CSFs that lead to the effective implementation of TQM. It establishes the theoretical framework between 20 CSFs and three types of business strategy (i.e. prospector, defender, and innovator). From the findings obtained from this study, it is evident that in TQM theory, the appropriate CSFs are the benchmarks and effective for current organizations to get the better results and performances. The hypotheses were framed based on the review of the literature, regarding the different importance of CSFs for the organization that has a different business strategy for TQM implementation. Thus, since these explanations are based on previous literature and theoretical model which fit into Indian scenario, it could change in global context. Thus this study focuses on the implementation of TQM with special reference to the Indian firms. Managerially, due to increasingly business competitive and economic pressures, top management sees the way to adopting TQM practices for better quality at cost control to achieve a competitive advantage. Apparently, it is evident that if there is a mismatch of strategy and CSFs with TQM practices it may interrupt the smooth operation of the company. Our proposed 20 CSFs could be used as guiding dimensions by managers for innovators, prospectors, and defenders strategies that lead to effective implementation of TQM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It has been found that critical success factors (CSFs) are responsible for successful implementation of total quality management (TQM) system. The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative analysis of the importance of 20 TQM CSFs to the strategic choices of the firms such as innovators, prospectors, and defenders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: From extant literature review on TQM, 20 CSFs have been carried out. The empirical data for this study was drawn from a survey of 111 firms in India. One-way ANOVA approach has been applied for analysis.\nFindings: The findings of the research show that the CSFs hold importance for different firm's strategy. From these 20 CSFs, some CSFs may be critically important for all three types of firm, while others have their significant roles for innovators, prospectors, and defenders individually which are better prepared for TQM implementation.\nPractical implications: The results of this study present the importance of knowing the appropriate CSFs to a strategy of the firms. The emphasis on CSFs will help organizations in accepting and rejecting TQM practices when they try to implement TQM and it is equally important in a global context. Apparently, it is evident that if there is a mismatch of strategy and CSFs with TQM practices it may interrupt the smooth operations of the company.\nOriginality/value: This research can be useful for those firms who are in the starting phase of TQM implementation with consideration of CSFs. Moreover, this research also attempts to inspire managers to consider the appropriate CSFs for implementing TQM effectively in their firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Why busy leaders may have exhausted followers: a multilevel perspective on supportive leadership
|
[
"Supportive leadership",
"Social support",
"Workload",
"Emotional exhaustion",
"Conservation of resources (COR) theory",
"Crossover",
"Multilevel"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Having supportive others in one's life is one of the most valuable resources for individuals. Conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989) explicitly recognizes that social support is a key resource and emphasizes that receiving support from others is essential for optimal functioning and well-being (Hobfoll et al., 1990). In organizations, leaders are in the unique position of providing support to employees, and a large body of research points to the benefits of leaders performing this role. Specifically, supportive leaders have been frequently found to increase employee well-being and to reduce the levels of exhaustion (Halbesleben, 2006; Skakon et al., 2010; Viswesvaran et al., 1999). Thus, an important endeavor for organizations is to enhance the extent to which leaders engage in supportive leadership.\nThe level of leaders: leader workload and supportive leadership: While supportive behaviors may take various forms, social support literature typically differentiates between emotional and instrumental forms of social support. Emotional support refers to the expression of esteem, sympathy and caring. By contrast, instrumental support includes the provision of useful information and tangible assistance (Cohen and Wills, 1985; House, 1981). According to House's (1981) concept of supportive leadership, supportive leaders listen to their followers' problems, express understanding and concern, provide feedback and task-related information and help followers perform their work.There is a considerable overlap between supportive leadership and other concepts of constructive leadership. The most obvious overlap is probably with the concept of transformational leadership (Bass, 1985), which emphasizes the importance of leaders engaging in individualized consideration. Individualized consideration is closely related to supportive leadership and refers to leaders' recognizing and acting on their followers' needs to promote their development and achievement (Bass, 1985). Rafferty and Griffin (2006) refined the individualized consideration dimension of transformational leadership and drew upon House's (1981) concept to define supportive leadership as \"occurring when leaders express concern for, and take account of, followers' needs and preferences when making decisions\" (p. 39). While we acknowledge that supportive behaviors are an important aspect of other concepts of constructive leadership (e.g. transformational leadership) as well, we utilize House's (1981) conceptualization of supportive leadership to guide our theorizing because of its exclusive focus on the provision of support through the leader.The abundance of research has focused on the beneficial effects that supportive leadership has on followers (e.g. Paterson et al., 2014; Rooney et al., 2009; Schyns et al., 2009; Xu and Cooper Thomas, 2011) while largely overlooking the determinants of support provision at the level of the giver, i.e. the leader. The few studies on factors that are related to the provision of support at the leader level have examined how leaders' attributes (e.g. their abilities and personal characteristics) affect followers' perception of support from the leader (e.g. Nielsen and Daniels, 2012; Paustian-Underdahl et al., 2013).However, theoretical work on social support suggests that support provision is not exclusively dependent upon the provider's willingness and skills (House, 1981). Rather, because enacting supportive behaviors is time-consuming (Shumaker and Brownell, 1984; Strazdins and Broom, 2007), the availability of sufficient time is a necessary precondition. When time is constrained, the provision of support is likely to suffer. The experience of time constraints at work is closely tied to one's levels of quantitative workload. Quantitative workload refers to the mismatch between the amount of work to be done and the amount of time available in which to get it done (Bowling et al., 2015). As time is finite, high levels of workload are likely to constrain the leader's time available for engaging in supportive behavior toward followers, thus resulting in lower levels of supportive leadership. In terms of emotional support, high levels of workload may make it difficult for leaders to find enough time to listen to their followers' problems, signal concern and express esteem. Furthermore, high levels of workload may leave leaders with less time to provide followers with task-related information and assist them in performing their work, thus reducing the levels of instrumental support from the leader.Generally, empirical research on antecedents of supportive leadership at the leader level is sparse, with only a few studies examining how working conditions at the leader level are related to followers' perception of support from the leader. These studies indicate that leaders who themselves experience support from their organization are in a better position to benefit their followers. In their cross-sectional study of 135 employees with 41 corresponding supervisors, Shanock and Eisenberger (2006) found that supervisors' perception of organizational support is positively related to their subordinates' perception of support from the leader. Likewise, organizational support at the leader level was shown to be positively related to the perception of support from the leader at the follower level in a cross-sectional study of 51 supervisors and 283 subordinates working in correctional facilities (Frear et al., 2018).However, working conditions at the leader level that constrain the enactment of supportive behaviors toward followers have yet to be addressed. Nonetheless, some empirical findings from research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) provide indirect evidence to support the notion that leaders' workload may limit their provision of support to followers. A meta-analysis on the relationship between role stressors and OCB showed that role overload (i.e. the perception of overly taxing responsibilities and commitments) was negatively related to OCB that aims at helping other individuals (Eatough et al., 2011). Moreover, Sherf et al. (2019) theorized that high levels of workload leave leaders with reduced capacity to perform all their tasks. Across three studies employing diary, field and experimental data, they found support for the idea that leaders with high levels of workload tend to prioritize technical tasks (e.g. getting things done) over relational tasks (i.e. treating followers fairly). Drawing from these findings and utilizing the premises of House (1981), we propose that followers' perception of emotional and instrumental support from the leader may suffer when leaders face high levels of workload. Thus, we hypothesize:H1. Leaders' workload is negatively related to followers' perception of supportive leadership.\nThe level of followers: supportive leadership and emotional exhaustion: COR theory states that individuals generally try to acquire, maintain and foster resources, and that accumulating resources benefits individuals in terms of optimal functioning and well-being (Hobfoll, 1989). Resources are any objects (e.g. tools for work), personal characteristics (e.g. self-esteem), energies (e.g. time) and conditions (e.g. social support) that have value to the individual and/or support goal achievement (Hobfoll, 2002). Social support is one of the most important resources because of its capacity to extend individuals' set of resources and to reinforce other resources (Hobfoll, 1998). While the abundance of resources is vital to well-being, the loss of resources has been associated with the occurrence of emotional exhaustion (Shirom, 1989). Emotional exhaustion describes \"feelings of being overextended and depleted of one's emotional and physical resources\" (Maslach et al., 2001, p. 399).Supportive leaders are capable of widening their followers' pool of available resources. The availability of sufficient and adequate resources to prevent resource loss reduces the risk of followers experiencing exhaustion. On the other hand, lacking support from the leader makes followers more vulnerable to resource loss, thus increasing the likelihood of emotional exhaustion. Meta-analytical findings provide evidence for the notion that support from the leader is negatively related to emotional exhaustion (Halbesleben, 2006). Therefore, we hypothesize the following:H2. Supportive leadership is negatively related to followers' emotional exhaustion.\nIntegration of leader and follower levels: In this study, we integrate theoretical work on social support (House, 1981) with COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to build a bridge between workload at the leader level and feelings of emotional exhaustion at the follower level. While COR theory is very useful in understanding the beneficial effects of receiving support from the leader, the source of this support has not yet been sufficiently addressed. Therefore, we rely on theoretical premises of social support literature to take into account the role of leader workload in creating boundaries for leaders' provision of support to followers.In joining H1 and H2, we recognize that supportive leadership necessarily incorporates the leader providing support and followers receiving it. Drawing on this multilevel perspective, we argue that supportive leadership operates at the intersection between the leader and the follower level, thus linking leaders' workload and followers' feelings of emotional exhaustion to one another. This perspective ties in with the propositions of the crossover model (Bakker et al., 2009; Westman, 2001). Crossover refers to the process whereby experiences and states (e.g. stress and strain) are transferred from one person to another in the same social environment (Westman, 2001). While originally used to explain the transmission of stress and strain between spouses (Bolger et al., 1989; Westman and Etzion, 1995), research has begun to translate this idea to the crossover of strain from leaders to followers (ten Brummelhuis et al., 2014; Huang et al., 2016; Koppe et al., 2018; Li et al., 2016).One of the mechanisms for explaining the transmission of strain from leaders to followers is indirect crossover via leader behavior. Specifically, it has been suggested that leader strain leads to follower strain because leaders' experience of strain creates boundaries for their enactment of constructive leadership. In their longitudinal study of 199 leaders and 456 followers, ten Brummelhuis et al. (2014) showed that leaders' emotional exhaustion was positively related to followers' emotional exhaustion five weeks later through undermining leader supportive behavior. Another study on crossover from leaders to followers over a period of three months found that leaders' exhaustion was positively related to followers' somatic complaints through deteriorating leaders' follower-directed health-oriented behavior (Koppe et al., 2018).However, research on crossover processes from leaders to followers has mainly focused on the transmission of strain (e.g. emotional exhaustion). In this study, we shift the focus from leaders' strain to the context within which leaders work and argue that leaders' workload may indirectly affect followers' emotional exhaustion through undermining supportive leadership. Specifically, we hypothesize the following:H3. Leaders' workload is positively related to followers' emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership.\nMethods: Participants and procedure\nResults: Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations of the study variables at the team and the follower level. The correlation coefficients show that leader workload was negatively related to the team mean of supportive leadership. The correlation between leader and follower workload was slightly positive, but not statistically significant. Supportive leadership was positively related to emotional exhaustion at both the team and the follower level.Moreover, Table 1 displays the intraclass correlation coefficients of the variables that we measured at the follower level. For supportive leadership, the ICC1 value of 0.27 indicates that followers' perceptions of supportive leadership within the same team were correlated and that a considerable proportion of the total variance exists at the team level. In addition, the ICC2 value of 0.70 shows that followers within the same team tend to agree in their ratings of supportive leadership, thus justifying an aggregation at the team level.Table 2 shows the results of the multilevel regression analyses. In model 1, we regressed supportive leadership on the control variables (i.e. team size, time spent on leadership and follower workload) and leader workload to test the hypothesis that leader workload is negatively related to supportive leadership. The results of this model showed that follower workload was negatively related to supportive leadership (b = -0.30, SE = 0.04, p < 0.001). Furthermore, this model revealed a negative relationship between leader workload and supportive leadership (b = -0.18, SE = 0.08, p = 0.022), providing support for H1. H2 states that supportive leadership is positively related to followers' emotional exhaustion. We tested this hypothesis in model 2, in which we regressed followers' emotional exhaustion on team- and individual-level supportive leadership. In line with H2, the results of model 2 showed a negative relationship between supportive leadership and emotional exhaustion at the team level (b = -0.48, SE = 0.13, p < 0.001). That is, team-level supportive leadership was negatively related to average team emotional exhaustion. H3 proposes that leaders' workload is indirectly related to followers' emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership. Model 3 is the model that we used, together with model 1, to estimate the indirect effect via causal mediation analysis. In this model, we regressed followers' emotional exhaustion on team- and individual-level supportive leadership and leader workload. In support of H3, the results of the causal mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of leader workload on followers' emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership at the team level (indirect effect = 0.07, 95% CI [0.01, 0.16]).Supplementary analyses\nDiscussion: In this study, we adopted a multilevel perspective on supportive leadership to examine its role in linking workload at the leader level and emotional exhaustion at the follower level. Drawing upon the theoretical work on social support (House, 1981) and COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989), we proposed that leaders' levels of workload are positively related to followers' feelings of emotional exhaustion through constraining the enactment of supportive leadership. The results provide support for the hypothesized 2-1-1 mediation model shown in Figure 1. In particular, we found that leaders' workload was negatively related to followers' perception of supportive leadership, which, in turn, was negatively related to followers' feelings of emotional exhaustion. Moreover, we found evidence for the proposed positive indirect relationship between leader workload and followers' emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership.Theoretical implications\nConclusion: Integrating the theoretical work on social support (House, 1981) with COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989), we argued that supportive leadership may link workload at the leader level and emotional exhaustion at the follower level to one another. We found that leader workload was indirectly and positively related to follower emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership, supporting the notion that high levels of workload at the leader level create boundaries for the enactment of supportive leadership. The results highlight the importance of recognizing that work contextual factors at the leader level may have implications for employee well-being through indirect crossover. Adopting an integrated multilevel perspective on supportive leadership incorporating both receivers of support (i.e. followers) and providers (i.e. leaders) allows researchers to take into account the dynamics of resource loss across hierarchical levels of an organization. The idea that leaders' workload is related to supportive leadership implies that organizations must optimize the levels of workload at the leader level to enable the enactment of supportive behaviors toward followers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study of leaders and followers working in day-care centers aims to use a multilevel perspective on supportive leadership to examine its role in linking workload at the leader level and emotional exhaustion at the follower level. Integrating theoretical work on social support with conservation of resources (COR) theory, leaders' workload is proposed to be positively related to followers' feelings of emotional exhaustion through constraining the enactment of supportive leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Multisource survey data from 442 followers and their leaders from 68 teams were collected to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Multilevel analyses showed that leader workload was negatively related to followers' perception of supportive leadership, which, in turn, was positively related to followers' levels of emotional exhaustion. Leader workload was indirectly and positively related to follower emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study provides initial support for the idea that work contextual factors at the leader level create boundaries for the extent to which leaders may provide support to their followers and draws attention to the accountability of leaders' work contextual factors for followers' well-being.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest that organizations must not focus narrowly on training leaders on how to benefit followers but should also aim to optimize leaders' levels of workload to enable them to act in a supportive manner.\nOriginality/value: By considering both the receivers (i.e. followers) and providers (i.e. leaders) of support simultaneously, we take a crossover approach to COR theory and acknowledge that work contextual factors at higher organizational levels may spread to employee well-being at lower levels of the organization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Organizational commitment in an intense competition environment
|
[
"Taiwan",
"Employees behaviour",
"Competitive advantage",
"Market orientation",
"Organizational commitment",
"Organizational performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: As a constituent of microeconomics, organizations with high performance in industrial clusters are the major source of national competitiveness (Porter, 1998). To improve organizational performance (OP), firms coordinate internal functional departments, develop esprit de corps through market orientation (MO) to strengthen organizational commitment (OC), and then satisfy customer demand. However, in the knowledge economy, the sustained competitive advantage of organizations lies in knowledge. An employee with highly complex and tacit knowledge is regarded as a key factor to gain a competitive advantage in high-technological firms. However, the risk of critical internal knowledge disclosure also rises when seeking external knowledge (Fang et al., 2011). Thus, the effect of talent competition, recruitment, and retention to OP in industrial clusters must be clarified in the context of the international competitive landscape.The classic perspective indicates that meeting customer needs is foundational to successful business performance (Lin et al., 2012). Global marketing literature argues that MO can result in performance improvement (Wu, 2011) and is the foundation of marketing resources that coordinate interfunctional departments according to customer and competitor information, complementing other resources to achieve OP (Tsiotsou and Vlachopoulou, 2011). Cuyper and Witte (2011) advocated that the desire of employees to sustain membership and the ability of businesses to retain essential employees are characterized as key dimensions of OC and OP. If a firm fosters MO culture and enhances employee OC, human resources possesses immobility characteristics and builds up competitive advantage, which is difficult to imitate (Cereola et al., 2011).In market-oriented firms, organizations can enhance OC to improve OP by generating and disseminating market information, coordinating departments, and creating a cooperative spirit (Sanchez-Hernandez and Miranda, 2011). In industrial clusters, geographic concentration draws competitors and customers closer together. Keen co-opetition stimulates firm-level marketing development. Additionally, technological turbulence and a continually changing environment verify the relatively high value of employees with high OC and goal alignment. However, previous studies have seldom addressed the fitness of the present model, which explores the relationships among MO, OP, and OC, in a high-tech context. For example, there are studies done in examining the relationship between MO and OP but in a none high-tech industry, such as textile industry (Demirbag et al., 2006). As Jaworski and Kohli (1993) and Luca et al. (2010) pointed out, academicians have not reached the consensus about the outstanding position of MO in high-tech industry. Therefore, a theoretical contribution of the present study is to provide a tested model which illustrates the relationship among MO, OP and OC in a high-tech setting.Practically, the use of samples from Taiwan's high-tech companies can be contributional to the existing body of related literature. Due to the national high-tech development policy, during the past 30 years, Taiwan's Government has invested billions of dollars in software and hardware facilities in sciences parks in order to attract hi-tech entrepreneurs to root in Taiwan, and their performances have been outstanding (Lee and Yang, 2000). Since the number of high-tech companies in Taiwan is relatively higher than that in other countries despite its small area (Mathews and Cho, 2000), it is valuable to assess the effects of MO on OP through OC in an intensely competitive environment, such as Taiwan. In this present study, employees from 91 high-tech firms located in the four science parks in Taiwan were sampled. Because these four science parks are scattered throughout Northern, Central, and Southern Taiwan, the data collected are more random and representive. The results of our investigation of the current integration model can only provide a meaningful insight but a managerial reference for high-tech companies when developing business strategies.\n2 Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Market orientation\n3 Methodology: 3.1 Questionnaire design\n4 Results and discussion: 4.1 Results\n5 Conclusion: According to existing literature, the correlation between MO, OC and OP can be confirmed by various industries. Based on the knowledge- and talent-intensive high-tech industries, when facing the challenge of a knowledge economy and global competition, regardless of whether the industrial environment becomes increasingly complex and diverse because of rapid changes, the OC of employees remains crucial. Only the long-term retention of human capital can sustain operations and enhance OP. Thus, this study provided an integrated discussion on OC. The SEM model in this research was designed to measure the effect of MO and employee OC on OP in high-tech companies within the context of talent competition sharpened by technology turbulence and geographic concentration of industrial clusters.Following the empirical investigation in applying SEM, the three hypotheses of this paper are evidenced to be accurate. This work concludes that either the comprehensive intelligence of MO or the retaining inclination of employee organizatioanl commitment is significant aspects in enhancing OP. An organization's response to the outside world must be consistent to compete with their competitors and satisfy customers. The indirect influence of MO on OP through OC is more vital than the direct influence of MO on OP. Therefore, high-tech firms transform MO into OP through strong OC. The cohesion formed in all processes can deliver enterprise value to customers. These professionals enrich the knowledge base and create a steady foundation of organization competitiveness for future development (Huber, 2012). Unlike previously, the motivation for employees to join high-tech industries is not based on financial reward. However, following the financial crisis and facing fierce competition, people may not have sufficient confidence and motivation to work within the high-tech industries. Therefore, this study re-examined the psychological impact of OC on employees and verified the intermediary model to demonstrate the importance of OC.In addition to verify the causal relationship, the value of this study is that confirmed the mediator role OC plays for MO and OP in a high-tech industry, which has substantial meaning for managerial practices. In other words, this study provides understanding of OC as an inter-mediator of MO and OP, which indicates that the only factors guaranteeing OP are the talents who are willing to commit to the organization. The managerial implications are as follows: despite the booming industry and substantial competition, only employees' commitment to the organization can ensure a better future for high-tech industries. Plus, this study adopted a BSC framework as a criterion of OP, which was not widely implemented. This study provides an excellent and simple measurement reference for Taiwan's high-tech industries.In conclusion, this findings of this study implies that it is possible for high-tech firms to elevate OP in the future by introducing and implementing the concept of MO to catalyze interfunctional coordination, and arrange business resources according to demand. This spirit will reinforce normative commitment, strengthen affective commitment, and broaden individual vision. Employees will develop a profound understanding of their own roles and obligations, which inspires affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment, to consequently improve OP. The current market mechanism differs from previous mechanism because of the gradually changing international situation. The measurement of MO must be dynamic and OC must be valued to maintain competitive OP in an aggressive competitive high-tech environment.Future studies can investigate the same theoretical framework by applying the qualitative method. In addition, the retention strategies and human resource polices for specific professionals and high-level managers can be created by analyzing people in different positions, industries, and competitive environments. Because of their valuable experience and potential, organizations should focus resources on the few talented people to enrich the knowledge base and achieve superior results. This contributes not only to a more efficient MO investment, but also enables human resource management to develop more appropriate strategies that meet the demands of differently skilled employees. Studies addressing these issues can be used to increase the value of related research.Finally, although this study empirically examines the three hypotheses, there are still limitations which might impede the generalizability of the present study. First, although the different levels of respondents are active in high-tech organizations, the influence of possible biases cannot be ignored. Second, organizations in different industries or countries typically conduct business according to various management methods. Firms in upper streams of the supply chain have divergent business models than firms in downstreams. Researchers can adopt the framework in other sceneries for greater understanding and representability. The proposed model did not include the personal background analysis of respondents, such as their position and seniority in related industries.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of market orientation (MO) on organizational performance (OP) through organizational commitment (OC) in the intensely competitive environment of high-tech industrial clusters. The relationships among MO, OC, and OP are also examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the questionnaires completed by employees of 91 high-tech enterprises (n=335) located in the four science parks in northern, central, and southern Taiwan.\nFindings: - The results indicate that MO and OC have positive and direct effects on OP. The effect of MO on OP is significantly increased by enhanced OC.\nPractical implications: - This study provides corporate managers with valuable knowledge, which can enhance OC and OP. That is, successful organizations must combine the strengths and motivations of internal employees and respond to external changes and demands promptly to demonstrate the organization's value.\nSocial implications: - Regardless how the industrial environment becomes increasingly complex and diverse, OC of employees is still crucial. Only long-term retention of human capital can sustain operations and enhance OP.\nOriginality/value: - The most valuable contribution of this study is the understanding of OC as a mediator of MO and OP. This indicates that the only factors that guarantee OP are the talents who are willing to commit to the organization. Faced with increasingly severe challenges in the future, the results of this study contribute to existing literature by demonstrating that MO can sustain competitive advantages.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Retirement preparation of men and women in their positive savings periods
|
[
"Life cycle",
"Financial preparation",
"Retirement adequacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The aging of the baby boomer generation in the USA has brought increased focus on the issues regarding retirement preparation. Many baby boomers who are retiring today do not have adequate savings to maintain their current standard of living for the remainder of their lives. In addition, the number of baby boomers currently retiring is adding stress to the Social Security system (Butrica et al., 2003). Note that the US Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born between 1946 and 1964. The generation can be segmented into broadly defined cohorts: leading-edge baby boomers who are individuals born between 1946 and 1955 and late boomers who were born between 1956 and 1964.\n2. Literature review: Financial preparation for retirement has long been a salient issue for researchers. In general, the findings show that retirement plan participation increases with age, earnings, and education. In addition, participation rates are higher for men, whites, and individuals who are married. Jahns (1976) found that those who planned more extensively for financial needs during retirement had more satisfaction in their past preparation efforts than those who planned less extensively. Kim et al. (2005) reported that those who calculated their retirement fund needs had more savings. Hassan and Lawrence (2007) reported that those who planned for retirement were more likely to contribute to pension plans. Adami et al. (2013) showed that the distribution of pre-retirement earnings plays a considerable role in the distribution of post-retirement income of retirees, especially the low and medium intervals in the UK. Lee and Chang (2006) analyzed the relationship between Social Security expenditures and economic growth. Their findings illustrate a long-run equilibrium among GDP, capital stock, and Social Security expenditures. Thus, the authors show that social welfare policies need not always inhibit economic growth.\n3. Data and methodology: The data were obtained from the 2013 SCF, collected by NORC, a social science research center at the University of Chicago, which is a triennial interview survey of US families sponsored by Board of Governance of the Federal Reserve System with the cooperation of the US Department of the Treasury. The survey collects information on families' total income before taxes for the calendar year preceding the survey. The data cover the status of families as of the time of the interview, including detailed information on their balance sheets and financial services as well as on their pensions, labor force participation, and demographic characteristics.\n4. Findings: Positive savers\n5. Conclusions: This study expands the literature regarding retirement preparation by examining the factors affecting adequacy of retirement income individuals receive or expect to receive from Social Security and pensions for retirement. Subjective survey data from the US SCF were used for analysis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study analyzes financial preparation for retirement of American men and women, using the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The purpose of this paper is to research the adequacy of retirement preparation for men and women in their positive savings periods.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research uses probit analysis and multiple regression models to observe the statistical significance of several independent variables on retirement savings. The specific variables of analysis are socio-demographic, work related, financial assets, and attitudes about saving and investing for a sub-sample of individuals aged 35-45, 46-59, and 60-67.\nFindings: For retirement preparation, income is a significant factor for both men and women aged 35-45. Excellent health is significant for both men and women aged 46-59, whereas the number of weeks worked per year was significant for men and women aged 60-67. In addition, health has significant positive effects on the amount of financial wealth invested in stocks while age has significant negative effects.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research uses data from the 2013 SCF to analyze factors affecting retirement preparation for men and women in their positive savings periods. The findings from this study can aid policy makers in designing retirement saving programs that can effectively incentivize individuals for adequately prepare for retirement.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies have focused on the effect of factors such as age, health, marital status, work history, education, income, family/household composition, and occupation on retirement savings over an individual's lifetime. This study focuses specifically on retirement preparation or adequacy for men and women who are in their positive savings periods.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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To fight, sabotage or steal: are all forms of employee misbehaviour created equal?
|
[
"Employee behaviour",
"Logistic regression",
"Arbitration",
"Conciliation",
"Industrial tribunal",
"Personal aggression",
"Production deviance",
"Property deviance",
"Unfair dismissal"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Scholarship into effective human resource management has increasingly emphasised the pursuit of knowledge that assists the HR manager respond to competing stakeholder interests. To this end, \"sustainable HRM\" attempts to uncover the relationship between HRM practices and outcomes beyond predominantly economic and financial outcomes. A multitude of stakeholders hold interests in the HR space, not only in financial terms but also in psychological and social terms. The current analysis pursues a scholarly endeavour that is closely aligned with this approach. Specifically, the paper focuses on the level of \"judicial\" tolerance, as an indicator of societal tolerance, for offences committed by employees across Australian workplaces by examining whether an employee's conduct was of a contemptible standard to warrant dismissal. Particular consideration is given to those misconduct situations where the dismissed employee seeks recourse through Australia's federal industrial tribunal. Under examination are the outcomes of cases where the employees have sought to have their claim arbitrated by a government-appointed \"commissioner\" of the tribunal, as these outcomes signal to employers, and society at large, which behaviours warrant dismissal and which behaviours may have been better disciplined by a punishment less severe than dismissal. As such, the methodological component of the inquiry adopts a procedure from a social and behavioural perspective to disentangle arbitrators' tolerance for misbehaviours.\n2. Unfair dismissal regulation in Australia: At present, there are \"gaps\" in the federal unfair dismissal protections afforded to Australian employees under the Fair Work Act 2009. For example, state and local government workers in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales are not covered, nor are employees with less than 12 months service in small businesses that employ less than 15 staff. Even with such exclusions, the federal Act offers the majority of Australian employees who are working regular and systematic hours, protection from unfair dismissal. For the eligible majority, these protections extend beyond full-time workers to include also part-time and casual employees. Employers have been regulated, in varying degrees, by unfair dismissal conventions at the federal level since The Workplace Relations Act 1996, and even earlier as the individual states progressively adopted some form of unfair dismissal protections, starting with New South Wales in 1940 and finally with Queensland in 1987. Typically, the large majority of unfair dismissal claims are settled by the private conciliation services convened by staff at the federal tribunal, which is presently the Fair Work Commission (FWC). For example, in 2013-2014, from the 10,866 claims that were lodged 8,843 (79 per cent), were settled by conciliation (Fair Work Commission, 2014, p. 41). A strikingly lower number of matters are finalised by substantive arbitration, with 367 cases determined in 2013-2014 and 402 cases the previous year (Fair Work Commission, 2014, p. 41). This figure equates to around one-and-a-half decisions issued per business day. Although only small a fraction of claims are arbitrated each year, the influence of these arbitration decisions on HRM policy and practices is far greater than the thousands of private, in-camera conciliations that occur every year. The publically recorded arbitration findings are scrutinised by industrial lawyers and reporters, unions and employer associations for the lessons from which the industrial stakeholders may benefit.\n3. Method: Using a quantitative research method, 565 misbehaviour-related, unfair dismissal arbitration decisions made by Australia's federal industrial tribunal commissioners between July 2000 and July 2010 were examined. These decisions are publically available documents, downloadable from the website for the FWC. The decisions examined accounted for all misconduct-related dismissals substantially arbitrated during that period. The remainder of this section describes the content analysis used to identify and convert the relevant information to count data, which were utilised to develop the logistic regression model of the arbitration decisions.\n4. Results: From the 565 decisions analysed, in 254 of them (45 per cent), the arbitrator found that the employee had been unfairly dismissed by the employer, and 642 separate acts of misbehaviour were identified. Table III displays the descriptive statistics for counts of misbehaviour incidents identified in the arbitration decisions. Production deviance occurred most frequently in the decisions (44 per cent), while property deviance was associated with the highest percentage of successful defences by employers (63 per cent).\n5. Discussion: Arbitral decisions are a conduit for conveying social values about proportionality between a misbehaviour episode and a disciplinary response, thus the filters through which these decisions are made are important. The regression model highlighted several significant influences shaping these decisions. In particular was the set of variables that identified personal characteristics about the arbitrator making the decision. Starting with the matter of gender, the model showed that female arbitrators were more inclined than male arbitrators to favour a lessor punishment than dismissal, so it may by that female adjudicators are reflecting classic feminine traits to foster workplace relationships.\n6. Conclusion: A gap exists between employers' and arbitrators' beliefs - and by proxy societal beliefs - about what constitutes appropriate applications of an employer's managerial prerogative when employees \"misbehave\". Employers appear to hold workers to higher standards of behaviour than those expected by people in broader circles of society. We can say this because arbitrators overturned employer decisions to dismiss \"misbehaving\" workers in nearly half of the claims examined, giving workers and unions a reasonable incentive to pursue arbitration. This paper showed that highly held social values that denounce violence and interpersonal harm were reflected in the examined arbitration decisions. Therefore, when the misbehaviour involves an act of personal aggression, the employer has the strongest prerogative to consider dismissing the worker, notwithstanding that the employer must ensure that the worker receives natural justice in the course of determining whether or not to terminate the employment relationship. However, when the misbehaviour event involves production deviance, political deviance or, in particular, property deviance, management may wish to consider progressive discipline over a dismissal. In such a circumstance, all parties may be best served if management issues a suspension and (or) written warning to the worker advising that no further acts of misbehaviour will be tolerated and that dismissal is a potential result in the event the worker commits a further incident.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The endless manifestation of employee misbehaviours can be classified according to Robinson and Bennett's (1995) employee deviance typology. Using this typology, the purpose of this paper is to examine the level of \"judicial\" tolerance for offences committed by employees across Australian workplaces that culminated in an arbitration hearing before the country's federal industrial tribunal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A content analysis was performed on 565 misbehaviour related, unfair dismissal arbitration decisions made by Australia's federal industrial tribunal between July 2000 and July 2010. Using the count data that resulted, a logistic regression model was developed to determine which unfair dismissal claim characteristics influenced whether or not a dismissal was deemed to be an appropriate course of disciplinary action.\nFindings: The results suggest that an arbitrator's gender, experience and background have influence on his or her decision. Significance tests also verified that personal aggression, production deviance, political deviance and property deviance were all considered unacceptable in Australian workplaces. Importantly, the results enable the ordering of the range of tolerance. From this ordering, a picture emerged as to what factor may be framing the extremities of the arbitrators' tolerance for the misbehaviours: the target (or victim) of the behaviour.\nResearch limitations/implications: Unfair dismissal claims that are settled through private conciliation, as they occur off the public record, could not be included in the analysis.\nPractical implications: Society's implicit stakeholder interest in what constitutes appropriate workplace behaviour is further testament to the HRM obligation to facilitate sustainable workforces. Management should consider whether dismissing a misbehaving employee is a reactionary approach to broader organisational issues associated with employee well-being and cultural norms. In order to contribute to sustainable workforces, HRM policies and actions should focus on limiting triggers that drive misbehaviour, particularly behaviours that result in harm to individuals as a matter of priority, followed closely by triggers to behaviours that result in harm to organisational profitability.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents new insights about the degrees to which various forms of employee misbehaviour are accepted in the workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managing perceived risk for customer retention in e-commerce: The role of switching costs
|
[
"Consumer marketing",
"Retention",
"Information management",
"Risk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Currently, perceived risk (PR) has been understood as an influential factor on a person's willingness to make a choice, including adopting a new technology such as online shopping (Jasper and Ouellette, 1994; Javenpaa and Tractinsky, 1999). In general, people perceive high risks in online trading (Schoenbachler and Gordon, 2002). The concern may in fact be increasing, as Internet fraud is perceived to be wide-spreading (Keeney, 1999; Smith and Rupp, 2003). Therefore, the customer's heightened concerns for risk, or the PR, tend to serve as a new significant, generic factor affecting the customer's choice of providers on the Internet (Udo, 2001). If e-commerce is inevitably and acutely associated with heightened concerns for risk, lowering PR can be elevated into a business strategy for enhancing customer retention (Cunningham et al., 2005; Morgan and Hunt, 1994).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Perceived risk to customer loyalty\n3. Research methods: 3.1 Subjects\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 The test of coefficient paths\n5. Conclusion and suggestion: 5.1 Research and practice implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore how perceived risk affects customer loyalty in e-commerce and how switching costs mediate in the relationship between perceived risk and customer loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, structural equation modeling was conducted, and data on Internet shopping habits of 382 consumers in Taiwan were examined.\nFindings: The findings of this study revealed that lowering perceived risks can increase switching costs, which leads to customer loyalty with the service provider in e-commerce.\nResearch limitations/implications: A sample bias may exist because the sampling was conducted through an online survey in a specific Web site. This study affirmed the theoretical framework regarding the mediation effect of switching costs on perceived risk and customer-loyalty relationships.\nPractical implications: To avoid the single effect of reducing perceived risk on customer loyalty, practitioners should be difficult for competitors to imitate. This can increase the barriers to competition, further lock in the customer and can prevent the switch to other service providers.\nOriginality/value: The findings provide a new feasible approach to customer retention: a business can reduce customers' perceived risk to increase switching costs against the competition for customer retention in e-commerce.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Linking core self-evaluations and work engagement to work-family facilitation: A study in the hotel industry
|
[
"Hospitality management",
"Human resources management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Employees in frontline service jobs are a key input for delivery of service quality. This is not surprising, because having human resources for service excellence that enables managers to achieve competitive advantage is a top priority among leading hospitality and travel firms (e.g. Kotler et al., 2010; Wirtz et al., 2008). However, frontline employees (FLEs) often have long work hours and excessive job demands and experience emotional dissonance (e.g. Kara et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2012; Ryan et al., 2011). FLEs also have difficulty balancing their work (family) and family (work) roles (Deery, 2008; O'Neill, 2012; Zhao and Namasivayam, 2012). Since involvement in multiple roles drains employees' limited resources (e.g. time, energy), they experience work-family conflict and family-work conflict.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Background\nResearch model: The research model concerning the relationships among study constructs is delineated in Figure 1. The underlying premise of the model is that FLEs high in CSEs are prepared to be highly engaged in their work, because as stated by Judge et al. (2003), they are positive, self-confident, and efficacious and believe in their own agency. Such employees in turn can make an integration of their work (family) and family (work) roles effectively. Hence, the model proposes that the effect of CSEs on WFF and FWF is fully mediated by WE.\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Measurement results\nDiscussion: Summary of findings\nConclusion: At the outset of this study, it was highlighted that a research model that examined whether WE functioned as a mediator of the impact of CSEs on two directions of facilitation between work and family roles was developed and tested. This was developed based on the JD-R model as the theoretical underpinning. The results suggested that all hypotheses were supported. That is, employees with positive CSEs reported elevated levels of WE. Such employees in turn were capable of balancing their work (family) and family (work) responsibilities successfully. Eventually, the present study expands current knowledge by assessing the abovementioned relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This article aims to develop and test a research model that investigates work engagement as a mediator of the effect of core self-evaluations on work-family facilitation and family-work facilitation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The relationships were tested via structural equation modeling using data collected from a sample of full-time frontline hotel employees with a time lag of two weeks in Turkey.\nFindings: The results suggest that work engagement functions as a full mediator of the impact of core self-evaluations on work-family facilitation and family-work facilitation. Specifically, frontline employees with positive core self-evaluations are highly engaged in their work, and therefore, are capable of integrating their work (family) and family (work) roles successfully.\nPractical implications: Management of the hotels can utilize the core self-evaluations scale to hire the right person in frontline service jobs. They should invest in high-performance work practices (i.e. training and re-training, empowerment, rewards, job security, career opportunities) simultaneously for retention of employees with positive core self-evaluations. When such employees learn that the organization implements these practices due to management commitment to delivery of service quality and retention of employees, they are highly engaged in their work. The presence of a family-supportive work environment would also enable managers to retain these frontline employees.\nOriginality/value: This study expands current knowledge by assessing work engagement as a mediator of the impact of core self-evaluations on work-family facilitation and family-work facilitation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Community identification increases consumer-to-consumer helping, but not always
|
[
"Social identification",
"Behavior intentions",
"Consumer identification",
"Community",
"Consumer value‐creation",
"Firm value‐creation",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Consumer marketing"
] |
[
{
"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: Consistent with the managerial and academic understanding, which argues for creating close relationships with consumers, brand managers are increasingly developing relationship management programs that facilitate consumers' transition from \"acquaintances\" to \"partners\" who share fully bonded relationships with select brands (Johnson and Selnes, 2004). When consumers develop an identity linked to a brand, they are not only intensely loyal, but they also act to promote the brands (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003), interact with others with shared interests (e.g. Reto, 2012), and become integrated into the firm's value-creation process (Mascarenhas et al., 2004). It is common for consumers to develop or join consumption communities, non-geographically bound communities of consumers within which brands or consumption contexts are central to the group's existence (e.g. Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Communities have emerged for brands and consumption contexts as diverse as Apple (Muniz and Schau, 2005), Yamaha motorcycles (Reto, 2012), convenience products like Nutella (Cova and Pace, 2006), various types of European automobiles (Algesheimer et al., 2005), and the Harley Davidson consumption subculture (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Within these communities, consumers willingly provide assistance to other consumers, thereby engaging in citizenship and helping behaviors that provide value for other consumers and, ultimately, for brands.Helping behaviors between consumers are forms of customer voluntary performance (CVP) (Bettencourt, 1997) and customer citizenship behaviors (CCB) (Groth, 2005), both of which are types of citizenship behaviors. When engaging in citizenship behaviors, consumers extend beyond their consumption role and into a role of co-production. While citizenship behaviors such as helping behaviors toward other consumers benefit and contribute to the success of firms and brands (Bartikowski and Walsh, 2011; Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007), prior research provides limited insights for brand managers or academic researchers to better understand when or why consumers engage in citizenship behaviors such as helping behaviors. For instance, while membership in consumption communities is thought to lead to a sense of \"moral responsibility\" (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001) toward other members of the community, research also suggests that members may also consciously withhold help from some members of the community (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). For instance, members of the Harley Davidson subculture of consumption have been observed to help some motorcyclists repair their bikes while simultaneously refusing to help others (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Hence, it is unclear whether consumption community membership per se will lead to an increase or decrease in helping behaviors between consumers. While there is a consensus that group membership shapes social behaviors, the study of the relationship between group membership and helping behavior in a consumption context has been neglected. One way to better understand the mechanism that leads to and inhibits the value-creation associated with helping behaviors is by investigating the link between social identification and helping behaviors.Social identification is an individual's perceived belongingness or identification with any social group. Individuals with a strong sense of social identity with a group tend to perceive the group's successes and failures as their own. Membership instills a sense of social or moral responsibility to the group and its individual members (May and Hoffman, 1991) that can lead to increased levels of helping behavior (Bergami and Bagozzi, 2000; Sturmer et al., 2005). Considering the role of social identification on consumers' helping intentions is important to marketers for a number of reasons. First, although research suggests that helping behaviors occur within consumption communities, existing research on consumption communities implies a dichotomy between providing help to members and withholding help from non-members (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001) and, because we are unaware of any empirical research to examine consumers' helping and withholding intentions within consumption communities, additional research is required to better understand the antecedents to helping behavior intentions and withholding behaviors. Further, existing research does not provide a framework to explain whether helping behaviors are likely to differ between community subgroups - that is, does subgroup identification promote helping behavior intentions toward only toward the subgroup or does subgroup identification also lead to helping behavior intentions toward the community as a whole?The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between social identification (Ashforth and Mael, 1989) and interpersonal helping behavior among members of a consumption community - this relationship is empirically examined at both the overall and subgroup levels. Because the Harley Davidson biker subculture has become the exemplar of consumption communities (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), it was chosen as the context for this study. This study views helping behavioral intentions as falling along a continuum, suggesting that interpersonal helping behavior is not influenced by membership alone; rather helping behavior is influenced by a consumer's level of identification with the broader the community and to the subgroups of that community. A consumer who perceives a stronger identification with a community is more likely to engage in helping other members than a consumer with a weaker identification. This article also establishes that when consumers identify with the overall community, their identification promotes increased helping intentions toward the overall community but not toward subgroups. On the other hand, when consumers hold a strong identification with a subgroup of the overall community helping behavior intentions toward the subgroup increase but helping behavior intentions toward the overall community are inhibited.\nHelping behavior as a way of creating value: Increasingly, managers and academics are recognizing the benefits of including consumers within the value-creation process (Mascarenhas et al., 2004). In fact, it has become widely understood that consumers are inseparable and therefore have important roles within the provision of services (Bitner et al., 1997). One way that consumers can create value is by providing assistance to other consumers by, for example, voluntarily assisting other consumers in finding or shopping for products, helping other consumers repair a product, or coaching others on the proper usage of products (e.g. Bettencourt, 1997; Groth, 2005; Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001). In whatever ways they voluntarily assist other customers, consumers simultaneously benefit other consumers and act on behalf of the organization to contribute to its success (Bartikowski and Walsh, 2011; Bove et al., 2009; Yi et al., 2011). Of the research on this topic, much follows the conceptualizations proposed by Bettencourt (1997) and Groth (2005). Bettencourt (1997) introduced the concept of customer voluntary performance, voluntary behaviors in which service customers engage that benefit the firm. He found that consumers can benefit the firm by advising other consumers or giving product-related suggestions. Based on customers involved in internet service delivery, Groth's (2005, p. 15) more recent conceptualization of customer citizenship behavior includes substantially similar behaviors including helping other consumers shop for the products they need, find products, or provide instruction detailing how to use a service correctly.Although research about customer citizenship behaviors is limited, consumer extra-role behaviors are conceptually similar to the extra-role behaviors that employees engage in within the workplace, the difference being that customers engage in these voluntary behaviors as opposed to employees (Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007). Researchers have been studying citizenship behaviors within the workplace for about 30 years (e.g. Organ, 1988). Of the forms of citizenship behaviors studied, the most common and extensively studied is interpersonal helping behavior (see Lepine et al. (2002) or Podsakoff et al. (2000) for review). Interpersonal helping behaviors are voluntary actions that an individual directs at another individual as opposed to an organization. While consumers' helping behaviors are defined and understood as noncompulsory actions that directly benefit the organization and its customers (Groth, 2005), further research is required to explain why consumers voluntarily help other consumers.Social identity theory\nResearch method: Data collection and respondents\nResults: Tests of hypotheses\nDiscussion: The theoretical frameworks of customer voluntary performance (Bettencourt, 1997) and customer citizenship behavior (Groth, 2005) expanded the concept of organizational citizenship behavior to include customers as partial employees who are actively involved in service delivery. The primary purpose of this study was to demonstrate that consumers' identify with communities both at an overall community and at subgroup levels - and that these levels of identification separately influence consumers' interpersonal helping intentions, depending on which group level of identification is accessible to the consumer. To accomplish this, we investigated relations between social identification and helping behavior among consumption community members where identification was salient at both the overall community and the subgroup levels. Another purpose of the study was to show how developing relationships with consumers can create value for product-based as well as service-based organizations through consumer-to-consumer helping behaviors. When consumers identify with a consumption community and its subgroups, their identification can lead to helping between members of those communities. Voluntary helping between consumers provides value to consumers and contributes to the firm's value-creation process.Treating helping behavior as a dichotomy, as implied by previous research, suggests that community members would be willing to help other members, but unwilling to help non-members (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001). In line with previous research on organizations (Ashforth and Mael, 1989), the results support a positive relationship between social identification and helping behavior among consumers. As hypothesized, when social identity or perceived attachment to the biker community increased, bikers increased their intentions to help other members. Our findings suggest that social identification, rather than membership alone, plays a key role in determining helping behavior among consumption community members.An equally important finding of this research relates to consumers' helping behavior intentions at the subgroup level. Our research suggests that consumption communities are comprised of many subgroups for which members of each share an identity that include, but are distinct from, the overall community. For example, there were more than 70 different biker subgroups identified by the 152 respondents in this study. When members' identity was salient at the subgroup level, the relationship between identification and helping behavior intentions were positively linked to helping intentions toward subgroup members and negatively related to members of the overall community. For example, a member of a biker subgroup, such as the Iron Butt Gang, might go out his way to assist another to repair his bike or stop and help if he was broken down along the side of the road if the other member was perceived to be part of his subgroup, the Iron Butt Gang. However, the same person would be less likely to help another biker who was a member of the biker community but not a member of the subgroup, such as the Iron Butt Gang. From a managerial perspective, this is an important finding as it suggests that consumption communities and brand communities may only benefit the brand if members perceive themselves to be similar - fragmented membership groups such as the biker subculture appear to lead to less consistency in interpersonal helping behaviors between subgroups of the overall community. As such, managers may try to communicate the similarities within the overall community and between its subgroups in order to increase the benefits arising from members' shared identification and values.As with service-based firms, citizenship behavior encourages product-based organizations to develop customer relationships (Johnson and Selnes, 2004), but is unclear regarding their role. This study demonstrates how consumers can voluntarily act on behalf of either a service- or product-based organization to contribute to its success. Identification was significantly related to such helping behaviors as assisting other bikers in finding or shopping for products and even teaching or explaining to others how to use products at both the community and subgroup levels. These findings imply that consumers can act as partial employees to create value that benefits the organization. Through organizationally sponsored community events, managers can help to develop relations between consumers that are formed over time and act to benefit the organization as well as strengthen the bonds of individuals within the consumption community.The primary motivation for consumer citizenship behavior is an inspired sense of responsibility that stems from the perceived connection with a social group (May and Hoffman, 1991). Judging from the magnitude of the standardized betas, the relationship between identification and helping behavior intentions are generally stronger at the community compared to the subgroup level. One way an organization can foster consumer citizenship behavior, then, is by forming communities around its product or service. It is thus in the best interest of a company to either form or encourage the formation of a community around its brand, product, or service. The resulting community and its related subgroups will act to motivate and support helping behaviors among the company's consumers.Future research may focus on how the diversity of subgroups within an overall consumption community affects consumers' interactions and helping behaviors between one another. Specifically, if consumption communities perceive the goals and values between subgroups to be consistent, membership within a subgroup may thus support members' identification with the overall community - thus suggesting that subgroup identification may lead to helping behavior intentions toward members of the overall community. It will be important to determine if groups that are more homogenous or if managers' efforts at communicating similarities between dissimilar groups enhances consumers' willingness to provide assistance between subgroups of the community.\nManagerial implications: When consumers join and identify with a consumption community, their identification with other members leads to a sense of responsibility towards other members and to the community as a whole. Identification with the community motivates consumers to provide consumption-related assistance to other consumers, thus providing value to consumers and contributing to the firm's value-creation process. Examples of this value-creation include consumers voluntarily assisting other consumers in finding or shopping for products and even teaching or explaining to others how to use products at both the community and subgroup levels.Consumption communities are comprised of heterogeneous subgroups and consumers may identify both with a subgroup and to the community as a whole. Because subgroup identification and identification with the overall community as separate identities, accessing one identity requires consumers to separate from the other. As a result, consumer identification with the overall community is unrelated to helping behavior intentions toward the subgroup. On the other hand, subgroup identification reduces consumers' helping behavior intentions toward members of the overall community. Thus, consumption community development simultaneously encourages and discourages consumer value-creation.In the current study, more than seventy subgroups were identified within the consumption community investigated. It is important for managers to recognize the heterogeneous values and needs of the various groups within an overall consumption community.Because identification with subgroups can lead to conflict and has the potential to limit value-creation between consumers, managers should seek to communicate the communalities between subgroups in order to promote identification with the overall community. By encouraging identification with the overall community, managers thus encourage value-creation between consumers.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - When consumers help other users of the same brand, both the brand and consumers benefit. To determine when consumer-to-consumer helping behaviors occur and to help managers encourage this value-creating activity, this paper aims to investigate relationships between social identification and helping behavior intentions within a consumption community and its subgroups.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Surveys were given to consumers identified as members of a consumption community during an annual consumption event. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: - Consumers' identification with the overall community was positively related to helping behavior intentions toward the overall community, but not subgroup level. Subgroup identification was positively related to helping at the subgroup but negatively related to helping behavior intentions at the community level. When consumers identify with the overall community, they assist other consumers. However, consumers are less likely to help consumers in the overall community when identifying with a subgroup.\nPractical implications: - When consumers identify with a consumption community and its subgroups, their identification can lead to helping between members. Voluntary helping between consumers provides value to consumers and contributes to the firm's value-creation process. This study helps managers understand how consumption community development simultaneously encourages and discourages consumer value-creation through helping behaviors.\nOriginality/value: - This study examines consumer value-creation through the context of consumer helping intentions within consumption communities on a continuum, as opposed to the dichotomy implied by prior research. This study empirically demonstrates how consumers' membership in subgroups can motivate consumers to help some, but not other consumption community members.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Editorial by Keith Howard
|
[
"Operations and production management",
"Production planning and control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There have been three former editors/editorial teams for IJOPM. Colin New at Cranfield launched the journal and was Editor for volumes 1-3 (1980-1983); I held that position for volumes 4-15; the UMIST editorial team edited volumes 16-24. Andrew Taylor and Margaret Webster at the Bradford School of Management have, this year (2005) assumed responsibility for the current, 25th volume and, it is to be hoped will continue to fill the role for the foreseeable future.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - To provide an outline of an editor's experiences in the early years of publishing IJOPM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Provides a brief summary of the author's experiences.\nFindings: - Being a new journal, it was found that there was insufficient copy, and this was not helped by the limited number of potential authors. However, the objective of increasing the number of issues in a volume was achieved by the publication of an extra issue each year from 1985 to 1993, with papers of quality. Editorship of a journal subject to the scrutiny of academics is a challenging task.\nOriginality/value: - Provides an introduction to the special issue.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Identity, communication and change management in Ferrari
|
[
"Change management",
"Strategic communication",
"Communicative behaviours",
"Entrepreneurial organization theory",
"Organizational behaviour",
"Corporate communication"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For many years, scholars have explored the link between communication, especially internal communication, and successful change management programs (Kitchen and Daly, 2002; Proctor and Doukakis, 2003). According to Elving (2005) communication activities should be accurately distinguished from activities of mere information provision, which represent a short-sighted approach to change management. As a matter of fact, the organizational change literature offers more than a unique communication approach, exploiting the potentialities of stories, narrative and discourse concepts within organizational contexts (Johansson and Heide, 2008).This paper contributes to the current debate on the strategic role of communication in a successful change process by proposing a unifying framework rooted in entrepreneurial organization theory (Alvarez and Barney, 2004; Burns, 2005; Busenitz et al., 2003; Bygrave, 1989; Dew et al., 2004). Since an entrepreneurial organization \"embraces continuous change\" (Zander, 2007, p. 143), change processes can be conceived as perpetual functioning models of organizations, rather than as exceptional states. In other words, in entrepreneurial organizations, communication offers a strategic contribution to support organizational decision-making processes in a continuously changing environment.The paper is structured as follows. In the first part we review the literature about the role of communication within organizational change processes and then we describe the four components of strategic communication related to entrepreneurial organization theory. We conclude by highlighting the contributions that entrepreneurial organization theory (EOT) makes to the study of change communication. In the second part we discuss the main steps of the Ferrari change management process, from the definition of its strategic objectives to the restored success. Finally, we illustrate the practical implications of adopting entrepreneurial organization theory to interpret the strategic contribution of communication to support a structured program of change management and to drive organizational success in constantly changing environments.\nLiterature review: Strategic communication and change management\nMethod and data analysis: In this article, we investigate the case of change management at Ferrari enacted by its CEO and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo since 1991 when he was called to lead the company, which, for a number of years, had been losing money, creating products of limited innovation no longer adequately meeting market demand. After the splendid 1950s when Ferrari had been the protagonist of the international sports circuits, even racing victories were bygones. di Montezemolo himself, who had bought a Ferrari the year before being employed by the company, was dissatisfied as a client and witnessed the fact that Ferrari was anchored to the memory of a glorious past but lacked a clear development plan for the future.The success that had always distinguished the company seemed to have vanished, and a strategy for renewal was necessary to survive. di Montezemolo was faced with a major challenge: to identify the changes needed to revive the company. The Ferrari change process built the foundations for a new and lasting phase of success for the company in both the sporting sector and the market.A qualitative research method was chosen to deeply examine the communication activity and behaviors during the implementation of the change management process in Ferrari. As Yin states, a case study is useful to analyze \"a situation in which the boundaries between a phenomenon and context are not clearly evident\" (Yin, 1993, p. 59). The case study research method usually triangulates observation, interviews and documental analysis. For this reason, we conducted three semi-structured interviews with Ferrari's CCO, who had been in charge of the change management program since 2008. We also analyzed annual reports, press releases, company magazines and content published on the company's website in order to understand how changes had been communicated and in order to capture the most significant of the CEO's quotations.\nFindings: Starting up from the company's points of strength\nDiscussion and conclusions: Ferrari represents a significant example of how, and to what extent, communication can be the pivotal component of a change management program and drive a company with a great history but in very bad condition, back to success.Once defined final objectives and points of strength, di Montezemolo worked out his launch plan, which aimed at a radical restructuring of the product through the production process, greater involvement of workers, and the creation of a new company model. Through careful planning of the different steps and initiatives, a real change of culture permeated all aspects of company management and life.Entrepreneurial organization theory, as described above, helps us to understand the components of the strategic role that communication plays during change management processes (Invernizzi and Romenti, 2011), as happened at Ferrari. As seen before, EOT emphasizes the importance of communication in the development of a consolidated entrepreneurial culture within a company, through:* the engagement of key stakeholders, above all employees (aligning component);* the diffusion of orientation to innovation (energizing);* the implementation of company decisions by channeling collective energies towards common goals and shared guiding values (visioning); and* the enactment of competitive environment and of organizational settings through communicative activities (constituting).Quite interestingly, at Ferrari, the change management program activated by the CEO started with the Formula Uomo project, which aimed at creating, or better constituting, a new reality, in terms of products and of production processes (a constituting component of strategic communication). The main idea, shared with the top management, was that \"excellent people working in an excellent environment were needed to build excellent cars\". The reorganization program was labeled Formula Uomo by the CEO himself, meaning that man, the employee, was the main actor and was at the centre of the change process.From the constituting standpoint, the wind tunnel represented an exemplary model. Designed with the most advanced technology and equipped with the most sophisticated instruments, the wind tunnel attained multiple objectives because it improved the production process and product performance, stimulated and motivated the workers, and had a strong significance to outsiders. In fact, it became an important marker, almost a metaphor for the rebirth of the company, similar to the role of a church tower as reference point for the cohesion of a community. The wind tunnel was a sign of the company for its employees to remind them of their identity and belonging to the company and thereby invite them to identify collectively with that symbol.The slogan \"Putting people in center stage\", which from the very beginning of the Formula Uomo project personified its spirit, meant first and foremost to involve the company's employees in the plan for change and to create the best conditions to enable them to work in a quality environment where workers can work to their full potential, both individually and collectively. It therefore meant, to motivate and recognize the value of their ideas by implementing a climate favoring interaction, cooperation and innovation, primarily through the creation of a propitious work environment.The Formula Uomo program was made up of three main parts. The first, and by far the most important, was the redesign of the work environment in order to improve it aesthetically and to optimize the production process in order to foster a sense of belonging. The second concerned giving attention to workplace safety, to the environment and to energy savings. The third was a package of benefits aimed at the employees and their families, and to rewarding and recognizing the achievements of people, including healthcare, scholarships for employees' children and other benefits (the aligning component of the strategic communication).For the company, the development of the program meant a broadening of the \"excellence\" guiding value, from the traditional one related only to the product, to all aspects of company management: design and production, human resources, communication and working environment (the visioning component of strategic communication)The most evident sign of the change was the new buildings where the cars were designed, assembled and tested and where people worked. They were designed as an organic whole, named the \"Ferrari stronghold\", and each was designed by a famous architect. The best known is the Wind Tunnel, designed by Renzo Piano, which is regarded as a masterpiece and is technologically in the forefront. Each building combines an attractive external design with internal transparency, soundproofing and layout aimed at creating better working conditions and making it easier to work together, to the point of making the personnel proud of working there (the energizing component of strategic communication).The Ferrari \"spirit\", based on passion, tradition, and strong links to its local setting, had to be preserved. Although some aspects of change, such as the ability to innovate and to improve continuously, may have at times appeared to contradict the previous philosophy, they were all crucial for the future development of the company and had to be implemented.This case study aims at exploring the relationship between communication and organizational change in a company whose success has always been linked to the concept of excellence, which inspired the vision of a new product, as well as an energizing work environment, as the ECP model highlights. The Formula Uomo program and, surprisingly, the \"Ferrari stronghold\" with its buildings and with what they communicate externally and internally and the innovation networks they facilitate to build, seem to have played a pivotal role in helping the company to regain its winning position in terms of both sporting and financial success.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of strategic communication during a change management process within the internationally famous Ferrari corporation. The aim is to show that strategic communication, through its main components, can be a pivotal lever that supports continuous improvement and helps drive organizational success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The change management process at Ferrari is described and interpreted through the framework of the entrepreneurial organization theory (EOT), from which the four components of strategic communication are derived.\nFindings: - The paper explores the case of Ferrari, which started a reorganization process in which the main actors were employees and strategic communication represented the crucial component.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper focuses on one single organization. Additional research is needed to generalize the effectiveness of the proposed strategic communication model.\nPractical implications: - The paper shows that the four strategic communication components (i.e. aligning, energizing, visioning, and constituting), if applied in an integrated manner, can give insightful stimulus for the management of important change programs.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to the change management literature by linking strategic communication, continuous improvement and entrepreneurial theory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of accreditation on healthcare quality improvement: a qualitative case study
|
[
"Patient safety",
"Case study",
"Healthcare quality management",
"Hospital accreditation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Healthcare quality improvement is one of the key priorities of health systems worldwide (Chassin, 2013). Influenced by the developments on quality management in the manufacturing industry, continuous quality improvement also became a major area of concern in the healthcare sector, particularly since the 1980s (Boaden, 2005; Graham, 1995; Kilo, 1998). In the late 1990s, this focus on quality management, and more specifically on patient safety, gained a new impetus with the publication of reports such as To Err is Human (Kohn et al., 2000) which alongside highlighting the magnitude of adverse events, argued about the possibility of preventing a significant number of them (Vincent, 2011). As a result, several initiatives have been adopted in order to improve the quality of care provided, including total quality management (McLaughlin and Kaluzny, 2004), plan-do-study-act (Taylor et al., 2014), collaboratives (Schouten et al., 2008), statistical process control (Thor et al., 2007), and Six Sigma (DelliFraine et al., 2010).\nResearch methodology: This study adopts a qualitative case study of an acute teaching hospital in Portugal. The case study research method was chosen given its advantages for the analysis of qualitative complex events (George and Bennett, 2005), its capacity to obtain detailed information about the case in analysis (Hammersley, 2001) and the ability to deal with a wide range of sources of evidence, such as documents and interviews (Yin, 2013).\nFindings: The results first describe the rationale for the hospital to have embarked on the accreditation process and then discuss how this process led to quality and patient safety improvements. This analysis takes into account the intrinsic features of accreditation and the specific characteristics of the accreditation's implementation process inside the case study hospital.\nDiscussion: A central finding from this study is hospital's staff perception that accreditation can contribute to significant improvements in quality and patient safety but that attaining these is strongly dependent on how accreditation is implemented in practice and the characteristics of the hospital setting. Interviewees reported that accreditation led to a higher concern with patient safety as an aspect of healthcare quality which resulted in significant quality and patient safety improvements, including the establishment of a generalized patient safety culture. These observations are in line with studies conducted by Hosford (2008) who recognized accreditation as an effective intervention to drive patient safety improvements and by Longo et al. (2007) who identified accreditation as the key predictor of the implementation of patient safety systems. The findings are also consistent with previous studies that reported that over time accredited hospitals significantly saw greater progress on quality (Schmaltz et al., 2011) and patient safety systems (Longo et al., 2007) than non-accredited hospitals.\nConclusion: One of the key conclusions of this study is that although the accreditation process itself has features that can foster quality improvement, the achievement of such improvements is strongly conditioned by the hospital's baseline level of quality as well as the quality management and patient safety activities that exist at the time the hospital embarks on accreditation. Given the significant impact that hospital's characteristics have on the outcomes of accreditation, findings from the case study seem to point out that differences among the hospitals that have embarked on accreditation processes are one of the main reasons why accreditation processes have resulted in disparate outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Research on accreditation has mostly focused on assessing its impact using large scale quantitative studies, yet little is known on how quality is improved in practice through an accreditation process. Using a case study of an acute teaching hospital in Portugal, the purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics through which accreditation can lead to an improvement in the quality of healthcare services provided.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for the case study was collected through 46 in-depth semi-structured interviews with 49 clinical and non-clinical members of staff. Data were analyzed using a framework thematic analysis.\nFindings: Interviewees felt that hospital accreditation contributed to the improvement of healthcare quality in general, and more specifically to patient safety, as it fostered staff reflection, a higher standardization of practices, and a greater focus on quality improvement. However, findings also suggest that the positive impact of accreditation resulted from the approach the hospital adopted in its implementation as well as the fact that several of the procedures and practices required by accreditation were already in place at the hospital, albeit often in an informal way.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study was conducted in only one hospital. The design of an accreditation implementation plan tailored to the hospital's context can significantly contribute to positive outcomes in terms of quality and patient safety improvements.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a better understanding of how accreditation can contribute to healthcare quality improvement. It offers important lessons on the factors and processes that potentiate quality improvements through accreditation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Moving cultural information systems research toward maturity: A review of definitions of the culture construct
|
[
"Grounded theory",
"Cross-cultural issues",
"Cross-national study",
"Culture fit/differences/heritage/intelligence/issues/theory/values",
"Hermeneutics",
"Multilevel research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The globalization of business has led to a substantial need for understanding trans-cultural management concerns. This regards information technology and people research since effective cultural management requires that people interact effectively with information systems (IS); IS can facilitate effective communication and coordination across cultures (Zakaria et al., 2003). Likewise, cultural differences may influence the extent and effectiveness of peoples' interactions with IS. Not surprisingly then, IS research has shown considerable interest in understanding the influence of culture on the extent and effectiveness of IS use. However, this interest has not yet resulted in an adequate understanding of the phenomenon. The lack of knowledge creation can perhaps be explained with the definitional problems inherent in much cultural IS research, limiting clarity as to what IS researchers even mean by culture (Kappos and Rivard, 2008; Karahanna et al., 2002).\nDefinitions of culture used in IS research: While prior IS research has greatly advanced our knowledge of cultural impacts on IS management, much of such research has relied on inconsistent conceptualizations of culture by using the distinct terms culture, nation, and country synonymously (e.g. Chau et al., 2002; Cyr, 2008; Keil et al., 2007; Lee and Lee, 2003; Martinsons et al., 2009; Martinsons and Davison, 2007; McCoy et al., 2007; Rao et al., 2007; Rose et al., 2003; Tan et al., 2003). Culture, on the one hand, is often conceptualized according to Hofstede as a \"collective programming of the mind\" (Hofstede, 1991, p. 5). Scholars in IS research also view culture as \"shared values\" among the members of a collective (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006, p. 374). Nation or country, on the other hand, refers to people under the same administration (McDonald, 2000), a distinction that much IS research has disregarded.\nEpistemological diversity of cultural is research: Both positivist and interpretivist approaches have been employed in cultural IS research, but to varying degrees. More specifically, the positivist approach is far more common than the interpretivist one, implying a marked lack of epistemological diversity (Myers and Tan, 2002). For example, in an IEEE special issue on cultural IS research, 75 percent of the published papers followed the positivist approach (Martinsons and Davison, 2003). This lack of epistemological diversity seriously limits what IS researchers can learn about cultural impacts.\nRecommendations for moving cultural IS research forward: Two major positive aspects can be learned from the previous review of the literature. First, definitions of culture and epistemological approaches within studies tend to match. Most often, culture is defined in a deterministic and static way by positivists and tested accordingly through variance models analyzed via SEM. Srite et al. (2008) exemplify this match: they used Hofstede's work, collected student data in the USA, and analyzed it using SEM. Second, research on culture and IS use is improving. While studies originally pre-assigned subjects to certain cultural groups by merely relying on Hofstede's historical scores, more recent studies have begun to actually evaluate national culture by administering Hofstede's measure (e.g. McCoy et al., 2007; Srite et al., 2008). Further, recent research (e.g. Wallace et al., 2013) has begun to triangulate data from Hofstede with data from the World Values Survey.\nConclusion: The present review paper extends cultural IS research in several important ways. First, it reviews the state of research as it pertains to the conceptualization of the culture construct as well as the epistemological approaches employed. In doing so, it finds that a theory-based definition of culture is needed alongside a greater emphasis of the interpretivist approach to facilitate the maturation of cultural IS research. The paper also suggests that anthropology constitutes a promising reference discipline for cultural IS research. In line with recent research in IS and anthropology (e.g. Leidner and Kayworth, 2006; Kappos and Rivard, 2008; Mead, 1983), future IS research may consider defining culture consistently as shared values among the members of a collective since this definition accounts for the fact that nation states are no longer culturally homogeneous (Levi-Strauss, 1963). Finally, the paper advances three recommendations with the potential to move positivist cultural IS research forward, and it calls for more multilevel theory.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose both short-term and long-term recommendations, with the potential to help cultural information systems (IS) research overcome the definitional and epistemological problems that cause it to remain largely immature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses an extensive literature review to identify the major definitional and epistemological problems inherent in cultural IS research and to propose ways to overcome these problems.\nFindings: The paper finds that cultural research in the area of IT and people needs to employ more consistent definitions of the culture construct and that such research could benefit from a diversification of the epistemological approaches employed.\nOriginality/value: The present paper finds that a more contemporary definition of culture is needed alongside a greater emphasis of the interpretivist approach to move cultural IS research toward maturity. The paper also suggests that anthropology constitutes a promising reference discipline for cultural IS research. In line with recent research in IS and anthropology, future IS research may consider defining culture consistently as shared values among the members of a collective rather than as a nation state since the former definition accounts for the fact that nation states are no longer culturally homogeneous.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A new educational paradigm for the 21st century
|
[
"Teamwork",
"Self managed learning",
"Young people",
"Social intelligence",
"New educational paradigm"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Just a week before writing this piece, the CEO of a major company and I were discussing what the educational world needs to provide for his leading edge business. After discussion, he emailed me the list that follows. These are his words:\nSchooling: The joke about schooling is that the only change since Victorian times is from black to white. Namely that we have now whiteboards instead of blackboards but otherwise a school would be recognizable to the average Victorian from the 19th century, whereas most of the rest of society has changed. Factories and offices are not as they were in the 19th century, but the school is largely unchanged, with teachers, classrooms, timed lessons and a rigid curriculum.\nOne alternative: For the last 20 years we have run something called Self Managed Learning College, where there are no classrooms, no teachers, no imposed curriculum, no imposed timetable. Whilst there is considerable freedom for students, there's also a rigor to the process. Students come to us and initially we find out about them before we try and help them to learn anything. Our aim is simple - to help learners to lead a good life. However, to make this happen we have to give them the chance to take charge of their own learning within a caring and supportive community.\nEmployers need to get involved: What helps prop up the current system is lazy employers. Bryan Caplan (2018) points out in his superb demolition of the education world the use that employers get from university. If you have someone applying for a job as a university graduate it doesn't really matter what they graduated in because you assume they will have two qualities. One, the person is basically reasonably intelligent and, two, they are pretty obedient in doing what they're told - in order to graduate. Therefore, they are likely to be good employees. Caplan suggests in his work as an economics professor \"we pretend to teach and students pretend to learn\".\nConclusion: People who care about this situation need to get involved. There really is no point in employers producing the same criticisms every year. Unless we do something about it nothing will change. The educational establishment is very powerful. It's full of articulate, well-schooled and ill-educated people who know how to argue a case for what they are doing whilst at the same time misleading the public and young people in claiming that they are preparing them for the world they are going into. They are not.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper calls for a New Educational Paradigm in which young people are supported through an educational process that assists them to take charge of their own learning. A process in which they choose what they want to learn and how rather than the current system that requires them to regurgitate facts in order to pass tests/exams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A viewpoint based on the author's experience of running the Self Managed Learning College in the UK for the past 20 years and his forthcoming book detailing the research evidence that highlights the need for change.\nFindings: Businesses complain that the education system does not currently equip young people with the skills they need to thrive in the ever-changing world of work. The system needs to change and business leaders need to get involved. The College is one example of many around the world where people are deciding to get away from the rigidities, inappropriateness and waste of the current system.\nOriginality/value: The College is a unique environment which has been successfully operating for 20 years. The operating processes of the College match the outcomes needed in the working world and wider society. It provides an exemplar of how to help young people take responsibility for their own learning in order for them to lead a good life in the future.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Predictors of the perceived importance of food skills of home economics teachers
|
[
"Curriculum",
"Educational practice",
"Teachers",
"Food and nutrition",
"Food skills",
"Home economics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As professionals working in schools, home economics teachers are recognised as food experts as they have a significant role in instilling the food skills required to help young people adopt healthy eating behaviour in practical food classes (Crawford and Worsley, 2005; Reynolds, 2006; Home Economics Institute of Australia, 2010; Stitt, 1996). An earlier study of \"food experts\" views identified key essential food skills (Fordyce-Voorham, 2010). In that study, six groups of food experts were interviewed about the essential food planning, shopping, preparation and cooking skills required for young people to live healthy and independent lives. Four overarching themes were identified: \"knowledge\"; \"information\"; \"skills\"; and \"resources\". These were sub-divided into 12 essential sub-themes which formed the basis of an essential food skills checklist used in a follow-up study of home economics teachers.\nMethods: Respondents and sampling\nData analysis: The data were analysed via SPSS (2009) Version 18. After inspection of the data, \"disagree\" and \"strongly disagree\", \"neutral\" and \"agree\" and \"strongly agree\" categories were aggregated into three categories of \"agree\", \"neutral\" and \"disagree\", respectively to avoid missing cells in the chi-square analyses. Simple frequency analyses were conducted on these categorised food skills responses, and, respondents' professional backgrounds, age and years of food skills teaching experience. The percentage breakdown of the demographic and professional characteristics of the respondents is shown in Table I.\nResults: Almost all of the respondents were female (97.3 per cent, n=215); only 2.7 per cent (n=6) were male (Table I). The majority were over 35 years of age and over half of the respondents had taught for more than 21 years. More respondents worked full time, and in government schools and schools in metropolitan and regional areas. The majority (88.3 per cent) of respondents had a professional background and training in home economics or both home economics and hospitality with the remaining respondents trained in hospitality or education (but not home economics) or other professions outside education (Table I).\nDiscussion: There were two key findings from this study. First, teachers' views of the importance of food skills matched those of the food skills identified by Fordyce-Voorham (2010) and as indicated by the percentage of respondents who agreed that the items were important (Table II). Second, teachers' demographic and professional characteristics were weaker predictors of the perceived importance of food skills than the three personal orientations food aesthete, consumer-environmentalist and nutritionist.\nLimitations and future research directions: One limitation of this study was its relatively small sample size, drawn mainly from Victoria, Australia and therefore its general application is limited. Thus the representativeness of the findings is uncertain though the lack of differences between the Victorian and other respondents suggests that this is unlikely to be a major bias.\nConclusions: The study demonstrated the importance placed on food skills by home economics teachers varies on at least five dimensions. Teachers agreed that the basic procedures required to prepare a meal was perceived to be the most important food skill to teach their students. These findings confirmed the essential food skills identified by food experts in a previous study (Fordyce-Voorham, 2010). In addition, teachers' orientations, determined by their responses to a series of personal belief statements, had more to do with the perceived importance of food skills than their demographic backgrounds, type or location of their school or professional training.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test an hypothesis that teachers' personal orientations toward food preparation, nutrition and environmental issues would be related to their perceived importance of food skills.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Little research has been conducted on home economics teachers' views on the importance of the food skills they teach in secondary schools in Australia. Therefore, an online survey was conducted among 261 home economics teachers in Australian secondary schools. The research measured respondents' ratings of the importance of 70 food skills as well as their teaching preferences and use of resources.\nFindings: Respondents rated the procedural \"hands-on\" skills required to prepare a healthy meal as most important. Exploratory factor analysis derived five components (procedures for domestic settings, procedures for vocational settings, cookery methods, food economy, using microwave oven appliances) relating to teachers' perceived importance of food skills. Teachers' personal orientations were described as food aesthete, consumer-environmentalist and nutritionist. The findings showed that these were better predictors of the perceived importance of food skills than demographic characteristics. The most important perceived skills related to the basic procedures required by young people to be able to prepare meals for themselves when living independently. Teachers' personal \"orientations\" were significantly related to the perceived importance of food skills. Demographic and professional characteristics were poor predictors of these perceptions.\nOriginality/value: The findings provide home economics teachers with an understanding of their selection of particular food skills to teach their students in skill-based healthy eating programmes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Diversity in engineering takes off with Airbus award: Prizes go to proven initiatives in the field
|
[
"Women",
"Engineering",
"Equal opportunities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: You can see them at airports across the world; the Airbus A320 and its US competitor, the Boeing 737, are the workhorses of the airline industry.\nProjects that have achieved results: As a result, Airbus has joined the Global Engineering Deans' Council (GEDC), a worldwide forum for excellence in engineering education, to run the GEDC Airbus award. The award aims to increase the diversity of the global engineering community by rewarding proven initiatives in the field. To be in with a chance, applicants must prove that their project has achieved results.\nBuilding more diverse teams: Charles Champion, Airbus executive vice-president for engineering, commented: \"At Airbus we are constantly looking for ways to innovate. That means building more diverse teams, for higher performance and an inclusive culture that builds on everyone's strengths. Our 2014 award recipient not only impressed us with her initiative, but also inspired us with her understanding that the best way to increase diversity is by creating a clear road-map for others to follow.\nInclusive and diverse engineering student body: Bevlee Watford was selected for her wide-ranging programs aimed at building an inclusive and diverse engineering student body at Virginia Tech, and is now used as a model for institutions throughout the USA.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Describes how Airbus has joined the Global Engineering Deans' Council (GEDC), a worldwide forum for excellence in engineering education, to run the GEDC Airbus award.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Details the background to the award, the form it takes and the initiatives of some of the prize winners.\nFindings: Explains that the award aims to increase the diversity of the global engineering community by rewarding proven initiatives in the field.\nSocial implications: Highlights how the world needs innovative engineers who can propose new ways to solve the world's engineering problems and explains that more needs to be done to promote engineering as a career.\nOriginality/value: Explains that Airbus seeks to build more diverse teams for higher performance and an inclusive culture.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A note on the relationship between real wages and employment: Further evidence from panel cointegration tests
|
[
"Pay policies",
"Unemployment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Neoclassical and Keynesian theories have substantially different implications for how changes in employment level can be influenced by changes in real wages. In particular the neoclassical model assumes that all markets, including labour markets, operate in a perfect manner, unless distorted by institutional impediments. In this context, employment rises if real wages are reduced. Thus, the existence of wage rigidities due to the imposition of minimum wages or trade union activities leads to persistent unemployment. In contrast, Keynesian models predict that such changes in real wages are not likely to change the level of employment. According to the arguments advanced by Keynes (1936) although the demand for labour increases when real wages fall, there is no mechanism by which the mutual willingness of employer's to hire more workers at this level of real wages and the unemployed persons to accept employment can be declared and realised. For more details on neoclassical and Keynesian employment theories, see Bender and Theodossiou (1999) and Dibooglu and Enders (2001).From a policy point of view, the neoclassical economist's usual recommendations for reducing unemployment aim to make labour markets more flexible by reforming the social benefit systems, minimum wage regulations, rules, laws and norms concerning hiring and firing, which limit an employer's ability to dismiss workers and discourage the creation of new jobs. On the other hand, Keynesian economists believe that market economies can suffer from chronic demand failures which can be remedied by efficient demand management policies (Benassi et al., 1994).Empirically, an appropriate test to examine the existence of a long run equilibrium relationship between employment and wages would use econometric techniques organized around cointegration. In this case, the neoclassical paradigm is supported if a cointegration relationship can be established.Over the last decade a number of studies have been devoted to this issue using modern cointegration techniques; see Arestis and Mariscal (1994), Carruth and Schnabel (1993), Smith and Hagan (1993), Darby and Wrena-Lewis (1993), Nymoen (1994) and Bender and Theodossiou (1999). However, these studies gave contradictory results. Arestis and Mariscal (1994), Carruth and Schnabel (1993) and Smith and Hagan (1993) provide empirical evidence in favour of the existence of a long run relationship between real wages and employment for the UK, West Germany and Australia respectively, thus supporting the neoclassical proposition. In contrast to these earlier works, Darby and Wrena-Lewis (1993), Nymoen (1994) and Bender and Theodossiou (1999) failed to establish a consistent relationship between real wages and employment.The main problem with all these empirical studies is that the estimation techniques based on unit root and cointegration possess low power in small samples, thus very frequently leading the researcher to misguided conclusions. In this paper, in order to draw sharper conclusions, we combine cross section variation with time series information and apply modern panel unit root and panel cointegration tests that are more powerful than standard time series tests. Thus our findings are more robust for policy making.The aim of the present paper is to investigate the long run relationship between real wages and employment by conducting more reliable tests along the lines described above, in the context of 12 European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Norway and Finland over the period 1961-1996.\n2. Model specification and estimation: To test for the existence of a relationship between real wages and employment we estimate separately two alternative equations:Equation 1Equation 2where Wit is the real unit cost of labour expressed as an index number (1991=100) in country i and year t (i=1,..,n; t=1,..,T), Nit is the level of employment measured by the number of employed persons and yit is the ratio of real GDP in 1991 ECU constant prices to employment. uit and vit are the usual error terms. All variables are drawn from the European Union's Ameco database (Annual Macro Economic Data Base DG2) and cover the period 1961-1996.Although equation (1) closely corresponds to the theoretical concept of the real wages - employment relationship, it is an over simplification of the new classical labour demand equation which would include capital stock and technological progress in addition to employment. The omission of these variables might lead to misguided conclusions concerning the cointegrating relationship. However, equation (1) is still correctly specified when it is assumed that all other variables (capital stock and technological progress) are on their equilibrium paths or that all other variables change pari passu with employment. In equation (2) the influence of productivity (yit) on real wages is also considered. More specifically, the yit variable can be interpreted as a proxy for both technical progress and the capital-labour ratio, and captures the effect of productivity of labour in affecting real wages independently of any changes reflecting shifts in the demand and supply sides of labour marketTo verify that all variables are integrated of order one in level we have used panel unit root tests due to Im et al. (1997) (hereafter IPS) and Maddala and Wu (1999) (hereafter MW).To calculate the IPS panel unit root test we need to perform the following steps:1. We run separately for each country ADF regressions of the following type:Equation 3where D denotes the first difference operator while oit is the usual error term.The null hypothesis of a unit root corresponds to tdi=0.2. We average individual Dickey-Fuller unit root tests (tdi) according to:Equation 4whereEquation 5The moments of E[tdi|di=0] and var[tdi|di=0] are obtained by Monte Carlo simulation and are tabulated in IPS. Equation (3) is a panel version of the ADF statistic.The MW statistic is given by:Equation 6and combines the p-values from individual ADF tests. The P test is distributed as kh2 with degrees of freedom twice the number of cross section units, i.e. 2N, under the null hypothesis.The use of panel unit root tests is necessary since the power of individual unit root tests can be lower when the span of the data is short; see for example Pierse and Shell (1995). Panel unit root tests and diagnostic statistics are presented in the following Tables I and II. The results show no evidence of non-normality or autocorrelation in any equation. This means that all equations are free from specification errors. According to the IPS and MW panel unit root tests the null hypothesis of non-stationarity cannot be rejected for any of the variables considered in their levels form but this is not the case for their first differences form. Therefore we can conclude that all series involved in the estimation procedure are I(1).Next we test for the existence of a long run relationship between Wit and Nit. In this context a panel ADF cointegration test due to Pedroni (1997) is used under the assumption of alternative dependent variables.Consider the following model for heterogeneous panel data:Equation 7It is assumed that the process:Equation 8follows a multivariate random walk zit=zi,t-1+xit, and that:Equation 9converges to a vector Brownian motion on the interval r[?][0,1] with asymptotic covariance Oi. Let e^it denote the estimated residuals, O^i a consistent estimator of Oi, and let s^i2 and s^i2 be the contemporaneous and long run variances of the residuals v^it=e^it-r^ie^i,t-1. If we define the statistic:Equation 10whereEquation 11then Pedroni (1997 p. 12) shows that:Equation 12where v and m are determined by the number of regressors.This is a test for the null hypothesis of no cointegration.Parameter estimates of equation (4) as well as Pedroni panel ADF statistics tests for cointegration are shown in Table III.According to these results we cannot accept panel cointegration; therefore so such relations are spurious. However, a cointegrating relationship can be established between real wages and employment when productivity of labour is included in the equation (1) as a control variable, see equation (2) in Table III. According to this, real wages, employment and productivity are tied together by a long run equilibrium relationship. To gain more insight into the real wages, employment and productivity relationship we test for a cointegrating relation between wages and productivity and between productivity and employment. Parameter estimates of these tests as well as Pedroni panel ADF statistics tests for cointegration are presented in Table IV.The results in Table IV clearly indicate that only for wages and productivity can we document a long run equilibrium relationship. This means that the cointegrating relationship between real wages, employment and productivity of labour reflect only the relationship between real wages and productivity of labour[1]. Furthermore this indicates that productivity of labour affects real wages independently of changes in the supply and demand conditions in the labour market. This finding is in line with the results of Bender and Theodossiou (1999) who reached a similar conclusion for ten OECD countries over the period 1950-1992. An important implication of this analysis is that the relationship between real wages and employment proposed by neoclassicals cannot be confirmed empirically. Other things being equal, there is scant evidence for the strong relationship between real wages and employment that the neo-classical theory suggests. This situation could be attributed to the fact that the European labour market is still regulated as a result of institutional rigidities that prevent free choice on part of labourers and employers (the existing labour legislation comprises rules regarding the working day, dismissals, social security taxes, etc) thus producing unforeseen costs of employing labour over normal conditions. Employers take the expected losses of such contingencies into account when they take the decision to hire labour. Thus, a radical reform towards a more flexible labour market could produce significant increases in employment. Within this context, the decline in wages would be small, as reductions in the institutional cost will expand demand for labour and offset further falls in wages.\n3. Concluding observations: In this paper, we have examined empirically the long run relationship between real wages and employment in a time series and cross sectional data set using data to 12 European Union countries over the period 1961-1996.This study contributes to the literature in terms of panel-based unit root and cointegration estimation procedures. These techniques avoid power distortions of standard tests in small samples and thus misguided conclusions.The basic point that emerges from the empirical analysis is that in the long run there is no relationship between real wages and employment. The estimates do not support the neoclassical proposition according to which there is a systematic relationship between real wages and employment level. The policy implication of this finding is that in European Union countries reductions in real wages cannot be considered as an additional channel through which employment growth can be accelerated.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Tests for the existence of a long-run relationship between real wages and employment, utilising annual data from 1961-1996 for a panel of 12 European Union countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Applies modern time series techniques organised around panel unit root and panel cointegration tests to draw sharper conclusions from the short time series that are typically available.\nFindings: - Indicates that a long-run relationship between real wages and employment cannot be established. This being so, little success is expected in bringing down unemployment, the most pressing problem in the European Union, by reducing real wages.\nOriginality/value: - Investigates the long-run relationship between real wages and employment by conducting more reliable tests in the context of 12 European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Norway and Finland over the period 1961-1996.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Crooked strategy implementation: covert tactics fill the gaps
|
[
"Decision making",
"Embeddedness",
"Covert tactics",
"Implementation gap",
"Informal strategy making",
"Strategy making"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An ancient Chinese proverb states that: \"If you stand straight, you don't have to fear a crooked shadow\". In the world of business strategy, this might translate into: \"if you have a strategy, beware of its crooked implementation\". Of course, we know it is disastrous if strategy is not executed (no shadow?). Poor and/or non-execution are one of the main reasons for strategy failure.\nExploring the non-implementation problem: Implementation matters (Pustkowski et al., 2014), and as a result, the implementation gap has been researched widely. Non-implementation has been blamed on organisational hypocrisy (Fenton, and Langley, 2011). It has been used to describe this situation that organisations regularly face. The concept is one of discordance (inconsistency) between what the strategy purports to bring about and the actions that practitioners take in reality. It describes the gap between what is said and what is done.\nWhat is the real strategy, then?: \"This organisation still exists despite top management\" is the statement that triggered this research leading to covert tactics as a concept while facilitating a recent consulting assignment. The organisation has formal strategies but these appear not to be a real focus. Rather there are other things happening in the organisation. This initiated my drive to take a fresh look and try to better understand non-implementation and determine if there are other issues (dressed as strategies) that we may not be aware of as strategists and managers.\nThe research process: Facing the implementation gap in strategy consulting and reading the literature about it, I wanted to pursue non-standard alternatives. Informal conversations and interviews were undertaken. Then, combining the literature reports with my many years of critiquing strategies as a consultant, I developed a theory of covert tactics, stumbled on during a consulting assignment. Thereafter, 13 semi-structured conversations were conducted to investigate its existence and gain deeper understanding about the characteristics and associated liabilities of covert tactics. During various conversations, I applied devil's advocacy (Schwenk, 1984; Lunenburg, 2012) by challenging the subjects on issues that arose during the conversations. Data saturation was achieved before interview number nine but I continued, as the phenomenon is currently unknown and I did not want to risk the potential for missing a potential unique outlier element.\nThe proposed phenomenon: covert tactics: Strategy execution in practice often suffers from what can be termed the \"covert tactics\" followed by individuals in organisations. Being covert suggests they are unspoken and may mimic the formal strategy - like a shadow (but often crooked depending on the surface it is projected upon). A covert tactic is never documented, rarely defined and seldom mentioned, but is regularly pursued by individuals (rarely in formal teams). Few managers know about the existence of covert tactics, as they are too busy pursuing the formal strategy goals and associated scorecards whereby they pursue implementation.\nStudy limitations and future research: Limitations of one study serve as challenges for future research. The search for covert tactics depends heavily on researcher interpretations, as subjects were not necessarily knowledgeable about it as strategy per se. Despite this, an interesting picture was discovered, illustrating the existence of such tactics. No empirical data are presented in this paper and the study was deductive in nature, investigating the practical problems associated with the limited implementation problem that persists. Future research into the practices that can be used to address covert tactics should be promoted.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Today, more than ever, businesses need to improve strategy implementation. Part of achieving implementation requires strategies to be embedded in the daily activities of executors (practitioners) - thus to embed strategy in implementation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a \"lesser acknowledged\" strategy type that is ill-considered by management and leadership alike. \"Covert tactics\" are described.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through dialectic conversation and applying the devil's advocacy approach to challenging embeddedness and implementation liabilities, the phenomenon of \"covert tactics\" was identified. Purposively selected subjects participated in the dialectic conversations. Their opinions were collected and patterns identified until their \"tactics\" became apparent. Another element of interest was the underlying thinking of subjects to understand what drives them to follow covert tactics.\nFindings: Covert tactics are phantasmal individual ploys that employees take in response to their own micro situation. Higher-level managers are often not aware of their existence, as these tactics are not spoken about but do exist. Such managers assume the organisation's professed strategies are pursued but are oblivious to the \"real tactics\" that are pursued.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research proposes an \"invisible concept\" and depends on one individual view point.\nPractical implications: Understanding and accepting the existence of covert tactics gives managers flexibility to respond.\nOriginality/value: To address their existence, there is no need to expose and oppose covert tactics, as this will make them more \"invisible\". The innovative approach is to recognise their existence and align them to the organisation strategy. The quality of the strategy message was shown to be the fundamental tool that managers can use to address covert tactics by replacing the need for their existence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Subjective knowledge as a determinant of young adult consumers wine behaviour
|
[
"Young adults",
"Wine",
"Latent class analysis",
"Subjective knowledge",
"Best-worst scaling",
"Republic of Macedonia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Global wine markets have experienced significant changes over the past three decades. Although global wine production has remained relatively stable, consumption in many traditional wine-producing countries has declined (International Organisation of Vine and Wine, 2015), which has introduced new dynamics and a continuing search for new markets and consumers. One segment that recently has attracted great interest among wine producers and the marketing research community is the young generation of wine consumers. Namely, the wine-related behaviour of the generational cohort born between 1978 and 1990 (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002), often referred to as Generation Y or millennials, has recently been intensively studied in wine-marketing research (Mueller et al., 2011). The most general conclusion about this generational segment is that they have a growing interest in wine, they are willing to spend much money on wine, and their wine consumption differs from that of previous generations (Hall et al., 2004; Thach and Olsen, 2006). Previous studies on these consumers have focused on their interaction with wine, wine preference, consumption, and purchasing behaviour (Agnoli et al., 2011a; Ritchie, 2011; Marinelli et al., 2013); differences in wine behaviour from older generations (Qenani-Petrela et al., 2007; Fountain and Lamb, 2011; Chrysochou et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2013); lifestyle and attitudes regarding wine (Bruwer and Li, 2007; Charters et al., 2011); importance given to wine attributes (Chrysochou et al., 2012; Hristov and Kuhar, 2014a); and knowledge, purchase risk, and information search (Li et al., 2011; Atkin and Thach, 2012; Hammond et al., 2013). Although a number of studies have been conducted for this generational cohort in the field of wine worldwide, limited knowledge exists in the countries emerging from the dissolution of Yugoslavia.\n2. Methodology: 2.1. Data collection\n3. Results: 3.1. Segmentation based on SK related to wine\n4. Discussion and conclusion: This study present two sets of findings: the first refers to the sample's behaviour towards wine, and the second to wine behaviour of the segments, developed according to the respondents' perceived knowledge of wine.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide additional insight into how the level of subjective knowledge (SK) related to wine explains differences in the wine-consumption behaviour of young adults. Particular attention was given to information search strategies employed by young adult wine consumers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A web-based survey was carried out on 287 young urban wine consumers who were recruited in specialised wine shops and at wine festivals. The key variables presenting the consumers' wine searches were measured using the best-worst scaling method. Latent class cluster analysis (LCA) was used to segment the respondents into clusters based on their level of SK of wine.\nFindings: The study identifies three consumer segments with corresponding levels of SK related to wine. The segments present considerable differences in the wine-consumption-related behaviours and information search strategies.\nResearch limitations/implications: Understanding young adults' SK of wine will assist wine marketers in their efforts to establish marketing strategies for this generational cohort. In addition, research (preferably transnational) is recommended to validate the conclusions and to gain additional understanding of SK as an indicator of wine-related behaviours.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to a better understanding of the wine-purchasing behaviours of young adults with particular focus on SK related to wine. The results obtained may be applied by winemakers in the development of marketing and promotion strategies geared towards the promising young adult consumer segment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Employability of young graduates in Europe
|
[
"Work experience",
"Contracts",
"Higher education",
"Employability benchmark",
"Degree fields"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In May 2012, the European Council adopted a new European target on the employability of students (European Council, 2012). This new benchmark complements a set of joint targets in education and training that should be reached by 2020 (ET2020): reducing early school leaving; increasing the share of higher education graduates; increasing participation in early childhood education; getting more adults to participate in lifelong learning; and increasing learning mobility. These ET2020 benchmark targets were adopted to raise awareness in all Member States about the key role played by education and training in the \"Europe 2020 strategy\" to exit the recession and establish the foundations for future knowledge-based growth and social cohesion. They aim at stimulating and guiding reforms and measures targeting educational systems (European Commission, 2011).\n2. Measuring employability: the European Council's approach: In this section, we summarize the conceptual background of the ET2020 graduates' employability benchmark and give a short presentation of the indicator. For further details on this point, we refer the reader to Garrouste and Rodrigues' (2012) report.\n3. Data and estimation approaches: The benchmark indicator on graduates' employability from education and training was jointly computed by the Center for Research on Education and Lifelong Learning (CRELL) and Eurostat (Garrouste, 2011; Boateng et al., 2011) using the microdata from the annual LFS between 2004 and 2010, as extracted in 14 September 2011. All estimates presented in this paper are computed using data from the same extraction date, except for the analysis of the role of the combination of work and studies, which makes use of the anonymized microdata from the LFS ad hoc module of 2009 on the transition from school to work.\n4. Employment probability of young graduates: This section reports the results from Models (1) and (2) estimating the probability of being employed one to three years after graduation at tertiary level, respectively, focusing on the effect of the field of the degree (H1) and the working experience during studies (H2).\n5. Nature of contracts of employed young graduates: After having estimated the impact of education on the employment probability of young graduates, we now focus our interest on young people employed 1, 2 or 3 years after their graduation. First of all, we look at their probability to be employed with a permanent contract (vs a temporary contract). Then we look at the full-time (vs part-time) nature of their employment (i.e. Model (1) - H3). The aim of this analysis is to identify potential fields of diplomas that tend to enhance/diminish the chances of getting a permanent position or a full-time contract early in the career. Moreover, we are interested in identifying which type of work experience during studies improves the most the conditions of employment of young graduates, again in terms of duration and type of contract (i.e. Model (2) - H4):\n6. Conclusions: This paper aimed at providing a first insight into the role played by the field of higher education degrees and the acquisition of a work experience during studies on the employability of the cohort of the new ET2020 Benchmark on graduates' employability. The analysis made use of the same data source and sample specifications as the benchmark indicator, namely the core LFS annual data from 2004 to 2010, to which the ad hoc module of LFS 2009 was added. The results are reported in the frame of four hypotheses defined according to the assumptions and expectations of the European Commission on how education and training institutions can contribute to the employability of young graduates.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the potential role of the field of education and the fact of having worked during studies on the employability of the higher educated (ISCED 5-6) cohort targeted by the ET2020 graduates' employability benchmark.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the same data source as the benchmark (i.e. the annual LFS microdata from 2004 to 2010), and exploring the additional transition questions collected in the LFS 2009 ad hoc module, the authors define and test four hypotheses using a probit approach on each EU country.\nFindings: The degree plays a significant role in the employability of young graduates across countries and time. In terms of probability of employment, the leading field is health and welfare. In terms of type of contracts, the leading fields are social sciences and engineering. Moreover, what labour markets seem to value the most is the capacity of higher educated students to combine high-level studies and work, i.e. a high workload capacity and intellectual flexibility.\nPractical implications: Reaching the new European target of a minimum of 82 per cent of employment of young graduates will require countries to invest wisely in the most \"employable\" fields of education. This analysis will help policy makers in their future orientations towards that target.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this work lies in its exploration of the exact same extraction of microdata used for the computation of the ET2020 Benchmark indictor and in its immediate political implications for the monitoring of this benchmark.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The favored "logic-in-use" research: The referring to concepts in organization studies publications
|
[
"Research",
"Logic",
"Publications",
"Organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Concepts like \"absorptive capacity,\" \"dynamic capability,\" or \"organizational slack\" are striking features in the field of organization studies. They provide a way of connecting to already existing knowledge without bearing the risk of the research being too far from the mainstream and, hence, constituting excessive \"consensus-challenging\" (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006). Owing to the fact that editors and reviewers have difficulties in evaluating novel or consensus-challenging contributions, because these contributions cannot be judged on the basis of existing criteria, researchers benefit from referring to already established concepts. This is particularly the case for concepts that are in line with the favored \"logic-in-use\" research.Various scholars have already pointed to the growing emphasis on empirical, positivist-oriented research (de Rond and Miller, 2006; Kieser, 2007; Lindsey, 1978; Ofori-Dankwa and Julian, 2005; Staw, 1995) as the so-called \"logic-in-use\" research (Kaplan, 1964, p. 8). According to Kaplan (1964), the \"logic-in-use\" refers to the norms and standards which govern the way of conducting and rewarding \"good\" research. Winning in the \"publish or perish\" game appears to be easier when the research not only conforms to the favored \"logic-in-use\" research, but also uses established and familiar concepts. These clearly raise the odds of getting a manuscript published. These considerations have important consequences for the publication behaviour of many researchers.Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the repercussions and consequences of the \"publish or perish\" principle on the research community (Alpaslan et al., 2006; Ashforth, 2005; Bedeian, 2004; de Rond and Miller, 2006; Frey, 2003; Frey and Osterloh, 2006; Judge et al., 2007; Klamer and van Dalen, 2002; Staw, 1995; Tsang and Frey, 2007). Most of these contributions share one common apprehension: \"They [the manuscripts] lack originality and produce only small variations on themes commonly accepted within the discipline\" (Frey, 2003, p. 218). Correspondingly, Staw (1995, p. 87) observes that:Because deviant methods and ideas are screened out in the review process, authors are usually hesitant to break open new topics or to drop established procedures in dealing with organizational problems.I will demonstrate that the current \"logic-in-use\" research favors articles referring to concepts. This is particularly the case for concepts that offer a methodology for an empirical quantitative research. Accordingly, the first objective of this article is to discuss the scientific reward system confronting researchers. Within this context the role of concepts in the field of organization studies will be investigated. The second objective is to study the influence of the embedded methodology on the diffusion of the concept articles. Therefore, the reference to 44 identified organizational concepts in 39 different management journals from 1960 until 2005 are studied.\n2 Theoretical background: The favored \"logic-in-use\" research and the struggle with the academic reward system\n3 Methodology: Sample\n4 Results: On average, each identified concept was picked up about 37 times with a minimum of one and a maximum of 167 articles. Figures 1 and 2 shows the overall frequencies of the articles dealing with the identified concepts. One can see that concepts like \"embeddedness\" (167 articles), \"dynamic capabilities\" (99 articles), \"organizational inertia\" (116 articles), or \"tacit knowledge\" (85 articles) yield the highest frequencies. Among the concepts with the lowest frequency are those like \"reflection-in-action\" (three articles), \"disciplined imagination\" (three articles), \"deutro-learning\" (three articles), or \"collective mind\" (four articles).H1 stated that the proportion of articles assigned to concepts increases over time. This is the case, as Figure 3 shows. The number of articles dealing with concepts remained nearly constant until 1989/1990. Up to then, the number of articles dealing with concepts shows a nearly continuous increase until the years 2004/2005. From 1990 to 2003, there are only three two-year time spans in which the numbers of articles assigned to concepts were lower than the number of articles in the previous year (1994/1995, 1998/1999, and 2004/2005). Finally, the number of articles assigned to concepts peaked in 2003, and most recently (2004, 2005) the number declined again.Regarding the proportion of articles dealing with concepts, one can see that in 1991, the proportion of articles assigned to concepts was 1.60 percent - related to the total number of articles published. In 2003, the proportion had risen to 6.45 percent. The proportion was at its highest in 2003 with 6.45 percent (183 articles). Recently, the number declined to 5.26 percent in 2004 and 5.07 percent in 2005. Yet, overall, the number of articles assigned to concepts increased over time - at least until 2003. Hence, the results support the first assumption.In H2, it was assumed that the percentage of articles in which concepts are presented within an empirical, quantitative research setting increases over time. This trend is reflected in Figures 4 and 5. Since the 1990s, the total frequencies of concept-related articles within an empirical research setting have a stronger increase than the articles within a theoretical research setting (Figure 4).Furthermore, since the 1990, the percentage of concept-related empirical articles applying a quantitative method increased on a larger scale than the number of concept-related empirical articles in which qualitative research methods were applied (Figure 5). Quantitative methods clearly dominate here. However, due to the overall small number of articles referring to concepts throughout the early years (e.g. in the years 1966, 1969, and 1970, only one article per year was identified), the results have to be interpreted with caution.In this regard, it is interesting to consider the \"fate\" of particular concepts. Figures 6 and 7 show that the number of articles related to concepts such as \"collective mind,\" \"disciplined imagination,\" \"enacted environment,\" or \"theatre\", neither of which presents a methodology for a quantitative empirical investigation, is much lower than the number of articles related to concepts such as \"absorptive capacity,\" \"organizational inertia,\" or \"dynamic capabilities,\" all of which entail clues for a quantitative empirical application. Since the 1990s, the number of articles relating to concepts such as \"absorptive capacity\" or \"dynamic capabilities\" clearly increased (Figure 6), whereas reference to articles regarding concepts like \"organizational slack\" or \"garbage can,\" with less than the average number of articles and a lower empirical ratio, remains rather constant (Figure 7).According to the H3, the introduction of newly created concepts should decrease over time. Figure 8 shows the emergence of new concepts in organization studies publications within intervals of five years. The table indicates that in the periods from 1960 until 1974, the number of newly introduced concepts continuously increased (from only one new concept or 0.06 percent of the total number of articles published in 1960 to eight new concepts or 0.32 percent in 1974). From 1975 until 1979, the number decreased to 0.11 percent. Yet for the next 15 years, the number increased again. The rate was also very high in the period from 1985 to 1989 in which seven new concepts (or 0.27 percent) emerged within the publications under study. From 1995 to 2000, the rate decreased to 0.10 percent (five new concepts). Overall, even if there is a slight tendency, the trend is not continuous. We thus found no \"uncritical\" evidence for our H2; the results have to be interpreted with caution.\n5 Discussion and conclusion: In this study, I have endeavoured to demonstrate the influence of the favored \"logic-in-use\" research through investigating the emergence and diffusion of concepts within the field of organization studies. Hence, this paper contributes to improve the awareness of the role of concepts in organization theory, while enhancing the understanding of the dynamics underlying their diffusion over the past 45 years.The empirical analysis illustrates that the number of articles dealing with concepts increases over time. This confirms the first assumption. It does indeed seem to be the case that more and more organizational scholars work with already established concepts. This dynamic can be explained partly by the fact that a prime method for (in particular young) scholars, to raise the likelihood of getting a manuscript published, is to make a reconsideration-study or a (new) empirical study of an already established concept. Top-tier journals in particular, have the tendency to accept papers, if they build on pre-existing knowledge and contain a quantitative empirical study. However, it is important to bear in mind that, most recently (in 2004 and 2005), the number of concept publications declined and further studies would be welcome in order to determine whether this is a general trend.The H2 contended that the number of empirical quantitative articles dealing with concepts should increase over time. This assumption can be supported. The number of empirical quantitative articles assigned to concepts clearly increased, particularly since the 1990s. This was precisely the time when the \"publish or perish\" doctrine started to put more and more pressure on scholars to publish a large number of papers in selected journals.There appears to be some support for the third assumption, because, since 1988, the number of newly created concepts is on the decline. However, a general conclusion of whether or not this is a continuous decrease, is somewhat problematic, and hence, the assumption is only partially supported. Here, future studies would be welcome. Nevertheless, it seems like the motivation of doing a particular kind of research has changed. It seems like there is dynamic between exploitation, which refers to the fact that substantial research effort is put into extending existing research programs and far less into new approaches, and exploration on the other hand, with considerable effort being put in developing new ideas. This has already been discussed by Kuhn (1962) and his study of the structure of scientific revolution. His main argument is that scientific revolutions, rather than linear growth, govern the development of science. In particular, research exists and flourishes in an ongoing tension between normal science, where much effort is put into extending existing knowledge, and, scientific revolutions, in which much new knowledge is created. There are some indicators that these dynamics are also visible in the emergence of organizational concepts.The study is subject to several limitations. While the paper focuses on the emergence and diffusion of concept articles, the results cannot be generalized. The analysis is also biased towards several specific concepts and limited to specific (mainstream) journals. Against this background, it might be useful to examine the literature outside the mainstream for proof of scholarship that does not constitute \"logic-in-use\" research. In addition, I used descriptive statistics to test the hypotheses. While this method has certain advantages in providing an explanatory overview, multivariate models can lead to further insights. Owing to the fact that concepts derive their special meaning from the corresponding theory, the character and popularity of a theory over a given period of time can have a decisive influence on the diffusion of the concepts based on this theory. Following this line of reasoning, in periods in which a particular theory is popular, the concepts relating to this theory should also be used more frequently than in periods in which some other theory is popular. Within this context, it would also be useful to discuss the diffusion of concept articles so as to consider other factors such as the prestige of the journal in which a concept is published. This prestige might influence the attention paid to a concept, because, if an article is accorded a high degree of attention, it is more likely that a diffusion process will be initiated. The reputation of a concept originator might also have a significant influence on the diffusion of a concept.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Since research evaluations have made their way into the academic system and the \"publish or perish\" doctrine pressures researchers to enlarge their publication list, it has become apparent that having a good idea is not enough. The idea must also comply with the favored \"logic-in-use\" research. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the favored \"logic-in-use\" research while investigating the dealing with concept articles in organization studies publications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology of this paper is based on articles referring to 44 identified concepts published in 39 different business and management journals between 1960 and 2005.\nFindings: - This paper demonstrates the favored \"logic-in-use\" research that is embedded within an empirical quantitative research setting. It also illustrates the growing importance of articles referring to already established concepts in the field of organization studies.\nOriginality/value: - This paper demonstrates the consequences of the \"publish or perish\" principle on the research conducted in the field of organization studies. It shows empirically the trend towards positivism and it contributes to improve the awareness of the role of concepts in the field of organization studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Firm capabilities and performance: a necessary condition analysis
|
[
"Vietnam",
"Firm performance",
"Marketing capability",
"Innovativeness capability",
"Necessary condition analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The continuing transformation of the Vietnamese economy from a planned economy to a market-oriented economy together with the entry to the World Trade Organization has offered several opportunities for Vietnamese firms such as new markets for exports and imports. However, together with opportunities, Vietnamese firms have been confronted with more severe competition because they have to compete against multinational enterprises in their home market (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2011). For that reason, Vietnamese firms should equip themselves with appropriate business capabilities in order to achieve competitive advantage. Consequently, identifying not only what types of capabilities that are able to create competitive advantage but also their required levels of necessity is a crucial task for firms in general and Vietnamese firms in particular.\nTheory and hypotheses: RBT considers a firm as a collection of resources, including tangible and intangible assets, and capabilities, i.e., the ability of the firm to effectively use its resources to achieve its objectives (Barney and Clark, 2009). RBT emphasizes the idiosyncratic firm attributes, that is, different firms possess different resources and capabilities (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Leiblein, 2011). For that reason, a firm should build its business strategy based on the firm-specific resources and capabilities. The uniqueness of a firm's resources and capabilities will drive the firm's superior performance if it has abilities to appropriately respond to its surrounding environment (e.g. Barney and Clark, 2009; Feng et al., 2017; Helfat and Martin, 2015). The firm's uniqueness of resources and capabilities are characterized by value, rareness, inimitability, and non-substitutability (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Leiblein, 2011).\nMethod: Sample\nData analysis and results: Measure validation\nDiscussion, implications and conclusions: Recognizing the importance of necessary conditions for firm performance, this study investigates the levels of necessity of marketing capability, including responsiveness to customers, responsiveness to competitors, responsiveness to the macroenviornment, and business relationship quality, and innovativeness capability for firm performance. The results from MRA reveal that, except for responsiveness to the macro environment, other components of marketing capability and innovativeness capability have positive effects on firm performance, confirming the net effects of these capabilities. Further, firm size affects performance but industry types do not. The results from NCA show that all four components of marketing capability and innovativeness capability are necessary conditions, but at different levels, for the occurrence of firm performance. The findings offer a number of implications for theory, research, and practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to employ a necessary condition analysis (NCA) approach to investigate the level of necessity of two conditions, marketing capability, including responsiveness to customers, responsiveness to competitors, responsiveness to the macro environment, and business relationship quality, and innovativeness capability for firm performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a survey data set collected from a sample of 311 Vietnamese firms, this study explored the levels of necessity of the components of marketing capability and innovativeness capability by NCA. The study also tested the net effects of these components on firm performance by multiple regression analysis (MRA).\nFindings: The MRA results reveal that except for responsiveness to the macro environment, other components of marketing capability and innovativeness capability have positive effects on firm performance. Further, firm size affects performance but industry types do not. The NCA results indicate that these conditions exhibit different levels of necessity for the occurrence of firm performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: A major limitation of this study is the exploration of necessary levels of only two key firm capabilities, i.e., marketing and innovativeness. Several other capabilities, such as, research and development, operations capabilities, and other market-based assets should be investigated in future research.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest that firms should pay attention not only to the net effects (b weights) but also to the levels of necessity of firm capabilities for their target outcome.\nOriginality/value: This study is among first studies investigating the levels of necessity of marketing capability and innovativeness capability for firm performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Goal-oriented balancing: happy-happy negotiations beyond win-win situations
|
[
"Negotiation",
"Grounded theory",
"Business negotiation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A core element of business and industrial markets is the process of reaching agreements. Accordingly, one of the most critical processes is that of negotiation (Andersson and Narus, 2004; Fang, 2006; Brooks and Rose, 2004). In such a process, two or more parties attempt to influence each other with the purpose of achieving their own aims, as well as common goals. A firm's profits often depend on how skillful its negotiators are, not only in one-off negotiations but also in the maintenance of desirable long-term relationships (Sharland, 2001; Brooks and Rose, 2004).\n2. Extant literature: The view of negotiation as a process is based on the idea that negotiations are acts of communication between different parties that have different preferences but are trying to find ways to collaborate and to reach an agreement (Putnam and Roloff, 1992). One way of describing negotiation communication processes in the extant literature is in terms of integrative and distributive processes (Gelfand and Brett, 2004). The idea of integrative and distributive processes is based on a study by Walton and McKersie (1965), who suggested that a negotiation process consists of four sub-processes: distributive bargaining, integrative bargaining, attitudinal bargaining and intra-organizational bargaining. The processes of distributive bargaining and integrative bargaining have since received model status, and, later, research has looked upon them as either two separate strategies or as two dimensions that are present to a varying extent in all negotiations (Gelfand and Brett, 2004). This research was later complemented by a study by Olekalns et al. (2003), which added the dimension of strategic function to distinguish between information-oriented and action-oriented communication. Brett et al. (2003) further extended this framework and added the aspect of breakpoints, which is a third type of strategic action that can mean a shift between integrative and distributive behavior.\n3. Methodology: With a view to developing categories that reflect the activities of negotiation processes on contemporary B2B, the present study adopts the so-called \"grounded theory\" methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978, 1998, 2001, 2006). This methodology is, especially, suitable for the present study because it:\n4. The results: goal-oriented balancing: The model suggested in this study can be summarized as below.\n5. Conclusions: This study shows that no matter whether it is a business, hostage, diplomatic or political negotiation, the negotiation process involves complex and dynamic endeavors in which contrasting strategies are deployed in a situation-specific manner best described as \"goal-oriented balancing\". The holistic and integrative model proposed here describes the management process in two categories: relational and rational strategies. The core process of goal-oriented balancing describes the way in which these two complementary strategies are deployed in real situations and thus also depicts the main concerns of the involved actors and the process by which this main concern is continuously resolved.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to suggest a dynamic model incorporating the important dimensions that exist in negotiation processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To produce a general and conceptual theory of negotiation, the grounded theory methodology is deployed.\nFindings: The core process in this model is dubbed \"goal-oriented balancing\" and describes how he negotiator is continuously balancing opposing, and seemingly contrasting, forces in a situation specific and dynamic manner to reach agreements. Based on these findings, this study also suggests a concept to describe negotiations that is focused on collaboration and that is not an oxymoron as is the concept of \"win-win\".\nPractical implications: This conceptual model can be used by managers and practitioners to navigate in a negotiation process.\nOriginality/value: This is the first grounded theory study in negotiation research and attempt to describe negotiation processes as dynamic events in which different dimensions are managed simultaneously.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding employee turnover in humanitarian organizations
|
[
"Employee turnover",
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Humanitarian organizations",
"Survey method"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years disasters are becoming complex (Tomasini and Van Wassenhove, 2009). For instance, damage caused by hurricane Katrina has exceeded $125 billion (Stecke and Kumar, 2009). Due to this complexity, challenges arise for humanitarian organizations in coordinating post-disaster activities (Yi and Ozdamar, 2007) providing relief solutions to disaster affected victims (e.g. assessing needs, moving the displaced, tending the wounded, restoring water and sewage systems) while trying to build and maintain capacity (e.g. hiring and training people, capturing lessons learned, structuring organizational processes) (Chakravarty, 2011; Goncalves, 2011). Capacity building is part of the disaster preparedness process and preparedness is a central element in reducing the impact of disasters (Jahre and Heigh, 2008; Kovacs and Spens, 2009; Gatignon et al., 2010; Kunz et al., 2014).\n2. Theoretical framework: Staff turnover and coordination problems in disaster relief teams have been cited to be the major reasons behind the failure of disaster relief initiatives (Van Wassenhove, 2006; Richardson, 2006; Altay, 2008; Tomasini and Van Wassenhove, 2009; Tatham and Kovacs, 2010). The foundation of our theoretical framework (see Figure 1) is firmly grounded in Cotton and Tuttle (1986) and Korff et al. (2015). The factors identified in these studies can provide useful insights in the debate on employee turnover (hereafter: turnover) in humanitarian organizations.\n3. Research design: This is an exploratory study, in which we are trying to understand how turnover factors identified in organizational literature play out in the humanitarian context. To accomplish this we utilized surveys. The survey instrument was developed by identifying appropriate measurements from our extensive literature review. Some modifications were made to the existing scale to make these variables more suitable to the context of humanitarian organizations. The target recipients were humanitarian organizations which have been involved in disaster relief operations in the last ten years. The questionnaire was examined first for face validity by a panel of experts who are involved in the management of the critical operations. A few changes were made based on panel suggestions. All of the exogenous constructs in the framework are operationalized as reflective constructs.\n4. Data analysis and results: Our research model consists of reflective constructs. We have not considered formative constructs in this study. Our sample size is relatively small, hence partial least squares method was chosen for data analysis. In general PLS is very much suitable in explaining complex relationships (Fornell and Bookstein, 1982).\n5. Conclusions: The current exploratory study is an attempt to understand the factors which significantly influence employee turnover in humanitarian organizations. Firmly grounded in existing literature our study adopts scales developed in the organizational science literature and further operationalizes them to suit humanitarian organizations. We found that unlike commercial organizations most of the external factors and some of the personal factors do not play a role in humanitarian organizations. Staff turnover in humanitarian organizations is mainly a function of an employee's internalization of his/her job. These internal factors not only indicate how an individual perceives his/her task environment (e.g. employment perception or job/work/pay satisfaction) but also reflect the readiness of the individual for humanitarian work (e.g. biographical information, marital status, aptitude, intelligence, etc.). These findings of our study make a significant contribution to the turnover literature because it identifies turnover factors specific to humanitarian organizations and offer insights to managers of humanitarian organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: At a time when the number and seriousness of disasters seems to be increasing, humanitarian organizations find that besides their challenging work they are faced with problems caused by a high level of turnover of staff. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the 24 variables leading to employee turnover identified by Cotton and Tuttle (1986) the authors analyse the work-related, external and personal factors affecting employee turnover in humanitarian organizations, using a survey of members of the Indian National Institute of Disaster Management.\nFindings: Results indicated that the three factors are present. Of the external factors, only employment perception had a factor loading over 0.7; of the work-related factors, all were significant; of the personal factors, biographical information, marital status, number of dependants, aptitude and ability and intelligence had the highest loadings. It was also shown that behavioural intentions and net expectation were not significant.\nOriginality/value: Only a few studies reported on employee turnover and its reasons are not well understood in the context of humanitarian organizations. To address this need, the aim of this paper is to explore the personal reasons impacting employee turnover in humanitarian organizations. In the study the authors have adopted 24 variables used in Cotton and Tuttle (1986) and classified into constructs to explain turnover, and further tested the model using data gathered from humanitarian organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Female labour force participation: evidence from Ghana
|
[
"Education",
"Multinomial logit",
"Female labour force participation",
"Logit regression",
"J21",
"I25",
"C35"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Labour market outcomes is one of the most studied issues in the economic and social literature (see Mammen and Paxson, 2000; Lam and Duryea, 1999; Van der Klauw, 1996, etc.). The growing evidence on the role of human capital in the development process has made social sector investment an important component of national strategies for sustained growth and development. The specific issue of women's participation in the labour market supply was considered very significant due to its impact on the quality of life of women and their families. Thus, female labour force participation (FLFP) is a primary indication of the extent to which females participate in the economic activities of any country. As a measure of gender equality, FLFP rates have gained significant interest among researchers and development specialists worldwide due to it being used as a proxy to measure progress being made towards gender equality (Amoateng et al., 2004). Female labour participation rate is also used to proxy for the state of the economic development, thus, whether it is an agrarian subsistence economy or a developed economy (Psacharopoulos and Tzannatos, 1989). It is well known that economic and social development depend, among many other factors, upon a rational exploitation of human resources endowment (Austen, 2005). However, the level of participation of women in the labour market remains largely below men's level.\n2. Literature review: Employment is one of the most studied issues in the economic and social literature. The specific issue of women's participation in the labour market supply has been considered by several studies in different contexts. This study hinges on two theories, that is, modernisation and income-leisure theories.\n3. Methodology and data description: The basic theoretical framework that guides this study is derived from the household participation theory based upon Becker's (1965) theory of the allocation of time. The same approach was adopted by Iwayemi and Olusoji (2013), and Magidu (2010). The theory is a utility maximisation which indicates that the utility an individual economic unit derives from participating in a particular occupation is dependent upon the individual characteristics (x), the wage received on the job (w) and the job-specific characteristics (z). This is modelled as:(1)\n4. Results from the study: A description of the data is first carried out to give a vivid explanation of the nature of the data set used in the study and the percentage distribution of the variables employed. The results are presented in Tables I and II, respectively, for the descriptive statistics and the logit regression analysis.\n7. Conclusion: This study began with the notion that the formal sector of the Ghanaian labour market is said to be male-dominated because employment in the sector is contingent upon participants' education and skill acquisition, requirements that tend to be met more by males than females for various reasons. Therefore overtime, female labour participation is not only prevalent in the informal sector in Ghana, but also tends to exhibit increasing trends in the recent past. However, Ghanaian women have benefited from several institutional and social reforms guaranteeing wider rights and favouring women's emancipation and their contribution to national development. Notable is the Millennium Development Goal 3, a milestone driven by the UN to promote gender equality and empowerment of women by 2015. This paper sought to investigate the new driving factors accounting for female labour market participation and female employment choice of the Ghanaian women, focussing on what has changed after the various interventions aims at meeting the MDGs targets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine female labour force participation (FLFP) and their employment choice between the formal and informal sectors after several institutional and social reforms such as Millennium Development Goal 3 aimed at promoting gender equality and empowerment of women by 2015, using data from Ghana's 2010 Population and Housing Census.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, logit regression and multinomial logit techniques were employed.\nFindings: The results show that FLFP has declined marginally from the 2005 figures; education remains the important factor in determining women's participation in the formal sector. Strikingly 91 per cent of the FLFP is engaged in the informal sector of the Ghanaian economy, a sector with a very low contribution per head.\nPractical implications: Interventions such as encouraging female education and retraining of self-employed females to improve upon their efficiency ought to be pursued vigorously; whiles developing rural areas for females to get equal labour opportunities and many others aimed at enhancing the efficiency and by inference earning per head of the informal sector is highly recommended.\nOriginality/value: The literature on the FLFP is thin in Ghana. The current study uses a census data unlike the previous studies and as such employed a huge sample size that reflects the reality in Ghana. The study contributed immensely to policy having established that 91 per cent of the female labour force is engaged in the informal sectors of the economy, and therefore any intervention targeting at reducing poverty and meeting the MDG 3 should be targeted at the informal sector of the Ghanaian economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Discerning the unique in the universal: the notion of organisation identity
|
[
"Corporate identity",
"Research work",
"Organisation identity",
"Sense of organisational identity (SoI)",
"Fact of organisational identity (FoI)",
"Organisational uniqueness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Overview: identity and organisation identity: 1.1 Organisational uniqueness and organisation identity\n2 Challenges associated with OI research: The definitional challenge evidenced in the very different meanings ascribed to OI (and referred to previously) stems from the diffuseness and ambiguity of the root concept, which predates even Erickson's (1959, p. 102) acknowledgement that \"[...] the term itself retains some ambiguity\" - a view expressed also in terms of the OI concept (Albert and Whetten, 1985). Although precise definitional clarity is unlikely to be attained and not always called for, refinement of the definitional parameters of the construct is necessary to elevate and advance the discourse. This will occur when scholars embrace empiricism to a greater extent to validate their specific conceptualisations.The definitional dilemma arises in part from the theoretical challenge, that is, the theoretical diversity that undergirds the conceptualisation of the role and purpose of the OI construct (Corley et al., 2006; Cornelissen, 2006; Hogg and Terry, 2000; Pratt and Foreman, 2000). Indeed, this theoretical diversity is evidenced also in different intellectual traditions discernable within the respective research streams of corporate identity and OI[2]. Insofar as OI is concerned, the most salient of these traditions is the notion of social identity applied to the organisation, initially introduced by Ashforth and Mael (1989) and continued in several recent works by Haslam (2001) and Haslam et al. (2003). Continuing work from within the \"classical\" tradition with Albert and Whetten's (1985) conceptualisation as reference point and, locally, van Tonder's (1999) OIT, are similarly receiving ongoing attention. The psychoanalytic and systems psychodynamic approach to OI represented inter alia in the work of Czander (1993), Diamond (1993), and more recently Brown and Starkey (2000) represents a third but less prominent theoretical approach. In earlier scholarly debates, these distinctive traditions were not consciously differentiated from one another which further confounded theoretical perspectives on OI. The second, theory-related constraint has to do with the fragmented nature of theory contributions and the absence of coherent and systemic theory frames. With the notable exception of social identity and the OIT, scholarly conceptualisations of the OI construct tended to omit or understate the construct's role and purpose, antecedents, correlates and its consequences in relation to its primary context, i.e. the organisation.Maddi (1980, p. 443) has argued that \"In the end, any conceptualization is only as adequate as its empirical support\". Without a commitment to empirical exploration and iterative theory building and testing, resolution of theory challenges will not advance meaningfully. The empirical challenge therefore resides in the reality that \"[...] organizational scientists have spent considerably more time theorizing and defining OI than conducting actual OI studies\" (Aust, 2004, p. 519). Several researchers have frequently drawn attention to the paucity of empirical studies in the field of OI (Foreman and Whetten, 2002; van Tonder, 1999) and have argued \"empiricism\" as one of the more meaningful avenues to redirect the proliferating and ensnaring discourse, which is largely concerned with concepts and semantics.Given the definitional and theoretical challenges and unstated or tentatively stated research paradigms (Corley et al., 2006; van Tonder, 1999; Whetten, 2006), informed largely by unclear ontological positions, it stands to reason that the methodological challenge that the researcher of OI faces, is formidable and a powerful deterrent to empirical work. The attendant consequences of a confounded ontology of OI are invariably diffused and confounded epistemologies and methodologies of OI (van Tonder, 1999). This scenario is not aided by the occasional criticism that studies of OI are essentially unfounded metaphorical or anthropomorphic extensions of concepts \"borrowed\" from an individual psychology or sociology. These challenges continue to characterise scholarly work on OI and are unavoidable hurdles standing in the way of meaningful research.OIT and the empirical studies subsequently premised on the OIT, attempted to address some of these challenges.\n3 OIT: theory and empiricism: 3.1 Conceptual and theoretical foundations\n4 Managerial implications in brief: As evidenced in the studies undertaken from within the OIT framework, OI is not only relevant, but an influential variable in organisational functioning and is de facto a central managerial concern. At this early stage, several implications emerge from a consideration of the main findings of the cited studies.An identity-centric leadership orientation and management approach\n5 Concluding perspectives: 5.1 Relevance to European management\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the organisation identity construct by briefly considering the intellectual development of the organisation identity research field since \"emergence\", and introducing previously unreported empirical studies pursued from within the framework provided by organisation identity theory (OIT).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative designs characterise the seven empirical (field) studies that explored the definitional parameters, existential nature and relevance of organisation identity. Observations are bolstered through conceptual and methodological triangulation across studies.\nFindings: - Organisation identity (OI) is usually articulated in fairly general terms and empirical research is scarce. In the seven studies reported here, OI is substantially reified and operationalised as the sense of organisational identity (SoI) and the fact of organisational identity (FoI). The studies consistently affirm the existential nature of OI as defined and demonstrate the relevance of OI for contemporary scholars and managers in the relationship of OI with organisational performance.\nPractical implications: - Apart from being a source of stability for organisations during transition and change, organisation identity will increasingly become a significant consideration in performance, competitive strategy, talent attraction and retention, and organisational sustainability. An identity-centric managerial approach that suggests that management consciously address OI, is proposed.\nOriginality/value: - Over the past two decades, conceptual contributions on OI proliferated while empirical studies were rare and generally lacked theoretical coherence. The paper reports on one of the few coherent and systematic approaches to researching OI. It offers a brief account of a series of purposeful, theory-informed studies since 1999. Unlike previous research, these studies are all empirical in nature and pursued from within the same theory frame (OIT). The studies consistently reveal organisation identity as a significant multifunctional organisational construct.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of nostalgic emotion on brand trust and brand attachment: An empirical study from China
|
[
"Brand trust",
"Brand attachment",
"Chinese consumers",
"Nostalgia-themed restaurants",
"Nostalgic emotion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Nostalgia, namely, nostalgic emotion (NE), is a feeling that invokes a sense of intimacy, comfort and security. In addition to being a cultural, social, and psychological phenomenon, nostalgia permeates many aspects of marketing theoretical research, personal consumption and enterprise marketing. Nostalgic marketing has become a new and effective marketing tool. Nostalgia-themed restaurants, photos, music, costumes, movies and other nostalgic goods have been welcomed by consumers. However, the practice of nostalgic marketing is still in its infancy. Essentially, nostalgic marketing is based on NE (Cui, 2015). Many companies have not yet realized the importance of NE in promoting brand trust and brand attachment among consumers.\nLiterature review and research hypotheses: NE, brand trust and brand attachment\nResearch design: Data collection\nResearch results: In the formal survey, SPSS22.0 is used to perform reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis of the research variables, LISREL8.70 is used for confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis of the research variables. In order to improve the reliability and accuracy of verification when using LISREL8.70, this study draws on the data processing method used by many scholars, which combines the items of each research variable into fewer sub-indicators according to the mean values. The revised sub-indicators are generally the two sub-indicators (Williams and Anderson, 1991; Wang et al., 2001).\nDiscussion: Empirical findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to make up the deficiency of theoretical research in nostalgic marketing and is helpful for the original theories of brand marketing and experiential marketing to deepen further.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses the approach of the empirical study. Based on the literature review, a theoretical model of the impact of nostalgic emotion (NE) on brand trust and brand attachment is constructed and corresponding research hypotheses are proposed. Then nostalgia-themed restaurants are selected to complete a questionnaire survey, and SPSS22.0 and LISREL8.70 are used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.\nFindings: The results of the paper show that NE consists of four dimensions in the context of China: atmosphere nostalgia, interpersonal nostalgia, family nostalgia and personal nostalgia. Among these, NE has a significant positive impact on brand trust and brand attachment; further, brand trust has a significant positive impact on brand attachment and plays a partial mediating role in the impact of NE on the latter.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the nostalgic restaurant industry is the research object, the theoretical model described here may be limited to this specific industry. The potential applicability of the theoretical model to other service industries requires further study.\nPractical implications: The results of the paper are helpful in building a good nostalgic experience, increasing consumer trust in restaurant brands, and strengthening the connection between NE and restaurant brand reconstruction.\nSocial implications: The results of the paper on the impact of NE on brand trust and brand attachment provide a referential basis and guide for services' companies (e.g. restaurants) to revitalize the services' brands.\nOriginality/value: The first contribution is that NE scale is constructed for the nostalgia-themed restaurants. The second contribution is that the paper reveals the mechanism of the impact of NE on brand trust and brand attachment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Deterrence and punishment experience impacts on ISP compliance attitudes
|
[
"Information security",
"Punishment",
"Policy compliance",
"Sanctions",
"Deterrence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Employees and supporting contractors are often considered the weakest link in information security because technical security systems are only as strong as the employees operating them (Mitnick and Simon, 2011; Wall, 2013; Cole, 2015; Shropshire et al., 2010). Due to a variety of human factors such as ignorance, apathy, resistance, naivety, honest mistakes and disobedience, employees knowingly or unknowingly place the organization's information assets at risk (Harris and Furnell, 2012). The main mechanism to assist employees in protecting organizational information resources is the information security policy (ISP) (Smith, 2015)[1]. Yet, simply having a well-documented set of policies and procedures is not, by itself, good enough to deter information security breaches (Safa et al., 2016). Employees must be adequately trained on the ISPs and have the intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivation to abide by the policies and procedures.\nTheoretical background and research hypotheses: IS behavioral information security research has improved our knowledge of the behavior of non-malicious employees in complying (or not complying) with ISPs using theories such as the theory of planned behavior (TPB), rational choice theory, protection motivation theory, and GDT (Barlow et al., 2013; Crossler et al., 2013). Despite this theoretical diversity, one commonality across many of the studies is the theorized (or assumed) link between behavioral intentions and actual security related behaviors (Aurigemma, 2013). This means that employees will (on average) act on their intentions to comply or to not comply with an organization's ISPs (Ajzen, 1985). This linkage has become a cornerstone of ISP behavioral compliance research due to the difficulty in gaining access to organizational data related to actual employee non-compliance in this sensitive area (Kotulic and Clark, 2004). The idea of behavioral intentions is derived from the TPB (Ajzen, 1985).\nResearch design and methods: Data for this study were collected using a questionnaire administered to the US Department of Defense (DoD) employees across multiple departments and work functions, all of whom fell under the same overarching ISP guidance at the time of survey data collection. The survey instrument was derived from empirically validated quantitative scales from related ISP behavioral compliance studies (see Table II). All items were measured reflectively using seven-point Likert scales ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree. The survey was designed and administered using best practices outlined by Dillman et al. (2014) such as instruction wording, question order, participant follow-up and so on. The survey instrument was piloted twice, first with a group of three DoD security management practitioners at different organizations and then with 20 DoD personnel and academics. Each pilot study focused on question clarity and removing ambiguities, resulting in minor changes to the organization, structure and content of the survey instrument.\nResults: To analyze our survey data, we used covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM techniques are considered an appropriate analysis method when testing or disconfirming explanatory relationships between latent constructs of a theoretically derived model (Raykov and Marcoulides, 2006; Gefen et al., 2011), which is the case for our hypotheses. Prior to conducting SEM analyses, we screened the data for issues that may jeopardize the results, such as minimum sample size, outliers, variance inflation factors, multi-collinearity, non-normality and missing data (Kline, 2011, Byrne, 2001; Gefen et al., 2000). We transformed all skewed variables (all latent constructs except perceived sanction severity) using the inverse transformation as recommended by Kline (2011). We also mean centered the sanction effect variables to test the interaction effect of sanction severity and sanction probability.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Our study makes three important contributions to the literature. First, we empirically demonstrate that attitudes fully mediate the impact of sanction effects on ISP behavioral intentions. D'Arcy and Herath (2011) suggest that sanction effects might have an indirect effect on ISP compliance behavioral intentions and we provide empirical support and theoretical justification for such an indirect effect. We argue that the threat of sanctions shapes an employee's attitudes, which then influences the employee's behavioral intentions to comply with the ISPs. We suggested that this is the case because the rational estimation of sanction effects acts in a similar manner to a rational estimation of costs and benefits, which has been previously demonstrated to impact the formation of attitudes concerning a variety of IS behaviors including ISP compliance (Bulgurcu et al., 2010; Workman et al., 2008; Taneja et al., 2014). Interestingly, Liao et al. (2009) found, counter to our findings, that attitudes did not fully mediate the relationship between sanction effects and behavioral intentions in their study of workplace internet misuse. The different results may be due to flash drive misuse being a different threat context with different workplace risks (either perceived or real) than workplace internet misuse. Having a tangible 'thing' (the flash drive) may make the perceived threat of flash drive misuse greater (relative to a threat involving just digital 0 and 1 s) in the eyes of a typical, non-technical employee, which may amplify the attitudinal mediation effect associated with sanctions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to examine the inconclusive impacts of sanction-related deterrence on employee information security policy (ISP) compliance from the extant literature. It proposes that the disparate findings can be partially explained by two factors: investigating the mediating impact of attitudes on sanction effects instead of directly on behavioral intentions and examining employees with and without previous punishment experiences separately.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper relied upon survey data from 239 employees of a large governmental organization with a robust ISP and security education and training awareness program.\nFindings: The paper provides empirical evidence that the rational estimation of sanction effects impacts the cognitive component of attitudes to develop a positive or negative attitude toward performing the ISP directed behavior. Furthermore, this attitudinal effect (created by sanction threats) will be biased depending on whether the employee has experienced, personally or vicariously, any previous punishment for violating the ISP.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the chosen research approach (self-reported survey data) and context (single hierarchical organization and a very specific security threat), the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further in different organizational and threat contexts.\nPractical implications: Organizations should have a thorough understanding of how their employees' perceive sanctions in relationship to their prior experiences before implementing such policies.\nOriginality/value: The paper addresses previous research calls for examining possible mediation variables for deterrence effects and impacts of punishment experiences on employee ISP compliance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Building the confidence of first-time middle leaders in New Zealand primary schools
|
[
"Leadership development",
"New Zealand",
"Primary schools",
"First-time middle leaders",
"Middle leadership"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In primary schools, middle leaders are teachers who also have the additional responsibility of leading syndicates or managing a specific curriculum area within the school (Cardno, 2006; Hammersley-Fletcher and Kirkham, 2007). Middle leaders undertake a variety of leadership responsibilities, including leading pedagogy and curriculum, leading staff and students and carrying out a number of administrative tasks (Ministry of Education, 2012), yet their leadership role is secondary to their substantial classroom teaching responsibilities (Grootenboer, Edwards-Groves and Ronnerman, 2015). Research by Busher (2005) and Fletcher-Campbell (2003) highlight that middle leaders identify themselves as teachers rather than a part of the management echelon of the school. However, Struyve et al. (2014) revealed that although middle leaders saw themselves as teachers first and foremost, their teacher colleagues did not.\nExpectations of first-time middle leaders: Middle leaders have the responsibility for implementing change in their schools yet maintain close connections to the classroom, where student learning occurs (Burton and Brundrett, 2005; Grootenboer et al., 2015). In this context, they fulfil a dichotomous role in which they are both teacher and leader (Fitzgerald, 2009). Several studies have identified common key functions that middle leaders carry out which significantly influence teaching and learning including: teacher leadership and undertaking administrative tasks (Bassett, 2016; Cardno and Robson, 2016; Dinham, 2007).\nChallenges for first-time middle leaders: The literature identifies several major challenges confronting middle leaders including the tension of being positioned in the centre of the school hierarchy between senior leaders and teaching staff and a lack of confidence in their ability to carry out their leadership role effectively (Busher, 2005; Heng and Marsh, 2009; Struyve et al., 2014).\nLeadership development for first-time middle leaders: Despite the complexity of the middle leadership role, specific professional development which builds leadership capacity is sadly lacking (Adey, 2000; Cardno and Bassett, 2015; Cardno and Robson, 2016; Dinham, 2007). In fact, Southworth (2002) argues that leadership development is \"characterised by on-the job, osmotic learning\" (p. 86). Middle leaders need to keep up to date with subject and pedagogical developments yet they also require an understanding of leadership and management theory (Burton and Brundrett, 2005; Fleming and Amesbury, 2001). As a result, the development of middle leaders is both essential and complex.\nMethodology: This small-scale qualitative study aimed to identify the expectations and challenges of first-time middle leaders in New Zealand primary schools, and identify the leadership development and support they were provided with. Data were collected using three methods: semi-structured interviews, focus group and documentary analysis.\nFindings: The findings from this study are presented in three sections: expectations, challenges and leadership development and support. In each of these sections, the perspectives of both principals and middle leaders are presented.\nExpectations of first-time middle leaders: Principal perspectives\nChallenges of first-time middle leaders: Principal perspectives\nLeadership development and support of first-time middle leaders: Principal perspectives\nDiscussion: Expectations and challenges of first-time middle leaders\nConclusion: This research concludes that middle leaders play a key role as teacher leaders in which they communicate and implement school initiatives to achieve school goals. This can place them in a difficult position where they are part of both the senior management and their own teams. Their position in the middle provides them with both opportunities and constraints. As support and advocates for their own team, they could potentially be seen to be at odds with the senior leaders. However, the middle leaders in this research appear to understand their position and work hard to please both groups.\nRecommendations: In New Zealand schools, beginning teachers are given two years of induction and mentoring from an experienced teacher along with additional classroom release time to help support their additional developmental needs. A recommendation of this research is that an induction and mentoring programme for middle leaders which focusses specifically on their unique roles and challenges is implemented at a national level. If school leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence of student learning (Leithwood et al., 2006), then priority needs to be given to leadership development for middle leaders.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Middle leaders play an important role in the education landscape, first and foremost as teachers, and second as leaders. The purpose of this paper is to identify the expectations and challenges experienced by first-time middle leaders in New Zealand primary schools, and identify the leadership development and support they were provided with.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This was a small qualitative study designed to collect data from the perspectives of first-time middle leaders and principals in New Zealand primary schools. Three methods were employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six middle leaders who had been in the role for one to three years. These participants were identified through an analysis of recent public appointment records and then e-mailed with an invitation. Four principals from a local principals' association were invited to comprise a focus group and relevant documents were analysed.\nFindings: The findings from this study are presented in three sections: expectations, challenges and leadership development and support. Whilst the principals described wide and varied role expectations the middle leaders highlighted the importance of their teaching role with leadership responsibilities as secondary. From both perspectives time to do the administrative work was an overwhelming difficulty. A key finding was related to a lack of confidence to undertake the role in spite of efforts to provide and receive support. Overall, there was agreement that further development for new middle leaders was essential.\nResearch limitations/implications: This small, limited study highlights the central role that middle leaders play in leading learning and teaching, and the existence of a lack of confidence. Further research is needed to delve into conditions that would enable new middle leaders to manage the challenges of time and confidence.\nPractical implications: The research recommends that practitioners who are new to a middle leadership role be allocated dedicated time for performing the administrative tasks and participating in an ongoing induction programme. The middle leaders themselves and their schools would benefit from efforts to strengthen middle leadership development.\nOriginality/value: Although a great deal has been written about middle leadership, there is only a small amount of research about primary schools. This research adds valuable new information in a primary school context and breaks new ground in researching early career, first-time middle leaders in this context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Making educational organizations able to change: a literature review
|
[
"Change agents",
"Inertia",
"Organizational change",
"Organizational evolution",
"Educational management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Caught in the stranglehold of declining financial resources and increasing expectations of external stakeholders, educational institutions face relevant challenges which put under stress their long-term sustainability (Dennison, 1984; Roper and Whitt, 2016). In addition, the shift of knowledge approaches and management trends brings with itself new opportunities and treats for educational institutions (Jamali, 2005; Petrides and Ngyuen, 2008). Obviously, these contingencies spur the transformation of conventional organizational models rooted in the educational system: from this point of view, the ability to handle organizational change turns out to be a fundamental skill to properly manage the educational institutions of the future (Kovac et al., 2018).\n2. Methodology and research strategy: A tailored research protocol was designed and implemented for the purpose of this study. Two citation databases were concomitantly inquired to collect scientific contributions about organizational change in educational institutions. In light of the breadth and depth of their coverage, the authors decided to use Elsevier's Scopus(r) and Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science(tm) as the main sources of this literature review (Vieira and Gomes, 2009). On the one hand, Scopus(r) is currently one of the largest abstract and citation databases of peer-reviewed literature, including articles published in scientific journals, conference proceedings, books and books' chapters. It indexes more than 69m items, dating back to 1788 and covering a large variety of scientific fields. On the other hand, with more than 100 years of comprehensive coverage and more than 90m records, Web of Science(tm) is the world's leading multidisciplinary citation database. Since the conjoined use of these tools allowed a thorough coverage of the existing scientific literature, other potential sources - such as Google Scholar - were not taken into consideration.\n3. Research findings: 3.1 The triggers of change in educational organizations\n4. Discussion: Educational institutions continuously need to change their structures and adapt current organizational practices in order to meet the evolving demands of their stakeholders and, consequently, improve their ability to survive the external environment. However, a lot of challenges affect the implementation and the effectiveness of this process. This literature review tried to shed light on this issue, pointing out the triggers, the barriers and the side effects of organizational change in educational institutions. Figure 2 provides a graphical overview of the research findings, which suggest intriguing insights to inspire further conceptual and practical developments.\n5. Conclusions: The paper contribution is twofold. From a practical point of view, this literature review stresses the managerial challenges which affect the implementation of organizational change in educational institutions. Managers should develop tailored skills and competencies to steer the process of organizational change, in order to avoid that this event merely follows isomorphic pressures. In fact, the inner culture of educational organizations and the employees' loyalty to existing values and traditions are likely to sterilize change attempts and to impoverish the process of organizational evolution. Specific strategies should be implemented to overcome the resistance to change and to set the conditions for organizational growth. Among others, the adoption of a deliberative approach to manage the change event, the introduction of change agents and the establishment of implementation teams are essential ingredients of the recipe for successful change in educational organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Educational organizations have to continuously adapt their structures, processes and practices to meet the evolving institutional and social challenges raised by the external environment. From this point of view, organizational change is a fundamental ingredient of the recipe for success in educational management. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize organizational change to educational institutions, pointing out its determinants, barriers and consequences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review was performed. On the whole, it concerned 330 scientific contributions. Manuscripts were searched in two large citation databases. Tailored selection and inclusion criteria were designed in order to exclusively focus on papers investigating organizational change dynamics in the educational environment. In sum, 41 contributions were included in this literature review.\nFindings: Organizational change in the educational context paves the way for various managerial challenges. First, the internal and external triggers of change should be concomitantly handled, in order to curb isomorphic pressures and steer organizational evolution. Second, specific strategies should be implemented to overcome the barriers to organizational change, including ambiguity and uncertainty. Finally, yet importantly, the side effects of organizational change should be recognized, in an attempt to attenuate their drawbacks on employees' working conditions.\nPractical implications: Organizational change should be understood as an iterative process, rather than as a circumscribed event. Educational managers should design specific approaches and deploy ad hoc tools to effectively implement organizational change.\nOriginality/value: This study attempts to systemize the current scientific literature about organizational change in the field of educational management, illuminating some intriguing avenues for further research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Differences in personal and professional tweets of scholars
|
[
"Social media",
"Affordance",
"Impression management",
"Altmetrics",
"Twitter",
"Frame analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The current conversations in both popular media and academic discourse surrounding the use of the social web places pressure on various groups within academia - such as scholars, universities, and funding agencies - to consider a variety of behaviors, policies, and regulations related to the production, consumption, disclosure, and dissemination of information within these environments. Interaction in computer-mediated environments is a ubiquitous aspect of day-to-day life (Mitzlaff et al., 2013) and as such researchers look to examine the digital traces (Lazer et al., 2009) left behind in social media by participants (e.g. scholars), in an attempt to analyze phenomena such as utilizing and maintaining social capital (Hoffmann et al., 2014), managing impressions (Haustein et al., 2013; Veletsianos, 2012), influencing science (Priem, 2010; Priem et al., 2010, 2012), and consuming and disseminating scholarly information (Bowman et al., 2013; Schroeder et al., 2011). In addition, universities and organizations look to this research to assist them with evaluating scholarly production (Bar-Ilan et al., 2012) and crafting social media use policies (Duque and Perez, 2013; Hank et al., 2014; Lough and Samek, 2014) as the boundaries between public and private continue to blur.\n2. Theoretical framework: Beginning in the late 1990s, scholars such as Baldwin (1998) contemplated that academia was being affected in various ways by emerging computer-mediated environments, arguing that they allowed for, among other things, insight into the way academic life was evolving. In addition to scholars themselves, organizations both within and outside of higher education presumably also want to know what types of effects social media platforms are having on scholarly communication, dissemination, and information exchange. Davis III, et al. (2012) warned that it is critical for researchers to investigate how organizations, such as organizations in higher education, are incorporating, monitoring, and normalizing the use of social media by their employees. There have also been studies (Haustein et al., 2013; Veletsianos, 2012) that point to issues facing scholars as they manage their impressions within social media environments. From this and other work it is clear that the use of social media by scholars is having an impact on their once invisible backstage activity, as Priem (2014, p. 264) argues, by bringing \"the background of scholarship [...] out onto the [front] stage.\"\n3. Methods: This exploratory research was carried out in three distinct phases from January 2014 through October 2014. Each phase is described below.\n4. Results: 4.1. Phase one: survey\n5. Discussion and conclusion: Social media metrics researchers attempt to identify and distinguish between the dissemination of, and engagement with, scientific content by measuring the traces (Cronin, 2001) left in social media environments by events related to scholarly communication (e.g. measuring a tweet containing a URL with a DOI to an academic paper). One significant problem with blindly measuring these events is that it is problematic for researchers to distinguish between personal and professional tweets, which makes it difficult to speak to whether a scholar is communicating about science in a personal or professional way and to decide whether or not this should be considered as academic output or impact. This work has taken a first step in attempting to identify differences in affordance use between personal and professional tweets. While there are other factors that are taken into consideration by audience members when reading a tweet including the tweet message itself, the time it was sent, the amount of responses it has received, and the familiarity of the audience members with the scholar, this work has identified framing strategies that should assist social media metric researchers to better differentiate between personal and professional communications in this context.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that there were differences in the use of Twitter by professors at AAU schools. Affordance use differed between the personal and professional tweets of professors as categorized by turkers. Framing behaviors were described that could impact the interpretation of tweets by audience members.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A three phase research design was used that included surveys of professors, categorization of tweets by workers in Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and categorization of tweets by active professors on Twitter.\nFindings: There were significant differences found between professors that reported having a Twitter account, significant differences found between types of Twitter accounts (personal, professional, or both), and significant differences in the affordances used in personal and professional tweets. Framing behaviors were described that may assist altmetric researchers in distinguishing between personal and professional tweets.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is limited by the sample population, survey instrument, low survey response rate, and low Cohen's k.\nPractical implications: An overview of various affordances found in Twitter is provided and a novel use of Amazon's Mechanical Turk for the categorization of tweets is described that can be applied to future altmetric studies.\nOriginality/value: This work utilizes a socio-technical framework integrating social and psychological theories to interpret results from the tweeting behavior of professors and the interpretation of tweets by workers in Amazon's Mechanical Turk.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Academic entrepreneurship: Assessing preferences in nascent entrepreneurs
|
[
"Academic staff",
"Entrepreneurialism",
"Universities",
"Management development",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Interest in academic entrepreneurship has grown exponentially over recent years and in particular since the year 2000. In the UK this can be attributed to a large extent to government policy and funding priorities. For example: the University Challenge Fund, providing venture capital for university-linked entrepreneurial ventures; and the Science Enterprise Challenge, aimed at promoting entrepreneurship amongst science, engineering and technology students (OST, 2001). Of particular interest, and the impetus for the current paper, is the predicted outcome of the Science Enterprise Challenge and the anticipated growth in academic entrepreneurship: an estimated 40,000 students are to receive some form of entrepreneurship education and an estimated 700 spinout companies are to be created. Such targets take place within an overall aim of increasing \"awareness of the importance of business enterprise at all universities\" and \"to legitimise commercial activity as a valid aspect of academic life\" (OST, 2001, p.1).A dilemma facing university managers is how to engage with the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship. The dilemma centres on how best to promote and facilitate academic entrepreneurship within an institutional context whilst not creating barriers or disincentives for both academics and students. The dilemma can be characterised as two alternative approaches: the first, and arguably the historical case, is where individual academics are left to pursue opportunities at will, as an adjunct to their research and teaching responsibilities. The second, is where institutions create organisational infrastructures and mechanisms that serve both to encourage and indeed (attempt) to manage entrepreneurial processes - for example through technology transfer offices, the creation of science parks and innovation centres.The authors believe that the stated policy objective of moving to a \"third stream of funding\" (i.e. enterprise funding in addition to traditional teaching and research funding), will involve much greater numbers of academics and students becoming involved in entrepreneurshipm through, for example:* consultancy;* public-sector contracts;* private-sector contracts;* joint ventures;* spinout firms;* spinin firms; and.* intellectual capital managementAll of the above takes place within a wider debate concerning the role of universities in society and in particular the relationship between universities, industry and government - the so-called \"triple helix\" (Etzkowitz, 2003) for fostering innovation.The aim of the paper therefore is to investigate entrepreneurship amongst university managers, academic entrepreneurs and nascent academic entrepreneurs. In particular the authors are interested in the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship taking place in a single institutional setting. The following summarises the key parts of the paper and the research process. In the literature review section an attempt is made to define the scope of academic entrepreneurship with reference to three streams of complementary research. The methodology section details the three-stage process used to investigate academic entrepreneurs and nascent academic entrepreneurs in a single university setting. In the discussion section the results are explored and the implications of the study discussed in terms of how they add to an understanding of the enablers and barriers to academic entrepreneurship.As a final introductory point, a definitional understanding of the concepts of entrepreneurship and entrepreneur is acknowledged:Entrepreneurship encompasses acts of organisational creation, renewal, or innovation that occur within or outside an existing organisation (Sharma and Chrisman, 1999, p. 18).For this study it is contented that the organisational context of a university setting is central in understanding how academic entrepreneurship takes place. Further that:Entrepreneurs are individuals or groups of individuals, acting independently or as a part of a corporate system, who create new organisations, or instigate renewal or innovation within an existing organisation (Sharma and Chrisman, 1999, p. 18).For the purposes of this study, academics demonstrating the above behaviour were deemed to be academic entrepreneurs.\nLiterature review: In investigating entrepreneurship related to academia, a number of typologies were identified that proved useful in general terms for understanding the complexity of the entrepreneurial process (see Table I). However three typologies in particular were thought relevant to the sub-field of academic entrepreneurship in the UK: Jones-Evans (1987), Dickson et al. (1998) and Birley (2002).In a study of technical entrepreneurs, Jones-Evans (1987) found that the occupational/work background of the entrepreneur was an important factor in understanding how such firms developed. The research entrepreneur is identified as the category of technical entrepreneur most likely to be involved in a university/academic setting. Described as having, \"a knowledge-oriented, science and technology background having worked in higher education/academia or in a non-commercial laboratory\" (Cooper, 2000, p. 237).The Dickson et al. (1998) typology identifies three types of entrepreneur based on a perceived transition from a posture of, \"the purely academic\" to \"exploiting science\". First, the academic entrepreneur \"who engage(s) in entrepreneurial endeavours, but only as an adjunct to their academic work.\" Second, the entrepreneurial scientist described as \"the scientist ... operating full-time in a business venture whilst still essentially dedicated to scientific interests\". Third, scientific entrepreneurs with both science and business qualifications, operating in a venture and regarding \"science as business\" (Dickson et al., 1998, p. 35).The Birley (2002) typology identifies three distinct types of spinouts. First, the orthodox spinout described as \"a company formed by one or more academics ... who leave the university to form the company\". Interestingly, in a seeming contradiction to the Dickson et al. description, Birley notes these founders as \"academic entrepreneurs\". Second, the technology spinout where \"an outside investor/manager buys or leases the intellectual property (IP) from the university and forms a new company\". The inventor academic(s) have no involvement with the running of the company. Third, the hybrid spinout, the predominant form of spinout in Imperial College - the focus of the Birley study. In the hybrid there is a combination of inventor and \"founding\" academics with varying degrees of involvement with spinout companies (Birley, 2002, p. 136). In the context of promoting entrepreneurship amongst academics, Birley also reports a shift in university policy, \"from a technology transfer strategy that focused upon licensing technologies to large organisations and positively discouraged faculty entrepreneurial activity to one that focuses upon actively encouraging the creation of new ventures from faculty research\" (Birley, 2002, p. 135).The above authors represent three distinct but interrelated fields of research. In retrospect these fields can be understood as converging to form a coherent domain for the study of academic entrepreneurship. The Jones-Evans typology is located within the study of technology-based firms (Oakey, 1984 et seq.). Dickson et al. is located within the field investigating the commercialisation of academic knowledge (Gibbons and Wittrock, 1985). Birley is located, broadly speaking, within the field exploring entrepreneurship and the changing role of universities in society and indeed the emergence of the \"entrepreneurial university\" (Etzkowitz, 1983). By conceptualising the three streams of research as overlapping fields (see Figure 1) it is possible to visualise one understanding of the phenomena of academic entrepreneurship.The overlapping fields of interest allows the identification of seven component phenomena:1. The academic entrepreneur who balances the disciplinary considerations with the technology transfer strategy of a host university institution and opportunities arising from exploiting intellectual capital through technology-based firms (Jones-Evans, 1987; Dickson et al., 1998; Birley, 2002; Laukkanen, 2003).2. A discipline context that determines academic credibility especially in terms of innovation (Faulkner, 1994; Csikszentmihalyi, 2001; Birley, 2002).3. A university context that increasingly recognises organisational knowledge capital as well as individual capital (Collins, 1993; Blacker, 1995; Askling et al., 2001; Etzkowitz, 2003).4. Technology-based firms with a competence based on specialist knowledge (Roberts, 1991; Oakey, 1995; Autio, 1997; Storey and Tether, 1998).5. University interventions to commercialise organisational knowledge (Jones-Evans, 1998; Etzkowitz, 2003).6. University interventions to create/support/own science, engineering and technology-based firms (Kinsella and McBrierty, 1997; Ferguson, 1999).7. Academics who engage with technology-based firms independent of a host university (Samson and Gurdon, 1993; Carayannis et al., 1998; Cooper, 2000).The above takes place in the entrepreneurial environment in which universities exist and markets and policy makers operate (Gibbons et al., 1994; Spilling, 1996; Nowotny et al., 2001; Neck et al., 2004).Coincidently, the confluence of the three distinct research streams (technology-based firms, the commercialisation of academic discipline knowledge and the role of universities in society) is consistent with a corporate (rather than an individual) view of academic entrepreneurship. In other words the focus on the \"individual, central in the corpus of entrepreneurship research ignores to a large extent the corporate context. The authors contend that a corporate entrepreneurship perspective (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2003) better addresses important relationships between academic entrepreneurs, host institution and parent academic discipline. Sharma and Chrisman (1999) suggest that three types of phenomena form the focus for understanding corporate entrepreneurship: venturing, innovation and renewal. Table II presents a tentative framework for understanding the recent \"genealogy\" of academic entrepreneurship and the sorts of entrepreneurship processes worthy of investigation:The attempt to conceptualise the domain of academic entrepreneurship by identifying contributory streams of research, relating these to categories of corporate entrepreneurship and making these categories operational (as opportunity, novelty and advantage seeking), can provide a focus for enquiry with which to investigate enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship taking place in a university setting.\nMethodology: The purpose of the research effort - assessing preferences in academic entrepreneurship - is of practical relevance to the authors. All are involved in the teaching and promoting entrepreneurship amongst academics and students in a single university setting. This \"embeddedness\" in the phenomenon suggested the need for a constructivist interpretive approach (Schwandt, 2000) that recognised the inherent subjectivity of the authors. This context suggested a methodology that draws on two strategies of enquiry (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000): case study research and action research.Strategies of enquiry\nDiscussion: The aim of the paper was to investigate entrepreneurship among university managers, academic entrepreneurs and in particular, nascent academic entrepreneurs in a single institutional setting. The purpose of undertaking such an investigation was to explore and assess preferences in terms of enablers for, and barriers to, entrepreneurship taking place. The summary outcomes detailed in Tables VI and VII highlight a number of significant issues.Discipline knowledge\nConclusions: In conclusion the authors contend that the increasing prevalence of entrepreneurship in a university setting will create significant challenges for both university policy makers and managers, and indeed for those who aspire to academic entrepreneurship. In particular the authors agree with Etzkowitz (2003) in the need for changes in organisational entities and systems in order to overcome real barriers within modern university structures and strategies. It is also apparent that academic entrepreneurship is different in important ways from independent entrepreneurship - specifically in terms of the nature of discipline knowledge and the academic-university relationship.The authors suggest that no less than an institutional paradigm shift is required in order to fully support academic entrepreneurship. The nature of such a change is summarised in Table VIII:* The dominant social aspect of work relationships suggests the need to view entrepreneurship as corporate rather than simply an individual phenomenon.* The inter-discipline aspect of knowledge production suggests the need for thinking outside the rigours of individual disciplines whilst still recognising the fundamental role such disciplines have for academic innovation.* Attempts to funnel knowledge through central units can be counter-productive. Multiple gatekeepers need to be welcomed and reflect the reality of interdisciplinary knowledge production.* The dichotomous thinking that simplifies academia into theory (inside the university) and practice (outside the university) does not reflect the nature of academic entrepreneurship. \"Trialectic\" thinking, encompassing the idea of multiple parts that attract (Ford and Ford, 1994), and the triple helix concept of multiple relationships, offer a more meaningful framework for understanding academic entrepreneurship.Finally, the identification of types of academic entrepreneur (based on approach to discipline knowledge and relationship with host university) recognises a set of key relationships important for understanding this special form of entrepreneurship. Such key relationships are important in that they give credibility to individual academics, whilst providing the specialist knowledge that forms the basis of the entrepreneurial enterprise. As such they are important for beginning to understand the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship in a university setting.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The aim of the paper was to investigate entrepreneurship in a university setting and in particular amongst university managers, established academic entrepreneurs and nascent academic entrepreneurs. The purpose was to better understand the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship taking place.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative, sense-making methodology was used involving a single case method and a purposeful sampling approach. A three-stage design strategy consisted of: identification of key themes by questioning university policy makers, managers and academic entrepreneurs; development of a questionnaire to profile academic entrepreneurs; and use of the questionnaire to assess preferences amongst nascent academic entrepreneurs\nFindings: - Four types of academic entrepreneur (hero, maverick, broker and prospector) were identified based on different approaches by individual academics to the use/production of discipline knowledge and the nature of their relationship with the host university.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The single case research is perceived as a limitation. Future studies will involve refining the level of analysis in terms of different disciplines and institutions.\nPractical implications: - The results suggest that interventions to promote entrepreneurship within universities ought to consider different strategies in order to take account of preferences amongst nascent entrepreneurs.\nOriginality/value: - The paper looks at entrepreneurship in universities from a corporate perspective rather than from an individual perspective. The powerful influence of the university organisational setting is therefore recognised in terms of the creation of enablers and barriers to academic entrepreneurship taking place.\n",
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Commercial property retrofitting : What does "retrofit" mean, and how can we scale up action in the UK sector?
|
[
"Energy efficiency",
"Commercial property",
"Retrofit",
"Green Deal",
"Energy performance contract",
"DECs",
"EPCs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Commercial property (which includes retail, offices and industrial space) plays a vital role in the UK economy. With a total of 575 million sq m of floor space, commercial property is worth about PS717 billion, with retail (at PS227 billion) the largest sub-sector. The sector is also diverse and complex, with more than half of commercial property being rented (51 per cent) rather than owned, compared with only a third of housing being rented (Property Industry Alliance (PIA), 2013).\nDefining retrofit: Retrofitting takes on an important significance in the context of commercial property. In the academic literature there has been much debate over the meaning of \"retrofit\" and its distinction, if any, from \"refurbishment\" or \"renovation\". In a literal sense retrofit can be defined as (Oxford English Dictionary): \"to provide (something) with a component or feature not fitted during manufacture; to add (a component or feature) to something that did not have it when first constructed\". In other words, the term, which originated in the USA in the late 1940s and early 1950s, is essentially a blend of the words, \"retroactive\" (applying or referring to the past) and \"fit\" (to equip).\nDrivers for retrofit: The recent EPSRC research found that the most important drivers in UK commercial property retrofit relate to policy, economic factors (e.g. rising energy costs) and marketing/reputation (Dixon et al., 2014). Cost-related factors, such as energy cost savings, improved asset value and energy security were also found to be key drivers in the Americas and Europe in a recent global survey (Institute for Building Efficiency, 2013).\nBarriers to retrofit: In the UK the most important barriers to retrofit relate to economic factors (overall cost and value impact), organisational issues (where retrofit projects may be competing for funds) and lease structures (Dixon et al., 2014). The economic barriers often relate to the fact that energy use is often only a small proportion of business costs although this is rising as energy prices rise. Aside from continued problems over the \"split incentive\" issue (in tenanted property the landlord is responsible for the building but the tenant is responsible for energy costs), the required payback periods in leased premises are also shorter, and often limited to a maximum of five years (and normally two to three years), which restricts the type of retrofit measures that can be adopted. This is partly driven by perceptions of \"risky\" technology requiring longer paybacks, but also declining lease lengths in the sector (e.g. the average length of a new lease in 2011 fell to below five years, compared to 8.7 years in 1999, and over 75 per cent of new leases now have durations of five years or less (PIA, 2013).\nFunding vehicles for commercial property retrofit: Retrofit financing is also crucial to success, and lack of funding, particularly in the SME sector, is hampering progress in the UK and elsewhere (Dixon et al., 2014). The majority of UK retrofit projects are paid for through self-financing or service charge arrangements, although there have been recent examples of the increasing take up of energy performance contracting (EnPC) arrangements where retrofitting is financed through projected future energy savings. In summary, besides self-financing, the following financing opportunities exist in the UK for retrofit:\nImproving transparency in actual energy performance: A recent report by the CCC in the UK revealed the lack of progress in UK commercial property retrofit: of the 427,814 EPCs that had been issued by mid-June 2013, more than 18 per cent received the lowest rating of F and G, and only 8 per cent of EPCs were rated at B or above. This showed little improvement since 2012 and in fact only 39 per cent of leased commercial premises have so far provided EPCs as required. Recent research (JLL, 2012) has also shown that in a comparative study of two EPC-rated government buildings in London, a building with a worse EPC out-performed a higher scored building in terms of its actual energy performance by 66 per cent.\nConsistency in measurement, verification and assessment standards: UK research (Dixon et al., 2014) found that inflexible regulations, the validating and approval process for new technologies, mandated lists of technologies, are all seen as factors that can restrict the entry of new retrofit products into the market. Payback periods and contracting arrangements can also hinder innovation. Difficulties with the process of validating and approving technologies were also identified as being a problem. Other respondents in the research spoke about how the selection and procurement of technologies can be limited by existing technology lists which permit tax breaks through enhanced capital allowances. This is part of a wider set of reforms which are needed in the UK, and include:\nConclusions: In what is essentially a complex, diverse and conservative sector, rolling out retrofit at scale in the UK is challenging. For one thing commercial property investors and developers tend to see retrofitting through the lens of individual buildings and portfolios rather than at city level and so this, combined with the diversity of commercial stock (in terms of age, type and leasing arrangements) and its geographical spread, can all lead to discontinuities between key stakeholders in the sector and retrofit projects across wider urban areas. Currently there is a major independent study underway into whether the UK government's energy and carbon policies are having the desired impact in the property sector (APGEBE, 2013).\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: Progress in retrofitting the UK's commercial properties continues to be slow and fragmented. New research from the UK and USA suggests that radical changes are needed to drive large-scale retrofitting, and that new and innovative models of financing can create new opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into the terminology of retrofit and the changes in UK policy and practice that are needed to scale up activity in the sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews and synthesises key published research into commercial property retrofitting in the UK and USA and also draws on policy and practice from the EU and Australia.\nFindings: The paper provides a definition of \"retrofit\", and compares and contrasts this with \"refurbishment\" and \"renovation\" in an international context. The paper summarises key findings from recent research and suggests that there are a number of policy and practice measures which need to be implemented in the UK for commercial retrofitting to succeed at scale. These include improved funding vehicles for retrofit; better transparency in actual energy performance; and consistency in measurement, verification and assessment standards.\nPractical implications: Policy and practice in the UK needs to change if large-scale commercial property retrofit is to be rolled out successfully. This requires mandatory legislation underpinned by incentives and penalties for non-compliance.\nOriginality/value: This paper synthesises recent research to provide a set of policy and practice recommendations which draw on international experience, and can assist on implementation in the UK.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Household food waste and eating behavior: empirical survey
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Survey",
"Waste minimization",
"Foods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Most of the research on food waste focuses on the formation of waste at production and distribution level. Growing research has focused on food waste generation at household level (Iacovidou et al., 2012; Jorissen et al., 2015; Lanfranchi et al., 2014a, d). In the EU Member States, in fact, households, according to Eurostat data, are mainly responsible for food waste (Segre, 2014; Principato et al., 2015; Schimmenti et al., 2013). The limited data available on food waste indicate that the household food waste is related primarily to three factors: the purchase of food products quantitatively or qualitatively not in line with one's needs, mismanagement of food storage, excessive portions prepared compared with the actual consumption (Diggelman and Ham, 2003; Hager and Morawicki, 2013; Quested et al., 2013). The analyzed context lends itself also to evaluate socio-economic evaluations concerning the phenomenon of household food waste which can be connected to the disposable income and to the purchase baskets of consumers, especially in light of the current economic crisis (Lanfranchi et al., 2014b; Secondi et al., 2015). In this regard, in 2012, the examined area showed a disposable income per capita equal to EUR13,113.87 and a household final consumption expenditure per capita equal to EUR14,789.00 (ISTAT, 2014). These data show how households were encouraged to increase the consumer credit demand for buying products and services not otherwise affordable (Lanfranchi et al., 2014e; Migliore et al., 2015). The regional data, however, show that the average in annual term household consumption expenditure is equal to EUR18,960.00, in which the food expenditure represents 27 percent of the total amount. On the other hand, the examined area showed an economic framework marked by a severe intensity of the economic crisis that, according to the latest ISTAT Census, not only has reduced the purchase power of households, but has also extended economic inequality and poverty. In fact, at regional level, a relative poverty risk index of 42.3 is evident (Tudisca et al., 2015a). This figure ranks Sicily among the poorest Italian regions. Other data have been obtained through the estimates of the absolute poverty index. According to the data related to Southern Italy, in 2013, the index shows 1,014 poor families with a percentage increase in their number equal to 28 percent, if compared to 2012 (Dowler and Seo, 1985). In order to deal with these issues, we proceeded to analyze the current eating habits of consumers with the aim of taking appropriate behavioral and social considerations (Green et al., 2003; Mascarello et al., 2015).\n2. Research objectives: The survey was carried out by selecting a group of consumers in a province of Sicily (Messina), with the aim of achieving a double goal:\n3. Methodology and the questionnaire: We conducted a survey on a sample of 500 consumers. Data were collected through a questionnaire, also available on the internet, from March to September 2015, after rounds of pre-testing from November 2014 to February 2015. The processing was conducted through the aggregation and analysis of the collected data, in order to obtain not only quantitative information - \"how much food is wasted\" - but especially qualitative one - \"what\" and \"why\" food gets wasted. These aspects allow us to make considerations also on the social, value and behavioral causes or regarding lifestyle that affect the phenomenon of food waste of the sampled households, as well as on the economic impact of the waste on the household budget. When formulating the questionnaire we considered the available literature on the topic of household food waste.\n4. Literature review: In the literature relating to the consumer's behavior, there are a lot of references to the \"lifestyle\" definition. Various studies aim to investigate this concept on the basis of the consumers' psychographic profiles and consuming habits. According to Wells and Tigert (1971), psychographic studies are used by the companies to identify the target market, to place a product and to communicate a strategy. Rokeach (1973) says that basic values are defined on the basis of categories aimed to guide human needs. These values can be broken down according some criteria, and some psychosocial functions, in particular: personal (experimentation and realization), central (existence and supra-personal) and social (interactional and normative). Bourdieu (1984) underlines Weber's proposition and founds that different social class conditions lead to different lifestyles. Mowen and Minor (1998) establish that the idea of a lifestyle is connectable with the belonging to a social group, not to the individual. They suggest, furthermore, that in the group, values, tastes, interests and needs are likely to be shared. Sheth et al. (2002) argue that lifestyle is how people live, and for Blackwell et al. (2001), lifestyle is how people spend their time and money. Also according to Solomon (2011), lifestyle refers to a consumption standard which reflects the choices of an individual, how he spends his time and money. Conversely, Lambin (2000) shows a method based on psychographic analysis and aimed to evaluate lifestyle profiles using a set of variables, such as the product quality. In this case, people find it particularly complex to quantify how much food they throw away and, therefore, how they could take action to diminish or avoid it. Therefore, food waste becomes, in many cases, a habit, an almost unconscious and irrational behavior. This can partly be explained through the Theory of Reasoned Action proposed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), according to which the consumer's actions are based on social norms, external conditions and on his habits as well. In this context, the phenomenon of food waste has become in some cases a persistent habit and, as such, it is very often an unreasoned action which, therefore, is not subject to the direct influence of norms and social rules. Some important factors that can affect the amount of food waste generated at the household level have been identified:\n5. Results: The consumers' habits of food purchases have been outlined on the data regarding the household composition, the frequency and manner of purchases, the size of the portion. On a total of 500 surveyed people, women who responded to the questionnaire were equal to 61 percent, while men were equal to 39 percent. Table I shows on grounds of age consumers were grouped into five age groups.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: The obtained results of our research are food consumption and consequently food waste can not only attribute to economic reasons. According to Wright et al. (2001), food is even important for the commercial and cultural development among companies, but also, on the basis of this study, among countries or regions (Lanfranchi et al., 2014c). Since the ancient times, food preferences have been closely related to cultural development. As consumers get richer, eating begins to meet social and psychological needs and not only physiological needs. According to the literature, different socio-economic contexts directly influence people's eating preferences as well. Bourdieu (1984) linked food preferences to the cultural and traditional characteristics of a territory. For example, in the Mediterranean countries food consumption influence by traditions and rural life. Similarly, in countries in which family relationships are more focused on the family, greater importance is given to food. In this view, Guerrero et al. (2009) observed that the rural and less cultured communities have more interest in traditional food products, unlike those who live in urban centers. Moreover, according to the results highlighted by Bae et al. (2010) the findings of this study show how fresh products, with a shorter shelf life: fruit, vegetables, bread, yogurt, cheese and cold cuts represent most of the waste; whereas, other products such as meat, seasonings, frozen food, rice and legumes, which have already been subjected to treatments during the chain or which are storable for longer, generate a smaller amount of food waste. In the domestic consumption surplus of discarded food is linked to surplus purchases and prepared portions; the excessive remaining in the pantry, in the fridge or freezer, errors in food preservation and maturity. These data show that the amount of currently produced food can actually be still reused for food purposes rather than being disposed like any other waste with a reduction of environmental, economic and ethical impacts. By connecting the obtained data to the Theory of Reasoned Action, the results support the findings deriving from its practical application. As shown by studies conducted at international level, in some countries, the phenomenon of household food waste has been influenced by a combination of variables ranging from family composition to age, from its culture to its spending power, from \"personal habits,\" to purchase behaviors, from the lack of planning in purchases, or in many cases, from the preparation of the dishes, to an improper storage or to too close food expiration dates. As for the second objective, that is assessing food waste according to the economic context, we noted that the premises of this work have been disproved by the actual behavior of consumers and by the answers that were given. It does not appear, in fact that from the data provided during the administration of the questionnaire, the highest percentage of respondents has an income comparable with the average one highlighted as a benchmark (deriving from the last ISTAT Census). Similar considerations can be applied to the average weekly household expenditure of the sample of respondents which confirm the regional household expenditure data with net decreases if compared to the previous years, but not directly related to the phenomenon of the reduction of food waste. In addition, in spite of the attitude, attributable to almost half of the sample, to check that expired food has not gone bad for recovery/reuse, it also emerges that a large slice of the sample allows that not used food ends up in the garbage, in line with the national average.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the food chain the identification of household food wastes represents the most problematic aspect to analyze: both as regards the assessment of its qualitative and quantitative aspects and for the detection of measures to reduce or control its generation. In 2012, in fact, the analyzed area showed an inequality index for disposable income of 6.3, and a relative poverty risk index of 42.3. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to get deeper insights into consumers' wasting behaviors, a survey on food waste generation in households was carried out in a province of Sicily (Italy). The questionnaire has been formulated taking into account the socio-demographic characteristics for the person who, in the family, usually makes the expenditure, in particular: gender, age, marital status, number of household members, education level, type (single, with or without children, married with or without children), worker and/or student if responsible for food shopping, the number of monthly meals, the kind of ready meal eaten (frozen, fresh, canned or freeze-dried), net monthly income for the family, etc. (adapted by Bae et al., 2010). The data collected from the statistical return of the consumers were drawn up to transform the same data into information of simpler and more concise interpretation.\nFindings: The results of the survey are presented in this paper. They can help understand the reasons for discarding edible food and to identify the food groups that are most wasted.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis of a larger land area or community allows most relevant conclusions. The research has an exploratory perspective since the sample strategy is not probabilistic.\nSocial implications: The findings could be susceptible to support practical and social implications for the identification of measures and instruments aimed at reducing food waste and at increasing consumers' awareness on that issue.\nOriginality/value: The study can stimulate sustainable consumption and consumer behavior especially in light of the current economic crisis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role of information technology in purchasing function
|
[
"Information technology",
"Purchasing",
"Purchasing techniques"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Although they may have been somewhat slow in doing so, companies now recognize the purchasing function as an important resource that helps them achieve high levels of quality, reliability and cost savings (Carr and Pearson, 2002), as well as identify other capacities, such as flexibility and product development through collaboration with suppliers and inter-functional teams (Carter et al., 1998). With this recognition, firms increasingly request tools to support more efficient deployments of operational and strategic competencies. An operational and strategic redesign along these lines often demands information technology (IT) tools with demonstrated effectiveness (Lee et al., 2011). For example, supporting computers and specialized software can improve internal communications and supplier relations (Stump and Sriram, 1997; Paulraj et al., 2008). Parallel logistics activities benefit particularly from IT, which expand the possibilities for sharing technology and information with suppliers (Ellram, 1991; Rantala and Hilmola, 2005). In addition, IT can improve communications and coordination, which enhance the development of joint activities that can store, process and transmit information and accelerate inter-organizational activities (Clemons and Row, 1992; Sriram and Stump, 2004). The increasing use of IT thus highlights the importance of the purchasing function in terms of supplier relations and reflects the demand for tools that can facilitate communication, information exchanges (Carr and Pearson, 1999; Humphreys et al., 2005) and the allocation, evaluation and control of various responsibilities (Carr and Smeltzer, 1999).\n2. Advanced purchasing practices: initial hypothesis: The evolution of the purchasing function has led to the development of new relationships with suppliers (Hansen, 2009; Matthyssens and Van den Bulte, 1994) that do not fit with a traditional image of suppliers as adversaries (Helper, 1991) and instead establish new forms of cooperation. This change often stems from the implementation of strategic supplier development activities, which allow buyers and suppliers to combine and exchange knowledge, resources and capabilities synergistically and, in turn, permit the realization of rents and performance improvements (Sanchez-Rodriguez, 2009). Companies that are willing to share knowledge and resources also can generate more income than is possible individually (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Collaborative trends thus reflect the firms' efforts to develop and improve their performance by creating climates of trust and stronger cooperation, through longer contracts with select suppliers (Guimaraes et al., 2002; Janda and Seshadri, 2005; Liao et al., 2012). Such efforts have attracted growing acceptance and implementation, particularly in the purchasing function, as outlined in the previous studies which we summarize in Table I.\n3. The role of IT in purchasing and supply management: 3.1 Direct effect of IT on purchasing performance\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Discussion: i.e. base systems, purchasing-specific systems, communication systems) on the implementation of three advanced purchasing practices (i.e. control activities, involvement in processes, activities logistics).\n6. Conclusions: This research examines the role of IT in the purchasing function, paying special attention to the practices and results achieved. Our analyses provide evidence of a positive effect of advanced purchasing practices on the results attained by the purchasing function. Therefore, the implementation of advanced purchasing practices, such as supplier control, suppliers' participation in product or process design and logistics integration, all significantly contribute to improve quality, cost, flexibility and reliability outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze how information technology (IT) can help explain performance by the purchasing function. In addition to analyzing the direct effect and mediating role of purchasing practices in the relationship between IT and purchasing performance, as has been considered in previous research, this study investigates the possibility of a moderating effect of IT in the relationships between purchasing practices and purchasing performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The propositions are tested with data from 156 purchasing managers, collected through a survey of members of the Spanish Association of Professionals of Purchasing and Supply Management who work in industrial companies.\nFindings: Although IT investments exert a positive effect on the purchasing function, the results show that this effect takes place through the implementation of purchasing practices that in turn improve the results of the purchasing function.\nOriginality/value: Instead of focusing on a single, specific effect of IT investment in the purchasing function, this paper considers three potential effects (direct, mediated and moderating). Thus, it provides a more comprehensive overview of the topic and a more complete elucidation of the actual effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Can I have it all? Emerging adult women's positions on balancing career and family
|
[
"Qualitative research",
"Focus groups",
"Career-family balance",
"Emerging adults",
"Pre-career women"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Can a woman combine career success with a fulfilling family life? This question has been asked since women began accessing professional roles that were once thought the exclusive domain of men, and more recently has become known as whether women can \"have it all\" (Hewlett, 2002; Slaughter, 2012). Women in university, poised to enter managerial pipelines in organizations, ponder this same question. The literature has referred to this critical population as \"emerging adults\" (Basuil and Casper, 2012), \"college women\" (Hoffnung, 2004), \"young women\" (Johnstone and Lee, 2009) and \"aspiring professionals\" (Orrange, 2002). They are also considered \"pre-career\" (Schweitzer et al., 2011) because they are actively engaged in exploring various career-family options (Kaufman, 2005; Stone and McKee, 2000). However, the contemporary range of possibilities and constraints that they face means that emerging adult women's career-family lives remain \"unpredictable\" (Arnett, 2000; Orrange, 2002), strengthening the need for in-depth examination (Hallett and Gilbert, 1997). Moreover, and given rising interdependencies between career and family, it has become increasingly difficult to disaggregate work from family expectations (Kaufman, 2005). Thus, we answer the call for research addressing both career and family explorations (Basuil and Casper, 2012; Hallett and Gilbert, 1997), by qualitatively investigating women's subjective perceptions of whether they felt that career success and a meaningful family life could be balanced in contemporary society.\nWomen and career-family balance: Much of the modern discourse, both popular and scholarly, emphasizes the career and family conflicts experienced by women (Badinter, 2010; Hewlett, 2002; Slaughter, 2012). In the mainstream debate on women and work, the idea of balancing career and family has become known as the \"having it all\" debate. The limitations associated with the expression have been acknowledged, particularly the idea that it sets a difficult standard of satisfaction for women to achieve (Traister, 2012). When women fail to \"have it all,\" it is blamed on unattainable feminist ideals (Szalai, 2015), rather than the antiquated notions of gender, career and family that still characterize many contemporary workplaces (Gerson, 2009).\nEmerging adulthood: Our population of interest consists of \"emerging adults\" - emerging adulthood being the transitional period between late adolescence and early adulthood (Basuil and Casper, 2012; Gerson, 2009). In this \"anticipatory\" stage of the life course (Becker and Moen, 1999), emerging adult men and women spend time and energy considering \"various possibilities in love, work and worldviews\" (Arnett, 2000, p. 469). Relatively free from adult responsibilities and parental surveillance, emerging adults engage in various educational and experiential activities that prepare them for the careers to follow (Arnett, 2000). Often, choices and decisions with enduring ramifications are made at this stage (Kaufman, 2005; Stone and McKee, 2000), strengthening the need to understand the perceptions that drive these choices and decisions.\nEmerging adult women, work and family: The emerging adult women of interest to this study came of age at a time where it is common for women, even women with young children, to work (Orrange, 2002). And yet, dominant social institutions remain resistant to change. Workplaces still reward \"ideal workers\" who value work above all else (Gerson, 2009), while society is increasingly emphasizing \"intensive parenting,\" an ideal of full-time dedication to child rearing (Badinter, 2010). In light of these opposing forces, research has delved into university women's attitudes toward leadership positions in business organizations (e.g. Litzky and Greenhaus, 2007; Powell and Butterfield, 2013). The evidence indicates that women are less likely to want these roles because they are considered inconsistent with femininity and undermining of relationships (Killeen et al., 2006; Litzky and Greenhaus, 2007), dampening their ambition (Fels, 2004; Wintrob, 2001). Traditional gender norms prevail, with each sex still anxious about fulfilling traditional gender roles (Ely et al., 2014; Gerson, 2009). Thus, many women remain identified with mothering, parenting and child rearing (Arthur and Lee, 2008; Hoffnung, 2004; Weer et al., 2006). These gender stereotypes underlie the essential career-family conflicts, contradictions and dilemmas perceived by women (Askari et al., 2010; Coyle et al., 2015; Fulcher et al., 2015; Goldberg et al., 2012; Orrange, 2002). Still, it appears that women continue to expect to be able to strike career-family balance, through the support of equal spousal partnership (Gerson, 2009; Kaufman, 2005; Spade and Reese, 1991), a finding that researchers have noted as lacking in realism (Arthur and Lee, 2008; Coyle et al., 2015; Ely et al., 2014; Hallett and Gilbert, 1997; Machung, 1989).\nResearch methodology: Qualitative research is designed to explore the subjective meanings of concepts or phenomena and to reveal the background from where these meanings are drawn (Jowett and O'Toole, 2006; Merriam, 2009). Located in the social constructionist paradigm, interpretive research holds that there is no single reality but many realities constructed in context (Merriam, 2009). The idea of balance between career and family is subjective and personal, calling for research designs that capture the complexity of viewpoints and the richness of the contexts in which these perceptions are situated.\nResults: The optimist position - \"I can have it all.\"\nDiscussion and conclusion: The purpose of this investigation was to interpretively explore emerging adult women's perceptions of whether they could combine success at work with success in family life. There was no dominant stance on career and family, but many positions competing for attention, each entailing different risks and rewards and driven by different assumptions and contexts. The richness of focus group conversations (Jowett and O'Toole, 2006) allowed us to identify six positions held by a critical emerging group of the workforce, including optimism, pessimism, uncertainty, choice, pragmatism and support. These reveal more nuanced positions than found in the extant literature. Namely, the emerging adult women studied here showed a healthy dose of pessimism and pragmatism, challenging notions advanced by prior studies that they lack realism (e.g. Arthur and Lee, 2008; Coyle et al., 2015; Hallett and Gilbert, 1997). Our subjects appreciated the complexities involved and realized the importance of social support in their quest for balance, appearing thoughtful about ways to achieve what they want.\nTheoretical implications: We grounded this investigation on theories of emerging adulthood, which posit that this transitional developmental period carries \"unpredictable\" outcomes (Arnett, 2000). We believe that the identification of six positions toward career and family expressed by a sample of emerging adult women provides us with a tighter grasp on the possibilities considered by emerging adults, allowing us to reduce some of this unpredictability.\nLimitations: Even though these findings enrich our understanding of women's nuanced perspectives on career and family, our results should be considered in light of design limitations. While the use of focus groups constitutes a key contribution of this study, this data collection technique can elicit groupthink (Boateng, 2012) and result in \"group polarization\" (Bordley, 1983, p. 262). In other words, attitudes can become more extreme, or more polarized, as a result of group discussion. Some participants may have also felt \"collectively isolated\" (Jowett and O'Toole, 2006, p. 459), potentially censoring or conforming to the direction taken in the discussion. Still, the informality taken in facilitating dialog and the range of positions generated in conversation all suggest that the focus group technique adopted here might have expanded women's sense of possibility rather than polarize it.\nRecommendations for research: Qualitative research is not meant to reach definitive conclusions; rather, it is about asking questions and raising issues that could carry significance. We believe that this study's advancement of the six positions of optimism, pessimism, uncertainty, choice, pragmatism, and support identifies interesting paths for future research. For example, the pragmatist position unearthed intense debate on how best to \"sequence\" career and family. Consistent with calls by researchers (Hallett and Gilbert, 1997), we recommend that scholars continue examining career and family balance strategies envisaged by emerging adults. For example, what is the role played by the partner or spouse in facilitating women's balance between career and family? What are the different individual, dyadic, and family strategies espoused by women who manage to combine career and family? What are the advantages and drawbacks of various career-family sequencing approaches?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Emerging adult women are actively engaged in career and family explorations, amidst changing opportunities and constraints. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether such women felt they could balance a high-achieving career and a family life, or what has become known in the popular discourse as women \"having it all.\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative study utilized focus groups to explore subjective perceptions of balancing career and family held by emerging adult women. The sample (n=69) comprised female university students in a large Canadian metropolitan area.\nFindings: Thematic analyses unearthed six distinct yet overlapping positions on the possibility of balancing career and family: Optimism (\"I can have it all.\"), Pessimism (\"I cannot have it all.\"), Uncertainty (\"I am not sure I can have it all.\"), Choice (\"I don't want to have it all.\"), Pragmatism (\"This is what I need to do to have it all.\") and Support (\"Will I access the support necessary to have it all?\").\nResearch limitations/implications: Limitations include the potential of focus groups to elicit group polarization and to lead participants to censor opinions to conform to conversations. Still, the study reveals more nuanced positions held by women than reported earlier.\nOriginality/value: The study extends prior research by revealing the range of positions held by women toward career and family, highlighting women's understanding of the complex issues involved and showcasing their awareness of the crucial role of social support.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Adoption of country-specific business websites: The case of UK small businesses entering the Chinese market
|
[
"Country‐specific websites",
"Small businesses",
"Niche markets",
"United Kingdom",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Internet-based platforms, developed by firms to market their products/services abroad, are increasingly extended to include multilingual country-specific websites that offer content in different languages, specifically targeted at customers domiciled in foreign markets (Liao et al., 2009). By adapting their websites in this way, small businesses are able to capitalise on opportunities to localise their product and/or services in host country markets of interest to export-oriented owner/managers (Singh et al., 2003; Baack and Singh, 2007). Country-specific websites are traditionally described as electronic platforms in which the design, language and content are adapted locally and culturally to a target country, incorporating country-specific domain names, such as \".cn\" or \".com\" (Kotha et al., 2001; Singh, 2002). Previous research has demonstrated that determinants of country-specific website adoption represent an important aspect of small business internationalisation strategies and therefore should be investigated further (Liao et al., 2009). For instance, Hillier (2003) and Wonsun and Huh (2009) have found that cultural differences in cognitive content tend to impact upon online consumer preferences in general and their search for information content of websites in particular. Although the strategic importance of country-specific websites has been examined from a large, multinational perspective (Halliburton and Ziegfeld, 2009), there exists a marked paucity of studies to consider the country-specific adoption strategies of small businesses (Rugman and Collinson, 2008).In this study, we focus on small business owner/managers' adoption strategies of country-specific websites written in the main Chinese languages. We investigate owner/managers of small businesses operating in the Northwest region of the UK, who intend to expand their economic activities into China. This region of the UK is of particular interest because of recent developments that highlighted a two-way small business expansion interest to and from China (Knox, 2011). Thus, recent reports indicate that there is keen interest among small business owner/managers in the Northwest to become involved in rapidly expanding and lucrative niche markets in China. At the same time, Chinese small business owner/managers made explicit their interest to test the size and profitability of niche markets in the Northwest region of the UK (see Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2010). In his study on trade collaboration, Lee (2011) estimated that there are at least 250,000 Chinese small businesses who perceive the Northwest as a very attractive investment region, largely because London and the South of the UK are perceived to be already saturated with competitors from China. Despite Chinese small business owner/managers actively expressing willingness do business, their UK counterparts appear to face difficulties in knowing how to make contact and/or initiate business collaborations with similarly sized firms in China.The objective of this paper is to explore the determinants of small business adoption of country-specific websites in China. We adopt the website acceptance model (WAM) to investigate small business owner/managers' behavioural intention to adopt a Chinese version of their firms' website. The remainder of the article is organised as follows: in the next section we review the specialist literature and develop a conceptual framework, supported by relevant hypotheses; this is followed by a section on research design, measurement validation and emergent findings; next, a discussion section is provided and conclusions are presented.\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Houghton and Winklhofer (2004) argue that the study of website adoption by small businesses is pivotal, because e-Commerce adoption does not always lead to a continued use of the Internet as a trading platform. Furthermore, research that has investigated the determinant factors associated with website adoption continues to be contradictory and theoretically divergent (cf. Houghton and Winklhofer, 2004). Divergence is particularly evident, and emergent results are highly fragmented, in relation to adoption of innovation, resource-based theory, diffusion of innovation and technology acceptance models (TAMs) (see, for example, Pflughoeft et al., 2003; Simmons et al., 2011). Recently, a web acceptance model (WAM) based on the TAM model has emerged in the specialist literature, in order to explain the adoption and usage of business websites (Castaneda et al., 2007). While the use of WAM is limited to website adoption and acceptance by end-users, the aim of this study is to contribute to existing knowledge on website development in the context of small firms operating NorthWest region of the UK. This article responds to calls by Raymond (2001) and Downie (2003) for empirically rigorous research that focuses on multilingual country-specific website adoption in small businesses.The website acceptance model (WAM) provides the conceptual framework for this study. Although some researchers prefer to use the term \"e-commerce acceptance model\" (Green and Pearson, 2011) we adopt the usage of WAM as an interchangeable concept. This model was derived from the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989) and represents an extension of Ajzen and Fishben's (1980) theory of reasoned action. WAM was specifically developed to determine end-users' access to business websites to pursue e-shopping transactions (i.e. buying a product or service online) and their intention to revisit a website in the course of future economic and/or information gathering activities (Pavlou, 2003; Ha and Stoel, 2009).In accordance with this theory, the WAM postulates that two beliefs about a website, i.e. that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU) can determine a consumer's attitude toward using a website. These, in turn, can affect their likelihood of revisiting a website or using it for online transactions. PU is defined as the degree to which a consumer believes that using a website will enhance performance, and PEU is conceptualised as the degree to which using a website would be free of effort. The original WAM model, however, might not adequately capture key beliefs that can influence attitudes towards small business owner/managers' adoption of foreign language, country-specific websites (see Hillier, 2003; Ha and Stoel, 2009). Thus, we propose to test:* the core assumptions of the WAM;* the successful elements of country-specific websites; and* the usability of country-specific websites within specific cultural contexts.Based on a review of the specialist literature, the following hypotheses are derived:H1. Small business owner/managers' perceived usefulness of having a country-specific website is positively related to their attitudes toward having a country-specific website.H2. Small business owner/managers' perceived ease of use of operating a country-specific website is positively related to their attitudes toward having a country-specific website.H3. Small business owner/managers' attitudes toward having a country-specific website are positively related to their behavioural intention to adopt a country-specific website.Antecedents of PU\nAnalysis and results: Before testing the adapted WAM model, the data was screened for univariate and multivariate outliers, by calculating the Mahalanobis distance. On this basis, no outliers were detected within the research sample. Based on the results that were obtained from factor analysis, the multi-item scales were summated and relevant measures as well as item loadings are presented in Table I. To test the support for stated hypotheses, we employed partial least squares (PLS) path modelling (SmartPLS) in order to obtain parameter estimates for measurement and structural models (cf. Ringle et al., 2005). Correlations among constructs are presented in Table II. The PLS method has several advantages over a covariance-based structural equation modelling (e.g. LISREL), including the ability to handle non-multivariate normal data, multicollinearity among independent variables, smaller samples and formative indicators (Chin, 2001; Tenenhaus et al., 2005). Results show that all hypotheses are supported by the data (see Table III), which confirms that the model is validated by the chosen research sample.With regards to each proposed hypotheses, emergent results can be usefully summarised as follows:* H1: \"Perceived usefulness\" positively influences attitudes toward a foreign website (H1: b=0.38; t-value 2.91; p<0.002) and H1 is supported.* H2 is also substantiated, as the findings demonstrate that \"Perceived ease of use\" also has a positive impact on attitudes toward a foreign website (H2: b=0.37; t-value 2.54; p < 0.01).* With respect to H3, attitudes toward a foreign website has a significant positive influence on \"Behavioural intention\" (H3: b=0.67; t-value 9.00; p<0.001), providing support for H3.* It also emerges that the determinants of \"Perceived image\" on \"Perceived usefulness' (H4: b=0.41; t-value 3.53; p<0.0001) is confirmed (H4).* H5, which posits a positive effect from \"Perceived transaction benefits\" to \"Perceived usefulness\", is also confirmed (H5: b=0.28; t-value 2.09; p<0.02).* Finally, the results indicate that the effect of 'Perceived Ease of Use' on 'Perceived Usefulness' (H6: b=0.20; t-value 1.91; p < 0.03) is significant and supported.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The web acceptance model proposed is useful in explaining small business owner/managers' intentions to adopt country-specific websites. Empirical data confirmed that each of the proposed hypotheses, and in particular the WAM model, was extended to include two antecedents of perceived usefulness. Both perceived company image in the foreign country and perceived transaction benefits were distinguished and supported.The results show that perceived company image emerged as the most powerful predictor of the two. This result suggests that small businesses' perception of how favourable, in terms of image, country-specific websites can be portrayed to be is largely predictive of its usefulness. This demonstrates that by having a foreign company website, small businesses can create a positive image and owner/managers perceive that having such websites improves their efficiency and performance in foreign markets. We also found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influenced attitudes toward having a foreign website as well as the behavioural intention to adopt a website (Pavlou, 2003; Ha and Stoel, 2009). Our research extends the theoretical framework of the website acceptance model by distinguishing two factors that may influence the perceived usefulness of having a country-specific website in the context of small businesses operating in international B2B settings.There are a number of important implications emerging from this research study. These would specifically benefit owner/managers of small businesses who intend to expand into international niche markets. As image influences perceived usefulness, owner/managers should be aware of this relationship when considering how visual cues and localisation of foreign website content is offered. This is an important way to keep international customers and/or users interested in small business websites. Knowing that small business owner/managers' perceptions of transaction-related benefits can determine perceived usefulness would help them better understand how such benefits can translate into activities that allow international customers to pursue web related actions with more ease. With attitudes towards country specific websites being seen to positively influence behavioural intention, owner/managers should consider investing resources into website adoption in order to capitalize upon the active market interest expressed by UK small businesses based in China.Further research is needed to broaden the size and location of our research sample. The current research does not capture the technical aspects of website design and usage. Further research is needed to investigate the influence of managerial and technical aspects of foreign website adoption. The influence of industry type and partner characteristics on the level of website standardisation with respect to home market versus foreign market is not explored (see Wonsun and Huh, 2009; Chang, 2011). They found that differences between home and foreign market cultures were reflected in the website design of multinational companies. Further research is needed to explore the impact of foreign market cultures upon website design in SMEs.\nLimitations: Our sample is small and limited to small businesses located in the Northwest region of the UK. As such, emergent results are not necessarily representative of the wider small business population in the UK. Therefore, caution is advised when attempting to generalise the results of this research study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to investigate factors affecting small business owner/managers' adoption of country-specific business websites.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey questionnaire was sent to a selected sample of 300 small businesses in the Northwest of England. In total, 55 responded with complete and usable answers, representing a response rate of 18.33 per cent.\nFindings: - The results indicate that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use positively affect the adoption of country-specific business websites. Furthermore, perceived company image in a foreign market and perceived transaction benefits were found to be significant antecedents of the perceived usefulness of country-specific business websites.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research sample is relatively small, and limited to small businesses located in the Northwest region of the UK. Emergent results are not necessarily representative of the wider small business population of the UK.\nPractical implications: - The results of this research study would be of benefit to owner/managers who intend to expand into international niche markets by adopting country-specific business websites.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends the theoretical framework of the website acceptance model (WAM) in the context of small businesses, by distinguishing two factors that influence the perceived usefulness of having a country-specific website.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Analysis of arable crop farmers' awareness to causes and effects of climate change in south western Nigeria
|
[
"Awareness",
"Arable crop farmers",
"Climate change causes and effects",
"Economics analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Agriculture places heavy burden on the environment in the process of providing humanity with food and fiber, while climate is the primary determinant of agricultural productivity. Studies indicate that Africa's agriculture is negatively affected by climate change (Pearce et al., 1996; McCarthy et al., 2001). Given the fundamental role of agriculture in human welfare, concern has been expressed by federal agencies and others regarding the potential effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. Interest in this issue has motivated a substantial body of research on climate change and agriculture over the past decade (Lobell et al., 2008; Wolfe et al., 2005; Fischer et al., 2002). Climate change is expected to influence crop and livestock production, hydrologic balances, input supplies and other components of agricultural systems. However, the nature of these biophysical effects and the human responses to them are complex and uncertain.\nClimate change and its parameters in Nigeria: Climate change impact depends on a range of the climatic parameters such as the country's socio-cultural, geographical, and economic backgrounds. The location and size of, and the characteristics relief in Nigeria give rise to a variety of climates ranging from tropical rainforest climate along the coasts to the Sahel climate in the northern parts of the country. The climate of the country strides from a very wet coastal area with annual rainfall greater than 3,500 mm to the Sahel region in the northwestern and northeastern parts with annual rainfall less than 600 mm. The inter-annual variability of rainfall, particularly in the northern parts is large; often result in climate hazards, especially floods and droughts with their devastating effects on food production and associated calamities and sufferings. More often than not, certain parts of Nigeria receive less than 75 percent of their annual rainfall and this is particularly worrisome in the north. By virtue of Nigeria's location primarily within the lowland humid tropics, the country is generally characterized by a high-temperature regime almost through the year. In the far south, mean maximum temperature is between 30 and 32oC while in the north it is between 36 and 38oC. However, the mean minimum temperature is between 20 and 22oC in the south and under 13oC in the north which has a much higher annual range. The mean temperature for the country is between 27 and 29oC, in the absence of altitudinal modifications.\nEffect of climate change on crop yields in Nigeria: Based on the IPCC (2001) projection, the humid tropical zone of southern Nigeria which is already too hot and too wet is expected to be characterized by increase in both precipitation (especially at the peak of the rainy season) and temperature. Already, temperature increases of about 0.2-0.3oC per decade have been observed in the various ecological zones of the country, while drought persistence has characterized the Sudan-Sahel regions, particularly since the late 1960s. For the tropically humid zones of Nigeria, precipitation increases of about 2-3 percent for each degree of global warming may be expected. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that the precipitation would probably increase by approximately 5-20 percent in the very humid areas of the forest regions and southern savanna areas. The increase in temperature in these areas would also possibly increase evaporation, reducing the effectiveness of the increase in precipitation.\nMethodology: The study location is Ogun State and it lies within latitudes 6-8degN, and longitudes 2.5-5degE. The estimated population was 3,751,140 according to 2006 National Census release (Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN), 2010). The climate of Ogun State follows a tropical pattern with a mean annual rainfall from 128 mm in the southern part, mainly forest and guinea savannah vegetation (suitable for crop production) to 105 mm in the northern part, mainly of derived savannah vegetation (suitable for cattle rearing). The average monthly temperature ranges from 23degC in July to 37degC in February.\nResults and discussion: Description of respondents' personal characteristics\nConclusion and recommendations: Arable crop farmers' awareness and knowledge on climate change causes and effect is crucial to combating climate change and its related problems. It is in view of this that the study assessed the determinants of respondents' environment awareness to causes and effects of climate change. Empirical analysis revealed that the overall index of environmental awareness of climate change causes is 0.47. This implies that almost half of the sampled population (just about 47 percent) is aware of causes of climate change, while on the other hand, the overall index of environmental awareness of climate change effects is 0.68. This shows that reasonable populations of the respondents, about 68 percent are aware of the effects of climate change on their production activities and livelihood in general. Tobit regression estimation suggests age, marital status, years of farming experience, extension contact frequency, farm size, non-farm income, and farm revenue as significant predictors of awareness of climate change causes. While the predictors of awareness of climate change effects includes age, marital status, years of formal education, household size, non-farm income, and farm revenue.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the determinants of arable crop farmers' awareness to causes and effects of climate change in south western Nigeria.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using primary data, 150 arable crop farmers in Ogun State were selected through a multi stage sampling technique. Survey method was used to elicit information on farmers' socioeconomic, production characteristics, and their level of awareness to causes and effects of climate change. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, environmental awareness index (EAI), and Tobit regression analysis.\nFindings: Most (81.08 percent) of the arable crop farmers were males with an average household size of eight persons, farming experience of 24 years and farm size of approximately 1 ha. The computed climate change EAI showed that only 47 percent of the respondents were aware of causes of climate change, while 68 percent were aware of its effects. Results further revealed that age, income from secondary occupation (p\nPractical implications: The study recommended among others that, awareness should be created among arable crop farmers on climate change causes and effects for appropriate mitigation actions to be taken for improved agricultural productivity.\nOriginality/value: The study provided new empirical evidence on the awareness level of respondents to causes and effects of climate change on their production activities and livelihood in general. Implications for policy will be to provide a public education program that will target females, the poor, the illiterate, and the people in the economically active age group among others in order to create awareness and provide information and adequate knowledge on the causes and effects of climate change for proper mitigation and adaptation options.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supporting newly-appointed judges: a legal knowledge management case study
|
[
"Judges",
"Legal profession",
"Legal theory",
"Laws and legislation",
"Online databases",
"Knowledge management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Judicial systems are knowledge intensive domains as, on the one hand, judges are required to apply a vast bulk of theoretical knowledge drawn from legal textbooks, statutes, and codes and, on the other hand, they also need to master the standards of practice at courts when dealing with daily caseloads. While the former knowledge is highly codified and broadly shared by all legal professionals, the latter is exclusively acquired during years of practice and stored within the personal experiences of senior judges. Traditionally, this practical judicial knowledge was transmitted through informal apprenticeship: in every court, newly-recruited judges were trained by their senior peers (Casanovas, 1994). However, the renewal of the Spanish judiciary in recent years has made maintenance of this traditional method extremely difficult (Poblet, 2001).The main goal of the project is to develop a software capable of clearing up doubts concerning judicial practice (as a senior judge would do) by providing justified and uniform answers to the questions raised by newly-recruited judges, avoiding possible inconsistencies. As in any other knowledge management system, this project will identify how and when the information should be offered to the user. Some particularities of the legal domain have been taken into account when planning and developing the project, often related to the nature of the information supplied. For example, it requires that the user could track the information source (legal document) of each result displayed by the system to establish its provenance and reputation.This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 offers the profile of the users in the judicial domain in order to establish the requirements needed for the use cases. In section 3 we describe the work done and the methodology used. The main objective of this section is to show how and what knowledge has been selected to be part of the knowledge base of the system according to the user needs. In section 4 we describe how the selected knowledge has been formalized in a semantic web format, using an ontology, in order to allow the final application to achieve all the functional requirements. The usage of semantic web formalism (ontologies) and technology makes possible to offer a precise information extraction and retrieval functionalities, as well as friendly interfaces, through the use of natural language processing. The semantic model underlying the application is oriented to the interpretation of user's queries in terms of the domain model, and then to produce an answer to the user's question. The next section deals with application functionalities, architecture, user interface and usability. The last section refers to our experiences regarding the analysis, the design and the development of this system in a real environment.\n2. Knowledge acquisition and user profile: If a knowledge management system is to be able to adapt to user requirements and provide them with an efficient support in a fast and reliable way, the accuracy and the validity of the knowledge repository is critical. To adapt to the requirements of the newly-recruited judges, two national surveys have been conducted as a primary source of data regarding both the context of use and the contents of the questions for which the system provides answers[1].These surveys have offered interesting and important data to elaborate the user's profile. There are two aspects of the professional profile of judges that are relevant to our project. The frequency with which the new judge talks about the cases he is dealing with and their usage of information technologies. Only 4.71 per cent of the judges interviewed stated that they never exchange information concerning their cases with other people (see Figure 1).On the contrary, the vast majority of them gave affirmative answers regarding information exchange. When asked with whom they talked about their cases (see Figure 2), judges typically listed members of the judiciary (53 per cent of the total), including: senior judges or magistrates; colleagues from other judicial units of their same building; their tutors; and peers of the same graduation year. They also mentioned prosecutors (usually the ones related with the cases they had to decide upon). These figures are consistent with one of the core hypotheses of the research: the use of the senior judges' professional knowledge as a parameter when dealing with difficult or unusual cases.Regarding the procedure followed to comment judicial cases, judges use either the telephone or a personal interview - most usually, an informal interaction with fellow judges to discuss their cases. Significantly enough, none of them uses electronic mail or instant messenger systems to communicate with peers or senior fellows.Therefore, it is necessary to insist on the fact that users of the system will be judges who have medium or low technological abilities, and are not used to new technologies. In relation to this, at the beginning of their training at the Judicial School, 47 per cent of members of the 52nd class declared to have no computer skills whatsoever, and only 35 per cent of the students declared to be internet users (Ayuso et al., 2003) (see Figure 3). This is totally consistent with previous data showing a rather scarce use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in court[2] (also see Table I).Nevertheless, our survey shows that the use of internet among those same judges has improved: four years after accessing the School, the proportion is reversed: 84.7 per cent of the interviewed declare to use internet and only 15.29 per cent do not use it (see Figure 3). As for the type of information searched for through the internet, the page of the Official Bulletin of the State is the most accessed site, followed by legal information in general. Other types of searches are unusual, and judges will typically argue that they have no time to surf the internet.Finally, judges offer an interesting answer to the question \"what would you like to find if judges were given a web service system?\". The majority of them proposed a site where doubts regarding professional cases could be put in common and discussed (see Figure 4).\n3. Methodology and tasks performed for the knowledge description and definition: At the first stages of our work, the objective was to define the legal domains where the lack of professional knowledge was critical and what kind of information the newly appointed judges would require. We therefore focused on the identification and description of the desired knowledge areas.Results from the two previous surveys allowed us to identify three main areas which presented some difficulties to new judges:1. the organization and management of judicial staff (clerks working in judicial units);2. the interpretation and implementation of new procedural statutes (e.g. Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil); and3. the \"on-duty\" period (or the guardia, that is, the week in which the entire court is on duty tackling the preliminary investigations of the criminal cases that keep entering the system).We selected this \"on-duty\" domain to begin with and were provided by the Judicial School with rich material containing pairs of questions (competency questions) and answers regarding problems of practical procedural criminal law. Figure 5 shows a translated example and the way we reformulated the initial question.These data provided by the judiciary were analyzed with textual statistics methods to extract the domains where the difficulties lay. In general, the problematic domains were mentioned in the answers by the use of substantives. Thus, the design of the ontology for the first Prototype of Iuriservice started from the analysis of these pairs of answers and questions, and using the \"competency approach\" (Gruninger and Fox, 1995) to identify relevant aspects and the coverage of the ontology.The most general concept we found in the judicial criminal field was proceso (process, trial, procedure), the Spanish procedural notion that stands for all kinds of proceedings under the Spanish law. Thus, we reproduced the cognitive flow of a judge in an on-duty situation: he has to decide which procedure is the most suitable to the facts he has before him.The second Prototype of Iuriservice is based on in-depth interviews with the judges, better focused on the difficulties due to the fact that the previous questionnaire had pointed out the areas where the difficulties were located. This new approach made possible the identification of more than 750 competency questions, in comparison to the 100 pairs of questions-answers that were analyzed for the first prototype.Other changes have been introduced regarding ontology modeling issues. First, several KAON applications, provided by the SEKT Project partners, such as the ontology editor Oi-Modeler, have been used in order to model and visualize the domain ontology[3]. Second, we have also used two different software applications to analyze the competency questions and extract the relevant concepts: TextToOnto[4] and ALCESTE[5]. Finally, we have also followed the Distributed, Loosely-controlled and evolving Engineering of oNTologies (DILIGENT) methodology during the ontology engineering process (Pinto et al., 2004). The visualization of the arguments took place on a wiki-based environment which allowed them to be traced.Figure 6 and Figure 7 depict graphically some of the results concerning conceptual distribution. Figure 6 shows an extraction graph for the competency questions (obtained during the second survey) using TextToOnto's TermExtraction on KAON API. Its TaxoBuilder tool could not be used as the Spanish GATE components are currently being implemented[6].Figure 7 shows the visualization of the ALCESTE descending cluster algorithm applied to the competency questions obtained in the first survey. The program offers a list of most characteristic words assembling subsets of \"lexical worlds\" into classes according to a kh2 metric. This has proved to be useful to flesh out the conceptual structure of the judicial competency questions.\n4. Ontologies of professional legal knowledge (OPLK): Legal ontologies\n5. System functionalities and architecture: Functionalities\n6. Conclusions: In this paper we have depicted the legal scenario in which to develop and apply the SEKT Project technologies. We have elaborated the following aspects:* user's profile and corpora: we offered the preliminary results of the 2004 survey and fieldwork on the Spanish judicial units (focusing on young judges' technological skills) and an overview of the knowledge acquisition process (using ALCESTE, TextToOnto ...);* legal ontology: we presented an extensive state of the art, explained epistemological grounds, made the proposal for ontologies of professional legal knowledge (OPLK), and detailed the development of an ontology of professional judicial knowledge (OPJK);* use cases collection: relation of all use cases from question-answer to Jurisprudence Ontology and OPJK aligning;* use case software design: presentation of the architecture for Iuriservice II.This second prototype, due mainly to the implementation of SEKT technologies, has the following main features:* it is designed to be accurate and technologically advanced by using NLP and semantic web techniques;* it is designed to be efficient, extensible, customable and scalable;* it makes use of incremental search as a process of narrowing the solicited FAQ set; and* it uses a variety of pluggable searching algorithmS.Finally, incorporating practical professional knowledge, using OPKJ, not only will improve the performance of the prototype but also it will allow peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and will result in a faster start into judicial practice for judges in their first appointment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In this paper we describe the process of developing and implementing a knowledge management system for the Spanish judicial domain. Spanish judges, especially newly-recruited ones, hold a solid background of theoretical legal knowledge, but are much less familiar with the judicial knowledge of the more senior judges acquired from everyday practice and case resolution. The aim of this development is to capture and model these two aspects of judicial knowledge - theoretical and practical - for knowledge browsing and retrieving.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Semantic web technologies are applied to feed a question-answering system based on ontologies of professional legal knowledge (OPLK).\nFindings: - There is a kind of specific legal knowledge, which belongs properly to the expert domain, not being captured by current legal core ontologies, i.e. Judges require clues, hints or well-grounded practical guidelines that refer to the problem they have before them when they put a question or start the query. A scalable and useful frequently-asked questions system should have a simple, natural language interface, work in a real time environment, and the questions included in the system should be of high quality and reflect the current situation.\nOriginality/value: - The final system will enable the users to ask queries in natural language and obtain answers, which are supported by legal documents stored in specialized legal databases. Special care is taken regarding usability issues, in order to ensure the highest user satisfaction.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Product service bundles: no simple solution
|
[
"Solutions",
"Internal markets",
"Intra‐organizational cooperation",
"Synergy strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Renting a car, signing a contract for broadband internet, phone lines and TV bundle or leased machinery for a home are all examples of bundles of products and services - so-called \"solutions\". They have become a widespread offer not only to end customers but also to a large extent in B2B markets as well. Solutions consider a company's offer from the customer need and add various elements into one package. In the case of a rental car, the elements would include the car itself, financing, insurance, maintenance, repairs and even accident management. The customer often only pays one price or rate for the entire bundle.\nGrowing demand for solutions in the semiconductor industry: Since its emergence 50 years ago, the semiconductor industry has been strongly under the influence of Moore's law (Moore, 1965). Intel co-founder Moore observed that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years. As a result, competitiveness is dependent on the speed and amount of investment in R&D and production technology. The main customer segment at the time was the computer industry, and the focus was on products such as processors and memory chips.Over the past few years, however, semiconductors have increasingly been used in segments other than computers, with the number of semiconductors in cars, mobile phones, and household appliances growing rapidly. In these fields, Moore's law is less relevant. According to semiconductor supplier Infineon, only 40 percent of semiconductor products today are manufactured with the latest technology, in contrast to 70 percent 20 years ago. This has led to a sharp increase in solution business, because solution know-how and system competence now make the difference in these segments. The main driver behind the demand for solutions has been the increasing technological complexity in these segments, which the end-product manufacturers want to outsource to their suppliers. The mobile phone is a good example of how the complexity of semiconductor applications has increased. In 1995, state-of-the-art functionalities comprised phone and text messaging and a small internal memory. In 2009 the functionalities ranged from a camera and internet surfing to a music player and GPS services. To keep this complexity manageable, manufacturers such as Nokia started to outsource larger technical solutions such as camera modules to semiconductor suppliers. These solutions not only encompass hardware but also software and application know-how.\nTypes of companies with a differing product and solution focus: The emergence of solutions has led to different supplier strategies. Some companies have not engaged at all in solutions and have stayed with a pure product focus. Then there is the opposite: specialized companies (often emerging much later than others) that focus entirely on solutions. Examples are intermediaries and agents. And there are companies that have their origins in product business and have added solutions to their portfolio. Across different industries the latter comprise the largest share. In this article, we show that those companies face the biggest challenges.How does this transpose to the semiconductor industry? Semiconductor suppliers have approached the increasing demand for solutions in four different ways (Figure 1).Solution focus\nPerformance 2001-2007: Are there performance differences among these companies? If so can they be associated with the different product and solution focuses? We compare the performance of the different types of semiconductor suppliers, looking at their operating margins, sales multiples and cost structures. The question we ask is which product or solution orientation was more successful. Since the semiconductor industry is one of the most cyclical industries, it is important to cover an entire cycle when assessing a company's performance (Figure 2).The years between 2001 and 2007 represent a full upward cycle (Semiconductor Industry Association, 2009). Following the end of the new-economy boom in late 2000, the semiconductor industry experienced a sharp decline in 2001. After stagnating between 2001 and 2003, revenues then grew continually until 2007.Looking at operating margins, it is apparent that both the solution-focused and the product-focused set of suppliers did well (Figure 3). All realized an average operating margin of over 18 percent during the analyzed period. The unfocused set of broadliners, in contrast, achieved an average operating margin of less than zero over the same period of time.This is also reflected in stock market valuations, which value the focused suppliers much higher than the unfocused broadliners (Figure 4).The cost structures indicate that broadliners realize few synergies between the product and the solution business. The costs of goods sold for broadliners are high - the same as for the purely product-focused foundries. Also, their R&D costs are on a comparable level with the R&D-intense applications-focused fabless companies (Figure 5).\nIssues with solution business: Our analysis shows that it was the companies with a mixed product- and solution-focus (broadliners) that experienced the biggest difficulties during the last business cycle. Firms with a focus on either products (in case of foundries) or solutions (in case of specialists and fabless) were profitable and highly valued by the stock markets. Companies with a mixed focus were not successful. We consequently assume for this paper that the performance weakness of broadliners was not primarily rooted in market-related factors but stemmed directly from within the companies. We propose the following explanations: Broadliners were previously product-driven companies. They are often large corporations, and, like many large, product-driven companies across most industries, almost all have a divisional structure. According to Chandler (1970), this enables a market- and competition-specific orientation, better customer management due to clear responsibilities, and fewer internal interfaces. Also, such an orientation relieves corporate headquarters from an overload of tasks. Over the last decades, the self-determination of corporate units in divisional structures has increased further. Divisions act as highly independent profit units, internal entrepreneurship is heavily promoted, and the power of competition is applied to the companies' \"internal markets\" (Halal, 1994; Frost and Morner, 2005).This only works well if little interaction is necessary among the different divisions. When solutions are set on the strategic agenda, the situation changes. Offering solutions in the form of customer-specific bundles of products and services requires divisions to cooperate intensively. A specific product can be developed, produced and marketed on a stand-alone basis by one division. If this product is part of a bundled solution, joint decision-making becomes necessary and many interfaces emerge. Divisions are often not willing to cooperate because in such an organizational structure hardly any extrinsic motivation factors encouraging cooperation exist. Organizational structures, steering mechanisms and incentive systems are designed to increase the competitiveness of the individual division and are less suited to encouraging joint efforts such as knowledge sharing. Also, the intrinsic motivation of corporate units (as well as of individuals) to make an additional effort beyond the existing targets is often low. The fact that solutions are of strategic importance to the corporation is not always appreciated by the divisions.In this paper we base our argumentation on the example of the semiconductor industry, but similar observations can be made in other industries. Companies that were previously product-driven have seized the opportunity of offering solutions, and many are struggling to manage solutions within their organizations. In some cases this has opened the door to intermediaries with a purely solution-centric business model, and companies have quickly managed to take away considerable market share from the established manufacturers. One example of this is truck rental - a solutions market with high growth rates that in many areas is no longer controlled by the truck manufacturers but by large intermediaries such as Penske, Ryder and Fraikin.Across many industries, product-driven companies have managed to integrate solutions into their business models. Examples include telecommunication providers such as Verizon or ATT&T that have bundled broadband internet, phone line and TV into a solution. Elevator manufacturer Kone had been entirely focused on manufacturing and developed into a full service provider along the whole elevator lifecycle. General Electric originated in manufacturing but expanded (under the management of Jack Welch) their financing unit, GE Capital, enabling them to provide a whole range of integrated solutions. All of these companies made significant internal changes to successfully manage additional solution businesses.\nTowards a synergy strategy: There are a number of strategic frameworks that illustrate the move from a product centric to a purely solution centric business design (Davies et al., 2007). A big challenge is to manage both product and solution businesses at the same time. In the example of the semiconductor industry, it is not very likely that a broadliner will be able to direct its strategic focus entirely towards either the product or solution business. Semiconductor end-customers demand both products and solutions. Thus, in order to maintain sales revenues, broadliners must maintain their focus on both product and solution businesses. There are only a few examples of large corporations in other industries (such as IBM) that have switched entirely to solutions and divested their product business.It is evident that value creation in product and solution businesses is different. The deployed value-creation strategies therefore also need to be distinct. For multidivisional companies, there are three generic strategies with which corporate headquarters can generate value (Frost and Morner, 2009 based on Goold and Campbell, 1989). They are differentiated by the linkage of the corporate units and the steering influence of corporate headquarters.In the case of an intrapreneurship strategy, the corporate units are treated like autonomous enterprises. The aim of corporate headquarters is to secure an increase in the individual performance of corporate units and create value through maximizing the individual value added. Corporate headquarters can focus largely on financial management, a strategy that makes sense when there is little relatedness between the organizational units in terms of resources used and management requirements.In the case of a specialization strategy, the influence of corporate headquarters goes much further and includes strategic control activities. Important functional activities are taken out of corporate units and centralized in shared service centers. Value is created through the shared usage and transfer of resources, such as economies of scale or economies of scope.A synergy strategy, in contrast, realizes synergies through high cooperation among the corporate units. Such a strategy requires strong management from corporate headquarters, including planning, decision-making and operative steering in order to ensure seamless cooperation among the units.The importance and share of solution business shifts the linkage of the corporate units towards a higher level since solutions by their nature as product and service bundles involve different divisions. The bundling requires a high level of interaction, which often spans the entire value chain: joint product development, pricing, marketing and sales. The level of interaction is thus much higher than in the product business and the value creation strategy therefore needs to be adjusted to ensure a stronger steering influence by headquarters to direct and encourage more intense cooperation (Figure 6).Applying these principles to companies, the broadliners with their mixed product and solution focus must shift from a specialization strategy to a synergy strategy. Headquarters needs to set the basic conditions to enable more interaction among corporate units. Moreover, corporate headquarters should actively steer and interfere where necessary. A synergy strategy for broadliners can be implemented using the following levers:* Common targets: Different divisions contribute products and services to create a solution. Assuming a solution is sold to the customer at a profit, this does not mean that it is profitable for every contributing division. Internal transfer prices based on the expected profit of a solution can serve as an orientation but are normally not able to cover all eventualities. This is true if a solution price is not a \"list price\" but instead is renegotiated by the customer, or if the expected profit from follow-on business cannot be precisely calculated. Therefore, the variable pay of all divisions should incorporate a common target for the solution business. A common target is a highly valuable instrument to push back divisional interest in favour of the interest of the whole company (Gupta and Govindarajan, 1986).* Solution responsibilities: In many multidivisional companies, only the CEO has steering possibilities across the divisions. This is insufficient for solving the conflicts that arise from interfaces among divisions. This is not a plea for a rigid matrix organization (as these have not proven successful enough in the past), but for division-spanning responsibilities further down in the hierarchy. There do not need to be direct reporting lines but instead some form of managerial authority and discretionary power to solve social dilemmas and manage disputes. The latter can be implemented by boards, task forces, project teams or other coordinating elements with assigned cross-divisional responsibilities and conflict-solving power (Galbraith, 2005).* Value chain shortcuts: Solutions require a more flexible value chain. Interfaces that simply go from one value chain step to the next are not enough. The high level of customization of solutions requires more communication and interfaces across the value chain. For example, key account management should be able to directly feed into R&D. It should be possible for technological development to be directly triggered by sales and marketing to increase project complexity but ensure that customer requirements are met. In order to make this possible, corporate headquarters needs to provide concrete process descriptions and milestone planning.* Knowledge dissemination: The sharing of knowledge across divisions is vital for solution business. Solutions require an even higher level of knowledge of customer requirements than product businesses (Tuli et al., 2007). Therefore, the generation, codification and sharing of knowledge need to be encouraged by the corporate headquarters.* Customer focus: Almost every company would consider itself customer-centric. In reality, many companies still start with developing a good product and then try to market it to the customer. When solutions are added to the portfolio, companies need to adopt a customer-centric perspective. This can be done through the continuous monitoring of customer expectations and the implementation of changes to the offer and the internal processes on an ongoing basis. Important is the application of a common approach of customer-centricity across the entire organization.* Solution culture: One widespread problem is that changes in corporate strategy do not have the same impact on all divisions and hierarchy levels. Corporate culture can be a vehicle for conveying the importance of solutions to the entire business. Every individual and division need to realize that the solutions are an important part of the corporate strategy. Even if cooperation is not directly ordered or rewarded, it still serves as an important corporate target.\nConclusion: Product-driven corporations are struggling with the solution business. This stems to a large extent from market-oriented organizations that do not encourage cross-divisional cooperation. Merely adding solutions to a product-driven strategy is insufficient. Also important is that the value-creation strategy be gradually adapted to include a stronger steering influence by corporate headquarters so that it becomes a synergy strategy.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategic and organizational difficulties of multidivisional corporations with solution business (product service bundles). Most large multidivisional corporations are organized in a way that supports independence and market orientation of their organizational units. Solutions, however, require a high level of interaction and cooperation between corporate units. The authors collect evidence for this contradiction and resulting difficulties and propose a shift in the value creation strategy towards corporate headquarters having a stronger steering influence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors analyze the economic performance of the largest semiconductor suppliers and relate these results to their product and solution focus. They then derive initial strategic recommendations based on the findings and organizational strategy literature.\nFindings: - Multidivisional companies that just add solution business onto their existing product-based strategy experience difficulties. To overcome these, strategic adjustments are proposed that will lead to a stronger steering influence by corporate headquarters.\nPractical implications: - This paper shows the necessity of adjustments to corporate strategy when solution business is pursued. Companies need to actively support the interaction of their corporate units in the light of solution business.\nOriginality/value: - It is recognized that solely solution-focused companies require a different business model to product-focused companies. However there has been little discussion on strategic adjustments by companies that supplement their existing product business with solutions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Make your people before making your products: How to maximize the potential of an inclusive workforce
|
[
"Organizational performance",
"Recruitment",
"Talent management",
"Employee satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The sum total of all of the potential outputs of individual talent in an organization will be the organization's theoretical competitive position. If these potential outputs are sufficiently different from the outputs of competitors that will be the organization's potential competitive advantage. If these potential outputs are converted to real outputs, they will be the organization's actual competitive success over time.\nTalent 4.0 is a 360-degree initiative: Talent 4.0 is neither top down nor bottom up. It is an enterprise-wide 360-degree initiative, which covers the role of talented people in taking ownership of their own development on the one hand and the board of directors giving the go-ahead to investment in talent on the other. Talent is not defined in an exclusive or inclusive way, but one that simultaneously provides for both. It gives as much attention to the career paths of the majority of employees as it does to succession plans.\nThe world is an open market for talented people: People management works best when the interests of the organization coincide with the interests of individual employees. For the organization this means achieving its stakeholder objectives, while for the employee it means satisfaction at work, a balanced life and visible career prospects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Considers the challenges facing people developing talent strategy in global organizations and ways of overcoming them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Describes how to maximize the potential of a multi-generational, multi-cultural, cross-organizational, inclusive-talent workforce.\nFindings: Examines the importance of: highlighting the value of people to organizational success; making the business case; ensuring that the whole organization buys into the concept; having an inclusive/selective talent strategy with equal emphasis on each area; making the chief executive the chief talent officer; joining up talent-management activity with business activity and other people-management strategies; delivering talent management well; and making sure there is involvement from all of the organization's stakeholders.\nPractical implications: Considers that people management works best when the interests of the organization coincide with the interests of individual employees. For the organization this, means achieving its stakeholder objectives. For the employee, it means satisfaction at work, a balanced life and visible career prospects.\nSocial implications: Advances the view that the focus on talent has rarely been sharper and so the concept of \"make your people before you make your products\" is important.\nOriginality/value: Emphasizes that the attraction, development, management and retention of talented people is critical to the success of all organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Values in action: observations of effective principals at work
|
[
"Principals",
"Behaviour",
"Schools",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Glenford is a comprehensive high school not far from the city centre. It is situated in a middle class suburb with mainly students of Anglo-Saxon origin. The school achieves good academic results. Many of the staff have been at the school for more that twenty years and have grown to accept the easy-going nature of the school and its community. The principal and key executive have embarked on a determined process to move the school into a more dynamic, outcomes-hungry mindset. The striving for quality at every endeavour is evident in the Management Plan. The school entry foyer is alive with student artwork and colourful banners. Recognition of the school's traditions and heritage are evident in Honour Boards and in glass show cabinets.\nConceptual framework: The preceding critical occurrence at Glenford High School is but one of many events recorded during the observation of a sample of secondary principals in public high schools in New South Wales, Australia. The identification, description and analysis of such activities were designed to address the major purpose of the research project described herein:Are there values held in common by effective secondary school principals that underpin their work practices?\nMethodology: The reader is reminded that the purpose of this study was to address the question - are there values held in common by effective secondary school principals that underpin their work practices? Accordingly, the methodology devised to investigate this challenge consisted of several stages:* the selection of a sample of suitable, i.e. effective, principals;* the development of observational procedures to identify and record principals' \"values-in action\"; and* the validation of the values observed through the triangulation of data-gathering procedures.Selection of participating principals\nAnalysis of data: To begin the process of analysing the wealth of data generated by each principal an organisational framework was developed. Organisation of data was undertaken in two stages.First, continuing the process of triangulation, the search for congruent data was conducted across the observed, agreed and espoused values for each principal and then, similarly, across the five principals. In so doing a great deal of data was discarded. Nevertheless, the final data accepted were only those that had survived the rigour of the triangulation process. The following figures represent these procedures.The first alignment produced a set of congruent values for each principal - values observed and recorded on the observation matrix and agreed (confirmed) during the debriefing interview. This is shown in Figure 3.The shaded area of intersection (AI) between the values observed in action and the confirmation of those values represents the first set of triangulated data for each principal. This is identified as AI, the observed and agreed (confirmed) values in action for each principal.A second alignment of data for each principal was achieved through matching the observed and agreed values data set (A1) with the important work values identified in the Senge et al. (1994) survey and with both the terminal and instrumental values from the Rokeach (1967) survey. The outcome of this process is represented in the shaded area of intersection (A2) in Figure 4.Thus, represented by A2 in Figure 4 are those observed, agreed values congruent with the espoused values for each principal across the three methodological approaches.A final alignment of data was achieved for the five principals collectively through matching all A2s - their areas of congruence of observed, agreed and espoused values.The second stage of the framework for organising data was achieved by locating each value in one of three domains - those relating to Interpersonal Relationships, those which reflect Operational Style, and those which may be described as Personal Qualities or Attributes. These three domains, generated essentially from the literature relating to effective principals, may be challenged on the grounds of subjectivity. Nevertheless, in view of the meanings attributed to the values terms by each participant and by the researchers, some confidence is felt in such a \"clustering\" process. These three categories were utilised such that the most frequently observed and agreed values were listed under the relevant category i.e. whether a value related to Interpersonal Relationships, Operational Style or Personal Qualities or Attributes). The same listing process was then used to classify the espoused values of principals as identified by the two survey instruments.The following tables reflect the process of data analysis and triangulation of methods employed to identify with confidence the values manifest by the five principals at work. The tables reflect the summation of individual analyses or profiles for each principal (not displayed herein) in which were sought an alignment or matching of the values:* observed and agreed by interviews;* espoused via the Senge et al. (1994) survey; and* espoused via the Rokeach (1967) survey.In seeking congruence among the three data sets the researchers were often confronted by a value attributed to but one principal - particularly as revealed from both survey instruments which, collectively, identify a plethora of possible values. Accordingly, in most cases, identification with a particular value by at least three principals was demanded as a measure of congruence. In the following tables the values displaying fewer than three asterisks are displayed for information only. These were not taken forward to the \"final\" data set of values which consistently underpinned the work practices of effective principals. Whereas this procedure provided added confidence in the conclusions ultimately reached, it also left a lingering concern about the extent and nature of the data discarded throughout this exhaustive process of triangulation.In Table I the most frequently observed values-in-action, \"validated\" by interview/debriefing, are reported for all five principals. Values are listed according to their proximity to Interpersonal Relationships (e.g. Helpful), Operational Style (eg. Efficient) or Personal Qualities/Attributes (e.g. Honest). The number of principals displaying each value is indicated by asterisks.In similar process, Tables II and III record the espoused values of the five principals revealed by the Senge and Rokeach surveys.By extension of the triangulation process all values displayed in Tables I-III were aligned in order to identify those with the greatest degree of congruence. The values that \"survived\" this process, i.e. those reflecting the highest overall and sustained support from the principals' observed, agreed and espoused data, were grouped again according to Interpersonal Relationships (Table IV), Operational Style (Table V) and Personal Qualities/Attributes (Table VI).The tabulation of such data thus provided the basis for the conclusions reached in the following section.\nDiscussion: The preceding Tables depict the values which were consistently espoused by the five principals, as identified by the Senge et al. (1994) and Rokeach (1967) surveys, and as aligned with the same values which were frequently observed, identified and accepted as values in action. The sets of values were located in three categories - those relating to Interpersonal Relationships, Operational Style, and Personal Qualities/Attributes.As far as can be ascertained it seems that this study is unique - it has attempted to bridge the gap between espoused and practised values in the workplace. There are limited studies internationally which tie values, as motivators of human behaviour, to the work practices of principals or even to that of managers and business leaders.Values can be defined, identified and articulated. This research study showed that values can be identified through observation. Rigorous triangulation ensured that only those values which were congruent across the three methodologies for the majority of principals joined the final set of identified work values. This final set of observed, accepted and espoused congruent values consistently underpinning the work practices of effective principals is outlined below:1. Work values relating to interpersonal relationships:* Quality Relations (compassionate, pleasant, collegial, willing to listen, approachable, understanding, working with others), True Friendship (close companionship), Polite (courteous, well mannered), Co-operation; and* Helpful (caring for the well-being of others)/Working for the welfare of others/Working with others.2. Work values relating to operational style:* Capable/Competent;* Knowledgeable/Wisdom/Intellectual (intelligent, reflective);* Efficient/Effective;* Responsible (dependable, reliable)/Accountable/ Decisive;* Quality Standards (high expectations), Excellence/Quality (of what I take part in); and* Personal Development (living up to the fullest of potential)/ A Sense of Accomplishment (lasting contributions).3. Work values relating to personal qualities/attributes:* Open;* Honest (sincere)/Truthful; and* Ethical Practice/Integrity/Courageous (standing up for beliefs).These congruent values which survived the several triangulation processes are represented diagrammatically in Figure 5 as a pocket book summation of the values which consistently underpinned the work values of effective principals in this research study.Principals each day face situations which place them at times in moral dilemmas, that is, they must choose from competing values positions. How a principal maintains a position of ethical leadership may well be underpinned by the espoused values and values in action highlighted in this study and categorised as Personal Qualities/Attributes. Lashway (1998), in his review of ethical leadership, states that real leaders concentrate on doing the right thing, not doing things right. In terms of principals' work practices, the professional development of existing principals and the induction of new principals, more needs to be said about the importance of Ethical Practice and Integrity as cornerstones of effective principalship and effective schools.Yet another implication for practice stems from an unintended outcome of the observational process which may have implications for the work practices of principals and for the literature pertaining to effective business management practices. This unintended outcome relates to the notion of \"interruptibility\". Phillipps (1991, p. 6), in his research of principalship in Australian schools, defined the principal's interruptions as \"their willingness to be interrupted; their circumstances in which, they could permit, or refuse activities and influence their modus operandi and indirectly, their effectiveness\". In accordance with the definitions of Clarke (1985) and Phillipps (1991), interruptions are dependant on the initiation of others and not something initiated by the principal in terms of a forgotten task or action. Using this definition as a basis, the five participating principals in this research could all be deemed \"eminently interruptible\".This willingness to be interrupted is a positive aspect of principalship and can be seen as an expression of values. The valuing of quality relationships and the operational style of attending to concerns, allowed the person interrupting the principal to feel valued in terms of his/her concern taking priority over whatever else the principal was doing. This facilitated the teacher getting back to task knowing that his/her issue/concern was addressed/solved or would be addressed and or solved in the near future. Dinham et al. (1995) may well call this attribute \"hands on leadership\", the ability to address issues on the spot through detailed knowledge of what is happening in the school as an indicator of effectiveness.This outcome of the study may refute the time management theorists and those who would construe interruptions to work practice as having a negative impact on effectiveness. An observational study of principals and their work practices by Thomas and Ayres (1998, p. 244) concluded that, \"contrary to the literature, principals did not view interruptions as hindering their tasks as school leaders\". The three high school principals in the Thomas and Ayres (1998, p. 248) study considered the interruptions as \"not time that is traded, but time that is invested\". For a number of readers this outcome of the study will seem to sit in opposition to the literature on time management. Time is an increasingly vital component for leaders and managers including principals.As the number and range of tasks increases through the restructuring of school education, principals are increasingly confronted by a multitude of urgent tasks and pressing items for action. Evident in the abundant literature surrounding time management, particularly from the business management sector, is the suggestion that \"managers can exert a greater degree of control over the temporal component of their work\" (Thomas and Ayres, 1998, p. 244). The literature suggests that effective time management involves control over such practices as interruptions since interruptions hinder/thwart effectiveness. Without tested research such \"assumptions continue to influence the literature and cause concern to managers and, especially, school principals\" (Thomas and Ayres, 1998, p. 244).This current observational study supports the research by Phillipps (1991) in that interruptions to the principal's work practices were many and varied. The nature of the interruptions from the interrupter's point of view were pressing issues for urgent action. The research by Thomas and Ayres (1998), supported in the literature by Sergiovanni (1981), notes that the manner in which the principal allows for interruptions to be an integral and important aspect of principalship communicates to members of the organisation that their concerns are important and valued and need to be attended to. This current study, whilst modest in sample size, confirms the practice of being \"eminently interruptible\" as a work practice of effective principals. It may well be considered that the valuing of interpersonal relationships which were highly ranked espoused values for each of the five principals and were also frequently observed values in action, may underpin this willingness and acceptance of interruption.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to report on the values practised by five effective secondary principals and to seek to identify common values that underpin their work practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Principals were observed, each for two days, at work in their schools. From the observations of each principal activities were recorded and the principals' behaviours therein were subjected to analysis. Values manifest in the principals' behaviours were confirmed through an exhaustive process of triangulation - comparison with the espoused values that emerged through completion of both the Senge and Rokeach Scales and through private interviews.\nFindings: - The values identified have been placed in three categories - those relating to Interpersonal Relationships, Operational Style, and Personal Qualities/Attributes. An unexpected outcome was the identification of principals' \"interruptibility\" - the willingness to be interrupted because of the value placed on quality interpersonal relationships, to enable principals to attend to others' concerns, and to allow the person interrupting to feel valued in terms of his/her concern taking priority over whatever else the principal was doing.\nPractical implications: - That element of \"efficiency\" advocated in much of the time management literature - \"Thou shalt not be interrupted\" - is apparently ignored by effective principals. Principals apparently accept this as part and parcel of their work in schools.\nOriginality/value: - The study reflects some of the limitations of qualitative investigations - \"sample short but data heavy\". Generalisations may be difficult to extract. Because of the severe triangulation process much data were discarded and thus other findings may have been masked.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Adding service means adding knowledge: an inductive single-case study
|
[
"Servitization",
"Knowledge management",
"Case study",
"Knowledge management systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The companies of our time compete in what is called knowledge economy, characterized by a service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) that is creating and implying profound changes, especially in manufacturing firms. The latter are called to respond to new needs and characteristics of the market and society that are less and less based on material products and more on services.\n2. Theoretical background: Both topics covered in this research (i.e. servitization and knowledge management) have been developed at the academic level in the late 1980s and early 1990s.\n3. Research method design and setting: In order to successfully reach the paper aim, an inductive single-case study has been adopted. The case study research is a useful method for research works that aim to produce a first-hand understanding of people and events (Yin, 2004). This method is commonly used in management studies especially because it supports the thorough analysis of a case within its real-life context. Thus, this method was chosen because it seems to be the most appropriate one in order to obtain a research work that is both rigorous and practical at the same time.\n4. Findings: Case study outcomes, emerging from the data analysis, are reported through five propositions, each of which is analysed separately.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: The analysis developed in this paper aims to verify how knowledge management systems can support both the adoption and implementation of the servitization strategy in manufacturing firms.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how knowledge management systems can support the adoption of the servitization strategy in a manufacturing firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to reach the paper aim, an inductive single-case study has been adopted. The analysis focuses on the IBM Corporation.\nFindings: In spite of the paucity of studies that simultaneously address both servitization and knowledge management topics, the case study findings show five connections points between the two streams of research, proving not only that they are closely connected to each other, but also how the adoption of a good knowledge management system can facilitate the implementation of a servitization strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: As far as the adoption of a single-case study is concerned, this could create biases that can affect the final product in terms of reliability, validity, and generalizability. However, as stated by Erickson (1986), the general lies in the particular and, as argued by Flyvbjerg (2006), the strength of a single example is underestimated in its contribution to scientific progress. Thus, even though this paper is based on a single-case study, it is reasonable to believe that it could be considered as a representative case of companies of the time and its findings sufficiently generalizable.\nPractical implications: Case study findings could guide managers towards understanding if their knowledge management tools and practices are appropriate, or if they need to be modified in order to successfully implement the servitization strategy adopted.\nOriginality/value: This study represents the first attempt to fill the paucity of studies contemporaneously addressing both servitization and knowledge management topics, and could be used as a pilot case for future research works.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Entrepreneurial behaviour: the role of values
|
[
"Entrepreneurs",
"Entrepreneurial orientation",
"Beliefs",
"Motivation",
"Value analysis",
"Entrepreneurial behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: [...] most of us are unmindful of our deep beliefs or their impact on the ways we perceive, think and feel. I also believe that examining deep beliefs affords us the opportunity to better understand entrepreneurship because:\n2. Entrepreneurial behaviour - what is it?: Reference to commonly held traits and personality characteristics as identifiers of entrepreneurs has been inconsistent and open to critique amongst theorists and researchers alike for some considerable time. Results have been mixed and inconclusive (Shaver and Scott, 1991; Herron and Sapienza, 1992). Extant literature still does not provide an explanation for the cognitive factors that would result in an individual's decision to engage in entrepreneurial behaviour. This study was based on the premise that any individual could engage in entrepreneurial behaviour provided they had the requisite beliefs, determination, skills and knowledge to follow the entrepreneurship process. The notion of identifiable entrepreneurial behaviour and its foundations is expanded on below.\n3. Values and beliefs: Entrepreneurship has been referred to as a \"values-driven\" process (Morris and Schindhutte, 2005). Indeed, entrepreneurial behaviour is frequently believed to be predicated on such Western beliefs as, \"individualism\", \"competitiveness\", \"material gain\" and a \"strong work ethic\" (Schumpeter, 1950; Cauthorn, 1989; Hebert and Link, 1988). \"Individualism\" has strong links to the notion that entrepreneurial behaviour is essentially an independent/autonomous activity usually engaged in by a single individual. That notion is amply supported by research which suggests that entrepreneurial opportunity identification is largely an individual activity relying on the cognitive capacity of the individual and their self-efficacy (Shane, 2003; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Alvarez et al., 2005; Morris and Schindhutte, 2005; Alvarez and Barney, 2007).\n4. Research design and methodology: Values and their meaning are enacted by the individual in such a way as to confirm that entrepreneurial behaviour is intrinsically motivated and essentially self-determined. The resulting research strategy was therefore based on an inductive and interpretive research design that operates within the bounds of a constructivist paradigm. Interpretivism and constructivism are related approaches to research that are characteristic of particular philosophical world views. Such a research design acknowledges the reality that is fundamental to this study, that is, that \"reality is subjective and multiple as seen by participants in a study\" (Collis and Hussey, 2003). Furthermore, \"The world of lived reality and situation-specific meanings that constitute the general object of investigation is thought to be constructed by social actors\" (Schwandt, 1994).\n5. Findings: Six of the participants were female (20 per cent of the sample); the youngest was 27 years of age whilst the eldest was 68. In total, 24 of the participants had spent periodic intervals travelling and working overseas, mainly in the UK and Western Europe. All of the participants own and are engaged in one or more of their personal businesses. The legal structures of these businesses were either simple sole traders/proprietors or more complex owner/director in one or more limited liability companies. Two participants are board chairs and major shareholders in publicly listed companies. The number of employees engaged in participant's business' range from the owner on their own to 36 employees in the largest operation. Annual turnovers amount to NZD$1.2 m at the lower end to an estimated NZD$134 m at the top end (projected revenue). The nature of the businesses themselves cover a broad span of operations and industrial sectors, from personal services to sophisticated heavy engineering, the agricultural sector to adventure tourism.\n6. Discussion: This discussion addresses the original research questions, namely, whether entrepreneurial behaviour is based on a common value-set and what meaning participants attribute to those values. Where necessary the author has taken excerpts from interviews with the various participants to describe their understanding of the above value-set to the reader.\n7. Conclusion: This study was based on a premise that entrepreneurial behaviour is predicated on a small set of deep-seated values. These values provide the individual with the intrinsic motivation to behave entrepreneurially. Prior theory directed towards explaining these core values has previously been focused on confirming the presence of such Western beliefs as \"individualism, competitiveness, material gain\" and a \"strong work ethic\" (Schumpeter, 1950; Cauthorn, 1989; Hebert and Link, 1988). In this study the entrepreneurial value-set was discovered to be marginally different, comprising \"independence; creativity; ambition and daring\".\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the key values individuals believe in and their interpretation in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour. The study is predicated on the prior work of Krueger (2007) and specifically on the premise that \"deep beliefs\" underpin sense making, decision making and subsequent entrepreneurial behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilised an inductive and interpretive research design within a constructivist paradigm. In phase one, Schwartz's (1992) 54 values inventory was used to discover a core value-set associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The results were later used as an \"aide-memoire\" during the second phase of in-depth interviews with 30 self-selected entrepreneurs. Interviews focused primarily on the meaning individuals attributed to those fundamental values they associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The resulting narrative was subjected to discourse analysis and categorised into relevant themes.\nFindings: Self-determined human action is based on a specific set of values which the individual uses to make decisions about how to behave in situations that are meaningful to them. Engaging in entrepreneurship is one form of self-determined behaviour that enables the individual to express and satisfy a variety of different fundamental needs. Four specific values are believed to be critical to the motivation of entrepreneurial behaviour, namely, independence, creativity, ambition and daring. The meaning attributed to each of these values is consistent with that attributed to self-determinism, self-efficacy and the identity of participants associated with entrepreneurship.\nResearch limitations/implications: There are limitations to this research and the extension of the findings to a generalised population comprising individuals who may, or may not, behave entrepreneurially. This is not to say that such individuals hold values substantially different in other roles or areas of their lives outside a purely business context. The values rated by participants in this study had relevance to their view of entrepreneurial behaviour and were confined to a business perspective.The variability in meaning attributed to these values is however likely to produce a common thread focusing on control, creativity and goal-directed behaviour.\nPractical implications: The study strongly suggests the presence of a specific value-set associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The shift in emphasis to independence and being ambitious, at the expense of being creative and daring, represents one explanation for the episodic nature of entrepreneurial behaviour among individuals. The data further reveal differences in entrepreneurial behaviour within urban and rural contexts with the former being more tolerant of entrepreneurial activity because of its inherent cultural diversity\nSocial implications: Similarly, all participants have assimilated several different identities for the different social roles they occupy. Within those varying roles there is the possibility that both individual and group values will differ from what is reported here. The purpose of the study was to isolate as far as possible entrepreneurial behaviour and its core values independently from other types of behaviour and values. However, the likelihood does exist that values held by some individuals from other spheres of their lives could take precedence over their entrepreneurial role and thus influence their survey results.\nOriginality/value: The value of this study lies in exposing the underlying motivations that cause entrepreneurial behaviour. The study also discovered that shifts occur in the belief structure causing individuals to engage in managerial behaviour in preference to entrepreneurial behaviour at critical stages in the business life-cycle. The study further identifies cultural differences in individualistic vs collectivist cultures and the degrees to which entrepreneurial behaviour is accepted within urban vs rural environments.\n",
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TPM implementation in large and medium size organisations
|
[
"TPM",
"Implementation process",
"Case studies",
"Maintenance",
"Manufacturing industries",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The process of globalisation prevalent in today's manufacturing markets is one of the major forces impacting on an organisation's business. In order to stay competitive, it is necessary for companies to continuously increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their production methods. Strategies such as just in time (JIT) and lean production demand a high level of equipment availability which has resulted in maintenance gaining in importance as a support function for ensuring not only this but also quality products and workplace safety. Companies have learned that when they do not schedule time for maintenance their equipment will do it for them. To address this need, they are turning to total productive maintenance (TPM), which is an equipment management approach and the systematic implementation of maintenance by all employees company wide, enabling organisations to achieve their objectives of zero breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents (Nakajima, 1988; Willmott, 1994) which in turn increases productivity resulting in higher profits. TPM is based on teamwork and provides a method for the achievement of world class levels of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) through people, not through technology or systems (Willmott, 1994). The paper is intended to help organisations to better understand the TPM discipline, to facilitate its adoption and prioritise its practice. It is important in an international context as companies worldwide are striving to achieve synergy of TPM. The focus of this paper centres on how TPM was implemented in four manufacturing companies, the benefits gained and the difficulties faced with their implementation processes. The methodology employed in this research comprised five stages as shown in Figure 1.The first was to conduct a detailed literature review to determine TPM implementation practices in manufacturing companies. The next was to identify those within the UK that could be approached to help with the research. Having secured their willingness, interviews with key personnel could then be arranged.The literature review is first presented. This is followed by each of the case studies presented individually, detailing the company background, introduction to the programme and their implementation approach. Following this, the paper presents a detailed discussion about all four cases. Finally, the overall findings gathered and insights gained from the research are discussed.\nLiterature review: The concept of TPM\nMethodology: Introduction\nCase study A: Company background\nCase study B: Company background\nCase study C: Company background\nCase study D: Company background\nDiscussion: The companies in which the case studies were conducted included three in the automotive sector (B-D) and one in construction (A), however they all share similar characteristics in terms of their competitiveness, operation environment, history and experience. They have all attempted to implement TPM in their maintenance and production departments in order to improve their efficiency and competence. They all implemented TPM because they were exhibiting considerable business difficulties (e.g. poor quality, high cost, low skills, high levels of breakdowns and accidents). Table II summarises the problems faced by each and the need for implementing TPM.There were some similarities and differences in the approaches adopted for implementing TPM. These are shown in Table III.All four companies share a similar strategy in applying Nakajima's (1988) seven steps of AM. Companies B and D employed the same framework of JIPM, although neither attained the JIPM award. Company A achieved WCMA recognition by winning the Bronze award. In the four case companies, the main objective behind achieving ISO certification was to improve their market share and retain existing customers. However, the interviewees in all four firms believed that accreditation also facilitated documentation and standardisation of the procedures in place as well as understanding processes and measuring process performance.Company A's initiative for the TPM system came directly from senior management, while that for companies B-D came from management teams. In terms of training, Companies C and D never supported the idea of bringing in external consultants for TPM training, often requiring large up-front investment and providing only temporary solutions to their problems. Qualified and dedicated people within the company were chosen to lead the training programmes. On the other hand, companies A and B claimed that the use of competent and experienced external consultants significantly contributed to their success.McAdam and Duffner (1996) stated that the task of implementing TPM can be overwhelming, as the practical aspects and procedures for using the programme to maximise equipment effectiveness must be customised to the individual company. Every organisation is different and TPM implementation should reflect this. This was substantiated in the studies since each company developed its own plan, depending on its particular needs and problems, the type of industry, its production systems and equipment types.With regard to the measures and results achieved, significant benefits were gained by all the companies as a result of their strategic TPM implementation programmes. Table IV lists the improvements realised. Note that a () denotes that the issue was mentioned by the interviewee while a (X) shows that it was not. One such gain was improved communication, especially between maintenance and production, and between management and the workforce. The increased cooperation between maintenance and production has led to a \"smarter\" work environment by increasing both employee morale and job satisfaction.All the case companies considered increased productivity and improved quality issues as the main benefits to be derived from introducing TPM. Companies A and C saw the reductions in their accident and defect rates as important. Safety was another area that saw big improvements especially in company A. The interviewee indicated that the plant now was much safer and had a much improved safety record after TPM implementation.All the companies showed similar improvements in the overall availability and performance of their equipment; companies C and D in particular achieved their set targets of 97 per cent availability. Company B stated that it had achieved an improvement in FTT with 97 per cent of its product requiring no rectification, company C had managed to reduce its number of defective parts but no figures were given. The main focus in company C is on regular audits that help to keep their quality records up to date. Company A did not provide any data.Based on the results of Table IV, it is clear that participation and involvement of employees in the programme is still very low, so Companies B-D need to encourage employees' involvement and create a culture of innovation. Another important aspect of employees' involvement is skills acquisition. Without the right skill, it is impossible for individuals to participate in the business and influence its direction. Similar findings were reported by Arca and Prado (2007) during a case study conducted in Spain. The authors judged the difficulty in implementing a TPM programme to be caused by the complexity of obtaining commitment and involvement from the personnel most affected by the project. A participative approach and a suitable methodology for implementation were introduced.In terms of difficulties, Table V lists those encountered by the four case companies.As can be seen, all the companies gave \"culture change\" as a problem. Different methods however were used to overcome this. Re-structuring the production department by introducing workgroups or cells was evident in all the cases. Companies B and D in particular established a series of training courses on \"culture change\" for managers, supervisors and line workers based on creating a new environment centred on participation and empowerment. Company C did not manage the change process effectively. It did not take into account employee readiness or satisfaction with the new programme. Top management was unable to communicate their vision for change to the employees so the majority of them did not understand the need for the change from the old system. The process of change too was not well managed with the aid of a formal methodology. The change scared the employees and left them confused.Company D implemented TPM 19 years ago, but was still suffering from the effect of the culture that was in place. Pursuing change and transforming organisations is hard work. The authors believe that many change initiatives fail because the cultures are not suitable and companies do not anticipate the impact that the changes will have. Increasing the success of TPM implementation demands leadership in resistance management and it is important to map the factors in order to create a new context which will break the hold of the forces of resistance (Raymond, 2002).Companies A, B, and C argued that many employees consider TPM activities as another improvement programme, which merely serves targets and strategies of the company. The companies should raise employees' responsibility and enthusiasm. This can be achieved by training and meetings at which it is emphasised that everyone has his/her share in the success of the company and that all the roles are important. Similarly, company D thinks that taking on maintenance tasks would mean more work with no extra resources for the department. The reason behind this was to ease the workload of the maintenance employees so they could have time to deal with more complex jobs in the plant. Also, by giving ownership and responsibility of equipment and processes to the right employees, equipment breakdowns are reduced. Building operator ownership is mostly a matter of removing barriers and providing correct training and tools to encourage a supportive relationship that is technically informed.The results of examining TPM implementation in different organisations emphasises that long-term management commitment is essential to its success. There will obviously be a certain amount of disruption during the programme (due to training requirements, equipment evaluations, analysing data, various meetings, etc.), and management must help smooth these over and provide a consistent direction. Management should show support whenever possible, including spending time on the shop floor to monitor progress (Wireman, 1991).Another important point resulting from the case studies was that employee education and training was paramount to implementing TPM. TPM practices should be implemented through a process of well established learning, and not be used as a quick fix solution to a problem. In addition, all employees should be trained in the fundamentals of quality as defined by the company's goals and objectives. They should also be given updated training when new techniques are introduced. The success of TPM implementation is highly dependent on training. Mistake-proofing and problem-solving are two competences that are under focus in TPM and must be highlighted during the training programme.Companies A and B have implemented a TPM programme alongside other lean initiatives to great benefit. Although company D has more experience in adopting the programme, it had not gained as much in terms of efficiency of cost savings. Company C has some way to go before it is at the same level as companies A and B.\nConclusions: TPM implementation has been addressed in this paper through case studies conducted in four large and medium size UK manufacturing companies. The focus has been the companies' background, the effectiveness and difficulties encountered during TPM implementation and the need for and the activities conducted when implementing TPM.The implementation needs a high level of competency where people need to become familiar and skilled with the concept, practice and terms of TPM. Training and education programmes were found in all four case companies. All the companies had a very strong focus on employees. Recognising people's achievements in the programme, through awards such as money and promotions, will increase their motivation to improve. Employees were seen as the most important asset and treated accordingly; this was stressed extensively by all the interviewees. The way employees were trained differs somewhat between the case companies, but all the interviewed managers agreed that training was a very important factor in their success. The findings indicate the urgent need for ensuring regular training and education programmes on TPM to all the employees including management.Important lessons drawn from the case studies were highlighted. Each individual case report provides important insights into how TPM is being implemented in practise. TPM implementation in all companies started with simpler initiatives such as AM activities and then moved on to the more difficult ones such as planning and PM activities. These initiatives can be pictured as a series of activities with the implementation of a particular technique depending very much on the success of the previous ones. Hence, it is clear that successful TPM programmes need management commitment, a dedicated and committed workforce, a total focus on quality and a willingness to change and to be flexible. Some similarities were observed between the case companies with regard to their approaches towards building business excellence.The difficulties fall into the following categories: cultural, management, implementation and technical issues, all of which are correlated with each other. The finding indicates that cultural change is the most important factor in implementing this application, which means that successful TPM programmes need genuine top management support to overcome any resistance to change which can come from both employees and middle managers. The study found that the culture both positively and negatively impacted the implementation of the programme in all cases. The negative impact of culture was demonstrated when employees used the old cultural norms to solve problems. Instead of adopting TPM practices and solving the root cause of a problem, elaborate procedures were put into place to manage the problem. The positive impact that culture made on the implementation was evident in the readiness of most of the employees to participate in TPM activities and the willingness of employees to embrace the concept of teamwork. This evidence provided proof of a culture that was open to trying new ideas. Many authors recognised this issue and admitted that employee commitment has a big effect on adopting change in an organisation (Al-Khalifa and Aspinwall, 2000; Amar and Mohd, 2002; Walsh et al., 2002). The authors believe that the commitment from both employees and managers to any change processes should be with a full understanding of the mission and objectives of that change. The managers and employees in the four case companies did not have a full understanding of the programme that the organisation adopted.Additionally, the size of the workforce in some of the cases is much greater than actually needed and this factor made some employees very worried about their future, because they are more subjected to being laid off than others. Company B made a reduction in workforce from 580 employees in 2006 to 352 in 2010, also companies C and D made some reduction but no figures were given.The overall result reflects difficulties from which the four case companies are suffering. The research identified problems and issues that the decision makers might face when implementing TPM or any other techniques within their companies.The present research has identified the barriers and difficulties encountered during TPM implementation in four companies. Some similarities and differences were observed between the case companies with regard to their means towards building business excellence. Currently, too much attention is focused on the technical aspects and tools and techniques rather than on the ability to create a self-sustaining culture where change is seen as the norm and where resistance to change is never an option. The results from this work will be used as the basis for studying the ideal culture for TPM in different environments and for helping to promote TPM activities in a certain developing country.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how total productive maintenance (TPM) has been implemented in large and medium size UK manufacturing companies, focusing on why such a programme was introduced, the activities involved, and the effectiveness and difficulties encountered during the process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The aspects listed were based on a review of the literature. A case study approach was favoured to collect the necessary data. Companies were contacted, four of which responded favourably, and a protocol was developed to enable interviews to be carried out at each.\nFindings: - \"Culture\" was highlighted as the main obstacle to successfully implementing TPM; others were lack of awareness about the advantages of the programme, low employee skills and high cost. Two benefits gained by the four companies were a significant improvement in the availability and performance of the equipment within the plant and improved communication between employees. Additional benefits were financial improvement, reduced energy cost and increased employee morale and job satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The number of companies that were willing to take part in the study was poor, thereby making it difficult to generalise the conclusions.\nPractical implications: - The results should help large and medium size organisations to better understand the TPM discipline, to facilitate its adoption and prioritise its practice. They also highlight the effectiveness and obstacles that can be encountered during the process.\nOriginality/value: - The paper highlights the strong potential of TPM implementation programmes in affecting organisational performance improvements. The study also offers a beneficial source of information to organisations, which are still lagging far behind when it comes to TPM practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Perceived importance of performance management metrics among UK theatre companies: An empirical investigation
|
[
"Performance management",
"Performing arts",
"Corporate identity",
"Theatre"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The past 20 years have witnessed a significant growth of interest in the fields of performance management, performance measurement and organisational control (for details of relevant studies see Bititci et al., 2006). Formal performance measurement and management has been said to improve an organisation's systems and outputs, and to facilitate long term planning and organisational control by identifying the factors that are critical to the organisation's success (Unahabhokha et al., 2007). As well as measurement and evaluation, performance management practices include the specification of which goals an organisation should aim to achieve. The delineation of priority goals should help to prevent the diffusion of organisational energy; to \"reduce and eliminate ambiguity and confusion about objectives; and to gain coherence and focus in pursuit of the organisation's mission\" (Verbeeten, 2008, p. 428). Arts and cultural organisations in western countries increasingly employ metrics to measure and monitor their financial and marketing performances (Rentschler and Potter, 1996; de Bruijn, 2002; Bennett, 2007; Pappas and Volk, 2007). This, it has been claimed, is due to growing demands from governmental funding bodies for subsidised cultural organisations to explain and justify their actions (Carnegie and Wolnizer, 1996; Johnston, 2005; Hume and Mort, 2008); to the need to present metrics to corporate sponsors and major donors (Bennett, 2007; Hume, 2008; Hume and Mort, 2008) and to the desire to improve operational efficiency (Bennett and Kottasz, 2001a; IFACCA, 2005; Purbey et al., 2007). Metrics can be used to assess the overall \"financial health\" of an organisation and to provide early warnings of possible future problems (Morgan et al., 2002, p. 368); to track the organisation's progress towards attaining its mission (Ambler, 2000); to develop robust systems for allocating resources (Barwise and Farley, 2004; Bennett, 2007); to control costs (Mazur, 2003) and to evaluate past performance (Shaw and White, 1999). The collation of metrics concerning such matters is valuable both for maintaining cash inflows and for devising marketing campaigns (Rust et al., 2004).Aims of the present research\nPotential determinants of managerial attitudes: A review of the academic literature in the areas of theatre management, organisational performance measurement, marketing metrics and business planning and control suggested a number of possible determinants of a theatre management's perceptions of the relative importance of particular types of metrics. These factors are discussed below.1. Artistic identity\nPossible metrics: As the research involved the use and perceived importance of performance metrics it was necessary to delineate the specific metrics that a theatre management could employ. A review of academic and practitioner literature on metrics in the non-profit, commercial and performing arts areas identified over 200 possible measures that a theatre company might apply. Since it was not feasible to question theatre managers about their perceptions of the importance of all of them it was necessary to select a parsimonious list of metrics that represented various genres of measures. Several previous research studies have attempted this task and have normally distinguished between metrics that involve:* financial outcomes;* customer satisfaction; and* market leadership.For instance, Clark's (1999) review of pre-existing articles on business metrics reported that the following headings were commonly applied: revenues, market share, customer satisfaction and retention, and organisational image and reputation. A similar taxonomy emerged from an analysis completed by Shaw and White (1999), who additionally claimed that customers' \"desired thoughts and feelings\" (e.g. liking, commitment, awareness, relevance to the individual) ought to be included in the outcomes that organisations should seek to measure (p. 877). Barwise and Farley (2004) listed four key sets of metrics:1. market share;2. perceptions of product quality;3. customer retention; and4. profitability.Bennett's (2007) survey of literature relevant to the metrics employed by non-profit organisations listed four dominant categories:1. accounting;2. public perception;3. satisfaction; and4. marketing.(This particular study found that all 210 non-profits in the sample used at least some basic metrics and that a fifth of the organisations employed an extensive range of measures.) All prior investigations of the use of performance metrics, whether by commercial or arts and/or non-profit enterprises, have highlighted the role of market share as a critical performance measure, allegedly because of its connections with cash flow and thus with long term financial viability. Unfortunately, however, market share statistics have limited value in situations where markets are small, which is often the case for provincial theatre companies (especially in relation to ad hoc or avant garde productions) and/or if competition is limited. It is a relevant to note that a theatre's market share of the local performing arts sector can increase whereas its overall attendances are falling (e.g. because of the opening of new cinemas in the area). It follows that market share might not be afforded the same level of importance by theatre managements as has been observed in other types of organisation.Studies of the theatre industry (e.g. Reddy et al., 1998; Smith, 1998; Bouder-Pailer, 1999; Pattullo, 2002; Bennett and Kottasz, 2001a, b) have repeatedly mentioned the need for a theatre management to measure various aspects of trends in ticket sales, costs, rates of take-up of season tickets, revisit intensity, visitor satisfaction (as revealed by audience surveys and other market research methods), public perceptions of a venue (again identified via market research) and the numbers of visitors from younger age categories and lower socio-economic groups. The favourability of critics' reviews might also be used as a performance measure because, according to Johnson and Garbarino (2001), \"some arts managers see the critics as all powerful in their ability to determine the success or failure of a production or to shape consumer attendance behaviour\" (p. 71). Reddy et al. (1998) found that critics' reviews could exert a greater influence over whether a production would make a profit than the prices of the tickets for a show.Most UK theatre companies now have web sites (Deller, 2008). Hence they are potentially able to reach wider and more diverse audiences than ever before (Griffin, 2000). It seems reasonable to presume, therefore, that theatre managements are increasingly interested in metrics connected with the effectiveness of their web sites. (Michopoulou and Buhalis (2008) cited evidence that, year on year, organisations of all kinds were allocated greater percentages of their budgets to collating and analysing e-metrics.) Accordingly, an item related to web metrics was included in the questionnaire.\nResearch method: Selection of metrics for use in the study\nResults: Descriptive results\nConclusion: The outcomes to the study indicate that certain factors may affect a theatre managements' views concerning the genres of metrics that are important. In particular, it appears that an organisation's degree of commitment to fulfilling a basically educational and aesthetic mission (i.e. its level of artistic identity) has a bearing on the weight its management attaches to measures of artistic vitality. However the relationship may be weakened substantially in organisations that face financial problems. In the present study theatre companies that were in financial difficulty tended to prioritise financial viability metrics at the expense of measures connected with artistic identity. Interest in artistic vitality metrics also waned when managements were under increased demands to justify their actions in financial terms. It seems, therefore, that different genres of metrics were likely to be afforded priority depending on financial (and other) circumstances.Certain metrics were used extensively and were also considered to be important for general management purposes; notably metrics to do with box office, profitability, visitor satisfaction, and public awareness. Web site effectiveness metrics were also deemed to be important, yet nearly half the sample organisations did not use them and they were not employed for strategic decision making. The main metrics used for strategic purposes involved sales and profitability. Metrics regarded as most important when bidding for government funding or commercial sponsorship focused on financial viability, visitor satisfaction and public awareness, and additionally on assessments of audience diversity and measures of artistic vitality.Implications, limitations and areas for further research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of the use of performance management metrics by UK theatre companies, the levels of importance attached to various types of measures, and possible determinants of managerial perceptions of the importance of each category.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A model was constructed which hypothesised that the types of metrics regarded as most important by theatre managements depended on organisational identity, financial situation, environmental volatility, production diversity and visitor orientation. This was tested via a survey of 195 UK theatres.\nFindings: - A theatre's financial situation greatly influenced the categories of metrics that its management deemed to be important, exerting both a direct effect and indirect impacts. An organisation's \"artistic identity\" also affected the dimensions of the operations that its management sought to measure.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The data were self-reported; less than a majority of the sampling frame participated in the study; and managers in theatres that used few or no metrics may have been less likely to respond to the invitation to take part in the study. It was not possible within the confines of an already crowded questionnaire to explore the influences of various stakeholders on a theatre management's choice of metrics.\nPractical implications: - Environmental circumstances and managerial inclinations seemingly determined the metrics that were considered important, but the metrics involved were not necessarily those that should have been applied.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first empirical study to determine the factors that cause theatre managements to prioritise the use of specific types of performance metrics and to explain variations in organisational behaviour in this regard.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Privilege and public provision in the intellectual welfare state
|
[
"Libraries",
"Personal needs",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The December issue of the Library Association Record, published as this paper was going to press, contains an article by R. H. Hill and S. P. L. Filon entitled \"The Incorporation of Special Libraries in the National Interlending System\", in which a number of proposals is put forward; if these recommendations are generally approved they will make still more necessary some consideration of the assumptions and difficulties I discuss.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper, originally published in 1956, is to examine the assumptions about people's needs for and rights to information which lie behind the establishment of privately and publicly owned libraries, to consider how far these assumptions are valid, and finally to discuss the proper part to be played by privately owned libraries in the national library service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Identifies and reflects on the assumptions in quotations from charters and terms of reference of a variety of libraries and from official statements about library provision.\nFindings: - Publicly supported libraries should satisfy the demands of the general reader for everything that is in print, including foreign material, and in doing so should give greater consideration to the geographical and temporal convenience of the reader in the case of both reference and loan material; that all demands on the interlibrary loan system should be met where possible from the stock of publicly supported libraries: that special libraries should give priority to the demands of their special clients but that they should consider increasing services to outsiders on a fee basis.\nOriginality/value: - Suggests that it would be possible, when assessing the different categories of library, to have slightly varying criteria in mind and each librarian would be able to gauge the quality of his services by reference to explicit particular ends.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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