Split (2)

train · 145k rows

title stringlengths 6 301	keywords listlengths 0 23	messages listlengths 2 2
Universal healthcare and universal basic income: Complementary proposals for a precarious future	[ "Capitalism", "Healthcare reform", "Work reform" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: By virtually every official indicator, the global economy is booming. The Great Recession that once destroyed jobs, devastated whole communities, and upended governments and organizations throughout the world not even a decade ago seems a distance memory. In the USA, unemployment has reached an impressively low 4.1 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017a), down from its peak of 10 percent in 2009, and wages at long last are climbing (Federal Reserve, 2017). Throughout Europe, economists cheer the return of growth and the rising value of the euro (European Central Bank, 2017), while corporations across the globe boast of soaring stock prices (Chang and Gaudiano, 2017).\nUBI: a brief primer: The idea of UBI is hardly new. As early as the eighteenth century, notable figures on both the political left and right begin touting its benefits, including Thomas Pain, Milton Friedman, Martin Luther King Jr, and even US President Nixon (Johnson, 2017). Today, however, calls for UBI reemerge amid a seeming tipping point of forces: plummeting household savings, hallowed out manufacturing cities, widening income inequality, declining unions, and increased globalization. But some of UBI's most compelling endorsements come from the specter of automation, which by some estimates is slated to push a third of workers out of their chosen professions by 2030 (Manyika et al., 2017). As Arthur (2017) notes, \"[automation] is steadily providing an external intelligence in business-one not housed internally in human workers but externally in the virtual economy's algorithms and machines.\" Thus, while jobs have increasingly short shelf lives, human workers do not - a crude economic fact that warrants a fundamental revision of how income is secured.\nUBI's connection to healthcare: The impending automation of jobs should not also mean the impending doom of healthcare employment. Healthcare, after all, requires human beings for its delivery, and the industry as a whole has proven remarkably recession proof. But healthcare is not immune to the changes highlighted above. More noticeable than automation, perhaps, is the increased marketization of the industry, which permeates not just the USA, but virtually all of Europe (Fotaki, 2011; Roland and Rosen, 2011) and increasingly Asia (Blumenthal and Hsiao, 2005; Millar et al., 2016). Financial outcomes, return on capital, and efficiency are now the new markers of organizational success, eclipsing care and any collective sense of responsibility (Tronto, 2013). Moreover, not only does this increased marketization undermine the intrinsic motivation of healthcare workers (Bolton, 2005; Nantha, 2013), it also produces ill-intended effects such as costly and unnecessary procedures (James, 2012), shortsighted strategies (Henderson and Petersen, 2002), and skewed priorities misaligned with community and societal health (England, 2010).\nShared roots: It is no secret that capitalist work relations are founded upon inequalities of power. While employees receive income for their labor, this income must not exceed (and is generally a small fraction of) the value created by these very same employees for corporations. Labor costs, therefore, are kept at a minimum to maximize cost-savings and profits, both of which further incentivize the deskilling of workers, the relocation of production to cheaper locations, the influx of cheaper labor, and of course, automation.\nToward a broader universality: We now know what happens when both health and wealth are left solely to the whims of the market. We also know how to help mitigate these market liabilities through universal healthcare and UBI. It is worth recalling that in the USA, for instance, the implementation of nearly universal healthcare at age 65 (i.e. Medicare) equates to diminishing disparities across race and class lines (Card et al., 2008). We also know that universal healthcare can be financially sustainable if not competitive, removing the cost burden placed on companies while freeing up household income and consumption (Wagstaff et al., 2016). Some may argue, however, that universal healthcare stymies innovation - an often-touted pillar of the US healthcare industry - but innovation can (and arguably should) be decoupled from the type of healthcare system on offer. \"We can stifle or stimulate innovation regardless of how we obtain insurance and deliver care,\" write Carroll and Frakt (2017). More broadly, capitalism alone does not spur innovation, but instead, and left to its own devices, merely depletes resources - including its human ones in the case of automation. For innovation to truly flourish, human life is required, and such life needs to be healthy and free from basic want.\nConcluding thoughts: why work?: Economists have long warned of the dangers of a citizenry not willing to work hard enough to sustain capitalist growth. Recent research suggests, however, that we may have moved beyond a growth economy (Jackson, 2009). Moreover, surveys of young adults show that the once taken-for-granted expectation to economically exceed previous generations has lessened (Demos, 2011). Many \"millennials\" accept that they may not surpass their parents' level of wealth, prioritizing instead meaning and purpose at work (Dries et al., 2008). Rather than see this as a threat to economic prosperity, we might view it as an opportunity and corresponding relief on our natural resources.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw parallels between universal basic income (UBI) and universal healthcare, highlighting their conceptual alignment and combined implications for health management and organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The idea that everyone should receive a set amount of money regardless of employment finds renewed momentum amid increasingly precarious work arrangements and an uncertain job market. Less explored, however, is the connection between this idea and the more established notion of universal healthcare. This paper brings these two ideas together by examining their shared underpinnings in capitalist work relations, and more broadly a global economic system organized by and for corporations at the expense of workers.\nFindings: The argument is made that the underlying dynamics of contemporary capitalism cannot be relied upon to provide for basic health and wealth. These limitations must be offset with social assurances that not only mitigate capitalism's liabilities, but also facilitate innovation and sustainable growth.\nOriginality/value: Rarely have UBI and universal healthcare been considered together. This paper examines their shared origins in a capitalist world system and demonstrates their shared justification in a future increasingly devoid of stable work.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Value co-destruction between customers and frontline employees: A social system perspective	[ "Pakistan", "Marketing", "Banking", "S-D logic", "Customer misbehaviour", "Social system" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Service is co-created during the service encounter (Gronroos, 2011), the interaction between customers and frontline employees in an organisational setting orchestrated by the firm's marketing staff, so the quality of the interaction and the responsibility for the final value that is created and shared lies with all three participants - the firm, the frontline employee and the customer (Gronroos, 1996; Gronroos and Voima, 2013). Thus, both customers and employees are integral and core parts of the service-system (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) of firms' operant resources which need to be managed effectively in order to create and deliver value. It is logical, then, that as customers are co-creators of value during service encounters, and so they can also be co-destructors if they are not playing their defined roles (Echeverri et al., 2012).\nLiterature review: Even though the concept of value is inherent to the branch of philosophy that developed into modern economics, the forefather of marketing (Panigyrakis and Zarkada, 2014), and its variants (value-in-exchange, value-in-use, etc.) have been central to the exchange-based marketing theory (e.g. Bagozzi, 1975; Kotler, 1972) especially under the broadened social giving and receiving approach (Shaw, 1995) it was only after the emergence of the service-dominant (S-D) logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) that the process of co-creation of value became an independent research topic and the breadth of operant resources was acknowledged and acquired its position as of paramount importance to value delivery (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Recently (Ple and Caceres, 2010), the process and actors of value co-destruction have also attracted researcher attention. We adopt the S-D logic perspective in the selection and treatment of the literature on customer misbehaviour and explore the role of social players, i.e. customers, front-line employees and organisations in the co-destruction of value during service encounters.\nMethodology: Research Design\nFindings: Sample demographics\nDiscussion: This study is the first of its type to investigate misbehaviour incidents in the banking sector to offer some strategies to reduce turnover and service co-destruction. The results are insightful and will help bank marketing decision makers to counter the customer service challenges pertaining to incivility in Pakistan as well as elsewhere as we hereby explain.\nManagerial implications: The results have implications for bank marketers and policy makers. Based on these findings, it can be stated that managers need to employ a wide variety of tools in order to handle misbehaviour incidents.\nLimitations and future research directions: The study has several strengths; employment of a robust methodology where a non-student population has been sampled, integration of well-established theories to understand customer misbehaviour phenomenon, and presentation of a developing country perspective. Despite these strengths, the results must be viewed in light of several limitations. First, the greater focus of this study is on two core aspects of a social system; customers and employees. Future studies are recommended to explore the customer and technology interface which can bring a new insight to consumer behaviour research. Moreover, data is collected from two of the three corners of the marketing triangle; senior management and back-office staff also need to be investigated for a 3,600 view of the issue. Second, misbehaviour incidents are only investigated through employing a qualitative frame. Future researchers could use these results in order to conduct a quantitative study with wider generalisability. From a methodological perspective, the current study employed CIT. Despite its benefits, one of the weaknesses is that it relies on the strength of the respondents' memory. Keeping abreast with a realist perspective, future studies are recommended to employ observation of service encounters. Such innovative methods will bring newer insights to consumer behaviour research. Finally, future studies are recommended to investigate other similar sectors such as hospitality, fast food and telecoms, where misbehaving customers are also common, to further strengthen the identified themes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The incidents of customer abuse of frontline service employees during service encounters are increasing which has led to co-destructruction of value. The service strategists makers are struggling hard to frame a holistic picture of such incidents to be able to reduce the number of misbehaviour incidents but still are unable to achieve success. The purpose of this paper is to incorporate a social system perspective to study in detail customer misbehaviour incidents from the perspective of frontline banking employees and customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data from 33 frontline banking employees and 22 customers, 55 in total was collected by structured interviews. The data collection focused a critical incident technique and for the purpose of analysis, thematic analysis was optioned.\nFindings: The employees and customers both blame each other to trigger a misbehaviour incident during banking transactions. The results reveal a clear communication gap between employees and customers as none of them understand the problems of the other party. The employees think that customers gain power through such incidents while customers believe employees to be ignorant, wasting the time, and lack complete information.\nPractical implications: The marketing policy makers need to pay respect and complete organisational support to frontline staff working in high contact service firms to cope with misbehaving customers.\nOriginality/value: The study is pioneer in applying a social system perspective to explore employee and customer experiences of misbehaviour incidents during banking service encounters. Furthermore, the study has been first of its type to explore the phenomenon of misbehaviour from a developing country perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Differing student views of online learning modes across two programs in an Australian university	[ "Distance learning", "Internet", "Australia", "Education and training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: The university, which is the focus of this research, delivers a range of programs which include online and flexible approaches to teaching and learning. The sample for this research comprised 108 students who were enrolled in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs in a Department of Education, Western Australian University. The student sample represented a diverse group as it consisted of young people who were engaged in pre-service teacher training as well as adult learners in the field of training and development. Both internal (face-to-face learners) and external students were part of the sample. As students are the core business of the Department of Education, this research chose to investigate student reaction to and reflections on these various modes of delivery.The Training and Development Program has been offered to students completely online since 1995. The program was designed to complement Brennan's (2000) concept of utilising computers as tools to support the teaching and learning process. The initial decision to implement an online approach was influenced, first, by the financial implications of continuing to offer face-to face teaching. Second, the online refinement and development of both programs adheres to what Craig (2002), Goddard (1996), and Ruberg et al. (1996) suggest should influence teaching and learning online, which includes the need to cater for students who actively avoid face-to-face communication and use online options to a greater extent. The majority of students prefer the current method of delivery, as they are largely adult learners who are engaged in full-time employment and the online nature of the program allows many of them to work at their own pace in between further ongoing commitments.The students in the sample who were involved in the pre-service teacher training program were enrolled in the Bachelor of Education degree in the Department of Education. This is a four-year degree program, which has largely followed a traditional model of delivery and has therefore typically included lectures, tutorials and workshops. Although one of the strategic goals of the university is to increase the engagement with online teaching and learning, the program maintains an ad hoc approach to online delivery, which relies ultimately upon the skill level and interest of individual lecturers within the department.Literature review\nResearch method: Patton (1990) and Denzin and Lincoln (1994) noted that within the interpretive approach there are many methods - however, they all share the same philosophical assumption, which is that reality is constructed by individuals interacting with their social worlds (Merriam, 1998). In the present study, an interpretative method was adopted using a case study approach, with groups of internal and external students within one education department as the case. This method of describing and revealing what happens in the dynamic social environment of a student group appeared more appropriate than a more quantitative approach. The assumption is made that the findings of this study are not only pertinent to these student groups but also to other students studying in an online environment.\nThe instrument: The survey instrument utilised in this study was originally designed to identify the needs of the online learners in two very distinct groups of students: those students participating in the Bachelor of Education course who were classified as internal students and those enrolled in the Training and Development program classified as external students. The survey titled Meeting Individual Online Learning Needs aimed to investigate the students' reactions to online delivery, their rates and depths of participation in this environment, and ultimately their levels of engagement with the learning process. The researchers were particularly interested to investigate the online experiences of these two cohorts and whether there were similar concerns and issues that were specific to online learning. The format consisted of checklists, multiple-choice responses, several Likert-type scales and open-ended questions. The survey was administered at the end of semester one, 2003.\nResults: The results indicated that while the students involved in the pre-service Bachelor of Education program had no option other than to study particular units in mixed mode, the Training & Development students were largely attracted to the program because of the fact that all units are offered online and in distance mode. These students (32 per cent) indicated that their physical distance from the university had first influenced their decision to enrol in the course followed closely by the influence of increasingly busy work schedules on their ability to study on campus. When asked about issues concerned with flexibility and access, students (43 per cent) noted that the mode of delivery enabled them to access materials after hours and at their convenience. Of the sample indicated, 18 percent that the fluid time frame for their engagement with the unit attracted them to this mode of delivery.It is clear that the majority of both the Bachelor of Education and the Training and Development students were highly competent in utilising the many technical aspects of online delivery. These included using the WebCT environment, sending e-mail, posting messages on discussion boards, involving themselves in synchronous and asynchronous discussion, downloading files from WebCT and searching the internet. This is interesting given the fact that the average age of the students enrolled in the Bachelor of Education is currently 18-25 years of age, while the Training and Development students on average fall between 35-45 years of age. This apparent technical skill level on the part of the Training and Development students could be due to a number of factors. First, as these students are all involved in full-time employment in the Training and Development field (some in management positions) they are involved in regular and ongoing professional development in not only technical skills but also a wide range of associated professional areas. Second, these students have had exposure to step-by-step instructions regarding online access and this information is sent to them prior to the beginning of each semester in hard copy.One of the items in the questionnaire required the students to indicate the level of their average weekly access of their online learning environment associated with the unit. Interestingly, the students who were enrolled in the Bachelor of Education program and who therefore enjoyed the additional face-to-face components of the program were more likely to access this environment. It may be that students working in face-to-face mode are more frequently encouraged by both their lecturers involved and their peers to regularly engage in the online process. Table I identifies the average weekly online access by students.It may be that students working in face-to-face mode are more frequently encouraged by both their lecturers and their peers to regularly engage in the online process. The Bachelor of Education students commented that having access to regularly updated information regarding the structure, content and assessment protocols for the unit influenced their high-level of use. The level of access on a weekly basis of the Training and Development of students while not as high is understandable given that they are all engaged in full-time employment and study part-time.When the sample was asked to comment upon the online environment features and resources that they used on a regular basis, the majority of the Bachelor of Education students (74 per cent) and the Training and Development students (88 per cent) indicated that they preferred to participate in the online discussion element within each unit. The Training and Development students were required to engage in the online discussion in a very structured manner due to the assessment components of the unit. In order to complete the unit successfully these students were asked to post their critical analysis of three distinct readings. It became clear in the early stages of the semester that once these students had overcome their reticence in responding publicly they were more inclined to utilise the online discussion component in order to interact in other less structured and more supportive ways. This resulted in the creation of subsets of students who were interested in developing ongoing communication and support networks.Even though the majority of Bachelor of Education students clearly used face-to-face communication processes, it is interesting to note that 82 per cent of the sample also used the e-mail facility to communicate with the unit lecturer. It appears that these students were seeking additional feedback and direction in weekly tutorials. It may be that regardless of the issue at hand the students expected a fairly immediate response to any enquiry and this reflects changing trends in the workplace in general. The Training and Development students may have begun to perceive the lecturer as part of their own cohort as this would explain the high percentage (97 per cent) of preference for the use of the discussion board to communicate with the lecturer.The Bachelor of Education students were asked to comment on changes they would like to make to the WebCT environment. Overwhelmingly, the sample (41 per cent) indicated they preferred to maintain the current level of delivery. In addition, 18 per cent of the students believed that other units in the program should adopt the WebCT environment. The positive responses seemed to suggest that students believed that this approach aided communication and allowed them ready access to relevant course details and updated course information. This group also acknowledged that the WebCT environment was easy to use and a perceived bonus was that the online resource could be accessed from home. Training and Development students were asked to comment on components of the unit, which were useful. Responses indicated that these students had found the direct link between online delivery and assessment to be beneficial. They also felt that the unit content and method of delivery encouraged deeper thinking and increased personal reflection of the new learning. When asked what they would like to change about the unit the majority (53 per cent) of the Training and Development students suggested that the unit should remain in its current form and surprisingly 12 per cent asked for more online contact.\nConclusion: The results of the study reflect Harper's et al. (2000) view that moving to an online mode requires a reconceptualisation of teaching and learning. The students involved in a mixture of face-to-face and online learning had high expectations of continual and ongoing communication with and feedback from their lecturer. In this way academics embarking on a mixed mode approach need be aware that this increased interaction can extend the working day.The sample believed that the current approach to WebCT in the university assisted communication and allowed them ease of access to constantly changing course details and updated information. Over time, students studying totally in an online mode were more likely to develop their own social networks. This enhanced their learning opportunities as these students were inclined to mentor each other with regard to assessment and general progress through the unit content. The findings of this study reflect those of Graham and Scarborough (1999) in that the online learning environments provided in both the Bachelor of Education and Training and Development programs seem to have provided additional opportunities for student interaction and as such reduce the potential isolation of students in both face-to-face and totally online. One of the key benefits of implementing online approaches in the Bachelor of Education and Training and Development program appears to have been the ease of access to a multitude of resources. These resources varied from gathering information from the World wide web and course materials but, more importantly, accessing other individuals both globally and within the program itself. In this way, the enhanced interaction afforded by the online approaches facilitated improved teaching, deep learning and reflective practice.The challenge for universities and therefore instructional designers is how to increase the level and depth of interactivity within the online space in order to further empower students to truly become independent learners. In this way, they can move further towards developing what Harper et al. (2000) describe as \"knowledge workers\" whereby they develop and evolve critical thinking skills which will equip them for a constantly changing work environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Aims to investigate reactions to online delivery, student perceptions of the rates and depth of participation, and levels of engagement with the learning process in a Western Australian University.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The sample for this study comprised 108 students who were enrolled in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. An interpretative method was adopted using a case study approach, with groups of internal and external students within one education department. This method was more appropriate than a more quantitative approach.\nFindings: - The results indicated that, while the students were technically competent overall, issues associated with equity and access varied between the groups and also between students enrolled in the same units. The sample had also re-conceptualised the notion of \"personal\" which moved beyond simple physical proximity to enable the students to create their own community of learners.\nOriginality/value: - Addresses the challenge for universities and instructional designers on how to increase the level and depth of interactivity in the online environment to further empower students to become independent learners.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does anonymising job applications reduce gender bias? Understanding managers' perspectives	[ "Gender", "Managers", "Discrimination", "Anonymous recruitment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Job applications are a crucial factor considered by managers in the initial recruitment stage and a critical hurdle for prospective employees. Managers use applications to assess whether candidates have the required skills, qualifications and attributes to advance to the next recruitment stage, usually an interview (Cole et al., 2009). Studies demonstrate, however, that women are less likely than men to pass the initial screening phase (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012; Neumark, 2010; Neumark et al., 1996; Riach and Rich, 1987, 2006), and that managers use gendered assumptions, or stereotypes, to inform their decisions (Heilman and Eagly, 2008).\nLiterature review: Gender stereotypes and job applications\nTheoretical framework: Signalling theory\nContext: Gender equality in the Australian Public Service (APS): The data for this paper were drawn from a wider study examining the barriers and enablers to gender equality in the Australian Public Service (APS), a sector comprising 98 agencies and more than 150,000 employees (Australian Public Service Commission, 2017). Although women accounted for nearly 59 per cent of all APS employees in 2015, they held only 36 per cent of the top managerial positions (Australian Public Service Commission, 2016). In 2016, the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) enacted a government-wide strategy to achieve parity in senior management. The strategy directed government agencies to address unconscious gender bias and discrimination (Australian Public Service Commission, 2016). Consequently, several agencies enacted unconscious bias training (Williamson and Foley, 2018) and trials of anonymous recruitment. To explore the barriers and enablers to gender equality in the APS, we interviewed 104 APS managers and conducted focus groups with more than 200 employees in three government agencies, which collectively employed more than 25 per cent of the APS workforce (Australian Public Service Commission, 2017).\nResearch data and method: This paper analyses in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a subset of 30 APS managers (18 women, 12 men) who participated in anonymous recruitment trials involving actual job applicants. At the time of our study, two of the three participating agencies had conducted anonymous recruitment trials for managerial jobs. In each trial, human resource managers redacted applicants' names and gender pronouns from applications and referral letters. Anonymised applications were presented to managers, who then shortlisted candidates for interview. This paper focuses on the perspectives of managers involved in those trials. Because both agencies used similar approaches, the managers' responses have been pooled into a single sample. Prior studies of discrimination in employment have involved field experiments in which managers compared matched sets of hypothetical applications. Our qualitative data set provided a unique opportunity to explore the experiences of managers tasked with evaluating anonymised applications in a real-world setting. It is important to note that our aim was not to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of anonymisation, but to understand how managers perceived the logic of this approach as a gender equality strategy.\nManagers' perceptions of anonymised screening: Uncertainty; self-control\nManagers' perceptions of organisational priorities: External commitment to equity\nDiscussion: Organisations around the world have adopted anonymous application procedures to reduce the impact of biases in recruitment, with mixed results (Joseph, 2016; Krause et al., 2012b). This paper goes some way towards explaining why anonymous recruitment might fail to improve shortlisting outcomes for women and other target groups by demonstrating that, in the absence of explicit signals (e.g. names), managers look for implicit signals to categorise applicants by gender. Building on the emergent literature examining signalling theory in recruitment, we also found that managers make inferences about applicants' genders based on stereotyped assumptions about employment patterns and communication styles. Although anonymisation removes explicit gender signals from applications, it is not necessarily sufficient to eliminate the stereotypes associated with gender.\nConclusion: The aim of anonymous recruitment is to reduce discrimination in the initial screening of job applications, and by extension, increase equity and diversity in the workplace. This objective depends on the assumption that discrimination exists in standard hiring practices, and that discrimination is based on information that can be eliminated through anonymisation. This paper finds that, although anonymisation excludes explicit signals, managers actively seek out implicit cues in applications, and in so doing, use stereotypes about gendered employment patterns and communication styles to inform their decisions. Moreover, the managers in our sample saw anonymous recruitment as a disempowering and inconsistent way of promoting equity, provoking cynicism about the organisation's motives. Our findings suggest that organisations need to consider their internal contexts, including gender equality policy development and implementation, before adopting anonymous recruitment procedures.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Anonymous recruitment seeks to limit managers' reliance on stereotypes in employment decisions, thereby reducing discrimination. This paper aims to explore how managers interpret the information embedded in anonymised job applications and how they interpret the organisational priorities driving the adoption of anonymous recruitment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews with 30 managers in two Australian public sector organisations were analysed.\nFindings: The results showed that managers used implicit signals and cues to infer the gender identities of applicants in anonymised applications, reintroducing the possibility of bias. Managers perceived that anonymous recruitment sent positive external signals to prospective employees but were sceptical about its effectiveness.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results showed that removing applicants' names and identifying information from applications may not be sufficient to reduce bias. In organisations where managers are sympathetic to equity and diversity issues, use of anonymous recruitment may provoke resentment if managers perceive organisational distrust or inconsistent objectives. Limitations regarding the size and nature of the sample are acknowledged.\nPractical implications: Organisations seeking to reduce gender discrimination in recruitment may consider adopting standardised application procedures or training managers to understand how stereotypes affect evaluations. Organisations should also assess managerial support for, and understanding of, anonymous recruitment prior to implementation.\nOriginality/value: The findings add to existing knowledge regarding the effects of implicit gender signals in managers' assessments and the effectiveness of anonymous recruitment in reducing gender bias. It also contributes to signalling theory by examining how managers interpret the signals conveyed in organisational policies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining information and communication technology (ICT) adoption in SMEs: A dynamic capabilities approach	[ "Dynamic capabilities", "Adoption", "Emerging ICT", "Small service SMEs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption study is often considered as one of the most mature streams in information systems (IS) research (Brown et al., 2010). This is explained by the availability of cognate theories (e.g. Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980, Davis, 1989; Rogers, 1983; Thong, 1999; Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990), which have been applied in different contexts. Although considerable ICT adoption studies used traditional and utilitarian theories, the diversity of such studies in terms of theory and methodology is low (Eze et al., 2014). Mcafee (2006) accused most adoption studies of relying so much on determinism as if ICT adoption is predictable, straightforward, static and one-off event devoid of uncertainties. Often the theories focus on factors affecting adoption decision at one decision point and under-mind the interplay of the same or different factors as decisions progress (Eze et al., 2011, 2014; Eze, 2013). Scholars assume that most prominent adoption theories are techno-economic and deterministic (Lawrence, 2010; Al-Natour and Benbasat, 2009; Benbasat and Zmud, 2003); they focus attention extensively on distinct roles and some stable characteristics of technology with the least attempt to handle the growing complexities of organizational life.\n2. UK service SMEs: Small enterprises are key informal socio-economic drivers (Mutuala and Brakel, 2006) and service sector plays pivotal role (Parellada et al., 2011). In most economies, small businesses are expected to grow even more prominently in the near future (Lee, 2004) following governments' encouragement in this digital era. In European Union and other western countries, small businesses represent about 99 percent of all businesses; they provide entrepreneurial skills, offer about 70 percent employment opportunities and provide innovation and gross added value of about 70 percent (Lindermann et al., 2009; Castro et al., 2010). Scholars (Martin and Halstead, 2004; Tilley and Tonge, 2003; Ritchies and Brindley, 2005) opine that since Bolton Report of 1971 in UK, small sector enterprises significantly drive the economy; contributing about 59 percent of GDP and providing regional and local developments. However, the emergence of globalization sets the main difference between the past and the future of service-oriented enterprises (Milla and Choi, 2011). This factor as well as global changes such as climate and environmental sustainability tied with the shift toward techno-economic paradigms such as ICT is pivotal in every business.\n3. Methods: This study used interpretivist approach to gain in-depth examination into the dynamic and evolutionary process of EICT adoption in UK small service SMEs. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate rounds with participants drawn from Crunch Online Data Base and Luton Business Directory. The participating outfits were selected based on the following predetermined criteria - they must have adopted a new ICT platforms in the last three years; they must be service orientated; staff strength must range from 1 to 250; and they must be operating in England. Since anti-positivist research tradition emphasizes the discovery and explanation of people's experiences (Schultze and Avital, 2011) and not statistical generalization, purposeful random sampling and snowball sampling were adopted. Snowball sampling was adopted because the initial interviewees introduced other key informants who took part in the interviews.\n4. Findings and discussion: The adoption of EICT involves a number of processes; to understand how small businesses constantly keep up with such applications involves unraveling situations that shape the entire process through the respondents' own narratives.\n5. Conclusion and implications: This paper advances ICT adoption research and practice by studying small businesses from evolutionary and dynamic process perspectives via the concept of dynamic capability. The concept of dynamic capability provides insight into the dynamic and interactive nature of emerging ICT adoption. It is a powerful and explanatory framework that reveals key capabilities involved in EICT at each stage and why and how these factors vary across stages. However, the outcome of literature review led to the adoption of Teece and Pisano's (1994) dynamic capability framework (integration, learning and reconfiguration) as well as attempts to reveal key capabilities involved in adoption process. The capabilities include problem assessment, concept generation and evaluation, concept specification, role delegation, misalignment and alignment of interest, product trial, product modification adaptation and problem redefinition. These aided the understanding that EICT adoption process in small business context is not a one-off event, constant or straightforward instead, it is an ongoing, interactive and dynamic process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Since the 1980s, a substantial number of theories have contributed extensively to information and communication technology (ICT) adoption. Much of such theories regarded ICT adoption as a one-off action as they specifically focus on factors affecting decision making at one decision point. They tend to play down on the fact that as adoption decision progresses through stages, they are supposedly influenced by the same or different factors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic process of ICT adoption using the concepts of dynamic capabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used qualitative approach to gain in-depth insight into the dynamic and evolutionary process of emerging information and communication technology (EICT) adoption in UK small service SMEs. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate rounds with 26 participants drawn from Crunch Online Data Base and Luton Business Directory. The participants were selected from a sample of 65 drawn from extended classification of professional service businesses proposed by Ramsey et al. (2008). They include managers, government agencies, SMEs consultants and IT vendors; and then purposeful random sampling and snowball sampling were used.\nFindings: The study developed a framework from the concept of dynamic capabilities and found that using the concept of dynamic capabilities to examine the process of EICT adoption helps to unveil the recursive nature of the process and how the factors vary at both single and multiple stages of adoption.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is limited by its focus and other factors. Studying the opinions of small service UK SMEs limits the power of generalizing the identified causal relationships; therefore, extended measures are required on accounts of environmental, cultural, geographical and sectoral differences. While some errors seemed unavoidable when measures appear subjective and prone to common error biases, the study advised on recognizing the over-riding influence of the factor(s) at each stage of the adoption process in order to be proactive in committing resources.\nOriginality/value: This work focuses on emerging ICT adoption in SMEs from the dynamic and evolutionary process perspective using the concept of dynamic capability. It advances ICT adoption research by developing a framework to depict that ICT is not a one-off event, rather it is dynamic and interactive in nature and factors influencing adoption vary from one stage or the other.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Value appropriation in business exchange - literature review and future research opportunities	[ "Value", "Research agenda", "Value creation", "Literature review", "Business exchange", "Value appropriation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: The concepts of value creation and appropriation are tightly connected. Companies create value in relationships with customers and suppliers and in order to compete they must actively appropriate some of this value for themselves (Blois, 2004; Mizik and Jacobson, 2003). The most basic expression of value is the difference between the benefits received and the sacrifices made (Anderson et al., 1993; Walter et al., 2001; Zeithaml, 1988). Value creation can be defined as \"the process whereby the capabilities of partners in a supply chain are combined such that the competitive advantage of the supply chain relationship (or one or more of the partners) is improved\" (Hammervoll, 2009, p. 222). The created value may not be symmetrically distributed between the parties, as indicated in the final part of this definition. This asymmetry directs attention to the parties' deliberate, direct, and active efforts aimed at appropriating value in business exchange.\nMethodology: In this conceptual study, we apply an exploratory and iterative literature review research approach to meet our stated purpose and answer our research questions. Upon uncovering the dominant research streams and key writings, we provide an overview and conceptual discussion of the characteristics of VA, which sets the stage for suggesting future research opportunities. Our starting point was the overall management literature, but with an emphasis on those parts concerned with business exchange. In this research, a literature is understood as the aggregate collection of writings related to a specific field or topic, while a literature stream is a smaller subset of the literature, focused on a certain context, topic, concept or the like. The research process began with an extensive search through academic databases covering the field of management, including Business Source Complete and Proquest, as well as specific publisher databases such as Emerald, Science Direct, JSTOR, and Sage Journals Online. The following search terms were applied in combination and in different grammatical forms: value, rent, appropriation, claiming, capturing, and sharing. We knew that these terms were the most prevalent in VA research from earlier reading before the initiation of the review.\nLiterature review on value appropriation: The review process described above allowed us to establish an overview of the predominant VA characteristics and understanding for each identified stream. Table I provides an overview of the most important and representative VA writings from each stream, including their main findings and contributions.\nDiscussion: The five streams essentially address the same overall phenomenon, namely how companies extract value from their business exchanges with customer and suppliers. However, delving into the details of the streams reveals that they are actually to some extent concerned with different managerial problems. Each stream is associated with a specific analytical focus, external opponents, objectives, aims, setting, relational perspective, and a set of VA mechanisms. Hence, although some similarities and overlaps exist, the streams differ on one or more of the dimensions in Table II.\nFuture research: In the sections below, we propose four areas of future research, aimed at alleviating some of the shortcomings of the extant literature. The review has enabled us to point to gaps in the extant literature and the four areas all represent such gaps. Moreover, they are critical gaps in the sense that several of the reviewed writings point to them, either deliberately or through examples, cases or the like, as key aspects of value appropriation where research needs to be undertaken. The overview in the findings section and Table II provide the basis for the four suggested future research areas.\nManagerial implications: Value appropriation is as important to the strategy and success of the firm as value creation. Yet the subsuming of value appropriation into the exchange process, so that it occurs merely as a by-product of value creation, has resulted in downplaying the importance of managerial thinking and action dealing directly with VA. In other instances, it appears difficult for managers to avoid excessive use of VA mechanisms. The review of the industrial marketing and alliances literature streams provided examples of overemphasizing creation, while the justice and negotiation streams showed the problems with excessive appropriation. To obtain a balance between the two, managers must learn to understand the complex interrelationship between appropriation and creation.\nConclusion: Like value creation, value appropriation lies at the core of a firm's success. Successful VA secures profits, which allows companies to invest in new technologies, resources, business relationships etc., improving the firm's competitive advantage. Business exchange managers must therefore master both value creation and appropriation processes and activities, as a one-sided focus on value creation or appropriation does not guarantee successful business exchange. This article has reported on a research project where the management literature emphasizing business exchange was reviewed to identify literature streams dealing with VA. Industrial marketing, justice, negotiation, resource-based-view, and strategic alliances were identified as the most central streams. By comparing the streams, it appears that some opportunities exist for research inspiration and learning across the streams. However, it is also clear that the streams deal with VA as different management problems, involving diverse mechanisms, analytical foci, and objectives. Detailed analysis, discussion, and comparison between the streams have provided an overview and guidance for researchers aiming to study VA. To assist researchers further and motivate future research, we have framed four promising future research areas. In addition to calling for research on the mechanisms of VA, we also suggest research on the connection between network position and VA possibilities, between the exchange relationship and VA, and between time and VA.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Value appropriation is a central, yet neglected aspect in business exchange research. The purpose of the paper is to generate an overview of research on active value appropriation in business exchange and provide the foundation for further research into value appropriation, as well as some initial guidance for managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Literatures investigating value appropriation were identified by the means of a systematic review of the overall management literature.\nFindings: The authors provide an overview and comparison of the literatures and find that they apply diverse understandings of the value appropriation process and emphasize different mechanisms and outcomes of value appropriation.\nResearch limitations/implications: Based on the literature comparison and discussion, in combination with inspiration from alternative business exchange literature, the authors propose four areas with high potential for future research into value appropriation: network position effects, appropriation acts and behaviors, buyer-seller relationship effects, and appropriation over time.\nPractical implications: Boundary spanning managers acting in industrial markets must master the difficult balance between value creation and appropriation. This review has provided an overview of the many managerial options for value appropriation and created knowledge on the effects of the various appropriation mechanisms enabling managers to secure company rents while not jeopardizing value creation.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, this paper represents the first attempt at reviewing the management literature on value appropriation in business exchange. The authors provide overview, details, comparisons, and frame a research agenda as a first step towards establishing value appropriation as a key phenomenon in business exchange research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Patients' perspectives of emergency care quality and priorities for care improvement	[ "Evidence-based practice", "Ghana", "Healthcare quality", "Patient perspectives", "Emergency care", "Management", "Quality", "Quantitative research", "Prehospitalised", "Inhospital" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A critical component of healthcare delivery in the hospital setting relates to handling emergency cases with receptiveness to avoid fatalities. Compared to other units in the hospital, the emergency department is often faced with the daunting task of applying medically appropriate methods of providing initial resuscitation and stabilisation to critical patients in order to save lives. Therefore, there is growing concern that the emergency department should not lack needed human and clinical resources if mortalities associated with acute medical, surgical and obstetric conditions are to be reduced. However, in some low and middle income countries (LMICs), especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), emergency care is not given priority in public health policies (Anderson et al., 2012; Periyanayagam et al., 2012).\nConceptualising quality of emergency care: Scholars contributing to quality of emergency care have somewhat failed to converge on its component measures. Different interpretations are given to the discipline, perhaps, because indicators of quality of emergency care are context specific (Cameron et al., 2011). The nonexistence of universal measures of high-priority quality of emergency care tends to prevent cross regional and country comparisons and benchmarking. Despite the variations, there is some consensus that quality of emergency care should reflect the broad spectrum of prehospital and inhospital care (Kobusingye et al., 2005; Razzak and Kellermann, 2002).\nMethodology: Study setting\nAnalysis: The SPSS version 21 was used to analyse the data. The analysis was done by the first author and reviewed by a biostatistician. Descriptive statistics were used to present demographic characteristics of respondents and the number of admission days. To answer the first research question, we employed principal component analysis (PCA) with orthogonal (varimax) rotation. This statistical technique helped reduce the many number of items of the questionnaire and classified them into discrete fewer factors measuring quality of emergency care (Field, 2009; Pallant, 2010). The factor structure of the PCA was strong because of a higher Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.818. Similarly, the Bartlett's Sphericity test was statistically significant (p<0.01).\nResults: Results in Table I show that the majority of the respondents were males (53.8 per cent), married (56.2 per cent) and employed in the public sector (36.1 per cent). The mean age of the patients was 36 years and average admission days was 6. A large proportion of the respondents (17.2 per cent) presented with obstetrical-related conditions, 15 per cent with RTAs, 11.3 per cent with diarrhoea related and the least number (8.4 per cent) with bronchial asthma (Figure 1).\nDiscussion: The study's findings reflect those linking quality of emergency care to human and structural factors (El Sayed, 2012). The health provider dimension appeared in this study as a significant indicator measure of quality. Patients in this study were concerned with the social and relational aspects of emergency care. They wanted health providers to be supportive, respectful and empathetic in the care-giving process (Atinga et al., 2015). The findings also suggest that quality of emergency care is not only linked to having the right health professional skill mix, but also their ability to interact more with patients in the care process (Grossmann-Kendall et al., 2001). Patient-provider interaction is important as it enable cross sharing of ideas and clinical decisions, and fosters better therapeutic outcomes (Dibbelt et al., 2009). Thus rather than focusing primarily on the patient's condition management, health providers must seek better ways of giving patients the opportunity to share their concerns, ask questions and be part of critical clinical decision making (Atinga et al., 2016). This would require having understanding of patients' cultural orientation so that social and language barriers can be bridged. Respect for the patient emerged as a critical factor of social and relational care. Patients need to be dignified and esteemed if clinical outcomes are to have strong and positive therapeutic effect (Chadwick, 2012). Hence, health providers, including doctors and nurses, need to rethink new attitudes and practice that embrace the patient, and recognising him or her as an important partner in the clinical setting.\nConclusion and practice implications: The significance of providing quality emergency care has taken on added urgency in recent years with the impetus of policy initiatives across SSA. Within the Ghanaian context, policy tools have prioritised strengthening institutional training programmes and improvement of the technical aspect of quality (Carter et al., 2012; Tiska et al., 2004). Some health facilities are also assisted to implement best practice functional quality of care drawn primarily from the prevailing wisdom of western countries. Although a novel initiative, the importation of western elements can be remote from local contextual underpinnings. Second, they might be less accurate than implementing hospital-based quality improvement initiatives drawn from patients.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Studies have examined strategies implemented to strengthen quality of emergency care in healthcare provider institutions in Ghana. But few studies have focused on what determines quality of emergency care from the patient's perspective. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap by examining factors salient to gauging quality of emergency care and priority areas for care improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Cross-sectional data were collected from patients admitted in emergency units of public hospitals in two regions: Greater Accra and Central Regions. A structured questionnaire designed with inputs from emergency medicine physicians and patients was used to collect data from 381 patients. Principal component analysis (PCA) and logistic regression models were computed to respectively determine salient measures of emergency care quality and their association with patient overall perceived quality of emergency care.\nFindings: Using the PCA, four factors (social and relational care, attentive prehospitalised care, ward quality and privacy and medical supplies) were derived as salient measures of emergency care quality. All the factors derived had statistically significant association with patient overall perception of quality.\nOriginality/value: Emergency care quality improvement strategies that incorporate the dimensions identified can produce effective therapeutic outcomes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Demarcation and levels of analysis in knowledge based development	[ "Knowledge management", "Knowledge mapping" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: When we speak of the knowledge economy as a \"new game\" we imply - in terms of formal game theory - that new boundaries, new elements and new rules apply. New boundaries because the blend of natural phenomena involved in value production and distribution have shifted from a predominantly physical realm (matter, energy, products and their monetary substitutes[1]) to a predominantly psychological realm (e.g. ideas, emotions, relations, cultural creations and all other knowledge capital). New elements because land, natural resources, muscular strength/dexterity and material means of production like tools and equipment are now overweighted in terms of value addition by R&D, innovation, design, creativity and ICT-based means of production. New rules because the very physical base of agricultural and industrial production determined economic realities such as diminishing returns, exclusive property, limited distribution, that even if permanent, are no longer dominant. While the new value dynamics for knowledge-based organizations (i.e. a knowledge-based theory of the firm) and societies (i.e. a theory of knowledge-based development) is mostly unknown, physics-based economics is plagued with the kind of contradictions, paradoxes and explanatory constraints that throughout the history of science and ideas call for a re-definition of the field.\nSynthetic demarcation: Determining the boundaries of a field is in fact an act of definition. In these special issues, two contrasting views of KBD have already been identified (Carrillo, 2006). On the one hand, KBD can be, and most often is regarded as an increase in monetary mass resulting from technological and educational-based productivity. On the other hand, KBD begins to be characterized as a dynamic equilibrium between all common value elements in a community, socio-cultural as well as physical and financial. Such definitions are based on an implicit or explicit axiological base epistemologically and politically grounded. The conceptual models, analytical categories, measurement units and resulting data and indices can be located at either of these perspectives or somewhere in between. In this context, I have advocated a radical approach to KBD, defined as the deliberate, balanced and systematic development of a community's overall value base. The focus of such approach is to characterize a distinctive contribution of the KBD concept, otherwise diluted - and therefore render redundant - into peripheral pre-existing concepts such as economic growth, regional development, urban planning, etc. This in turn leads to a definition of the subfield of Knowledge Cities as \"a permanent settlement of relative higher rank in which citizenship undertakes a deliberate, systematic attempt to identify and develop its capital system in a balanced, sustainable manner\" (Carrillo, 2004)). Again, this radical definition departs from transitional concepts such as technopoles, clusters, innovation regions, digital cities, etc., where social knowledge capital is valued insofar it might be instrumental to economic growth.\nAnalytic demarcation: An inductive or single-case demarcation is required to determine the location of a specific instance within the dimensional coordinates of a given field. In the current and still embryonic years of KBD, a natural practice has been to associate a specific case - policy, program, model - to the closest subsidiary discipline. The annual JKM special issue on KBD has intended to serve as a platform to display the rich contributions of disciplines such as: Economics (new or endogenous growth theory, knowledge-based production, behavioral and evolutionary economics, new theory of the firm); Urban studies and planning (new urbanism and urban environmentalism); Geography (human geography, knowledge flows and territoriality); Neuroscience (including the artificial intelligence and nanotechnology convergence); Psychology of science and technology (from social cognition through accelerated innovation); Anthropology and sociology of knowledge (e.g. identity and cohesion); Social studies of science; Political economy of knowledge and technology; Innovation management; ICTs; and of course, Knowledge management (KM). A major purpose of the annual special issue has been to bridge these tributary fields through interdisciplinary approaches. How these fields interrelate and what new development perspectives may emerge out of their best integrations is still early to determine.The following example may provide some clues as to the direction that the integration of multiple disciplines contributing to KBD may take. In a recent attempt to visualize the overlaps between several fields related to collective intellectual capital (Carrillo, 2008)), a rather messy picture emerged describing actual instances of programs, publications and events (Figure 1).In trying to organize these instances into some fundamental scheme, a simplified picture emerged along three dimensions of knowledge-based value creation: individual, organizational and social (Figure 2). The arbitrary selection of these three dimensions and the central positioning of intellectual capital (IC) to organize the correspondence between events from other disciplines happening at each of these levels, helped categorize multiple and diverse KBD research studies. For instance, a field study on rural development through mobile computing programs focusing on farmers' competencies and motivations would involve mostly personal-level intellectual capital. A comparison of intra-organizational collaboration in medium size companies within an industrial sector would hit organizational-level IC. A research on regional capabilities for social innovation would correspond to social-level IC. This simplification is consistent with the radical approach to KBD mentioned earlier.Through several such exercises it is possible to eventually arrive at a simple and fundamental set of dimensions, even if at an exploratory, pre-empirical stage. The question, with regard to KBD, being \"What are the fundamental dimensions in the field?\" If we are trying to understand and leverage knowledge-based value creation \"What are the fundamental coordinates?\"According to a characterization of scientific fields of study (Carrillo, 1983), there are three major breaking points in selecting levels of analysis and analytical units: discreteness, duration and extension. While duration and extension obviously refer to space and time continua, discreteness refers to aggregation level of events. The extent to which these generic dimensions apply to the categorization of knowledge-based events might be arguable. On the other hand, KBD has a rather prominent spatial or territorial dimension.In trying to build a working taxonomy of KBD events, able to characterize all development initiatives, policies, programs, reports, publications, conferences, etc., related to the field, the following generic continua seem to work adequately: geopolitical, social, and cultural/economic. Figure 3 represents the intersection of KBD events across these three domains or continua.The Geopolitical continuum scales territorial and political demarcation. It provides KBD events with a spatial reference involving units going from the local (neighborhood, small village) through districts, counties, sub-national regions, states, nations, supranational regions and continents, to the planetary level (The Earth). Geography, political science, regional and urban studies share a major involvement in KBD spatial framing.The social continuum indicates the relative aggregation or discreteness of human collectives. Beyond the human pair demarcating social psychology and the organizational level corresponding to management science (and therefore KM), KBD starts at the inter-organizational level, to go through medium (urban), large (metropolitan, regional) and very large (country, cross-country) communities, ending up at the maximum human aggregation, i.e. mankind or the global community. Social psychology, sociology and anthropology are of particular relevance throughout this continuum.Finally, the knowledge intensity continuum provides a more distinctive dimension to KBD. This dimension involves processes of collective or social response to represented realities (ideas, emotions and subsequent cultural objects). Such processes can be approached from a meaning perspective (Culture) or value perspective (Economics). In fact, these perspectives tend to merge in the radical approach to KBD mentioned above. Knowledge intensity begins at low quantity an quality (analyzing a single knowledge process at a basic level of expression, such as cross-company standardized IP transactions), continues through medium-level of intensity such as multi-process initiatives (most of KBD programs/studies), ending at the maximum expression of all collective knowledge-meaning or value (e.g. a utopian World IC Program). In dealing with this dimension, knowledge management, economics and semiotics become prominent.Table I instantiates several aspects for each of these continua and their corresponding dimensions.The descriptive capacity and usability of this analytical framework has yet to be tested. Refinements or entirely new frameworks are bound to emerge as progress is made in KBD models and techniques. For the time being, this distinction may help manage policies, programs, conferences and editorial practices. To an extent, it is a response to the need for demarcation criteria in several KBD applied and research initiatives. \"Are reputed KBD urban or national policies actually knowledge-based ones?\" \"Is this or is not a knowledge city (KC)?\" \"What range of projects are eligible to a KBD fund?\" \"Does a particular paper belong into a given KBD publication?\" \"Should categories be set for a KBD award and if so which ones?\" \"How could contributions to a conference be systematically grouped?\"By using both the KBD synthetic demarcation criterion (either transitional or radical) discussed above and the analytic demarcation continua later introduced, most of these questions can be reasonably and practically settled. Yet, the current momentum in KBD and Knowledge Cities applied and conceptual production will increasingly demand sharper and more effective categorizations.\nThe papers: This year's selection of papers provides a case in point in KBD diversity and depth. To begin with, a couple of papers contribute a state-of-the-art perspective on perhaps the most distinctive KBD category of analysis: KCs. First, Ergazakis, Ergazakis, Metaxiotis and Charalabidis - who have previously identified a number of key KCs factors- introduce an updated framework incorporating further cases and hypotheses. Next, Yigitcanlar - who also builds on a number of prior contributions to the KBD literature - examines global best practices in knowledge-based urban development, identifying success patterns. These two papers together provide an updated review of the literature and a comparative framework of models and practices for KCs design and development.In the following block, three papers analyze diverse organizational-level knowledge processes having an impact on social-level value dynamics. Zapata Cantu, Rialp Criado and Rialp Criado look at two distinct moments - generation and transfer of knowledge - in information technology-related SMEs in Barcelona, while Rivera-Vazquez, Ortiz-Fournier and Rogelio Flores assess cultural barriers for innovation and knowledge sharing in Puerto Rico. Next, Mohamed, Stankosky and Mohamed empirically substantiate the role of knowledge management for innovation, prioritization and efficient use of resources in developing countries. Interdependencies between economic, social and cultural aspects of knowledge-based business performance become apparent through these studies.From a territorial standpoint, two studies on European knowledge regions provide complementary perspectives. Firstly, Lerro and Schiuma analyze the knowledge dimensions grounding regional development dynamics in the case of the Basilicata region, Second, Messeni Petruzzelli, Albino and Carbonara look at how external competencies and capabilities are reached and acquired by means of organizational and cognitive proximity in the technology districts of Toulouse and Castel Romano. Both studies converge in emphasizing the role of knowledge capital dimensions in regional development.Moving on to a national/sector level, Sharma and Goswami look at the absorptive capacity of companies in Indian pharmaceutical industry and the importance of their reaching for tacit knowledge and enhancing the knowledge stock by absorbing and assimilating external R&D. Next, Chou and Passerini take us to an international perspective of a particular knowledge process by analyzing the collaborative and competitive dynamics of intellectual property rights across countries.Further on, at the level of whole national and international KBD policies, Batra examines recent initiatives to revitalize the national education and skill development systems in India, while Dang and Umemoto undertake a generalized national capability approach to KBD. Finally, Sharma, Samuel and Ng look at the design of KBD policy analysis for overcoming the digital divide.Overall, this selection of papers provides an good sample of the multiple levels involved in KBD, from the interorganizational to the multinational, from the local to the global, from single value dimensions to systemic models. Further research elicited by these studies might lead to a sharper demarcation of KBD and to continually improved analytical constructs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify viable demarcation criteria for knowledge based development (KBD) with reference to current concepts and practices, as an introduction to the JKM 2009 annual special issue on KBD.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Outlines viable demarcation criteria for KBD with reference to current concepts and practices.\nFindings: - A synthetic demarcation based on collective knowledge capital mapping and balancing, together with an analytic demarcation based on three continua: territoriality, discreteness and knowledge-intensity may help characterize and manage all KBD categories. Such demarcation includes conceptual categories such as models and units of analysis as well as practical categories such as policies, programs, publications and events.\nOriginality/value: - Synthetic demarcation may contribute to clarify the nature of KBD and systematically differentiate research and practice belonging to the field. Analytic demarcation may contribute to develop a systematic taxonomy of conceptual and practical KBD categories.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers to progress in learning - a global convergence of concern?	[ "Training", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Convincing managers that training is good for business, motivating people to learn and making sure that the training is relevant for all groups are just some of the challenges trainers from across the globe. This is one of the main conclusions to emerge from our major research project.\nMajor themes from workshop sessions: Developing a learning culture\nThe way forward for the trainer: This is a summary of part of the research that has underpinned the CIPD research project on the \"Changing world of the trainer\". What these sessions have done is to reveal the barriers that prevent the building of an effective learning culture. How this recognition can help to contribute to the formulation of a training strategy can only be understood in the context of the wider CIPD research on training and learning.Here our core argument is that new competitive models demand a different approach to the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Importantly the emphasis has shifted from training to learning and the role of professional development becomes learner rather than trainer-centred. This necessitates creating a different set of relationships with managers and employees across the organisation. Although the interventions must depend in the nature of the business, the role of the people development professional has become one of \"Supporting, accelerating and directing learning interventions that meet organisational needs and are appropriate to the learner and the context\".People developer is therefore to be preferred as a term to describe the job role. Training should no longer be seen as a discrete set of activities round a course or similar event. The activities required to bring about more effective learning must involve the wider human resource and management community; they do not just lie in the domain of the trainer. The job is no longer centred on what happens in the training-room - though off-the-job classroom training still has an important role to play. Instead the people development professional must address and overcome a series of inter-related organisational challenges and thus create a more effective learning culture.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to examine the issues raised in the provision of training\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Examines the outcomes of workshop sessions held between October 2005 and June 2006.\nFindings: - An analysis of the data shows how people developers see themselves as facing common problems. The same issues arose irrespective of business circumstances and, seemingly, location.\nOriginality/value: - This is a summary of part of the research that has underpinned the CIPD research project on the \"Changing world of the trainer\". What these sessions have done is to reveal the barriers that prevent the building of an effective learning culture. How this recognition can help to contribute to the formulation of a training strategy can only be understood in the context of the wider CIPD research on training and learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Applying the 3-layer approach to urban flood management	[ "Manmade disaster", "Delta urbanism", "Flood management", "Layer approach", "Storm water", "Urban drainage" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1. Problem statement\n2. Method: 2.1. Scope\n3. Results: This three-layer model reveals that the manmade landscape had important effect on freshets in downtown Pingtung. The layer examination shows that the natural path of the runoff has been changed substantially in the past 100 years by the dikes and the radial-grid road system, which is the main factor to induce the clogging of storm water in downtown area. The portraits of three layers are as follows.\n4. Discussion: Although the concept of roadway drainage is cost-effective, it could not be applied without considering some special conditions. The following tips and further improvements of this technology need to be considered.\n5. Conclusion: Based on exploration of the interrelations between the three layers - natural landscape, infrastructure and occupation - the following three main conclusions can be drawn.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find the possibility of extending the capacity of urban drainage in highly urbanized cities with limited available space for flood management, while the anticipated increase in extreme rainfall is expected to raise the demand for higher capacity of water drainage or storage systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The concept of the three-layer approach is introduced to identify the crucial factors which had impacted the historical change of natural water system. These factors can further help identifying potential spaces for new designs of flood management based on the spatial context of local history.\nFindings: In Pingtung case, a roadway surface drainage design is found as a complementary strategy by this method, which could effectively and practically extend the capacity of urban drainage without the need for requisitioning private lands or rearranging the complicated underground pipe and cable systems.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is an initial exploration from the perspective of urbanism to respond to hydrological problems under the impact of extreme rainfall. The more precise hydrologic simulation need to be further established.\nPractical implications: This concept could be applied in delta cities to improve urban drainage by three steps: first, clarify the flooding problems; second, identify the available space; third, redesign hydrologic instrument with a multi-use of urban space.\nOriginality/value: This research provides hydrologists and urban planners with a practical collaboration base for the issues of extreme storm events.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Business interaction between competitors - towards a model for analyzing strategic alliances	[ "Business relationships", "Strategic alliances", "Horizontal relationships", "Industrial marketing", "Interaction processes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Relationship-based approaches have been describing the business environment for the past decades (Dwyer et al., 1987; Stump and Sriram, 1997). A business relationship has been defined by Holmlund and Tornroos (1997, p. 304) as an \"interdependent process of continuous interaction and exchange between at least two actors.\" Interaction is regarded to be the essence of intercompany relationships. It entails reciprocal behavior between at least two actors involved in the relationship. Moreover, exchange of some kind is always present, in the form of transfer of a product, service, communication, comprising both intangible (e.g. social, psychological) and tangible entities (Bagozzi, 1975).\nA model for analysis of horizontal relationships: Several research efforts have been made for a better understanding of interactions and relationships. This theoretical model for the horizontal relationships analysis builds upon concepts and frameworks of vertical relationship interaction. It is mainly supported by models developed by Hakansson et al. (1982), Campbell (1985), Moller and Wilson (1995) and Baptista (2013). Yet, several models, such as those developed by Ruekert and Walker Jr (1987), Wilson and Moller (1988), Metcalf et al. (1992), Wren and Simpson (1996) or Leonidou et al. (2006), were also taken in consideration.\nMethodological challenges: Four methodological challenges associated with model testing, context coping, sampling and time tackling are foreseen. These challenges and ways to overcome them are put forward. First, since we present a tight model, heavily supported by literature, the model can be tested deductively or abductively. Yet, it is suggested that through an abductive reasoning, the proposed model can be better explained.\nTheoretical and research implications: The development of theoretical frameworks and models is fundamental to the understanding of phenomena. The purpose of this paper has been to develop a model, within the IMP perspective, that explains business interactions between competitors. It is expected that new and relevant insights of intercompetitor relationships are unfolded by addressing the interaction between parties.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the intercompetitor relationships response to the contextual developments, the interaction processes between participants and the relationship nature and outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model to study intercompetitor strategic alliances, within the theoretical realm of business relationships and industrial networks, is proposed. Methodological challenges related to this phenomenon are put forward and manners to overcome them are suggested.\nFindings: The proposed model encompasses four components: interaction context, relationship nature, interaction processes and relationship outcomes. The specificities of intercompetitor interaction are considered, leading to the inclusion of the relationship nature's dimension that tackles the coopetition character of such relationships. Further, since the relational aspects of the relationship are highlighted, in relation to the economic exchanges' characteristic of vertical relationships, it is expected, in the horizontal business interactions, that coordination processes prevail over adaptation processes.\nOriginality/value: Strategic alliances established between competitors are a growing phenomenon that may entail many benefits to those involved in these relationships. Still, business interactions between competitors are not sufficiently investigated and conceptualized. It is argued that an enlarged view of intercompetitor relationships is attained by using a dyadic and network perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimal inspection and preventive maintenance policy for systems with self-announcing and non-self-announcing failures	[ "Preventive maintenance", "Inspection", "Failure (mechanical)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Numerous works have been published on the problem of inspecting randomly failing equipment (see the surveys of Valdez-flores and Feldman (1989) and Wang (2002)). The great majority of inspection models seek to derive the inspection instants at which the equipment must be inspected optimizing an overall cost of operation or the equipment availability.Inspection models throughout the literature can be classified according to several criteria. The most important are: the inspection effect on the equipment (whether or not the inspection actions affect the deterioration process of the system), the inspection quality (whether or not inspections may fail and give incorrect results - perfect or imperfect inspections), the inspection frequency (periodic or non-periodic inspections), the inspection sequence (dynamic models defined over a finite horizon or stationary models defined over an infinite time span), the equipment structure (single component or multi-component system), the equipment failure detection type (non self-announcing failures, or a mixture of self-announcing and non-self-announcing failures), and finally the adopted performance criterion (total expected cost or equipment availability or the expected equipment lifetime, etc.).Most of inspection models consider systems with non-self-announcing failures (Nakagawa and Yasui, 1991; Vaurio, 1999; Chelbi and Ait-Kadi, 2000). Few authors like Gertsbakh (1977), Badia et al. (2002) and Baohe (2002) have worked on systems whose failures are sometimes self-announcing and sometimes non-self-announcing. Imperfect inspections causing false alarms or undetected failures have been considered in several works (Bukowski, 2001; Gertsbakh, 2000; Badia et al., 2002). Situations where inspections have the potential of being harmful to the system under consideration have been addressed by other authors like Wattanapanom and Shaw (1976), Chung-Kuang and Butler (1983), Chelbi and Ait-Kadi (1997), and Dieulle (2002). Inspection models become more complex when considering multi-component systems with economic and/or stochastic dependencies (Castanier et al., 2004).In this paper, we consider a randomly failing single unit system whose failures may be self-announcing or not self-announcing. This is often the case for productive equipment alternating operating and inactive periods. Failures are detected as soon as they occur while the system is in an operating phase, whereas they can be detected only through inspection while in the idle phase (non-self-announcing failures).The proposed strategy suggests submitting the system to inspection when its age reaches T units of time. If no failure is detected following inspection, a preventive maintenance action is performed. A corrective maintenance action is carried out following failure while the system is in operation, or following the detection of failure through inspection while the system is idle. It is assumed that inspections may fail and give mistaken results.Our objective is to determine the age T for inspection which maximizes the stationary availability of the system. A mathematical model is developed giving the expression of the stationary availability as a function of the decision variable T, considering the probability distribution associated to the system lifetime, the duration of the different maintenance actions, the probability to have a non-self-announcing failure and the probabilities to have a false alarm or an undetected failure.Conditions of existence and uniqueness of an optimal strategy are derived. Numerical examples are presented.The rest of this paper is organized as follows: in the next section we state the working assumptions and the used notation. In section 3, the mathematical model is presented. Existence and uniqueness conditions of an optimal policy are stated. The fourth section is dedicated to the discussion of some numerical results. Concluding remarks together with some indications about extensions currently under consideration are provided in the last section.\nAssumptions and notation: The following assumptions are made:* Preventive and corrective maintenance actions are perfectly performed. Each action restores the equipment to a state as good as new.* Failures are self-announcing or non-self-announcing in a random way.* Inspections are not perfect: a failure may remain undetected after an inspection or, on the contrary, it can be mistakenly concluded that a failure has occurred (false alarm).* Inspections do not affect the system deterioration process.* Non-self-announcing failures can only be detected by inspection.* The system lifetime probability distribution is supposed to be known.* The average durations of inspection and maintenance actions are known.* Up-time periods of the system correspond to periods during which the system is either operating during an operating phase or able to respond in case it is needed to operate during an idle phase.The following notation is adopted throughout the paper:F(t) System lifetime cumulative distribution function.f(t) System lifetime probability density function.R(t) System reliability function, R(t)=1-F(t).r(t) System failure rate.p Probability of non-self-announcing failure (probability to be in an idle period according to mission profile).a Probability of having a false alarm following inspection.b Probability of undetected failure following inspection.d 1/(1-b).Ti Mean duration of an inspection.Ta Mean duration of a preventive maintenance action.Tc Mean duration of a corrective maintenance action.Tf Average down-time of the system due to a false alarm.N1 Random number of inspections before failure.N2 Random number of inspections after failure until its detection.Nf Random number of false alarms.T System age for inspection and maintenance.T* Optimum age for inspection and maintenance.AV(T) System stationary availability.U(T) Mean up-time of the system (according to assumption 8) during a cycle (period between consecutive renewals).D(T) Mean down-time of the system during a cycle (period between consecutive renewals).\nThe mathematical model: Depending on whether failure is self-announcing or not, the period between consecutive corrective maintenance actions (which we will call renewal cycle) can be illustrated as follows (Figures 1 and 2):Notice that for the case of self-announcing failures (Figure 1), the maintenance strategy corresponds to an age replacement policy (Barlow and Proschan, 1965).Our objective is to determine the inspection and preventive maintenance interval T which maximizes the stationary availability of the system. This stationary availability, AV(T), is defined as the proportion of expected time during which the system is in an \"up\" state (as previously defined in assumption 8) over an infinite horizon.Considering a renewal cycle, AV(T) is given by: Equation 1 Taking into account the two types of failure: non self-announcing with probability p and self-announcing with probability (1-p), AV(T) can be expressed as follows: Equation 2 where U0(T) and D0(T) are respectively the mean up-time and the mean down-time of the system during a cycle in case failure is self-announcing; and U1(T) and D1(T) are respectively the mean up-time and the mean down-time during a cycle in case failure is non-self-announcing.Case of self-announcing failure\nNumerical examples: The following numerical examples are considered to illustrate our approach.Two system lifetime distribution functions (Normal and Weibull) with increasing failure rates, and three values of the proportion of non-self-announcing failures (p=0.1, p=0.5 and p=0.9) are considered. The corresponding optimum policies are denoted T1, T2 and T3* for each system lifetime distribution.We also consider the following values for the input parameters: a=0.003, b=0.005, Ti=0.05, Ta=0.1, Tc=0.6 Tf=0.3 time unit. These arbitrarily chosen values lead to C1=-0.495 and C2=0.646.1. Normal distribution (m,s): f(t)=1/2Ps exp [-1/2(t-m/s)2]. The obtained results for three different normal distributions are given in Table I and Figure 3.2. Weibull distribution f(t)=glgtg-1 exp [?]-(lt)g[?]\\;; g>0 \\;and \\;l>0 where g: Shape parameter; l: Scale parameter: Equation 23 The obtained results for three different Weibull distributions are given in Table II and Figure 4.The conditions stated in P2 (increasing failure rate and negative value of C1) being verified for each of the 18 considered examples, a finite and unique optimal strategy T* is obtained in each case.It is interesting to notice that in all cases, as the proportion p of non-self-announcing failures becomes larger, the system must be inspected more frequently (T* decreases) and the corresponding optimal availability level gets lower. It is also worth to mention that inspection and preventive maintenance period T* increases with the system mean time to failure.\nConclusion: This paper proposed an inspection and preventive maintenance policy for a single unit unreliable system that alternates operating and idle periods and which has self-announcing and non-self-announcing failures. This maintenance strategy consists in submitting the system to inspection when its age reaches T units of time. If no failure is detected following inspection, a preventive maintenance action is performed. A corrective maintenance action is carried out following failure while the system is in operation, or following the detection of failure through inspection while the system is idle. A mathematical model has been developed to derive the optimal strategy T* which maximizes the system stationary availability for given parameters such as the proportion p of non-self-announcing failures, the times to perform each maintenance action, the probability of false alarms and the probability of non detection of failure following inspection.It has been proven that, except for the case of only self-announcing failures (p=0), there always exists a finite optimal strategy T. Two sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of such an optimum were also derived.It has been shown, through several numerical examples, that as the proportion p of non-self-announcing failures becomes larger, the system must be inspected and preventively maintained more frequently.The effect of the parameters a and b related to the imperfectness of inspection on the optimal strategy is also being studied. Other extensions currently under consideration include situations involving a budget constraint.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to propose and model an inspection and preventive maintenance policy for randomly failing systems that alternate operating and idle periods according to their mission profile.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A maintenance policy is defined and modeled mathematically. The paper focuses on finding the age T for inspection which maximizes the stationary availability of the system.\nFindings: - Except for the case of only self-announcing failures, there always exists a finite optimal strategy T. Two sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of such an optimum are also derived.\nPractical implications: - Many productive systems alternate operating and inactive periods, their failures may be self-announcing or not self-announcing (detected only through inspection). This paper presents a maintenance strategy for such systems in order to maximize their stationary availability. The proposed strategy suggests submitting the system to inspection when its age reaches T units of time.\nOriginality/value: - This paper states a general expression of the system stationary availability which is considered as the performance criterion. Conditions of existence and uniqueness of an optimal strategy are developed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining factors that influence information disclosure on social network sites from the perspective of network externalities	[ "Subjective norms", "Social network sites", "Network externalities", "Perceived usefulness", "Information disclosure", "Habit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social networking sites (SNS) are increasingly becoming an essential part of the daily life of people and business organizations. Yet, this increasing popularity of SNS raises many concerns about individual self-disclosure on SNS, since SNS allow individuals to connect with others by creating a personal profile and sharing information, which consequently will encourage them to disclose personal information, such as hobbies and contact details (Trepte and Reinecke, 2013). Self-disclosure within the context of SNS can be defined as the process by which an individual shares personal information (such as feelings, thoughts and experiences) with others on his/her user's profile and also in the communication process with others (such as posting status updates) (Gool et al., 2015). Without revealing personal information, users of a social network site may not be able to learn about each other, which will affect the future growth and expansion of the site (Jia et al., 2010).\n2. Research model and hypotheses: This research investigates major constructs which influence information disclosure of SNS. The proposed research model in this study examines the effect of constructs of the network externalities on PU of SNS, which in turn will affect information disclosure. In addition, we propose that both habit and subjective norms will affect information disclosure. The theoretical framework is presented in Figure 1.\n3. Methodology development: 3.1 Instrument development and subjects\n4. Data analysis and results: All of the hypotheses in this study are based on latent variables; hence, structural equation modeling (SEM) seems the appropriate method of analysis (Lin and Worthley, 2012). The data analysis is conducted using the following two steps: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to determine the suitability of the proposed model to the data and to estimate the internal consistency (reliability), and the convergent and discriminant validity of the variables, and structural equation modeling (SEM) is calculated to validate the research model and hypotheses. In this study, we have used SPSS for the descriptive statistics and the reliability analysis of Cronbach's a. AMOS, a statistical software package for SEM (produced by SPSS), has been used to test the model fitness by performing CFA and SEM.\n5. Discussion: The success of a social network site depends on the amount of personal information users disclose in the site, since revealing personal information will increase the attractiveness and the effectiveness of the social network site to its users (Chen, 2013). This study sheds light on what motivates users to reveal personal information on SNS by examining the influence of the following critical factors on information disclosure in SNS in China: subjective norms, habit and PU. In addition, this study has examined how network externalities, represented by perceived network size and perceived complementarity, and perceived external prestige, can enhance users' PU of SNS.\n6. Implications and suggestions for future research: This study has several valuable implications. From a theoretical perspective, this research has identified the significant effects of perceived external prestige and perceived complementarity, as network externalities types, on the PU of SNS which in turn affects user disclosure of information on SNS. To our knowledge, this relationship has not been examined in the context of SNS, especially in China, thus, we believe that our results will enrich existing research on network externalities and improve our understanding of user disclosure of personal information on SNS. Future research can further examine network externalities in other contexts such as mobile messaging service.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a research framework by drawing on the network externalities research and previous literature on information systems to understand the antecedents of information disclosure. The framework postulates that the following network externalities are important factors affecting social network sites (SNS) perceived usefulness (PU): perceived external prestige, referent network size and perceived complementarity. In addition, the paper proposes that PU, habit and subjective norms significantly affect information disclosure of SNS among Chinese users.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are collected from 251 Chinese university students who use SNS. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses presented in the model.\nFindings: The findings provide support for all the hypotheses, with the exception of the influence of referent network size on PU and the influence of subjective norms on information disclosure. Both perceived external prestige and perceived complementarity have reported positive effect on PU of SNS. In turn, the authors have found that PU and habit have positive effects on information disclosure.\nOriginality/value: SNS encourage users to reveal personal information by allowing them to post photos and videos and share their interests and feelings on the site. Yet, limited empirical research has investigated the concept of self-disclosure of personal information particularly among Chinese users of SNS. To fill this research gap, the authors have developed a research framework by drawing on the network externalities research and previous literature on information systems to understand the antecedents of information disclosure.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the role of culture in trust development with service providers	[ "Trust", "Culture", "Service delivery", "Relationship marketing", "South Korea", "United States of America" ]	[ { "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: The term \"relationship marketing\" was introduced to the marketing literature in 1983 (Berry, 1983). Since then, relationship marketing has rapidly gained ground in many areas within the discipline such as service and business-to-business marketing (e.g. Crosby et al., 1990; Doney and Cannon, 1997; Dwyer et al., 1987; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2002; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Relationship marketing concepts have furthered marketing practice in several sub-areas of marketing including customer relationship management (de Wulf et al., 2001; Fournier, 1998) and new product adoption (Suh, 2001). In fact, Bagozzi (1995, p. 272) has characterized relationship marketing to be at the \"very core of the theory and practice of marketing.\" Similarly, Gronross (1994) contends that relationship marketing has been instrumental in bringing about a paradigm shift in the marketing discipline.Prior research has outlined commitment and trust as two key elements of relationship marketing. For instance, Morgan and Hunt (1994) argue that these two components act as key mediators that contribute to relationship marketing success. Although considerable research has subsequently explored the nature and characteristics of commitment and trust, a general question still remains unexplored: Can the characteristics of trust and commitment identified by the literature (based on US data) be applied in the same manner to people from other cultures? The answer most likely would be \"no.\" It is conceivable that people from another culture may have different experiences with service providers, especially if they have recently moved to the USA. This argument implies that the way consumers from different cultural backgrounds develop trust and commitment would be very different and thus the types of relationships they are looking for (with a service provider or its representatives) would also be very different from those of American customers. In an attempt to build relationships with people from different cultures, marketers may be misled by putting too much emphasis on empirical results from US samples. However, very little is known about how people from different cultures develop trust with service providers. Thus the major premise of this research is that marketers need to begin developing relationship marketing efforts through gaining a better understanding of how people from different cultures develop trust and commitment.This article explores how customers from different cultures develop relationships with service providers. A special emphasis is placed on the development of trust and the factors that affect the process of relationship development. Specifically, this research has two broad objectives:1. to uncover underlying dimensions of trust development for customers from different cultures, and2. to provide a theoretical framework for better understanding how customers from different cultures develop trust.\nLiterature review: Nature of trust\nMethod: The exploratory nature of this study suggested a research design that emphasizes discovery over confirmation. This study thus utilized the phenomenological depth-interview as a method to capture the underlying dimensions of how people from different cultures develop trust with service providers. Given that the key research questions in this study have not been explored before, the emphasis was on discovery, and hence this method was considered appropriate (Wells, 1993).The authors recognized that since the study focused on participants that were from another culture but living in the USA, their length of residence in the USA may potentially influence their trust development process. Moreover, age and gender differences may similarly affect trust development. Thus it was decided to utilize purposeful sampling, so information-rich cases could be selected for depth interviews (Patton, 1990). Informants were carefully selected so that the effects of length of residence, age, and gender could be revealed within the context of trust development. Strauss (1987) refers to this sampling approach as a comparative analysis.A total of nine interviews were conducted to generate data for the study. After the ninth interview, it was apparent that a point of information saturation had been reached and it was decided to conduct no more interviews. Each interview took between 45 minutes to an hour. The researchers chose to interview only Koreans in this study for two reasons. First, with respect to the individualism-collectivism dimension, Korea has been characterized as a highly collectivist culture (for example, see Crittenden and Bae, 1994). Second, because two of the study's authors are Korean, this allowed a convenient analysis and interpretation of interview results. To encourage the flow of communication and facilitate in-depth information (Thompson and Hirschman, 1995), all informants were previously known to varying degree by the first author. Table I shows a profile of each informant. To protect the privacy of informants, we did not use their real names in the study.Given the discovery-orientation of this research, the questions themselves were not context-specific. However, to facilitate the depth interviews, each informant was given an option. Informants were asked to think of two service providers with which they were very familiar. They were thereafter asked to describe specific service experiences related to these service providers. To facilitate an open dialogue, each interview was conducted at the informant's place of residence or business. All interviews were recorded on audiotape and transcribed for interpretation. The types of service experiences discussed by informants are listed below:* banking - personal banker, loan officer;* bars;* car repair;* car sales;* cosmetics;* day care;* pharmacy;* dry cleaner;* fabric store;* gas station;* grocery store;* hair salon/barber;* health care - doctor, hospital, dentist;* in-home sales (e.g. Tupperware, Avon);* insurance;* lawyer;* mail carrier/FedEx;* music instrument tutor;* nursery;* personal shopper;* personal trainer;* photographer;* public golf/tennis center;* restaurant;* retail store - apparel;* retail store - housewares;* travel agent; and* video store.The nine interview transcripts were analyzed using hermeneutic logic. A hermeneutic analysis appeared particularly appropriate for this setting because this philosophy retains a focus on describing experiences within the life world of a given individual. An iterative process of reading, documenting, and systematizing interview transcripts was followed (Thompson et al., 1989). Accordingly, each interview was read several times by the three primary researchers. Marginal comments representing abstractions of \"experience-near\" (Geertz, 1979; Thompson, 1996) descriptions were made alongside each interview transcript. On reading the entire manuscript for a sense of the whole, the themes generated above were reduced to more broad global themes. The relationships between these global themes are portrayed in Figure 1.\nResults and interpretations: Analysis of interview transcripts resulted in two main global themes: direct service experiences and recommendations from others. These themes seemed to define the trust development process for informants, and the relative importance of these themes was dependent upon the length of the informant's residence in the USA. Informants who had been living in the USA more than four years seemed to develop trust based upon their direct service experiences; those who had been living in the USA less than four years, on the other hand, developed trust based on recommendations from others.Service experiences\nDiscussion and managerial implications: Based on the findings, a conceptual framework is proposed in Figure 1. Direct service experiences and recommendations are identified as the two most important factors affecting trust development for Koreans who have been living in the USA. Prior service experiences in Korea exert a strong influence on the perception of service quality and service providers, which in turn influences the trust development process. This is especially true for those whose length of residence in the USA is short. For those whose length of residence in the USA is long, prior service experiences in the USA also strongly influence the perception of both service quality and service expectations. Those people are believed to have dual-schema structures based on service experiences both in Korea and in the USA.Regarding service providers, the most unique part of trust development for Koreans who have lived in the USA would be the transference process. They seem to trust service providers or service organizations based on the recommendations related to specific service categories. In particular, they appear to evaluate the trustworthiness of recommenders based on recommenders' education, vocation, social status, and age. Once trust is established in recommenders, it seems to naturally result in a transference process (e.g. trust transference from service provider to service organization). These findings shed further light on the transference process identified in the prior literature (Doney et al., 1998; Millman and Fugate, 1988; Strub and Priest, 1976), and adds to extant literature via articulating the role of culture in this process.One finding somewhat contradictory to previous research (e.g. Morgan and Hunt, 1994) is that the direction of trust transference for Koreans is often reversed. Some Koreans seemed to first develop trust in a service organization, and then in a service provider. This pattern may be accounted for as a risk reduction behavior in that people often prefer national brands over local brands. In the context of the service industry, people may often prefer well-known service organizations. By selecting such an organization, people can secure at least a known level of service quality. However, further research needs to be conducted in order to better elaborate the conditions under which such trust transference may be most likely to occur.\nManagerial implications: Results of this study indicate that once an individual develops trust with a service provider, they expect the relationship with that provider to be long-lasting. Trust development is dependent on the level of continuous interaction with service providers and the service experiences. Service experience is also affected positively as a result of the provider's courtesy and respectful attitude. Therefore, service organizations may wish to offer their employees training that emphasizes strategies oriented toward building and maintaining trust with customers from different cultural backgrounds. For instance, it may be particularly important to train employees at the customer-contact level in how to better read the customer and how to react to customer complaints. In addition, the perception of service quality seems to be mediated by the customer's perception of the service provider. This further illustrates the importance of trust development with service providers and service organizations.The potential for a spillover effect of the transference process is another interesting finding revealed in this study. The Korean culture is characterized by closely-knit strong ties with others. Thus, Koreans may significantly influence each other once a close relationship develops. A person who accepts a recommendation for a specific service category from a member of the relationship is more likely to accept another recommendation for a different service category from the same recommender. Marketers trying to better appeal to customers from a Korean background need to thus strive toward identifying such recommenders because in this context recommenders may exert a strong influence across several different service categories. Moreover, in order to establish trust with Koreans who have lived in the USA, service providers must meet criteria considered important in both countries.\nLimitations and future research directions: Although this study reveals some interesting findings, a few limitations should be noted. First, this is a very exploratory study whose main purpose is to elaborate how people from different cultures develop trust toward service providers. All informants are from one foreign culture (Korean), and consequently, the findings relate to primarily this group. Further generalization of these findings should only be made after studies conducted with informants from other foreign cultures. The authors also suggest further research aimed at examining the relationship between the two major determinants of trust uncovered in this study (direct service experiences and recommendations) and the two dimensions of trust (credibility and benevolence) previously identified by Ganesan and Hess (1997).As noted above, the focus of the present study is depth understanding of a few cases, rather than uncovering broad inter-relationships between key constructs based on a large sample. As pointed out by McCracken (1988, p. 17):...the purpose of the qualitative interview is not to discover how many, and what kinds of people, share a characteristic. It is to gain access to the cultural categories and assumptions according to which one construes the world ... qualitative research does not survey the terrain, it mines it. It is, in other words, much more intensive than extensive in its objectives.So while the findings of this study (e.g. the two major determinants of trust) emerge from data derived from a few informants, in keeping with true qualitative tradition, the purpose was to create a deeper understanding which can serve as the building block toward designing future survey-based studies that will help the research community create generalizable findings pertaining to the role of culture in trust development toward service providers. Future survey-based studies may also wish to explore potential differences in trust across different types of service experiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to explore how customers from different cultures develop trust with service providers to uncover underlying dimensions of trust development for customers from different cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study utilizes semi-structured phenomenological depth interviews to explore the role of culture in the development of trust with service providers.\nFindings: - Customers' direct service experiences in their native culture and in the culture where they reside (in this study the USA), as well as recommendations from others appear to be the major determinants of trust. Furthermore, a customer's trust in a recommender seems to transfer over to a service provider.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Because all informants were from one foreign culture (Korean), the findings related to primarily this group. Further generalization of these findings should only be made after studies conducted with informants from other foreign cultures.\nPractical implications: - Service organizations need to offer their employees training that emphasizes strategies oriented toward building and maintaining trust with customers from different cultural backgrounds in order to better read customers from different cultural backgrounds and to effectively react to their complaints.\nOriginality/value: - The most unique part of trust development for Koreans who have lived in the USA would be the transference process. They seem to trust service providers or service organizations based on the recommendations related to specific service categories. Once trust is established in recommenders, it seems to naturally result in a transference process (e.g. trust transference from service provider to service organization).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring collaborative effectiveness: a conceptual approach	[ "Supply chain integration", "Information sharing", "Supply chain visibility", "Collaborative effective index" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a globalised business world, supply chains (SCs) are often treated as extended enterprises linking firms across a number of geographical locations and enabling organisations to gain competitive advantage. SC managers continuously strive to improve their SC by measuring its performance. There is a plethora of metrics that can be used to measure SC performance (Elrod et al., 2013), however often executives often find it difficult to select appropriate measures for their particular SC (Elrod et al., 2013). Measures could be broadly categorised into quality, financial, time, product flexibility, overall performance and innovation (Elrod et al., 2013). Metrics of SC are important as they distinguish between the performing and non-performing entities vs measuring the traditional system as a whole, and thus they assist in implementing new strategies in the SC (Elrod et al., 2013).\nLiterature review: SCM can be a complex phenomenon in practice across many industries. From a broad SCM perspective, SCV, SCI and IS are some of the key aspects that influence the overall performance of SC practice. In SC practice, senior management is concerned with the lack of visibility of information that hinders their ability to achieve higher performance or to operate using best practice even when they have the technological capability for integration within and across organisations. The lack of information visibility may exist across many of the SC organisations. It is not clear whether the lack of SCV is caused by lack of IS among organisations in an end-to-end SC. A comprehensive literature review regarding SCV, SCI and IS, in particular relationships (and inter-dependencies among those aspects) is therefore warranted. This literature review forms the basis for investigating these attributes, which leads on to identifying guidelines for effective and efficient practices in SCs in competitive and global environments. The literature review is structured into four major sections. First, an overview of SCI, visibility and IS are presented. This is followed by sections on current industry practices, and measuring SC effectiveness and efficiency. Finally the review findings and research questions are presented.\nMethodology: In order to understand the problem at hand, and in an attempt to answer RQ1 and RQ2, the case study approach to use one organisation and all its SC partners to study the current state of SCI, IS and SCV was initially considered. However, this would not give a broad reflection of the current state of SCI, IS and SCV and thus the decision was taken to use the deductive approach where a sample of organisations was chosen. Thus, the use of a survey instrument to gather primary data best fits with this research. In similar research by Chapman et al. (2007) and Frohlich (2002), a survey instrument was used to answer the research questions. However, the survey questionnaire used in this research is not included because of lack of space (but can be obtained by contacting the author).\nEmpirical analysis: Table II shows the grouping of the core variables by different levels. Following the data collection, the values from the survey questionnaire were collated in an excel spreadsheet and grouped according to Levels 1-5 as shown in Table III. The categories of the organisation dimensions by their individual categories are shown in Table IV.\nLimitations: The data collected through the survey questionnaire for this research focussed on the manufacturing and logistics industries. The author has used the perceived values of SCI, IS and SCV to establish the collaborative effectiveness index of the SC. Organisations lack a standardised approach in measuring the levels of SCI, IS and SCV.\nContribution to academic research: This research has identified a unique approach to measuring the collaborative effectiveness of a SC by leveraging Maslow's hierarchy of human needs to establish the perceived levels of SCI, SCI and IS. The research has also highlighted that organisations must first be integrated before they can have visibility of their SC partner's activities. Once there is visibility, organisations can share information between SC partners.\nFurther research: Future researchers need to establish or develop the levels of the SCI, IS and SCV by using a mathematical model. This would give more robust information on levels to apply with the collaborative effective index.\nConclusions: It is evident that SCI, IS and SCV are interrelated and that the levels of SCI, IS and SCV in organisations vary by organisation dimensions. Interestingly, the research found that organisations tend to have low levels of integration which points out that there is room for improvement in this area. These findings address RQ1.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual supply chain (SC) hierarchical framework to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the collaborative SC based on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and supply chain integration (SCI), supply chain visibility (SCV) and information sharing (IS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Multimethods were applied. The first part of the research was undertaken using a deductive approach with rigorous and systematic analysis of the research material and the use of a survey instrument. The data collected through the survey are analysed and presented with descriptive statistics and cross-tabulations. The second part of the research is an extension of the analysis of the first part linking with the Maslow's hierarchy of needs to form the basis for development of the SCI hierarchy.\nFindings: The levels of SCI, SCV and IS are significantly different for organisation dimensions such as size, industry type and region of operations. The SCI hierarchy based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a number of indices to measure the effectiveness of SCI, IS, SCV in a collaborative SC.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research focusses only on manufacturing, 3PL, fast-moving consumer goods and retail industries.\nPractical implications: The research work provides some insights for practitioners on best practices for SC collaboration and measurement of collaborative effectiveness.\nOriginality/value: The primary value of this paper is the development of standardized levels of SCI, IS and SCV and the proposed measurement of the collaborative effectiveness of the SC. It could be a proposed approach for empirically evaluating the levels of SCI, IS and SCV subject to organisational dimensions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of store flyers on store performance: a format and customer related approach	[ "Customer segments", "Flyers", "Promotions", "Store formats", "Store sales", "Store traffic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Store flyers are one of the most important media for featuring retail promotions. In the context of a hi-lo pricing policy, flyers play a strategic role, appealing to the deal-prone segment and shaping regular customers' purchasing behaviour. Flyers can generate store traffic and have a positive impact on sales and profit margins. Moreover, fees charged to manufacturers to ensure the presence of their brands in the flyers generate additional income for retailers. Store flyers also help retailers to communicate newly selected products and the variety present in their assortment. In addition, they are a flexible means to convey good price positioning, which is a key attribute of the store image in price-sensitive settings.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: The use of promotions in retailing has increased rapidly in recent times. In the face of this growth - particularly in the fast moving consumer goods sector - the marketing literature has accumulated a wide body of knowledge regarding how promotions work. Many existing studies involve price promotions with or without accompanying features or displays, and the consensus is that price promotion elasticities can increase several fold in the presence of features and/or displays (e.g. Bijmolt et al., 2005). Much of the work on feature promotions concerns the impact on brand and category sales, generally taking the perspective of the manufacturers. As pointed out by Ailawadi et al. (2009), more research is needed on the effectiveness of a bundle of promotions - and therefore of the store flyer - for the retailers. Indeed, few papers have analysed the implications of feature promotions at the store level and very little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of the store flyer as a whole.\n3. Data and methodology: Data covering a period of 52 weeks were made available for analysis by a large-scale retail grocery chain of national importance that utilizes a hi-lo pricing strategy. Two outlets (one hypermarket of 10,000 m2 and one supermarket of 1,100 m2) were chosen in the same area to take account of local variables. Indeed, the socio-demographic characteristics of the population and the intensity of competition in the trading area may exert a moderating impact on store flyer effectiveness. By neutralizing local moderator effects, differences between store formats can be determined.\n4. Results: Tables III and IV display the b and standardised-b regression coefficients, R2 and F statistics following entry of the variables that contribute significantly to the independent variables for the hypermarket and supermarket formats, respectively.\n5. General discussion, implications and limitations: This research shows that feature promotions effectiveness is differentiated between store formats and segments of customers. In the supermarket format, traffic and sales value among loyal regular customers are significantly affected by flyer size. More precisely, the number of pages together with the number of products featured plays an important role in attracting the retailer's most valuable customers and enhancing their spending. Thus, purchases on deals do not cannibalize regular ones, shifting consumption from one time period to another. Flyers boost the frequency of store visit leveraging on consumers motivation for smart buys and better value. The higher sales may also be due to purchase acceleration, increased consumption in promoted categories and sales stimulation in other complementary categories. Moreover, the flyer size proves to be a determinant of store sales value for customers belonging to the last seven deciles. This provides an additional incentive to increase the number of pages and products in the store's featuring activities. The results further indicate that the flyer duration and the share of non-food categories featured have an impact on the store sales structure of loyal regular customers. These two characteristics translate in a greater incidence of promoted products in the total spending of a store's most valuable customers, thus decreasing the store flyer effectiveness from the retailer's perspective. Finally, the flyer characteristics analysed have no impact in drawing occasional customers to the store, enhancing their spending and altering their shopping basket structure.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study aims to investigate the impact of store flyer characteristics on store performance for different formats (hypermarket and supermarket) and customer segments (additional and regular shoppers). Specifically, the paper tests propositions on how flyer duration, variety of featured purchasing options, the category and brand mix on feature and the method used to communicate the deal price affect store traffic and sales.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were made available for analysis by a grocery chain that utilizes a hi-lo pricing strategy. To test the hypothesis a multiple linear regression analysis was used.\nFindings: Results indicate that optimal store flyer configuration is related to the store format. Moreover, the response to flyer promotion programs varies across customer segments in relation to their degree of store loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings can assist marketers to develop more effective promotional strategies with regards to the bundle of promotions to be offered and the way they should be communicated. Future research should extend the analysis to other retailers and trading areas. Furthermore, it would be useful to replicate the analysis by separating the impact of in-store activities and store flyer effects.\nOriginality/value: This is the first attempt to analyse flyer impact on store performance for different formats and customer segments. Prior research is confined to supermarkets, although the enhancement of store traffic is related to format size. Moreover, the traffic and sales implications of store flyer composition have so far been analysed in an aggregate manner, disregarding customers' shopping patterns.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Doing of gender and scientific knowledge production	[ "Gender", "Feminism", "Research work" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Styhre and Tienari's account of their experiences bears a rather concerning but unsurprising resemblance to my own experiences of doing research in the gender field. Over the past few decades I have had the opportunity to explore various organizational issues in my research, from technological and organizational change to gender and intersectionality. In these, I have had the opportunity to work in different empirical fields, both private- and public-sector-oriented, and to use several theoretical perspectives, including gender theories. In addition to this, I have also taught at different levels within my fields of competence. This broad approach to academic work provides me with both an inside and an outside perspective on some of the specificities which recur in the field of gender studies. In this paper, I will discuss some of my experiences from research and teaching that relate to the special circumstances of doing gender research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to enable the author to discuss some personal experiences from research and teaching that relate to the special circumstances of doing gender research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - When reading about Styhre's and Tienari's experiences, the author is not so surprised by but rather concerned about the resemblance and reflections evoked by the text vis-a-vis her own experiences of doing research in the gender field. During recent decades, she had the opportunity to explore various organizing issues in her research, from technology and organizational change to gender and intersectionality. This provided her with both an inside and outside perspective on some of the specificities which recur in the field of gender studies.\nFindings: - Doing gender research enables men and women to \"become with\" women, men and other people. When able to respond to other people with respect, the researcher can \"become with\" the studied one. By going into the experiences previously shared by other scholars doing gender studies, and by reflecting upon these, the opportunities for men and women to \"become with\" will most likely increase.\nOriginality/value: - In a performative way, \"doing gender\" includes a way of recognizing the context in which the author is situated. When this position is challenged, things start to happen. Whether one is being challenged as a woman, as a man, as a researcher, or for not understanding gender in the proper feminist way, the conditions of one's comprehension of doing gender are called into question. Reflexivity is thus - as Styhre and Tienari claim - a product of social encounters.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Approximate dynamic programming for management of high-value spare parts	[ "Inventory management", "Warehousing", "Spare parts", "Aircraft components" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: An aircraft manufacturer will be introducing during 2008 a new fleet of executive jets using entirely new parts, and needs the ability to respond to random demands as the parts fail. There are over 10,000 parts, ranging from small parts that will be needed with a somewhat predictable frequency, to high-value, low-volume parts (engines, major wing components, avionics, and major hydraulic systems) which will fail at a rate that changes over time, producing two sources of nonstationarity in the demand for the parts. First, there will be rising demand as more aircraft enter the marketplace. Second, the rate at which components fail will likely follow the standard \"bathtub\" curve, with higher failures at first due to initial design problems, lower failure rates during the main part of the lifetime, finally followed by higher failure rates as they reach the end of their lifetimes.Further complicating the problem is that because these are new parts, the rate at which parts will fail is uncertain. While manufacturers will provide initial estimates for expected lifetimes, it is quite common for actual lifetimes to differ, possibly significantly, from these initial estimates. It will be necessary to detect shorter than expected lifetimes as quickly as possible so that inventories can be adjusted. Lower-than-optimal inventories produce either higher transportation costs (as parts have to be rushed from suppliers) or delays in responding to customer requests.Since the market for executive jets is composed in large part by individual owners, the manufacturer needs to set up a dedicated logistics network for the worldwide storage and distribution of spare parts. The manufacturer has proposed a network composed of a small number of strategically located central warehouses (possibly one or two per continent) and regional warehouses located at service locations (possibly one at each service station). If, on the one hand, the centralized warehousing allows for risk pooling in the demand satisfaction, on the other hand, the distributed inventories aim at increasing the level of service (LOS) of demand.Routine component failures are detected during scheduled maintenance and thus the part replacement may be done during a time window as wide as four days. Centralized warehousing should be able to handle these types of demand well. Critical component failures pose a different problem, but still the aircraft can fly to the nearest service center and there be serviced within a time window of up to two days. It is, however, the failure of components that leave the aircraft-on-the-ground (AOG) that pose the most significant challenge to centralized warehousing. In general, parts need to be shipped from a warehouse to the airfield or airport where the failure happened within time windows no longer than six hours from the detection of the demand. These are the cases where distributed warehousing may pay off.The challenge faced by the manufacturer in establishing an inventory policy for a distributed spare parts network resides in balancing the requirements of high levels of service for AOG and critical demand with the budget constraints of keeping a high level of inventory at the warehouses.This problem is of fundamental importance, with applications to a broad range of resource allocation problems. This is the same problem class that arises in the allocation of equipment, people and resources so that one can respond quickly to events such as hurricanes, terrorist attacks and other emergencies.In the context of presenting a dynamic allocation heuristic for the centralized safety stock problem (one central warehouse and several regional ones), Cao and Silver (2005) offer a brief survey of the work done in the subject. It comprehends modeling and solution approaches that range from variations in traditional inventory control policy to mathematical programming formulations to heuristics. In this paper, stemming from the authors' expertise with the application of approximate dynamic programming (ADP) to resource allocation problems (Godfrey and Powell, 2002; George and Powell, 2006; Powell et al., 2007; Powell, 2007), an ADP model and algorithmic strategy are proposed to solve the problem in question.In the next section, the particular characteristics of the problem will be described. In Section 3, an ADP model formulation will be presented. The issue of low-frequency observations concerning the estimation of the value functions will be discussed in Section 4. In the final section, some considerations about testing and validation of the approach will be presented, as well as some concluding remarks.\n2 Description of the problem: The spare parts distribution network proposed by the aircraft manufacturer for the new line of executive jets has five basic elements:1. part suppliers;2. part repair shops;3. central warehouses located at distribution centers (DC);4. regional warehouses located at the aircraft maintenance or service centers (SC); and5. locations where the demand for parts occur, which may be at service centers, or at airfields and airports where executive jets operate.Figure 1 shows a hypothetical set of locations for the continental USA.At any given time, parts ordered from suppliers will be shipped to the DC. In general, parts need to be certified for quality before being placed in inventory, and thus, assuming that certification will be economically viable only at the DC's, every part entering the system needs to go through a DC first. Parts have different production lead times, but in the aircraft industry some of these times may be quite long (like six or more months). This constraint highlights the importance of safety stocks.When inventories at the service centers need to be replenished, parts will be shipped from the DC.The failure of aircraft components may be detected either in the context of scheduled maintenance/inspections at the service centers, or in the course of pre-post flight checks at the airfields and airports.When the demand for a part occurs at the site of a service center, the first recourse is to the inventory at that site. If that does not work, then in general the part will be shipped from a distribution center. Occasionally, it may be shipped from another service center. When the failed component is critical but the aircraft may still fly securely (for example, there is an alternate system in the aircraft), then the aircraft will fly to a service center as early as possible and the part will be replaced therein.If, however, the failed component is such that the aircraft cannot fly until the part is replaced, then the failure is deemed of type AOG and the replacement part needs to be taken to the aircraft location as soon as possible (usually within a few hours), under penalty of severe contractual fines. In this case, the part may be transported with the mechanic who will change it, from the inventory at the service center from where he or she originates, or it may be shipped from another service center or a distribution center.After replacement, if the part is an expendable, that is, a part that cannot be repaired or refurbished, then it will be discarded. If, however, it is a rotable, that is, a repairable part, then it will be shipped to a repair shop, usually by way of a distribution or service center.Figure 2 shows the logistics network resulting from the operations just described. The transportation services in the several links of this network will be provided or arranged by an external logistics company hired to manage the network and the warehouses. Depending on the specific link in the network, expedited modes of transportation may be needed at higher costs. Note, though, that the aircraft manufacturer will retain the responsibility and the ownership of the inventory control and purchase tasks.\n3 An ADP model: 3.1 Basic mathematical model\n4 Estimating value functions: Unless there is some exogenous knowledge that allows for the value functions V-tn-1(Rtx) to be determined beforehand, they will have to be computed iteratively, using dual values or numerical derivatives estimated through the repeated solution of the mathematical programs that compose the subproblems. In this section, an overview of the estimation procedure for the problem in question will be provided.Using the assumptions stated in Subsection 3.2, namely that a value function is separable in the elements of Rtx and that each term of the value function is a concave, piecewise linear function of the number of available units of that element, let v-tan-1 represent the value function associated to attribute vector a at time t used in the solution of subproblems in iteration n of the iterative calibration procedure. Now, let v^tan represent a dual value (or numerical derivative) of the attribute vector a at time t obtained through the solution of a slightly modified subproblem in iteration n.Figure 4 shows the network corresponding to the slightly modified subproblem for a single component. Value functions for a single component need to be estimated for each of the warehouses, including the central ones (the DC's). However, replenishment of the inventories at the regional warehouses (the SC's) happens only from the DC's. This means that the assumption of separability between the value function for a given component at a DC and the one at an SC is actually too strong. In order to comply with this assumption, though, when estimating the dual values v^tan, the linear program needs to be modified, namely, the inventory replenishment arcs connecting DC's to SC's need to be removed (compare the network in Figure 4 with that in Figure 3).Once the dual values are known, the update of the value functions themselves is done through basic exponential smoothing of the type: Equation 18 where an-1 is the smoothing stepsize. The actual details of the choice and update of the stepsizes and the mechanics of updating piecewise linear functions, while maintaining concavity, are beyond the scope of this text, but the interested reader can refer to Godfrey and Powell (2002), George and Powell (2006) and Powell (2007) for them.The value function representing the marginal value of a part for the whole system at a given time (v-t,Sysn) is updated using the pertinent value functions from each of the warehouses (v-tan). The concave, piecewise linear function is generated by properly assembling in decreasing order all the slopes of the corresponding value functions at all the warehouses. In summary, at iteration n the v^tan's are used to update the v-tan's, and these are used to assemble v-t,Sysn.4.1 The challenge of rare events\n5 Concluding remarks: The main contribution of this paper is to present a novel, ADP-based approach to solving the problem of determining the best inventory policy for a distributed warehousing network, in the context of an aircraft spare parts distribution network. Complicating issues are the presence of high value, low-frequency demand parts and of parts that can be refurbished after replacement and then returned to inventory.Though the model and solution strategy proposed in this paper have not yet been extensively tested against other models and approaches, they have been tested and validated internally at an aircraft manufacturer through the expert analysis of the policy recommendations in different settings and for different pools of aircraft parts. So far, the results seem promising and, given the absence of alternative methodologies, compelling.As a brief illustration of the outcomes produced by the system, consider the yearly scenario of a pool of 478 rotable parts being used by over 650 aircraft. Using a distribution network composed of one DC and 18 SC's spread over the continental USA, and setting the target value for the capital invested over a year to $50 million and the fill-rate targets for AOG and critical failures to 98 percent, Figures 7-9 show some numerical results.Figure 7 shows the progression of the actual yearly capital invested in parts as the iterations for the calibration of the value functions evolve. As the value functions learn, the value of b(x) approaches the desired target value.Figures 8 and 9 show the histograms of the actual fill-rates achieved for AOG and critical demand over 19 different demand sample paths. Clearly, on average, the solutions are very close to the desired targets.Some challenges, though, remain. Given that embedded in the proposed ADP methodology there is a simulation of the failure processes of all parts being used in a fleet, computational times are very sensitive to the magnitude of the total number of parts and aircraft in use in a given year. For instance, each iteration of the value function calibration run whose results are shown in Figures 7-9 took, on average, 65 minutes to run on a 2.4 GHz AMD Opteron Processor 250, running Linux and using CPLEX 10.2.The accuracy of the logistics network data is also relevant. The allocation of inventory to regional warehouses depends on the level and ease of accessibility of airfields and airports from those service centers, thus increasing the sensitivity of distributed warehousing solutions to the quality of those data.Overall, however, ADP seems to offer a viable, and promising, way to solving dynamic, geographically distributed inventory problems, where there are wide ranges in the values of the stored products, in the frequency of their demands, and where some used products can be refurbished and returned to inventory.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - An aircraft manufacturer faces the problem of allocating inventory to a set of distributed warehouses in response to random, nonstationary demands. There is particular interest in managing high value, low volume spare parts which must be available to respond to low-frequency demands in the form of random failures of major components. The aircraft fleet is young and in expansion. In addition, high-value parts can be repaired, implying that they reenter the system after they are removed from an aircraft and refurbished. This paper aims to present a model and a solution approach to the problem of determining the inventory levels at each warehouse.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The problem is solved using approximate dynamic programming (ADP), but this requires developing new methods for approximating value functions in the presence of low-frequency observations.\nFindings: - The model and solution approach have been implemented, tested and validated internally at the manufacturer through the analysis of the inventory policy recommendations in different network scenarios and for different pools of parts. The results seem promising and compelling.\nOriginality/value: - The uniqueness of this research is in the use of ADP for the modeling and solution of a distributed inventory problem. Its main value resides on the incorporation of the issue of spatial substitution in demand satisfaction within the problem of determining inventory levels in a distributed warehouse network.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between human resource management practices and employee engagement: Does black box stage exist?	[ "Employee engagement", "Organizational commitment", "HRM practices", "Banks", "SET" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent time, organizations need highly energetic, enthusiastic, dedicated and engaged employees in their workforce (Chen, 2017; Bakker and Schaufeli, 2008) as employees with higher engagement at works can contribute more in organizational success and competitiveness (Al Mehrzi and Singh, 2016; Gruman and Saks, 2011). Bal et al. (2013) noted that highly engaged workforce is more likely to have passion in their work and deeply connected with their company's goals whereas disengaged workers are more concerned about time rather energy or dedication during their role performance. Engaged employees are energetically and effectively connected to their work, which, in turn, positively affects organizational performance metrics (Kahn, 1990). In addition, an ample of prior studies observed the positive effect of employee engagement on organizational performance (Katou, 2017; Hansen et al., 2014; Agarwal, 2014; Menguc et al., 2013; Li et al., 2012; Dalal et al., 2012; Chughtai and Buckley, 2011; Rich et al., 2010; Saks, 2006), financial results (Demerouti and Cropanzano, 2010; Xanthopoulou et al., 2009), return on assets and profitability (Macey et al., 2009), employees' job performance (Bakker and Bal, 2010) and customer satisfaction (Salanova et al., 2005). This is imperative, thus, for organizations to focus on the development of employee engagement for sustainable performances in the current highly competitive business environment (Rai et al., 2017; Macey et al., 2009). Given the vibrant desire of highly engaged workforce in the diversified work context, an increasing number of human resource management (HRM) literature has emphasized on the relationship between HRM practices and employee outcomes (Presbitero, 2017; Vemic-Durkovic et al., 2013), and on the process or mechanism by which HRM practices-employee performance relationship works (Chen, 2017; Huang et al., 2017).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 Employee engagement\n3. Research design and methods: 3.1 Research setting: banking industry in Bangladesh\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion: In regard to a crucial need of research to investigate the relationship between HRM practices, OC and employee engagement in the context of banking employees, results reveal that all the HRM practices are significant predictors of employee engagement. In fact, all the six HRM practices perceived by banking employees inspired them to engage more in performing their role. This study finding is in line with the suggestions of Chen (2017) Van De Voorde and Beijer (2015) and Alias et al. (2014) that HRM practices can positively improve the level of employee engagement if adequately introduced and properly managed. In addition, it suggests that HRM practices need to be prioritized and be provided adequate focus by the management to boost employee engagement. Findings support that if banks introduce a proper HRM system for their employees, they feel that their organizations are concerned about their well-being that make them more engaged at their work. In general, findings of this study are in line with SET (Blau, 1986) suggesting that the reciprocal social exchange relationships can be generated between two different parties (i.e. employer and employee) within the organizations. HRM practices, therefore, work as a social exchange instruments introduced by the organizations to motivate their employees in a positive way and provide them socio-economic and emotional resources (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005) which, in turn, makes feel employees obliged and more engaged toward their job in a kind of repayment. Moreover, this study results find a partial support for mediation effect of OC on the relationship between HRM practices and employee engagement. More specifically, among the six hypothesized relationships of HRM practices and employee engagement, only four relationships are partially mediated by OC. In addition, other two relationships between HRM practices (namely, performance feedback and rewards and recognition) and employee engagement are not mediated by OC. Though several studies (e.g. Huang et al., 2017; Karatepe, 2013; Tang and Tang, 2012) suggest that HRM practices and employee performance relationship works through a mechanism called black-box stage, this study identifies a strong direct relationship between HRM practices and employee engagement rather an indirect relationship. Results indicate that HRM practices not necessarily always follow the black-box stage of indirect effect on employee behavior such as employee engagement rather they themselves have the significant direct relationship with employee engagement. This study, thus, partially validates the black-box stage as the direct relationship between HRM practices and employee engagement is very high, and these relationships are slightly absorbed after including the mediator OC.\n6. Implications: Regarding the theoretical contribution, this research provides additional empirical literature in the field of organizational behavior, HRM development and employee engagement. Specifically, this study developed a model to explain the relationship between individual HRM practices and employee engagement. Previous studies (Van De Voorde and Beijer, 2015; Menguc et al., 2013; Azoury et al., 2013; Alfes et al., 2013; Bal et al., 2013) emphasized on a bundle of HRM practices to predict employee engagement rather to focus on the role of individual HRM practices in enhancing employee engagement. While very few studies (Sharma and Sharma, 2010; Mohapatra and Sharma, 2010) considered individual HRM practices to predict employee engagement treating OC and employee engagement as a same construct, this research theoretically provides an additional knowledge regarding the predictors of employee engagement by demonstrating that all the six HRM practices, namely, career advancement, employee participation, job security, performance feedback, rewards and recognition, training and development, are highly significant predictors of employee engagement. The study findings further extend the knowledge of understanding regarding the black-box stage on the relationship suggesting that if the direct relationship between independent and dependent variable is weak, only then mediator variable can play an important role to explain the black-box stage.\n7. Limitations and future research: Though this research has several theoretical and managerial contributions, it, likewise other empirical research, also suffers from some limitations that need to be addressed. However, these limitations might be considered for the ground of future research, but still findings of this study need to be interpreted by taking into consideration of these flaws. First, this study applies a cross-sectional method by which data have been collected at once during the research period (Zikmund et al., 2013). Such types of methods do not allow researcher to establish a causal relationship among the key study variables. Cross-sectional approach, unlike the longitudinal or experimental research design, cannot measure the significant change in key variables over the time, which makes it inappropriate in causal studies (Cohen et al., 2013).\n8. Conclusion: The primary objective of this research is to investigate the factors that might have the association with banking sector employees' engagement. The main purpose of this study is to explore the role of HRM practices on employee engagement based on SET. It also includes the mediating role of OC on employee engagement in the context of banking sector employees in Bangladesh. This study makes contributions by extending the existing literature based on the relationships among HRM practices, OC and employee engagement. Although very few studies have examined the role of specific HRM practices on employee engagement, this study extends the existing literature by tackling the identified research gaps through integrating OC as a mediating variable that explains the reasons of why and how HRM practices and employee engagement relationship works. Conclusively, despite having of mixed results, however, this study manages to provide support for the application of SET, in which all the HRM practices have direct significant relationships with employee engagement and also able to generate positive employee attitudes toward the organization (OC) that subsequently affects employee engagement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of organizational commitment (OC) on the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and employee engagement among banking employees in the context of an emerging economy namely Bangladesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The survey data include 383 employees from 30 private commercial banks in Bangladesh. For analyzing the data, structural equation modeling is employed with the bootstrapping method.\nFindings: This study finds that HRM practices such as career advancement, employee participation, job security, performance feedback, rewards and recognition, training and development are the significant predictors of employee engagement. Results also identify OC as a partial mediator on HRM practices and employee engagement relationship which suggest that direct relationship of predictors and criterion variables are stronger than indirect association. More interestingly, findings indicate that the mechanism of black-box stage is not always work on the relationship between HRM practices and employee performance.\nOriginality/value: Exploring the role of OC on the relationship between HRM practices and employees' behavioral outcome, i.e. employee engagement, is appeared as an initial effort in the academic literature. Furthermore, empirical research that examines the association of different organizational factors with employee engagement through OC is rarely been investigated. Thus, the findings of this study act as a strategic tool for the bank managers to design their organizational policies in such a way that fosters their employee' level of engagement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Executing strategy through comprehensive performance measurement systems	[ "Performance measurement", "Strategy implementation", "Performance management", "Strategy execution", "Non-financial indicators" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Performance measurement systems (PMS) can play a fundamental role in strategy implementation (Bourne et al., 2000; Franco-Santos et al., 2007; Koufteros et al., 2014; Melnyk et al., 2014; Chatha and Butt, 2015). Various authors have emphasised that one of the main functions of PMS is to create organisational alignment (Hanson et al., 2011) and to translate strategy into action (Micheli and Manzoni, 2010). Indeed, PMS have been found to have a positive impact on the development, communication and review of strategy (Gimbert et al., 2010; Franco-Santos et al., 2012).\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Linking strategy and PMS\nMethodology: Sample\nAnalyses and results: Convergent and discriminant validity of model constructs were assessed by means of a principal component exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with promax rotation (Kim and Muller, 1989). We conducted two distinct EFAs, one for the KPIs scales and the other for the variables related to strategy, comprehensive PMS and company performance. Tables II and III show results of the EFAs.\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study has examined the connections between different strategic orientations, comprehensive PMS and three aspects of company performance - organisational, innovative and operational. Our findings support and extend previous results, which were drawn from studies focussing either on the links between strategy and PMS (Gimbert et al., 2010; Micheli and Manzoni, 2010) or on the impact of PMS on company performance (Franco-Santos et al., 2012), and that investigated the use of either financial or non-financial indicators, rather than their combination (Hoque, 2004; Spencer et al., 2009). Also, this research addresses recent calls on the effects of comprehensive PMS, rather than simply balanced ones (see e.g. Hall, 2011; Homburg et al., 2012).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of comprehensive performance measurement systems (PMS) - i.e. measurement systems that comprise financial and non-financial indicators, and which also consist of indicators related to different aspects of an organisation's operations - in the relationship between strategy and company performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data of top managers of large European companies were collected and analysed by means of exploratory factor analyses and hierarchical regressions in order to validate the proposed hypotheses.\nFindings: This research shows that different strategies lead to the use of different types of performance indicators. Also, it finds that the utilisation of a comprehensive PMS enables the implementation of both differentiation and cost-leadership strategies. Specifically, a comprehensive PMS positively mediates the effect of differentiation strategy on organisational and innovative performance, and of cost-leadership strategy on organisational performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research could be undertaken in other contexts and consider additional factors, such as the structure, maturity and different uses of PMS, and the cost of measuring performance. Qualitative studies could examine the role of PMS in dynamic environments, as well as the evolution of PMS during strategic transitions.\nPractical implications: Greater consideration should be given to the utilisation of different types of performance indicators when implementing and re-formulating strategy.\nOriginality/value: This study clarifies the links between strategy and performance measurement, and it is the first to identify the mediating effect of comprehensive PMS between strategy and company performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Monitoring performance indicators in the Portuguese hospitality sector	[ "Balanced scorecard", "Performance indicators", "Hospitality industry", "BSC", "Portuguese hospitality sector" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Tourism is of utmost macroeconomic relevance to the Portuguese economy in terms of growth, employment and external accounts (Neto, 2013; Daniel, 2010; Cunha, 2006; Sarmento, 2003), to the extent that special attention needs to be given to hotel management as a whole and to hospitality managerial tools in particular.\nTheoretical framework: The theoretical framework stems from an extensive literature review that includes works by Eccles (1991), Fitzgerald et al. (1991), Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996, 2000), Ghalayini and Noble (1996), Walsh (1996), Epstein and Manzoni (1998), Atkinson and Epstein (2000), Neely and Bourne (2000), Mihiotis et al. (2006) and Frigo (2012). These studies recognize the recent intangibility of competitive advantages, highlight the insufficiencies of traditional performance management models and adapt performance indicators so as to be able to use them as a strategic tool.\nThe Portuguese hospitality sector: By 2012, the Portuguese hospitality sector comprised 1,508 tourist resorts, which included 118,731 accommodation units (number of rooms/apartments), with a capacity of 259,114 beds. Regarding the typology of tourist resorts, hotels predominated (1,019 units equivalent to 67 per cent), followed by tourist apartments (13 per cent), hotel-apartments (10 per cent), rural hotels (4 per cent), tourist villas (3 per cent) and inns (3 per cent). In terms of accommodation units, the representativeness of hotels was even more significant, with 84,537 units corresponding to 71 per cent of the supply; hotel-apartments followed (13 per cent), then tourist apartments (10 per cent), tourist villas (4 per cent), inns (1 per cent) and rural hotels (1 per cent) (Deloitte, 2012).\nMethodology: This study identifies the performance indicators used in the hospitality sector in Portugal and assesses the relevance assigned to these indicators as a management tool.\nStatistical analysis: The 73-item questionnaire followed Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996) BSC. Note that it is not the objective of this article to present the full extent of results, which encompass not only statistical descriptive analysis (frequencies and central and dispersion tendencies) but also statistical inference analysis (Pearson linear correlations, ordinary least squares regression and the ANOVA and Bonferroni test) and information related to management practices. Herein, the objective is solely to observe the frequency with which indicators addressing the four perspectives of Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996) are monitored, to assess how well balanced the use of (indicators from) the four different perspectives is and to determine whether or not this use coincides with the relevance assigned to the different perspectives/indicators. The presentation of these results by itself is relevant as a future study of correlations will only make sense if evidence exists that the four perspectives of the BSC are present and in balance.\nConclusions: This research analyzed how performance evaluation indicators are used in the Portuguese hospitality sector, and findings showed that hotel managers frequently monitor and assign relevance to performance indicators, and these observe each of the four perspectives of Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996) BSC.\nTheoretical implications: The relevance of performance indicators to monitor organization performance against strategic objectives has already been widely recognized in the literature. This research corroborates this relevance and further establishes an existing acknowledgement, by Portuguese hotel managers, of the relevance of Kaplan and Norton (1992, 1996) BSC as a managerial tool.\nPractical implications: This is a descriptive study related to the use of indicators in the Portuguese hotel sector, to this date inexistent and thus innovative. Thus, the implications for Portuguese hotel managers are quite relevant, as the study reviews/identifies the performance indicators that are suitable for the hospitality sector and further highlights the need and the ways to improve its use in the Portuguese hospitality sector.\nLimitations and future research: The research addressed the majority (34 out of 37) of the four- and five-star hotels belonging to hotel chains operating in Portugal, widely encompassing the Portuguese hospitality sector. Nonetheless, the profile of the respondents may have diminished the quality of data collection. Indeed, although the exploratory phase of the research sought an approximation to the usual terminology and concepts within the Portuguese hospitality sector, some incongruities were found in the answers to the questionnaire. Although it was made clear that the research sought to gauge the use and relevance of the different performance evaluation indicators, specifically for decision-making, there remains some doubt whether or not some of the answers actually referred to a mere periodic performance report.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This article aims to analyze performance evaluation in the Portuguese hospitality sector. It assesses the frequency with which performance indicators are monitored, the relevance assigned to them and how the two are related. It further evaluates whether performance evaluation practices in the Portuguese hospitality sector are based on the balanced scorecard (BSC) philosophy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study builds upon a doctoral research addressing the hospitality sector in Portugal. Theoretically, it resorts to a literature review on performance indicators and the Portuguese hospitality sector. Empirically, it looks at a sample of four- and five-star hotels operating in Portugal in 2012. A questionnaire addressing the four perspectives of BSC was applied, and a descriptive analysis was developed.\nFindings: Performance indicators cover the four perspectives of BSC in a balanced way, which confirms its relevance as a strategic management tool. However, there is no coincidence between the performance indicators most frequently monitored and those considered to be most relevant.\nPractical implications: The study reviews/identifies performance indicators suitable for the hospitality sector and highlights ways to improve their use in the Portuguese hospitality sector.\nSocial implications: Redirecting the use of performance indicators to long-term objectives will benefit the financial results of the hospitality industry, with positive impacts on employment. This is particularly relevant as the hospitality industry is an activity strongly characterized by seasonality.\nOriginality/value: This is a descriptive study related to the use of indicators in the Portuguese hotel sector, to this date inexistent/innovative. It highlights the need for changes in the choice of performance indicators in the Portuguese hospitality sector and offers suggestions for future performance evaluation frameworks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multiple sequential mediation in an extended uses and gratifications model of augmented reality game Pokemon Go	[ "Augmented reality", "Nostalgia", "PLS-SEM", "Uses and gratifications", "Multiple sequential mediation", "Need-to-collect" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mobile games have grown in popularity and various types of mobile games have been created, ranging from casual and hybrid to augmented reality (AR) games. AR is a technique that displays virtual content superimposed upon real-life objects (Tan et al., 2015), combining the physical world and virtual reality. Pokemon GO (PG), an AR game released by Niantic in 2016, became the most downloaded game app (Gilbert, 2016). PG's novel use of AR is considered a breakthrough in the gaming world.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Continuance intentions to play PG\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection and sampling\n4. Results: Table I summarises the profiles of the respondents showing that 61.3 per cent of the respondents were male, 38.7 per cent female and the majority are between the ages of 18 and 35. More than half of the respondents had played the game for three months or more.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n6. Conclusions: The rapid innovation of mobile technology and app games has given millions of users' new ways to play mobile games. Overall, the findings of this study revealed the complex relationship between U&Gs, as well as between mental states and motivations to continue playing games; these findings indicated that players seek different types of gratification in order to enhance their gaming experience. This study has revealed some of the interactions on the complex pathways or mechanisms through which these relationships occur, and it has meaningful implications for both practitioners and researchers regarding the factors that are most likely to affect the behavioural intention of PG players.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism by which uses and gratification (U&G) constructs predict continuance intention to play (ContInt) the augmented reality game Pokemon Go (PG), through multiple serial mediation technique, with enjoyment and flow as mediators. The model also integrates other motivational factors specific to PG, namely, network externality and nostalgia and investigates the process by which they influence ContInt through players' inherent need-to-collect animated monsters and online community involvement, respectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The model was tested using 362 validated responses from an online survey of PG players in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyse the data. The predictive relevance of the model was tested via partial least squares-Predict.\nFindings: ContInt is influenced through various mechanisms. Enjoyment is the most important mediator, mediating three U&G predictor constructs (achievement, escapism, challenge and social interaction) and the outcome ContInt. Flow did not have any influence on ContInt unless coupled with enjoyment as a serial mediator. Network externality and nostalgia were found to only influence ContInt through mediators, online community involvement and need-to-collect Pokemon Monsters, respectively. Overall, the results show evidence of four indirect-only mediation paths and one complementary partial mediation path.\nOriginality/value: Provides support for an integrated model incorporating psychological, social and gaming motivational factors. While most other studies focus on direct relationships, we focus on indirect relationships through multiple sequential mediation analysis, following the recent modern mediation analysis guidelines. Contrary to previous findings, flow was not an important factor in predicting ContInt for gaming and nostalgia does not link directly to ContInt.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Dancing in the dark: creativity, knowledge creation and (emergent) organizational change	[ "Creativity", "Knowledge creation", "Complexity", "Emergent change", "Organizational flexibility", "Organizational space" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, everybody a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega! (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra).\nEmergent organizational change: The literature about organizational change provides a wide range of theories and approaches that vary from the \"Prussian\" philosophy of \"business process reengineering\" (see Willmott, 1994) to the radical constructivism (see Weick, 1995). This paper focuses on a specific kind of change, based on emergent phenomena which (according to the theories illustrated above) are critical for increased flexibility in organizations with a resulting dynamics that can be compared to a dance.\nThe relationship between emergent change and organizational flexibility: According to Ashby's (1964) Law of Requisite Variety, modern organizations need to increase the level of internal variety to cope with the complexity of environment. Moreover, the pace of environmental change requires the ability to live with, even thrive on ambiguity and uncertainty in order to achieve more organizational flexibility and adaptability, which are typical characteristics of interacting dancers.\nOrganizational space: the place where the emergent change begins: Complex organizational systems may be unlocked through the study of the ongoing process of structuring, e.g. the dynamic process of organizing (see Strati, 2000). Organizing is based on social agency, social interactions, recursive pattern of behaviors, e.g. social practices (see Gherardi, 2000) and therefore is the consequence of the dialectic relation between routines and change (Barley, 1986; Giddens, 1979, 1984; Moldoveanu and Bauer, 2004). According to van de Ven and Poole (1995), the dynamics is shaped by a continuous interaction of diverse internal and external players, instigating asynchronous change in different parts of the organization. In the language of dance: by enacting the organizational goal, the dancers are co-creating it through their intuitive interaction. Organizing is facilitated by a participative leadership style and a collaborative work environment, based on trust, active listening and knowledge sharing. Organizations should improve their communication system, in terms of strategies, policies, tools and communication spaces, and develop people's communication skills, in order to catalyze organizing processes and provide a smart interface for the proactive management of complexity. It will also assure the necessary level of coordination and coherence of the organizational system.\nCreativity, knowledge creation and emergent organizational change: Since emergent change is the result of a continuous process of adaptation of existing organizational processes, routines and practices and the creation of new ones, creativity and knowledge creation can be considered its key factors (Ionescu et al., 2012; Isaksen and Lauer, 2002). Emergent change is based on bottom-up spontaneous behaviors and therefore, like in an improvised dance performance, it implies a creative act that may lead to the production of new knowledge. When we use the term \"new\" we are not (only) referring to the creation of brand new knowledge but also to the adaptation and the active re-combination of \"old\" knowledge (see Holden and Glisby, 2010).\nThe role of intuition: In the fluidity of a dance, intuition as a form of direct knowing (Sinclair, 2011), becomes vital for organizational players to notice new opportunities and mutually adjust their responses to the emergent change. Dance is a kinesthetic process where actions and impulses are sensed non-verbally and responses are often immediate (which creates the fluidity of motion), too quick for rational processes. That is why intuitive communication is inherently more suited. We therefore argue that these seemingly impulsive responses are in fact synchronicities (Durant, 2002), anchored in the interconnectedness of all involved players on quantum level (Bohm in Jaworski, 1998), surfacing into their consciousness intuitively (Sinclair, 2010). Since their productive interaction defies a rational explanation, its unfolding will likely appear to an outsider as unexpected and therefore creative.\nEmotional climate as enabling factor: Organizational climate gauges how employees perceive policies, practices, processes and values engendered by their organization (Ashkanasy et al., 2000). Its emotional aspect has been increasingly recognized as an important performance indicator (e.g. Patterson et al., 2004). In this respect, employees' emotional perceptions of work environment are an integral part of the context that influences also levels of creativity. De Rivera (1992, p. 198) describes this phenomenon in terms of \"how people of a society\" (i.e. organization) \"emotionally relate to one another.\"\nThe role of diversity: Another set of issues arises for heterogeneous environments in multinational and global organizations. Diversity encompasses all attributes that can be used to notice individual differences (Mannix and Neale, 2005). There is a common belief, supported by some research evidence (e.g. McLeod et al., 1996), that diversity is a hidden dimension that might increase creativity because of a larger pool of ideas and different perspectives organizational players can tap into and utilize, leading to unusual or novel outcomes. On the other hand, diversity has also its \"dark side\" which can create social divisions that impede productivity (Mannix and Neale, 2005). Therefore, it appears that diversity has to be properly managed (Jehn, 2000) in order to yield positive - and creative - outcomes. We argue that mindful leadership and intuitive communication might be helpful in this respect.\nPractical implications: Consistent with the theoretical framework proposed above, we provide suggestions for the improvement of organizational dance. As recommended by Hirschhorn and Gilmore (1992), managers should adopt a leadership style that encourages active listening and stimulating staff to challenge their bosses; use managerial communication as a tool to make people feel as part of a team and a process, and employ managerial negotiation to reconcile individual and collective interests, finding win-win solutions to balance personal, group and organizational goals with a shared identity. Moreover, Volberda and Lewin (2003) suggest that for organizations to foster their flexibility, they need to develop a leadership style based on delegation and people's commitment at every level of the structure. Leadership style should also incentivize autonomy, corporate entrepreneurship (Thornberry, 2003), critical and creative thinking (Amabile, 1996; Sofo and Kayrooz, 1994), information and knowledge sharing (Holden and Glisby, 2010).\nConclusion: The proposed theoretical framework highlights the relationship between emergent change, creativity and knowledge creation, and argues for the critical role of organizational space in twenty-first century organizations: a social space, both physical and virtual, that facilitates emergent change, fosters creativity and favors processes of knowledge creation and sharing. An organizational space where players can interpret freely their dance and may propose new steps and choreographies, enacting creative processes at individual and collective level that shall drive double-loop (Argyris and Schon, 1974) or deutero learning (Bateson, 1972) in organizations. At the same time, following Amabile and Khaire (2008), we argue for the role of a mindful leader who nurtures a favorable climate and creates a dynamic organizational space for productive diversity that can be channeled into creativity and emergent change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is threefold: to provide a framework for a better understanding of the relationship between creativity, knowledge creation/sharing, and organizational change; to define the key elements at individual and collective level that may contribute to the development of organizational spaces that favour a climate for creativity and knowledge creation as precondition of \"emergent change\"; and to contribute to the development of a multi-perspective approach to creativity and knowledge creation in twenty-first century organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper begins with a review of the emergent non-linear change theories and the change-related processes of knowledge creation. It uses the metaphor of dance to explore the relationship between emergent change and knowledge creation and sharing, and identifies the main factors that may impact this relationship.\nFindings: The authors' framework suggests that the identified factors act as precondition to emergent change. These factors are critical for change management in organizations operating in today's chaotic environment.\nPractical implications: The authors' framework suggests that the identified factors act as precondition to emergent change. These factors are critical for change management in modern organizations. The authors propose guidelines and provide examples how to manage work spaces and facilitate the organizational dance.\nOriginality/value: Even though the academic literature already offers some evidence about the role and the centrality of spontaneous change, this paper provides a systematic, multi-perspective approach to the understanding and management of social, cultural and individual characteristics of bottom-up organizational change, focusing on its fundamental aspects of creativity and knowledge creation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Agency as the achievement of reform ownership: A case study of two middle school teachers' participation in the Pathway Project	[ "Professional development", "English teaching", "Teacher agency", "Reform ownership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: High-quality professional development (PD) has been well-documented in the literature as a vital mechanism for educational improvement (Butler et al., 2015; Fullan and Hargreaves, 2016). Yet, a recent global wave of education reform, characterized by \"top-down\" policies attempting to increase the transparency and trustworthiness of education systems, has heavily shaped the day-to-day work of teachers (Ball, 2003; Buchanan, 2015; Furlong et al., 2009) and the kinds of PD they are offered (Parr, 2004; Sachs, 2016). As teachers find themselves under increasing scrutiny and pressure to conform to standards, meet targets for achievement, and \"teach to the test\" (Buchanan, 2015; Gannon, 2012; Lasky, 2005), the PD they experience may prioritize enacting reform initiatives and securing compliance with accountability mandates, rather than providing teachers with support to engage in deep and continued learning and refinement of their practice (Borko, 2004; Moller, 2009; Sachs, 2016).\nMethods: Program background\nFindings: Three stages in the cultivation of reform ownership for the achievement of agency\nImplications: The cases of Mrs. Cruz and Mrs. Keyes offer several insights of how reform ownership can be cultivated to achieve agency for the development of teacher professionalism, expertise, and the advancement of student learning. First, our findings emphasize that although securing initial buy-in may be necessary for teachers to willingly grapple with and try out reform ideas, it is not enough to ensure long term reform sustainability and growth (Coburn, 2003). We agree with Saunders et al. (2017, p. 2) that \"those responsible for change (teachers) must have a voice in creating and directing that change; teachers are not simply the implementers.\" Meaningful reform positions teachers as agentic actors who help to shape their own learning, the learning of their colleagues, and the future development of the PD.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how, through the cultivation of reform ownership in the professional development (PD) program, the Pathway Project, agency was achieved for the development of teacher professionalism and teacher expertise in the cases of Mrs. Cruz and Mrs. Keyes. This, in turn, provided opportunities to advance student learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Multiple sources of data (focused classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and collected artifacts) were analyzed through a case study approach to understand the processes by which an agentic context materialized for these two teachers.\nFindings: The authors identified the following three stages in the cultivation of reform ownership in the cases of Mrs. Cruz and Mrs. Keyes: emerging; developing; and deepening. Each of these stages proved critical to the achievement of agency for the development of teacher professionalism, teacher expertise and student learning.\nOriginality/value: The cases of Mrs. Cruz and Mrs. Keyes offer a renewed vision of the ways in which teachers can achieve agency in the current reform environment. Given the proliferation of reform efforts within today's educational landscape, their cases suggest that PD developers take seriously the responsibility of cultivating reform ownership for the achievement of agency and deep and lasting change.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Big data and knowledge management: a case of deja vu or back to the future?	[ "Information theory", "Information management", "Business analysis", "Organizational decision-making", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Based on critical analysis of the relevant literatures, this paper draws upon the experience of earlier breakthroughs in Information Systems theory to identify some of the wider implications of big data for the theory and practice of knowledge management. By necessity, this involves an overview of the nature and relationships between the respective sub-disciplines of data, information and knowledge management. The paper recognizes that big data are still in its infancy and is quintessentially a technology or set of still developing technologies. Experience has repeatedly shown that the contribution of new technologies is very much dependant on organizational and especially, human factors.\nBig data: When it comes to authoritative definitions, big data remain something of a work-in-progress. Indeed, Davenport (2014) predicted that the term was facing a relatively short life span. Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier (2013), an authoritative source, concurred that there was no rigorous definition of big data. They envisaged new ways for society to harness information to produce business value through goods and services, adding that the larger scale involved facilitated the extraction of these new insights.\nKnowledge management: The core value proposition of knowledge management emerged in the 1990s, as an ability to address the opportunities and challenges facing organizations in a global economy in which know-how, was increasingly the key to innovation and competitive advantage (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Sveiby, 1997). Presently, the need to be able to turn data and information into knowledge for decision-making remains the most critical factor for business success across all sectors (Ernst and Young, 2014). To date, this broad imperative has produced a panoply of responses described alternatively as schools, ages, stages and generations of knowledge management (Earl, 2001; Firestone, 2001; Firestone and McElroy, 2003; Koenig, 2002; Snowden, 2000; Wiig, 2004). Together, they reflect the need for organizations to acquire, create, organize, disseminate, manage and account for a range of largely intangible resources (alternatively perceived as intellectual capital) from insights to know-how, to organizational conversations (Bontis, 2001; Lev, 2001; Stewart, 1997). This in turn has resulted in a wide range of knowledge management frameworks and models, structures, processes, strategies and cultures, some heavily dependent upon the use of technology, others much less so (Alavi et al., 2006). This includes developments in end-user focused and intelligent technologies from the semantic Web to advanced analytics, all familiar to the domains of competitive and business intelligence, but subject to issues of context, need, purpose and suitability (Mohamed et al., 2006). One obvious factor in this contextual setting is the nature and role of knowledge.\nDo big data signify the end for knowledge management?: The question may be slightly rhetorical and perhaps even extreme, but clearly developments in big data must have implications for knowledge management and indeed, other resource-based activities such as business intelligence. Understanding links as demonstrated in the above section of brief treatment of culture, strategy and frameworks for knowledge management should give pause to those whom might perceive in the onset of big data, the answer to many of the competitive and growth-related problems of businesses at present. However, to better understand the relationship between big data and knowledge management, we should also consider another question: is the traditional hierarchical/continuum of knowledge obsolete?\nDiscussion: The central argument of this paper has been that no technology, however disruptive, is likely to provide the definitive answer to the problems that have plagued information systems designers for decades. To accept that big data represent some kind of millennial stage in information systems development, risks courting \"technological determinism\" and favouring hope over experience. The consistent lessons of experience are that technology alone is an insufficient response to the data and information needs of organizations and societies, absent attention to a range of \"softer\" essentially human factors or human-determined elements such as organizational structures, the behaviour of employees (notably in response to systems implementation) and the role of senior management, which as McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) pointed out, should touch upon issues of leadership, talent management, technology, decision-making and organizational culture. Indeed, the lesson imparted by Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) of the need to align the business and IT domains remains as valuable as ever, something recognized in current research activities (Wagner and Weitzel, 2012), or as also pointed out over a decade ago, in terms of a gap between organisational knowledge and organizational knowing (Cook and Brown, 1999).\nConclusions: Through the critical analysis of relevant references, this paper discussed the trends, relevant issues and development of big data and knowledge management. Despite the undoubted potential and in all likelihood \"future\" of big data, it is hard to see it replacing activities such as competitive and business intelligence and more to the point, knowledge management in the foreseeable future. Even the brief treatment afforded to knowledge management frameworks, strategies and cultures in the paper should indicate that little, if any, attention has as yet been paid to these areas in the literature of big data. It may well be that big data turn out to be not only a disruptive but also a revolutionary development. For the moment, however, there remains the need for advances across a broad range of fronts before this becomes a reality. Therefore, it is sufficing to say that the future of big data could be closely connected to that of knowledge management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Big data clearly represent an important advance in information systems theory, but to describe it as \"revolutionary\" is premature. Similar technological breakthroughs, from online databases to ERP, were clearly modulated by advances in the organizational domain, including matters of structure, strategy and culture and arguably big data will be similar. The purpose of this paper is to encourage discussion of the wider implications of big data for the theory and practice of knowledge management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual study based on critical analysis of the relevant literatures including those of organizational studies and management, big data and knowledge management.\nFindings: The literature of big data emphasizes the application of algorithms to pattern analysis and prediction, resulting in data-driven decision-making, with data being the creator of value in organizations and societies. This would appear to render obsolete previous depictions of the \"data-information-knowledge\" relationship and, in effect, spell the end of knowledge management. However, big data literature largely ignores the organizational dimension and, significantly, the importance of frameworks, strategies and cultures for big data. As all of these are present in the literature of knowledge management, it would seem that big data have a long way to go to catch up and qualify even as a sub-discipline. Indeed, on the evidence, big data may well have a future as a contributor to and/or an element of knowledge management. Even for this to happen, however, major advances are required across the spectrum of big data technologies.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is a position paper written as the precursor for an empirical study.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a critical literature-based and knowledge management perspective on big data while pointing out the common thread that runs through decades of advances in information systems technologies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Certainty, risk and knowledge in the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship in a new product experiment	[ "Customer satisfaction", "New products", "Consumer behaviour", "Intention", "Certainty", "Risk", "Knowledge", "Experiment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Purchase intention is an important concept in the marketing literature (Johnson et al., 2006; Oliver, 2009). Marketing managers are interested in consumers' purchase intentions in order to forecast the sales of existing and/or new products and services as well as to aid marketing decisions related to the product demand for new and existing products, market segmentation and promotional strategies (Tsiotsou, 2006). The forming of consumers' purchase intentions should be particularly dynamic (Oliver, 2009), especially for a new-to-market offering (Johnson et al., 2006). In this early stage of a product, satisfaction is suggested to have a direct influence on purchase intention (Johnson et al., 2006; Mazursky and Geva, 1989). Furthermore, previous studies also suggest that the relationship between satisfaction and purchase intention is affected by moderators such as consumer, situational characteristics (Evanschitzky and Wunderlich, 2006; Walsh et al., 2008) or cultural differences (Kassim and Abdullah, 2010). However, only a few studies that we know of explore moderators in the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship in the context of a new product (Mazursky and Geva, 1989; Smith and Swinyard, 1983).Perceived risk is an important construct in marketing, especially in explaining and understanding consumer evaluation, choice and buying behaviour (Bauer, 1960; Campbell and Goldstein, 2001; Dowling and Staelin, 1994; Mitchell, 1999). Previous studies also suggest that increasing consumers' knowledge is an important strategy to reduce perceived risk (Goyal, 2004) because more information or experiences result in a learning process that leads consumers to perceive less risk (Roselius, 1971). Similar to knowledge, certainty, namely the degree to which an individual is confident that his or her evaluation (e.g. attitude or satisfaction) is correct (Krishnan and Smith, 1998), is suggested to be the most important aspect of a deeper understanding of perceived risk and consumer behaviour (Mitchell, 1999). The combination of those issues may become more important in the market context of developing countries, such as Vietnam, where product risks are common because of low income per capita, low technological development, low education levels and a lack of public and private quality control systems (e.g. public control of food quality).Certainty, product risk and knowledge are important predictors of purchase intention/behaviour as well as moderators in the relationship between satisfaction and purchase intention (Berger, 1992; Capraro et al., 2003; Evanschitzky and Wunderlich, 2006; Gurhan-Canli and Batra, 2004; Tuu and Olsen, 2009). However, most of these studies are in the area of established brands, products and services, and they were designed as cross-sectional self-administrated surveys. Thus, this study aims to provide a deeper understanding about the different roles (e.g. moderator effects) of certainty, product risk and knowledge by investigating these variables in a controlled experiment framed in a study of satisfaction and purchase intention in the context of a new product evaluation.This context is noteworthy because consumers' satisfaction with a new product may often be marked by uncertainty, biased evaluations (Berger et al., 1994), the potential risks of the product (DelVecchio and Smith, 2005; Heilman et al., 2000; Roe and Teisl, 2007) and knowledge and information that has been presented in the context of the tried or new products (Mazursky and Geva, 1989). The effect of those factors in the context of a new product evaluation is also expected to be different from the context of an established product evaluation. For an established product, consumers may have more experiences with the product. The emotional aspect in a new product evaluation is dominant (Homburg et al., 2005), while the belief aspect in an established product evaluation is prevalent (Westbrook and Reilly, 1983). Furthermore, an established product evaluation is often affected by the halo effect (Johnson et al., 2006; Van Doorn, 2008), which means that a previous evaluation may influence the current evaluation (Crosby and Stephens, 1987). By contrast, the halo effect is less obvious or different in contexts with less-developed (weaker) attitudes (Crosby and Stephens, 1987), such as where a new product is evaluated. The strength of consumer attitudes and satisfaction develops over time (Bolton, 1998), and so will their interaction with other related constructs such as knowledge, involvement and other strength-related variables (Chandrashekaran et al., 2007; Chiou et al., 2002; Olsen, 2007). Thus, using a new product will probably make the context or subjects more homogeneous in the area of attitude strength and interactions to other related variables.Therefore, this study is expected to be interesting not only by providing an insight into the formation of purchase intention, but also by providing implications for developing new insights into the dynamics of new product evaluation where all consumers have the same possibility to evaluate relevant product attributes. This is important because some research reports the ratio of failures in marketing new products as being up to 75 percent (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987, 1991). Furthermore, an understanding of new product success factors is important because it provides guidelines for the screening of new products as well as leading to insights into the way new product projects should be managed (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987). It also has important implications for labelling as well as providing practical guidelines for the safe use of new products, especially when the perceptions of risks are always presented (Martinez-Poveda et al., 2009; Roe and Teisl, 2007). In the next sections, we develop the hypotheses, describe an experimental design and finally test the hypotheses.\nTheoretical framework: Satisfaction and purchase intention\nMethods: Product, participants and procedures\nAnalytical results: Manipulation and randomisation checks\nDiscussions and implications: This study conducts an experiment with 120 students in Vietnam to explore the effects of perceived certainty, manipulated risk and knowledge on purchase intention, and the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship in the context of a new product evaluation experiment with the possibility of performing a direct experience (sensory evaluation) with the products. The results prove the success of the manipulated conditions of product risks and knowledge as well as the psychological characteristics of measures. Our study extends previous studies in the area of established products/brands (Capraro et al., 2003; Evanschitzky and Wunderlich, 2006; Tuu and Olsen, 2009) and brand extension (DelVecchio and Smith, 2005). Specifically, this study discusses and tests the moderator role of perceived certainty, manipulated risk and knowledge on the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship in a controlled experiment. Therefore, the findings contribute to providing a deeper understanding of the drivers and barriers, and their causal relationships, in moving from consumers' evaluations of satisfaction to the purchase intention of new products.Theoretical findings and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles of perceived certainty, manipulated risk and knowledge in the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship in the context of a new product evaluation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study uses a 2x2 factorial design with 120 participants and a combination of methods to test hypotheses.\nFindings: - The respondents of low-risk as well as high-knowledge groups report a higher purchase intention. Interestingly, the movement from satisfaction to purchase intention is higher among respondents with higher certainty, and among respondents in low-risk as well as high-knowledge groups. In particular, this study finds a positive interaction effect between manipulated knowledge and manipulated risk on the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As with most experiments, this study has low external validity. Thus, future studies should use different products/brands tested among a wider range of consumers and in more realistic user situations. Both product risk and consumer knowledge are multidimensional constructs, thus, it will be interesting for future studies to manipulate different facets of those constructs (e.g. financial risk, procedural knowledge).\nPractical implications: - The authors' findings suggest that managers should be aware of satisfaction strength (e.g. confidence and knowledge) and risk in their estimations of purchase intention based on satisfaction measurement. Marketing strategies that reduce consumers' risks, consolidate their confidence and educate them with relevant knowledge may be effective strategies to increase their purchase intentions, especially towards new products.\nOriginality/value: - This study contributes to the literature by simultaneously examining the roles of perceived certainty, manipulated risk and knowledge within a satisfaction-purchase intention relationship. It also contributes by providing empirical evidence supporting an interaction between knowledge and risk affecting the satisfaction-purchase intention relationship. Finally, it uses a controlled experiment in the context of a new product evaluation to confirm the causal effects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evidence-based inpatient handovers: a literature review and research agenda	[ "Handover", "Review", "Communication", "Care continuity", "Pathway" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background\nMethodology: Search and selection strategy\nResults: Figure 1 summarises the results of the review process. In total, 80 abstracts were selected for full text review from the literature searches. A total of 16 were excluded at this stage, as they did not meet our selection criteria; and 18 \"snowball\" references were added to the review scope as they offered implementation studies, conceptual models or subject reviews. We did not pursue secondary references that only gave further background information. The 82 papers are summarised in additional file 1. Omission of \"handoff\" and cognate terms from our search strategy may have led to American literature being under-represented in this review.There is, to our knowledge, no systematic review published in the peer-reviewed literature that examines the evidence base for the practice of inpatient handovers across healthcare professions and specialties. Lyons et al. (2010) presented a useful summary table of 51 papers on clinical handovers in the introduction to their paper, but did not portray this as a systematic review, and did not offer quality appraisal or critical synthesis. Cohen and Hilligoss (2010) reported on weaknesses in the literature on handovers, based on their unpublished review (Cohen and Hilligoss, 2008). We found two references (Hill and Nyce, 2010; Jenkin et al., 2007) to reviews documented in unpublished MSc dissertations (Hill, 2010; Jenkin, 2005) but we have not yet appraised these. The only thorough subject reviews generally available are Cohen and Hilligoss (2008), Wong et al. (2008)and Nagpal et al. (2010). The 2008 reports reviewed papers that were indexed in Medline, but the reviews are not themselves indexed in Medline or CINAHL so we only encountered them as secondary references. There has been a considerable body of literature published since then, some indexed in CINAHL rather than Medline. The systematic review by Nagpal and colleagues, specifically limited to surgery, was included in our synthesis. We also included two sub-topic reviews: a systematic review of mnemonics used to structure the content and process of handovers (Riesenberg et al., 2009) and a literature review of inpatient handovers specific to palliative care nursing (Messam and Pettifer, 2009).Tables I-VII summarise the provenance of the reviewed papers, the study designs, subject professions and clinical settings of implementation papers and our subjective quality appraisals. (Several studies considered multiple healthcare professions so the sum total of Table IV is higher than 29.)\nDiscussion: Overview\nConclusions: Sufficiency of evidence\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this review is to address two research questions: What is evidence-based best practice for intra-hospital inpatient handovers? What areas need further research? The paper aims to take a particular interest in the interpersonal skills involved in successful handover, theoretically-based approaches to implementing improvements in handovers, and whether there is sufficient data to construct an evaluation methodology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper takes the form of a narrative synthesis based on search of PubMed, CINAHL and the Cochrane Library.\nFindings: - A total of 82 papers, comprising 29 implementation studies, 13 conceptual models or improvement methods, five subject reviews and 35 background papers were identified. None of the studies met the normal parameters of evidence-based medicine, but this is unsurprising for a complex healthcare service intervention.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Those papers published in English between 2000 and July 2010 that were indexed in CINAHL, Medline or the Cochrane Library or found opportunistically were the only ones to be reviewed. The authors did not search any grey literature or hand-search any journals.\nPractical implications: - The evidence is sufficient to justify widespread adoption of the guiding principles for inpatient handover best practice, provided that concurrent evaluation is also undertaken.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first comprehensive review published in the peer-reviewed literature that examines the evidence base for the practice of inpatient handovers across healthcare professions and specialties.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mixed implications of private supplementary tutoring for students' learning: Urban and rural disparities in Bangladesh	[ "Bangladesh", "Private supplementary tutoring", "Shadow education", "Mixed implications", "Urban and rural disparity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The mixed implications of fee-charging private supplementary tutoring, which are concerned with students' learning, are commonly visible in developing and undeveloped societies. At times, the general public raises arguments on tutoring issues, with various positive and negative opinions. Some have remarked that tutoring supports students' learning and improves the average results of schools, while others claim that tutoring has drawbacks which hamper educational perspectives and create arguments about academic rationality. Tutoring has benefits in helping slow learners to keep up with their peers and in further stretching the learning of high achievers, but tutoring can also increase pressure on youth and may not always be effective (Bray, 2013, p. 18).\nMixed/contradictory implications of tutoring: Tutoring helps mainstream education to improve students' learning skills on the one hand, and affects some students' class attention and enhances negligence in some teachers' lesson delivery on the other hand. Tutored students may experience reduced respect for school teachers and the school curriculum. In contrast, tutoring in the marketplace may be more client-oriented than regular schooling and students can choose their suitable tutors who take care to be responsive to their perceived needs (Chan and Bray, 2014, p. 365). In an Indian study, Bhorkar and Bray (2018, pp. 148-149) noted several problems commonly found in tutoring, in spite of its positive effects on students' academic performance. At times, students absent themselves from mainstream schools to devote their time and energy to private supplementary tutoring.\nBangladesh and its urban and rural sites: Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in South Asia. Bangladesh has 64 districts and a centralized government. Among the 64 districts, Patuakhali and Dhaka were chosen for research sites. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, was selected as the urban site, while Patuakhali, the southern part of the country, was selected as the rural setting. Nayagram (a pseudonym), one of the sub-districts (village areas) in Patuakhali, was selected as the rural setting for data collection. Some rural students cannot consistently afford coaching or private tuition, and do not get better guidance from parents at home and teachers in the classroom (New Age, 2017).\nThe study: The focus of the study is on the mixed implications of tutoring, including positive and negative perspectives. The study identifies the extent to which private supplementary tutoring benefits and affects student learning. The scale variations of tutoring impacts are described in the contexts of urban and rural locations.\nResearch methodology: The paper employed a mixed methods approach (Creswell, 2012, pp. 542-543) with a survey and individual interviews collected from two different research settings: urban and rural. The mixed methods design was chosen, since only statistical interpretations without much in-depth information may bring weaknesses at times. The qualitative findings expressed interviewees' individual feelings to detect mixed impacts (advantages and drawbacks) of students' learning. The research was conducted between August 2014 and March 2015 in Bangladesh. Participants provided their information for the latest 12 months.\nFindings and analysis: Quantitative and qualitative data have been mixed in analysis. The mixed implications of private supplementary tutoring have been presented in two phases: advantages and drawbacks. The different extents of mixed implications, including advantages and drawbacks between urban and rural locations, have been addressed. Urban and rural disparity mainly refers to amount variations of merits and demerits of private tutoring. The scale of variations of tutoring implications between urban and rural areas are identified mainly from the survey data of the Tables I-IV. As RQ3 (regarding scale of variations of tutoring implications) is quantifiable, the answer was obtained chiefly from the survey data. Although some interview participants indicated urban/rural disparities, it was not possible to estimate any scale/amount of variations of tutoring impacts through qualitative data.\nAdvantages: Most students (urban and rural) who participated in interview protocols reported that tutoring increased their learning attainment. Tutoring helped to address students' learning difficulties, which were unsolved by schools. One urban student mentioned:I have learned much through tutoring. I hope this learning achievement will bring success in my life. I was very weak in English and Mathematics. I have decreased my weaknesses.\nDrawbacks: Examination-centered aim\nDiscussion and conclusion: The study focuses on the mixed impacts of private supplementary tutoring with an emphasis on amount disparities of tutoring implications between urban and rural locations. The exploration of \"mixed implications\" contributes to Bangladeshi tutoring literature because previous studies (Hamid et al., 2009; Mahmud and Bray, 2017; Mahmud and Kenayathulla, 2018; Manzoor, 2013; Nath, 2007) have mostly addressed demand determinants, scales and patterns of private tutoring. The drawback of private tutoring, a significant feature, has been highlighted in this paper and shown how tutoring brings tension to pupils' learning at times. Though several studies (Bray, 2003, 2013; Jokic, 2013; Kobakhidze, 2014) echo negative perspectives of private tutoring, variations among tutoring demerits between urban and rural settings are substantial in this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Private supplementary tutoring, common in many countries, has mixed (both positive and negative) dimensions that impact student learning. Private supplementary tutoring runs parallel to mainstream schooling and provides lessons before or after school hours in exchange for additional fees. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how private supplementary tutoring benefits students' learning in secondary education. It also identifies the drawbacks of tutoring, and shows variations in and between urban and rural locations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employed a mixed methods approach using a survey and individual interview collected from two different research settings: urban and rural. Grades 8 and 10 were purposefully chosen for data collection. A sample of 802 participants, including 401 students and their 401 parents (either mothers or fathers), participated in the survey, in addition to 48 interviewees comprising students, parents and teachers.\nFindings: At times, pupils' educational perspectives are influenced by the conflicting (positive/negative) standpoints of tutoring issues. The paper finds mixed impacts of private tutoring with a focus on disparities of implications between urban and rural locations. It identifies positive aspects such as learning attainment, exam preparation, relationship growth and lesson practice, as well as negative perspectives, such as an examination-centered aim and hamper of mainstream school learning.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the awareness of private supplementary tutoring that benefits students' learning while also bringing disadvantages. It shows implications of fee-charging tutoring which may relate to students' family socio-economic situations. The paper addresses private tutoring in general (including English and all other subjects) in most cases, and, more specifically, private tutoring in English as a subject in some cases.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HRD indicators and branding practices: a viewpoint on the employer brand building process	[ "Qualitative study", "HR managers", "Thematic analysis", "Employer brand", "Branding practices", "HRD indicators" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Individuals are considered to be the creative elements in the organizational set-up. People are the goods and design producers, the service providers, quality controllers, application makers and protectors, market products, allocate finances and define the overall strategy and goals of the organization. However, attracting and retaining the right individuals is always a challenge for companies in the current context. These challenges result in a constant search for new tools and practices. One such new approach in the current business context is \"employer branding\".\nWhat is employer branding?: Ambler and Barrow (1996) has first defined the term employer branding as \"the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company\" (p. 187). Afterward, Dell and Ainspan (2001), stated as \"identity of the firm as an employer.\" Further, Cooper (2008) defined employer branding is \"what a company offers to their employee\" and \"it is a long term strategy to manage and shape the perceptions of internal and external stakeholders of an organization as the best place to work.\" For the study, employer branding is defined as \"the sum of the company's effort to manage and balance the perceptions of employees that it is the best place to work\".\nEmployer brand building process through branding theories and HRD practices: According to numerous studies, employer brand first describes its corporate brand and ensures that every practice of employer brand must establish a return equivalent to other forms of business investment (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Society for Human Resource Management, 2010; Tanwar and Prasad, 2016). In a research study conducted by Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) stated that management feels content and motivated with the company's return on investment (ROI) through managing people is higher than the ROI on outsourcing the organizational processes. However, the study concluded that implementing successful people strategy takes time and consistent support from the management. In the view of Gratton and Truss (2003) people, strategy underpins both organizational policies and processes developed and implemented for the optimal utilization of people resources (p. 74). Human beings in generally categorize the information they receive every day and efficiently they multitude the information by highlighting few aspects and neglect some in the process (Degner et al., 2009). This idea is further used in classifying the best product or brand in the market. Many times, customers portray certain features of a product or a brand and neglect others during the consultations and feedback sessions (Blackston, 2000). The idea of marketing principles such as unique selling points or branding principles like communicating the desired brand image should be considered for an employer brand to achieve the status of an \"employer of choice.\"\nObjectives of the study: After considering the literature review, the following objectives have framed:\nResearch methodology: The purpose of the research work was to identify the successful employer brand building characteristics and arrange them under a common dimension. To obtain a diversified view, the study reviewed both academic and consultant works. Also, researchers attempted to understand from the practitioner's perspective to check the alignment between reality and theory. In this view, the study adopted a qualitative multiple case study research, and both inductive and deductive approaches were applied.\nFindings: From Table 1, it is understood that all the three cases are multinational companies, which are located and operating in India. To provide a better understanding of the employer brand building process in each of the companies, study thematised the discussions into two categories, which are summarized in Table 2.\nDiscussion: The above-given interpretations are consistent and have a significant interest in highlighting the importance of employer branding. Managers stated that employer branding is not just a practice it is more a phenomenon and a process, which sets a context for the growth and development of the best workplaces. The combined effect of branding theories and HRD practices will establish the most attractive and successful employer brand building process in place. Involving the potential and existing employees in the psychological contract formation; consistency among the internal and external communication systems; and top management approach with the brand highlighted the need for research and theory development in employment branding. Further, alignment of human resources and marketing theories nurture the idea of \"living the brand\" better and give scope for new management practices.\nReflections and implications for employer branding research and practice: From the discussions with the managers, the study underlined that the robust communication systems, realistic HRD and marketing strategy building, noticeable and distinctive employer brands, sustaining internal and external brand practices as successful brand constituents. Further, in the discussions, managers agreed that the HRD strategy and organizations culture contributes meaningfully to the employer brand success. The HRD team involves more employees in the setting and implementation of the employer brand goals. They have used techniques such as hackathons for idea generations, fair management practices in the first place when taking major decisions such as promotions, rewards and recognitions and realistic communication system to enable positive employee experience.\nConclusion: This paper presents a discussion of the three selected company HR managers on employer brand building metrics. The percolation of corrections and the required amount of information sharing is a very important factor in brand formation. Meaningfulness and visibility of the organization's brand are associated with consistent messages and it enables employees to understand the desired brand image. Employer brand awareness and differentiator characteristics and HRD indicators upheld the employee's psychological contract and build a sense of trust in the organization's brand. Employer brand is defined as the combined effect of branding and HRD practices of a company as the employer, which is unique and distinct to both potential and existing employees. Finally, the study would like to set a path for more research in the association with marketing theories, HR theories and brand strategies for building strong and successful employer brands.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The concept of employer branding has drawn the attention of both academicians and practitioners over a decade. However, inaction, the objective of the employer brand managers were hardly tapped. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the views of HR manager on employer branding activities and its implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a case research of three multinational companies in India. A semi-structured interview method has been adopted to collect the data and a content analysis technique was used for analyzing the data into identified themes.\nFindings: The HR managers of the studied company were discussed with multiple activities related to employer branding practice and implementation in their workplace. The key observations and discussions from the interviews were themed after the analysis as meaningfulness and visibility, employer brand awareness and differentiator and human resource development (HRD) parameters.\nResearch limitations/implications: The combined effect of branding theories and HRD practices will establish the most attractive and successful employer brand building process in place. Involving the potential and existing employees in the psychological contract formation; consistency among the internal and external communication systems; and top management approach with the brand highlighted the need for research and theory development in employment branding.\nPractical implications: Communication breakdown, strategic mismatch, long-term disconnects and sustained success are the strategic concerns that every company who believe in the idea of employer branding may face and need to well-handled.\nOriginality/value: The study concluded with the belief of the human resources managers from all the three organizations as stated - adopting a community based strategic approach to the organization's brand and clear about what the employer brand stand across the employment lifecycle drives businesses into success.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring knowledge spillovers transfer from scholars in business schools: validation of a multiple-item scale	[ "Knowledge spillovers transfer", "Construct validation", "Psychometric properties", "Survey", "Business schools", "Canada" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The question of how close academics are able to get to the reality of practitioners in their research is increasingly raised (Hughes et al., 2011). More academics are asked to demonstrate that their research is resolutely aimed at providing value-added expert advice and operational solutions for users outside the academic community (Bornmann, 2013; D'Este et al., 2018; Amara et al., 2019).\n2. Rationale and selected literature review: 2.1 Rationale\n3. Method: The development of the KST scale is part of a larger project that aims to identify the determinants of formal and informal KT activities from Canadian business academics to companies. The method followed in this study to construct and to validate the KST scale is informed by the standard procedure of scale development, which has been widely used or referred in literature (Hinkin et al., 1997; Mainert et al., 2018; Robinson, 2018; Nghia and Duyen, 2019). More specifically, the whole process is delineated in five successive stages, as illustrated in Figure 1. The first three stages of the scale generation process allow to ensure the content validity of the proposed KST scale. The fourth stage corresponds to the data collection conducted using the final questionnaire resulting from the content validity process. Finally, the data gathered are statistically analyzed in the fifth stage to assess the psychometric properties and the nomological validity of the KST scale.\n4. Results: The results of the study are presented below according to the statistical analysis process depicted in Figure 2.\n5. Discussion: This study attempts to develop and psychometrically test an instrument to measure KST from scholars in business schools to practitioners outside academia. The descriptive analysis of the 12 items shows an adequate contribution to the overall scale. The internal reliability of the construct showed an acceptable coefficient (a = 0.88) and does not appear to improve by removing any of the items. With regard to the construct validity of the scale, the EFA results showed that the 12 items form a single dimension that accounts for 43.90 per cent of variance and exhibit an adequate fit RMSEA = 0.07 (95 per cent CI = 0.0595 - 0.0741); GFI index of 0.99 (95 per cent CI = 0.984 - 0.990) (Tanaka and Huba, 1989). The CFA also replicated that structure and presented an adequate fit (kh2 (226.312)/df (54) = 4.19; S-B kh2 (148.37)/df (54) = 2.75; NNFI = 0.92; CFI = 0.94; IFI = 0.94; MFI = 0.94; (RMSEA = 0.07; 90 per cent CI = 0.053, 0.078)) (Carmines and McIver, 1981; MacCallum and Austin, 2000; Byrne, 2009). In addition, the convergent validity was also satisfactory. Indeed, the items that form the KST scale were significantly and strongly correlated with the latent variable they assumed to measure (Vila et al., 2000; Hair et al., 2006). Overall, the obtained psychometric properties suggest that the instrument is reliable and valid, which justifies its use as a measurement tool of KST from business scholars to users in the practice milieu.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a 12-item scale of knowledge spillovers transfer (KST) from scholars in business schools to practitioners outside academia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 807 faculty members from 35 Canadian business schools was used for the psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire. The reliability of the scale was assessed by Cronbach's alpha. The construct validity was examined through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The nomological validity was assessed by analyzing the prediction of two output indicators by means of KST using structural equation modeling and by testing differences in KST according to other related variables.\nFindings: The psychometric properties obtained indicate that the instrument is reliable and valid, which invites to its use as a diagnostic tool of KST from scholars in business schools to users outside academia.\nResearch limitations/implications: The KST questionnaire developed and validated in this study can be considered as a useful practical tool enabling the assessment of business scholars' KST activities.\nPractical implications: The KST questionnaire developed may enlighten business schools' administrators and policy-makers to identify and implement actions to improve the transfer of knowledge between research and practice.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, despite the wide range of quantitative measures proposed in the literature, this is the first study that aims to present a comprehensive, accurate and validated scale to measure KST from scholars in business schools to practitioners outside academia.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovation and labour flexibility: A Spanish study of differences across industries and type of innovation	[ "Innovation", "Skills flexibility", "Flexible labour", "Production planning and control", "Spain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The firm's capacity to innovate is the ability to adopt or implement new processes or products successfully. This capacity enables the firm to respond more successfully to its environment. In turn, the interaction with the environment is crucial in the firm's innovation process. The environments pressure may force companies to respond or behave proactively in order to remain competitive. Uncertainty and competition are examples of environmental factors that may influence the adoption of innovations in organizations. A topic that has received little attention in the literature of innovation is the relationship between innovation and flexibility, a characteristic of the firm's dynamic capabilities to cope with environmental changes (Teece et al., 1997).This relationship is an important topic for research and management because flexibility has become a catchword in the discussions about the new organizations of the twenty-first century. Increasing global competition, accelerating technological change and expanding customer expectations are creating a turbulent environment. Flexibility enables firms to cope with this increasing uncertainty because it facilitates a quick response. At the same time, flexibility can also be an active approach to introduce more uncertainty in the marketplace. The development of flexibility capabilities can influence the innovation process: for instance, the flexibility of new product development enables a company to introduce more products and faster than competitors (Malhotra et al., 1996; Tatikonda and Rosenthal, 2000); on the contrary, other flexibility capabilities may have a negative impact on innovation, like the outsourcing of some complementary assets (Teece, 1986).The competition in high technology and very dynamic markets require greater combinations of innovation and flexibility capabilities. For instance, the development of hi-tech products cannot be carried out by in-house R&D alone (Miotti and Sachwald, 2003). Global competition and expanding customer expectations for hi-tech products creates the need for faster new product development to stay ahead from competition. The drive for leaner organizations has led to increased use of labour flexibility, downsizing and outsourcing, whilst rewards have become more performance related (Richbell, 2001), all of which may have consequences for innovation. However, we still know very little about the relationships between innovation and flexibility, and the theoretical perspectives that can explain these relationships even propose contradictory explanations.To attain the level of organizational flexibility that customers' value (i.e. quick delivery of a variety of innovative, high-quality, low-cost products), firms must manage different types of flexibility. An overview of the literature reveals that the taxonomy of flexibility is very extensive, due to the fact that this concept is widely applied to different areas of the organization. This paper focuses the analysis on flexibility dimensions related to human resources and external relations (workplace flexibility) because labour flexibility constitutes a platform to build other levels of flexibility (Karuppan, 2004; Upton, 1995) and because external relations are a source of knowledge that contribute to innovation.Then, this paper reviews the literature of innovation and labour flexibility to develop research hypotheses that are tested in a sample of Spanish manufacturing and service firms. The paper is structured in the following way. The second section reviews the concepts, theoretical perspectives and previous empirical studies that have contributed to this topic. The third section explains the methodology of the empirical study, followed by the results and discussion. Finally, the paper concludes with limitations and suggestions for future research.\n2. Theoretical context and hypotheses: 2.1 Theory and past research\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and procedure\n4. Results: Table II shows the comparison (t-test) between high-innovative performing firms and low-innovative performing firms1. The results indicate that high-innovative firms are more flexible than low-innovative firms: at strategic level, the construct of strategic flexibility shows a greater value for high-innovative firms, and the difference is statistically significant (p=0.000). The comparison of each workplace flexibility dimension between high- and low-innovative firms indicates that not all flexibility dimensions are equally important for high-innovative firms: there are not statistically significant differences between both group of firms for external numerical flexibility and outsourcing; however, internal flexibility (functional and numerical) shows greater statistically significant values (p=0.000) for high-innovative firms. These statistically significant mean differences remain at the same level for each measure of innovation performance - product and process innovation - with the exception that internal numerical flexibility is less statistically significant to compare high-process innovation firms (p=0.03) than high-product innovation firms (p=0.001).Table II also shows the correlations between flexibility and innovation performance, which are used to test the research hypotheses. First, internal functional flexibility is positively related to innovation performance (p<0.01) which supports hypothesis H1. Second, internal numerical flexibility is also positively related to innovation performance (p<0.01) which supports H2. Third, external numerical flexibility is not related to innovation performance (p>0.1) which does not support hypothesis H3. Neither there is a significant relationship of external functional flexibility and outsourcing with innovation performance (p>0.1) which does not support H4 and H5. The level of significance of the correlations does not change if we analyze separately product innovation performance and process innovation performance. Finally, Table II also indicates that both financial flexibility and strategic flexibility are positively related to innovation (p<0.01). Table III shows which hypotheses are supported by our results.Table IV shows the mean differences and correlations of flexibility dimensions between high- and low-innovative firms in the knowledge-intensive manufacturing and service firms. The comparison of the statistically significant flexibility dimensions in each group of firms' shows several differences. First, there are more significant mean differences of flexibility dimensions in service firms than in manufacturing firms: outsourcing, external functional flexibility and financial flexibility have statistically significant differences between high- and low-innovative firms in services but not in manufacturing. Second, outsourcing is positively correlated to innovation (both product and process) in service firms but not in manufacturing firms. Third, financial flexibility is significantly correlated to process and product innovation performance in manufacturing but not in service firms. And finally, internal numerical flexibility is marginally correlated to innovation performance in service but not in manufacturing firms.\n5. Discussion and implications for managers: The results of our survey indicate that some workplace flexibility dimensions are differently related to innovation according to industry and type of innovation which may have implications for human resources and operation managers. Other flexibility dimensions - internal functional, external functional, external numerical, and strategic flexibility - do not have significant differences across sectors which implies that some flexible managerial practices appear to be global in knowledge-intensive firms. Our results support other studies which found that not all dimensions of flexibility are equally important in different competitive settings (e.g. Michie and Sheehan, 2003). Thus, in studying the impact of flexibility in a specific context such as innovation, care must be taken to focus on the relevant dimensions of flexibility. For instance, Morley et al. (1995) suggest that non-standard employment forms or increases in functional flexibility do not necessarily signify the emergence of a flexible firm scenario, but rather a segmented labour market at industry sector level.We have found that internal functional and internal numerical flexibilities are positively related to product and process innovation in both manufacturing and service firms. This lack of differences across industries and type of innovation suggests that the adoption of internal workplace flexible practices (multiskilled teams, job rotation, etc.) contributes to the development of core-employees who are responsible for innovation activities. Then, the adoption of internal functional and numerical flexible practices may enhance innovation behaviour and performance among core employees, and as a consequence contribute positively to the firms' innovation performance.We have also found that financial flexibility is positively related to innovation performance. The adoption of financial flexible practices may support the adoption of internal functional and numerical flexible practices, which in turn may have positive consequences for innovation performance. Similarly, the positive relationship between strategic flexibility and innovation performance suggests that a favourable (proactive) strategic approach to flexibility may contribute to enhance the firms' innovation performance through internal workplace flexibility dimensions.The results of our study indicate that the use of internal workplace flexibility is more important than external workplace flexibility in high-innovative firms because external workplace flexibility dimensions are not related to innovation performance. Firms that are more innovative do not adopt work external arrangements and outsourcing more intensively than less innovative firms. The average adoption of functional flexibility practices and the intensity of using these practices by employees are greater in the group of high-innovative firms which may suggest as well that numerical flexibility can be used to support innovation activities by core employees. These results would support those theoretical perspectives which emphasize that innovation should not be carried out through external work arrangements but by employees in core value-creation areas with functional flexibility.Thus, outsourcing is positively related to innovation performance in service firms but negatively (although not significantly) in manufacturing firms. This difference can be explained because in service firms, like telecommunications and software, the locus of innovation may reside in inter-organizational networks rather than in individual firms, and access to external knowledge is thus critical for competitive advantage. However, the automotive firms included in the sample are first-tier suppliers that do not use strategic outsourcing as often and intensively as automotive assemblers do. On the contrary, service firms had the opportunity to establish collaborative rather than adversarial relations in external transactions.Our findings indicate that in some firms the increasing use of external workplace flexibility may be in parallel with the increased emphasis on innovation in dynamic environments. Flexible labour may be used sometimes to support innovative ventures or to access scarce knowledge. The development and effective management of external alliances and human resources are important to maximize innovation performance. Outsourcing key functions such as R&D presents challenges to firms in managing the cross-boundary interfaces to externalize and assimilate external knowledge.\n6. Conclusion: This paper has analyzed relationships between workplace-related flexibility dimensions and innovation performance, as well as their differences between these Spanish manufacturing and service industries: automotive, telecommunications, software and consulting. Our results indicate that high-innovative firms are more flexible than low-innovative firms, and that some workplace flexibility dimensions are positively correlated to innovation performance. But the comparison of each flexibility dimension across industries and type of innovation also indicates that not all flexibility dimensions are statistically significant and have the same relationship with innovation performance. The differences across industries and type of innovation suggest that firms use internal flexible capabilities to complement innovation capabilities but that external flexible capabilities are not related to innovation performance. Some flexibility dimensions do not have differences across industries and type of innovation, which suggests that some flexible managerial practices appear to be global in knowledge-intensive firms.As regards to limitations, the small sample size is a potential threat to the validity of the study. The use of managerial perceptions to evaluate innovation performance should also be taken as a limitation and a need for further validation of our results in future studies. A number of avenues for future research may be suggested on the results of this study. In order to analyze the degree to which the use of external work arrangements in the core is a general phenomenon among firms in dynamic environments, more across-sector studies should be undertaken. Besides, longitudinal studies should be used to test the relationship between innovation and change in flexibility practices since cross-sectional studies made very difficult to test causal relationships.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to analyze the relationship between labour flexibility and innovation performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is a review of theoretical perspectives to analyze this relationship. A postal survey of a sample of Spanish manufacturing and service firms was conducted and this was subject to nonparametric analysis.\nFindings: - High-innovative Spanish firms are more flexible than low-innovative firms although the comparison across industries and type of innovation indicates that not all flexibility dimensions are statistically significant in their relationship to innovation performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study's single country setting could limit the generalizability of the findings. Longitudinal as opposed to cross-sectional data are needed for studying the causal assumptions suggested by this research.\nPractical implications: - Given the differences of flexibility dimensions found across industries and type of innovation firms should use flexibility capabilities to complement innovation capabilities. On the other hand, some flexible managerial practices should be adopted as early as possible because they appear to be global in knowledge-intensive firms and do not have differences across sectors and type of innovation.\nOriginality/value: - This paper combines in the same analysis the relationship of internal and external flexibility with innovation performance, and their managerial implications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How do top- and bottom-performing companies differ in using business analytics?	[ "Organizational performance", "Contingency theory", "MANOVA", "Business analytics", "Data-driven environment", "Information processing view" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Business analytics (BA) refers to \"the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions\" (Davenport and Harris, 2007, p. 7). While BA has been widely examined since 1950s (Davenport, 2013), it has attracted growing attention recently (Chen et al., 2012; Holsapple et al., 2014; Watson, 2014) mainly due to the emergence of big data. Arguably, the BA phenomenon needs to be examined in light of the following three key changes. First, BA is intertwined with big data (Davenport, 2013), from which organizations use BA to gain data-driven insights. Second, in order to process big data effectively, BA builds upon new IT such as Hadoop, cloud services (Goes, 2014), new agile analytical methods, and machine-learning techniques (Davenport, 2013). Third, the confluence of big data, advances in IT, and BA has made it possible for organizations to make effective decisions based on data-driven insights that were previously invisible (Barton and Court, 2012) and to move toward \"territory which has historically been seen as reliant on human judgment\" (Gillon et al., 2014, p. 288). Kiron et al. (2014), for example, suggest that companies that use BA perform better than those that do not use it in creating competitive advantages, and it is important for companies to step up the use of BA to make better business decisions thereby to create strategic value. Cao et al. (2015), based on a sample of 740 UK businesses, demonstrate that BA positively influences decision-making effectiveness, and in order to use BA effectively organizations need to develop a data-driven environment reflected by an \"analytically driven strategy\" (Davenport and Harris, 2007), relevant business processes (Barton and Court, 2012), and organizational structure (Acito and Khatri, 2014).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 BA and BA taxonomies\n3. Research methodology: The hypotheses were empirically tested based on data collected from UK manufacturers. In order to achieve the research objectives, this paper only considered top- and bottom-performing companies selected from all responding companies. Performance was measured by the perceived profitability using the following question: to what extent do you agree that you are more effective than your competitors at generating profit (1 - highly disagree to 5 - highly agree). While organizational performance can be measured in terms of a number of different indicators, a firm's profitability relative to its competitors is one major determinant of firm performance (Hansen and Wernerfelt, 1989). Consistent with prior research on firm performance (Newbert, 2008; Ngo and O'Cass, 2013), perceived relative profitability was used to differentiate top- and bottom-performing companies in this study. According to the values of the perceived performance scored on the five-point Likert scale, Group 1 included top-performing companies with a score of 4 or 5 and Group 2 included bottom-performing companies with a score of 1 or 2. Companies scored 3 were not included in the analysis.\n4. Main findings: The main findings are summarized next, including the perceived profitability differences in data-driven environment and BA applications, and the degree differences of fit between BA and data-driven environment. An analysis of the odds ratio of high scores was also performed to examine to what extent the groups differed when they were statistically distinguishable.\n5. Conclusions: The main objective of this study was to understand the extent to which top- and bottom-performing companies differ regarding their use and organizational facilitation of BA. Almost all hypotheses except H2c are supported by the model testing results. The findings suggest that in the UK manufacturing industry top- and bottom-performing companies are significantly different with reference to their BA applications (except prescriptive analytics), data-driven environment, and the fit between BA and data-driven environment. However, there are particularities to be further discussed. More specifically, the following contributions have been made.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Business analytics (BA) has attracted growing attention mainly due to the phenomena of big data. While studies suggest that BA positively affects organizational performance, there is a lack of academic research. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the extent to which top- and bottom-performing companies differ regarding their use and organizational facilitation of BA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses are developed drawing on the information processing view and contingency theory, and tested using multivariate analysis of variance to analyze data collected from 117 UK manufacture companies.\nFindings: Top- and bottom-performing companies differ significantly in their use of BA, data-driven environment, and level of fit between BA and data-drain environment.\nPractical implications: Extensive use of BA and data-driven decisions will lead to superior firm performance. Companies wishing to use BA to improve decision making and performance need to develop relevant analytical strategy to guide BA activities and design its structure and business processes to embed BA activities.\nOriginality/value: This study provides useful management insights into the effective use of BA for improving organizational performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Design and analysis of a health care clinic for homeless people using simulations	[ "Medical care", "Health services", "Quality", "Homelessness", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A health clinic is planned to provide the basic health care free of charge for homeless people in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. This clinic is completely supported by charity groups and will be operated by volunteering staffs of nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc., to offer health care needs and help increase the opportunities for the impoverished people. A successful establishment of the clinic will not only provide timely care to homeless patients, but also help reducing the overcrowding in emergency departments in local hospitals and other health care facilities. In order to achieve the best quality of care of the clinic, analyzing the patient outcome, in particular, patient waiting time and throughput, based on various staffing levels, is of importance.To accomplish this, discrete event simulation models can be carried out to investigate various scenarios and their impacts on patient outcome and quality of care (Banks et al., 2004). In recent years, due to the dramatic increase in health care cost, and development of user-friendly and more functional simulation software, more and more simulation studies have been applied to health care management as an effective decision-making tool (see Jacobson et al., 2006) for an overview of simulation modeling applications to health care clinics and hospitals, etc., during the last forty years). Typically, such studies include patient flow analysis in clinics, emergency and operating rooms, scheduling outpatient visits and resources, capacity sizing and staff planning, etc. Using these models one can have a better understanding of the relationship between various variables in health care systems so that it could help minimizing cost and increasing quality of service (i.e. better patient satisfaction).In this paper, a simulation model is developed with Simul8 (Hauge and Paige, 2002) to analyze the patient flow in the clinic to achieve better quality of care. Since the clinic will be operated by volunteered staffs, focusing on the impacts to the patient outcome based on staffing levels would be most practical. Such models can provide a simple and quantitative tool for clinic management and health care staffs to provide care with better quality for impoverished community.The remainder of the paper consists of the following sections: a brief review of the related literature; simulation model and analysis results; impacts of distribution types and variability of service times on system performance. Finally, the conclusions are provided.\nLiterature review: Using simulation to analyze health care systems can be traced back to 1960s and received continuous attention from both simulation and health care research communities. For example, as one of the earliest work, Fetter and Thompson (1965) study utilization rate of physicians for outpatient clinics. Rising et al. (1973) address patient scheduling issues to improve patient throughput and reduce clinic overtime. Facility dimensioning problem and the sizing of the assistance term for pediatric care are studied to determine optimal number of beds and choice of nurse duty by Romanin-Jacur and Facchin (1987). Kumar and Kapur (1989) describe using simulations for scheduling staff for emergency room. The issues of using fast tracks to reduce waiting times in emergency rooms are investigated by Blake et al. (1996). Klein et al. (1993) present a review on operational and medical decision making and system planning models in health care.In recent years, a substantial increase of applications of simulations in health care systems has been observed. For instance, design and development of discrete-event (visual) simulation models for physician clinic environment within a physician network are introduced by Swisher et al. (2001). Swisher and Jacobson (2002) introduce a methodology for determining appropriate staff and physical resources in a health clinic using simulation models. To provide better management of an elective surgery waiting system, Everett (2002) presents a decision support simulation to help match patient needs with hospital availability. Baesler et al. (2003) describe the study using simulations to estimate the maximum possible demand increment in an emergency room of a private hospital. A flexible platform to investigate emergency department operations using simulation, EDSIM, is introduced by Connelly and Bair (2004). Sinreich and Marmor (2005) discuss the basis for developing a simulation tool for emergency room operations. In addition, a simulation model is proposed by Tayfur and Taaffe (2007) to evaluate the hospital performance in case of an evacuation due to hurricanes.In addition to simulation models, other alternatives analyzing clinic flow and operations have been carried out as well. Lynam et al. (1994) present client flow analysis (CFA) to address the causes of long patient waiting times. Such a method allows clinic managers and workers to look at the clients and patients move through the clinic to identify waiting times, bottleneck areas and services and staff utilization patterns. Khandelwal and Lynch (1999) introduce a reengineering of the patient flow process at the Wstern Sydney Area Health Service through business process reengineering (BPR). Such a process greatly enhances service to the patient and improves the relationship between patients and medical officers. Moreover, clinical process analysis and activity-based costing (ABC) management are carried out at a heart center in Sweden to administrate cost information, aid strategic decision-making and quality improvement and cost reduction activities (Ridderstolpe et al., 2002). Kerr et al. (2002) describe redesigning cancer service to improve cancer care through collaborative cancer networks. More than 50 percent reduction in care delay has been obtained during the first year's experience. Siegel and Reiner (2002) use picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) to redesign workflow in radiology department. It has shown great benefit of the transition to a digital system both in the imaging department and throughout the health care enterprise. Baker (2006) claims that better reporting of quality improvement efforts could strengthen the contribution of quality improvement research to health care. A systematic review of application of statistical process control in health care improvement is introduced by Thor et al. (2007).\nSimulation modeling and analysis: The objective of the health clinic introduced in this paper is to provide free health care to the impoverished community of Lexington, Kentucky. In this clinic, nurses and doctors will be there on their volunteered time helping to provide necessary heath care for the patients. A host of volunteered receptionists will be available to meet the patients and perform various services. The receptionists will greet the patients as they enter the clinic and admit them for care. They are also available to discuss issues with the patients and help them where and when applicable. In addition, a pharmacy with the ability to provide the basic pharmaceutical needs of the patients is planned. A radiologist staff will have the capability to perform X-rays to injuries. Specifically, after reception, patients needing medical services are routed to one of the available patient rooms. A nurse then a doctor will meet the patients to deliver the service. After diagnosis, the patients either leave the clinic; or are routed to pharmacy to take prescriptions; or to radiology if an additional test is necessary. Since the clinic only provides basic medical service, patients may take the radiology test results to the hospital for further examination. Some injury patients may need casting and pain relief prescriptions before leaving the clinic. In addition, some patients may not need to see the nurse or doctor by only taking non-prescriptive medicines in pharmacy directly (see Figure 1 for patient routing illustration).Simul8 model\nEffects of service time distributions: Simulation needs to assume a certain type of distribution for service times. However, in practice, it is unlikely these times will follow exactly a designed distribution and it is typically impossible to discover the type of distributions of them. Even if the simulation model can directly load these data and distributions can be estimated through data fitting, analyses need to be repeated even with minimal changes. Therefore, a sensitivity study to investigate the dependence of the results on the type of the distribution is important. If it is the case that the results are independent of the distribution type, but only dependent on the moments, then it makes the work much easier since we can use practically any type of distribution with the same moments to obtain the required results. In other words, quality of care can be ensured no matter which distribution we assumed in the model.To investigate this issue, normal, Weibull, Erlang, and log-normal distributions are considered in this study. The reason to select these distributions is that they have two parameters which enable us to assign mean and coefficient of variations (CV) with more freedom. Among all the distributions, same mean and coefficient of variations are assumed. Moreover, two additional cases with mixed distributions are generated, where for each one (reception, nurse, doctor, radiology, casting, pharmacy), a distribution is randomly selected equiprobably from the set (normal, log-normal, Weibull, Erlang). As an example, the following two cases, mix 1 and mix 2, are illustrated in Table VI.Analysis with one doctor\nEffects of service time variability: Intuitively we expect that the system performance is degrading with respect to variability of the service times. To illustrate this, we evaluate the patient average waiting time in the waiting room under different coefficients of variation of service times, where all service time CV=0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 0.9, respectively. It is shown that the patient waiting time is in general an increasing function of service time coefficients of variations. The results are shown in Figure 6 as the solid lines for the cases of one or two doctors and two or three nurses.Simulation results reported above provide a characterization of patient waiting time for CV=0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 0.9. However, for other CVs, additional simulations are needed. Therefore, an approximation method to evaluate Twr is desirable. Although an exact characterization may not be possible, discovering an upper bound is feasible. Considering that the changes in Twr is relatively slow when CV<=0.5, and fast when 1>CV>0.5, we introduce an upper bound by a piece-wise linear function. Let Twr(CV) denote the patient waiting time for a given CV. When Twr(CV) for CV=0.5 and CV = CVmax<=1 (in this paper, CVmax=0.9) are given, the upper bound Twrupper(CV) for any CV can be expressed by: Equation 1 Such bounds are illustrated as dash lines in Figure 6. Therefore, with knowing only two points, Twr(CVmax) and Twr(0.5), for any CV, without running additional simulations, the average patient waiting time can be approximated and will satisfy: Equation 2 Note that although a polynomial approximation, e.g. quadratic function, may be possible to characterize the curves in Figure 6, it will need more information and may be parameter dependent. Therefore, equation (1) provides a more simple approximation without losing too much accuracy.Additional results are obtained for more examples of 4.8 min. inter-arrival time of the patients, and random data sets RND 1 and RND 2, and are illustrated in Figure 7. These results again indicate that patient waiting time increases with more variability and expressions (1) and (2) can be used as empirical formulas for patient waiting time evaluation (except a few cases where little and neglectable discrepancies may be found when CV is small due to simulation accuracies).Also note that a simpler linear approximation: Equation 3 can be used as another upper bound, for a given CVmin and CVmax. Again, only two simulations at CVmin and CVmax are need for such an approximation. Numerical experiments show that in most cases, the accuracy of this approximation is inferior to that of (1).\nConclusions: In this paper, we introduce a simulation study to design and analyze a health care clinic for homeless patients in Lexington, Kentucky. Using this model, we simulate the patient flow of the clinic and evaluate the quality of care (in terms of patient average waiting times and throughput) to determine an appropriate staffing level. In addition, we investigate the sensitivity with respect to service time distributions, and it is shown that the system performance is practically only dependent on the mean and coefficients of variation, rather than a complete distribution, of the service times. This enables us that selecting any type of distributions at hand for simulation we will obtain the same level of care quality. Moreover, we illustrate that the patient waiting time will increase as a function of service time variability. A piece-wise linear function is proposed as the upper bound of these waiting times so that they can be approximated for any coefficients of variation with the knowledge of two simulations only.Such models provide a quantitative tool for clinic operations and management to achieve better care quality. Using such a tool, medical practitioners can evaluate different scenarios, examine needed resources, and carry out what-if analysis to predict the impact of any changes in the system, to determine an optimal system configuration. The results on insensitivity to distribution types and linear piece-wise function provide an easier approach for analysis, which significantly reduces the workload of simulations. Moreover, it can be easily adapted to model other health care facilities to accommodate their needs. The future work can also be directed to develop analytical method described by stochastic equations for performance evaluation and continuous improvement of clinics and other health care units, so that clinic performance can be analyzed quickly and system theoretic properties can be investigated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Improving quality of care is important in health care management. For health care clinics, reducing patient waiting time and improving throughput with efficient utilization of the workforce are important issues to achieve better quality of care. This paper seeks to introduce a simulation study on design and analysis of a health clinic for homeless patients in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the simulation model, the patient flow of the clinic and analyze quality of care for different staffing levels is simulated. In addition, the dependence of distributions on service times is investigated. Moreover, the impact of service time variability on quality of care (e.g. patient waiting time) is analyzed.\nFindings: - The necessary staffing level and utilizations to reduce patient waiting times and improve throughput to achieve better quality of care are obtained. In addition, it is shown that the system performance is primarily dependent on the mean and coefficients of variation, rather than a complete distribution, of service times. In addition, a piece-wise linear approximation formula is proposed so that patient waiting time in the clinic can be estimated for any variability with only two simulations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The simulation method may need long model development time and long simulation executing time for complex systems.\nPractical implications: - The quality of care delivery in a health care clinic can be evaluated using simulations. The results presented in the paper provide an easier approach for medical practitioners to evaluate different scenarios, examine needed resources, and carry out what-if analysis to predict the impact of any changes in the system, to determine an optimal system configuration.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that such models provide a quantitative tool for clinic operations and management to achieve better care quality. Moreover, it can be easily adapted to model other health care facilities, such as hospitals, emergency rooms, operating rooms, supply chain in health care industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HR 2.0: linking Web 2.0 and HRM functions	[ "Motivation", "Web 2.0", "Maintenance", "Staffing", "Human resource", "Training and development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Human resource management (HRM) these days do not focus simply on individual employees but strives to create networks of employees. Employees in general always push themselves for performance objectives achievement. Most of the employees have a presence and some are on the advance stages of using any of the social media for their personal use. Hale (2010) narrates the internet regime as the driver of replacement of traditional collectivism of employees for collective bargaining and strike actions. In early phase of the last decade of twentieth century, internet grabbed the attention of the corporate world by being a significant part of human interests (Haythornthwaite and Wellman, 2002). Internet as mass media is disseminating information and ideas to the public (Katz and Blumler, 1974). Because of the rapid growth rate of the internet users among masses in developing countries like Pakistan, even small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are using it as a source of both competitive and strategic advantage for their internal and external stakeholders. Use of social media, i.e., Web 2.0 tools, is one of the main affecting factors of attracting the business community toward its usage for business benefits. Barry and Pearson (2015) state that social media users in totality have been estimated at over 1.7 billion worldwide and are expected to enhance to approximately 2.6 billion by the year 2017. According to Granovetter (1983) human relation studies have been derived from influential social network theory considering their Strength of Weak Ties (SWT). Web 2.0 regime includes blogs, wikis, folksonomies, RSS, podcasts and online social networks (Kennedy et al., 2007). According to Wenger et al. (2002) corporate world has been prioritizing the objective of cost minimization. They further state that Web 2.0 tools augment the \"socio technical phenomena\" of exchanging information in any form being cost effective (economies of scale) and efficient and network effects. It has been spotlighted and initiated by O'Reilly in the year 2004 to follow the community driven Web services model, i.e., wikis, blogs and other social networking sites. Facebook, a social networking service introduced in February 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with some of his colleagues. Initially membership was limited to Harvard student, but soon extended to the other colleges, i.e., Boston Area, the Ivy League and Stanford University. Eventually it was supported and appreciated by the students of other universities and high schools and was finally open to anyone aged 13 and over. With the great increasing strength of 500 million users globally including six million in Pakistan till the year 2012, internet is gaining popularity as an opportunity for the businesses across the globe (Farooq and Jan, 2012). Peters et al. (2015) state that global user base per month of Facebook is over 1.39 billion. Twitter is another online social network like Facebook with Micro-blogging service that permits its users to read and send text messages up to 140 characters, called \"tweets\" launched in March, 2006 by Jack Dorsey. Twitter, being a Micro-blogging network has increased its number of registered members vertically in the graph of social networks up to 200 million with approximate 154 million tweets till the year 2011 (Mucnjak and Pikic, 2011). According to Zhang (2015), Twitter is now being used by one billion registered users and Facebook is closer to this number. Micro-blogs have been researched as a smaller type of blogs combined with features for social networking and enable the employees to develop social network by sharing tweets (short messages) (Haider, 2009). Use of Twitter also vertically gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million active users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Web 2.0 enabled the masses/individuals to communicate and collaborate with the facilitation of editing and adding the information (Ankolekar et al., 2007; Pachler and Daly, 2009). It has also made the life of the business community easier than ever, in terms of resource efficacy and gaining competitive advantage. According to Kalny (2007), Web 2.0 technologies are primarily to be used within the organization. Thus the actual beneficiaries, i.e., employees are required to use these technologies for themselves and for their organization. A.P. McAfee (2006) defines \"Techies\" as early adopters of Web 1.0 and 2.0 technologies as Web 1.0 technologies used to entail high level of technical expertise whereas Web 2.0 technologies were a paved way for them to easily deal with it. Masses attracted toward Web 2.0 not only due to its user-friendliness features but its feature of \"connecting people\" with each other effectively and efficiently. Wahi et al. (2016) confirm that businesses need to focus upon Web 2.0 which are required to be exploited for business use. Various studies on the use of social networking have been made in the past addressing different aspects of the business processes, outcomes and employees. Coyle and Vaughn (2008) coincide human behavior and social networks because of the connectivity with the people of the same areas of profession and of common interests.\n2. Conceptual model and construct: 2.1 Conceptual model\n3. Propositions: 3.1 There is difference between the roles of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools whether partially or fully in HRM functions?\n4. Theoretical foundation: According to Yang (2008), Web 2.0 is in its infancy stage and being explored so far. Multiple micro and macro theories have been quoted in the literature for the use of Web 2.0 tools and HR functions. Various studies used grounded theory in Web 2.0 domain, proposed by Glaser (1992) for the purpose of theory formulation which was considered as appropriate due to the theoretical sensitivity (Glaser, 1978) for important data recognition and conceptually dense theory. The use of Web 2.0 tools primarily has benefited the organizations in the context of knowledge management for which dynamic theory of knowledge management was suggested using Virtual Human Resource Development (VHRD) model for the purpose of generating organizational knowledge creation process (Nonaka and Konno, 2005). The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was also used in application of Web 2.0 tools in SMEs networks (Peris et al., 2013). Using HR context, Girard and Fallery (2009) linked Web 1.0 with resource-based view focussing upon organizational unique set of resources and associated Web 2.0 with social network theory (also called network theory) which puts emphasis on \"the strength of ties,\" \"the network structure\" and \"the nature of contact attributes.\" According to Granovetter (1983), human relation studies have been derived from influential social network theory considering their SWT. Studies, i.e., (London, 2012; London and Hall, 2011) linked Web 2.0 with learning theory keeping in view the individuals' and teams' readiness to perform and knowledge management. Social Presence Theory, proposed by Short, Williams and Christie (1976), highlights varied roles of each collaborative technology regarding psychological impression of the physical presence of users, i.e., better social presence perception leads to the better image of technology usefulness (Cyr et al., 2007). James Baxter (2014) put forth the \"Socio-technical systems theory\" (STS) for connection between the technical and social dynamics of wiki adoption in an organization which resulted with the view that there is a positive link between the use of organizational environment and acceptance for Wiki among employees. Moreover this relationship leads toward improvement in more effective and efficient business processes. According to Iglesias-Pradas et al. (2014), the significance of socially derived characteristics is enhancing intensively because of varied individual perception due to their skills, knowledge, experience or personality (Downs and Mohr, 1976). These perceptions heavily depend upon the fact that how employees use the tool (Carlson and Zmud, 1999) with a set of expectation and rewards. Analyzing from HR perspective some other theories have been highlighted as Vroom (1964) referred the cognitive theory as actions get stronger when there is gap between one's actions and rewards on the change of expectations. As system theory provides basis for the open and dynamic organizations' system (Senge, 1990) and learning theories describe the treatment with the information for learning purpose. System Theory (Forrester, 1968; Senge, 1990) elaborates the organizations as open systems which always remain in the process of change (Ackoff, 1981; Kontoghiorghes et al., 2005). Psychological learning theory supports the concept of learning levels in the organization (Argyris and Schon, 1978, 1996; Swierinaga and Wierdsama, 1992). System theory context states organizations as open systems which keep changing (Kontoghiorghes et al., 2005; Senge, 1990). Rational choice theory (RCT) addresses the employee-organization relationships (Barker and Camarata, 1998). RCT resides upon the assumption of trade-off between the parties on the bases of \"what individuals expect in return for their efforts or choices.\" Thus no single theory can cover the whole regime of association between Web 2.0 tools and HR practices/functions as multidimensional constructs and varying contexts can be derived from the proposed conceptual models and the proposed model can be tested in parts and in various industries using qualitative and quantitative methods. Thus working with a single theory will not suffice the connections of Web 2.0 tools with HR practices.\n5. Conclusion and practical implications: This particular study was conducted to understand the possible benefits of Web 2.0 tools for employers and employees by associating them with HR functions in any organization. In order to bridge the gap between the use of Web 2.0 tools and HR functions it is scrutinized that implementing Web 2.0 tools to innovatively use HR functions, support the HR department reduce traditional operational workloads and could enable the HR departments gain maximum advantages with low cost and minimum time. Web 2.0 regime can be used not only as operational tool but as a set of strategic tools which may be used to optimize efficiency, effectiveness, trust, loyalty, commitment toward job, work engagement, etc., of the employees which is in the best interest of the employees and employers both. Blanchard (2011) suggests that a basic operational framework should include all the elements in the right manner and at the right time. He further states that the use of social media for brand building is a new phenomenon and the resource allocation for social media (i.e. talent, time or money, etc.) in any business is considered as an investment. HR centric approach of using social media may help employers to achieve staffing, training and development motivation and maintenance objectives. HR centric approach of using social media requires a multidimensional view of each sub-component of the main HRM functions by academicians and industry HR practitioners to get maximum out the this alignment and integration of Web 2.0 platforms and organizational HR practices. Human capital management can be successfully achieved by the right understanding and use of Web 2.0 technologies. Organizations need to further investigate other HRM/HCM functions which could positively and productively be benefited from the use of Web 2.0 tools.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the possible gaps in use of Web 2.0 tools and human resource (HR) functional performance, and to identify the potential areas of future research for the upcoming researcher and industry practitioners.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By having a thorough literature review on the said Web 2.0 and HR functions' concepts, the study develops a conceptual model with seven propositions that assist in answering two major research questions, i.e., whether Web 2.0 tools can benefit the four major functions of human resource management (HRM), and to what extent Web 2.0 tools help HR Managers to reap maximum (efficiently and effectively) out of four major functions of HRM. By identifying the possible gaps in use of Web 2.0 tools and HR functional performance, the study identifies potential areas of future research for the upcoming researcher and industry practitioners.\nFindings: HR 2.0 regime (right alignment of Web 2.0 tools and HR functions) will allow both the ends (employee and employer) to drive the organization toward sustainable, long-term business success. Excellence in HR functions following the HR 2.0 concept, can lead the organizations get best desired HR and business outcomes across sectors and industries. Though using Web 2.0 tools in HR functions can encounter various challenges as management of bulky information, time wastage, personal conflicts, threats of losing information confidentiality, etc., but these potential threats can be made less risky by transforming organization culture.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the scope of the study was limited to the use of Web 2.0 tools in HR practices, the study provided a generic view of the use of Web 2.0 tools in HR domain. Thus the findings should be used only in HR domain in a variety of contexts.\nPractical implications: The current study adds value to in the exploration of the link between Web 2.0 and HRM in a systematic way because of the fact that Web 2.0 tools as drivers or facilitating tools can play a vital role in execution of HR practices and processes in a secure, effective and efficient manner. The current study also paves the way for the HR practitioners and researcher to extract manifold benefits from the use of Web 2.0 tools in all of its functions with the right understanding. Critical role of HR can be favorably facilitated by Web 2.0 in favor of both, i.e., employees and the employers which could ultimately enable them to create a competitive edge in the market place. The organizations in general (whether private or public, manufacturing or public, small and medium enterprises or MNEs) can extract the real benefits from the right use of Web 2.0 while performing any of their HR function. Enhanced decision making may also be gained using the right mix of Web 2.0 tools and HR practices in any organization. The study also provides a track to the researchers to excavate more associations among the said constructs and to test these relationships in different industries so that maximum HR challenges may be addressed related to the employee and the HR process.\nSocial implications: Social implications of the current study can be derived as the main focus is HR practices which are executed by the employees, who if are positively addressed, may gain economic and social up gradations. As for the employers use of Web 2.0 tools in their HR functions not only will bring economic prosperity for themselves but for the employees and the society.\nOriginality/value: Conceptual analysis of links between the use of Web 2.0 tools and HR functions to draw the attention of HR practitioners to benefit both employers and employees. Though the use of Web 2.0 is being popular in various other business areas but not for internal employees regarding HR functions. Paper provides the conceptual link of Web 2.0 applications, i.e., blogs, wikis, folksonomies, RSS, podcasts and online social networks with human resource functions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Prerna: engendering empowerment through girl education	[ "India", "Empowerment", "Underprivileged", "Girl education", "Millennium development goals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Short-changing girls is not only a matter of gender discrimination; it is bad economics and bad societal policy. Experience has shown, over and over again, that investment in girls' education translate directly and quickly into better nutrition for the whole family, better health care, declining fertility, poverty reduction and better overall economic performance(Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General).\nProblems to girl education: The barriers to education facing girls in the developing world go far beyond simple economics - cultural bias, stereotyping, tradition and safety concerns often stand in the way. India recognizing the importance of girl education and has initiated programmes like Sakshar Bharat mission for female literacy, Indian Shiksha Karmi project, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya scheme, etc. Education helps empower women/girls and is a step in the direction of social equality. Education and literacy are the vital indicators of development achieved by the society. While Indian Government has been able to generate the relevant literacy figures by making primary education compulsory, quality education is still lacking (Priya, 2014). Higher levels of education and literacy positively influence every development aspect, namely, population control, health, boycotting early marriages, female infanticide and feticide and employment.\nEmpowerment and education: The definition of empowerment given at the seminar[2] on women education and empowerment conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg in 1993 still stands relevant. Here it was concluded that empowerment encompasses four components: cognitive, psychological, economic and political.\nPrerna: the school: Prerna, located in the posh Gomti Nagar locality of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh (UP) a State in India, was founded in 2003. It is an all-girls school upto 12th grade run by a private foundation called Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF).\nA day at Prerna: Prerna starts at 1:30 p.m. after the regular school Study Hall gets over and continues upto 6:00 p.m. in summers and from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. in winters. Winter timings are deliberately kept at three hours to ensure safety of girls. Girls' working as house helpers, governess, baby sitters and cooks find the four-hour school timings as convenient gateway to enhance education without jeopardizing their share to household earnings. This serves as a major factor in ensuring regular class attendance. Older girls wear a red and white checked shirt and white salwar (baggy pants) and the younger girls wear a red and white tunic as school uniform, which are provided to them at a subsidized rate by Didi's Creation, a wing of Sisters in Solidarity (a non-government not for profit organization), that employs mothers of Prerna students and pass out students. The day starts with an afternoon assembly of ten minutes in which the principal Ms. Rakhi Panjwani recites a short prayer repeated by students. Students participate in the assembly by reading newspaper headlines and making a brief presentation of skit, speech or poem.\nSocial profile of students at Prerna: The school has strength of 735 girls with an average 35 girls in each grade. There are 30 teachers including principal and vice principal and a support staff of seven, apart from two security guards. On enrollment, a detailed profile of each student is prepared by the teachers. This ensures that teachers are fully aware of the lives of their students and are able to counsel them accordingly taking care of their special learning and well-being needs (Figure 1).\nSetting high goals and expectations for \"Prerna\" students: Prerna sets high standards and expectations for its students. The school pedagogy is based on addressing barriers to learning and continuous enhancement of understanding and knowledge of the students. Teachers and staff actively support students to reach their potential and create a culture of self-reliance in a blame free environment. All stakeholders are requested to play active role in education by providing resources in terms of time and money. Teachers and students consider themselves as lifelong learners and try to grab every opportunity for development.\nSynergy and strategies: The school was started with the sole aim of providing education to underprivileged girls in the best possible environment. Class rooms, laboratories, library, computer lab, yoga room of Study Hall are all shared with Prerna school giving its students the same environment. This gives them synergy, with no extra cost involved, and hence the school runs in the afternoon shift after regular school gets over. The timings act as a boon as many girls are compelled to work to support their families and afternoon school timings permit them to get education without jeopardizing their contribution to family income. The school provides teaching and learning environment that supports students, provides them safe and comfortable environment where a girl can share her experience, good or bad.\nFinancial support: To instill a sense of commitment in parents and to inculcate responsibility, the school charges $1.5 per month as subsidized fee. The student pays $18 per annum whereas the school spends around $145 per annum on each student. This expenditure includes meals, student workshops, cultural extravaganza, sports meet, etc. SHEF with the help of donors tries to bridge this deficit. The poorest of the poor are exempted from fees and no child is threatened for non-payment. A good Samaritan can sponsor a girl for $88 per annum. Various types of scholarships are given to girls for continuing graduation and post-graduation. A student pursuing graduation gets $74 and further $295 on pursuing post-graduation. For cultural and sports event, a student is charged $1.5 to ensure their participation and regularity. The entire cost is born by the Trust. Number of books and copies too are kept to minimum so that it does not add to the financial burden on the family. A set of six books and six copies, sufficient to cover the syllabus, cost less than $9. Even these books and copies are provided by the Trust to the poorest of poor determined to study. Uniform can be purchased through school outlet at a subsidized price of $3.6 for senior student and $2.5 for junior student.\nEnsuring quality of teaching and curriculum: The school follows UP board syllabus with Hindi being primary language of instructions and secondary being English which is introduced from grade 1. Main focus for teaching is on reading writing and doing basic mathematics in early grades. English is added as secondary language to ensure that a child gains mastery in it as English is considered as a necessity to seek a better job and gain better understanding of subjects in higher grades (Benson, 2002; Widmark, 2001). The school follows state board teaching curriculum till grade 8 and a student can give Exam from NIOS[9] (National Institute of Open Schooling) or CBSE board for higher classes depending on the caliber of the child. Participatory teaching method involves lots of activities like dance, drama, sports, debate, etc. and the performances are held at formal as well as informal level. Depending on the grade of a student various issues pertaining to their lives are discussed and students are encouraged to present their view points. At the primary-level topics related to their rights as girls, about their body, nutrition, health care and right to education are introduced. Topics such as gender, sexual abuse, domestic violence and child-marriage are introduced in the higher grades. The girls are taught about the family structure and the lopsided power relations between men and women. Discussions on marriage and its effects, adolescence and related problems, relationship with boys are taken up. Girls are nurtured to build up high aspirations for their education. The teacher acts as a facilitator and guide, shares her own experiences and encourages students to share their viewpoints and experiences. One of the purposes behind such empowerment classes is to develop inner power to take decisions for their lives and to face the challenges. Students are expected to do their personal best and are challenged to extend themselves in all areas including academic, sports, arts and cultural activities. Progress of student is checked through monthly, half yearly and annual examinations. Monthly tests are graded on score of 30 and half yearly and annual on score of 70 each, out of which five marks are allotted for good behavior, attendance and neatness. This record is maintained by the grade teacher. A cumulative score out of 100 is calculated for each subject and entered in the report card.\nOutputs and Outcomes: Enrollment: at Prerna the enrollment of students has grown from 80 in 2003 to 735 in 2014. It has a target of 1,250 for July 2016 reaching upto 2,000 students in next five years.\nChallenges: The school is unable to put a complete stop on child labor as quite a few girls belong to families with marginal income and their earnings go toward supplementing the family finances. Pressurizing such girls to stop working becomes counter-productive as they tend to drop out of school instead! The school tries to work around the problem by grooming them to strike a balance between work and education and ensuring that class timings are in the afternoon, which is convenient for these girls. Still ensuring that all the girls complete their basic education continues to be an uphill task. Prerna's funding is entirely taken care by the SHEF trust and philanthropists. However, greater financial aid is required to enhance the scope for providing vocational training and expansion. Despite best efforts by the school to ensure that finances are not a deterrent for a child's development, increasing costs and limited resources do constrain it.\nConclusion: At the end of the year Jyoti saw a remarkable change in her daughter's confidence, behavior and knowledge. She was a happy mother and contended with her decision of sending her daughter to Prerna. Successful experiments like Prerna shows very distinctively how well-defined intervention strategies and innovation to methodologies using existing infrastructure can provide meaningful access to education not only to girls but to all. However, the challenges being faced by Prerna School need to be addressed for successful replication of the model. Child labor and child marriages are a bane for the society. While education plays a pivotal role in empowering girls and lowering instances of child labor as well as child marriages, the Government has to take stringent action for curbing both. There have been efforts by the Government of India in the form of Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana[14], efforts will pay off when incentives and deterrents are applied equitably and rapidly. Reaching out to each family can be a challenge and for this society needs to be sensitized in such a manner that each and everyone realises the importance of girl education over and above their vested interests. More than creating awareness, a social change is needed. There is a pressing need to study the reasons and psychology of society in general and affluent class in particular who, while sympathising with the issue of girl education and empowerment, retreat when it comes to actually doing something for the cause. The need is for mass awareness. Further women's leadership is to be promoted along with focus on how decisions at policy level are likely to impact the girl child (King and Winthrop, 2015). Since the inception Prerna has tried to reduce the dropout rate and has successfully managed it till grade 8. The challenge is to take this success further to higher grades. The school lays more importance on learning outcomes by integrating life skills with regular curriculum. Regular community participation is there via parent-teacher meeting, home and community visits and by inviting parents to various events at the school. Such type of model if adopted in various private schools will not only help in providing quality education but also help the government with the cause. This model also ensures effective performance monitoring and quality of teaching. Few issues which need working on relate to drop out of school children, child labor and provision of some sort of vocational courses to make them entrepreneurs. Prerna's sister concern \"Didi's[15]\" works at providing vocational training to the girls. However, all are not willing to take up vocations of cooking (as in Didi's Food), tailoring (Didi's Boutique) or of a beautician (Didi's Parlour) and this calls for forays into better paying and empowering options like training in computers, secretarial work or as medical attendants. The challenge does not and will not end with providing education. It is only the first step. A greater challenge awaits these girls as they come out of the school, metamorphosed[...] the challenge to be accepted in an unequal society as an equal, to be given control over their bodies in a society which objectifies women, to have their voice heard and heeded in a society where women are taught to silently bow down to the wishes of the males in their family! \"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated\" (Baldwin, 1963).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Quality education can be provided to underprivileged section in developing economies by the collaborative effort of private-paid schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore and highlight the model which can be adopted by a private school in imparting education to girls coming from lower income strata. It also highlights how synergies could be attained by sharing of resources in terms of infrastructure and utilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are gathered through multiple sources via literature and interviews with variety of people including CEO, principal and students. Data on profile of students were provided by the school.\nFindings: Achieving quality education for girls of low-income strata is possible by efficiently utilizing the resources of a private-paid school. The school operates in second shift when the infrastructure is lying idle without any use. The mammoth cost of building a school can be saved and funds can be diverted for running it. Successful experiments like Prerna shows very distinctively how well-defined intervention strategies and innovation to methodologies using existing infrastructure can provide meaningful access to education not only to girls but to all.\nResearch limitations/implications: Can the model be adopted by government of developing economies by making it compulsory for every private-paid school.\nPractical implications: Findings confirm that quality education to underprivileged girls is a reality at a minimum possible cost.\nSocial implications: A learned and well-informed girl is in a better position to take life decisions. In a country like India, where cost act as a deterrent to girl child education this model provides a solution to an extent, bringing relevance of education in their lives by right empowerment approach through focused discussions in the form of critical dialogues on sensitive issues related to marriage, sexual abuse, domestic violence, health and others.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides case-based evidence of how a successful private-paid school can participate in bringing a paradigm shift in providing quality education to underprivileged girls. It helps in understanding dynamics of sustaining such project.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pricing power in insurance markets: evidence from South Africa	[ "South Africa", "Insurance", "D4", "D21", "G22", "L1" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: It is widely accepted that financial services industries in developing economies are characterised by imperfect competition due to high concentrations and market power. The existence and exercise of market power, as evidenced from both theoretical and empirical literatures (See Hicks, 1935; Berger and Hannan, 1998; Rothschild and Stiglitz, 1976), has the potential to induce losses in social welfare and efficiency. Through the ability of firms to set prices above their marginal cost (Solis and Maudos, 2008), output production within concentrated markets falls, reducing the satisfaction derived by society from the consumption of less volume of goods and services, hence losses in social welfare (Berger and Hannan, 1998). In addition, the exercise of market power can also increase managerial inefficiency, as posited by the so-called \"quiet-life\" hypothesis of Hicks (1935) and allow firms to charge monopoly rents. The rent-seeking behaviour is reflected in pricing power and excessive risk-taking which affects market stability.\n2. Overview of non-life insurance market: Under the Short-Term Insurance Act 53 (1998), non-life insurance firms in South Africa are licensed to operate in eight different business lines made up of property, transport, motor, accident and health, guarantee, liability, engineering and miscellaneous. Prior to the passing of the Insurance Act in 1998, the market was made up of six business lines: property, transport, motor, accident and health, guarantee and miscellaneous. The motor and property businesses are the most dominant business lines in the insurance industry, accounting for about 70 per cent of gross industry premiums. Table I presents three firm, five firm, eight firm and ten firm concentration ratios in terms of gross premiums underwritten for the period from 2007 to 2012. We observe high levels of concentration among the top ten insurers out of over 80 registered firms. The level of industry concentration declined between the periods from 2007 to 2012 as indicated by the decrease in market share of the top ten insurers from 78 per cent in 2007 to 66 per cent in 2012. However, the market remains highly concentrated among the top 10 insurers, accounting for over two-thirds of gross written premiums as at 2012.\n3. Literature review: Studies on insurance pricing have received considerable attention in both empirical and theoretical literature. However, majority of these studies have focussed on the effects of regulations on pricing in insurance markets (see Harrington, 1987; Cummins and Harrington, 1987; Grabowski et al., 1989; Cummins et al., 2001; Butler, 2002; Harrington, 2002; Grace and Phillips, 2008; Berry-Stolzle and Born, 2012). Little attention has been paid to the exercise of pricing power[4] in insurance markets. The estimation of competition in financial services industries has been broadly categorised into structural and non-structural approaches. The class of structural measures of competition is premised on the structure-conduct-performance hypothesis of Mason (1939) and Bain (1951). These indicators infer competition from the structure of the market and equate market concentration to less competition.\n4. Methodology: This section outlines the theoretical estimation of the pricing power as well as the empirical approach in identifying the sources of pricing power in the non-life insurance market. The measurement effect and hypothesised effect of explanatory variables on pricing power are also discussed.\n5. Results and discussions: 5.1 Summary statistics\n6. Conclusion and policy recommendations: The existence of pricing power in insurance markets has the tendency to induce social welfare losses, managerial inefficiency and excessive risk-taking and increase the probability of insurance insolvency. In this paper, we provide the first empirical evidence on the determinants of pricing power in an emerging insurance market. The identified predictors of pricing power are important to assist regulatory authorities in the formulation of policies to control the exercise of pricing power and its effect on social welfare and inefficiency. To achieve the objectives of this study, we employ annual firm level data on 79 insurance companies from 2007 to 2012 to estimate the Lerner competitive index as a proxy for pricing power. Panel regression models are estimated using the OLS-PCSE, RE and GMM estimation techniques to examine the effect of firm-level characteristics in explaining pricing power in the non-life insurance market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In less competitive markets, firms with market power are likely to exercise pricing power by setting output prices above their marginal cost, inducing welfare losses from resource misallocation, managerial inefficiency and market instability. In order to address such market imperfections, it is important for regulatory authorities to identify the sources of pricing power and devise policies to address their adverse effects. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to undertake an empirical analysis to identify the determinants of pricing power in the South African non-life insurance market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors estimate the Lerner competitive index as the proxy for pricing power using annual data on 79 firms from 2007 to 2012. In the second stage, the paper employs panel regression techniques in the ordinary least squares, random effects and generalised method of moment's estimations to examine the effect of insurer level characteristics on pricing power.\nFindings: The authors find the market to be characterised by firms with high pricing power. Domestic-owned insurers are found to exercise high pricing power compared with foreign-owned insurers. The authors also identify size, cost efficiency, product line diversification, market concentration, leverage and reinsurance contracts as the significant predictors of pricing power in the market. Finally, through a quantile regression analysis, the authors find the effect of cost efficiency, business line diversification and reinsurance to be heterogeneous across different quantiles of pricing power.\nPractical implications: The findings provide regulatory authorities with useful indicators in addressing anti-competitive behaviour in high pricing power to enhance the stability of the insurance market and improve consumer welfare and economic development.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is first paper to examine the determinants of pricing power and competitive behaviour in an insurance market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antecedents and consequences of e-shopping: an integrated model	[ "Consumer behaviour", "E-commerce" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As a relatively new medium for business, e-shopping has changed the way consumers purchase products and services. E-shopping has empowered consumers with widespread selections, plenty of product information, and no temporal and spatial limitations (Wen et al., 2011), and many consumers now purchase products and/or services from e-shopping sites instead of going to a physical store.\n2. Theoretical framework and research hypothesis: 2.1. The central model\n3. Research methodology: Building on the studies of Koufteros (1999) and Koufteros et al. (2001), the research steps and methods include construct measurement development, an exploratory factory analysis (EFA), a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and a test of the structural model. Figure 3 provides the analytical steps.\n4. Data analysis: 4.1. Characteristics of respondents\n5. Discussion and implications: The objectives of this study were twofold:\n6. Conclusions: In line with established theories and empirical studies, this study proposes an integrated IS-CB model for e-shopping that integrates TRA, TAM, and UandG and includes WA, ES, perceived value, e-shopping experience, and trust to demonstrate the IS and CB antecedents for acceptance and usage of e-shopping. The main research results are summarized as follows: first, perceived value, PEOU, PU, EG, WI, social factors, and ES are the direct predictors of e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping. WA affect e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping indirectly through PEOU, PU, EG, WI, and ES, whereas EG affect e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping indirectly through PEOU and PU. WI affects e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping indirectly through PEOU, whereas PEOU affects e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping indirectly through PU. Furthermore, e-shoppers' acceptance of e-shopping in terms of their attitudes toward e-shopping, which influence their intention to e-shop and subsequently affect their actual e-shopping purchase, along with the consequential cycle effect on e-shopping experience and trust, provides a detailed account of the key factors underpinning e-shopping with regard to usage of e-shopping sites. Such a situation can lead to the enhancement of site traffic and increased shopping transactions. These findings further advance the multi-disciplinary IS literature on the interaction of IS-CB dynamics that explain the booming e-shopping phenomenon in the virtual world.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated information systems-consumer behavior (IS-CB) model for e-shopping to examine the antecedents and consequences of e-shopping and usage behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study tests 320 usable responses collected from e-shoppers against the integrated model using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The main research results support the use of antecedents of e-shopping acceptance and usage by drawing from unified knowledge of IS and CB underpinnings. The findings show the significance of perceived value, social factors, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, entertainment gratification (EG), web irritation (WI), emotional state, and web atmospherics (WA) in the process of e-shopping.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that e-retailers should establish positive perceived value in consumers' minds and uphold trust to foster favorable attitudes and intentions toward e-shopping and actual e-shopping purchase. Proper and good construction of WA can lead to useful and easy-to-use e-shopping sites, EG, and minimization of WI. Capitalizing on online social influences also would be an advantage.\nOriginality/value: This paper bridges a gap in the studies of IS and CB, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of IS and CB antecedents on acceptance and usage of e-shopping.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When free gifts hurt the promoted product: The influence of product-gift fit on activating persuasion knowledge and devaluating the promoted product	[ "Sales promotion", "Fit", "Persuasion knowledge", "Consumer shopping orientation", "Free gift" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Picture a special promotion in conjunction with the sale of coffeemakers. An all-purpose eco-bag is given away as a free gift with each purchase. You would be pleased to obtain an additional gift. Then again, you might also think that it is quite awkward to offer an eco-bag because it is not something you would receive typically upon purchasing a coffeemaker. You might then wonder why such a gift is offered. Maybe the company is enticing you with a free gift to sell the product or the product is a poor seller for some reason. What would you think about the coffeemaker sold with an irrelevant gift? How would you assess this coffeemaker?\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Free gift promotions and consumer evaluation\nStudy 1: Product-gift fit and evaluation of the promoted product: The objective of Study 1 was to examine whether product-gift fit influences consumers' evaluation of the promoted product (H1). Participants were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT) and took part in a single factor between-subject design with three levels (high-fit gift vs low-fit gift vs no promotion). A control group with no free gift was included to measure the baseline perception of the product's stand-alone value and compare it with when a high- or low-fit gift is offered. A total of 120 responses (63 females, 57 males) were used for analyses.\nStudy 2: Product-gift fit and persuasion knowledge: Study 2 investigated the underlying mechanism for the effect of product-gift fit on the evaluation of the promoted product (H2), based on the prediction that high- and low-fit gift promotions activate different level of persuasion knowledge in consumers' minds. The AMT participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (high- and low-fit gift), and 78 responses (25 females, 53 males) were analyzed. To rule out the possibility that the difference in the gifts' attractiveness might have caused the results, a pretest was conducted to select a set of gifts that differed only in terms of fit.\nStudy 3: Moderating effect of consumer shopping orientation: To identify a boundary condition for the influence of product-gift fit on consumers' assessment of the focal product, CSO (Buttner et al., 2014) was investigated in Study 3. Participants were randomly presented with an ad for a fitness center with a new set of gifts, and 197 responses (97 females, 100 males) from AMT were analyzed. Moreover, a supplementary attempt was made to capture the concept of product-gift fit in terms of expectancy. Although the measuring items for perceived fit in the previous studies captured overall perception about the link between the product and the gift as in prior research (D'Astous and Landreville, 2003; Palazon and Delgado-Ballester, 2013b), perceived typicality (Goodstein, 1993) was measured additionally to consider consumers' deviation from the schema about the promoted product and examine whether a high-fit gift is more typical than a low-fit gift.\nGeneral discussion: The current research investigated how consumers assess the value of promoted product upon a free gift promotion. Across three studies in different consumption situations (i.e. a laptop, hotel, fitness center), the study provides convergent evidence that a low-fit gift, although intended to provide novel benefits, might undermine consumers' evaluation of the promoted product. This devaluation effect arose from consumers' activation of persuasion knowledge on the company's ulterior motive for giving away such a gift. Also, it occurred especially for task-focused consumers because they are more likely to perceive the manipulative intent of the low-fit gift (vs high-fit gift). Experiential consumers did not perceive the low-fit gift as deceptive, and thus did not devaluate the promoted product.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The present study aims to demonstrate that providing a free gift upon purchase may induce consumers to devaluate the main product promoted with the offer. The mediating role of persuasion knowledge and the moderating role of consumer shopping orientation are also examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three studies with between-subject designs are conducted to test the influence of product-gift fit on evaluations of the promoted product.\nFindings: When a low-fit gift (vs a high-fit gift) is provided as a promotional offer, consumers' evaluations of the promoted product are undermined. These negative effects are driven by consumers' activation of persuasion knowledge on the company's ulterior motive to entice consumers to make a purchase. Such devaluation effects occur especially for consumers with a task-focused shopping orientation, whereas they are mitigated for consumers with an experiential shopping orientation.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research extends the conceptualization of product-gift fit and challenges the common claim that free gift promotions maintain the value of the promoted product. By instigating a mechanism underlying consumers' objections toward low-fit gifts, this research implies that consumers may think of an implicit cost to a free offer based on their knowledge of companies' tactics.\nPractical implications: Marketers should be aware of the fact that a certain gift may come at a cost for companies and bring about negative inferences regarding the main product. They need not only to select a gift that drives sales but also to be cautious about the gift's influence on perceptions of the main product. Marketers should ensure that the gift has a good fit with the product while trying to discover a unique gift for consumers. Marketers should also provide an offer that matches shopping orientation of the target consumers.\nOriginality/value: This research reveals counterevidence to prior research claiming that free gift promotion does not hurt the perceived value of the promoted product. It enhances a theoretical understanding of devaluation effects and provides useful implications for designing and targeting free gift promotion.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Marketing travel services to senior consumers	[ "Service marketing", "Tourism industry", "Senior consumers", "Segmentation", "Travel motivations", "Subjective age", "Older consumers", "Consumer behaviour" ]	[ { "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: Developed countries are facing today the arrival of a demographic ageing wave, which could initiate enormous opportunities for several industries (Dychtwald, 1997). Especially in the services sector as this ageing phenomenon occurs in economies (mainly in North America, Japan, Australia, and Western Europe) which already shifted from goods producing to services producing (Schettkat and Yocarini, 2006). As a matter of facts, the high potential of the senior market has already captured the attention of one of the major services industry: the tourism industry. The World Tourism Organization (2000) does not even hesitate to designate the senior market as \"an opportunity for growth for the twenty-first century\". Indeed, no one can deny that, from a market viewpoint, this target is characterized by several opportune elements in regards to the tourism consumption:* the size of this population is significant and will continue rising in future years;* they have the free time and the financial resources required for tourism activities; and* they take more holidays, spend a larger proportion on travel and stay on vacation longer than the others (Lavery, 1999; World Tourism Organization, 2000).However, this opportune target is also a heterogeneous one which has become all the more difficult to address by practitioners as current senior travelers behave differently from what we used to call - at the same age - older people (Bone, 1991; Moschis, 1991; Stewart, 2005; Davies, 2005; Moschis and Unal, 2008). Consequently, current research is needed to know this new market better and to identify the opportune segments practitioners could reach with suitable offers. Here is the main purpose of the research presented in this article.As the greatest proportion of ageing people is today located in Europe (around 15 per cent of the European population age 65 and over, in comparison to 14 per cent in Japan and 13 per cent in the USA (United Nations, 2009)), it appears as an opportunity to lead this research over there. More precisely, we focus on the French senior market, whose trends and demographic characteristics are congruent with those mentioned previously for the global ageing population:* more than 30 per cent of the French population is already 50 years old and over (INSEE, 2008);* there was an increase of the tourism consumption of this group over the last ten years; and* tourism is the number one priority for the French senior consumers (before housing and clothes) (French Tourism Department, 2004).Considering these elements, this paper is organized as follows. First, we provide an overview of the literature relevant to the study of the senior tourism market segmentation. In this first part, we focus on the senior travel motivations and we introduce a new potential additional segmentation variable: the discrepancy age (the gap between the cognitive age and the ideal age). Doing that way, we indicate one of the roles of the current study: deepen the previous investigation launched by prior researchers, such as Mathur et al. (1998) and Cleaver Sellick (2004), who first investigated the role of behavioural variables and subjective ages to better segmenting the senior travel market. Second, the research methodology, the analyses and the results are developed. We identify four current senior travel motivations profiles and we investigate the role of the youth age and the discrepancy age as discriminant variables for segmenting the travel senior market. We finally generate a multivariate segmentation model combining travel motivations, travel perceived risks, discrepancy age and some useful demographic variables. Then, we discuss these results, which are complementary to the prior research and allow characterizing four opportune current senior segments. Finally, we provide practical guidance for marketers interested in adapting their services offers (or developing new ones) to these distinct segments.\nSenior tourism market segmentation: The first typologies of tourists were mainly based on situational parameters which was a limited approach (Braun, 1989). Progressively, the idea that travel motivations could be useful segmentation tools for the tourism market was suggested (Cohen, 1978) and confirmed (McIntosh and Goeldner, 1990; Cha et al., 1995). This method of segmentation appeared to be helpful to understand the travelers' behaviours, and resulted in interesting profiles. Consequently, as the interest for the elderly consumers grew, marketers focused mainly on travel motivations, combined with additional variables, to segment this market.\nSenior travel motivations: The literature review on the senior travel motivations is directly linked to the major tourism consumption theories. Among them, the self-actualization's need and motivation play a major role (Pearce, 1982; Mill and Morrison, 1985). Self-actualization could be considered as a process which purpose is to reduce the gap between the individual's actual self-concept and his/her ideal self-concept (Grunow-Lutter, 1983). In comparison to other services, the tourism services offer greater opportunities to one individual to focus on his/her self and to try to satisfy his/her self-actualization's need (Hallab, 1999). This concept is all the more important addressing the elderly travel behaviours as, with older age, self-actualization would become more and more important as travel motivation (Cohen, 1988).\nSenior travel motives profiles: One of the first senior travel motives profiles were generated by Mannel and Iso-Ahola (1987), who identified two dimensions in travel motivations: escaping and seeking. Some people would be motivated to travel for escapism, whereas some others would be seeking personal or interpersonal rewards. Based on this typology, they suggested that older people would be motivated to travel in order to seek, rather than to escape (Mannel and Iso-Ahola, 1987). Progressively, new senior travel motives profiles were generated. Nevertheless, a review of literature of research (conducted on senior travel motives profiles) over the last 30 years showed that few new motivations have been revealed. Indeed, similarities exist between the major travel motives factors that have been identified through these distinct studies: learning is one of this factor (Guinn, 1980; Kim et al., 1996; Backman et al., 1999; Cleaver et al., 1999; Cleaver Sellick, 2004), but also self-esteem (Cleaver et al., 1999; Stone and Nicol, 1999; Cleaver Sellick, 2004), relaxation (Guinn, 1980; Shoemaker, 1989; Cleaver and Muller, 1998; Backman et al., 1999; Cleaver Sellick, 2004), social interaction (Guinn, 1980; Shoemaker, 1989; Backman et al., 1999; Cleaver et al., 1999; Stone and Nicol, 1999; Cleaver Sellick, 2004) and physical activity (Guinn, 1980; Shoemaker, 1989; Cleaver and Muller, 1998; Backman et al., 1999; Cleaver et al., 1999; Stone and Nicol, 1999). This observation agrees with Shoemaker's study (Shoemaker, 2000) where the researcher revealed similarities between travel motivations' clusters derived in 1996 with the clusters derived ten years earlier in 1986 at the same location (Shoemaker, 1989).However, senior travelers behave today differently from what we used to call \"older travelers\" (Davies, 2005; Stewart, 2005). As they already experienced travel when they were younger - which was not the case of the previous older travelers - one may assume that seniors would have different preferences for travel (Oppermann, 1995). Hence, the debate is still opened, and needs current senior travel motives profiles to reach a satisfying answer.\nAdditional segmentation variables: Travel perceived risks\nResearch methodology: Sampling\nResults: Table VI gives the means of the nine discriminating variables for each of the four clusters.Two statistically significant discriminant functions were identified. The first function (kh2(f1)=87.202, p < 0.000) accounted for 59.3 per cent of the variance, and consequently the second function (kh2(f2)=36.248, p < 0.003) accounted for 36,7 per cent of the variance. The two travel perceived risks factors, the discrepancy age, the educational level and the household incomes were significant discriminators among the four travel motivations segments. The classification for the four segments was not very satisfying since only 43.3 per cent of the respondents have been correctly classified as belonging to one segment or another.\nDiscussion: These first results are interesting as seniors travel motivations profiles' characterization. First, between the two subjective age variables, the discrepancy age is the only one that was a significant discriminator among the four clusters. All segments are characterized by a positive discrepancy age (value exceeding nine years). This result indicates that the older consumers' ideal age is lower than their self-perceived age. Particularly, the segment of the \"knowledge hunters' senior travelers\" seems to distinguish itself from the others with a lower discrepancy age (their ideal age is thus closer to their perceived age). As regards to the theory, we can thus conclude that the knowledge-hunters senior travelers would show a more positive attitude to their self-concept than the other travelers. These first results in the contribution of the discrepancy age to the seniors' tourism consumption, may also indicate that there is a link between the discrepancy age and the senior travel motivations. It seems interesting to examine this question thoroughly within the framework of future research.As regards the perceived risks, the results indicate that, senior travelers of the four segments were not highly concerned by travel risks, even if the physical and equipment risks would be those that would worry them the most.Finally, as regards the discriminating aspects of the income level and of the level of education, two results are interesting: 74 per cent of the \"hesitating, non intellectual and non sportive senior travelers\" graduated from the university, whereas only 36 per cent of the \"active and open minded senior travelers\" graduated from the university. Similarly, the \"hesitating, non intellectual and non sportive senior travelers\" have the highest level of income, whereas the \"active and open minded senior travelers\" have the lowest level of income. Such results are important in terms of the definition of the opportune targets for one tourism company. It may influence the price, the positioning, but also the nature of the tourism services.\nManagerial implications and future research directions: The first managerial contribution is based on the segmentation technique. Dealing with the senior consumers and the travel and leisure services, we put the emphasize on the importance of using two types of appropriate tools: on the one hand, segmentation tools which are appropriate to the tourism consumption (travel motivations, travel perceived risks, and some demographic variables), and on the other hand, segmentation tools which are appropriate to the study of the senior market (subjective ages). Combining these two types of criteria will lead marketers to more accurate segments.The second major managerial contribution of this research lies on the seniors' segments identified. Indeed, based on their characteristics, tourism practitioners could then targeted each type of senior consumers with suitable offers.The \"relaxed intellectual senior travelers\" are an interesting target for cruises providers, as cruises often combine cultural discovery, but also tranquility and a certain degree of social interaction these travelers are looking for. Concerning this segment, marketers should be aware of the majority of women. It could influence them in the choice of the promotion channels (women magazines), but also in the services characteristics and positioning. Even if they are part of the first generation of women earning their own individual pensions, these retired women have a medium-low buying power in average. Marketers should take this characteristic into consideration and not charge them an extra - price whenever they travel on their own.Concerning the \"knowledge hunters senior travelers\", we could define them as the core target of the tourism companies providing cultural tours. To better satisfy them, it would be interesting to work carefully on two current aspects seniors are looking for while on holidays: first, the personalization of the services: the more the providers would be able to adapt its offers to the seniors' individual requests, the better they would reach their satisfaction, and second, the sustainability issue: which should be addressed through visits within communities or villages.Among the four segments, the \"hesitating, non-intellectual and non sportive senior travelers\" is the one which requires the greatest attention, as they have the highest level of revenues and are not easy to satisfy by traditional tourism offers. Then, dedicated and specialized offers should be developed to target this segment. They could be positioned at a high price and may focus on exclusive offers delivered in unique places, offering relaxation (spas services), and a high degree of personalization.Finally, the \"active and open minded senior travelers\" segment is obviously an interesting target for adventure tours. Discovering new places and landscapes, while doing some sports is their priority. As they also look for social interaction, they are not afraid of travelling in groups of people. Consequently, the Tour Operators specialized in Adventurous Trips, which traditionally targeted younger segments of travelers could enlarge their market and target this senior segment.The academic contributions are based on the one hand on the identification of the senior travel motivations, and on the other hand on the thorough analysis of the variables of subjective ages. As regards this second point, the study allowed to reveal that the ideal dimension of the subjective age plays a major role in the study of the older consumers' tourism consumption behaviors: the results show that the highest values of the discrepancy age characterize segments which share the motivation to relax. Unlike the segment characterized by the lowest value which lacks this motivation to travel. This result could indicate that there is a link between the discrepancy age and the senior travel motivations. It seems interesting to examine this question thoroughly within the framework of future researches on the consumer behaviors of older consumers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to identify the profiles of current senior travelers using accurate segmentation criteria based on ageing and behavioral tourism variables, shown to be useful in gerontology, marketing and tourism marketing literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A self-complete questionnaire was administered to a work status-based quota sample of 300 senior consumers (retired people aged 50-76). Using behavioral variables, cluster analysis was performed. The clusters were then profiled using a discriminant analysis, involving demographic, ageing, and also some behavioral variables not included in the initial analysis. Finally, the current tourism offers were studied, considering the segments characteristics revealed.\nFindings: - Four distinct segments have been identified. Each segment differs considerably from one another on a set of variables, including consumer behaviors variables.\nResearch implications: - This paper fills a research gap, outlined by several previous researchers in the senior consumer field, by identifying the current travel motivations of seniors and the role of subjective ages in the consumption of tourism.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides dedicated tools to better understand the senior market. It also provides practical guidance for tourism companies to improve their current offer, better target and better satisfy each senior segment.\nOriginality/value: - This research provides the first known tourism French senior market segmentation. It also reveals an interesting (discriminant) segmentation variable for the senior market: the discrepancy age, which has until now been neglected in senior studies. Finally, it addresses an issue linked to one of the major current opportunity markets, i.e. the senior market, for one of the most important service industries, i.e. the tourism industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of production, IT, and logistics process innovations on ambidexterity performance	[ "Ambidexterity", "Business process management", "Process innovation", "Exploration and exploitation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Starting from March's (1991) work, the ambidexterity literature has mainly analyzed the benefits of achieving good ambidexterity performance by reconciling exploration and exploitation in organizational learning (Gupta et al., 2006). Notably, firms that can benefit from their current learning activities through exploitation, while building new competencies through exploration are deemed to better manage risks, be more innovative, and, hence, improve financial performance (Ferraris et al., 2017; Guisado-Gonzalez et al., 2017; O'Reilly and Tushman, 2013).\n2. Theory and hypotheses: Judge and Blocker (2008) suggest that ambidexterity is achieved if there exists an organizational capacity for change. Similarly, O'Reilly and Tushman (2013) argue that organizations should develop dynamic capabilities - i.e. adjusting competences according to changes in the environment - to aid ambidexterity. Further on, the academic literature states that if ambidexterity is to be achieved without domain separation, there should exist certain mechanisms to aid simultaneous exploration and exploitation (Turner et al., 2013). Such mechanisms refer to various organizational structures and processes (e.g. Kang and Snell, 2009); indeed, according to O'Reilly and Tushman (2008, p. 200) \"ambidexterity embodies a complex set of routines.\" While some macro-level mechanisms, such as incentives and practical routines introduction, are discussed by extant literature (e.g. Turner et al., 2013), various authors emphasize the need for \"micro-level\" studies of more operational processes for achieving ambidexterity (Asif, 2017; Turner et al., 2013). Notably, processes shape all the activities of an organization and have been largely recognized as valuable assets, important for dealing with the challenges of rapidly changing business environments (Kwak et al., 2016; Malone et al., 2003). In detail, some researchers contend that of particular importance are the changes in processes (i.e. process innovations) that facilitate learning and knowledge transfer (e.g. Teece and Pisano, 1994), since these may lead to the simultaneous achievement of incremental and radical innovation (Lin et al., 2013). In turn, process innovations have been found to positively affect operational performance and the competitive advantage of companies (Fathi et al., 2017). Eventually, the following sections scrutinize three important process innovations (i.e. production, IT, and logistics) and their importance for balancing exploration and exploitation.\n3. Methods and data: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: Table I shows descriptive statistics, while Table II presents pairwise correlations, which have values below the limit of 0.70, hence reducing multicollinearity concerns (Cohen et al., 2013).\n5. Discussion and conclusions: 5.1 Key findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the relationship between three types of process innovations (i.e. innovation in production, IT, and logistics processes) and ambidexterity performance. Specifically, the paper attempts to examine whether changes in business processes help companies to reconcile exploration and exploitation learning activities within the firm domain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research is based on data of 2,843 manufacturing firms, whose data are available from the Italian Innovation Survey (period 2010-2012). Hypotheses are developed and tested by using a Tobit regression approach.\nFindings: Innovation in production and IT processes favors ambidexterity performance, whereas changes in logistics activities, despite being positive, are less relevant.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first attempts to offer empirical evidence about the relationship between process innovations and ambidexterity performance (without engaging in domain separation), hence providing additional insights into the ambidexterity literature and the literature on process innovation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers and challenges to international interactions of the faculty members in Iran	[ "Internationalization", "International interactions", "International interactions barriers", "Iranian faculty members" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globalization is a term that is now often used in the higher education literature, although there is yet to be a full agreement on its exact meaning in the higher education context. Essentially, it is a process through which the world is becoming more interconnected and interdependent because of increasing flows of knowledge, people, culture, ideas, and trade (Hendrickson et al., 2013, p. 62). In spite of the ambiguity in the conceptualization of globalization, the representation of this complex phenomenon in higher education can be found in the concept of internationalization (Javdani, 2013, p. 26). Internationalization, to a certain extent, is a response to the impacts of globalization. Internationalization recognizes national boundaries, the uniqueness of societies and cultures, and in the face of the forces of globalization, urges international understanding and cooperation. In higher education, interpretations of the term have shifted according to the varying rationales and incentives for internationalization, the varying activities encompassed therein, and the varying political and economic circumstances in which the process is situated (Chan, 2004).\nConceptual framework and literature review: By developing an internalization phenomenon among higher education systems and universities of most countries, Iran universities also emphasize inevitably on internalization for converging with other universities of world and along with realization of general policies of \"science and technology system of Islamic Republic of Iran,\" \"Fifth development program of Islamic Republic of Iran,\" and \"Sixth development program of Islamic Republic of Iran,\" which emphasized, respectively, on the development and improvement of national and international communication networks among universities, scientific centers, scientists, and researchers, and also making effective educational interaction with other countries and international centers and at last collaboration development and active and effective interaction in the field of science and technology with other countries and valid scientific and technical local and international centers (Nazarzadeh Zare et al., 2016). Movement to internalization is not possible without recognizing its components and dimensions. For this reason, there are wide viewpoints about its dimensions in the internalization literature. For instance, Krause et al. (2005) considered five aspects for internationalization including: issues relative to education and curriculum; faculty members; research; issues relative to student; and strategies, while Elkin et al. (2008) considered nine dimensions for internationalization including: undergraduate international students; postgraduate international students; student exchange programs; staff exchanges programs; staff interaction in international context/attendance at international conferences; internationally focused program of study; international research collaboration; support for international students; and international institutional links.\nMethodology: Since the general aim of the study requires exploring and surveying opinions, views and experiences of experts participating in the study, the phenomenological method was used.\nFindings: According to the results of inductive content analysis of the interviews, barriers for interactions of faculty members were divided into inside university barriers, outside university barriers and individual barriers. The features of these three barriers and their components are shown in Table II and each of these barriers is described in the following.\nInside university barriers: The barriers consist of three components which are as follows: limited support of university structure from faculty members' international interactions, limited support of university culture from faculty members' international interactions, and limited financial support of university from faculty members' international interactions.\nOutside university barriers: The barriers consist of two components, which are: the impact of political tensions and international sanctions on faculty members' international interactions, and cumbersome administrative regulations for visa issuance.\nIndividual barriers: The barriers consist of three components, which are: low motivation of faculty members for international interactions, poor mastery of faculty members of the international language, and the lack of scientific-research abilities of some of the faculty members.\nDiscussion: Faculty members are as the most important human resources in the university and should have the scientific dynamism for success in each of three university functions of education, research, and services. Of course, one of the components which can help faculty members' academic dynamism is interacting with their scientific counterparts inside and outside of a country. Knowledge is a dynamic flow, and a faculty member without having interaction can hardly be successful in any of his functions. On the other hand, in addition to having the benefits for faculty members, international interaction is regarded as one of the important components of internationalization of universities and as an effective factor for academic dynamism. The available evidence indicates that international collaborations and interactions of Iranian universities are low and subsequently the interactions of faculty members with their academic counterparts at the international level are restricted. This problem creates the question that what barriers reduced the Iranian faculty members' international interactions. The answer to this question requires careful analysis of the barriers and challenges of the international interactions of Iranian faculty members. Thus, the present study tried employing a qualitative approach based on the phenomenology method to provide a clear answer to this question. The results showed that the three major barriers to international interactions of Iranian faculty members are as follows: inside university barriers, outside university barriers, and individual barriers.\nSuggestions: Based on results of this study, following recommendations are presented with the aim of removing barriers to international interactions of Iranian faculty members:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers and challenges to international interactions of the faculty members in Iran.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve the purpose, a qualitative phenomenological approach was used. The research population was all experts in the field of higher education in Iran, it included 17 experts who were selected through purposeful sampling by snowball method and based on theoretical saturation. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was used and for the data analysis, an inductive content analysis was applied.\nFindings: The findings showed that the barriers and challenges to faculty members' international interactions can be defined through three main barriers: inside university barriers, outside university barriers, and individual barriers.\nPractical implications: This research identified the barriers and challenges of faculty members' international interactions in Iran. The method of this study can be applied in other applied fields as well.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the authors' knowledge about international interactions of the faculty members and also the barriers and challenges of these interactions, so to have more interactions of faculty members at the international level, universities should make an effort to identify barriers and eliminate them, more than ever.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Robust skewness dispersion control charts	[ "Distribution free", "Skewness correction", "Robust control charts", "Contaminated normal", "Skewed distributions", "False alarm rate", "Probability to signal" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Twentieth century witnessed a revolutionary change in industrial history. This was due to the prompt transfer of industries towards more quick and efficient ways of technologies which provided innovative solutions of industrial problems in that era. It was need of time to develop such tools which would be capable of monitoring these quick industrial processes. Shewhart (1931) introduced the idea of control chart structure to monitor an industrial process which with the passage of time got popular in different fields of life, such as clinical chemistry, healthcare, service industry and others. Control charts are one of the most efficient and reliable instruments available in the toolkit of statistical process control to monitor the quality characteristics of an ongoing process.\nThe structures of SC\nR\nand\nS\ncontrol charts: This section provides a general structure of SC R and S dispersion control charts, respectively, proposed by Chan and Cui (2003) and Riaz et al. (2016). Let X1, X2, ..., Xn denote a sample of n observations from a process distribution of finite mean m and standard deviation s while setting a as the level of significance, then general control limits structure of SC dispersion control charts under known parameters is defined as follows: (1)\nA note on dispersion estimators: The conventional estimators of a dispersion parameter are seriously affected when process deviates from normality, as shown by Abbasi and Miller (2012); however, the higher relative efficiencies of robust estimators are observed under non-normal processes. Researchers have paid much attention towards dispersion estimators, and therefore a wide range of efficient estimators is available in the literature for symmetric and particularly in skewed nature data.\nThe structure of robust skewness (RS) dispersion control charts: This section focuses on the construction of the generalized structure of control charts based on robust (IQR, MAD, GINI, Sn and Qn) and conventional (R and S) dispersion estimators discussed in the second section. There are two control limits structures available in the literature, namely, three-sigma control limits and probability control limits. As discussed by Riaz (2008), three-sigma control limits is a conventional approach viable only in normal or at least symmetric processes; on contrary, according to Abbasi and Miller (2012), probability control limits are considered as a proper and efficient approach in both normal and non-normal processes. The control limits structure of Chan and Cui (2003) follow three-sigma limits approach where Cornish Fisher expansion is incorporated for the purpose of limits adjusting according to the skewness level of the process. This factor makes SC control limits distribution-free but these control limits are itself symmetric in nature, which is against the nature of asymmetric processes. In this study, we incorporated probability control limits structure using the actual quantiles of probability distribution of concerned dispersion estimator that resulted in skewness variant distribution-free but asymmetric control limits without depending on Cornish Fisher extension. This structure is quite flexible to the nature of underlying process distribution and thus more viable and reliable.\nA demonstration of control limits calculation: In this section, we demonstrate calculation of control limits of R.RS control chart for both known and unknown cases, based on the information provided in the fourth section of Chan and Cui (2003). In this context, a total of subgroups m=30, each of sample size n=5, are identically selected from exponential distribution (l=1) at \"in-control\" state and required estimates are\nComputation of control chart constants: Chan and Cui (2003) incorporated Weibull, Lognormal and Burr families as representative of skewed distributions and also computed control chart constants of SC control charts based on these families of distributions. Here, control chart constants of proposed structure\nPerformance evaluation and comparison: The proposed RS dispersion control charts are evaluated in detail, the performance comparisons of competing SC dispersion control charts are made under different situations. Following Riaz et al. (2016), false alarm rate (FAR) and probability to signal (PTS) are used as comparative measures of a control chart. The FAR describes probability of a wrong out-of-control signal and ideally it should be equal to level of significance (a), whereas PTS is defined as probability of a true out-of-control signal and represents efficiency of a control chart.\nExponential distribution: a special case: In this section, exponential distribution is selected as a special case of skewed distributions and all corresponding dispersion control charts limits are calculated considering known dispersion parameter and known distribution. These control limits are considered standard control limits for corresponding SC and RS dispersion control charts. Here, the exact dispersion control charts are compared with SC and RS control charts in terms of control limits differences, FAR and PTS measures.\nA real-data example: In order to evaluate the performances of proposed control charts in real-data situations, a real data set taken from Ciflikli (2006). This data set is related to the semi-product of clinker produced by a cement manufacturing process. It is measured for Cumulative Percent Coarser than 90 micrometers (CPC90m) which is a key quality parameter of an under-monitoring product. A total of 1,179 readings of CPC90m are noted, and each reading of this measure is collected once in every hour. It is observed that the process operated under in-control state for the first 951 observations while remaining observations were obtained from an out-of-control process.\nSummary and conclusion: In this study, a number of RS-based dispersion control charts are proposed, which are distribution free and efficient alternatives of SC dispersion control charts. The control limits of proposed control charts are not equally distanced from their central line as SC control charts and thus more suitable for asymmetric processes. The performances evaluation and comparisons of SC and RS dispersion control charts are made through FAR and PTS measure by considering a number of skewed distributions and two contamination cases of normal distribution. Exponential distribution is also considered as a special case where proposed and competing control charts are evaluated in terms of control limits comparisons with exact control limits along with FAR and PTS measures. It is observed that proposed RS dispersion control charts perform better in PTS measure while maintaining FAR measure at the required level of significance. It is also evident that robustness properties of proposed RS control charts made them equally efficient for higher levels of skewness even at small sample sizes. A real-data example is also made a part of this study to support findings of simulation outcomes. Real-data example and exponential distribution also show the dominance of RS dispersion control charts in FAR and PTS measures.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope of robust dispersion control charts in a distribution-free environment, which is a specific case of non-normal control charts. These control charts are skewness-based structures designed to monitor skewed-type processes whilst equally performing under symmetric processes. Moreover, the choice of a suitable control chart for a particular non-normal situation is also suggested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The probability control limits approach is considered as an alternative way to determine the skewness-based structure of dispersion control charts. The proposals of five robust and two conventional Shewhart-type dispersion control charts are suggested as efficient competitors of skewness correction (SC) dispersion control charts. The evaluation of robust proposals and competing dispersion control charts is done through false alarm rate (FAR) and probability to signal (PTS) measures.\nFindings: The proposed dispersion control charts are found robust and efficient alternatives of SC dispersion control charts in both normal and non-normal distributions. The FARs and PTS properties of proposed control charts are impressive in all studied cases, and a real-data example also verifies the dominance of proposed control charts.\nOriginality/value: Conventional dispersion control charts quickly lose their efficiency as underlying process distribution deviates from normality; however, robust control charts emerge as most suitable candidates in such situations. This paper proposes the idea of robust dispersion control charts under a distribution-free structure for the skewed-type process, which is not yet explored.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using evaluation theory in priority setting and resource allocation	[ "Priority setting", "Resource allocation", "Evaluation", "Theory", "Health planning and policy", "Social welfare planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Common political, economic and social pressures over the last several decades have driven western governments of all political persuasions to both apply formal techniques for priority setting and resource allocation (PSRA), and to conduct formal program and policy evaluations. While public sector spending and the number and extent of government roles boomed during the immediate post-second world war era, changing economic times meant that concerns with deficit spending took center stage from the 1980s onward - \"do more with less\" was, and continues to be, the mantra. Efficiency, and tools to measure it, took center stage. Another shared influence is evidence-based decision-making with its recognition that many things traditionally done do not work or in fact might even be harmful. Its proponents insist that the public would be better off if public organizations and systems used evidence to set spending priorities, and evaluation to identify and subsequently stop ineffective and harmful programs or activities.We have seen increased expectations for the public sector to account to its citizens. Gradual decline of trust in and deference to government among western populations (Nevitte, 1996) has increased the pressures on political and bureaucratic leaders to provide more than simple assurances of their attention to effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars - proof is now required. Public administration reforms, for instance the new public management and the \"reinventing government\" movement (Hood, 1991; Hood and Peters, 2004; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992) similarly hinged on increased transparency and accountability. Their demand to \"let managers manage\" and the use of mechanisms such as pay-for-performance have resulted in more freedom for public employees to choose means to meet the ends, and it has consequently required them to demonstrate that results are in fact being produced. In addition, there has been increased emphasis on citizen engagement, the alignment of public policy with societal values, and on values-based decision-making more generally as features of effective governance of public institutions and systems.Yet despite their common roots there has been, surprisingly, little work done by researchers in the evaluation of PSRA, and none of these efforts have substantially drawn upon or engaged with the evaluation and evaluation theory literatures. Our objective in this paper is to bring these separate scholarly traditions together. We accomplish this through a close review of these literatures, organized using the evaluation theory tree heuristic (as detailed below). The selection of sources is based upon the authors' experience in both these fields of inquiry. Thinking through the potential relationships across these knowledge(s) should hopefully point towards future areas of productive conceptual and practical investigation. Our audience is those who implement priority setting activities and wish to know the benefit of their effort, and those within or external to the organization who conduct the necessary evaluative research. We presume our most likely readers are those with some familiarity with and/or experience of priority setting and its literature, but who may be less aware of academic and practical work in the evaluation studies field.PSRA can be evaluated, both for process and results, by calling upon the tools and approaches of the evaluation field. Of these tools, a key one is its theoretical conceptualizations[1]. Theories help us to organize our thinking, sort out relevant from irrelevant information, provide transparent grounds for particular implementation choices, and can help resolve problematic issues which may arise in the conduct of a particular evaluation project. Evaluation theory is a means by which evaluators reflect upon what it is they are doing when they do evaluation work (Donaldson and Lipsey, 2006). Evaluation needs an evaluand, and for the purposes of our paper we construe this as a formal system of PSRA. This, briefly defined, is a set of procedures and related tools which are deliberately designed and implemented in order to structure the process of arriving at resource allocation choices. We exclude from our consideration rationing at the clinical or bedside level, that is, allocation to particular patients or clients. Our contention is that judicious use of evaluation theory will help us better understand actual PSRA practice. While PSRA crosses sectors, we focus here (due to the authors' area of expertise) particularly upon its use in the health sector.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, we briefly outline the historic development of public sector evaluation and priority setting efforts, primarily from a western (and within this, North American) perspective. Following this, we discuss three major approaches to evaluation theory - methods, use, and valuing - incorporating within these sections relevant PSRA literature and experiences. We conclude with a detailed discussion of the implications of the different evaluation approaches to assessment and understanding of priority setting and resource allocation processes in healthcare.\nBackground: Evaluation is a systematic effort to collect and analyze data so as to reach a \"judgment of merit or worth\" about an evaluand (i.e. a process, program or policy being evaluated). Evaluation has been a growth industry within the federal public sector in both Canada and the US.The idea of systematic evaluation of programs first developed in the fields of public health and education (Rossi and Freeman, 1993; Weiss, 1998). However growth in evaluative efforts occurred largely concurrently with the growth of welfare state programs in the post-second world war years; a particular root in the US was the \"war on poverty\" programs of the Johnson administration (Rossi and Freeman, 1993) - \"the beginning of large scale government funded evaluation\" (Weiss, 1998, p. 12). After a lull during the 1980s, performance measurement and evaluation in the US federal government were boosted again through such measures as the Clinton-era Government Performance and Results Act (1993) and the G.W. Bush administration's adoption of the Program Assessment Rating Tool, meant to link information about program effectiveness with funding levels (Davis, 2002; Posner and Fantone, 2007).A similar trajectory was followed in Canada. \"A Canadian program evaluation capability, as a recognizable entity, first came into being in the 1960s\" (Muller-Clemm and Barnes, 1997, pp. 62-63). The first formal statement on evaluation of government programs was issued by the federal Treasury Board in 1977, and evaluation was taken up and promoted by the independent Auditor-General's office through the 1980s. Results-based Management and Accountability Frameworks, or RMAFs, which required program logic models and performance measurement and evaluation strategies, were mandated for federal departments in the 1990s (Pal, 2010). Most recently (in 2009), the Treasury Board secretariat issued an updated evaluation policy statement which called for all direct program spending to be reviewed at least every five years, with a focus on value-for-money and clear quality standards (Treasury Board of Canada, 2009).Setting priorities and allocating scarce resources across some range of possible activities and functions are key public sector activities. Program budgeting systems, as a means to understand and manipulate spending choices, proliferated in the post-second world war years, starting with organizations such as the US Department of Defense. The consensus, unfortunately, was that such systems delivered less than promised (Schick, 1973; West et al., 2009). Cost-effectiveness analysis methods and tools provided information intended to allow for trade-offs among options. However notable efforts in healthcare, such as the \"Oregon experiment\" (Kitzhaber, 1993; Oberlander et al., 2001) proved highly contentious and also of little impact. Cost-effectiveness analysis continues to be refined, for instance through the work of the UK's National Institute for Clinical and Health Effectiveness, or NICE (Williams et al., 2007; Syrett, 2002).Because of the clear investment choices they pose, health technology assessment and pharmaceutical benefit schemes have been major foci for priority setting developments (Williams et al., 2007; Noorani et al., 2007; Anell, 2004). It is nonetheless important for health organizations to consider their spending choices across a range of programs and services whose costs and benefits are less easily measured using a single metric. Beginning in the 1970s, healthcare decision makers and researchers have tried to put budget information into the context of formal priority setting frameworks, such as program budgeting and marginal analysis, or PBMA (Mitton and Donaldson, 2004). PBMA has been tested in countries around the globe for four decades; Mitton and Donaldson (2001) itemize the published literature on these initiatives.Formal PSRA processes and tools are partly a response to the recognized inadequacies of allocation based upon historical funding patterns, such as lack of transparency, failure to adequately incorporate an evolving evidence base, and accumulation of inequities in distribution over time. However, Sibbald et al. (2009) note that \"only a few studies have presented ideas for evaluating the success of priority setting.\" These collectively have been based upon different ideas about what constitutes success. Some studies focus upon process (e.g. Sabik and Lie, 2008). The Accountability for Reasonableness or A4R framework, which draws attention to ethical issues of fair process has been used in a number of instances (e.g. Martin et al., 2002; Gibson et al., 2004a; Menon et al., 2007). Others research centers on outputs like stakeholder satisfaction; often, \"success has been gauged by whether managers continue to support the priority setting approach taken\" (Mitton and Donaldson, 2003, p. 337). Changes in decision making culture have been identified as a desired and hopefully measurable result of formal PSRA (Peacock, 1998; Mitton and Donaldson, 2003; Sabik and Lie, 2008). A range of evaluation criteria have been elicited from decision makers and/or researchers, and these have been shaped into possible evaluation frameworks or checklists (Gibson et al., 2004a; Kapiriri and Martin, 2010; Sibbald et al., 2009, 2010).\nThe evaluation theory tree: In the remainder of this paper, we describe three main theoretical approaches to the conduct of evaluations, and assess how each might be relevant to informing designs for the systematic assessment of PSRA processes in health service organizations. That is, relevant PSRA literature related to theory and practice is integrated within our discussion of evaluation approaches. These approaches appear on the \"evaluation theory tree\" (Alkin and Christie, 2004; Christie and Alkin, 2008; Donaldson and Lipsey, 2006; Heberger et al., 2010). This is a heuristic device which situates the works of leading evaluation figures in relation to one another, with three main branches grouped around concepts of methods, use, and valuing (see Figure 1)[2]. These are all aspects of any evaluation theory, but theorists differ according to which concept they most prominently emphasize. We will briefly summarize each approach, and then describe for each case how it might be relevant to assessment of and reflection upon PSRA practices. Limitations of the different theoretical approaches will also be discussed.Methods-focused approaches\nImplications: Table I summarizes some of the main distinctions among the different sets of evaluation theory that would be relevant for study of PSRA approaches. The five items in the first column can be seen as advance organizers, criteria on which evaluation theories can be distinguished (Stufflebeam, 2001). These organizers can serve to frame or focus particular theory-led evaluation efforts (Fitzpatrick, 2004). In this final section, we discuss the implications of these aspects of evaluation theory for the evaluation of PSRA practice.Overall, efforts to evaluate PSRA in healthcare organizations have been infrequent, at best. In the limited work which has been done, the idea of use seems to have (explicitly but more often implicitly) been the guiding principle. As Table I suggests, this focus is accompanied typically by evaluation designs oriented around process measures - for instance, adherence to the principles of ethical frameworks such as accountability for reasonableness - or outputs, for instance participant satisfaction (as understood by Hatry et al., 1996). These are not insignificant, but we ought to also move towards assessment of outcomes. That is, we should consider what effect formal PSRA has upon the achievement of desired results such as improved health outcomes and/or more equitable distribution of social resources, to name only some possible objectives. Only this can tell us if the effort is worthwhile.Method- and value-centered perspectives can be helpful means of enabling us to reflect upon PSRA processes in this light. Methods-based approaches (though they can be applied too bluntly) remind us that \"did it make a difference\" is a key evaluative question, and when decision makers agree that this matters to them, we should be creative in our efforts to answer that question. Valuing approaches remind us that PSRA in health service delivery organizations ultimately affects real people who depend upon the services whose fate is at stake when investment or disinvestment are made. Evaluation should not neglect what this larger public perspective can contribute to judgments about successful process.Decision makers, undoubtedly, will remain the main commissioners of any PSRA evaluation which might take place in healthcare organizations, and as a result, their point-of-view will be a key driver in the evaluation. However, attending to the possibility of other stakeholder lenses will enable evaluation to at least reflectively de-center the management perspective. The implication is that a wider range of PSRA consequences can be noted, and broader or different defenses for particular healthcare allocations will need to be offered. This contributes to greater transparency.Priority setting in healthcare organizations is almost always a nested process, where choices are made by multiple levels of governance and within organizations by different actors at different degrees of remove from senior management. Accounting for the impact of these systemic factors upon the outcomes of PSRA activity is inherently challenging. The different evaluation theories suggest different means by which we might grapple with the issue. Different stakeholders will be differently affected by the choices. A methods-focused approach, for instance, when it uses \"objective\" measures of impact, can make it harder for investment in service areas in which the evidence-base is more weakly established to be seen as successful resource allocation. The forms of evaluation which are found to be acceptable will reveal the distribution of power within and across health services.Of course, all aspects - method, use, valuing - are relevant and we can improve PSRA by considering these facets of evaluation. However we reiterate that there is benefit in using a theoretically-based approach as a starting point. Theories help us organize our thoughts and more clearly identify what features to address and how these are connected or related to one another. Thinking about PSRA with an up-front evaluative lens can thus contribute to better understanding of these processes and interventions in real-world circumstances.\nAcknowledgements: Some material in this paper was presented at the 8th conference of the International Society on Priorities in Healthcare (April 2010), Boston-Waltham, MA.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Public sector interest in methods for priority setting and program or policy evaluation has grown considerably over the last several decades, given increased expectations for accountable and efficient use of resources and emphasis on evidence-based decision making as a component of good management practice. While there has been some occasional effort to conduct evaluation of priority setting projects, the literatures around priority setting and evaluation have largely evolved separately. In this paper, the aim is to bring them together.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The contention is that evaluation theory is a means by which evaluators reflect upon what it is they are doing when they do evaluation work. Theories help to organize thinking, sort out relevant from irrelevant information, provide transparent grounds for particular implementation choices, and can help resolve problematic issues which may arise in the conduct of an evaluation project.\nFindings: - A detailed review of three major branches of evaluation theory - methods, utilization, and valuing - identifies how such theories can guide the development of efforts to evaluate priority setting and resource allocation initiatives. Evaluation theories differ in terms of their guiding question, anticipated setting or context, evaluation foci, perspective from which benefits are calculated, and typical methods endorsed.\nOriginality/value: - Choosing a particular theoretical approach will structure the way in which any priority setting process is evaluated. The paper suggests that explicitly considering evaluation theory makes key aspects of the evaluation process more visible to all stakeholders, and can assist in the design of effective evaluation of priority setting processes; this should iteratively serve to improve the understanding of priority setting practices themselves.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Building a good solid family wine business: Casella Wines	[ "Viticulture", "Wines", "Australia", "Brands", "Business development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: John Casella is not the usual jet-setter. He would rather be at home with his wife and two young children than at LAX waiting to board his flight to celebrate the first anniversary of the launch of yellow tail (yellow tail is a registered trademark of Casella Wines Pty Ltd.) in Japan. Ironically, the tremendous success of the Australian family-own winery over recent years, especially in the US market, has resulted in less family time and a hectic whirl-wind life of business meetings and travel. The previous day, Casella was being interviewed by James Brian in the South Los Angeles studio of the award-winning internet wine talk show Graperadio.com (www.graperadio.com). Some of Brian's questions were still reverberating in his mind: why is Casella Wines so successful? Is this success sustainable? What are the challenges the company now faces? Industry success and leadership, it was pointed out, will always be challenge. His thoughts were focused not so much on the competitors, but on finding ways to improve what Casella Wines was already doing well still, as a family-owned winery.The wine industry generally is a very difficult industry: it is a mature industry. But with our [yellow tail] product we were able to get that to the consumers: it is a product they obviously enjoy. We have got efficiencies by producing large volume and it has payed dividends we got good returns but I got to say until this day we reinvested every dollar we ever made: we want to build a good solid family wine business (Managing Director, John Casella, Casella Wines).The all too familiar audio announcement broke his concentration, as it beckoned passengers to board a flight to Japan.The taste of success\nFoundation building and core enhancement strategy: Since the inception of Casella Wines in 1969, it has primarily positioned itself as a low-profile bulk wine producer, managed by its post-war Italian immigrant founders: Filippo Casella and his wife Maria. The winery is located about 600 km South-west of Sydney in the Riverina region of New South Wales[3]. This is one of Australia's most efficient wine producing regions, at the forefront of both mechanical harvesting and pruning. Casella Wines secured easy access to a high volume of relatively inexpensive yet good quality grapes. As John Casella points out: \"We couldn't have produced [yellow tail] out of the Barossa Valley (in South Australia) or the Hunter Valley (in New South Wales); there is not enough fruit at the right price\".When Filippo and Maria Casella founded the winery, they brought from Sicily the skills learned by three generations of rural Italian grape growers dating from the 1820s. Indeed their hope for the winery was that it would add value to their newly acquired 16 ha farm, purchased after years of savings through labouring as itinerant workers in the North Queensland cane fields and New South Wales fruit fields. Above all, they wanted to pass on their wine making skills to the next generation as well as perpetuate the ancestral tradition of selling and sharing good wines with family and friends. Nothing made the patriarchical Filippo Casella prouder than to see his sons and, in more recent years his grand-children, working on the vineyard and joining family luncheons at the farm house.Yeah he's amazed and very, very happy that in his life time he's seen a dream come true which is a dream that every emigrant must have, to come to a new country and be seen to have contributed to that country (Managing Director, John Casella, Casella Wines).The family estate still overlooks the vineyards, although has grown to incorporate the trappings of a business with 200 million litres of stainless steel wine storage tanks.The product/market strategy\nBrand building: Soutter's first task was to reorganise the winery's administrative system to handle export sales. By using the services of AUSTRADE he set out to identify a major US importer with a substantial distributor network. But things do not always go according to plan in the export business. Carramar Estate - the Casella branded wine launched in 1999 for the US market - was a good wine selling for under $US10, but did not stand out among other wine products; as well, it did not seem to appeal to the American public:Our US importers called a meeting and told us it was, in their words, too much of a me-too wine. It was nice, but nothing special. They wanted better. After that meeting I came back feeling a little dejected (GM (Export) Sales and Marketing, John Soutter, Casella Wines).A distinctive product\nPursuing the dream: For Casella, real success is measured in terms of how proud the family is to make a contribution to wine making and to Australia, as the country of adoption for Filippo and Maria more than five decades ago. Above all, the winery is much today as it was for its post-war Italian immigrant founders, all about sustaining family relationships, sharing good wines with good friends and passing on wine making skills to the next generation so they can in due time carry on the family tradition.It has never been about money [... ] One of the most important things from our business point of view is that we do have family, that it [the winery] maintains the family structure as it has. It is all about the future and building a future for ourselves and the coming generations (Managing Director, John Casella, Casella Wines).Managing for the long-run\nNotes: 1. The Power 100 - The world's most powerful spirits & wine brands 2009, available at: www.intangiblebusiness.com/store/data/files/473-The_Power_100_2009.pdf2. Win@biz - Australia's wine industry portal by winetitles, available at: www.winebiz.com.au/statistics/exportstable18.asp3. The Wine Web Map Australian Wine Regions: available at: wwwwineweb.com/mapaustr4. The industry has traditionally been dominated by four wine groups - Southcorp Wines, Hardy Wine Company, Orlando Wyndham, Beringer Blass. A fifth one Australian Vintage Ltd (www.australianvintage.com.au/) formerly known as McGuigan Simeon Wines has developed in more recent years. Australian Wine Online: www.winetitles.com.au/awol/overview/wineries.asp5. www.austrade.gov.au/\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - From humble beginnings, Casella Wines has become Australia's greatest wine producer. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the company has become so successful.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper comprises many quotes from John Castella, Managing Director of Casella Wines, among others, and covers various areas of the business, for example, foundation building, core enhancement strategy, product/market strategy, hiring policy, and brand building.\nFindings: - For Casella, real success is measured in terms of how proud the family is to make a contribution to wine making and to Australia, as the country of adoption for its post-war Italian immigrant founders more than five decades ago. Above all, the winery is much today as it was then - all about sustaining family relationships, sharing good wines with good friends, and passing on wine making skills to the next generation so they can, in due time, carry on the family tradition.\nOriginality/value: - This paper would make a useful, research-informed teaching case, highlighting the phenomenal growth of the yellowtail brand and the family business that developed it.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic corporate communication and impact in Indian service sector	[ "Message", "Corporate communication", "Impact", "Reputation", "Strategic", "Medium" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Corporate communication is an overall communication activity to achieve planned objectives (Jackson, 1987); and a management device, which helps in harmonizing different forms of internal and external communication effectively and efficiently, with the objective of creating a favorable relationship with organization's stakeholders (van Riel and Fombrun, 2007). Corporate communication comprises of four key components which are: transmitting messages about the organization; using appropriate medium (magazines, television, pictures, corporate gifts, intranet, etc.) for communication; disseminating information to stakeholders; and striving to enhance image or reputation of the company through communication (Ormino, 2007). The importance of corporate communication has gained salience over years and many companies view it as an essential strategic activity that helps gain competitive advantage and manage crisis (Thiessen and Ingenhoff, 2011). Goodman (2010) adds that corporate communication is a strategic management function, where the role of corporate communication executive is to counsel the chief executive officer about issues related to reputation management. He further adds that companies during recession and crisis do not reduce their budgets for corporate communication as part of cost cutting (Goodman, 2012), which is indicative of strategic relevance of corporate communication. This research examines the different components of strategic corporate communication (SCC) process in the context of service sector organizations in India, and studies the relationship of each component with the impact of communication. The following section presents a review of literature of the process variables involved in SCC and raises research questions from which the objectives of the study have evolved.\nReview of literature: There are several models which explain the relevance and process of corporate communication, each providing insights regarding decisions that need to be taken in SCC. The traditional model of corporate communication depicts a linear relationship between corporate identity and corporate image, where identity is assumed to have emerged historically or is strategically formulated based on purpose, vision, mission and ethos of the organization, and communicated to stakeholders to create a congruent and favorable reputation (Van Riel, 1995; Balmer and Soenen, 1999). In \"New model of corporate communication interactivity and multiple message sources\", author Cornelissen (2000) indicates that stakeholders receive messages from multiple sources like competitors, symbolic communication through employee behaviors, word of mouth, etc., and therefore, image formed by stakeholders is a multiple variable impression formation process. The Balmer and Greyser's (2003) new corporate communications wheel emphasizes the matching of different communication channels, such as advertising, new media, direct marketing and sponsorships, to each stakeholder group for communicating corporate messages. Corporate communication strategy model (Argenti, 2007) stresses the designing of a feedback mechanism, which provides inputs to construct and deliver suitable messages and treats corporate reputation and image as the key measure of successful corporate communication. In contemporary scenario, due to proliferation of communication technology, stakeholders have become more aware and responsive, making it important for organizations to strategize about what it wants to say, to which stakeholder, in what manner, and to obtain what effect (Mitchell et al., 1997).\nResearch issue and objectives: There is comprehensive research which describes the strategic role of corporate communication in organizations (Thiessen and Ingenhoff, 2011; Goodman, 2010; Argenti, 2007; Massie and Anderson, 2003); the functions and aims served by corporate communication (van Riel and Fombrun, 2007; Argenti, 2007; Goodman, 2006) and processes or components involved in corporate communication (Jackson, 1987; Ormino, 2007). Researchers have raised the issue of integration of components of SCC so that messages are aligned with medium used to communicate to the suitable stakeholders (Kotler, 2000; Kerr et al., 2008; Smith, 2012; van Riel and Fombrun, 2007; Seiffert et al., 2011). It has also been pointed out that every strategy is as good as how well it is implemented (Kuhn and Corman, 2003; Lewis, 2006; Sagie et al., 2001; Timmerman, 2003; Zorn, 2002). Implementation is seen as moving from knowledge to practice (Tornatzky and Johnson, 1982), which is possible only if we understand the nature of relationship that exists between the components of corporate communication and its impact. When we know which messages, mediums and stakeholders are important from the point of achieving desired communication impact, then tactical decisions regarding choice of message, medium and stakeholders help implementation. In the review of literature we did not come across any research that has measured impact of SCC exclusively. Generally corporate reputation and image is considered to be a measure of effective corporate communication (van Riel and Frombrun, 2007), but, Bromley (2000), says that factors like personal experience of stakeholders with products and services and feedback of others may also influence formation of reputation, which therefore cannot be attributed only to corporate communication.\nMethodology: The study has a descriptive research design and has used the survey method to collect data from a cross-sectional sample; with univariate and multivariate statistical analysis techniques applied to the data to establish the research objectives.\nResults and analysis: A key objective of the study was to understand the relationship between components of SCC and SCC impact. A series of multiple regression analyzes were performed (Tables VI-VIII) to see how the derived measures of messages, medium and stakeholders (the three components of SCC) predicted the three factor derived measures of SCC Impact as well as the Aggregate Impact. Data were checked for multi collinearity (Jha and Murthy, 2006), normality (Shapiro-wilk statistics) and independence of residuals (Durbin-Watson statistics). In order to assess which of the three components of SCC (message, medium and stakeholders) played a greater role in predicting impact a composite score for each was also computed separately, by using method of aggregate composite index (Lewis-Beck, 1994; Jha and Murthy, 2006). Multiple regression analysis was performed (Table IX) by regressing the computed aggregate composite index of message, medium and stakeholder on the four measures of SCC Impact: communication synergy; value representation; organizational reliability; and aggregate impact.\nDiscussion: The present study has made an important contribution to existing theories of SCC by developing a comprehensive model of SCC, based on empirically tested relationships between its different components. One of the distinguishing features of the model is a new empirically derived variable that measures the effectiveness of SCC function, designated as SCC Impact, which has traditionally and alternatively been assessed as corporate image or reputation (van Riel and Fombrun, 2007). Another key outcome of this research is the construction and standardization of an assessment instrument of SCC which can be used by researchers and practitioners to design SCC activities aimed at achieving the greatest impact in service sector organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of strategic corporate communication (SCC) activities and its impact in Indian service sector organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A descriptive research design was used with data obtained from 227 executives from service sector organizations. A research instrument was constructed and measures of SCC and its impact were derived through factor analysis.\nFindings: Multiple regression analysis led to formulation of new relationships among the variables (messages, medium and stakeholders) involved in SCC and its impact. For example, in crisis situations, messages related to identity and image were associated with greater communication impact than were other types of messages. Similarly communicating with primary stakeholders like employees and customers was more important than with other stakeholders. Among the different types of medium used in SCC, virtual medium and disclosures led to greater communication impact.\nOriginality/value: Communication impact due to SCC was a multi-dimensional construct comprising of three kinds of impacts: communication synergy; value representation; and organizational reliability. The relationships of messages, mediums and stakeholders with different types of SCC Impact can help practitioners design and implement effective strategies of corporate communication.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic planning for management of technology of China's high technology enterprises	[ "Technology led strategy", "Strategic planning", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Over the past 30 years, China's most industries, high-tech industry especially, are undergoing radical transformations due to mega-competition taking place on a global scale after her entrance into World Trade Organization (Lukas et al., 2001). And most changes are directly caused by or related to the development, perception and use of technology. Thus, the emphasis of many high technology enterprise initiatives concentrates upon encouraging technology transfer to access new technology (Li-Hua, 2006a, b). A strategy for the development of high technology, the 863 Programme, has also been conducted to promote the progress of high technology and to strengthen technological capability of high technology industry since 1986 by the Chinese government (Lau and Busenitz, 2001). However, studies have shown that the strategy formulation is technology tent in rapid growth high technology enterprise (Lau et al., 2008). Therefore, there is a potential problem in China's high technology enterprises which fail to acknowledge the importance of strategic management of technology, and the critical role of the strategic planning processes in initiating and implementing effective technology management (Zhu, 2008). This is particularly true given that previous researches have identified strategic planning as key areas of weakness within enterprises where the purely technological side of their business is often over-emphasized and other key strategic issues are neglected (Lau et al., 2002; Li-Hua, 2006b). The gap between technology management and technology development in the high tech enterprise has been variously described as an opportunity area, and a root cause of competitive disadvantage. Similarly, the link between strategic planning for technology management and technology strategy has been viewed as a natural concomitant of growing maturity in the high technology enterprise, an integral and necessary evolution in corporate philosophy, and a positive task for an increasingly professional management team (Kurokawa et al., 2005). It is surprising that, despite the perceived importance of high tech enterprises in technological innovation and international competitiveness, very little detailed study has been undertaken into strategic management of technology management in these enterprises.This paper builds on previous research on strategic planning, and mainly focuses on technology management and the unique circumstances facing China's high technology enterprises which are often founded upon the R&D capabilities. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 clarifies the processes of strategic planning for management of technology, and establishes the model of strategic planning for technology management. In Section 3, technology management maturity model (TMMM) and fitness landscape theory are developed as the tools for strategic planning. Section 4 introduces the research method and Section 5 provides the empirical study of 43 high technology enterprises in China, and some findings are also reported in this section. The last section contains some concluding remarks and managerial implications.\nII. The model of strategic planning for technology management: A. The concept of strategic planning for technology management\nIII. Tools for strategic planning for technology management: A. Technology management maturity model\nIV. Research method: A. Questionnaire design\nV. Data analysis and results: A. Technology management state\nVI. Discussion and implications: This paper contends that strategic planning for management of technology is necessary and important for China's high technology enterprises. The objective of this paper is to explore, describe, and explicate the processes related to strategic planning for technology management, and to provide beneficial suggestions for China's high technology enterprises to promote technology management capability. Therefore, the model for strategic planning for technology management is developed. CMM and fitness landscape theory are applied in this model to construct useful analysis tools. The model is used to make the strategic planning for technology management of China's high technology enterprises. A survey of 43 high technology enterprises in China is conducted, and according to the data, TMMM is used to assess the technology management level and fitness landscape of technology management is developed to explore the routines of promoting technology management capability. We find that there is still much room for China's high technology enterprises to improve technology management capability since the average technology management maturity is only in the managed level. And the maturity of quality management is lower than that of organization management and resource management, and so quality management should be attached more importance to in promoting holistic technology management capability. All such findings imply that our research makes theoretical contributions to technology management and strategy related literature with significant managerial implications.A. Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this paper is to explore, describe, and explicate the processes which are related to the strategic planning for technology management, and to provide beneficial suggestions for China's high technology enterprises to promote technology management capability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper, a model for strategic planning for management of technology is developed, which is expected to be used to provide effective processes of articulating strategic planning. The model involves several key points including defining the current situations of technology management, determining the objectives of managing technology, and designing the approaches for the promotion of technology management capability. Capability maturity model (CMM) and fitness landscape theory are applied in this model to construct useful analysis tools. The model is used to make the strategic planning for management of technology of China's high technology enterprises. A survey of 43 high technology companies in China is conducted. Technology management maturity model (TMMM) is employed to assess the technology management maturity level, and fitness landscape of technology management is developed to explore the routines of promoting technology management capability.\nFindings: - The authors find that there is still much room for China's high technology enterprises to improve their technology management capability, since the average technology management maturity is only in the managed level. And the maturity of quality management is lower than that of organization management and resource management, and so quality management should have more importance attached to it, promoting holistic technology management capability. All such findings imply that our research makes theoretical contributions to technology management and strategy related literature with significant managerial implications.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to technology management literature by constructing the model of strategic planning for technology management, viewing it as the roadmap of the development of technology management, explaining three interrelated points and illustrating three processes. Second, the paper uses fitness landscape and NK model to explore the routines of promoting technology management capability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
New model of job design: motivating employees' performance	[ "Job design", "Motivation (psychology)", "Learning", "Organizational performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is an established body of knowledge supporting the idea that certain jobs and goal setting can enhance performance. This paper focuses on motivating performance through job design. It is experienced that well designed jobs can have a positive impact on both employee satisfaction and the quality of performance. In the present paper, it is proposed that a well-defined job would enhance motivation, satisfaction and performance of the employees. Thus, for both academicians and practitioners, job design takes on special importance in today's human resource management. It is essential to design jobs so that stress can be reduced, motivation can be enhanced, and satisfaction of employees and their performance can be improved so that organizations can effectively compete in the global marketplace.Initially, the field of organizational behavior paid attention only to job enrichment (JE) approaches to job design. Now, job design has taken a broader perspective, with various dimensions such as job enrichment (JE), job engineering (JEng), quality of work life (QWL), sociotechnical designs, the social information processing approach (SIPA) and the job characteristics approach to job design. The proposed model recognizes certain job characteristics that contribute to certain psychological states, and that the strength of the employee's need for growth has an important moderating effect.The aim of this paper is to identify the key issues of job design research and practice, particularly in relation to higher-level jobs. To provide the context for the account that follows, we first take a backward glance at job design. We then briefly describe the approaches to job design with emphasis on the job characteristics approach to job design in detail, followed by a literature review of the job characteristics approach. Later we present the proposed model of job design, and its future implications or outcomes.Job design and its approaches are usually considered to have begun with scientific management in the year 1900. Pioneering scientific managers such as Taylor (1947), Gilbreth (1911), and Gilbreth and Gilbreth (1917) systematically examined jobs with various techniques. They suggested that task design might be the most prominent element in scientific management.With respect to the design of individual jobs, the first major theory was that of Herzberg and his colleagues (Herzberg et al., 1959). Their two-factor theory distinguished between two types of factors, namely motivators, which are intrinsic to the work itself (e.g. achievement, recognition, and responsibility), and hygiene factors, which are extrinsic to the work (e.g. work conditions, pay, and supervision). The proposition was that the hygiene factors are absolutely necessary to maintain the human resources of an organization. According to Hertzberg's theory, only a challenging job has the opportunity for achievement, recognition, advancement and growth that will motivate personnel.Hackman and Oldham's (1976) job characteristics model (JCM), superseded the two-factor theory. This identifies five core job characteristics, namely:1. skill variety;2. task identity;3. task significance;4. autonomy; and5. feedback.The core job characteristics are followed by three critical psychological states, namely:1. experienced meaningfulness;2. experienced responsibility; and3. knowledge of results.In turn, the critical psychological states are accountable for increased work satisfaction, internal work motivation, performance and reduced absence and employee turnover. The model assumes that autonomy and feedback are more important than the work characteristics, and that individuals with higher growth need strength (i.e. desire for challenges and personal development) will respond more positively to enriched jobs than others. To this end, an extension to job design has been proposed that would help organizations and employees to survive in the turbulent marketplace.There was substantial interest from researchers and practitioners in job design during the 1900s. Hackman et al. (1975), conducted a study and claimed that people on enriched jobs are definitely more motivated and satisfied by their jobs. Another study conducted by Griffin (1989) on 1,000 tellers from 38 banks of a large holding company found from the job design intervention that employees perceive meaningful changes and tend to recognize those changes over time. In addition to this, a meta-analysis of the job characteristics model (Fried and Ferris, 1987) found general support for the model and for its effects on motivation and satisfaction and performance outcome.Adler (1991) found that systems in which employees reported higher perceptions of skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback reported higher levels of satisfaction and internal work motivation. Champoux (1991) theorized the relationships that growth need strength moderates between the core job characteristics and the critical psychological states and affective responses. Moreover, Dodd and Ganster (1996) examined the interactive relationship between feedback, autonomy and variety by manipulating the characteristics in lab. In their study, Arce (2002) found that the reward from outside activities is affected by the performance on inside activity. The study provides a rationale for the existence of synergies between different activities. Loher et al. 1985) found the relation between job characteristics and job satisfaction and also found that the relation was stronger for employees high in growth need strength (GNS). Renn and Vandenberg (1995) studied the strongest support for the job characteristic model that allowed the core job dimensions to have direct and indirect effects on personal and work outcomes. Another study conducted by Morrison et al. (2005) found that job designs that provide for high levels of employee control also provide increased opportunities for the development and exercise of skill. Also, mediational influence of perceived skill utilization on job control job satisfaction has been observed. Love and Edwards (2005) concluded that perceived work demands, job control and social support through job design leads to high productivity. Sokoya (2000) found in his study that the level of job satisfaction is determined by a combination of jobs, work and personal characteristics. Rotating managers to different jobs adds the benefit of task variety, resulting in increased performance of employees. Bassey (2002) observed in his study that skills, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback, job security and compensation are important factors for the motivation of employees. Thus, the research done in this field has created virtuous circles for more research and practice.\nApproaches to job design: The approaches to job design have been postulated in such a manner that they indirectly affect an employee's level of motivation. The approaches to job design have worked in different perspectives for various organizational developments. These approaches are: job engineering (J.Eng.); job enrichment (JE); quality of work life (QWL); social information processing approach (SIPA) and job characteristics.Job enrichment (JE)\nTowards a proposed model of job design: An elaborated model of job design has been proposed considering the designing of job at individual and group level. The proposal has been made on the following grounds.Antecedents and expanded job characteristics\nFuture implications of the model: Traditional outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation and performance will certainly remain central to the agenda. But, some wider developments are yet to be incorporated besides these general agendas. Job autonomy would be associated with greater organizational commitment, which in turn was linked to safer working. Thus, safety has been one of the most ignored aspects of job designs which in future can become one of the salient features of job design, hence, leading to a better quality of work life (QWL).In today's world, to survive in the turbulent marketplace, creativity, innovation, skill and knowledge acquisition have become major aspects in improving the performance of employees and creating virtuous circles for organizations to reach the pinnacle, as they lead to improved decision-making and goal setting.Finally, in terms of practical recommendations, empowerment is an effective strategy for promoting expertise. It creates an effective and safe environment within which individuals can acquire skills. Importantly, empowerment provides an opportunity for employees to apply new skills, which is likely to reinforce the values of personal development. It can be regarded as an effective means of improving skills and can be regarded as an effective strategy for managing knowledge in two respects:1. the provision of information systems and support from technical experts represents a systematic practice for disseminating knowledge through an organization; and2. enhanced decision-making responsibility has the potential to tap into employees' existing knowledge and skills, drawing on their personal experiences and ideas to improve the effectiveness of work systems.In other words, empowerment can be viewed as a means of eliciting or unlocking the knowledge possessed by an organization.When it comes to job design in the Indian context, employers can give a quick response to their job by enabling employees to use their tact and local language to solve problems. Besides this, knowledge creation and employee learning and development among employees will be promoted with the perspective consistent with the German action theory, of which the basic tenet is that work is action-oriented. It has also been proposed in the model that designed roles promote mastery, which in turn helps people learn to cope with the stresses of the job, also leading to higher intensive motivation, which in turn leads to increased growth needs strength, providing environmental certainty and centralized decision-making. Thus, implication of the model is that the job characteristics model can be practically applied with the desirable performance and satisfaction results. Some well-known companies such as 3M, AT&T, Xerox and Motorola are also among those who have actually implemented job design changes in accordance with the job characteristics model.\nConclusion: There are various approaches that allow management to design jobs for employee motivation, increased productivity and future growth. In order for the job design to be effective, management needs to look at what aspects of the jobs are important and better fit the organizational goals. Thus, one of the major purposes of job design is to be able to discuss what is needed from the job and the employees. It is of current interest in establishing a link between human resource management (HRM) or high involvement practices and organizational performance with an increase in intrinsic motivation.The implication of the model finally leads to the positive affective state of \"flow\" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), which is experienced by an individual in certain situations. It is the total attention and psychic energy devoted to the task in hand, and feelings of exhilaration, comfort and energy. An individual experiences this state when there is a match between an individual's perceived skills and tasks. Thus, effective job design has become one of the salient aspects of human resource management and organizational behaviour so as to survive in the global workplace (see Figure 4).Thus, we can conclude that changes in the business environment profoundly affect organizations and the people working within them. The proposal has been made in the belief that we will be able to build a systematic, symbiotic, task-induced, and high performance environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to identify the key issues of job design research and practice to motivate employees' performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The conceptual model of Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics has been adopted to motivate employees' performance.\nFindings: - The paper finds that a dynamic managerial learning framework is required in order to enhance employees' performance to meet global challenges.\nPractical implications: - Traditional outcomes will certainly remain central to the agenda. But some wider developments are to be incorporated within organizational systems so as to motivate employees for better performance.\nOriginality/value: - The paper may be of value to researchers and practitioners in the management development field for offering enhanced jobs to employees leading to improved performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How "space" and "place" contribute to occupational aspirations as a value-constituting practice for working-class males	[ "Space/place", "Neoliberalism", "Occupational aspirations", "Working-class experience" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today, schools in Britain increasingly espouse the aspiration rhetoric of work-placement and training (Cabinet Office, 2011; Spohrer, 2011). The view of the last labour government that \"aspirations are important because they influence outcomes\" (Cabinet Office, 2008, p. 9) is still clearly present in contemporary political discourse; a recent report on the Inspiring Communities programme argues that \"young people's ambitions, and those of their parents, influence their success in education and employment\" (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2011, p. 6). In a 2013 speech the Prime Minister argued that raising the aspirations of young people from poorer backgrounds is the key to improving social mobility (Wintour, 2013). Increasingly, working-class youth in the UK experience a highly pressurized and stratified educational environment where \"tropes of excellence and standards pepper policy documents and the speeches of education ministers, and a culture of 'rigorous' surveillance and testing prevails\" (Francis, 2006, p. 190). This hard-edged discourse extends to young people's occupational aspirations, which are routinely judged to be \"too low\" when held against standardized occupational hierarchies. In the face of limited employment offerings (Stoten, 2014), this creates a contradictory field that contributes to the construction of fragmented occupational aspirations. In investigating occupational aspirations, our focus is on how working-class males seek to constitute themselves as \"subjects of value\" (Skeggs, 2011, p. 506) from splintered repertoires of authentic masculinities and \"rites of passage\" (Nayak, 2006, p. 818).\nArea effects: Social science's engagement with the role that neighbourhoods play in shaping young people's aspirations and outcomes can be traced back to the 1940s (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2000, p. 309). Since the 1990s, there has been a resurgence in the study of neighbourhood effects in both the USA and the UK (Sampson et al., 2002, p. 444), with the latter driven in part by the former labour government's area-based approach to tackling disadvantage, which was underpinned by the explicit premise that people's life chances are affected by where they live (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001, p. 2277). In his most recent book, which tests the integrity of the \"area effect\" both theoretically and empirically, Sampson et al. (2002) argue that \"spatially inscribed social differences [...] constitute a family of \"neighbourhood effects\" that are pervasive, strong, cross-cutting, and paradoxically stable even as they are changing in manifest form\" (p. 6). Meanwhile, UK-based studies have found evidence that area effects shape individual outcomes relating to social exclusion, feelings of stigma, employment, and health, above and beyond the effect of individual-level characteristics (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001; Buck, 2001).\nAspirations realized through space/place: Our research adopts specific notions of space and place, and the terms are deployed here in a manner that reflects the more established usage and meaning these terms enjoy in the field of geography. As concepts, \"space\" and \"place\" represent different approaches to understanding the notion of \"area\". Whereas space is regarded \"as a dimension within which matter is located\", place is \"a distinctive coming together in space\" (Agnew and Smith, 2011, pp. 316, 317); it is seen to have a different set of characteristics that make it conceptually distinct. If space is an objective domain defined by its geometric location, alongside characteristics such as its labour market composition, institutional setup, and aggregate-level demographic attributes, then place is a subjective phenomenon arising from the experience of occupying such a space. As Thrift (1997) states, \"The difference between location and place is that places have meanings for us which cannot be reduced to their location\" (p. 160). In a similar vein, Massey (1993) sees places as \"articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings\" (p. 67). Hence the need, if researchers want to gain an understanding of the complexity of place, to analyse \"the particularity of the social interactions which intersect at that location and of what people make of them in their interpretations and in their lives\" (Massey, 1994, p. 117).\nConstructing working-class masculine identity and \"personhood\" in neoliberal times: Working alongside our theorizations of \"space\" and \"place\", we consider how the boys in both areas structured their aspirations, academic engagement, and learner identities during a time of high-stakes education, where the rhetoric of \"learning equals earning\" is pervasive (Brown, 2013, p. 685). Such a rhetoric prioritizes a view of aspirations that is competitive, economic, and status based, shaping the subjectivities of these young males (Stahl, 2015) who seek to constitute themselves as \"subjects of value\" (Skeggs, 2011). Even if social mobility is navigated for our participants, McDowell (2012) notes many young working-class men are undesirable to employers in a service economy where \"their class, their accents, their performative masculinity are seen by employers as a challenge to the attributes required in a service economy\" (p. 581). In investigating occupational aspirations, we must consider that qualifications alone will not simply open doors to professional and managerial employment (Roberts, 2012). Furthermore, if our participants enter higher status jobs, it will most likely be in subordinate positions where they will \"often find it difficult to produce the required workplace performance, seeing deference and courtesy, bending to the will of both superiors and service sector customers, as a challenge to their sense of themselves as masculine\" (McDowell, 2012, p. 581).\nTheorizing aspirations through space and place in neoliberal times: Our research shows how the subjectivities of working-class males are deeply relational and how their \"phenomenologies of meaning\" are influenced daily by a complex dialectic of various milieus (Dillabough and Kennelly, 2010, pp. 42-43). We consider how the phenomena of \"low aspiration\" and \"dis-engagement\" are shaped by space and place as well as by young people's conceptions of historically validated gender norms and masculine identities. Drawing upon a culturalist approach, we theorize aspirations as \"subjective and intersubjective\" processes \"constituted by multiple social-cultural resources, including policy and populist ideologics but also family and community histories and the lived-cultural agency of people in the present\" (Zipin et al., 2013, pp. 1-2).\nMethodology: Responding to Green and White's (2007) call to \"understand young people in their social and local context, because where they are frames what they see and how they interpret and act on it\" (p. 58), both case studies utilized similar qualitative methods in order to understand the construction of aspiration within specific local contexts: specifically interviews, focus groups, and observation. While we briefly summarize the case studies below, further details can be found in Baars (2016) and Stahl (2015).\nFindings: Cross-analysis of occupational aspiration formation: space/place and working-class masculine identity\nDiscussion: As traditional social structures have disappeared and as others lose their solidarity, young men, particularly those from lower and working-class backgrounds, have to negotiate their identity work around rapidly changing discourses of aspiration and power which are increasingly neoliberal in nature. Urban working-class communities, while marginalized, are in no way immune from neoliberal governance or the neoliberal structuring of aspirations and subjectivities.\nConclusion: Our focus is on how working-class males construct aspiration in reference to \"space\" and \"place\" and also how they contend with wider societal capital-accrual logics. Our continuing interest is in how working-class young people are compelled, by spatially informed identities, to draw on historical assemblages of working-class dispositions in order to constitute themselves as \"subjects of value\" amidst aspiration discourses that discount these forms of identity (Stahl, 2015). In the production of personhood, a \"subject of value\" is always shaped through a process of symbolic legitimation. Employing space and place as conceptual lenses allows for a nuanced understanding of how aspirations are formed (and reformed) in neoliberal times. The conceptual lens of \"place\" shows us that aspirations are individualized responses to individuals' particular take on their local area and local culture. Where working-class dispositions have been reconceptualized in the post-industrial, post-austerity landscape, and where traditional processes to construct a \"self of value\" are severely endangered, aspirations are - to varying degrees - still structured by traditional working-class culture. While agency plays a significant role in the formation of young people's aspirations, our research suggests it is a situated agency, informed by young people's understandings of their local area context, rather than the \"rootless\" agency of the neoliberal entrepreneurial self. There is a need for more theoretical work on how young people from disadvantaged backgrounds contest, critique and subvert neoliberal discourses in order to constitute themselves as \"valuable\" persons within areas of \"devaluement\", as well as how personhood comes into effect through the formation of occupational aspirations in deprived urban areas (Archer et al., 2010; Stahl, 2015; Nayak, 2006).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider how working-class boys constitute themselves as subjects of \"value\" through a close examination of their occupational aspirations. The authors consider two significant influences on the aspirations of these young men: \"space\" and \"place\"; and neoliberal discourses which privilege a particular concept of individualized personhood. Contending with neoliberal conceptions of personhood and aspiration (that are primarily competitive, economic, and status based), working-class and working-poor young men either align themselves with the \"entrepreneurial\" or \"aspirational\" self or face the label of \"low aspirations\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: Employing space and place as conceptual lenses allows for a nuanced understanding of how aspirations are formed (and reformed) according to immediate locale. To explore the identity negotiations surrounding the occupational aspirations of working-class males, the authors draw on two qualitative research studies in deprived neighbourhoods located in South Manchester and South London.\nFindings: Based on the evidence as well as the wider research concerning working-class males and occupational aspirations, the authors argue that aspirations are formed in a contested space between traditional, localized, classed identities and a broader neoliberal conception of the \"aspirational\" rootless self.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study focuses on aspiration formation in two specific neighbourhoods, and caution should be taken when generalizing the findings beyond these area contexts.\nOriginality/value: This study problematizes the literature generated by government bodies and educational institutions regarding working-class youth as having a \"poverty of aspirations\". Additionally, value lies in the cross-reference of two specific geographic areas using the conceptual lens of space and place.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Customized executive learning: a business model for the twenty-first century	[ "Business schools", "Communication", "Intermediaries", "Learning", "Education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The traditional world of customized executive education for senior managers of large corporations has involved top-tier business schools leveraging their faculty resources to provide \"tailored\" educational offerings to client firms. Top-tier business schools are defined as those graduate management schools that are generally in the top 25 of international business school rankings for executive education programs, as conducted by organizations such as Financial Times and Business Week. Faculty at these top-tier institutions conduct research that is published in refereed academic journals, and this research is then communicated to management practitioners in a classroom setting. This approach has many strengths - it enables the structured analysis of business problems, and the development of theory that can be applied for growth and competitive advantage. But it also has disadvantages - many core research faculty have a primary interest in publication for their academic peers rather than for managers, and in some graduate management schools teaching is seen as a much lower priority. Furthermore, most top-tier business schools work on a proprietary model in which they base their executive education offerings exclusively on in-house resources and rarely go beyond the boundaries of the institution in search of intellectual capital or alternative learning methods. This final aspect is not unique to business schools - it is the dominant model in most professional services firms.More recently there has been the emergence of a new customized executive learning model - what we term the \"Platform model\" - that is being leveraged by some of the world's largest corporations. These \"platforms\", such as Executive Learning Partnership, \"the world we work in\", Duke Corporate Education, (the for-profit arm of Duke University) and the Lorange Institute (founded by Peter Lorange, former Dean of IMD) represent the emergence of new intermediaries to link intellectual talent on the one side, and client organizations on the other. The emergence of the platform model for executive education has been driven by four key developments:1. an explosion in the number of intellectual free agents who work outside or beyond the permeable organizational boundaries of academic institutions;2. the increasing recognition of open collaboration as an engine of customization and innovation;3. the pervasive spread of information and communication technologies that are enabling virtual teams to deliver integrated educational offerings; and4. the demand of clients that executive learning interventions should deliver outcomes by matching intellectual resources with their needs, and not vice versa.This article describes the platform model, elaborates on the drivers underpinning the rise of the platform model in customized executive learning (instead of executive education), and explains the guiding philosophy underpinning this model. The article compares top-tier business schools in general to the platform model while acknowledging that specific platforms and business schools may have specific features or approaches which differ from the archetypal organizational forms as outlined in the article.\nThe rise of the platform model: The platform model for executive learning recognizes the existence of what has become a two-sided network, entailing a triangular set of market relationships. On one side of this network are the individuals and firms that possess specialist skills and expertise, and on the other side are organizational clients seeking learning solutions (see Figure 1). The need for these two groups - the network's \"sides\" - to interact with each other efficiently has created the opportunity for the emergence of intermediaries - what technology-based industries commonly call platform providers. The Platform embodies an architecture - a design for services, and infrastructure facilitating network users' interactions - all at low-delivered cost. In technology-based industries the platform also provides a set of rules; that is, the protocols, rights, and pricing terms that govern transactions. But in the executive learning setting, we use the term guiding philosophy rather than rules.Platform providers in this new executive education model are organizations that build client relationships by becoming trusted advisors, and act as open gateways to introduce corporations to a linked network of professionals. These organizations can be small, such as The Netherlands-based Executive Learning Partnership and \"the world we work in\" or substantially bigger in terms of permanent staff and facilities, such as the Lorange Institute in Switzerland. Many of these organizations have been created by former faculty and clients of leading business schools, who have identified an emerging opportunity in the shifting world of customized executive learning.The key difference between these platform providers and traditional business schools (see also Table I) is that while the intermediary does drive deadlines, responsibilities and activities in linking both sides of the network, the intermediary does not necessarily own the client relationship. Rather, the intermediary identifies talented program directors and faculty within the supply-side of the network and leadership roles are distributed per project. Second, the supply side of the network does not have defined boundaries (as in most business schools) but is open to bring in relevant talent based on the requirement of the client organization. Third, there is an emphasis on the linked network of free agents on the supply side of the network bringing in multiplicative effects, with an emphasis on the sharing of intellectual capital between peers in a collaborative environment. Experts are encouraged to share their talent for the benefit of the entire network, rather than seeing knowledge as something to be retained and protected by the individual. This also has the effect of growing the intellectual capital of the network as a whole, thereby reinforcing the attractiveness of the entire supply side of the network. Fourth, the boundary-less Platform allows for clients to connect with faculty as and when they want. Fifth, collaboration between the Platform Provider and members of the supply side of the network is often done virtually as \"faculty\" and other program contributors can be widely distributed. Finally, some of the new Platform Providers that we have researched actually subsidize one side of the network - the advisory role to clients is often provided on a subsidized basis, with incomes generated from revenue sharing or commissions from the supply side of the network once projects are contracted.The guiding philosophy of the new platform model for executive learning is based on these differences and will be further explained after the main drivers of the platform model have been elaborated.\nDrivers of the platform model: Rise of the free agent\nGuiding philosophy: Earlier in this article it was described how the platform model is built around a different view and approach to ownership, organizational boundaries, (virtual) collaboration and, in some cases, the partial subsidization of one side of the network (clients). The model is underpinned by independence, and the role of the intermediary between the two sides of the network is to be impartial and authentic. Rather than trying to fit the client need to the abilities of existing faculty, the approach is solutions oriented and focused on achieving the best outcomes for clients and partners. A prerequisite is that the platform \"creates an environment in which...clever people can thrive\" (Goffee and Jones, 2007). The possibility that people will thrive is enhanced if the platform can link the professionals directly to their commitment, their development and values. The implicit core values of this organizing model are trust, transparency and continuous learning, Since platforms such as the Lorange Institute, \"the world we work in\" and Executive Learning Partnership only employ a small core team to run the business, all efforts of the professionals involved, focus immediately on the project at hand. The shared purpose is simple: to make the project a success, without time and resource being wasted on the corporate hierarchy, the institutional norms and politics or strategic behavior to maneuver through the former.Importantly, network intermediaries view free agents as clients rather than resources. A driver for the platform model is the further development of free agents; to enable them to make a difference in the field that they work in (see Appendix 2).\nLimitations of the platform model: The intangible pillars of the platform model like trust, relationships, collaboration and speed and quality of execution are solely dependent on the capabilities and commitment of the professionals involved - it relies not on \"locking-in\" clever people through formal contracts and formal performance measurement tools, but rather \"locking-on\" people through a deeper sense of commitment, reciprocity and shared purpose.In \"the Individualized Corporation\" Ghoshal (1999) describes organizations based on intangibles: people, process, purpose. These intangibles explain the key strengths of the platform model in terms of speed, entrepreneurship, agility and passion, but also the potential shortcomings:1. People. Relationships and (virtual) collaboration are the cornerstones of each team working on a client project. The subtlety of the difference between really openly collaborating and \"going through the motions\" is sometimes hard to detect. Yet \"going through the motions\" clearly is not good enough. The platform model is built on working with professionals who are self aware, (overly) confident and deeply uncertain and anxious to deliver good performance, and do at least as well as their peers on the program. Client expectations, participant evaluations and the free agent status may add to this insecurity. In order to deliver excellent programs these all need to be overcome individually as well as a team. It requires careful relationship building, continuous encouragement of mutual feedback, (which providers advise so much to clients) and a contact person outside the team to mediate or respond to clients' requests not met by the team itself.2. Process. Excellent programs rely on clear and well-run support processes executed by colleagues often in the early phases in their careers. The collaboration between \"faculty\" and program coordinators is as crucial and the result of anything less than flawless teamwork is immediately visible in the delivery of the program. Since the platform members are involved in various different networks with different procedures, it requires an extra effort to get them to understand the administrative processes, focus attention on building a relationship with coordinators and adhering to these processes.3. Purpose. With distributed leadership, open boundaries and little management in place, all the emphasis in the platform is focused on creating great immediate outcomes for clients. As many of the professionals associated with the platform are paid on a per diem basis, it is a challenge to get people involved in the longer term continuity of the platform. Creating rituals, a brand and meaning beyond today's work is complicated by the fact that many are dispersed around the globe. The moments of togetherness, celebration and loss are rarely shared by the whole community, while we know how powerful these are to build community. Can we really talk about community here? Are we entering new eras of virtual community building?\nConclusions: It has been our aim to describe an emerging model for delivering customized executive learning programs, which is gaining significance in the world of management development. The continuing proliferation of intermediaries that bring together free agents and clients to deliver customized executive learning programs will pose an increasing challenge to the dominance of the proprietary model of most top-tier graduate management schools. Especially, in these dire economic times, the platform model has the potential to compete with top-tier business schools and gain a wider foothold in the market for executive learning.This article does not aim to suggest that either the institutional or platform model for executive learning is superior to the other. As the benefits of the one model almost immediately reflect the shortcomings of the other, there will be a place for both given the variety of client requests. Indeed, the two models can reinforce each other as many of professionals cross the boundaries of academic institutions and platforms regularly. Furthermore, the implications may reach beyond this specific field to all professional service firms where value is created through integrating professional services into customized solutions such as consultancy, accountancy, medical services and law firms. Further research would be required to see to what extent the model already exists in these other fields.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to elaborate on the drivers underpinning the rise of the Platform Model in customized executive learning and to explain the guiding philosophy underpinning this model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study followed directives for case-based research, and was based on multiple sources of evidence: extant literature, archival data, industry publications, interviews and direct observation. Common issues were identified and used to build theory and make the concepts generic enough to be communicated to executive education professionals. Findings were shared and validated with professionals, and with managers within the human resource and organizational development departments of corporate firms.\nFindings: - The emergence of the Platform Model for executive education has been driven by four key developments -an explosion in the number of intellectual free agents who work outside or beyond the permeable organizational boundaries of academic institutions; the increasing recognition of open collaboration as an engine of customization and innovation; the pervasive spread of information and communication technologies that are enabling virtual teams to deliver integrated educational offerings; and the demand of clients that educational offerings should deliver outcomes by matching intellectual resources with their needs, and not vice versa.\nOriginality/value: - The paper describes a recent trend in the ongoing evolution of approaches towards the design and delivery of executive learning. The Platform Model for executive learning is based on the existence of what has become a two-sided network, entailing a triangular set of market relationships. On one side of this network are the individuals and firms that possess specialist skills and expertise, and on the other side are organizational clients seeking learning solutions. The need for these two groups - the network's \"sides\" - to interact with each other efficiently has created the opportunity for the emergence of Platform Intermediaries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Application of vendor rationalization strategy for manufacturing cycle time reduction in engineer to order (ETO) environment: A case study	[ "Supplier evaluation", "Manufacturing management", "Strategy", "Value chain", "Cycle time" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The management of manufacturing has undergone sea changes in the last decade posing severe challenges to the way manufacturing is understood, managed, strategized and practiced. Three of the most notable changes are: sustainability and green pressures; increased levels of complexities to handle manufacturing and delivery cycle time; and growing economic and social uncertainties which cannot be overlooked or ignored, but need to be addressed. This becomes even more challenging in context to complex production environments like engineer to order (ETO), more so in a developing country context (Kumar et al., 2018; Riis et al., 2007). India with its diversities and large geography poses the major challenge of supplies of the components and products in a cost-effective manner. It is also noticed that the nature, type and variety of products being manufactured in India are also influencing the very nature of manufacturing management (Seth et al., 2017).\n2. Literature review: Scholars have suggested a number of approaches for MCT reduction considering ETO challenges. These approaches include customer order decoupling point (CODP), modularization, theory of constraints, paired cell overlapping loop of cards with authorization, constant work in process, quick response manufacturing, value stream mapping, postponement, Kanban system, standard work approach, process mix with family analysis, product variety funnel, mixed pull system (high, medium and low runners) and work content graphs. For an overview, please refer Araya (2012) and Prakash and Chin (2014). The study focuses on vendor rationalization in ETO environment, and accordingly the literature is organized into five subsections. First section outlines the peculiarities of ETO environment and challenges with respect to supplies. Second section discusses an overview of vendor management and approaches. Third section discusses the studies in the areas of vendor rationalization approaches. Fourth section discusses the research gap areas and fifth section justifies the chosen approach.\n3. Research methodology: Figure 2 represents the major steps of research methodology followed for this application-based study. The details about research team, systematic questioning technique for facts finding and gemba-walks are as under.\n4. Indian manufacturing scenario, existing vendor management practices and their shortcomings: Manufacturing has emerged as one of the high growth sectors in India. Prime minister of India launched \"Make in India\" program in 2014, to reposition India on the world map as a manufacturing and sourcing hub and to provide strategic global recognition to the Indian economy. As per the report of United Nations Industrial Development Organization, India ranks 6th among the world's 10 largest manufacturing countries in 2015. India has recently launched a national manufacturing policy that aims to increase manufacturing contribution from a current 16 percent of gross domestic product to 25 percent by 2022 in order to achieve a growth rate of 12-14 percent per year (Sen et al., 2015). With the help of \"Make in India\" drive, India has been developing, nourishing and nurturing necessary capabilities and expertise and is on the path of becoming the hub of hi-tech complex and project-oriented manufacturing. It is reflected in the increase in foreign direct investment and arrival of global giants like General Electric, Siemens, LG, Toshiba and even Boeing to name a few, which have either set up or are in process of setting up manufacturing plants in India, attracted by India's manufacturing capabilities and a strong domestic market of more than a billion consumers with increasing purchasing power.\n5. Proposed vendor rationalization and actions based on Kraljic's matrix application: Conventionally vendors are assessed on the basis of their capabilities like manufacturing facilities, workmanship, financial stability and past performance in terms of price, quality and delivery. On the other hand, in terms of achieving real breakthroughs in reducing MCT, it is recommended to follow a strategy based on an application, which focuses not only on vendor selection, but also focuses on the continuous actions by the client company. It is proposed to group items/supplies requiring improvement actions toward their supplies considering the nature of items/supplies. It is decided that these improvement actions and corrective measures should be taken by the buyer company and will include actions like design reviews, design modifications, manufacturing process simplifications, tolerance adjustments and rationalization, design for assembly and manufacturability. Similarly, it is proposed to extend assistance and client expertise to vendors as long-term business partners. These actions will help to facilitate vendors, will be mutually beneficiary and ultimately will help in reducing the MCT and cost. Therefore, authors proposed a vendor rationalization based on the classification of components sub-contracted in following four categories, where the prime criteria are the design, manufacturability and fitment (integration) of the components for the final product influencing quality and cycle time reduction. The classification, their rationale and action strategy are mentioned in Table III.\n6. Case study discussions details to address background for application: 6.1 Profile of the company and nature of working\n7. Benefits realized after application: Following main benefits of this vendor rationalization application were noticed.\n8. Findings, conclusions and research message of the study: The commonly held view, vendor rationalization means reducing the suppliers, is not always optimal and should be modified considering the strategic needs of the company, keeping in mind the complexities associated with manufacturing environment. It is much more than how a company manages engagement with vendors. Vendor rationalization will make better sense, if one considers different type of values it provides to different stakeholders.\n9. Limitations of the study and future directions: This research study work has some limitations as it discusses the vendor rationalization application in a specific ETO company case. An ETO firm in one particular setup may differ from another firm in terms of variety of products, vendor dependence, scale and nature of operations, and other constraints. Another limitation may be due to the selection of representative variant with a focus on making aspects and some compromises in terms of collection of micro-details while working out the cycle time. Other ETO-related challenges like design iterations, BOMs, routing, machine dedication rates and risks were not considered, only vendor aspects were stressed (Gosling et al., 2015). Authors did not take into account information technology, e-commerce and internet software-based co-ordination support (Mohanty et al., 2007) related considerations. It also leaves scope for transportation and inventory-related considerations (Seth and Pandey, 2009) as one deals with high cost items.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the application of vendor rationalization strategy for streamlining the supplies and manufacturing cycle time reduction in an Indian engineer-to-order (ETO) company. ETO firms are known for a large number of vendors, co-ordination hassles, rework problems and its impact on cycle time and operational excellence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research demonstrates the case-based application of Kraljic's matrix for supply and leverages items, on-the-job observations, field visits, discussions and analysis of supplies reports.\nFindings: The study guides on the rationalization of supplies and the necessary strategic alignments that can significantly reduce supply risk, costs, manufacturing and delivery cycle time along with co-ordination hassles. The study depicts the challenges of ETO environment with respect to supplies, and demonstrates the effectiveness of vendor rationalization application for the case company and weaknesses of commonly practiced vendor management approaches.\nPractical implications: To be competitive, companies should rationalize supply items and vendors based on the nature of items and their subsequent usage by applying Kraljic's matrix-based classification. The immediate implication of vendor rationalization is misunderstood as reducing supply base, but it does much more and includes review of supplies, nature of items and strategic alignments, leading to win-win situation for company and suppliers.\nOriginality/value: For the rationalization of supplies, while procuring and dealing with vendors, executives should envisage engineering nature of components, considering cross-functional requirements and integration of components in context to ETO products/projects environments. There is a dearth of studies focusing on vendor rationalization aspects in ETO setups in fast-developing country context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Altruism to strangers for our own sake: domestic effects from immigration : A comparative analysis for EU15	[ "Human capital", "Growth", "Productivity", "Cultural capital", "Diversity", "Weber" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: While it is commonly accepted that local development is a product of human activity in a locality, the human mobility effects on productivity are still at large a \"black box\" and, therefore, often considered a Pandora\n2. Types of human capital in a locality: The issues of human capital were debated by economics for a really long while. Adam Smith (1776) defined the acquired through education, study and apprenticeship skills, the dexterity and talents of the labour force as determinants for the useful input a worker can contribute as inhabitant or member of the society. It took time for economics to assimilate this definition in its full depth. For long it was interpreted as labour being a homogenous capital of easily substitutable components which represents a factor of production. In such a homogenous labour force the mechanical division of labour through specialization on particular tasks would suggest direct positive effect for productivity. Therefore, neoclassical economics developed the understanding for investment in formation of the necessary specialization of labour coining the term human capital (Pigou, 1928; Mincer, 1958; Becker, 1964/1993). However, with time economists realized that there are different segments of this human capital which have better or worse dexterity and talent for different tasks. This fact had to be recognized by economic science (and was recognized mostly by entrepreneurship literature such as Shapero and Sokol, 1982; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994; Krueger et al., 2000) since it determines the significantly different effect that one and the same specialization can have depending on which workers are specialized for the required tasks (Florida, 2002a, b).\n3. Cultural interaction between the different human capital groups in a locality: Part of the skilled and non-skilled labour is creative, while the other part is not. However, the distribution of the creative and non-creative parts of skilled and non-skilled labour passes through the labour market competition for creative vs routine jobs. This competition happens on the basis of both objective and subjective criteria (Bowles and Gintis, 1975). The objective criteria themselves are not equal since different groups of immigrants (with EU and non-EU origin for instance, see Nijkamp et al. (2011)) face different legal barriers for entry on the labour market and therefore have different bargaining power on the job market. Moreover, there are subjective criteria ruled by the cultural capital, as explained by Bourdieu (1986) where cultural background helps or hinders the promotion of an individual in a society in addition to his actual level of skills. Thus individuals with the right cultural capital will actualize their skills more successfully than workers with less powerful cultural capital. As is natural to be expected, the local cultural capital has a stronger institutional power than the power of the foreign group in the locality. In this culture-based part of the labour market competition lies the key determinant for the impact that immigrants will have in the new locality. Creativity coming from locals will be easier to institutionalize as a new set of rules, compared to new instructions coming from outsiders. Moreover, foreign creative competitors with lower skills will be countered with higher skills and the social reproduction power of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1973; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) promoting the locals over the newcomers. On one side, this cultural mechanism will support the local workers and ensure their employment and individual welfare. However, it leads to lop-siding the natural distribution of creative workers to creative occupations. This lop-siding ends up in reallocating highly skilled but non-creative local work force to creative occupations, while creative immigrants (with high or low skills) can be distributed by the cultural mechanism to routine occupations. This happens with low levels of awareness, because the cultural bias serves as justification of the lop-sided choice as commonly rational for the local population. Thus, the potential positive impact of the creative part of the immigrants on aggregate level for local productivity can be abolished due to locals' strive and majority common agreement for guaranteeing their individual welfare first. In the short run, this could result in positive welfare outcome for the locals. But in the long run, the overall productivity is lower than it could be, while the number of consumers is higher than before. Thus, when lop-siding of human capital allocation has occurred, in the long run both locals and foreigners in the locality end up worse off.\n4. A two gear mechanism of cultural attraction and cultural interaction for groups with different human capital in a locality: In summary of the reasoning presented in the previous three sections, to capture properly the process of the cultural effect through immigration we can translate the local cultural capital influence into a structure of a two-gears-mechanism of impact. The two gears of this model of cultural impact are as follows. First, local cultural capital attraction for immigrants should be understood as a first gear of impact that captures the effect of cultural milieu as a factor for attracting foreign human capital in a locality. Second, the interaction of local cultural capital and the overall accumulated human capital in the locality act as a second gear of cultural impact on the local productivity, accounting for the effect of diversity on competition and job allocation. Aiming to examine this dual mechanism of impact, the current paper takes up with tracing evidence for the cultural impact in reverse order. Two main hypotheses are to be tested in order to consider we have identified traces which successfully reconstruct the two gear mechanism:\n5. Empirical evidence for cultural effects on the benefits from human capital for productivity: 5.1 Database\n6. Conclusion: Summing up the results from our inquiry, it seems that evidence from EU15 exists on regional level that indeed local cultural capital determines local productivity through a two levels mechanism. Namely, cultural capital is both a factor of attraction power for foreign human capital and a determinant for the efficient use of the accumulated different groups of human capital accumulated in the locality.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Theoretical and empirical research on the impact of immigrants for local development is rather inconclusive regarding the direction of said impact. The purpose of this paper is to identify relationships between human capital and cultural capital, in the context of local labour market productivity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: As the key constituents of human capital, identified in the literature, are both the locally generated through investment in education and the inflowing through immigration human capital, the paper examines those jointly in a close-to-reality-model. To this end, the paper operationalizes and infers data on the \"melting pot\" of EU15, NUTS2 level. The sources of the data are the Eurostat Regional Database and the World Value Survey, which have served to construct both a cross-section for the year 2001. These data sets allows us to examine the different groups of migrating and local human capital, their interaction and joint impact on local productivity through three stage least square estimations of the simultaneous equations CBD model.\nFindings: The evidence suggests that benefits from immigrants differ, not only due to their human capital, but also due to their culturally biased different bargaining power on the labour market.\nOriginality/value: The main advantage of the suggested model of productivity is that, in addition to accounting for the filigree composition of human capital, it also takes into consideration the cultural capital present in a locality. In this manner, the authors are able to examine the interaction between the quality of the incoming human capital and the cultural encounter context (generating the cultural \"milieu\" effect) of the modern diverse city.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Self-efficacy's role in success of quality training programmes	[ "Self-efficacy", "Teamwork", "Quality performance", "Organizational success", "Programme implementation", "Quality training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globalisation of world economies is pushing business organisations across all industries to deliver high-quality products and services just to stay competitive. Current international trade policy landscape, however, is in a state of flux and there is no one optimal policy of corporate engagement that an organisation can follow consistently on a long-term basis. Rhetoric of international tariffs is pushing the world to the brink of global trade war. Under such conditions, complacency, apathy, and/or resignation towards supply chain processes can prove fatal for organisations (Ericson et al., 2016). Product/service delivery decisions and supply chain relationships that make the most economic sense for organisations on one day may render them vulnerable and uncompetitive the next day. Potential loss of access to cost-effective supply chains that span the globe due to tariffs is forcing organisations to seek options for resilient operational capacity close to home and even re-establish them in-house (Singh, 2018). And, developing internal operational capacity options to seamlessly deliver top-level organisational performance requires preeminent quality management processes to be put in place by maintaining focus on quality, learning, teamwork, and training (De Ceiro, 2003; Mendes and Lourenco, 2014).\nQuality improvement approaches: Quality improvement approaches, such as TQM, have been one of the significant research topics of study among both corporate executives and academic researchers over the past few decades (Molina et al., 2004). Approaches such as TQM can be interpreted as innovation of organisational processes and, consequently, require the support of organisation structures for it to be successfully implemented across the firm (Candido and Santos, 2011).\nLiterature on self-efficacy: The construct of self-efficacy\nA proposed framework: A framework for demonstrating the proposed relationship of self-efficacy to quality improvement success is provided in Figure 1. A discussion of framework components and associated propositions follows.\nDiscussion: A move to implement quality programmes in organisations is often considered as a radical departure from traditional ways of doing business. In this regard, some employees are likely to have skills more appropriate and applicable to such quality programmes than are other employees. Most importantly, employees are likely to vary in perceptions of their self-perceived capability to learn the individual and team skills/behaviours characteristics of successful quality training programmes.\nConcluding remarks: Now, more than ever, institutions around the globe are changing the rules of corporate engagement. Within increasing potential for uncertainty and market risk in today's international industrial landscape, organisations are seeking to adopt and implement quality management practices to get greater control of operation and supply chain activities. Quality training is viewed as a critical prerequisite to respond proactively to internal operational challenges and deliver quality performance.\nImplication for future research: This research extends previous research in examining the role quality training programmes play in affecting existing efficacies and leading to \"quality self-efficacy\" in employees in organisations. Moving forward, the proposed model should be empirically tested to improve our understanding of the quality self-efficacy construct and its role in aiding organisational success. Furthermore, it would offer guidelines for implementation of quality programmes in the most optimal way.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore why some firms succeed while others flounder or fail to implement quality improvement programmes. It synthesises self-efficacy literature to propose a model of self-efficacy's role in affecting implementation success of quality improvement programmes in organisations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of scholarly articles on the topics of self-efficacy and quality initiatives brings to light self-efficacy's role in successful quality programme implementation. When considered in the context of organisation barriers, it can lead to organisational success.\nFindings: It is determined that quality training programmes play an important role in affecting existing efficacies and leading to \"quality self-efficacy\" in employees. The proposed model and related propositions suggest that right approaches of implementing quality training among certain types of employees and/or organisations can promote teamwork to achieve performance success.\nResearch limitations/implications: Moving forward, the proposed model should be empirically tested to improve our understanding of quality self-efficacy construct and its role in aiding organisational success. Furthermore, it would offer guidelines for the implementation of quality programmes in the most optimal way.\nPractical implications: In applying theories on self-efficacy, motivation, empowerment, and quality training, the authors posit that existing efficacy and quality self-efficacy are crucial for quality implementation efforts to overcome organisational barriers and lead to effective teamwork and performance success.\nSocial implications: The authors postulate that deciding factors for organisational success originate from employees themselves as existing efficacies. Even though employees can foster quality self-efficacy through the implementation of quality improvement initiatives, existing self-efficacy, and organisation barriers will be moderating forces on eventual effectiveness of quality self-efficacy, teamwork, and organisational performance.\nOriginality/value: The model and related propositions, linking self- and collective efficacies to quality training, teamwork, and quality performance, offered in this paper will prove useful for organisational decision-makers in selecting quality programmes for implementation in organisation to achieve performance success.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service value exchange in B2B electronic marketplaces	[ "Service dominant logic", "B2B network", "Digital communication", "Electronic marketplace", "Value exchange" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consistent with economic transaction theories, an e-marketplace has the functionality to create organisational value by increasing efficiencies in business-to-business (B2B) transaction processing in the supply chain. However, an e-marketplace represents more than a mechanism for transaction processing. The B2B e-marketplace brings together the e-marketplace vendor, buyers and suppliers in a network relationship where digital communication is fundamental to the success of the e-marketplace and the business relationships formed. Promotion and marketing of the e-marketplace are essential for the growth of the e-marketplace and expansion of the client base. The concept of service dominant logic (SDL) presents a phenomenological or social practice view of value creation (Holttinen, 2010) which we suggest can be applied to the e-marketplace. SDL proposes that firms and vendors share resources through networks, where value is co-created through use of the network rather than from the goods that move through the network (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). As defined by Vargo and Lusch (2008), service reflects the process of using the firm's resources for the benefit of another entity. E-marketplaces have been theoretically framed in a number of different ways, but their continuing evolution warrants a re-examination of their conceptual purpose to provide insights for practitioners into value-creating possibilities (Standing et al., 2010). The research question for this study is: What aspects of organisational value can be realised through taking a service exchange perspective of e-marketplaces as opposed to a product transaction perspective?\nResearch design: A case study approach was specifically chosen for this research as a means to answer exploratory questions and illustrate the complex interactions between people, processes, organisations and context. Taking a small number of cases enables each case to be examined in terms of history and context, taking into account specific experiences regarding the situation, processes, activities, relations and episodes of events (Sayer, 1992). By using a case study research method, it is possible to develop middle-range theory from the data whilst answering exploratory questions. The research cycle included a literature-based scrutiny of theory and theory build through iterative interpretations of the data.\nCase organisations: Organisational names are changed to retain anonymity, and the state name is omitted from the government organisation. Each of the three organisations has responsibility for e-marketplace development, implementation and adoption. Technological knowledge, communication and relational skills are used to promote the adoption and use of the e-marketplace and develop the functionality of the e-marketplace. The following section gives an overview of each organisation.\nFindings: The themes that emerged from the interviews highlighted the task of the e-marketplace owner to provide not only e-marketplace services to the clients but to exchange service through the e-marketplace. E-marketplace services included running a reverse auction to source goods, integrating procure-to-pay documents in electronic transaction processing and centralising procurement of goods and services for government agencies whilst supporting the local supplier community. The service exchanged between e-marketplace participants goes beyond the products traded and incorporates the needs of each participant. All three organisations had to meet the needs of the buyers and suppliers in terms of goods traded but also in the service they exchange. All organisations actively promoted e-marketplace participation benefits to clients. The focus on e-marketplace service between multiple parties moves the e-marketplace from being simply a tool to source goods and services in a buyer and supplier dyadic relationship to be a network of shared service relationships where value is created for participants through active participation. The themes that emerged can be mapped to the premises that characterise service dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2008) as discussed in the following sections.\nDiscussion: It is the contention of this paper that the traditional e-marketplace concept does not effectively capture the value of e-marketplace participation. E-marketplaces have been considered as useful mechanisms for trading commodity type products, but a successful e-marketplace is more than that. The analysis of the literature and the case studies suggests that an e-marketplace can be viewed as a service exchange that integrates organisational resources of network members. This repositioning of the e-marketplace concept highlights a number of areas of importance for participating in the service exchange.\nConclusion: This paper contributes to the e-marketplace literature and positions the e-marketplace as a digital communication channel for service exchange. We have presented an argument for taking a service view of e-marketplace adoption and participation based upon the principles of SDL. It is our contention that the technical and social aspects of B2B e-marketplaces facilitate a digital information and service exchange where active participants co-create value. E-marketplaces will continue to evolve to meet the needs of its customers but organisational context and constraints will influence the value participants attribute to e-marketplace trading. E-marketplace participants have to take a customer service perspective to realise the full potential of e-marketplace trading and move away from a focus on products. A re-orientation in organisational thinking from product to service provision may take time to eventuate. However, practitioners in this area have an opportunity to elevate the status and strategic role of e-marketplaces within their organisations if they adoption an SDL perspective. Marketing strategies that encompass external and internal customers are critical in promoting the e-marketplace as a value creating service and to demonstrate service exchange in the e-marketplace network.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore what aspects of organisational value can be realised through taking a service exchange perspective of e-marketplaces as opposed to a product transaction perspective Marketing is increasingly concerned with the notion of service value in business-to-business markets. Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) have been used in B2B exchanges for many years and continually evolve as the understanding of e-marketplace participation and the technologies develop.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study approach is taken using three large e-marketplace organisations and interviews with senior managers from each company.\nFindings: The paper argues that e-marketplaces should not be thought of solely as a product transaction mechanism but rather as a digital marketing and communication network where service, rather than products, forms the basis of a value creating exchange.\nPractical implications: Organisations can co-create value within an e-marketplace network but must market services value across organisational boundaries.\nOriginality/value: The paper extends the literature in the area of e-marketplace trading and recognises the importance of the digital communication network in enabling service exchange between the e-marketplace, buyers and suppliers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A cross-national investigation of an extended technology acceptance model in the online shopping context	[ "Internet shopping", "China", "United States of America", "Consumer behaviour", "Electronic commerce", "Acceptance sampling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Online shopping is becoming increasingly popular. Online retail sales are estimated to grow from $172 billion in 2005 to $329 billion in 2010, representing a 14 percent compound annual growth rate (Johnson and Tesch, 2005). The proliferation of online shopping has stimulated widespread research aimed at understanding what drives consumers to shop online from either a consumer- or a technology-oriented view as identified by Jarvenpaa and Todd (1997). The consumer-oriented view focuses on consumers' salient beliefs about online shopping. The technology-centered view, on the other hand, focuses on how the technical specifications of a virtual store affect an individual's perceptions and, ultimately, use of that technology (Chen et al., 2002). Of all the theories, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is considered the most influential and commonly employed theory for understanding of electronic commerce. The TAM has been extensively applied in the online shopping context (Bruner and Kumar, 2005; McKechnie et al., 2006). Using it as the basis for studying consumer acceptance of virtual stores has been approved a highly valid approach. Therefore, we chose the TAM model as the base theory for this study.Most consumer behaviour constructs and theories have been developed and tested exclusively in a single country, typically the USA. As a consequence, the extent to which theories, models, constructs, and relationships among constructs are culturally bound is unknown in many cases (Durvasula et al., 1993). The original TAM model and TAM relationships are developed in particular markets, mainly the US market, thus, their generalization across different markets needed to be validated. Previous studies have suggested that economic and cultural imperatives are likely to profoundly influence the internet's adoption and use for shopping (Park and Jun, 2003; Brashear et al., 2009). Therefore, understanding the factors determining consumers' acceptance of online shopping in the target market is necessary, and a cross-national validation of the TAM model is important to better understand consumer online behaviour cross-culturally.The purpose of this study is to test the cross-national application of an extended TAM in online shopping across the USA and China. Specifically, the proposed model is tested for invariance, and used to investigate the effect of the TAM constructs on online purchase intentions and interrelationships among the constructs in the two countries. In addition, this study also examines the differences and similarities in the mean levels of consumers' perception of online shopping across the two countries.\nCultural and economic differences between the USA and China: This study compares the USA and China for two reasons. First, the two nations are culturally and economically very different from one another. In Hofstede's (1984, 2001) cultural dimensions, the USA represents individualism, weak uncertainty avoidance, small power distance, and low long-term orientation, while China represents collectivism, strong uncertainty avoidance, large power distance, and high long-term orientation. The USA and China are also opposites in Fukuyama's high versus low-trust society. According to Fukuyama (1995), the USA is a high-trust society, while China is a low-trust society. In addition, although China has become the country with the most internet users, its people's use of the internet for e-commerce and online shopping is far behind that in the USA. Second, they are the world's two leading countries in terms of the number of internet users and strong growth in online retail sales.\nLiterature review and hypothetical model: The TAM model\nMethodology: The survey questionnaire consisted of items measuring the TAM's five constructs and consumers' online purchase intentions, respondents scored each of these questions on a five-point Likert-type scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree). Demographic and internet usage related questions were also included. We originally drafted the questionnaire designed for this study in English, translated it into Mandarin, then back-translated it into English. In order to ensure the correct meaning of the translated version, we asked two native Chinese-speaking scholars to review the transcribed copies in English and Chinese.Measurements\nResults and data analysis: The procedure for testing cross-cultural invariance of a structural model was used to test the expanded TAM model (Figure 1; Byrne et al., 1989). First, a well-fitting baseline measurement model was developed for each of the US sample and the Chinese sample. Second, the invariance of the measurement model was tested across the US and Chinese samples. Finally, the invariance of the structural model was tested across the US and Chinese samples.The model fit measures suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999) and Steenkamp and Baumgartner (1998) were used to evaluate the overall model fit for both the measurement and the structural model. Acceptable models should have kh2/df <= 3.0, comparative fit indices (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) >=0.90, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) <=0.8. Throughout the tests, we used the AMOS 7.0 maximum likelihood method.Internal validity: baseline measurement model\nDiscussion and implications: We tested the cross-national application of the extended TAM in the online shopping context across the USA and China, and examined the differences and similarities in the mean levels of consumers' perception of online shopping across the two countries. In this section, we discuss the meanings and managerial implications of our statistical findings.Perceived usefulness and online purchase intention\nLimitations and future research: We should mention several limitations of this research, which call for future research. First, this study is limited to two countries, the USA and China. Extending the study to other countries would contribute greatly to our understanding of the internet as a distribution channel for international marketing, and add external validity to the findings. Second, within one national culture, we assume the cultural value to be uniform across the population; therefore, individual differences in cultural orientation were not evaluated in the two countries. Finally, although we already extended the original TAM model in this study, we omitted some other factors that influence consumers' online purchase intentions (e.g. product type, shopping orientation), which future studies could include.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to test the cross-national application of an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) in online shopping across the USA and China. Specifically, the proposed model is tested for invariance, and used to investigate the effect of the TAM constructs on online purchase intentions and interrelationships among the constructs across the two samples.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 513 usable questionnaires were collected in the USA and China. Measurement and structural invariance of the proposed TAM model were assessed using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis.\nFindings: - The paper revealed that both perceived usefulness and perceived risk of online shopping have an invariant effect on consumers' online purchase intentions, while prior online shopping experience does not have an invariant effect. Perceived ease of use shows an equivalent, positive effect on perceived usefulness; prior online shopping experience has an equivalent, positive effect on perceived ease of use and an equivalent, negative effect on perceived risks. But prior online shopping experience has a quite different effect on perceived usefulness across the two countries.\nOriginality/value: - The paper not only tests the cross-national application of the extended TAM, but also extends the TAM's use to examine key factors that influence online shoppers' purchase decision in the retail apparel sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Reworks causes and related costs in construction: case of Parand mass housing project in Iran	[ "Quality management", "Project performance", "Cost of quality", "Mass housing", "Reworks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The objective of continuous improvement programs is not only to meet customer requirements but also to perform it in a cost-efficient manner. This can only happen when the cost of quality (COQ) is reduced, and this reduction is only possible if they are identified and measured properly. Therefore, measuring and reporting the COQ should be considered as an important issue for project managers (Schiffauerova and Thomson, 2006).\nCost of quality in PAF method: COQ programs provide a good method to identify and measure the quality costs and thus allow a targeted action for reducing COQ. The COQ measurement is not necessarily effective in improving the quality. The COQ helps managers to evaluate their investment outcomes and will help them to prepare an appropriate quality strategy for projects. Appropriate measuring tools should be identified to measure the COQ. One of the most commonly used models for categorizing, detecting and measuring the COQ is the PAF approach, presented by Crosby (1979). In this model, the COQ is comprised of prevention, appraisal and failure costs. This model specified the relationship between prevention and appraisal costs with failure costs (Schiffauerova and Thomson, 2006).\nReworks in construction projects: As Love (2002a) mentioned, rework has been known with various interpretations in construction management literature. These include: \"quality deviations\" (Burati et al., 1992), \"non-conformance\" (Abdul-Rahman, 1995), \"defects\" (Josephson and Hammurlund, 1999) and \"quality failures\" (Barber et al., 2000).\nRework cost: Rework adds extra cost to the total cost of a project. There are a lot of studies that have explored the cost of rework in the construction industry. Cnuddle (1991) stated that the cost of non-conformance is between 10 and 20 percent of the total project cost.\nReworks causes: According to Davis et al. (1989), five factors including owner, designer, vendor, transporter and constructor can result in rework. Burati et al. (1992) indicated that client-initiated changes, non-random variations and defects are the main origins of rework. The last two factors arise from errors or omissions during the construction project.\nCase study: Parand mass housing project: Parand New City 16,080-unit Housing Project, Iran's largest housing project, is being designed and built by Kayson. The township is built via Kayson's mass housing method, the \"Cast-in-Situ Monolithic Reinforced Concrete Construction System.\" The layout of these residential blocks facilitates construction process and provides all the infrastructures and welfare facilities needed for creating a township. Parand New City is one of the fastest and most cost-effective reinforced concrete industrial mass housing projects in the world.\nResearch methodology: The information required in this work has been extracted from non-conformance forms filled out in the construction site. Based on defined processes, the main properties of each element were checked according to approved check lists by the quality control staff immediately after the construction of that element. Then, all non-conformances (if existed) were registered by the quality control staff through specific predefined forms. In these forms, work defects and inconsistencies have been recorded with a predetermined tolerance. As shown in Table I, a total number of 935 non-conformance forms have been used in this study.\nDiscussion and results: In order to rank rework causes, two different criteria have been established: frequency and estimated cost. To achieve this goal, the amount of required expense for eliminating non-conformances in each group was first calculated and evaluated separately. This amount was determined as a percentage of the total amount of the imposed frequency (or cost). Thereafter, the corresponding percentages for each non-conformance group were evenly divided among the causes of the related group. Then for each cause, the total of these percentages was summed up and calculated and reported as the total percentage associated with the cause. Frequency percentage for each cause could be obtained from Equation (1) and the cost percentage for each cause could be obtained from Equation (3):(1)\nCost of incidence (COI): This parameter which is equal to frequency/cost for each rework cause indicates the amount of cost needed to remove the effect of each cause incidence. For having a better performance, the causes which have a higher cost of incidence should be considered more deeply. The ranking of all rework causes based on COI in this work is specified in Table IV.\nConclusion: Knowing the main causes of rework in the construction industry can help project managers to optimize their systems and methods and remove the rework roots and decrease the COQ as a result in projects. Although some works have been done to evaluate main reworks in construction and their causes, the lack of comprehensive study on rework causes in the mass housing project is still felt. In this paper, using the non-conformance forms filled in at the construction site, the reworks due to non-conformances categorized and the causes of them have been investigated. By calculating the cost required to eliminate the non-conformances, the costs imposed on the project from each cause were calculated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the main reworks and their causes in a case study of the ongoing mass housing project in Iran. Using the real data captured from the project, the most important causes for reworks have been computed and prioritized.\nDesign/methodology/approach: More than 900 non-conformance forms filled in the construction site have been used to categorize reworks. Then, the frequency and cost of each rework group in the project have been estimated. Finally, using these data, the primary classification and sorting of the main causes of reworks have been specified.\nFindings: Results show \"Poor site supervision and inspection\" with 24 percent of costs had the most impact and \"unclear project management process\" with about 6 percent of costs had the least impact on the formation of non-conformances. \"Cost of each incidence\" (COI) ranged from 0.67 for \"The need to categorize the complicated operations\" to 1.86 for \"Unclear project management process.\"\nResearch limitations/implications: The causes of rework which are not in contractor's hand (like change orders from the client) have not been considered in this study.\nOriginality/value: Although some works have been done in rework causes, the key elements and causes of reworks in mass housing projects in developing countries have not been yet fully specified through the real data. Knowing the root causes of reworks can help project managers to remove them and reduce reworks costs in future projects. COI which is defined here for the first time and computed in a relative concept could be a good criterion to compare rework causes between two or more similar projects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Generating workplace health-promoting leadership: The case of an intervention programme in Gothenburg, Sweden	[ "Health education", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Workplace health promotion creates real benefits to an organization. But, in order to create and sustain a health-promoting workplace, it is worthwhile to invest in the development of health promoting leadership. The study under review shows the importance of regarding the development of health-promoting leadership as a contribution of the building of organizational capacity. In particular, it assesses the comprehensiveness of an intervention programme in Sweden, its integration with other health-promoting activities, and the participation of managers.\nThe case of the Gothenburg intervention programme: This paper looks at an intervention programme held in four city districts of Gothenburg, Sweden's second biggest city, between 2006 and 2007. The programme aimed to support managers in health promoting leadership, targeting unit managers such as headmasters, managers of nursing homes and social services. A high absence rate motivated this initiative, and its long-term goal was to reduce sickness rates of employees.The objective of the leadership training programme was to improve the managers' knowledge about health and health promotion as well as positively changing their attitudes towards health promotion. The programme consisted of ten discussion groups, in groups of five to eight, which met five half-days every three weeks, to reflect on health promotion at their workplace. Around 70 managers participated.The working material used by the groups included concepts of health and health promotion, conditions for health as well as methods for implementing and evaluating health-promoting interventions.To fulfill its objective, the programme was designed to provide knowledge about health and health promotion as well as to influence the attitudes of participating managers. Many of the managers experienced lack of time for health promoting work. Three managers described ongoing organizational changes that were contradictory with a health-promoting development. Lack of support or understanding from sector managers was also identified as an obstacle.The programme was initiated by the personnel managers in all four districts. The participating unit managers were not much involved in the design of the programme. Owing to the amount of time spent on the programme activities, managers expressed their desires to learn about practical tools and methods they could use in their daily work.\nCritical aspects of the programme: Three main categories have emerged about the programme: its comprehensiveness; its integration of other developments of workplace health promotion; and the participation of managers.In spite of the ambition to focus on individual as well as environmental issues, which has been a success factor for the development of health promoting workplaces, the programme focused mainly on the attitudes and behavior of individual managers.For the integration, existing management groups were used to produce action plans for workplace health promotion. This approach seemed to have worked well.As for the participation, there were great differences between districts. Not all unit managers were participating in the programme. The top-down approach my have contributed to the initiation of the approach, but a wider participation might have improved the outcome.The length of the study of only one year was identified as one of its limitations. It is difficult to assess or evaluate the outcomes of this leadership programme, since the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of the participants were measured only to a limited extent during the course of the programme.\nImpacts of the programme: There were, however, some important results that can be regarded as \"intermediate health outcomes\" of the programme. The most important was the action plan for the workplace health promotion produced by the workgroups. As a result, health promotion actions were specified and followed up within the ordinary work of the management group.Another positive impact was the possibility to reflect and share experiences with other managers.Recommendations for improvements of the training programme can be inferred from this study. It would need to target a wider participation and be supported by top management. As a long-term goal, it would also be more relevant to control whether employees have increased control over their own health or increased feeling of wellbeing.In conclusion, it is necessary to integrate health-promoting activities to the daily work of managers and to allow them to influence important organizational and environmental conditions. The action plans for workplace health promotion produced in the study were the concrete outcome of this programme.\nComment: This is a review of \"Development of health promoting leadership - experiences of a training programme\", by Andrea Eriksson, Runo Axelsson and Susanna Bihari Axelsson. This case study gives useful insight into a workplace health promotion intervention programme in Gothenburg in Sweden.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management development across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - Workplace health promotion creates real benefits to an organization. But, in order to create and sustain a health promoting workplace, it is worthwhile to invest in the development of health promoting leadership. The study under review shows the importance of regarding the development of health promoting leadership as a contribution of the building of organizational capacity. In particular, it assesses the comprehensiveness of an intervention programme in Sweden, its integration with other health promoting activities, and the participation of managers.\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leading transitions in traumatically experienced change - a question of doing or being?	[ "Change", "Leadership", "Emotions", "Being-centered", "Traumatic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many organizations' recourse to increasing competitiveness is large-scale change interventions such as downsizing, outsourcing or restructuring. In a business environment where continual change became the norm, few organizations escape radical and disruptive change with its accompanying disruption and often emotional pain and trauma. With the success rate of planned change notoriously poor (Higgs and Rowland, 2010), and the importance of leadership for successful change consistently confirmed (Battilana et al., 2010; Kool and Van Dierendonck, 2012), it is apparent that new insights into change leadership are required. Burnes et al. (2018, p. 141) conclude that \"despite three decades of transformation and organizational change leadership discourse, leadership is still in crisis.\"\nChange resistance and managing change: The term RTC is often used as an explanation for why large-scale change efforts fall short of expectations (Appelbaum et al., 2015; Hughes, 2016; Oreg, 2006). RTC refers to any apparent form of resistance by employees to the change efforts, whether active or passive (Oreg, 2006). Oreg (2006) describes three types of resistance: cognitive (evaluation of the potential benefit or disadvantages of the change), behavioral (intentions to act against change) and affective (feelings about the change). Change is often more intimidating and disturbing than what is assumed (Bailey and Raelin, 2015) and can be emotionally petrifying (Marquitz et al., 2016). Perceived impact of change has been shown to relate significantly to affective RTC (Oreg, 2006; Vakola, 2014). RTC is thus, at least partly, attributable to emotional reactions to change and the loss that might psychologically be experienced by individuals from the change (Appelbaum et al., 2015; Burnes, 2015). It has been argued that employees do not resist change itself, but rather the emotional consequences associated with change (Vakola, 2014), or they may have difficulty with the painful transitions it implies (Bridges, 2003). Indeed, if the emotions accompanying change are not dealt with appropriately, it tends to fester in individuals psyche and increasingly inflict negative results and promote RTC (Jones and Van De Ven, 2016).\nThe emotional rollercoaster of change, healing and transitioning: Change often generates highly unpleasant emotions (anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration, etc.) in many employees (although not necessarily everyone) (Marquitz et al., 2016; Smollan, 2014b). The proverbial emotional rollercoaster of change emotions is routinely compared with Kubler-Ross' (1969) grief cycle, which describes the emotional states people go through when confronted with a terminal illness (Leybourne, 2016). Her grief cycle has been shown as useful to organizational changes (Marquitz et al., 2016; Smollan, 2014a), and informed at least 15 similar models, which include a \"death valley,\" filled with acute emotions (Elrod and Tippett, 2002).\nChange leadership: Research consistently confirms that leaders influence acceptance of change by employees (Battilana et al., 2010; Kool and Van Dierendonck, 2012), and there are numerous studies that offer lists of leadership competencies, styles and activities (Battilana et al., 2010; By et al., 2016; Magsaysay and Hechanova, 2017). However, research could neither identify a single best change leadership style nor a single set of competencies. Indeed, Ford and Ford (2012) conclude that \"available research indicates there is no definitive formula to the leadership of change\" (p. 22).\nBeing-centered leadership: The purpose of being-centered leadership is to implicitly facilitate subordinates to organize their emerging experiences in ways that promote sensemaking and assist them with their healing journeys in order to achieve transition. Being-centeredness is not suggested as a new or different leadership style, nor is it another change leadership technique or competency. Being-centered leadership builds on AL, SL, TL and EI, capitalizing on their relevant characteristics (Table I), to offer a complementary change leadership paradigm that is likely to assist employees with healing and transitioning when change is experienced as traumatic. This conceptualization of being-centeredness is illustrated in Figure 1.\nDiscussion: We may not assume that employees cannot sometimes experience change as traumatic, or that they will progress automatically through traumatic change toward making the required transition. Being-centeredness is likely to assist employees with their healing and transitioning journey. Although being-centered change leadership may sound like almost super-human competencies leaders are expected to have, it is not a competency or even a task (Bridges and Mitchell, 2000). Being-centeredness is an intrapersonal process, which manifests interpersonally. Indeed, it is the humane aspects of vulnerability and fallibility that adds much to the genuineness of being-centeredness. The leader just has to be human, be fully present with an open heart, with compassion and acceptance, to make authentic, serving connections. This capacity is arguably latent in most human beings, but comes from the courageous choice to interact from a vulnerable foundation rather than position, role or rank (Karp and Tveteraas Helgo, 2009). Although being-centeredness can develop more in everyone, the most important thing is to allow and encourage it to surface. By normalizing and promoting being-centeredness, this paper allows this latent leadership capacity to surface from its suppressed state.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore change leadership in the context of traumatically experienced change. \"Being-centeredness\" is proposed as a change leadership paradigm, with the leader becoming a facilitative instrument who assists restoration of a healthy working environment, healed emotions and change transitioning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is a conceptual research paper. Conceptualizations of being-centeredness are developed by building on the discourse of change emotions in organizations and research on change leadership.\nFindings: Change interventions are experienced more traumatic than often believed. Healing of these emotions is essential to avoid stuckness. Becoming an instrument of change enables being-centered leaders to assist the emotional healings of victims and survivors when change is experienced as traumatic, promoting individual transitioning, restricting resistance to enhance change readiness and resilience.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although conceptualizations are supported by an abundance of research and practical experience, as with any conceptual research, it lacks direct empirical evidence to support the conceptualizations.\nPractical implications: Being-centeredness is an untapped inner capacity in many change leaders and change interventions. Explicitly normalizing and promoting being-centeredness and the further development of this capacity in leaders will allow this latent capacity to surface from its suppressed state, to be applied overtly.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a new paradigm on leaders can and should deal with acute emotions that are often experienced from change, which focus more on the way of being of leaders, than competencies or change activities that must be done. This is likely to further emotional healing, change transitioning, resilience and ultimately change success.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding the art and science of implementation in the SAAF efficacy trial	[ "Evidence base", "Prevention", "Programs", "Parenting", "Implementation", "Fidelity", "Adaptation", "African Americans", "Rural", "Quantitative methods", "Qualitative", "Mixed method" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to an extensive body of empirical research, evidence-based programs (EBPs) are effective in reducing a wide range of health outcomes (NRC/IOM, 2009), but only if these interventions are implemented well (Wilson and Lipsey, 2001). Recent meta-analyses (Durlak and DuPre, 2008; Dane and Schneider, 1998; Dusenbury et al., 2003) have concluded that high-quality implementation across a range of dimensions is necessary to achieve intended effects on program outcomes. These dimensions include fidelity or adherence to delivering all of the components as prescribed, quality of the teaching and interactive skill used to deliver the program, additive adaptations, or additions beyond the instructions in the program manual to meet the local context, and participants' level of responsiveness, or enthusiasm and active engagement with the program. Despite these conclusions, research in the area of implementation is limited by inconsistencies in theory, definition, and measurement (Berkel et al., 2011b).The field of prevention has emphasized a concern for the avoidance of Type III errors, which are those which conclude a program is ineffective, when poor results are actually due to poor implementation (Helitzer et al., 2000). Consequently, much attention has been given to ensuring that program facilitators deliver the program with high levels of fidelity, that is, implementing all of the components of the program as designed. Despite the fact that fidelity is the most widely accepted and examined dimension of implementation, the majority of intervention studies fail to report data on fidelity or link fidelity with outcomes (Durlak and DuPre, 2008). Of the nearly 500 studies examined in their meta-analysis on implementation, Durlak and DuPre found that only 59 studies assessed relations between fidelity and program outcomes, 76 percent of which found that they were positively related. Explanations in those studies with null results have emphasized lack of variability and sensitivity of measures. Another explanation is that the impact of fidelity is dependent on attendance, such that if the participants do not show up, facilitators' behaviors within the session are essentially irrelevant (Hansen et al., 1991). Few studies have taken attendance into account when examining fidelity. A lack of specificity in the analyses linking fidelity with outcomes may also be a problem (Berkel et al., 2011b). Most studies consider the global influence of fidelity, sampled, and averaged across sessions, on a range of program outcomes. A more precise approach is to link those program outcomes with the fidelity assessed for the pieces of the program which target the respective outcomes (Berkel et al., 2011a).In addition to the dangers of a Type III error, there is also the potential to conclude inaccurately that a program is successful, when the expertise of program facilitators may be driving program effects (Sobol et al., 1989). Facilitators frequently add material which they believe will increase the relevance, clarity, or utility for their participants (e.g. Dusenbury et al., 2005); this practice is referred to as adaptation. Research on adaptation provides information that can inform how programs should be implemented across different contexts, which is highly relevant as the field transitions from efficacy to effectiveness and dissemination research. Adaptation is also one of the most highly debated and rarely studied dimensions of implementation (Durlak and DuPre, 2008), perhaps in part due to adaptation's historical categorization as the polar opposite of fidelity on a single continuum (Berkel et al., 2011b). Of the three critical implementation meta-analyses (Durlak and DuPre, 2008; Dane and Schneider, 1998; Dusenbury et al., 2003), only the most recent defined adaptation as distinct from fidelity. In contrast to the uni-dimensional view of fidelity and adaptation as polar opposites on a single continuum, others have argued that adaptation should be conceptualized as additions to the program, rather than simply a lack of fidelity (e.g. Blakely et al., 1987; McGraw et al., 1996; Parcel et al., 1991). Doing so enables the disentanglement of what might be a potentially valuable facilitator contribution to the curriculum from an inability to implement the program as designed. This argument is well supported, as all of the studies examining a link between adaptation (conceptualized as additions to the curriculum) and outcomes revealed positive associations (Durlak and DuPre, 2008).Examining the influence of adaptation and fidelity in a single study provides insight into whether these constructs are in fact distinct and uniquely predict outcomes. Parcel et al. (1991) examined the influence of fidelity and adaptation (operationalized as \"adaptation of the curriculum to meet student needs\") on gains in health-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as a result of participating in the Teenage Health Teaching Modules. Adaptation was associated with greater change in the targeted attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors than was fidelity. Moreover, among new facilitators, fidelity, and adaptation were each associated with increases in participant knowledge, while for more experienced facilitators, only adaptation predicted outcomes. Blakely et al. (1987) separated these components into three dimensions of implementation, namely fidelity, additive adaptations (additions to the program), and modifications (delivering a prescribed component, but changing it substantially). They found that the association between adaptation and outcome was of the same magnitude as the association between fidelity and outcomes. Moreover, because the two types of adaptation subscales (modifications and additions) were measured separately, the study was able to compare them. Modifications were not significantly associated with program outcomes. Additions to the program, on the other hand, accounted for improvements, above and beyond the influence of fidelity. Further, additive adaptations occurred more frequently in the context of high fidelity. Thus, it may be that skilled facilitators are able to implement the program as designed while simultaneously bringing in additional material to address the needs of participants in the local context.In addition to negative conceptualizations of adaptation, another issue limiting its inclusion in implementation research is measurement. Fidelity assessments typically answer the question, \"Did or did they not do what was in the manual?\" Even this seemingly simple question has plagued researchers who have noted that it is not as straightforward as it seems (Perepletchikova et al., 2009). Adaptation answers, \"what did they do?\" and sometimes the even more important \"why?\" and \"was it good or bad?\" These questions are infinitely more challenging to answer and researchers have only recently begun to create measures to address these issues (e.g. Dusenbury et al., 2005; Hansen et al., 2011; Pankratz et al., 2011). So far, these measures have been used for programs in school settings. It is likely that the context of the intervention (e.g. school-based vs family-based or adult vs child participants) will be important in influencing the extent to which an adaptation is negative or positive.One of the important questions to consider about adaptation is the influence of culture. It is generally accepted that cultural mismatch can undermine the effectiveness of EBPs (Botvin, 2004). As contexts change over time and as EBPs are offered to new and distinct populations, adaptation may be necessary to preserve program effects (Castro et al., 2004; Rogers, 1995), especially to the extent that components of the program are confusing, irrelevant, or in conflict with the new population's situation or values (Emshoff et al., 2003). In explaining reasons for their adaptation, facilitators often cite the need to make programs fit the ecological niche in which they are working (Dusenbury et al., 2005; Ringwalt et al., 2004). As the field of prevention becomes aware of the need for culturally appropriate interventions, researchers have reflected about how to adapt programs in ways that make them more relevant for a given population. Two of the strategies that have been advocated are community-based participatory approaches (Israel et al., 2008; Minkler, 2004) and cultural matching of facilitators to participants (e.g. Wilson and Miller, 2003; Castro et al., 2004). Underlying each of these strategies is the assumption that community members, in the role of program co-designers or implementers, possess cultural expertise that may enable them to adapt the program to increase its relevance for the population (Brach and Fraser, 2000; Palinkas et al., 2009). An important distinction between these two strategies is that participatory approaches are planned, systematic, and under the direction of program designers. However, this approach can require financial resources and an extensive amount of time, and is not always able to accommodate rapidly changing contexts. Further, culture depends on the local level (i.e. within the intervention delivery setting), to which facilitators with a deep understanding about the local context are able to adapt quickly and specifically. Even with planned adaptations which involve the community, each program setting is unique and adaptations will continue to occur beyond this planning process (Castro et al., 2004). Failing to document these adaptations through careful study of implementation precludes generalizations about programs across settings (Boruch and Gomez, 1977) and sacrifices important information about what might make programs culturally appropriate in different contexts (Backer, 2002). Finally, the material added by facilitators may be either constructive or iatrogenic (Dusenbury et al., 2005). Thus, it is essential to develop systems to measure adaptations occurring in the field.The current study examines fidelity and adaptation in the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program (Brody et al., 2004), a family-based preventive intervention to reduce adolescent substance use and sexual risk behavior in rural African American communities. The content of SAAF was developed through a decade-long program of strengths-based research on rural African American families and a collaborative partnership between researchers and community stakeholders (Murry and Brody, 2004). Specifically, it focusses on the development of positive parenting practices, including racial socialization, warmth, communication, and consistent discipline, that have characterized resilient families in a context marked by poverty and discrimination. These practices support children's successful transition to adolescence, buffering them from the challenging circumstances they confront. In accordance with SAAF's theoretical model, intervention-induced changes in racial socialization lead to an increase in children's racial pride, body image, and values associated with risk behaviors (Murry et al., 2007, 2011). These protective factors, in turn, predict reductions in sexual risk behavior at the long-term follow up when children were 17 years old. Because racial socialization is pivotal to SAAF's theoretical model, the implementation data presented in the current paper focus on SAAF Parent Session 6: Encouraging Racial Pride, and specifically, on Activity 6.2 which is designed to demonstrate different ways of responding to discrimination (see \"Methods\" for more details).In the current study, we explore several research questions related to the implementation of the SAAF program:RQ1. What was the range of fidelity to the curriculum as designed, at increasing degrees of specificity (i.e. on the whole, for the selected session (Session 6), and for the selected activity (6.2))?RQ2. How did the fidelity, at increasing degrees of specificity, influence gains in racial socialization practices, the primary targeted outcome of this activity?RQ3. Was the effect of fidelity, again at increasing degrees of specificity, dependent on participant attendance?RQ4. How consistent were participant responses with the program definitions in this activity?RQ5. What kinds of adaptations were made, especially when caregivers responded to the activity in a way that was inconsistent with the program's definitions?\nMethods: To address these questions, we applied a multi-method approach. First, associations between fidelity and racial socialization were assessed quantitatively through multilevel regression. Second, because we know little about how facilitators in a program designed to be culturally competent implement the curriculum in a way that respects the values and experiences of individual families, we employed conversation analysis (CA) to analyze transcriptions of videotaped. This enabled us to analyze interactions and examine how facilitators made adaptations made during delivery of the activity.CA is a qualitative method of analyzing talk in interactions (Sacks, 1995; Ten Have, 2007). Founded in sociology, this method has been used widely for several decades across disciplines to study talk that occurs in both mundane and institutional settings. There is a robust body of literature that examines interaction in institutional educational and healthcare settings (e.g. McHoul and Rapley, 2001; Maynard, 2003; Llewellyn and Hindmarsh, 2010; Pilnick et al., 2010; Drew and Heritage, 1992; Heritage and Maynard, 2006; Hester and Francis, 2000).SAAF program curriculum\nResults: Fidelity\nDiscussion: Preventive interventions have demonstrated powerful effects across a wide range of outcomes and populations (NRC/IOM, 2009), yet they only produce these effects to the extent that they are implemented well (Durlak and DuPre, 2008). Between the design of a program and its implementation by program facilitators, there is infinite room for variability. Fidelity is the most commonly examined dimensions of implementation and most (but not all) studies analyzing the association between fidelity and outcomes have uncovered positive effects. However, limiting implementation assessments to whether or not facilitators completed the actions prescribed in the manual neglects a substantial part of the delivery. It is necessary to also examine adaptations that facilitators bring to the table based on their experience and expertise. When programs are implemented with new populations, cultural matching of facilitators with participants can be used as a strategy for supporting cultural relevance. In this case, examining adaptations is especially important, both to examine the nature of adaptations, which can be positive or iatrogenic, and to acquire information that can be used for refining the program in future iterations. Further, beyond the facilitators' implementation practices, it is also important to consider the nature of participants' engagement. Clearly, if participants do not attend, it cannot be expected that implementation will affect their outcomes. Examining the participants' responsiveness to the facilitators' implementation can also inform whether attempts at engaging them are appropriate and effective.Impact of fidelity\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of considering both fidelity and adaptation in assessing the implementation of evidence-based programs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The current study employs a multi-method strategy to understand two dimensions of implementation (fidelity and adaptation) in the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program. Data were video recordings of program delivery and pre-test and post-test interviews from the efficacy trial. Multilevel regression in Mplus was used to assess the impact of fidelity to the manual, coded by independent observers, on racial socialization outcomes. One activity on racial socialization, a core component of the program, was selected for an in-depth examination using conversation analysis (a qualitative method of analyzing talk in interactions).\nFindings: - Results of the quantitative analyses demonstrated that fidelity of the selected activity was associated with increases in parent's use of racial socialization from pre-test to post-test, but only when participant attendance was included in the model. Results of the qualitative analyses demonstrated that facilitators were making adaptations to the session and that these adaptations appeared to be in line with cultural competence.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The development of quantitative fidelity measures can be problematic, with many decision points to consider. The current study contributes to the evidence base to develop a quantitative measure of adaptation for family-based parenting programs.\nOriginality/value: - Many researchers examining implementation of evidence-based programs consider fidelity and adaptation to be polar ends of a single spectrum. This paper provides evidence for the importance of examining each independently.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Emerging from my youth - intra-cohort segmentation	[ "Shopping malls", "Millennials", "Retailing", "Life cycle", "Cohorts", "Micro-segmentation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumer segmentation in retail continues to be a strong focus in the literature (Feenstra et al., 2015; Pentecost and Andrews, 2010). On the one hand, researchers examine specific generational cohorts value systems considered relevant in the lives of such cohorts (Debevec et al., 2013). On the other hand, researchers also identify potential micro-segments within cohorts based on, for example, brand loyalty (Gurau, 2012), consumption status (Eastman and Liu, 2012) or psychographic and behavioural factors (Haytko and Baker, 2004). Such foundations for cohort micro-segmentation are evident in Markert (2004) as he argues that researchers and marketers can take slices of a generation using early and later years, to make finer distinctions within each generation, especially as each cohort ages (Danigelis et al., 2007) and family life cycles change (Lawson, 1988; Murphy and Staples, 1979).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Intra-cohort segments\n3. Method and materials: 3.1 Sampling\n4. Results: 4.1 Factors for mall attendance behaviour\n5. Conclusions: Using the millennial cohort this paper examined existence of three intra-cohort segments by introducing a new segment named emerging adults located between the adolescents and young adults. The key objective of the study was to determine whether these age-related segments can be differentiated on behaviour, and attitudes in the context of a shopping mall. Findings confirm evidence of a number of statistically significant differences between the emerging adult compared to adolescents and young adults. Therefore, the study constitutes one of a very limited number of studies available to examine multiple intra-cohort segments in a retail context.\n6. Limitations and future research: First, the study was a snapshot of millennial consumers and their responses to the survey while at only one mall within Australia. The research would benefit from a longitudinal approach to determine the transitions across the three intra-cohorts, to extend the research to other malls within Australia, and internationally to assess any regional or global differences. Second, the items used in the questionnaire may not clearly or adequately capture millennials' perceptions of the attributes of a shopping mall; for example, aspects of ambience (lighting, temperature and music) may be mentally screened out during their visits owing to their familiarity with the environment. Alternatively, there may be other attributes in the mall or in retail outlets that are more relevant to this generational cohort and that need to be taken into account, for example, retail atmospherics may create perceptions of an \"interactive, immersive, and authentic environment\" (Foster and McLelland, 2014, p. 195).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using the millennial cohort the purpose of this paper is to assess differences in shopping mall behaviour between three intra-cohorts groups: adolescents (13-17), emerging adults (18-23) and young adults (24-30+).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a self-administered questionnaire, respondents were recruited through random customer intercepts at a major shopping mall in a capital city in Australia using a team of trained research assistants. After initial descriptive between group examinations, discriminant analysis was applied to verify group membership.\nFindings: Results show significant differences between groups. Attitudes based upon mall attributes varied significantly, along with expenditure and other behaviour. The study provides evidence of transitional differences within a generational cohort as mall consumers mature.\nResearch limitations/implications: It serves as a focus for researchers to more actively consider intra-cohort segmentation relating to other generational cohorts.\nPractical implications: Findings show that emerging adults to be moving away from attending the mall, which means, this group may be lost if retailers are not more proactive in attracting them or at least maintaining them. Coupling this with the group's transition towards young adulthood, and the fact that these young adults are less likely to go to the mall there is a degree of urgency to develop strategies to keep this transition group engaged if financially feasible.\nOriginality/value: This research is important to ongoing theoretical perspectives of cohort theory and life cycle positions through its application to a more nuanced examination of the millennials cohort.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparative study of the management styles of marketing managers in Australia and the People's Republic of China	[ "Management styles", "National cultures", "International marketing", "Marketing decision making, Australia, China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Owing to the rapid globalisation of the world's economy and the cultural diversification of many countries, there has been considerable interest in whether the attitudes, behaviour, management style and values of managers are different across cultures and nations (Adler, 1983; Hofstede, 2001; Husted et al., 1996; Trompenaars, 1994; Robertson, 2000; Tse et al., 1988). The knowledge in those cross-cultural differences has practical importance for managers and executives to understand, to address and to meet with their counterparts in their foreign and home working environments. Indeed, an understanding of how cultural differences affect decision-making is important to a firm's external operation. It can be used to predict strategic moves and responses of competitors and hence to design effective competitive strategies. It has implications for the successful development and implementation of strategic alliances.At present, there is no universally effective management style. System 4, an approach prescribed by Likert and his colleagues regarding what organizations should strive to become, was based on the theory that participative management rather than autocratic management is the most productive in any culture (Likert and Likert, 1976). Today, one theory is that management styles reflect cultural differences and what matters is that a style is compatible with the culture in which it operates. Research has shown that despite differences in management systems in different cultures, when management practices in the work unit are congruent with the national culture productivity remained the same and performance is higher (e.g. Morris and Pavett, 1992; Newman and Nollen, 1996). These studies provide added support to those that have found home cultures to have a significant and predictable effect on the decision-making styles of managers.This study aims to explore managerial differences between managers in Australia and People's Republic of China (PRC), two countries with different cultural values, and with different degrees of cultural homogeneity. The research focuses on marketing managers because of their significant involvement in international business operations. Australia has an extreme high score of individualism based on the studies of Hofstede (2001) on cultural dimensions. In contrast, PRC is found to be rather low in individualism and very high in collectivism (Cheung and Chow, 1999; Hofstede, 2001). Both countries are members of Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), and they have significant commercial and non-commercial relationship within the Asia-Pacific region. Australia tends to be relatively culturally heterogeneous and the PRC is relatively culturally homogeneous. In this paper, a number of hypotheses are formulated regarding the differences in management style between marketing managers of Australia and PRC.The major contribution of this study is twofold. First, this study investigates the management style difference between two vastly different cultures or nations. Second, it provides practical insights to marketing managers and other executives who are dealing with their counterparts in Australia and PRC. Moreover, managers from these two countries can understand better their differences and build on their similarities, which is necessary in the formation of strategic alliances.The next section of this paper covers the conceptual framework and hypotheses development, followed by the methodology and the results of the study. The final section will focus on the implications and limitations of the study.\nManagement style and research hypotheses: Management style is defined as \"a recurring set of characteristics that are associated with the decisional process of the firm or individual managers\" (Tull and Albaum, 1971; Albaum et al., 1995). This definition is similar to what Abramson et al. (1993) have defined as cognitive style: \"consistent modes of thought that introduce systematic preferences for particular kinds of information that are used in the problem-solving process\". Previous studies have shown that management values are significantly affected by five cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001). Cultural dimensions of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, power distance and long-term orientation were shown to have a significant relationship with managerial values and decision-making (Birnbaum-More et al., 1995; Hofstede, 2001; Robertson, 2000; Westwood and Posner, 1997). Previous research has shown that Australia has characteristics of high individualism, medium uncertainty avoidance, high masculinity, low to medium power distance, and low long-term orientation. On the other hand, PRC was found to have characteristics of low individualism, low uncertainty avoidance, high masculinity, high power distance, and high long-term orientation (Hofstede, 2001; Westwood and Posner, 1997). In the specific comparison of culture dimensions by Hofstede (2001), a great contrast in the index scores is found between Australia and PRC: individualism (90 vs 20); uncertainty avoidance (51 vs 30); masculinity (61 vs 66); power distance (36 vs 80); long-term orientation (31 vs 118). In short, Australia shows a greater level of individualism and uncertainty avoidance than PRC. In contrast, PRC shows a greater levels in masculinity, power distance and long-term orientation than Australia.Tse et al. (1988) compared the PRC, Hong Kong and Canadian managers in choice, decisiveness, and risk adjustment in simulated international marketing situations. Their study examined how the managers' home culture significantly affects their decision-making in risky situations. Differences in decision-making styles were most pronounced between Canadian managers adopting a western orientation (individual initiative and utilitarian values) and the group from PRC that was influenced by the Confucian perspective of societal well-being and committee submission to leaders. Managers from Hong Kong were found to be between the Canadian decision-makers and those from PRC with respect to decision-making styles. The results were attributed to Hong Kong's cultural mix of eastern and western ideas.In a study of top managers' perceptions of the differences between Japanese and Korean management styles, Lee et al. (2000) conceptualized that a national management style would be influenced by two attributes of a country - national culture and level of development. This model led to hypothesizing the following.1. As Korean firms grow larger (Growth), the Korean management system will converge to the Japanese management system.2. As Korean firms become internationalized (Internationalization), the Korean management system will converge to the Japanese management system.Findings indicate that both Growth and Internationalization of Korean firms are driving forces for convergence of management styles, but Internationalization has a stronger impact than Growth.Previous studies also show that managers of high individualistic countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom usually favour a democratic or participative style of management. On the other hand, managers of low individualistic countries like PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan would favor an autocratic style of management (Birnbaum-More et al., 1995; Westwood and Posner, 1997). Instead of focusing on the autocratic and participative types of management, the present study is based on the management style framework conceptualized by Albaum and Herche (1999) who have compared management styles of marketing managers within five European countries. Albaum et al. (1995) also compared the management styles of marketing decision makers in the United States and New Zealand. The framework mainly focuses on the management style of marketing managers who evaluate and use information frequently in their decision-making. In the present study, management style is conceptualized as consisting of multiple dimensions, including information utilization, complexity, group decision-making, risk acceptance, and technology orientation.Information utilization\nResearch methodology: Sample\nResults: Australian and PRC respondents were compared on the five management style dimensions, which were derived by determining the average individual scale score of the items underlying each dimension. The corresponding mean scores are shown in Table IV. PRC respondents are found to have significantly higher scores than the Australian respondents for the five dimensions. Correlations among the management style variables for Australian samples and PRC samples are shown in Tables V and VI, respectively.Following the procedures of multiple group analysis described by Bagozzi and Yi (1988), a test of equality of covariances of the management style model across the two cultural groups was performed using AMOS 4.0 with maximum likelihood as the estimation method (Arbuckle and Wothke, 1999). The non-significance of chi-square value (kh2=2.708, p=0.240) indicated that the hypothesis of invariance or equality could not be rejected and thus cross-cultural invariance was found. Furthermore, the overall fit of the model was acceptable based on the fit indices (RMSEA=0.060; AGFI=0.962; TFI=0.932; CFI=0.954). The RMSEA was below the acceptable value of 0.08 and the AGFI, TFI and CFI were all above the commonly recommended 0.9 level (Bollen, 1989; Hair et al., 1998).In general, the results support all of the hypotheses. As expected, PRC managers (M=3.89) were found to have a higher degree of information utilization than Australian managers (M=3.15), t=-5.93, p<0.001 (H1 supported). Moreover, PRC managers (M=3.74) were found to have a greater extent of complexity in decision-making than the Australian counterparts (M=3.31), t=-4.15, p<0.001 (H2 supported). For group decision-making, managers in PRC (M=3.54) showed a higher propensity than managers in Australia (M=2.58), t=-7.22, p<0.001 (H3 supported). Risk acceptance level was found to be higher for managers in PRC (M=3.74) than in Australia (M=3.31), t=-4.06, p<0.001 (H4 supported). Finally, PRC managers also showed a higher degree of technology orientation than Australian managers (M=2.78 vs M=2.04), t=-6.94, p<0.001, supporting H5. Company characteristics and demographic variables of age, sex and education level were found to have no significant correlation with any of the management style dimensions in both countries.\nConclusions and implications: The primary goal of this study was to compare the management style dimensions of Australian and PRC marketing managers based on the framework of Albaum and Herche (1999). The findings show that Australian and PRC managers are significantly different in terms of the five decision-making or managerial style dimensions covered in this study. This study has revealed some interesting managerial styles that quite reflect the significant impact of information technology, the computer, the internet and other technologies on the world and business organizations today. Managers in both countries are found to use information and technology extensively in their decision-making. As compared with Australian managers, PRC managers are found to score higher in information utilization, complexity, group decision-making, risk acceptance, and technology orientation. The results of this study provide support for the hypotheses (H1 to H5) that are mainly developed from the monochronic/polychronic dimension and Hofstede's cultural dimensions. In fact, the findings can be attributed to the differences in cultural values and cultural context as described earlier in the hypotheses development section of this paper.As expected, PRC managers are found to have a higher degree of risk acceptance than Australian managers. Aside from the proposition that a high risk acceptance is related to a low uncertainty avoidance, this phenomenon may also be explained by the fact that PRC people have been undergoing for more than 20 years of economic and cultural reforms which may have contributed to the recent entrepreneurship of the Chinese people in Mainland China. As a result, more and more PRC managers are willing to take risk, thus a higher risk acceptance level among the PRC managers is found.Knowledge of cultural variations in management can make international managers more effective when dealing with customers, suppliers, subordinates, colleagues and negotiation partners in foreign countries. It may also help decision makers react better to any ethical, political, social or economic issues that arise and may influence the success of their company in its international operations. The empirical findings of this study provide useful insights into the differences in the management styles of marketing managers in these two countries.The findings are valuable with respect to the recent entry of the PRC into the World Trade Organization (WTO) under a permanent normal trade relations status, as this signals increased proactive activity by Chinese companies in the global economy. In addition to looking at the differences in the management style, international managers can also consider the similarity in business and managerial orientation of their counterparts. The advance of the global economy and of international consumer capitalism is facilitated by people who can share a common business subculture, values and management styles.The support obtained from the empirical results for all the hypotheses of this study seems to indicate that it is possible to predict management style differences based on cultural differences in a systematic way. If further studies will support this trend, then it is imperative for managers to understand how cultures affect the management style of the managers they interact with as well as their own. This idea is supported by the relatively recent study of young managers in five cultures by Mellahi (2001) who concluded that values differ across cultures and nations, but cautioned that values are dynamic and results of any study should be viewed as values at one point in time. Such understanding will contribute to a more harmonious relationship among managers from different cultures and the development of appropriate management styles.Future cross-cultural studies of this nature should have a larger sample, and ideally the sample units should be matched and appropriate tests for non-response bias should be conducted. More precise measurements of the management style dimensions, monochronic/polychronic dimension and Hofstede's cultural dimensions should be developed. Notwithstanding the limitations of this study, it would be inappropriate to generalize the PRC results to other Asia-Pacific countries, although similar cultural values are shared among the Chinese populations of the Asian countries in the region, if not the Chinese populations throughout the world. Further investigation of decision-making differences across more countries is clearly needed. In fact, the findings of this study may be limited by measurement equivalence issues (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998; van de Vijver and Leung, 1997).Although this study has been limited to two cultures, albeit they are quite different cultures, the findings are not necessarily limited to these two countries. The general underlying concepts about differences and the need to understand any differences hold. What will differ in studies of other cultures will be the actual numerical values of any variables or management style dimensions that are being measured. Consequently, the present study has value as a guideline for studying other cultures, which is especially relevant for companies that are seeking to expand their strategic alliance operations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this paper is to compare the management style of marketing managers in Australia with the counterparts in the People's Republic of China (PRC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on the differences in cultural dimensions and context, five hypotheses related to management decision-making styles were developed and tested by questionnaire survey. Sixty seven valid Australia samples and 104 valid Chinese samples were obtained through mail survey and personal interviews, respectively.\nFindings: - Results show that PRC managers have significantly higher scores in the five management style dimensions (namely: information utilization, complexity, group decision-making, risk acceptance and technology orientation) than their Australian counterparts.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research is limited by the small sample size. The findings may be limited by measurement equivalence issues and further investigation of management style differences across more countries is clearly needed.\nPractical implications: - The findings of this study provide useful insights into the differences in the management style of marketing managers in the two countries. It is possible to predict management style differences based on a comparison of cultural differences in a systematic way.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the literature in international marketing and management. It is imperative for managers to understand how cultures affect the management style of the managers they interact with as well as their own. The study serves as a guideline for studying other cultures, which is especially relevant for companies that are seeking to expand their strategic alliance operations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Taking the ethical lead: Predicting behavior of business leaders	[ "Ethical leadership", "Theory of planned behavior", "Attitude" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: Take any financial or environmental scandal perpetrated by a major company - and unfortunately, there are quite a few to choose from - and people will tend to remember what went wrong and some of the fallout from the scandal, but it is unlikely they will know much about why something went wrong. For example, people will remember that Lehman Brothers went bust during the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008 and can picture its employees leaving its offices with Iron Mountain boxes. They will also perhaps remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, and the devastation it caused the local wildlife. But does anyone remember exactly why these events occurred?\nBehind the curtain: It seems we are living in an age where there has to be a cover up whenever there are any major corporate scandals, and at the heart of that cover up the identity and behavior of any responsible individuals has to be protected. It is rare that we hear about any high-profile sackings directly related to any financial, environmental or other major scandals in the corporate world. While this protects the individuals concerned, and is probably beneficial to share prices, it does not enable the wider business community to understand why things went off the rails, and what perhaps could have been done to change things.\nThree challenges: In order to understand what is going on inside leaders' heads on this topic, the authors use something called the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This is a two-step process, where individuals behavior is understood to be driven by their intentions regarding that behavior, and those attitudes in turn are driven by three things: their attitudes to that behavior, a favorable subjective norm - which is the perception of social or peer pressure to take on board other people's expectations and manifest it in one's own behavior - and perceived control in a given situation. This theory in turn provides three broad sets of propositions when it comes to ethical leadership:\nMixed results: Following detailed and multiple analyses of the survey results, the authors found that while the first and third propositions were supported by the feedback they received, the second idea around subjective norms of ethical behavior was not substantiated. In other words, when leaders have a positive attitude with regard to ethical behavior and perceived behavioral control, they are more likely to act in an ethical manner, and as a result exhibit ethical leadership in their respective organizations.\nComment: The article \"Antecedents of ethical leadership: the theory of planned behavior\" (2019) by Saidur Rahaman et al offers some real insight into how ethical leadership can be effectively developed within an organization. It answers the question as to whether this style of leadership can be developed at all, and in doing so offers a blueprint of how firms can train such leadership, which in turn can help to develop ethical organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds his/her own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: Take any financial or environmental scandal perpetrated by a major company - and unfortunately, there are quite a few to choose from - and people will tend to remember what went wrong and some of the fallout from the scandal, but it is unlikely they will know much about why something went wrong. For example, people will remember that Lehman Brothers went bust during the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008 and can picture its employees leaving its offices with Iron Mountain boxes. They will also perhaps remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, and the devastation it caused the local wildlife. But does anyone remember exactly why these events occurred?\nPractical implications: This paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Environmental sustainability in logistics and freight transportation : A literature review and research agenda	[ "Freight transportation", "Literature review", "Logistics", "Environmental sustainability", "Third-party logistics service providers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As previously highlighted by Perotti et al. (2012), the topic of environmental sustainability has brought about rising interest from both the practitioner and the research community perspective, especially over the past decade (e.g. Hendrickson et al., 2006; Mahler, 2007; Seuring and Muller, 2008; Gimenez Thomsen et al., 2012). On the one hand, such growing importance has been mainly due to increased environmental concerns, such as environmental pollution accompanying industrial development (Sheu et al., 2005), diminishing raw material resources, overflowing waste sites and increasing levels of pollution (Srivastava, 2007). Besides, other key factors such as government regulations, changing consumer demands, and the development of international certification standards (Melynk et al., 1999; Murphy and Poist, 2003) have progressively led companies to look at sustainability initiatives with increasing attention.\n2. Methodology: 2.1 Scope of the study and article selection process\n3. Summary of review and discussion: Table I based on Natarajarathinam et al. (2009) and Perego et al. (2011), summarises the content and features of each paper. Aligned with Perego et al. (2011), papers are reported in chronological order \"to reflect the evolution\" of sustainability issues in logistics and transportation \"over time, as well as the initiatives progressively implemented and of interest to the academic community\" (p. 461). The following sub-sections illustrate the paper analysis in terms of both key theme(s) tackled and the following characteristics: year of publication, journal title, regions, addressed and research method.\n4. Identified gaps and directions for future research: Although different studies have been conducted so far on environmental sustainability in logistics and transportation and several facets have been deeply investigated, a number of themes are still under-represented or missing as emerged from the reviewed literature. In order to provide some insights leading to further research, we list the main shortcomings.\n5. Conclusions: The review presented in this paper involved 72 research contributions on environmental sustainability in logistics and transportation published between 1994 and 2011. The papers were analysed in terms of their main characteristics (e.g. year of publication, journal title, regions addressed, and research method(s) adopted) and content.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to categorise the research on environmental sustainability in logistics and transportation on the basis of the main themes and study methods and proposes directions for future research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The review is based on 72 papers published from 1994 to 2011 in international peer-reviewed journals. The academic papers were analysed and categorised according to both their defining characteristics (i.e. year of publication, journal title, regions addressed, and research methodology adopted) and the themes tackled. Five key themes were examined: sustainability initiatives, reasons for adoption, benefits achieved following adoption, critical issues and barriers to adoption, and the evaluation and measurement of environmental initiatives.\nFindings: While many studies have addressed the issue of environmental sustainability within the supply chain as a whole, papers focusing specifically on environmental sustainability within logistics and freight transportation are fewer and relatively more recent. Although researchers have started to examine the decision-making process involved in environmental sustainability adoption in recent years, many themes, such as sustainability evaluation and measurement, and the level of adoption of sustainability initiatives in the context of the third-party logistics (3PL) industry are under-represented in the literature. As far as the methodology is concerned, our review revealed that many articles are either conceptual papers or empirical studies (i.e. mostly based on surveys or case studies), while simulation and analytical modelling have rarely been addressed.\nResearch limitations/implications: While efforts were made to be all-inclusive, some research efforts may have inadvertently been omitted. However, the authors believe that this review provides an accurate representation of the body of research on environmental sustainability in logistics and transportation published during the specified timeframe, and that the resulting assessments are reliable.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a guide to the previous research on this topic and identifies the most important issues that need to be addressed in future research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lessons from two decades of surgical audit	[ "Clinical audit", "Surgery", "Databases" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The author first started work as a consultant general surgeon with a vascular sub-specialty interest in October 1984 in Ashington in Northumberland and moved, in January 1997, to work as a dedicated vascular surgeon at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle. In this second post, until October 2004, his only commitment to general surgery was to emergency patients after which time he dealt exclusively with arterial and venous complaints. He retired in June 2006. At the time of appointment he considered it important that a record was kept of his work in order to document overall activity and patient outcomes and before starting work in Ashington had developed computer software to maintain a database of discharge summaries. In 1991 this was upgraded to include outpatient and operation notes with a further addition, in 2001, for in-hospital ward referrals. On retiring there were therefore over 21 years of discharge summaries and 15 years of outpatient and operation notes available for analysis. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how the information was documented and how this was used to show changes in clinical practice and patient outcomes over many years.\nMethod: Software development and patient dataset\nResults: Overall numbers (Table III)\nDiscussion: The information presented in this paper represents, in terms of discharge summaries, a complete record of the work of a single consultant over a period of more than 21 years. When first appointed to Ashington Hospital the author was one of three surgeons providing general surgical services, but by 1996 there were five surgeons in the department; thus explaining much of the reduction in overall workload during this time. He had simultaneously introduced vascular surgery into the hospital with the number of arterial patients admitted annually increasing from 109 in 1984 to 320 in 1996 and had, with the exception of venous patients, noted a steady reduction in work provided by other diagnostic groups. On moving to Carlisle there was a reduction in both general and vascular work having joined a department of five surgeons, one of whom also undertook vascular surgery. Between 1984 and 2004 the author had participated in general surgical on-call rotas, but when during 2004 he relinquished a commitment to general surgical emergencies there was a further reduction in overall workload and change in diagnostic groups to exclusively arterial and venous patients. The numbers of operative complications and re-operations in arterial patients was particularly high when first appointed, but both were less than half as frequent in later years and this was considered to represent an improvement in the management of these patients.Two examples of comparative outcome audit were detailed for aortic aneurysm and carotid operations. These patients were seen and treated expeditiously and had acceptable outcomes with the notable exception of delays, by other clinicians, in referring carotid patients. This delay was something the author had been endeavouring to change by lecturing to local GPs. These acceptable outcomes are likely to be a reflection of general vascular practice. The author would consider patients of all ages and general health for these procedures and there was no policy of selectively referring difficult cases to a regional centre. Furthermore, now that there is a National Vascular Database (Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2005) providing the pooled results from many surgeons it is possible for individual surgeons to find data against which they can compare their own outcomes. On this basis the outcomes presented here appear acceptable.This paper demonstrates that the database has achieved its original objective of documenting the work of a single clinician. The final version was running on a hospital mainframe computer, was networked and used by a number of other consultants and specialist nurses. In order to ensure that data collection was continuous and seamless care was taken to concentrate on collecting information normally used, and readily available, at the time of documenting patient events for the clinical notes. To have collected more data was considered the province of research and not appropriate to this form of routine continuous audit. In addition to the results presented here the programme was of value in a number of other areas. Responding to telephone enquiries about patients was immediate without waiting for notes from the hospital records department. Data for monthly morbidity and mortality meetings was readily available. A number of audit related papers have been made possible by interrogating the database (Holdsworth, 1991; Pleass and Holdsworth, 1996; Holdsworth, 1997a, b; Holdsworth, 1999; Hayden and Holdsworth, 2001) and data was used to provide evidence to justify requests for developments in clinical services and changes in clinical practice.The dramatic changes in general and vascular surgery seen during the last 20 years and brought about by increasing sub-specialisation with surgeons undertaking a narrower range of procedures was also reflected in this paper. The author concentrated on keeping up to date with vascular practice and, with the exception of thoraco-abdominal aneurysms, being able to deal with all aspects of this work. His increasing vascular workload in his first consultant post and increasing sub-specialisation of his colleagues in line with developments in gastro-intestinal, biliary and breast surgery resulted in changes, which by 1996, led to his elective work coming exclusively from vascular patients. The experience of the author is to endorse current thinking that arterial and venous surgery should be the province of dedicated vascular specialists. The vascular workload alone made it difficult to have sufficient patients in each area of general surgery to maintain the required broad range of operative skills and it proved impractical to keep up to date with the burgeoning literature associated with each sub-specialised group of diseases.It is inevitable that some inaccuracies will exist in a database of the size illustrated here and for which the results could be criticised. To ensure accuracy continuing care was required to check printed records before filing in clinical notes. Over the years this data has proved more accurate than that recorded by the hospitals in which the author has worked and there have been occasions when managers have requested information from the database. The accuracy of a database is also dependent on the honesty and integrity of those recording the information. Failing to record them can reduce complication rates. It would be difficult for an independent check to be made on the accuracy of the information stored, but should whole departments be using software of this type then it could be made part of the requirements of morbidity and mortality meetings to undertake case note review of specific groups of patients and present a comparison with information simultaneously generated from a computer database; especially where areas of concern may exist. Some inaccuracy in recording large amounts of information will always exist, but the benefit of having this data readily available has to be preferred to the alternative of laboriously searching through patient files.All doctors should want to know how much work they undertake in a year, how many patients die or have complications and should be comparing this with outcomes provided by other clinicians working with the same group of patients in order to check that their work is being undertaken to an acceptable standard. General practitioners, the National Health Service and patients should be demanding this information. It cannot be acceptable for individual clinicians to claim that it is too difficult, or impossible, to document patient outcomes and doctors should want to know if they are doing more harm than good so that practice can be modified appropriately. In order to do this it is necessary to keep either a paper or computer based record of activity; with the latter being preferred since this allows rapid and reproducible analysis. When the author first developed this computer database he assumed that, within a few years, the health service would provide all consultants with the wherewithal to undertake this activity. More than twenty years later this has still not come about. What is illustrated in this paper is a tool to provide continuous and seamless data acquisition that would be immediately applicable to any surgical speciality and, for that matter, a non-surgical discipline. A programme similar to this running on the mainframe computer of all hospitals would provide accurate information on clinical activity and consultants with the ability to readily analyse their work. Since it is important that the Health Service justifies the use of resources and demonstrates effective treatments within acceptable and defined outcomes all consultants should be documenting their work, much as has been shown here, and for which little effort is required when a suitable tool is available. Why has this not happened?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report on the use of a computer database used by medical secretaries to routinely and continuously store information on the work of a hospital consultant in order to monitor clinical activity and patient outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology uses database software developed to deal with discharge summaries, outpatient attendances, operation notes and in-hospital ward referrals.\nFindings: - From October 1984 to June 2006 there were 18,743 discharge summaries and from 1991 15,827 outpatient and 6,199 operation notes. The paper demonstrates changing clinical practice over more than 20 years and reduction in the number of postoperative complications and patients having second operations during the same admission. There is also evidence of conformity to expected outcomes for patients having carotid thromboendarterectomy and grafting of aortic aneurysm.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that computer software of this type can operate seamlessly to document clinical activity and should be in use by all consultants working in the National Health Service.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How social media reshapes action on distant customers: some empirical evidence	[ "Social media", "Accounting", "Power", "Action at a distance", "Centre of calculation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social media is a pervasive and continuously growing phenomenon at both individual and organizational level. The number of people with an internet connection and a social media account are continuously growing worldwide (Strauss, 2016). At the same time, organizations are reshaping their structures and processes to make a profitable use of this new digital technology (e.g. Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Kietzmann et al., 2011).\n2. Background literature: Social media can be defined as \"communication systems that allow their social actors to communicate along dyadic ties\" (Peters et al., 2013, p. 282). It is not a monolithic concept, given that the term social media refers to a variety of communication systems, including social networks such as Facebook, video sharing platforms such as YouTube and microblogging websites like Twitter (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Kietzmann et al., 2011). Unlike traditional data, social media data have two main features: data are user generated and data are provided in real time (O'Reilly, 2005; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).\n3. Methodology: The empirics of this study were derived from the methodology of a case study conducted on an Italian telecommunications company, here called Zeus for confidentiality reasons. Zeus, with over 50,000 employees, is the main Italian telecoms player. The company opened its first social media account in 2008 on Facebook, and has reached almost two million Facebook likes. It now has a social media presence on most popular platforms, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram, as well as Facebook. We collected data from a variety of sources between February 2014 and November 2015, including interviews, participant observations, internal documents, corporate websites and social media pages (see Table I).\n4. Action at a distance through social media: evidence from the field: 4.1 The configuration of a new centre of calculation: the monitoring room\n5. Discussion: The introduction of social media prompted the organization to configure a new centre of calculation, called monitoring room, for gathering knowledge from the periphery, represented by its real and potential customers. Through the monitoring room, the spatial-temporal distance was constructed through real-time screens that projected measures relating to domain ranking, sentiment score and network influencers. The monitoring room's configuration, and the steps to bring the customer back into the realm of what the organization is able to control, had two main implications in terms of how social media affects \"action at a distance\". These are the blurring of the difference between the centre and the periphery, and the centre's ability to accumulate unique knowledge about the customer. These two insights will be discussed below in connection with extant literature.\n6. Concluding remarks: With this study, we, as authors, entered into the emerging debate on the implications for the accounting arena of adopting social media extensively in an organization (e.g. Jeacle and Carter, 2011; Scott and Orlikowski, 2012; Quattrone, 2016). By endorsing the view that accounting is a social and institutional practice (Hopwood and Miller, 1994) and examining the concepts of \"action at a distance\" and centres of calculation (Latour, 1987), we investigated how the centres of calculation connected to social media can impact on \"action at a distance\". The aspect we explored specifically was how the distance between an organization and its customers comes into play and how knowledge is accumulated within this centre.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how centres of calculation, now emerging in connection with social media, impact on the process of acting on distant customers. Specifically, the authors are interested in exploring how the distance between the organization and its customer is affected and how knowledge is accumulated within this centre.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study in an Italian telecommunication company was conducted over a time horizon of two years, analysing data sources in the form of interviews, documents and reports, corporate website, social media platforms and participants' observations. With the adoption of social media, the company configured a new centre of calculation, called monitoring room, in the attempt to accumulate knowledge about its customers. The authors unpacked the activity of the centre of calculation discussing its ability to perform action upon a distant periphery and the process of knowledge accumulation inside the centre itself.\nFindings: The results highlight the implication of social media for \"action at a distance\". On the one hand, social media blurs the distinction between the centre and a periphery giving rise to a de-centring, and stimulating a joint control activity between the customer and the organization. On the other hand, social media was found vulnerable in providing a unique knowledge about customers: accumulation cycles that exploit social media data can be replicated by users with skills in data analytics and the knowledge they provide might conflict with knowledge provided by traditional data.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to an emergent stream of literature that is investigating accounting implications derived from social media, by underlying the controversial effects connected with centres of calculation enacted by social media data. The authors suggest that, while social media data provide the organization with huge amount of information real time, at the same time, it contributes to de-centring allowing customers and external actors to act upon the organization, rather than improving knowledge inside the centre.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Role of HR in the new world of sustainability	[ "Leadership development", "Human resource management", "Corporate social responsibility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A few decades ago, the traditional Personnel Department was renamed the Human Resources Department (HR), and considerably broadened its responsibilities. To pay, benefits and industrial relations were added the functions of recruitment, selection, performance appraisal, rewards systems, training, and in some cases safety and health, company policies, communications and change management. Organizations sought to enhance competitive advantage by seeking improvements in the utilization of their human resources and in their organizational structure (Fombrun et al., 1984, Beer et al., 1985.). When HR is integrated into the strategic planning process, it greatly increases the chances for successful implementation; HR is able to ensure greater cohesion of policies, processes and systems, and to engage line managers in realizing the importance of employee development and in reflecting this in their behaviors. Engagement results in increased willingness to accept change and \"fewer delays and barriers due to conflicting understandings and priorities\" (Guest, 1999).\nWhat the world looks like in 2009: We no longer live in the twentieth century. The global financial crisis has precipitated an economic tsunami that is shaking industry, threatening job security, and even creating national crises that can topple governments. Our most pressing challenge is that all this is happening in the midst of a planetary emergency. It is not only about our economy; our home, the Earth, is also painfully manifesting the consequences of human behavior over decades. In exacerbation of the financial troubles, we are now experiencing alarming shifts in our climate. Rarely a day goes by that we don't hear disturbing news of how weather is seriously impacting our lives, whether it is wild fires, droughts, hurricanes, heat or cold waves, or flooding. Further, medical scientists are reporting greater incidence of water-borne and temperature-related diseases in areas where none existed before. Due to nature's delayed cause-effect cycle, the greenhouse effects we are experiencing today were caused mainly by emissions released before the 1970s (Scharmer, 2007). We can safely conclude that our industrial practices of the last 30 years will have their impact on our children and grandchildren. Although it is extremely difficult to anticipate how this will be manifested - we're dealing with systemic effects in a totally new situation - there are several key areas of concern.Energy\nHR and sustainability: from observer to key player: What does all this mean for the HR function?\nIn summary: We have explored the characteristics of the context in which HR has to operate in the first decade of the century; we have reviewed the serious challenges facing us, challenges which demand that corporations change how they conduct business. HR now has the possibility to redefine its charter, and to lead the way on a journey where there are few maps and few experts. The organizational changes that lie ahead require a new look into processes, ethics and governance. They require organizations to review their values, challenge their assumptions, reinvigorate their culture, and build understanding and alignment around what sustainability means in the daily decisions of every employee. The educational role of HR is as critical as ever, and whether through leadership development or training activities, HR can serve as guide in creating new dialogue, greater consistency and collaborative teamwork, and as a key support to the organization as it learns to think and act within new paradigms. HR must instill learning methodologies adapted to times that allow no waste and demand efficiency, and project-based programs provide substantive ways of meeting that requirement. HR has an important role to play in building the capabilities that enable the organizational change, from an economic, social and environmental perspective, and as a way to achieve a new competitive advantage.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to assess the strategic role that the human resource department (HRD) can play in the development and implementation of an organization's sustainability program.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reviews the environmental and social challenges that give rise to sustainability efforts, and outlines areas of potential benefit to an organization of the efforts.\nFindings: - The article posits that such programs require change in organizational culture, which in turn demands new leadership competencies, behaviors and mindsets. It instances the action reflection learning (ARL) learning methodology and its project-based programs as proven means for developing those competencies through collaborative teamwork and specific learning goals.\nOriginality/value: - The paper proposes that HRD is uniquely positioned to support the organization's sustainability goals of profit, people and planet, while retaining its competitive advantage.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Participatory action research: a winning strategy for KM	[ "Knowledge management", "Research", "Action research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper aims to contribute to an emerging debate centred on the ways in which knowledge management (KM) might be effectively researched and, in turn, how KM practice might be improved. Building on the work of Kane et al. (2006) where an ethnographic approach to KM research was suggested as a way of dealing with the increasing emphasis on tacit knowledge, this paper moves the debate on by drawing attention to the use of participatory action research (PAR) for KM research. It is argued, herein, that PAR holds the potential to simultaneously \"add value\" to both the academic and practical arenas.The argument is developed as follows. The scene is set by acknowledging that, in keeping with the general KM movement, there has been a noticeable shift from functionalist approaches to KM research, to ones that adopt a more interpretivist stance. Continuing with the use of sociological paradigms to frame the discussion, the oft-seen tension between functionalism and interpretivism in KM research is highlighted and a call for coherence between research strategy and its practice is made. A case study approach to research and PAR are next introduced as examples of approaches that are underpinned by the different paradigms. There is particular emphasis on PAR's client-researcher relationship and its intention to bring improvement to an organisational setting. Two KM research projects recently undertaken by the author are then used as vehicles to illustrate the functionalist-interpretivist divide. Each project is analysed with respect to five dimensions and in terms of its benefits for the organisation under study and, in turn, for KM practice. The analysis forms an empirical basis that shows how PAR could play an important role in tackling some of the acknowledged obstacles to effective KM practice and to furthering KM theory.This paper identifies common ground between the processes of KM and PAR and opens up the opportunity to suggest that they can inform each other; the emphasis herein is on the contribution of PAR practice to KM practice. However, the reciprocity between KM and PAR presents researchers and KM practitioners with a \"win-win\" situation; not only can researchers inform organisational KM practice in line with the thrust of the arguments presented here, and, in turn inform KM theory, but KM practitioners can also inform PAR activities and, in turn, contribute to the theory of research as shown in Figure 1.\n2. A move from functionalism to interpretivism: The sociological paradigms of Burrell and Morgan (1979) continue to provide a useful framework through which to explore and articulate our understanding of research. On the assumption that within the KM field, there is agreement about seeking to achieve a regulatory process of organisational change (rather than a radical process that emphasises anarchic responses) then it could be argued (through consideration of the nature of reality, ontological and epistemological assumptions, and the nature of human beings) that the dominant mindsets in KM are those expressed as \"functionalist\" and \"interpretivist\".Research in a functionalist paradigm would tend to be undertaken with a high level of objectivity akin to that with which researchers in the natural sciences operate. There would be an emphasis on quantitative methods and a determination to provide rigour and scientific validity. Research methods applied in this paradigm would tend to be highly structured and seek repeatability. On the other hand, in an interpretivist paradigm, research would tend to be undertaken in a more subjective manner analogous to the way in which social scientists operate. There would be an emphasis on qualitative methods and researchers would attempt to take account of the unpredictable nature of human beings while employing relevant methods for the unique scenarios in which they find themselves. Research methods utilised in the interpretivist paradigm tend to be less structured and focus more on inquiry rather than deduction and proof. While both paradigms call for critical thinking, one might envisage that researchers working in the functionalist paradigm are more active in hypothesis testing than those whose research is underpinned by the interpretivist paradigm and who are seeking to understand behaviour.In a review of the development of various disciplines, Ragsdell (2003) drew attention to the tendency for disciplines to adopt a functionalist stance in their early days, as more tangible aspects of the subject area are tackled. Once some of the \"harder\" issues have been dealt with - often with technological \"solutions\" - \"softer\" issues are given greater priority. These often bring greater challenges for practice since they generally involve social aspects; they also bring more messy topics for research. If research activities are to remain commensurable with the nature of the subject being researched and, thus, remain effective, it is suggested that a more interpretive stance towards research is called for as the discipline develops.Not too surprisingly, the shift from a functionalist perspective to a more interpretive one aligns with the emergence of new generations of KM that are more concerned with managing tacit, rather than explicit, knowledge and increasingly stress the notions of social interaction and learning, rather than the role of technology (e.g. McElroy, 2003; McDermott, 1999). So, one might expect to see a similar shift in the dominant stance adopted by KM researchers; likewise for KM practitioners, from an information technology (IT) paradigm to a humanistic one (Gloet and Berrell, 2003).This does not imply that an interpretivist approach to research in KM is superior or preferable to a functionalist one, or vice versa. Nor does it mean that the paradigms cannot be practised in a complementary manner. Rather, it is about maintaining the effectiveness of the research approach in the light of changing research agendas; it is therefore important that KM research does not become trapped in one paradigm or the other. Edwards' vision for the future of KM research and practice, based on a comprehensive survey of parties interested in KM, alluded to this potential dilemma. In Edwards et al. (2003, p. 59), he aired the following: \"...regarding research approaches and theories, my view is that for advancing the KM field we should be more open to different approaches and theories\".Hislop (2005, p. 14), in a similar kind of discussion, noted that:While the practice-based perspective, as will be seen, is founded on a critique of the objectivist perspective, the objectivist perspective has by no means been abandoned. In terms of contemporary knowledge management practice and analysis there is evidence that both perspectives are widely used.Moving between the paradigms, whatever language we use to express them, when appropriate, is the secret of effective research. Similarly for KM practice; locking an organisation's KM initiative into one paradigm or the other, runs the risk of overemphasising some aspects and neglecting others.But moving between paradigms is something that needs to be done consciously and conscientiously. There is evidence of, for example, researchers adopting a quantitative process of analysis to qualitative data and of them declaring their commitment to a particular methodology and then following another (see Kane et al., 2006 for detailed evidence). Equally, there is evidence of practitioners leading a purported \"people-centred\" KM strategy and then driving it with technology. While care is needed to avoid the fundamental isolationist and imperialistic traps as defined by Flood and Romm (1996), care is also needed so as to recognise when our movement between paradigms, during research and practice, creates tension in our ways of thinking about and managing knowledge. Not only is greater coherence between our \"espoused paradigm\" and our \"paradigm in use\" required at a strategic level but also at an operational level. The overarching paradigm of our research strategy and that of its practice should demonstrate commensurability.\n3. Approaches to research: While distinguishing between research approaches is not straightforward, a case study approach is now put forward as an example of a predominantly functionalist approach to research while PAR is given as an example of an interpretivist approach (as tabulated by Cornford and Smithson, 1996, p. 46). Although both of them encourage the use of a range of complementary data collection methods, there are distinct differences between the purposes of each approach and, in turn, between the researcher-stakeholder interactions.3.1 Case study approach\n4. Research projects: In this section, two KM research projects recently undertaken by the author are presented. As will be seen, the first was framed by a case study approach and upheld various functionalist characteristics while the second was embraced by a PAR strategy and reflected more of an interpretivist paradigm. Each project is analysed in terms of five selected dimensions and in relation to what benefits it brought for the organisation under study with respect to its KM practice.4.1 Research project I - case study\n5. The contribution of PAR to effective KM practice: The research projects described above were both research projects about KM. The former focussed on identifying inhibitors and enhancers to knowledge sharing while the latter was more concerned with understanding the application of tools for knowledge creation, capture, sharing and use. The benefits described for each project have arisen from the research approach that was adopted - similar benefits would probably have arisen regardless of the topic of the research. In this penultimate section, these benefits are related directly to the overcoming of obstacles encountered in the implementation of KM strategies and KM practices. Attention is drawn to the role that PAR could play in overcoming obstacles such as those associated with developing a KM culture and the barriers to knowledge sharing. These are well-recognised obstacles that have been the centre of debate for the last decade. The contribution that PAR could make in managing the relationship between KM and innovation is also introduced.5.1 Developing a KM culture\n6. Summary: This paper has contributed to the debate about effective KM research and practice by suggesting that a research strategy of PAR has the potential to assist organisations in overcoming some of the barriers to successful KM implementation. Two research projects based on KM, were used to demonstrate the benefits that a PAR approach can bring in comparison to the more traditional case study approach. PAR will bring benefits for effective KM regardless of the topic of organisational research. Parallels in the objectives of PAR and KM undoubtedly ensured complementarity between the approaches. PAR's characteristics of learning, empowerment, creativity and, of course, participation were seen to bring value to KM practice while the cultural dimension of KM sits comfortably with the PAR ethos.A decade ago, Ives, Torrey and Gordon, (1998, p. 273) said:... there are many different interpretations as to what Knowledge Management means and how to best address the emerging questions about how to effectively use its potential power. ... As industry experience is gained, and academics continue to research this field, there will be increased understanding, and in time - alignment. However, today, this is not the case.Perhaps PAR is the bridge between the academic and industrial arenas that will aid this alignment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an emerging debate centred on the ways in which knowledge management (KM) might be effectively researched and, in turn, how KM practice might be improved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Burrell and Morgan's paradigms are used to set the scene and to highlight the changing focus in three closely related areas - research per se, the KM movement and KM research. Albeit the changes are not occurring simultaneously, the general trend in these areas is similar i.e. there is a move from a functionalist stance to one based on interpretivism. Next, case study research and participatory action research (PAR) are introduced as examples of research approaches that, respectively, tend to reflect the functionalist and interpretivist paradigms. Then there is an analysis of a KM research project from each of these approaches. Each research project is analysed with respect to five dimensions and in terms of the benefits that the organisation gained for its KM practice. The analysis is used as a vehicle to propose that PAR makes a significant contribution in tackling some of the acknowledged obstacles to effective KM practice.\nFindings: - The characteristics of PAR would appear to complement KM activities. As such, PAR is put forward as a strategy for meaningfully researching KM while, simultaneously, improving KM practice.\nOriginality/value: - This paper accelerates discussion about how KM research is undertaken and demonstrates how the synergy between PAR and KM can be exploited for the benefit of KM researchers and practitioners.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employees of the future beware: How what is shared on social networks can affect job applications	[ "Employability", "Personnel selection", "Human resource management", "Social networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: Is the art of writing a good CV dying? Never has it been easier to bypass the traditional form of proving one's credentials for work, with the Internet fast-tracking all manner of ways to show how good any individual may be at their work. Videos can show in real time someone performing their job; references can be emailed in an instant; online sites can host qualifications and recommendations; and there are even virtual badges and other accreditations that can be pinned to the virtual chest of any applicant. Surely, employers have never had it so good when it comes to recruitment.\nPlus ca change ...: Indeed, when one thinks about it, there was a huge amount of judgment invited by a candidate by their choice of writing style and materials, and reciprocally there have been massive calls made by human resources (HR) managers based on non-factual aspects to an application. In the Internet age when so much information on an individual is available online, isn't it better to gather as many details as possible rather than leaving things to chance?\nThe usual suspects: At first, when we come to identify which SNs are used predominantly in employee selection, it will come as no surprise to learn that the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ feature prominently. But what firms are using which SN for what purpose? Early research of what is a relatively small and recent body of literature showed that there is considerable disagreement as to whether the use of SNs is appropriate. Putting the legal issues to one side, some researchers and CEOs have said that the increased data and talent pool that SNs can offer can lead to increased profitability as the chances of finding the right fit are increased. However, other commentators have disagreed and have gone as far as to say SNs should not be used at all in recruitment. Either way, studies show that around three quarters of firms use SNs, and of those nine in ten use LinkedIn, and over half use Facebook.\n\"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste ...\": Turning back to the study completed by Hoek et al. which was with 15 firms based in New Zealand, it found that nine of them used SNs as part of their recruitment, but just two did so officially, with seven preferring to use them \"under the radar\". And of the two that did use it officially, only one openly discussed this with candidates, as the other simply notified potential candidates that it used SNs during the recruitment process.\nComment: One of the frustrating aspects of academic research is the slowness with which it \"comes to market\", and the article \"Publishing personal information online: How employers access, observe and utilise social networking sites within selection procedures\" by Hoek et al. (2016) is a case in point. While much research in this important area has been completed, it is the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as this article shows. Such is the variety of use of SNs recruitment in modern day firms, there is a huge need for much more of this type of study to test and validate its use.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: Is the art of writing a good CV dying? Never has it been easier to bypass the traditional form of proving one's credentials for work, with the Internet fast-tracking all manner of ways to show how good any individual may be at their work. Videos can show in real time someone performing their job; references can be emailed in an instant; online sites can host qualifications and recommendations; and there are even virtual badges and other accreditations that can be pinned to the virtual chest of any applicant. Surely, employers have never had it so good when it comes to recruitment.\nPractical implications: This study provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory examination of knowledge- sharing behaviors: solicited and voluntary	[ "Knowledge management", "Technology led strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, the importance of knowledge management (KM) has been widely recognized, as the foundations of industrialized economies shifted from natural resources to intellectual assets. The importance of KM is no longer restricted to knowledge-intensive firms in the high-tech industries. As demonstrated by Zack (2003), even companies in traditional industries, such as cement, can benefit greatly from KM. In the research community, great advances have been achieved through conceptual and theoretical developments (e.g. Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Nonaka, 1994), as well as empirical studies on KM (e.g. Bock et al., 2005; Sabherwal and Becerra-Fernandez, 2003; Wasko and Faraj, 2005).A common concern for researchers interested in the organizational dimension of KM is knowledge sharing (KS), and this has received intensive attention in recent years. Researchers have studied KS effectiveness in knowledge networks (Hansen, 2002), the role of social capital in KS (Wasko and Faraj, 2005), the influence of KS on individual performance (Teigland and Wasko, 2003), effective knowledge flows (van Winkelen and McKenzie, 2007), and barriers to KS in organizations (Szulanski, 1996). A comprehensive model of intention formation in KS was proposed and tested by Bock et al. (2005). Such intensive attention to KS from researchers is understandable, since it is a critical link in the KM value chain: knowledge acquisition, storage, dissemination, and application. Without effective KS, this value chain will break down.Built on the existing research on the subject, this study attempts to enhance our understanding of KS through a new and expanded conceptualization of KS that has not been adequately discussed and examined in previous studies. This expanded KS conceptualization is based on the differentiation between two different forms of KS: solicited and voluntary KS behaviors.Different forms of knowledge-sharing behaviors\nResearch model and hypotheses: To address the research question, we developed a research model, as depicted in Figure 1, that consists of a number of research constructs related to work unit environments and KS behaviors.The theoretical basis for our research model is drawn from the social exchange theory (Clark and Mills, 1993; Kelley and Thibaut, 1978) and Leavitt (1965)'s framework for organizational change. According to the social exchange theory (Kelley and Thibaut, 1978), social reciprocity is required to effectively collaborate with other colleagues. Researchers (e.g. Alavi et al., 2006; Gold et al., 2001) have shown that cultural values are significantly related to effective knowledge transfer within an organization. Research on the implementation of information systems has conceptualized the process as organizational change (Keen, 1981), based on the Leavitt's (1965) four elements of an organization: people, task, structure, and technology, which need to be aligned and mutually adjusted during change. In a similar vein, for successful knowledge transfer in organizations, Argote and Ingram (2000) argued that people, technology, and tasks are the major influencing factors. With elements from both the social exchange and organizational change perspectives, our research model as shown in Figure 1 recognizes the complexity and multi-faceted nature of KS behavior in organizations, and attempts to explore how task, culture, technology, and KM processes may affect the two types of KS behavior: voluntary KS and solicited KS in work units. A recent study by Cabrera et al. (2006) on KS included a comprehensive list of psychological, organizational and system-related antecedents, but did not report their effects on different types of KS.Research hypotheses\nResearch methodology: To empirically test the proposed research model, the survey method was used. We developed the items in the questionnaire by adopting or adapting previously validated instruments. A pilot test was undertaken with 12 experienced knowledge workers, which resulted in the refinement of the questionnaire. The refined questionnaire was issued to MBA students enrolled in a major southern university's cohort-based program for working professionals, and a total of 149 useable responses were collected.Although all workers use knowledge to some extent, Drucker (1967) proposed the concept of knowledge workers. He contends that this new type of workers are different from production workers, in that they are capable of applying theoretical and analytical knowledge obtained through high levels of formal education and have a habit of continuous learning. Typically, these are managers and other professionals who play a key role in knowledge management (Choi and Lee, 2003). For the purpose of this study, we define knowledge workers as follows:In contrast to production workers who follow prescribed routine procedures in producing goods or services, knowledge workers such as researchers, engineers, analysts, consultants, and managers, etc. engage in non-routine problem solving activities with knowledge acquired through education and learning. While production workers primarily depends on raw data provided to them, knowledge workers need to acquire, analyze, and manipulate information for effective job performance.Sample characteristics\nDiscussions and limitations: As hypothesized, task characteristics of a work unit (i.e. task routineness) has significant influence on solicited KS (H1b supported), but not voluntary KS (H1a not supported). Solicited KS is an important part of normal job activities, and we can thus expect it to be related to task routineness. However, our findings suggest that task characteristics alone may not be sufficient in prompting people to voluntarily help others. Such motivation strongly depends on solidarity and open communication that permeate a work unit culture.We found that solidarity significantly influences voluntary KS intensity (H2a supported), but not solicited KS (H2b not supported). This finding is consistent with previous studies (e.g. Kelly and Jones, 2001), showing that feeling of solidarity promotes members proactively engaging in information processing activities. On the other hand, the contribution of solidarity to solicited KS (see Table I; correlation coefficient=0.22, p<0.01) is diminished when we also consider the influence of task, IT usage, and KM process. Compared to solicited KS, voluntary KS would depend more on shared objectives and experience that comes with solidarity, due to its being a pro-social behavior (Podsakoff et al., 2000) involving more social exchange (Kelley and Thibaut, 1978).Our results showed that open communication is significantly related to solicited KS (H3b supported). Interestingly, open communication is not related to voluntary KS (H3a not supported). The results suggest that high levels of open communication, which encourage collaboration and team learning, are critical in fostering more routine type of knowledge exchange through solicited KS (H1b supported). However, in order for employees to proactively engage in voluntary KS, we need more than open communication, such as solidarity and tacit-oriented KM processes.As hypothesized, IT usage is significantly related to both solicited and voluntary KS (H4a and H4b supported). This means that KM tools and technology for expressing ideas are essential to facilitate both forms of KS. However, we also found that this is perhaps more the case for solicited than voluntary KS, reminding us that we need more than technology in promoting voluntary KS which demands subtle cultural and organizational alignments. In addition, our results show that the extent of tacit-oriented KM processes in a work unit has significant influence on voluntary KS as well as solicited KS (both H5a and H5b supported), confirming previous study findings (e.g. Joshi et al., 2007) that personalized communications are strong predictors of effective KS. The relative sizes of the effects on voluntary and solicited KS, however, suggests the importance of tacit-oriented KM in moving toward a richer and more proactive KM environment permeated by voluntary KS.Finally, our hypothesis (H6) that more solicited knowledge sharing will lead to more voluntary sharing was empirically supported. The result implies that, when people routinely exchange knowledge over an extended period, we may expect them to build trusting relationships between each other, which in turn contributes to facilitating the willingness of sharing their expertise. Further, our finding is consistent with Dyer and Nobeoka's (2000) finding that Toyota's willingness to share its valuable knowledge is based on the reciprocal flow of knowledge within its network members.Limitations\nContributions and future studies: KS has been a major theme in recent KM studies (Bock et al., 2005; Wasko and Faraj, 2005), but previous studies have not systematically identified different forms of KS. To our knowledge, we are the first to differentiate between solicited and voluntary KS. With eight of the 11 separate hypotheses supported, we have demonstrated the empirical viability of a research model that link a comprehensive list of work unit environmental antecedent to not just one grossly defined KS, as in past studies, but two different types of KS: solicited and voluntary.In addition, we uncovered the unique role of voluntary sharing in KM that has rarely been discussed or examined before. Voluntary KS does seem to be a richer and more proactive form of KS. In contrast to solicited KS, voluntary KS may be facilitated less by task routineness, open communication, and IT usage, but more by culturally ingrained conditions such as solidarity and tacit-oriented KM. These promising results, we believe, have expanded the frontier of KS research. Future researchers may refine the measurement of the two types of KS and incorporate additional antecedent variables, such as trust, motivation for KS (Osterloh and Frey, 2000), and attributes of learning organizations (Garvin et al., 2008) to further expose the unique roles of solicited and voluntary KS in KM. Our study has revealed some interesting patterns of the two types of KS. These findings provide a good foundation for further inquiry. The next logical step would perhaps be to study the influence on the two types of KS from personality types, such as altruistic behavior, openness, and conscientiousness (Cabrera et al., 2006), so that we may develop richer and more complete understanding of knowledge sharing behaviors.The study, though preliminary in nature, does have interesting and potentially substantive implications for KM practice. First, as discussed earlier, KS has been commonly regarded as a singular concept. With the realization that voluntary sharing is a more proactive form of KS, KM practitioners may find it beneficial to monitor different forms of KS. Second, managers should not only understand the significant role of voluntary sharing, but also be aware of the role of solicited sharing. Organizations should stimulate and sustain both types of KS within and across key work units. Finally, KM practitioners should pay specific attention to cultivating a culture that builds trust among employees and recognizes them for taking initiatives. In general, organizations should not devote all attentions to the hardware/software technologies for KM (Hansen et al., 1999). There should be more emphasis on cultural change leading to extensive and proactive interactions among knowledge workers, which would provide more opportunities for them to help each other, possibly through voluntary KS. Through these various initiatives, an organization would increase the intensity of voluntary KS among its knowledge workers, which, in turn, should enhance the organization's ability to innovate and compete.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Knowledge sharing (KS) has been a central concern in knowledge management (KM) practice and research. However, KS has remained largely a simplistic concept. This study aims to differentiate between solicited KS and voluntary KS and also to attempt to examine the role of both types of KS in relation to task, culture, technology and KM processes at the work unit level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The survey method was used. The questionnaire was issued to MBA students enrolled in a major southern university's cohort-based program for working professionals, and a total of 149 usable responses were collected.\nFindings: - It was found that task routineness and open communication facilitate only solicited sharing behaviors, while perception of solidarity is significantly related to voluntary sharing behaviors. In addition, knowledge tools and tacit-oriented KM processes were found to play a significant role in both voluntary and solicited KS.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Exploratory analysis points to differentiated influence of these environmental conditions on the two KS types, suggesting further implications for research and practice. With the realization that voluntary sharing is a more proactive form of KS, KM practitioners may find it beneficial to monitor different forms of KS.\nOriginality/value: - While KS has been the focus of intensive research in recent years, the concept itself has remained surprisingly simplistic among researchers. This study differentiates between two forms of KS: solicited KS and voluntary KS.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Positive dissimilarity attitudes in multicultural organizations: The role of language diversity and communication frequency	[ "Diversity management", "International teams", "Multicultural organizations", "Dissimilarity attitudes", "Openness to diversity", "Communication", "Language" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As internationalization and cultural diversity in organizations around the world increases, so does the academic attention to this development. Multicultural groups have been found to both over-perform and under-perform in comparison to homogenous group (Perriton, 2009). Therefore, academics and practitioners have been especially interested in the facilitation of well-functioning international groups (van Knippenberg et al., 2004). As part of this endeavor, a number of researchers have recently focused on group members' attitudes towards each other (Homan et al., 2007; McKay et al., 2009). So far, the findings have been promising. Positive dissimilarity attitudes, such as openness to diverse others, have been found to produce improvement to organizational outcomes such as performance, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, satisfaction with managers, career commitment, and career satisfaction (Hickes-Clarke and Iles, 2000; McKay et al., 2008).Although outcomes of positive dissimilarity attitudes seem to be well accounted for in current research, findings are less conclusive in regard to antecedents for these positive attitudes. A number of individual level demographic factors have been examined. Results of these studies are contradictory and inconclusive and more research is needed (Strauss and Connerley, 2003).Communication is known to be essential to all group processes (see Reed, 2010; Taylor and Van Every, 2000). Organizational management and collaboration processes simply cannot take place without communication (Taylor and Cooren, 1997). Unfortunately good communication is not always easily achieved. This is especially so in multicultural organizations where variations in behavioral patterns and means to communicate could cause conflicts and misunderstandings. While the use of language is an under-research theme in business and management studies the significance of language in international and multicultural organizations is beyond doubt. Language differences have been found to cause dysfunctional group formations, social fragmentation and to lower the rhetorical capacities of individuals in diverse settings (Feely and Harzing, 2003). Hence, the question: \"When communication and language diversity have such a great impact on international groups' functioning how do they affect group members' internal attitudes towards each other?\"There are several reasons for the value of answering this question. First, due to evolving globalization the management of intercultural communication and language diversity as well as attitudes to demographic dissimilarities is of growing importance in organizations and societies alike. Second, there exist very few studies on communication and language use in multicultural organization (e.g. Henderson, 2005) and hardly any that are large scale studies. Third, while diverse group members' view on each other is attracting growing attention from academic and practitioners we still need to identify antecedents of positive dissimilarity attitudes (Richard et al., 2004). This is necessary in order to design management interventions that could assist in developing satisfied and high performing international work teams.The remainder of the paper first presents the theoretical background and the conceptual parts of this investigation; language diversity, communication frequency, and positive dissimilarity attitudes. This is succeeded by generation of the hypotheses to be tested. The method section delineates the target group, the sample and measures applied. Results are displayed and subsequently discussed in terms of main findings, limitations, and implications.\nConceptualizations and theory: Language diversity most often refers to the presence of a multitude of speakers of different national languages in the same work group (Henderson, 2005). Concurrently, we define language diversity as associated with the number of languages spoken in the group (Feely and Harzing, 2003). Communication is defined as a process in which group members share and create information in order to reach a mutual understanding. Through frequent communication, they develop and organize common definitions of situations and build consensus (Bisel, 2010). Communication frequency is defined as the number of times information is exchanged between organization members over a period of time (Fisher et al., 1997).Managing communication in multilingual organizations is most often a more complex task compared to companies employing only one nationality - or speech community. In addition, suspicion and conflict may arise as a result of communication difficulties in diverse organizations (Distefano and Maznevski, 2000). Barriers to communication in cultural diverse groups have been claimed to lead to absenteeism, low morale, and loss of competitiveness, as well as distrust, discord, and lack of market orientation and customer focus (O'Reilly et al., 1989; O'Reilly and Flatt, 1989; Steiner, 1972; Wagner and Pfeffer, 1984).Attitudes of awareness and acceptance of both similarities and dissimilarities that exist among people combines to make up an open diversity climate in which individuals respect the views of those who are different (Shrivastava and Gregory, 2009). In accordance with Hobman et al. (2004) we measure positive dissimilarity attitudes on the basis of group members' rating of internal openness to diversity. We examine openness to diversity on the following dimensions: linguistic, visible, value, and informational diversity.Linguistic diversity is one of the dimensions of group heterogeneity that have received the least attention from the academic community. Linguistic diversity represents the communicative dimension of dissimilarity (Jonsen et al., 2011). When individuals are open to linguistic diversity, they are accepting of each other's varying language proficiency, vocabulary, and accents.Visible diversity is often understood as overt, biological attributes which are immediately observable and provide strong bases for social categorization (see Jackson et al., 1993; Timmerman, 2000). As such, it is representative of the surface-level of demographic heterogeneity (Harrison et al., 1998). When individuals are open to visible diversity, they show no discriminatory attitudes towards those who look different, e.g. are of a different gender, race, or age group.Value diversity relates to the way in which individuals approach the different beliefs and perspectives among group members. It is thus a deep-level type of diversity (Tyran and Gibson, 2008). Openness to other individuals' different values is tolerance for differences in opinions, world view, and cultural behaviours.Informational diversity represents the variations in knowledge that are often described as the true value of diversity (Ely and Thomas, 2001). When individuals show openness to informational diversity, they are inclusive of different information and different sources of knowledge available within the group (Homan et al., 2007).We generally argue that a higher frequency of interaction will improve the diversity attitudes in multicultural organizations. This we base on the contact hypothesis which suggests that the more contact a person has with dissimilar others, the more positive his or her attitudes will be towards such persons (Amir, 1969). Put differently, intergroup contact will reduce intergroup prejudice. On the other hand, Social Categorization Theory (SCT) predicts that individuals will try to maintain a positive self-perception by being surrounded with similar peers (Goldberg, 2003). Hence, individuals define themselves in terms of group membership that can be based on similarities in demographic characteristics. It is argued that particularly salient attributes such as language use can trigger stronger group categorizations (Giles and Byrnes, 1982). SCT suggests that an individual's preference for positive social self-evaluation stimulates an unconscious tendency to sort others into social categories that are seen in a more negative light than the in-group (Vora and Kostova, 2007).\nHypotheses: Language diversity\nMethod: Target population and collection of data\nResults: Sample means, standard deviations and zero-order Pearson correlations for all variables are provided in Table II. One-sample t-tests showed that the mean scores for all the variables depicting openness to diversity; perceived openness to linguistic diversity (t=51.26, p<0.001), perceived openness to visible diversity (t=39.52, p<0.001), perceived openness to value diversity (t=26.73, p<0.001), and perceived openness to informational diversity (t=39.12, p<0.001) were all significantly higher than the midpoint of their respective scales. This indicates that the respondent generally felt the departmental members were open to linguistic, visible, value and informational diversity. The significant associations between \"size of department\" and all of the four dependent variables; perceived openness to linguistic diversity (r=0.20, p<0.01), perceived openness to visible diversity (r=0.23, p<0.001), perceived openness to value diversity (r=0.24, p<0.001), and perceived openness to informational diversity (r=0.30, p<0.001) indicate the need to make use of this variable for control purposes in the regression analysis.The hypotheses were formally tested by way of hierarchical multiple regression (Table III). The control variable, \"size of department\" was entered in Step 1 producing a significant association with all of the criterion variables. There was a positive relationship between \"size of department\" and \"perceived openness to linguistic diversity\" (beta=0.12; p<0.05), \"perceived openness to visible diversity\" (beta=0.17; p<0.001), \"perceived openness to value diversity\" (beta=0.19; p<0.001), and \"perceived openness to informational diversity\" (beta=0.23; p<0.001). In Step 2, the two predictor variables were entered. \"Number of languages spoken\" had a positive association with \"perceived openness to linguistic diversity\" (beta=0.22; p<0.001), \"perceived openness to visible diversity\" (beta=0.10; p<0.05), \"perceived openness to value diversity\" (beta=0.14; p<0.01), and \"perceived openness to informational diversity\" (beta=0.11; p<0.05). \"Daily job contacts\" had a positive relationship with \"openness to linguistic diversity\" (beta=0.22; p<0.001), \"openness to visible diversity\" (beta=0.18; p<0.001), and \"perceived openness to informational diversity\" (beta=0.19; p<0.001). All F values for the control and predictor variables were statistically significant, indicating a proper fit between the regression model and the data. These results provide support for H2a, H2b, and H2d. There was no support for H2c while H1a, H1b, H1c, and H1d were rejected[1].\nDiscussion: Main findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to contribute to the field of diversity studies with novel insights on how language diversity and communication frequency influence dissimilarity attitudes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors examine language diversity and communication frequency as group-level antecedents for positive dissimilarity attitudes by use of questionnaire responses from 489 members of academic culturally diverse departments.\nFindings: - The results showed that communication frequency has strong positive relationships with three variables depicting positive dissimilarity attitudes, namely openness to linguistic, visible and informational diversity. Contradicting our predictions, language diversity had positive associations with all variables portraying positive dissimilarity attitudes. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail.\nOriginality/value: - Few prior studies have dealt with the relations between language, communication and dissimilarity attitudes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impact of information security initiatives on supply chain performance: An empirical investigation	[ "Information security", "Empirical survey", "Structural equation modeling", "Supply chain operations", "Supply chain performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the post-industrial period since the early-1980s, there have been drastic changes in the business environment due to the unprecedented development of information systems. It has become all-pervasive in almost all the industries (Kankanhalli et al., 2003; Chang and Ho, 2006; Knapp et al., 2006; Werlinger et al., 2009). Because organizations rely more and more on information systems to perform most of their business operations, concerns about controlling and securing information has become paramount. One of the biggest challenges that today's businesses face is regarding the security of information arising from various sources and in varied forms. This threat to information security is a by-product of the unparalleled confidence and trust on information technology systems to realize the business goals. Increased organizational dependence on information systems has led to a proportional increase in the impact on the organization of compromised information security (Kankanhalli et al., 2003). It was reported by the Ernst and Young Survey (2008) that a growing number of organizations have begun to understand the importance of information security and recognize the nexus between security and a strong brand and reputation. In addition, Brotby (2009) reported that nearly two-thirds of the breaches are underreported due to management's fear of adverse publicity and the fact that the size of losses may scare other stakeholders. In an inter-organizational or a supply chain perspective, the information that an organization exchanges with its trading partners is among the most important of its assets. This calls for secured communication and information sharing and demands the streamlining of information flows. In this context, information security is a critical issue that has attracted the attention of the communities of research and practice.\nLiterature review: Literature on security is widely spread across various streams like information systems, information technology, organizational security, supply chain security and information security. The following section briefly discusses a selection of previous studies relating to information security.\nResearch objectives: As evident from the above review, information security clearly encompasses information security standards, procedures and practices, culture, policy, awareness creation, various organizational factors, etc. from within and across organizations. A careful look at most of the studies in the area of information security (Kankanhalli et al., 2003; Karyda et al., 2005; Chang and Ho, 2006; Ma et al., 2008; Werlinger et al., 2009) makes it evident that a number of studies have been done within an organizational setting. However, most of the conceptual studies (Sarathy, 2006; Michelberger and Labodi, 2009; Voss et al., 2008) suggested for extending the scope to consider the environment external to the organization, as in supply chain.\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses development: The theoretical support for the research framework is based on the Integrated System Theory of Information Security proposed by Hong et al. (2003), Resource Dependency Theory (RDT), proposed by Pfeffer and Salancik (1978), and Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) Framework by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990).\nResearch methodology: Unit of analysis\nResults and discussion of structural model and hypotheses testing: After the measurement model, structural model was developed and structural equation modeling techniques (SEM) were used to test the hypotheses. The structural model of the research framework is presented in Figure 2. The model fit measures for the model are: GFI = 0.869, AGFI = 0.824, NFI = 0.846, CFI = 0.915, RMSR = 0.02 and RMSEA = 0.072. GFI and AGFI values were found to be above the acceptable value of 0.8. RMSR was found to be below the recommended value of 0.05. RMSEA was also found to be below the recommended value of 0.08. These fit indices indicated a good fit of the model to the data.\nFuture scope, summary and conclusion: Although the current research made significant contributions for communities of research and practice, it has some limitations. Small sample size may be considered as a limitation of this study. Larger sample size may yield more valid results. Respondents of this study had varying levels of knowledge about information security practices and supply chain. These differences in their experience and years worked in the current organization were not considered during the data analysis. These variables may have an impact on their perception of information security practices in the supply chain. Organization size, level of investment on IT, organization structure, technical complexity, etc. may have an impact on the relationships defined in this study. These variables were not considered in this study. This study considered only original equipment manufacturer (OEM), tier 1 and tier 2 members of the supply chain. Considering the peripheral tiers may impact on the relationships developed in the current study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this empirical research is to attempt to explore the effect of information security initiatives (ISI) on supply chain performance, considering various intra- and inter-organization information security aspects that are deemed to have an influence on supply chain operations and performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on extant information security management and supply chain security management literature, a conceptual model was developed and validated. A questionnaire survey instrument was developed and administered among supply chain managers to collect data. Data were collected from 197 organizations belonging to various sectors. The study used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for data analysis. Further, to test the hypotheses and to fit the theoretical model, structural equation modeling techniques were used.\nFindings: Results of this study indicate that ISI, comprising technical, formal and informal security aspects in an intra- and inter-organizational environment, are positively associated with supply chain operations, which, in turn, positively affects supply chain performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study provides the foundation for future research in the management of information security in supply chains. Findings are expected to provide the communities of practice with better information security decision-making in a supply chain context, by clearly formulating technical, formal and informal information security policies for improving supply chain performance.\nOriginality/value: In today's global supply chain environment where competition prevails among supply chains, this research is relevant in terms of capability that an organization has to acquire for managing internal and external information security. In that sense, this study contributes to the body of knowledge with an empirical analysis of organizations' information security management initiatives as a blend of technical, formal and informal security aspects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Persuasiveness of anti-smoking messages: self-construal and message focus	[ "Health promotion", "Smoking prevention", "Tobacco prevention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Smoking is a leading cause of premature death. According to the World Health Organization (2013), each year smoking led to nearly six million deaths and half a trillion economic damage worldwide. In the USA, cigarette smoking was responsible for 480,000 deaths annually and more than $156 billion economic cost in lost productivity as a result of secondhand smoke and premature death (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).\nStudy one: Methods\nStudy 2: Methods\nDiscussion: Through two studies we examined the impact of matching (vs mismatching) non-smokers' self-construal with anti-smoking message focus on anti-smoking message persuasiveness. In Study 1, by measuring participants' chronic self-construal, we observed that those with a dominant independent self-construal reported greater perceived argument strength for the message emphasizing relational (vs personal) consequences of smoking; on the other hand, participants with a dominant interdependent self-construal found the message emphasizing personal (vs relational) consequences of smoking to have greater argument strength. However, the interaction between message focus and self-construal was weak. In Study 2, we primed participants' independent or interdependent self-construal. We found that individuals primed with an independent self-construal reported greater intentions to help friends stay away from smoking after being presented with a message focusing on relational (vs personal) consequences of smoking. In contrast, individuals primed with an interdependent self-construal showed greater intentions to help friends stay away from smoking after being presented with a message focusing on personal (vs relational) consequences of smoking.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of independent vs interdependent self-construal in non-smokers' responses to an anti-smoking message that focuses on either personal or relational consequences of smoking.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two web-based experimental studies were conducted among US college non-smokers. In the first study, participants' self-construal was measured. Then participants were randomly assigned to view an anti-smoking message emphasizing either relational or personal consequences of smoking. Message evaluation, smoking attitudes, and behavioral intentions were assessed after message exposure. The second study followed the same procedure except that participants' self-construal was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to an independent or interdependent self-construal priming task prior to message exposure.\nFindings: Both studies showed a noticeable pattern of interaction between message focus and self-construal: non-smokers with a salient interdependent self-construal responded more favorably to an anti-smoking message emphasizing personal (vs relational) consequences of smoking whereas non-smokers with a salient independent self-construal responded more favorably to an anti-smoking message emphasizing relational (vs personal) consequences of smoking. However, the interaction effect was small in the first study.\nOriginality/value: Findings from this study are original in that they run counter to the general belief that messages matching people's self-perceptions will be more persuasive. On the other hand, matching health risk messages with people's dominant self-construal may reduce the messages effectiveness due to defensive processing. As a result, communication practitioners should take a great caution of tailoring threatening smoking prevention messages to target audiences' self-perceptions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of the key influencing factors of haze information dissemination behavior and motivation in WeChat	[ "Emergency management", "Structural equation model", "Social network", "Information dissemination behavior", "Information dissemination motivation", "Instant messaging" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social media has dramatically revolutionized the way people communicate with others (He et al., 2013; Zou et al., 2015). Instant messaging (IM) is a social media tool offering real-time text, picture and voice transmission over the internet. As an effective and efficient communication tool, IM has gained popularity during the past few years. Especially, IM is attractive to younger generations because it allows them to instantly obtain and share information with their online \"buddies\" (Correa et al., 2010).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Information communication model\n3. Research model and methodology: 3.1 Research model and sample\n4. Results and analysis: The structural equation model uses a two-step method. A confirmatory factor analysis was first conducted to assess the measurement model in terms of reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of all constructs. Then, hypotheses were tested utilizing a SEM approach. Many computer software systems, such as AMOS, EQS and LISREL, have been developed (Jyh-Bin and Shen-Fen, 2008) to test SEM. The SPSS AMOS version 21 was used in this paper.\n5. Conclusion and discussion: This study contributes to the literature on examining factors affecting the haze information transmission in WeChat. A framework was proposed to describe the information dissemination process which comprises information source, information and information receiver (Zhang et al., 2016). Along with the framework, a structural equation model was developed to investigate how WeChat users' intention to spread the haze information are affected by five factors in terms of information CR, information ET, SE, SM and EM. Three hypotheses are supported, and two hypotheses are not supported in our data analysis. Particularly, SM is the main factor which significantly affects WeChat users' willingness to spread the haze information. Additionally, information source credibility and EM also positively influence WeChat users' willingness to spread the haze information. Furthermore, SM and EM have a correlated relationship.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: With the development of mobile internet, instant messaging (IM) applications have gradually changed the way to receive information and communicate with friends. Considered as one of the important social media platforms, WeChat is the most popular IM application in China. This paper aims to examine the influence factors of haze information's dissemination in WeChat.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the theory of information dissemination and the theory of motivation, three information dissemination elements including information source, information and information receiver were proposed in the structural equation model. The model was tested using data collected from both online and offline questionnaire survey results. The data analysis from 170 valid responses confirmed the path effects that emotional motivation, social motivation of information receiver and the credibility of information source positively influenced WeChat users' re-transmission intention and information emotional tendency negatively influenced their re-transmission intention.\nFindings: The research model revealed these key factors that affected dissemination of haze information in WeChat. More importantly, it provided a decision-making framework to release the public emergency information in WeChat. Hence, the paper made an important contribution to practical guidance to relevant decision makers.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature on examining factors affecting the haze information transmission in WeChat. A framework was proposed to describe the information dissemination process which comprises information source, information and information receiver.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social media influence on the B2B buying process	[ "B2B", "Social media", "Business-to-business marketing", "Buying centre", "OBB", "Organizational buying process" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The vast amount of literature on social media (SM) focuses on business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Berthon et al., 2012; Kohli et al., 2015; Laroche et al., 2013; Gefen and Straub, 2004), whereas business-to-business (B2B) organizations and their use of SM receive comparatively little attention (Jarvinen et al., 2012; Jussila et al., 2011; Rapp et al., 2013; Michaelidou et al., 2011). This is perhaps not surprising, as despite initial investigations into SM's usefulness for B2B, the actual usage is relatively low. For instance, only 15 per cent of Finnish companies in technology industries considered the development of a SM strategy toward their customers (Keinanen and Kuivalainen, 2015). Although the top three social networking sites for B2B employees are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (Nanji, 2017), nearly half of all companies do not provide any financial support for SM in their marketing budget (Michaelidou et al., 2011) despite their potential impact. For instance, IBM's security business has roughly 23,000 followers on LinkedIn which raises awareness and allows the firm to collect useful feedback through the volume of \"likes\" and comments. Maersk Line has 1.1 million followers on Facebook, where the firm publishes captains' blogs and stories about people and other issues at a fraction of the cost of advertising. Useful content distributed by IBM and Maersk, for example, show that it can be distributed through digital channels and can be as effective as face-to-face selling (Kovac, 2016). Nonetheless, the widespread adoption of SM in B2B is impeded by a lack of executive support (Keinanen and Kuivalainen, 2015), continued skepticism about how SM can assist the selling function (Agnihotri et al., 2012) and generally a low level of preparedness for how digital marketing and sales channels can significantly change customer behavior (Kovac, 2016).\nBusiness-to-business social media: SM is made up of both the platforms (i.e. that contain knowledge stocks) and the content disseminated through interactions between individuals and organizations (i.e. knowledge flows) (Kietzmann et al., 2011), leading to a state where \"we are all connected\" (Hanna et al., 2011, p. 265). In a B2C context, this has meant a new relationship between organizations and their customers, one where firms, individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss and often modify user-generated content. Eight years ago, Kietzmann et al., introduced an SM honeycomb, as shown in Figures 1 and 2, consisting of seven functional building blocks of SM (i.e. identity, conversations, sharing, presence relationships, reputation and groups) and the fundamental implications that each block presents to B2C firms. Although B2C and B2B vary in fundamental ways, this framework is also useful for explaining the functional traits of different SM activities to B2B executives.\nOrganizational buying process: As illustrated above, SM has a host of advantages and potential roles in a B2B environment. In this section, we focus on the usefulness of SM for organizational buying, a particularly important B2B function. Organizational buying is a decision-making process carried out by individuals, in interaction with other people, in the context of a formal organization (Webster and Wind, 1972). Organizational factors cause individual decision-makers to act differently than they would if they were functioning alone, or in a different organization. Organizational buyer behavior (OBB) is motivated and directed by an organization's goals and is constrained by its financial, technological and human resources. Therefore, the buying process within a B2B organization and its related tasks are conducted and also influenced in a different manner, from those in a B2C organization. Fundamentally, there are three main elements that shape the organizational buying decision process: first, the specific tasks at each stage of the process; second, the roles of the individuals involved in this process; and third, the type of decision-making adopted by these individuals within their organizations. We will be focusing on the roles within the buying center. The different roles that individuals may play in various steps of the organizational buying process may result in a conflict between individuals, which, as Sheth (1973) argues, is prevalent in most joint decisions. This also demonstrates the importance of influence between the parties involved.\nOrganizational buying process and social media: A set of stages can define the specific tasks that must be performed to solve a buying problem. However, there are a few different schools of thought regarding the number of stages. A few authors have suggested four stages (Webster, 1965; Hillier, 1975; Laczniak, 1979; Naumann et al., 1984; McQuiston and Dickson, 1991; Laios and Xideas, 1994; Xideas and Moschuris, 1998), whereas another group of authors have taken a six-stage approach (McQuiston, 1989; Ghingold and Wilson, 1998; Dadzie et al., 1999). There are also studies with 7 stages (Kennedy, 1983; Lilien and Wong, 1984), 8 stages (Tanner, 1998), 9 stages (Bellizzi, 1981) and 12 stages (Wind, 1978). We will be studying the five-stage model defined by Webster and Wind (1972) and later by Garrido-Samaniego. and Gutierrez-Cillan (2004) in the buying decision process. The main reason for choosing this model, besides its simplicity, was that its five stages were common with the models in other studies which had five or more stages. These five phases as defined by Webster and Wind (1972) are identification of need, establishment of specification, identification of alternatives, evaluation of alternatives and selection of suppliers.\nIdentification of needs: The likelihood of SM use during this step is rather low. Nevertheless, individuals who make use of SM for private purposes are more likely to use SM for work purposes. This is because in B2B markets, corporate culture plays a major role on the adoption and use of SM for work. If the general perception is that corporate culture views the use of SM as important, then a person is more likely to make use of SM (Keinanen and Kuivalainen, 2015). The three roles that play major roles in the first step of OBB are those of the users, buyers and gatekeepers. Users, as the individuals directly affected by the need that is satisfied by the purchase of a service or product, are typically the ones who initiate the communication process with the buyer once specific needs are identified. This step is mostly an internal process within the organization, where SM can be used for internal communications. The three SM functional blocks can be used in this process. Buyers and users establish their profile as their identity. Conversations on SM between users and buyers take place to establish a need and initiating this process. Information and data sharing can be used to identify the users' needs. Although other SM building blocks such as presence, reputation and groups could be used, it is unlikely that they would normally be needed during this step of the buying process. However, external relationships in certain instances can be a source of initiating \"Identification of Needs\" by creating awareness and bringing the need to the buyers' attention. In this case, buyers will become aware of a solution that might be a possible buy scenario, through their SM relationships, that they were not initially aware of. This possibility could potentially be enhanced further by a greater presence on SM. The emergence of social buying has led to the formation of two segments of B2B buyers: traditional buyers and social buyers who rely extensively on SM and online communities (e.g. IT Knowledge Exchange) during the purchase process (Grewal et al., 2015).\nEstablishment of specifications: After the need is identified and subsequently it has been established that a purchase is necessary, the buyer works with the users and, if needed, engineers and other specialists to define the exact specifications and requirements. This process is usually an internal process as the discussions are being conducted within the organization's buying center. However, there could be instances where external sources may influence the process. For example, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals and restriction of hazardous substances standards for hazardous substances pose new, costly challenges that require buyers to carefully vet, document and monitor global networks of suppliers, to an unprecedented degree (Grewal et al., 2015). These influences usually lead to a quest for obtaining additional knowledge about the product or service, which could be acquired through one or more SM platforms, and includes suppliers and consultants. The use of SM during this stage is typically quite extensive, given that the perceived risk faced by the buying decision-maker could be significant.\nIdentification of alternatives: Most of the processes up to this step have been internal by nature, with an occasional external approach. The identification of alternatives consists of a step in which the external aspects of SM play a significant role in the decision-making process. This step is very important for the buyer to be able to gather information regarding the product or service they desire to purchase. Before the advent of SM, the buyer was limited in choice and awareness of solutions, to those that they would personally hear about, come across while browsing journals or visiting trade shows, which they ultimately had to pursue by first contacting the relevant supplier and ask for salespersons to call and arrange for an in-person demonstration. However, today, the buyer can easily search for, find and extract information from a multitude of sources on the internet, and he/she is not bound by limitations such as geographical distance or budget. In the industrial selling context, buyers are using SM for their purchases as they compare products, research the market and build relationships with salespeople (Itani et al., 2017). SM can be used to qualify leads early in the sales cycle by researching the profile of the ideal target prospect (Shih, 2009).\nEvaluation of alternatives: This is the process where suppliers would have submitted their respective packages to the buyer for review. Packages are usually submitted on a timeline which starts the evaluation process. The buyer and users review the packages and compare their required specifications to the respective packages. Both buyers and users and possibly other observers can benefit significantly from SM platforms by reviewing customer reviews and available data, for their own evaluation. During this process, influencers can play a vital role as they attempt to sway both evaluations and potential outcome.\nConclusion: social media in business-to-business: The economic power of B2B transactions has not been reflected in terms of published research in marketing journals, and the relevance that these publications have for practitioners has been questioned over the past 20 years (Cortez and Johnston, 2017).\nFuture research: As for the future research, the scope of this article is to pave the way for additional in-depth research into the level of influence exerted by each SM dimension, on the associated buying stage, and how each dimension can be used to maximize the level of influence to the organizations' ultimate advantage from both the sellers' and the buyers' perspectives. There has not been much theoretical research regarding B2B organizations and the influence that SM can have on their buying and selling behaviors. Indeed, Gummesson (2014, p. 260) has come forward with his criticism toward B2B marketing theory, or rather the lack of it, by highlighting the fact that most companies have been successful without any significant academic input. We recommend both conceptual and empirical studies regarding B2B organizations and the influence of SM in the buying process, focusing on the buying center.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore if and how business-to-business (B2B) companies can use social media to influence the buying process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses an exploratory approach into the existing literature related to the B2B buying process and its relationship with social media.\nFindings: The study shows that companies in a B2B context can use social media as a means of influencing the stages of the buying process by means of using one or more of the seven functional blocks of social media.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings demonstrate the relation that exists between each stage of the buyer process in a B2B organization and the functional blocks of social media. This study opens the door for further research into the influence of each of these blocks on the buying process stages and the roles involved.\nPractical implications: This study identifies how social media's blocks influence the different stages and how organizations can use that to their benefit.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have investigated the use of social media in a B2B context. However, not many have looked into the influence of social media in the B2B buying process and buying center. This study looks into the relationship between the buying process stages and social media's functional blocks as related to the different roles of the buying center.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Browsing behaviour as a mediator: the impact of multi-sensory cues on purchasing	[ "Atmospherics", "Consumer behaviour", "Browsing behaviour", "Cues", "Retailing", "Senses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In-store retail environments have been shown to influence various aspects of consumer shopping behaviours (Donovan et al., 1994; Turley and Milliman, 2000). Retailers have used this notion to facilitate consumer purchasing when browsing products (Turley and Chebat, 2002).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Sensory cues in the context of a retail store\nStudy 1: Method\nResults: Manipulation check\nStudy 2: Method\nGeneral discussion: The results of this study show that multi-sensory cues influence several aspects of consumer behaviours. In Study 1, H1-H4 show that almost all cues (auditory, olfactory and multi-sensory), except the visual ones have a positive impact on browsing. Following the reasoning of Macpherson (2010), Spence et al. (2014), Helmefalk and Hulten (2017), Vannini et al. (2013) and Lindstrom (2005), it can be argued that visual cues in a highly visual setting (lighting department) did not contribute any novel input for consumers to browse more. This can be somewhat compared to the optimal level of stimulation, as vision was overloaded (Jang et al., 2018). Among the other significant results, it was evident that effects from the multi-sensory design (H4), had the most impact on browsing behaviour. The multi-sensory condition made consumers browse 32.88 s longer than in the control group, and 7.14 s longer than in the music condition. The results show the multi-sensory modified setting as being the most effective in influencing consumer behaviour, in terms of browsing.\nConclusion: This study examined how multi-sensory cues, when retail store-congruent, influence browsing behaviour, as well as the subsequent effect on purchasing. The study evidences the mediating effects of browsing behaviour on the relationship between multi-sensory cues and purchasing. More specifically, the findings show that congruent multi-sensory cues in a furnishing retail atmosphere influence consumer browsing behaviour, which mediate the impact on purchasing. Browsing behaviour is hence shown to be an important indicator in examining the effect of multi-sensory cues on consumers.\nTheoretical and managerial implications: The findings of this study contribute to the field of consumer behaviour, sensory marketing and retailing research, showing how congruent cues, when in interplay, can influence purchasing via browsing behaviour, complementing the research of Spence et al. (2014) and Babin et al. (2004). Furthermore, the present study contributes with respect to the evident linkage between multi-sensory cues, browsing behaviour and purchasing, which accordingly has novel theoretical implications for sensory marketing theory (Spence et al., 2014), holistic effects in retailing (Ballantine et al., 2015) and browsing behaviour as a concept (Bloch and Richins, 1983). The present study illustrates how cues can be analysed effectively and the importance of understanding the vast potential impact of multi-sensory cues in retail atmospheres. For an atmosphere to be stimulating and engaging, cues need to be congruent, both with the merchandise, store image, as well as with each other, similar to the suggestions of Helmefalk (2016). Moreover, the relevance of browsing behaviour is clearly supported by the current findings. This paper contributes an alternative view of measuring browsing behaviour and reveals the link between browsing and purchasing, as discussed in Beatty and Ferrell (1998), Cox et al. (2005) and Ballantine et al. (2015). Together, these findings open up new research avenues, with regard to investigating the moderating effects on these linkages.\nLimitations and further research: First, being limited to multi-sensory cues in interplay as one independent variable, this study neither investigates nor explains the interactions between individual cues, as to the number of required treatment groups.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine how multi-sensory cues, when store-congruent, influence consumer browsing behaviour and its subsequent effect on purchasing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two studies were used with a field experimental design in a furnishing retail store to examine browsing behaviour and purchasing in a visual, auditory, olfactory and a multi-sensory treatment group. Data were gathered over 12 weeks. This study was a set of studies comprising my dissertation thesis (Helmefalk, 2017).\nFindings: Findings show that multi-sensory cues in a retail atmosphere are evidently influencing purchasing via browsing behaviour as a mediator.\nOriginality/value: The findings evidence browsing behaviour as a mediator and predictor for purchasing, which emphasizes its conceptual and empirical contribution in terms of modifying retail atmospheres. The work contributes to the field of retailing, sensory marketing and consumer behaviour, a novel view on the linkages between multi-sensory cues, browsing behaviour and purchasing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Health information seeking of low socioeconomic status Hispanic adults using smartphones	[ "Smartphones", "Health information seeking", "Hispanics", "MHealth", "Mobile context" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Hispanic population, the largest and growing minority in the USA (US Census Bureau, 2012), is an underserved group in terms of access to healthcare resources. They have lower health insurance coverage rates (US Census Bureau, 2012), lower screening rates (Balluz et al., 2004; Vega et al., 2009), and fewer referrals for necessary medical procedures (Vega et al., 2009), compared to other ethnic groups. They also suffered disparities in information access, facing significant challenges in accessing the internet for reasons ranging from finance, geographical location, language, culture, and computer literacy (Lopez et al., 2011; Lorence et al., 2006). The lack of access to the internet, and subsequently online health information could lead to unequal opportunities to benefit from available health information, and result in more difficulties in patient-provider communication, decision making, and self-care and self-management (Muha et al., 1998; Stevens et al., 1997). These disadvantages can further contribute to enlarge health disparities for this group, particularly those with an annual income less than $30,000 (Lorence et al., 2006).\n2. Literature review: Corresponding to our research goals, we will review the literature in three areas: the characteristics of smartphones that affect their adoption, their usage context, and barriers to use then for health information.\n3. Conceptual frameworks and research questions: The conceptual framework that guides our inquiry (shown in Figure 1) was informed by three theoretical perspectives: the comprehensive model of information seeking (CMIS) (Johnson, 1997), Wilson's information seeking model (Wilson, 1999, 2006), and a mobile context models in context-aware mobile computing (Dey and Abowd, 1999; Ryan et al., 1997; Schilit and Theimer, 1994).\n4. Research method: Because of the exploratory nature of the study and a lack of prior research on this subject, the semi-structured interview method was adopted, in which we asked participants to describe their experiences of using smartphones for health information as well as reasons for such usage.\n5. Results: 5.1. Characteristics of participants\n6. Discussion: This qualitative study explored the use of smartphones for health information among low-SES Hispanics. One contribution of our study is that it offers a better understanding of the characteristics of smartphones contributing to their adoption and use in a significant everyday life context, seeking for health information, among low-SES Hispanic adults, a population historically underserved both in terms of access to technologies and to healthcare resources. Prior studies, mostly focussing on general consumers' use of smartphones for general purposes (e.g. getting directions or recommendations), have identified a slew of characteristics of the technology that enable its wide adoption, including ease-of-use, computing power and functionality, and ubiquity (Aldhaban, 2012; Kang et al., 2011; Kim and Song, 2009).\n7. Conclusion: This study identified characteristics of smartphones that contribute to its adoption and use among low-SES Hispanics for health information, the context of the usage, and barriers that these users face. The results highlighted that, because of lower cost, smartphones have great potential to bridge the digital divide and the divide in accessing health information for this underserved group. However, making the technology available alone is not sufficient. Interventions at both personal and environmental levels are needed. At the personal level, interventions are needed to enhance their smartphone literacy and health literacy. More specifically, efforts should be made to teach users how to download apps, how to use apps for health information and disease management, how to effectively search for information, and how to evaluate online health information quality. At the environmental level, increasing this group's access to public Wi-Fi is needed. Policy makers, public health professionals, and technology sectors might consider offering free Wi-Fi internet access at more public institutions and places. In addition, having more health information in Spanish and at the recommend reading level (six-grade) would help this user group overcome language barriers and better satisfy their health information needs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Smartphones have great potential to bridge the digital divide that low-socioeconomic status (SES) Hispanics have been experiencing. However, little is known about this group's use of smartphones for health information. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by exploring the context in which smartphones were used for health information.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed 20 low-SES Hispanic participants using the semi-structured interview method. Participants had not obtained college degrees and had annual incomes less than $30,000, but had used their smartphones for health information. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method.\nFindings: Being economical was an important reason for low-SES Hispanic users to use smartphones for health information. The users relied heavily on public Wi-Fi to access the internet. They searched a wide range of health topics, mostly using the mobile web rather than apps. They lacked knowledge and skills to effectively using apps, evaluating the quality of health information, and comprehend information.\nResearch limitations/implications: Having access to smartphones alone does not help bridge the digital gap for low-SES Hispanics. Interventions need to consider improving these users' smartphone literacy and health literacy, as well as improving their access to Wi-Fi services and to more quality content in Spanish.\nOriginality/value: Prior studies speculated that smartphones could be a means to bridge digital divide experienced by the Hispanic ethnic group. This study provided empirical knowledge about how smartphones are used by these users for health information, and shed light on the design of future informational interventions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Internationalisation through franchising: the Parfois case study	[ "Franchising", "Retailing", "International business", "Market entry", "Internationalisation", "Foreign market entry mode", "Parfois", "Portugal", "Accessories" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The internationalisation of a company is one of the most critical moments in its life and may result from several factors. Quoting several authors (e.g. Alexander, 1997; Vida and Fairhurst, 1998; Wrigley et al., 2005; Hutchinson et al., 2007), Evans et al. (2008) emphasise that the motivations of retail internationalisation have been categorised in various ways, including push/reactive and pull/proactive factors, and internal and external drivers. While the focus of early research in the field was on push/reactive factors (e.g. saturation in the domestic market), based on the traditional assumptions of the Uppsala model of internationalisation, in the last decade there has been a growing trend towards the predominance of proactive factors, such as niche opportunities or the size of the overseas market (Evans et al., 2008).When retail firms attempt to establish a presence in a foreign market, they face a critical decision: to choose the best form of internationalisation, that is, the most appropriate entry mode. Quoting Picot-Coupey (2006), Lu et al. (2011) report that entry mode refers to the institutional arrangement that a fashion retailer uses to enter, develop and distribute its brands in a foreign market, such as export, franchising, joint venture or wholly owned subsidiary. In this study we will focus on both the franchising option and wholly owned subsidiary, since as Park and Sternquist (2008) mention, these are the entry modes that have been most frequently used by global retailers. Franchising, as defined by Duckett (2008), is a commercial relationship in which one party (the franchisor) allows the other (the franchisee) to operate clones of a proven business system. The franchisee usually pays to the franchisor initial and ongoing fees (e.g. a percentage of annual sales made by the franchisee). A wholly owned subsidiary refers to the international expansion of global retailers that takes the form of owning their own stores (Park and Sternquist, 2008).Franchising is increasingly important worldwide, with an important impact on the world economy. According to the International Franchise Association (2008), the direct impact of franchising in the US economy is high, representing more than 8 per cent of the total private sector employment market and over 4 per cent of the total private gross domestic product (GDP) of this country in 2005. Also in Portugal the franchising has an important role, representing 3.1 per cent of the total GDP, with over 3.5 billion euros, in 2008 (data obtained from Instituto da Informacao em Franchising, 2009).The objective of this paper is to analyse the internationalisation through franchising, using as a case study the internationalisation process of Parfois, a specialized retailer brand created in the 1990s, based in northern Portugal, and operating in the fashion accessories business[1]. The Parfois has expanded into foreign markets using, preferably, franchising as the entry mode. In 2010, it was present in about 20 countries with 54 franchise agreements and only 21 own stores. We intend to explain how Parfois is able to expand worldwide through the implementation of franchising agreements in several countries, and how is it possible to manage that relationship. In this way, our main research questions are: What factors motivated Parfois to adopt franchising over other forms of internationalisation, such as organic growth? What is it internationalisation pattern? Studying Parfois, we will try to indicate why they are making so many franchising contracts and if there is any similarity in the markets/countries where franchising is most used. The Parfois case study can be an important example to other companies in how to internationalise. It is very important to understand how a relatively small company, based in a depressed European region is able to expand rapidly worldwide. Furthermore, the lack of existing literature about internationalisation through franchising in specialised retailing companies adds value to this study.In fact, although there is extensive literature about franchising and internationalisation of companies, taken separately, literature focusing the two issues simultaneously is scarce. Doherty (2007a, b, 2009) are some recent exceptions. Doherty (2007a) analyses the factors that motivate retail companies to choose franchising as a method for entering international markets, focusing on UK-based international fashion retailers. Doherty (2007b) addresses the support mechanisms that can be used in international retail franchise in order to guarantee its success. Finally, Doherty (2009) adopts a qualitative, case study approach to examine the market and partner selection processes of retailers operating internationally via franchising, focusing also on a UK-based fashion retailer.Reviewing the development of the retail internationalisation literature, Alexander and Doherty (2010) point out that while aspects such as market selection, divestment and entry method have attracted increased attention, other aspects such as corporate orientation has attracted far less attention, in particular the way corporate characteristics (cultural and operational) or environmental factors (experience and exposure) affect corporate orientation. In this way, we believe that a case study approach of a highly internationalised company can contribute to a better understanding of these issues. Additionally, there are few papers about Portuguese international companies operating in the retail sector. It is also our objective to show that the small size of the domestic market may be an advantage in a company's internationalisation. In order to overcome the natural limitation of their own country's market, companies tend to internationalise earlier in their life cycle.The paper is organised as follows: in Section 2 we present a brief literature review regarding both the internationalisation of retail firms and foreign market entry modes, particularly the franchising option. The methodology section (Section 3) justifies the methodology adopted and the selection of the case. Research findings are presented in Section 4. Finally, we report the main conclusions, the limitations of this study and highlight paths for future research.\n2. Literature review: 2.1. The internationalisation of retail firms\n3. Methodology: 3.1. The case study method\n4. Research findings: 4.1. The Parfois expansion strategy[4]\n5. Conclusion: As Sections 3 and 4 highlight, Parfois is a successful fashion accessories specialist that in less than 20 years has been able to expand rapidly worldwide. The internationalisation of Parfois was mostly influenced by pull factors, following the market attractiveness and the new emerging markets opportunities, rather than the push factors, dominated by the internal market saturation (Evans et al., 2008), expanding in countries such as Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This result contrasts with the findings of Lopez and Fan (2009) concerning the internationalisation of Zara. According to the authors, the limited domestic market growth opportunities and a change in Spanish consumer behaviour was the main influences on Zara's decision to internationalise. In this way, our case study highlights the need for more research on the factors that influence fashion retail firms to expand into foreign markets.In our analysis of the Parfois case study we have focused on the internationalisation of the firm, particularly on the entry mode adopted, with particular emphasis on franchising. We conclude that this mode of entry was adopted in markets with lower political and economic stability as well a greater cultural gap, different consumption patterns, difficult laws and languages, in all where it was riskier to enter with own stores. This is in agreement with the theoretical literature and also in line with the results of Lopez and Fan (2009) for the case of Zara internationalisation. We can also observe that the internationalisation process of Parfois seems to corroborate some aspects of the ideas presented by Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul (1975) and Johanson and Vahlne (1977): Parfois started its internationalisation with psychically and geographically close markets with high commitment, and in markets with lower proximity where the commitment level was much lower, the company took the franchising path.It is also clear, by the Parfois analysis, that nowadays companies, in order to grow rapidly, increase their popularity and incurre in economies of scale, tend to expand through different ways, franchising being the one of the important possible paths. This is a mode of entry which allows a small company, in a small market, with limited resources to grow worldwide, enabling it to be a global player, with extensive influence. In this scenario selecting the correct partner is one of the most important decisions, in order to succeed in foreign markets, and when the company cannot control the entire process.As in any case study all the conclusions we have made are exclusive for this company. It would be interesting and opportune to study some other Portuguese companies also present in the same world regions, in order to understand if there is any similarity with the path taken by Parfois in its internationalisation. It would be also important to do an analysis of companies from other countries, in the same activity, and compare it to Parfois, trying to find any common link in the internationalisation of those companies. To further understand the success of Parfois, it would be also interesting to study the relationship between the company and its partners, across the world, the cultural adjustments necessary and their way of dealing with different cultures and people. It may also be one factor of success in a franchising agreement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Both franchising and internationalisation are important subjects of study, but in the existent literature little attention has been given to these two topics combined. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the internationalisation through franchising, using as a case study the internationalisation process of Parfois, a specialised retail brand based in northern Portugal, and operating in the fashion accessories business.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study approach was adopted based on information collected from various sources, including the company's website, the World Bank database, some news reports about Parfois, and also from interviews with those responsible for the internationalisation of Parfois.\nFindings: - The authors have identified a clear pattern in the internationalisation process: the firm is willing to open its own stores in the European market, where it feels comfortable, allowing franchisees to assume the investment risk in other world regions, with particular relevance for the Middle East and Eastern Europe.\nOriginality/value: - In the international competitive market, it is important for other retail brands to understand how a relatively small retail brand, based in a depressed European zone, is able to expand worldwide. Furthermore, the lack of existing literature about internationalisation through franchising in specialised retailing companies adds value to this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bootstrapped operating efficiency in container ports: a case study in Spain and Portugal	[ "Data envelopment analysis", "Operational efficiency", "Bootstrap method", "Iberian Peninsula container ports" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last few decades, the issue of performance evaluation has gathered significant attention. The economic crisis has resulted in very substantial cargo shifts between ports. More attention to such shifts is needed, for one thing to better understand the risks involved in port development projects. The period between 2008 and 2011 was characterized by the financial and economic crisis that deeply impacted the Spanish economy and the import/export activity, and then the port activity and efficiency (Gil Ropero et al., 2015).\n2. Literature review: DEA was initially developed by Rhodes (1978) and afterwards by Charnes et al. (1978). It was built on the theoretical foundations provided by Farrell (1957). DEA continues to be popular for a wide variety of applications.\n3. Data description: This study uses data from the database published in the Annual Statistical Reports of ports of Spain and Portugal for the period between 2008 and 2014. Among all the ports that are part of that holding, the decision-making units (DMUs) selected for our mathematical model are those whose container traffic has some connections (of greater or less importance) with the inland market and not those mainly used for trans-shipment purposes.\n4. Methodology: According to Barros et al., one of the major limitations of the standard DEA method is that it is a deterministic technique and thus does not provide any statistical properties for the derived efficiency scores. An arguably more attractive solution to the DEA problem is to use the bootstrapping methodology, in which the researcher can keep the advantages of DEA, and also obtain statistical properties for the DEA efficiency scores. Therefore, this analysis consists in a fully non-parametric approach, where the production set is characterized by an iterative bootstrapped procedure. The estimation of non-parametric efficiencies using bootstrap methodology provides efficiency measurement more consistently.\n5. Experimental results: The analysis of this study focuses on the operational efficiency of container ports in the Iberian Peninsula. It is not intended to analyze the economic or financial efficiency. Obviously, the financial analysis is very important; however, from our point of view, it heavily relies on each port. According to the efficiency analysis approach (operating, energetic, environmental, etc.), appropriate measures would have to be taken in order to enhance their efficiency.\n6. Conclusions: In this paper, an efficiency comparison of the main Spanish and Portuguese container ports has been conducted using a bootstrap DEA approach as the best available methodology. The conclusions drawn from the analysis are the followings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the functioning of the main Spanish and Portuguese containers ports to observe if they are operating below their production capabilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve the above-mentioned objective, one possible method is to calculate the data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency, and the scale efficiency (SE) of targets, and in order to consider the variability across different samples, a bootstrap scheme has been applied.\nFindings: The results showed that the DEA bootstrap-based approach can not only select a suitable unit which accords with a port's actual input capabilities, but also provides a more accurate result. The bootstrapped results indicate that all ports do not need to develop future investments to expand port infrastructure.\nPractical implications: The proposed DEA bootstrap-based approach provides useful implications in the robust measurement of port efficiency considering different samples. The study proves the usefulness of this approach as a decision-making tool in port efficiency.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first studies to apply bootstrap to measure port efficiency under the background of the Spain and Portugal case. In the first stage, two models of DEA have been used to obtain the pure technical, and the technical and SE, and both the input-oriented options: constant return scale and variable return scale. In the second stage, the bootstrap method has been applied in order to determine efficiency rankings of Iberian Peninsula container ports taking into consideration different samples. Confidence interval estimates of efficiency for each port are reported. This paper provides useful insights into the application of a DEA bootstrap-based approach as a modeling tool to aid decision making in measuring port efficiency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The overlooked influence of personality, idiosyncrasy and eccentricity in corporate mergers and acquisitions: 120 years and six distinct waves	[ "Personality", "Mergers", "Acquisitions", "Idiosyncrasy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Theory about why firm mergers occur has arisen from consideration of literature concerning either competitive strategy and/or economic performance, broadly conceived (Jensen, 1987; Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Manne, 1965). It has thus mostly been produced in circumstances where issues of personal agency, values and preference are not viewed as consequential or, at best, seen as second-order considerations (Gorton et al., 2009). Economic historians as well as management scholars sometimes point to patterns associated with mergers, or the joining together of two or more firms (Kolev et al., 2012; Stearns and Allan, 1996). In fact, the notion of merger waves - or clusters of merger and acquisition activity occurring during approximately the same epoch in history - is an outgrowth of the idea that industry restructuring is somewhat foreseeable, step-wise in nature and, at least in part, integrated into wider macro-economic trends. What is noteworthy here is that predicting merger wave occurrence, to the extent that it can be done, is often viewed in contingency terms and as a minor triumph of theory addressing the aforementioned issues of business strategy and/or mostly neoclassical conceptions of economics. Of course, forecasting by its nature is imperfect. Indeed, if there were a way to be good at it, we would all have private jets (Lynch and Rothchild, 2000). A consequence of this shortcoming is often that, at least insofar as economic and social phenomena are concerned, prediction defaults to being, what philosophers like Euclid define as, the much less impressive enterprise of \"post-diction\" - that is, retrospectively explaining an occurrence as though it could have been foreseen (Shimojo, 2014; Sternberg et al., 2007). Despite its abundance in the social sciences and economics, post-diction is a methodologically dubious undertaking and should be accompanied, from its outset, with certain disclaimers. The first of these concerns its tendency to be at odds with a key basic tenet of the scientific method: hypotheses should be falsifiable. Without such a safeguard, reasoning errors may corrupt interpretation. One - but not the only - of these is summed-up by the Latin emptor post-hoc ergo proctor-hoc (after this therefore because of this).\n2. Merger waves: what they are, why they happen and their history in the Western world: Within management circles, the idea of mergers, or two/several firms agreeing to irreversibly integrate their operations, is often seen through the prism of corporate strategy. As a means of achieving competitive advantage, mergers are typically classed in the same general set of business expansion or entry mode options as other variously combinatorial and cooperative arrangements including exporting, licensing, franchising, alliances, acquisitions, takeovers and greenfields (Bartlett and Beamish, 2011). In mergers, acquisitions and takeovers, two or more firms fuse resources and legally become one entity. They typically do this to forge new core competences and enhance competitive advantage. The goals of such an exercise may variously be to expand market parameters, to acquire innovation and/or to create economies of scope or scale through gaining access to other relevant infrastructure that is already delivering commercial outcomes and is likely to perpetuate or heighten such benefit. These benefits accrue under prescribed conditions when business entities are vertically integrated into a value chain or horizontally consolidated. As noted, theory about this phenomenon proposes that mergers, acquisitions and takeovers exist as one branch of a family of options for resource sharing, the branch concerned with irreversible comingling of resources. The other firm resource-sharing options - franchising, exporting, licensing, alliances and greenfields - entail creating contractual arrangements where legal and accounting identities of individual firms mostly remain distinct (Fama and Jensen, 1983)[2].\n3. Methodology: integrating new evidence into an explanation for merger waves: In this section, we present a rationale for the study's method, a discussion of the data used as evidence for the study (together with a visual depiction of databases as the sources for such evidence) and commentary on how we used judgment to integrate data from disparate sources.\n4. Results and discussion: a broader perspective on merger waves based on the personalities and proclivities of their protagonists: Perspectives on the orientations and proclivities of CEOs presiding over mergers suggest the presence of themes associated with distinct waves. Such themes may be thought of as pertaining to the personalities, interpersonal skills or ideas/ideologies of leaders. Addressing each identified merger wave in chronological order, in this section, we draw general conclusions about CEOs and their styles. To carry out our task, we present and analyze two exemplar leader profiles for each era. We have selected these cases because they are representative. In this sense, they appear prima facie to embody the spirit of other protagonists of the focal epoch. Using induction, we draw overarching conclusions about the era's archetypal corporate personality. We have labelled each period to reflect the essence of this temperament and made summary comments at the conclusion of each subsection.\n5. Conclusion: style creating the wave or wave creating the style?: In this article, we have mostly used data from several sources about the personalities and proclivities of CEOs and managers to enhance understanding of merger waves. Our endeavor prefigures theory development through broadening debate about factors giving rise to fusions. Although our analysis has sidestepped - or at least de-emphazised - consideration of causality and variable sequencing, it remains possible that the work has implications for better prediction of the next set of fusions, at least because it raises the possibility that CEO stylistic change tends to demarcate wave change. Ultimately, our contribution has been to show, in a qualitative historiographic sense, how personality - broadly conceived - influences economic phenomena. In this respect, we have expanded the range of constructs that should be considered when interpreting strategic decision-making vis-a-vis mergers and acquisitions. For example, we hope that - in anthropomorphizing merger waves - that is in showing that they have distinctive personalities we have opened the door on the possibility that the irrational and/or non-planned proclivities of shareholders (or institutional investors) may contribute to understanding when a merger wave could occur or how long it may last. We note in passing that, where the so-called personalities of actors in a merger wave have been viewed as consequential, on closer inspection, the object of analysis turns out to be not akin to personality but rather is better viewed through the prism of rational financial decision-making. An example of this would be shareholders who agitate for a merger - or, more specifically, for their firm to be acquired - as a prelude to cashing out their shares at an inflated price. Modern economic history is awash with such apparently larger than life behavior. For example, on close inspection, it is difficult to conclude that accounts of the flamboyance of George Soros, Carl Icahn and Kirk Kerkorian really do give much insight into their idiosyncrasies. Rather, such profiles are perhaps better viewed as observer-centric interpretations of what is, in fact, nothing more than self-optimizing decision-making manifested within a context of bounded rationality. In this article, we have addressed this matter head-on. In breathing new life into understanding the roles of idiosyncrasy and eccentricity in mergers and acquisitions, we propose a new way of distinguishing between the rational and the irrational. Strategy roughly corresponds to the former of these categories and personality, stylistic elements and eccentricity to the latter. We would perhaps be remiss if we did not reiterate in closing a point we made in this article's introduction: irrational is not equivalent to unsystematic and/or random. Indeed, the notion of \"type\" entails pattern and, at least in theory, leaves open the possibility of enhanced prediction. Whatever the case, by considering type alongside more orthodox sets of variables, those concerned with strategic management and analysis of economic phenomena will be better at their job. Even if better forecasting is not an immediate consequence, better understanding probably will be.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Merger waves have typically been viewed through the prism of either corporate strategy or macro-economics. This paper aims to broaden debate about factors that cause - or are associated with - mergers/merger waves over a 120-year period. It ascribes \"personalities\" to six distinct waves and draws an overarching conclusion about how merger architects are viewed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Databases and interviews are used to piece together detail about CEOs associated with six distinct and recognized merger-waves during a 120-year focal period. The study establishes and defends, a priori, principles for interrogating data to get a sense of each wave-era's corporate personality/idiosyncrasy. For each era, two exemplar CEO-profiles are presented and - through inductive-reasoning - held out as representative.\nFindings: Distinct personalities are associated with six merger waves. Each wave is given a summary anthropomorphic description which conveys a sense that it may be viewed as the non-rationale expression of aggregate and historically distinct CEO behavior within a circumscribed timeframe.\nResearch limitations/implications: The work's key limitation - explicitly acknowledged - is that it amassed data/evidence from disparate historical sources. However, the authors have developed and defended principles for addressing this concern.\nPractical implications: Improved investment analyses, in particular. The work prefigures formal establishment of a new variable-set impacting share-price prediction.\nSocial implications: The paper offers a perspective on how psychological/personality-related variables impact management decision-making, creating something of a bridge between mostly non-overlapping research disciplines.\nOriginality/value: The paper broadens debate about how and why merger waves occur. It removes the exclusive analysis of merger waves from the hands of economic historians and strategic management theorists.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Supervisor attribution of subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior motives	[ "Human resource management", "Organizational behaviour", "Job attitudes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has long been an important construct for industrial and organizational psychologists; many studies have been conducted on its antecedents, correlates, and consequences (e.g. Arthaud-Day et al., 2012; Shih and Chuang, 2013; Wang et al., 2013; Zheng et al., 2012). Organ (1988) defined OCB as discretionary behavior that is beneficial to the overall productivity of the organization and not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system. However, if the supervisor believes that an employee is motivated by self-interest only, then the performance of OCB will not be regarded as an indicator of good citizenship (Schnake, 1991; Snell and Wong, 2007).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Motives for performing OCB\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Test of H1\nDiscussion: Theoretical contributions and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the agreement between supervisors and subordinates concerning the motives of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and how the supervisors' attributions affect their OCB ratings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With the permission of seven large organizations in Macau, the authors conducted a survey of 500 employee-supervisor-co-worker triads. The final sample stood at 176 such triads with three hypotheses tested.\nFindings: First, supervisors are more accurate when judging altruistic motives of subordinates' OCB than with egoistic motives. Second, supervisor attribution of subordinates' altruistic motives positively affects the supervisors' OCB ratings. Third, employees who are motivated by altruistic motives perform more OCB actions those egoistically motivated.\nOriginality/value: The study adds to knowledge of how supervisor attribution of subordinates' OCB motives affects their evaluation of the subordinates. It also provides evidence about the effect of OCB motives on the actual engagement in OCB. Findings of this study support the work of Organ et al. regarding the motives behind OCB and strengthen the role of attribution theory in studying OCB.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Systematic exploration of scenario spaces	[ "Environmental management", "Uncertainty management", "Climate change", "Scenario planning", "Morphological analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Scenarios are useful tools for analysing an uncertain future. It is therefore not surprising that scenarios are widely used in climate change research both for dealing with potential future human forcing of climate change (Nakicenovic et al., 2000; van Vuuren et al., 2011; IPCC, 2013), its various impacts (IPCC, 2014a) and for comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of various mitigation and adaptation strategies (IPCC, 2014a, 2014b). For a comprehensive analysis, the utilised scenario sets should ideally span as wide a range of plausible future developments as possible and thus represent the full scope of relevant uncertainty. This striving for broad span reflects the basic notion of many analysts that scenario-based analysis is about robustness in the sense of supporting the search for strategies that work reasonably well for a wide range of external conditions (Lempert et al., 2006; Lempert et al., 2007; Eriksson and Weber, 2008). Theoretically such a broad span could be achieved by working with very large scenario sets, but for communication purposes, it is often useful to limit their number (Bradfield et al., 2005). Hence, a selection has to be made.\n2. Quantifying scenario diversity: In SDA, scenarios are expressed by means of variables (other names are drivers, driving forces, determinants, descriptors and factors). The number of variables can vary with the application, but for socioeconomic scenarios, typically between 5 and 12 are used. Typically, each variable is defined to be discrete, assuming a finite number of mutually exclusive states s\n3. Other approaches to systematic scenario generation: As already mentioned, there are other scenario methodologies that share some features with SDA. Management of inconsistent state combinations is key to the whole grouping of approaches known under headings like morphological analysis and consistency analysis (Zwicky, 1969; von Reibnitz, 1988; Gausemeier et al., 1998; Scholz and Tietje, 2002; Tietje, 2005). The Cross Impact Balance (CIB) method (Weimer-Jehle, 2006) is a variant, which has been applied to climate change (Schweizer and Kriegler, 2012; Schweizer and O'Neill, 2013). As we are not aware of a common appellation for this substantial tradition we henceforth refer to it as Qualitative Cross Impact (QCI) analysis. Within QCI, there are also proponents of optimisation for generation of scenario sets, with diversity as one the of several objectives (Tietje, 2005). The standard practice for finding a manageable set of scenarios is, however, based on cluster analysis (von Reibnitz, 1988; also Nguyen and Dunn, 2009).\n4. Case study: analysing scenario diversity of SRES qualitative storylines: The SRES scenarios (Nakicenovic et al., 2000) have during the past decade had an enormous impact both within climate research and for policy making (Schneider, 2001; Nakicenovic and Grubler, 2001; Castles and Henderson, 2003; Nakicenovic et al., 2003; Oppenheimer et al., 2007; Pielke et al., 2008; Sheehan, 2008; Girod et al., 2009; Rounsevell and Metzger, 2010; van Vuuren et al., 2012b). The SRES writing team, after being appointed by the IPCC, decided on a scenario development process consisting of four major components:\n5. Concluding discussions: strengthening the credibility of qualitative scenarios: Scenarios have become a vital methodological approach for scientists and policymakers in long-range planning, and human-induced climate change constitutes an unprecedented example of such a planning problem. Required to be plausible, challenging and decision-relevant stories about how the future might unfold and integrating quantitative models and qualitative assessments of socioeconomic trends, scenarios are key to the understanding and communication of future challenges in connection with human influence on natural systems. Given the challenges ahead, including possible irreversibilities and tipping points (Lenton et al., 2008; Rockstrom et al., 2009), it is important to strive for broad coverage of future possibilities when constructing scenario sets. In this paper, we have proposed a methodology, SDA, which exploits relevant ordinality for generating sets of scenarios maximally spanning the set of feasible scenarios.\nAcknowledgements: The authors thank Chad Briggs, Christian Carling, Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, Daniel K. Jonsson, Robert Lempert, Karin Mossberg Sonnek, Malin Mobjork, Vanessa Schweizer, Jonas Westin, Per Wikman-Svahn and Fariborz Zelli for discussions and critical comments. H.C. and E.A.E. were partly funded by the European Commission via the research project ETTIS (FP7 Grant No. 285593) and by Security Link, the Strategic Area for security and crisis management research, funded by the Swedish Government. H.C., K.H.D. and B.J. were partly funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. O.B. was supported by Mistra through a core grant to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, a cross-faculty research centre at Stockholm University, and the Strategic Research Programme EkoKlim at Stockholm University.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Scenarios have become a vital methodological approach in business as well as in public policy. When scenarios are used to guide analysis and decision-making, the aim is typically robustness and in this context we argue that two main problems at scenario set level is conservatism, i.e. all scenarios are close to a perceived business-as-usual trajectory and lack of balance in the sense of arbitrarily mixing some conservative and some extreme scenarios. The purpose of this paper is to address these shortcomings by proposing a methodology for generating sets of scenarios which are in a mathematical sense maximally diverse.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, we develop a systematic methodology, Scenario Diversity Analysis (SDA), which addresses the problems of broad span vs conservatism and imbalance. From a given set of variables with associated states, SDA generates scenario sets where the scenarios are in a quantifiable sense maximally different and therefore best span the whole set of feasible scenarios.\nFindings: The usefulness of the methodology is exemplified by applying it to sets of storylines of the emissions scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This ex-post analysis shows that the storylines were not maximally diverse and given the challenges ahead with regard to emissions reduction and adaptation planning, we argue that it is important to strive for diversity when developing scenario sets for climate change research.\nOriginality/value: The proposed methodology adds significant novel features to the field of systematic scenario generation, especially with regard to scenario diversity. The methodology also enables the combination of systematics with the distinct future logics of good intuitive logics scenarios.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of personality traits and social networks on the self-disclosure behavior of social network site users	[ "Social capital", "Self-disclosure", "Big five", "Social network site" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, social network sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, Renren, and Twitter, have attracted millions of users worldwide, many of whom have incorporated visits to these sites into their daily lives. In December 2012, Vincenzo Cosenza, an Italian social media research institution, found that Facebook had more than ten billion users worldwide and was the largest SNS, serving 127 countries. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of Chinese SNS users increased to 2.75 billion at the end of 2012, and 56.4 percent of them were also microblogging users. In 2013, the usage rate of SNSs in China decreased; however, the number of users remained large, at 2.78 billion users.\n2. Literature review and theoretical foundation: 2.1. Self-disclosure\n3. Model and hypotheses: Figure 1 presents the research model examined in this study. It displays the hypothesized relationships among key elements of social capital and self-disclosure via SNSs.\n4. Research method: 4.1. Scale development\n5. Results: 5.1. Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusion: This research analyzed the influence of social capital factors on SNS users' self-disclosure and the interactions between personality and social capital factors. We specifically examined six important variables of social capital, which are divided into three dimensions. Our aim was to determine how social and personality factors and the interactions between them affect self-disclosure behavior on SNSs. According to social capital theory and the Big Five personality model, we hypothesized that social capital factors affect the accuracy and amount of self-disclosure behavior and that personality factors would moderate the effect of social capital factors on SNS users' self-disclosure behavior. The data were collected from 207 SNS users.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence and interaction of social networks and personality traits on the self-disclosure behavior of social network site (SNS) users. According to social capital theory and the Big Five personality model, the authors hypothesized that social capital factors would affect the accuracy and amount of self-disclosure behavior and that personality traits would moderate this effect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted to collect data from 207 SNS users. The questionnaire was administered in university classrooms and libraries and via e-mail. The measurement model and structural model were examined by using LISREL 8.8 and SmartPLS 2.0.\nFindings: Based on the path analysis, the authors identified several interesting patterns to explain self-disclosure behavior on SNSs. First, the centrality of SNS users has a positive effect on their amount of self-disclosure. Moreover, people who are more extroverted disclose personal information that is more accurate with the level of the cognitive dimension held constant and disclose a greater amount of personal information with the level of the structural dimension held constant. From a practical perspective, the results may provide useful insight for companies operating SNSs.\nOriginality/value: This study analyzed the influence of social capital factors on SNS users' self-disclosure, as well as the interactions between personality and social capital factors. Specifically, the authors examined six important variables of social capital divided into three dimensions. This research complements current research on SNSs by focusing on SNS users' motivation to disclose self-related information in addition to information sharing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An approach to analyze logistic outsourcing problem in medium-scale organization by CFPR and VIKOR	[ "Manufacturing industries", "Outsourcing", "Logistic outsourcing", "Consistent fuzzy preference relation", "VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Since the early 1990s, the worldwide practices of logistic outsourcing have been increasing, resulting in an annual 10 percent increase (Sohail and Sohal, 2003). Logistics is an emerging business area in many countries. Logistics is the management of the flow of goods and services from starting of origin to the consumption to meet the customer satisfaction (CS) and it has been evolved through several stages - planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow and storage of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements (Van Goor et al., 2003). By outsourcing logistics activities, firm can do concentrate on their core business operations, reduce their asset base and may increase CS. The term logistic outsourcing refers to call third party logistic (3PL) provider to perform logistic activities previously performed in-house. 3PL can be defined as relationships between interfaces in the supply chains and third party logistics providers, where logistics services are offered, from basic to customized ones, in a shorter or longer-term relationship, with the aim of effectiveness and efficiency (Woo and Saghiri, 2011). Bask (2001) insight the relations between supply chain strategies and 3PL provider and also add knowledge to 3PL provider for efficient work.Third party logistic provider typically specialize in integrated operation and offer a wide range of services including; warehousing, transportation, distribution, freight consolidation, value-added services such as packaging, labeling, inventory control, order fulfillment, pick and pack, etc. In logistic outsourcing there is risk factor as 3PL would be able to see confidential information and the study of relationships between logistics performance and customer loyalty are affected by risk characteristics of products and efficiencies (Ramanathan, 2010).The article is organized as follows: Section 2 presents a literature review. Section 3 includes case study and outlines the basis of the consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) and VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method. Finally, Section 4 concludes the research and provides suggestions for further research.\n2 Literature review: A better understanding between existing outsourcing model and outsourcing process in practice was showed and developed a conceptual decision model based on the principles of satisfying (De Boer et al., 2006). A fuzzy TOPSIS decision making approach has been presented to deal with the supplier selection problem in supply chain system (Chen et al., 2006). The AHP procedure has been used in the selection of the right global logistics service for a Turkish automotive company (Gol and Catay, 2007). An attempt has been made to apply a comprehensive methodology consisting of analytical network process (ANP) for the selection of a logistic service provider (Jharkharia and Shankar, 2007). An analytic hierarchical prediction model based on the reciprocal additive CFPR has been used to measure the chance of successful knowledge management implementation (Wang and Chang, 2007). Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been implemented to evaluate the efficiency of a group of 3PL warehouse logistics operations (Hamdan and Rogers, 2008). A rough set theory and VIKOR algorithm have been used for selection of suppliers and a case example has been examined and validation was proved (Guo and Zhang, 2008). The CFPR has been used to improve decision making consistency and to select merger strategy for financial organizations (Wang and Lin, 2008). The TOPSIS method with interval data has been presented to earmark potential 3PL services providers (Qureshi et al., 2009). A fuzzy preference programming method and fuzzy ANP approach has been applied to get crisp priorities and to solve supplier selection problem (Pang, 2009). A FAHP and a fuzzy multiple goal programming (FMGP) has been used for selection of thin film transistor liquid crystal display supplier (Lee et al., 2009). AHP technique in fuzzy environment (FAHP) has been used for selecting 3PL provider (Cakir et al., 2009). A new evaluation method with rough set and particle swarm optimization (PSO) neural network has been introduced for selection of 3PLs provider (Zhang, 2009). Analytical hierarchy process has been applied on a vendor selection problem in small scale, medium scale and large-scale industries (Kumar et al., 2009). A benchmarking has been provided for selecting a suitable 3PL provider by using two-phase methodology consisting of AHP and TOPSIS (Percin, 2010). Two different techniques DEA technique and super-efficiency analysis technique has been applied for selection of most appropriate 3PL provider (Saen, 2010). An analytical hierarchy process based on fuzzy preference programming has been implemented for selection of vendor (Kaur et al., 2010). A case example has been examined by using fuzzy AHP for selection of best 3PL provider (Soh, 2010). An entropy approach and fuzzy VIKOR approach has been used for calculating weight of objectives and supplier selection, respectively, Shemshadi et al. (2011). A novel heuristic approach was adopted as an optimization technique to solve a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problem, i.e. vendor selection problem (Chakraborty et al., 2011). An extended VIKOR method based on generalized interval-valued trapezoidal fuzzy numbers has been used for weighting the attributes (Liu and Wang, 2011).\n3 Research methodology: Two separated phases are designed in order to address the research methodology. The first phase consist of a solution approach (CFPR) to logistic outsourcing problem, i.e. should company go for logistic outsourcing or not. Then, the second phase provides a solution approach to selection of 3PL provider by using CFPR and VIKOR method. The stages of research methodology are shown in Figure 1.3.1 Case study\n4 Conclusions: In this paper, ranking methods have been employed on a multi-criteria logistic outsourcing problem. The model has been framed and evaluated using two-phase methodology by using CFPR and VIKOR for weighting a hierarchical structure and ranking alternatives, present an accurate description of the TPL provider selection problem. The cost effective is the most appropriate objective on the basis of priority weight in the selection of 3PL provider for case company. The fifth 3PL provider has been placed at first position for case company. The combination of CFPR and VIKOR methodology seem to be beneficial in decision making manufacturing environment as well as to compare the results from other methods. In purposed methodology less pair-wise comparison is needed and there is no need to calculate eigenvalue and consistency ratio as compared to AHP method. Hence presented methodology is easier to implement and free from healthy mathematical calculation.Though a lot of advantages, there are limitation in this methodology as all the possible criteria could not added in this model and ranking of attribute may be change if a new attribute is added. This work can also be extended with the other outranking methods such as Modified TOPSIS and PROMETHEE techniques. The fuzzy multi-criteria evaluation methods in a fuzzy environment such as fuzzy AHP, fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy ANP can be implemented. Excel program and MATLAB coding can be developed and be made more user-friendly on the basis of this model. This methodology can combine with mathematical model for improvement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to make out a complete solution to logistic outsourcing problem in a medium-scale organization by using consistent fuzzy preference relation (CFPR) and vlsekriterijumska optimizacija i kompromisno resenje (VIKOR) method.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The initial approach to this research was to develop a comprehensive framework for logistic outsourcing problem and selection of most appropriate third party logistic (3PL) provider.\nFindings: - It has been found that the organization should outsource logistic activities. The alternatives (3PL providers) have also been ranked and the fifth 3PL provider has been termed as best third party logistic provider.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The parameters selected for this study and developed framework are applicable only to a medium-scale organization manufacturing automobile parts in northern India.\nOriginality/value: - This is probably the first time that an attempt has been made to apply the two-phase methodology approach, using CFPR and VIKOR, to analyze a multi-criteria logistic outsourcing problem. A case is provided which demonstrates how to solve logistic outsourcing, a multi-criteria decision-making problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning from the past? An exploratory study of familial food socialization processes using the lens of emotional reflexivity	[ "Family", "Children", "Parents", "Intergenerational influence", "Emotional reflexivity", "Food socialization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Given that \"the family\" is considered to be the primary consumption and socialization unit (O'Malley and Prothero, 2006) with early familial socialization influences shaping consumption patterns throughout our lifetime (Marshall and O'Donohoe, 2010; Kerrane et al., 2014), understanding how the family influences children's socialization into particular patterns of consumption remains a significant topic of interest. Several studies highlight that parents play a major role in developing children's eating behaviours because parents are the most powerful socialization agents for young children, especially surrounding food practices (Dotson and Hyatt, 2005; Marshall et al., 2007; Peters et al., 2014). As food consumption is considered to be the very first consumer skill that parents develop in their children (Hughner and Maher, 2006), understanding how parents shape children's food consumption is an important topic that needs further exploration (Marshall et al., 2007; Grier and Moore, 2012; Russell and Worsley, 2013).\nFood socialization and parents: Introduced by Ward (1974), consumer socialization represents processes by which children acquire skills, knowledge and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace. Food socialization specifically refers to how consumers learn to consume food and its cultural role regarding food well-being (Block et al., 2011), with family food socialization \"the process by which parents' preferences, beliefs, and attitudes toward food shape their children's food-related beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, preferences, and consumption, which in turn influence eating behaviours\" (Nicklas et al., 2009, p. 227). Studies highlight that food socialization begins during our childhood years, fostering the formation of consumption practices, which endure throughout our lifetime (Ward, 1974; Moschis and Churchill, 1978; Birch and Fisher, 1998; Ekstro\"m, 2006; Block et al., 2011).\nMethodology: We adopt a qualitative, interpretative approach to data collection and draw on data collected through existential phenomenological interviews and photo elicitation techniques/a (food) diary keeping task, as well as accompanied grocery shopping trips, with parents to understand their food socialization behaviours and motivations. Such an approach to data collection aligns with Moore et al.'s (2002) proposition that studies of intergenerational influence are best explored through qualitative methodologies, with Holmes (2015) advocating the use of interviewing to obtain greater insight into emotional reflexivity.\nFindings: Strong intergenerational reflexivity regarding previous food practices among parents emerged within the family stories (i.e. participants strongly reflected on the food practices that their parents performed when they were a child [and associated emotions] and carefully considered whether these were appropriate behaviours to enact with their children/their eating habits). Through intergenerational reflexivity, parents drew on emotions, ranging from love, respect and nostalgia, through to resentment, as associated/recalled from past experiences of food socialization as a child (during their primary socialization). Figure 1 depicts the emerging framework that highlights how parents experience intergenerational influence(s) in food consumption, guided by their intergenerational reflexivity. Parents are influenced by their own childhood food consumption experiences, acquiring values or norms in food consumption in the forms of habits that they reproduce or disregard with their children (Knight et al., 2014). While participants tend to follow certain food habits (\"sustaining\" or \"reproducing patterns of behaviour\") as informed by their parents, they also tend to make conscious efforts not to practice other food habits (\"disregarding\" or \"dismissing patterns of behaviour\") that they have learned from their mother/father (with emotion strongly influencing whether such food practices/patterns are retained or abandoned).\nDisregarding food practices: The food practices that participants recalled from their past (i.e. those performed by their parents when they were a child) worked to inform current food socialization practices with their own family/children. Participant's memories and past experiences as a child often provoked negative reflection, which led to a different food socialization style being performed (in comparison with their parents). Our participants spoke with great animosity about some of the actions/food socialization behaviours undertaken by their own parents (e.g. the enforcement of overly strict table manners; the punitive role of cleaning their plates; being forced to eat food they did not like, or food now viewed as being unhealthy), with several participants actively rejecting their parent's food socialization style. Similarly, other factors (e.g. the presence of a new influencer [their spouse] or self-learning) also led to disregarding of the food practices of the previous generation.\nSustaining food practices: Not all food socialization behaviours were abandoned. Positive emotions led to the reproduction of food practices within the participant's own family, and in such situations, food choices were sustained; food recipes, preferences and other food-related values or behaviours were reproduced/mimicked with their own young family, often creating warm feelings of nostalgia and fostering connection with absent family members. Frequently, parents reflect back to those consumption patterns in the forms of behavioural norms. In this section of our findings, the elicited stories focus on the motivation to continue the family's perceived style of eating. Kate, for example, enthusiastically continues her father's ways of preparing and consuming \"healthy\" food with her children:\nIdentity of familial intergenerational food consumption: From the parental behaviours outlined above, we develop a continuum of parental food socialization styles, ranging from \"traditionalists\" to \"improvers\" to those labelled \"revisionists\", who exhibit differences in emotional responses to intergenerational influence and concomitant consumption behaviours (either sustaining inherited behaviours of their own parents, or disregarding such actions, forming new food socialization pathways). Reflecting on actions of the past informed how our participants socialized their own children within the context of food.\nDiscussion: This study adopts a rather different approach in exploring temporal dimensions of intergenerational influence using the lens of emotional reflexivity within the context of food socialization. The findings suggest that the intergenerational reflexivity of parents, as the most powerful socialization agent of children (Hughner and Maher, 2006; Marshall et al., 2007), plays a crucial role in shaping children's food socialization processes. We posed one central research question: \"Are today's parents drawing from what they learned as children from their parents within their own food socialization practices?\" We find that parents reflexively enact the legacy of the past to guide their current food practices. Intergenerational reflexivity informs how participants (re-)produce their current food socialization practices, as informed, in turn, by how their parents socialized them during their childhood. The findings, therefore, contribute to socialization theory in relation to the classical model of socialization offered by Moschis and Churchill (1978) in that intergenerational reflexivity on the part of the socialization agent (family or parents) is another valuable factor that should be included in future studies of consumer socialization.\nConclusion: As parents are the most powerful socialization agents for children, children have limitless learning opportunities surrounding food that stems from parental food socialization and actions. The legacy of such learning suggests that food preferences/behaviours can endure and inform food consumption in adult life. This study provides a deeper insight into how emotional reflexivity (Holmes, 2015) and temporal elements of intergenerational influence (Moore et al., 2002, 2017) affect familial food socialization, which is lacking in the existing literature. In this study, emotional reflexivity is used among participants to make sense of their parental role in providing food to their own family. The participants draw on their emotional reflexivity in recalling previous food practices (learned/experienced as a child by their parents), which informs whether they would enact - or disregard - the same patterns of food practices/socialization with their own children. The study contributes to our understanding of the role intergenerational influence plays within the process of food socialization, exploring how practices from the past (experienced during primary socialization) could be repeated or discontinued in the present (Knight et al., 2014).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the parental role in children's food socialization. More specifically, it explores how the legacy of the past (i.e. experiences from the participant's own childhood) works to inform how parents, in turn, socialize their own children within the context of food, drawing on theories of consumer socialization, intergenerational influence and emotional reflexivity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To seek further understanding of how temporal elements of intergenerational influence persist (through the lens of emotional reflexivity), the authors collected qualitative and interpretative data from 30 parents from the UK using a combination of existential-phenomenological interviews, photo-elicitation techniques and accompanied grocery shopping trips (observational interviews).\nFindings: Through intergenerational reflexivity, parents are found to make a conscious effort to either \"sustain\" or \"disregard\" particular food practices learnt from the previous generation with their children (abandoning or mimicking the behaviours of their own parents within the context of food socialization). Factors contributing to the disregarding of food behaviours (new influencer, self-learning and resistance to parental power) emerge. A continuum of parents is identified, ranging from the \"traditionalist\" to \"improver\" and the \"revisionist\".\nOriginality/value: By adopting a unique approach in exploring the dynamic of intergenerational influence through the lens of emotional reflexivity, this study highlights the importance of the parental role in socializing children about food, and how intergenerational reflexivity helps inform parental food socialization practices. The intergenerational reflexivity of parents is, thus, deemed to be crucial in the socialization process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Human-computer interaction and value co-creation in electronic service	[ "Value co-creation", "Service-dominant logic", "Human-computer interaction", "Electronic service context", "Task-technology fit theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As electronic service (e-service) applications affect various aspects of our digital lives, the need for better service encounters based on human-computer interaction (HCI) becomes more significant (Yang et al., 2016). However, it is difficult to ensure that the HCI design follows service-oriented design, especially when the \"black box\" of how HCI affects customers' perceived value co-creation is unlocked (Tsao et al., 2016). Focusing on this issue, this study develops and validates a model of \"HCI components - task-technology fit (TTF)-customers' perceived e-service value\" through the lens of service-dominant logic (SDL) and TTF theory. The findings help to explain two basic questions about the trigger points of value co-creation in e-service contexts (i.e. what the operational definitions of the trigger points are and how to measure them) and unlocks the \"black box\" of value co-creation by introducing TTF as a mediator. SDL and TTF theory are extended. This study may also help managers to improve service encounter environments and facilitate value co-creation activities.\n2. Literature review: Vargo and Lusch (2004) proposed SDL. After several improvements, it has been widely recognized by scholars. SDL is expressed as ten propositions, of which propositions 6 (i.e. the customer is always a co-creator of value), 7 (i.e. the enterprise cannot deliver value, but only offer value propositions) and 10 (value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary) mainly focus on value co-creation (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). These three propositions recognize customers, enterprises and the interactions between them as trigger points of value co-creation, and recognize customer perceived value in context as the end.\n3. Theories and hypotheses: 3.1 Components of HCI in e-service context\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Questionnaire design\n5. Analyses and results: 5.1 Respondent profiles\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Theoretical contributions\n7. Conclusions and future research: This paper concludes HCI in e-service contexts comprises five components. Three fundamental components contribute to value co-creation and two core components are inhibitors, but the inhibitory effect of a core component (the interaction between customer technology readiness and technology functionality) is only significant in the economically developed area sample. TTF plays a mediating role in the direct influence of five HCI components on customer perceived e-service value, but the mediating effect of a core component (interaction between customer technology readiness and technology functionality) is only significant in the economically developed area sample.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of human-computer interaction (HCI) on customers' perceived electronic service (e-service) value and the mediating role of task-technology fit (TTF) in that effect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper develops a model based on service-dominant logic (SDL) and TTF theory, and validates it using a hierarchical regression with the data collected from 634 online banking customers in Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China.\nFindings: The findings reveal that HCI in e-service contexts comprises five components. Three fundamental components (i.e. technology functionality, customer technology readiness and task routine) contribute to value co-creation. Two core components (i.e. interaction between customer technology readiness and technology functionality, and interaction between task routine and technology functionality) are inhibitors, but the inhibitory effect of the former is only significant in the Guangdong sample. TTF takes a mediating role in these relationships, but the mediating effect of the former core component is only significant in the Guangdong sample.\nOriginality/value: This paper explains two basic questions about the trigger points of value co-creation in e-service contexts (i.e. what their operational definitions are and how to measure them) and unlocks the \"black box\" of value co-creation by taking TTF as a mediator. SDL and TTF theory are extended. The paper provides suggestions for how practitioners can efficiently advance value co-creation with customers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Technology business incubation for start-up generation: A literature review toward a conceptual framework	[ "Start-ups", "TBIs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technology business incubators (TBIs) form one of the indispensable components of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for technology-based start-ups in modern economies (Alsos et al., 2011; Bala Subrahmanya, 2017). Incubating new ventures is among the key initiatives aimed at stimulating and promoting innovative entrepreneurship and economic growth (Corsi and Berardino, 2014; Innocenti and Zampi, 2019). Development of local innovative firms through the promotion of technology transfer and enablement of diffusion of products has been the core objective of TBIs (EU, 2010). By the creation of supportive entrepreneurial environments, TBIs have helped technology-based start-ups to increase their survival rates (Aerts et al., 2007).\nOrigin and growth of TBI movement: The modern business incubation movement began with the establishment of Stanford Research Park, California in 1951 and the Batavia Industrial Centre in 1959 in Batavia, New York (Lewis, 2002; Ahmad and Ingle, 2011). Thus, the movement of TBIs originated in the USA, but it has grown substantially since then. Mian et al. (2016) identified three broad waves in the evolution of TBI models in the context of the USA: the first wave models emerged and grew in the pre-1980s. By the year 1980, there were about 20 research and technology parks and 11 business and/or technology incubators established in the USA. The second wave models flourished from the 1980s till the late 1990s. By 2000, about 600 business or technology incubators and 160 research and technology parks were in the USA. The third wave models have been emerging and flourishing since 2000. According to the US-based National Business Incubation Association, the number of business incubators in the USA grew from only 12 in 1980 to over 1,250 by 2012 (Chen and Sisk, 2016).\nMethodology of the systematic literature review: To understand the research design and the process of the systematic literature review, we studied the methodologies used in the past by researchers (Schildt et al., 2006; Dahlander and Gann, 2010; Mian et al., 2016) who have contributed to the review of literature related to business incubators. Based on the above studies, we first identified the search term to be used for our review. To begin with, our search term was \"technology incubator\" or \"business incubator\" or \"technology business incubation\" or \"science park\" or \"technology park\" or \"research park\" or \"technopole\" or \"business development center\" or \"technology development center\". We did not use the word \"accelerator\" in the search term because inclusion of this word provided us with a huge set of false positives. A similar pattern related to false positives was observed by Hausberg and Korreck (2018).\nLiterature review and analysis: The analysis of relevant literature indicates that TBIs vary in typology and sponsors, goals and objectives, functions and services, incubation processes, outcomes and achievements. An adequate understanding of these issues is discussed to identify the research gaps on the basis of the current state of knowledge.\nTechnology business incubation for new venture creation: a theoretical perspective: TBIs that originated in the USA in the 1950s have increasingly proliferated all over the world since then, across developed as well as emerging and developing economies, as a means of promoting technology-based start-ups. Accordingly, it is argued that they have played an important role in hatching start-ups, especially in high-technology sectors (Azriel and Laric, 2008). The strongest argument in the promotion of TBIs is that the incubation process undergone by the prospective start-up founders due to the incubation process produces a synergistic effect on the economic value that results from start-up creations. A steady increase in the emergence of successful start-ups will cumulatively contribute to regional economic development through job creation and income generation.\nConclusions: TBIs form an indispensable component of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the promotion of tech start-ups and are emerging rapidly across the global economy, since their origin in the USA dates back to the 1950s. However, they have evolved in varied forms over a period of time, in terms of types and variety, sponsors and stakeholders, locations and regions, goals and objectives, functions and services offered, process of incubation support provided through hard and soft infrastructure, and outcomes and achievements. It is against this backdrop that we have reviewed extant empirical literature in a systematic manner to throw light on the various dimensions of TBIs, beginning from typology comprising classifications of TBIs, identifying their key goals and objectives, describing their functions and services, revealing their incubation processes and examining their diverse possible outcomes and achievements.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Technology business incubators (TBIs) form an indispensable part of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the promotion of tech start-ups across the global economy. However, they have evolved in varied forms over a period of time, in terms of typologies, sponsors and stakeholders, goals and objectives, functions and services offered, process of incubation support provided through hard and soft infrastructure, outcomes and achievements and even in terms of theoretical bases. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to review the extant literature on TBIs to arrive at a framework that explains how TBIs contribute to start-up generation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper reviews extant empirical literature for a systematic evaluation to throw light on the various dimensions of TBIs: typology, goals and objectives, functions and services, process and provision of incubation support, outcomes and achievements. Further, after critically reviewing some of the theoretical propositions, it develops a conceptual framework combining pre-incubation, incubation and post-incubation processes of TBIs.\nFindings: Based on literature understanding and some of the key theoretical constructs, a conceptual framework is developed comprising pre-incubation, incubation and post-incubation stages of start-up formation and graduation. The paper also identifies some prospective areas for future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: Any empirical research on technology business incubation must focus on pre-incubation and post-incubation processes as much as on the incubation process, to derive meaningful implications and enhance the productivity of TBIs.\nOriginality/value: The conceptual framework derived out of the systematic literature review will enable further research and exploration of micro-aspects of pre-incubation, incubation and post-incubation phases across multiple dimensions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Process excellence the key for digitalisation	[ "Industrial internet of things", "Cases of digital transformation", "Industry 4.0 (i4.0)", "Procedures to become digital", "Solutions to introduce digital elements", "Toy manufacturer", "Sports services sector" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The business world steps in a new digital era (Brynjolsson and Mcafee, 2014). It arrives with a large number of new technologies with extraordinary features. This digital era is an excellent opportunity to enhance competitiveness in any sector, to create a new business or to improve current operations (Schwab, 2016). Digitalisation has an important impact in organisational performance (Guo et al., 2017) and it has significance as a source for value creation (Amit and Zott, 2001). However, it is also a threat to several economic activities and it brings new challenges to each organisation (Sommer, 2015). Then, the introduction and implementation of these new technologies in organisations, business and operations become a necessity that organisations must include in their agendas (Ghobakhloo, 2018) but unfortunately, managerial procedures to guide this quest are still rare (Moeuf et al., 2018).\n2. Digitalisation path: This paper sensitises the concept of \"digitalisation path\" as an instrument to develop this current research (Patton, 2002, p. 456). Within this scope, the digitalisation path is a procedure. It compiles the set of activities that the organisation perform to introduce in their operations digital technologies, or the digitalisation path involves the steps that an organisation takes to implement digital solutions.\n3. Methodology: The research focusses on how organisations implement digital elements. The paper sensitises the concept of \"digitalisation path\" as an instrument for the research (Patton, 2002, p. 456). Thus, the research investigates the digitalisation path of each organisation (The steps that an organisation takes to implement digital solutions). This paper compiles and compares digitalisation paths. Each digitalisation path is an individual case study. The comparison of the cases aggregates additional information to synthesise a common digitalisation path (Bryman and Bell, 2015; Voss et al., 2002; Patton, 2002).\n4. Case studies: This collection of case studies includes organisations from the automotive industry, toy manufacturer, catering/fast food company and sports services sector (see Table II).\n5. Consolidation of the digitalisation path: The four cases provide information about the digitalisation path of each organisation. They reveal specific activities at each firm, but at the same time, they offer information to analyse a broader perspective of the four paths willing to consolidate a common digitalisation path that integrates all these activities in one single path. The first review of the paths shows a different number of steps at each path. However, the observation of the activities at each step of the individual digitalisation path discloses similarities at each step. The analysis of the digital paths associates activities from the steps at each path into steps of the single procedure. The common digitalisation path explains the individual paths, but it also aggregates the expertise from all the digitalisation paths into a single robust path. The following table illustrates the individual digitalisation path from each of the four organisations, and it presents the common digitalisation path as a consolidation of them (Table III).\n6. Discussion: The new digital era, and its concepts such as Industry 4.0, arrives as a new revolutionary concept for industrial organisations. Hannover fair 2013 (Germany Trade and Invest, 2014), consulting companies (McKinsey&Company and Bloomberg, 2016; Accenture, 2015; Deloitte, 2015) and the literature in general claim urgency to introduce and develop the digital revolution in the organisations (Saucedo-Martinez et al., 2018; Moeuf et al., 2018; Sommer, 2015). However, these four cases illustrate that each organisation introduces digital elements at its own pace. There is no rush, but they agree to understand the importance of the topic in their operations. Thus, this new digital era appears to be more of an evolution rather than a revolution. It is important to include in the organisational agenda the digitalisation issue but in correspondence to their own evolution and the evolution of the industry and market.\n7. Conclusion: This paper argues the existence of a digitalisation path in the organisations. It is an individual venture for each organisation. The most important characteristic of these paths is the willingness to improve the customer experience and the operation (process excellence). The paper confirms that process excellence is a mandatory factor for introducing new technologies. Furthermore, the paper presents evidence that continuous improvement approach frames the digitalisation paths, but radical change is always an open alternative based on the changes requirements.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The new digital era brings several opportunities and challenges that accelerate the need to implement digital solutions in organisations. This speed of change creates many questions, but unfortunately, references cases to answer them or general guidelines to succeed are still rare. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present four cases that illustrate the procedure followed by companies to introduce digital elements in their operations (automotive industry supplier, toy industry, catering company and circuit trainings company). Each case offers inspiration and knowledge about the procedure to introduce digital elements and facilitates the proposal of a general procedure that aims to become guidance for practitioners.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research implements comparative analysis in a multi-case design. It sensitises the concept of \"digitalisation path\" as a research instrument. Projects documentation and informal conversational interviews allow the researchers to describe each organisation and their digitalisation path. The interviewees review, enhance and approve the cases. Furthermore, the research compares the paths and summarises the findings into a digitalisation path model that explains the digitalisation of these organisations and it serves as a guide for other organisations.\nFindings: The digitalisation paths evidence the necessity of business process management to develop digitalisation. Technology is not the goal, but the instrument and process excellence is the driver to introduce new technologies in the operations. Furthermore, the four organisations share a similar pattern and activities within their digitalisation paths.\nResearch limitations/implications: The multi-case methodology lacks generalisation, but it provides detail over the digitalisation paths.\nPractical implications: The paper presents a guideline for practitioners to introduce digital elements in the organisation.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents a practical perspective to introduce digitalisation in organisations, which is currently rare in literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Adam Smith: managerial insights from the father of economics	[ "Economic theory", "Management theory", "Division of labour", "Economic history" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Adam Smith's importance to the economics discipline is unquestionable. Indeed, he is commonly known as the \"father of economics\". His most influential paper, \"An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations\" (1776) remains the quintessential text in economic science even some 200 years after its publication. While at its core Smith's paper focused on answering the question \"Why are some nations rich and others poor?\" his ideas and conclusions have a broad applicability, and are especially relevant to contemporary management. Specifically, Adam Smith was the first to realize that specialization and the division of labor were the primary source of productivity, and he was the first to conceptualize the \"invisible hand principle\" demonstrating the tendency for self-interested individuals to be guided towards undertaking activities valued by the whole of society in a free market system governed by the rule of law and market prices.Adam Smith was a pre-eminent contributor to the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Born in 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, Smith attended the University of Glasgow on scholarship at the age of 14 and later studied at Balliol College at Oxford. Smith would return to University of Glasgow as a professor of logic in 1751, and eventually became the chair of moral philosophy in 1752. His other famous paper, Theory of Moral Sentiments, was published in 1759. In 1764, Smith left university education to tutor the Duke of Buccleuch. He later retired back to Kirkcaldy, where he completed paper on Wealth of Nations. Smith never married, and died in Edinburgh in 1790 (Henderson, 2007).While Adam Smith is credited as the first modern economist, his formal education and teaching experiences were rooted in philosophy. Indeed, \"economics\" did not exist in Smith's time. Naturally, then, the relevance of his paper extends well beyond the contemporary discipline of economics. For managers in particular, Smith's \"invisible hand\" and its implications as well as his ideas concerning the division of labor and specialization are of utmost importance.\n2 The invisible hand: Without question, the most widely cited idea found in Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the notion of the \"invisible hand.\" Smith's invisible hand explains how a decentralized capitalist system, which lacks any central planner, can still manage to thrive and produce goods and services valued by consumers. The key insight at work in Smith's theory is that a free market aligns the incentives of a self-interested individual with the objectives of society. Specifically, anyone who earns money from his or her labor can do so only by offering a good or service valued by someone else. To the extent the individual wishes to earn the highest possible wage, therefore increasing his or her standard of living, he or she will be motivated to pursue that activity most highly valued by those around him. It is the pursuit of these highly valued activities which create the most wealth for society. An oft-quoted passage in Wealth of Nations reads:It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest [...] he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention (Smith [1776] 1994, I.15, IV.485).An example will help to clarify this point[1]. Suppose the price of maple lumber increases because of higher consumer demand for maple furniture. This single price change will change the incentives faced by decision makers throughout the economy, likely resulting in changes in which properties are harvested, the percent of maple sent to sawmills versus other uses, the incentive of non-furniture makers to substitute away from maple, etc. The \"signals\" sent by these market prices are what enable self-interested workers and businesses to identify changes in which goods and services create the most income for them, and simultaneously the most value for society. Price signals not only tell us when new opportunities are arising; they also help us to find out when what we are doing is no longer as highly valued, or when the resources we are using have found an alternative use in which they create even more value.The invisible hand succeeds at aligning individual incentives with societal prosperity. An important consideration in determining whether incentives will be aligned, then, is the extent to which the \"hand\" is able to freely operate. Smith noted this, again in reference to the differences in countries' successes, \"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things\" (Stewart, 1793)[2]. To invoke modern terminology, Smith was referring to the role of institutions in determining economic outcomes. In this context, institutions are the \"rules of the game\" under which individuals operate (North, 1990, 1991). When the institutions allow the invisible hand to align interests, wealth is created; when the rules of the game get in the way, however, less desirable outcomes are created.Figure 1 shows a simple diagram of the relationship between inputs, institutions, and outcomes. Here, inputs such as raw materials and labor are used to produce tangible goods and services. When the \"right\" institutions (including the protection of private property, reasonable taxes, etc.) are in place, we can achieve the maximum possible output from a given set of inputs. When the institutions are not good, the same amount of inputs results in less output.In the context of management, the invisible hand principle has clear implications. It is a plea for decentralization rather than command and control (i.e. \"central planning\") by firm managers. Decentralized decision making can and will result in the best outcomes, as long as the proper \"rules of the game\" are in place. In particular, all that is required is that an incentive structure exists to align the individual self-interest of workers with the outcomes desired by the firm. For example, incentives such as stock options or profit-sharing can help to create this alignment of individual incentives with firm objectives. Note, however, that while it is important that workers face benefits that relate to the revenue of the firm, it is equally important that they understand (and bear some of) the costs their decisions have on the firm. A department within a firm would have, for example, little incentive to conserve on the physical space it uses unless, like the firm as a whole, it bears a cost for the space it utilizes. In the presence of the right incentive structure, Smith's invisible hand will do the rest.\n3 Specialization and the division of labor: In answering the main question of Wealth of Nations, \"Why are some nations rich and others poor?\" Smith identified specialization and the division of labor as the main driver of productivity and economic progress. By observing the workings of a French pin factory, Smith noted that each individual worker, if working alone and responsible for making the entire pin, could not make more than 20 pins per day. But when the process was divided up so that, for example, one worker draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head, and a sixth puts the head on the pin, that the average output per worker jumps to 4,800 pins per worker per day.The division of labor allows individual workers to specialize in specific phases of the production process and collectively produce more than if each were to produce individually. Likewise, when individuals specialize across different industries similar gains are realized. This increase in labor productivity not only yields higher output, but also leads to increases in wage rates.Smith, however, also presents an often overlooked caveat to this argument. A group's ability to specialize (and thus increase productivity, output, and wages) is limited by the \"extent\" (or size) of the market to which it sells. Specifically, in large markets more specialization is possible. In large consumer markets, for example, small specialty stores are able to succeed. These same specialty stores would likely not be able to survive in a small town.The implications for managers of Smith's observation concerning the benefits of a division of labor and specialization are clear. Workers are more productive when the steps involved in production are divided and workers are allowed to specialize in specific tasks. Smith's caveat concerning the extent of the market is important, however. A firm producing and selling ten units of output per day will not be able to specialize as finely as one selling 10,000 units. When firms can find ways to reach out to larger marketplaces, they will be more productive. For example, a specialty store might survive in a small town if it can sell its products on the internet, reaching out to a larger market. When firms can penetrate the markets of other states or nations, and sell to a global marketplace, they can specialize more finely.\n4 Conclusion: The paper of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, has far-reaching implications that stretch beyond any one discipline. Of particular relevance to managers, Smith was the first to conceptualize the invisible hand and identify the benefits of specialization and a division of labor. The invisible hand describes the link between individual self-interest and the well-being of the group. The division of labor, which Smith identified as the main driver of economic progress, describes how decentralization and specialization leads to increases in output and wages. While the virtues of these concepts are widely accepted, the factors which limit them are often overlooked. The invisible hand can be stifled by poor institutions or \"rules of the game\" which do not align worker interests with those of the firm. Similarly, the gains from specialization and a division of labor are limited by the extent of the market.The role of a manager wishing to gain from Smith's insight is then to minimize these limiting factors. A successful manager will not attempt to \"top-down\" plan but will instead establish an appropriate incentive structure which aligns worker and firm interests. From there, the invisible hand will guide self-interested labor towards achieving goals which benefit the whole firm. Further, a manager must be ever mindful of the extent of the market in which he or she operates as well as the size of the firm itself. Gains from specialization are best realized in an expanded market.These insights, which Adam Smith originally used to explain The Wealth of Nations, have obvious and broad implications. A manager who is able to integrate the teachings of the great eighteenth century economist will be far more effective than one who considers them outside the realm of contemporary management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to apply the ideas found in the paper of Adam Smith, the pre-eminent eighteenth century economist, to the field of management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper provides a brief biography of Smith, summarizes his main contributions, and then applies them to contemporary management practices.\nFindings: - Adam Smith was the first person to identify specialization and the division of labor as the main drivers of productivity. He also conceptualized the \"invisible hand principle\" which explains how, under the proper set of incentives, self-interested individuals are directed to pursue activities that benefit the whole of society. Both ideas are of utmost importance in the field of management. Specifically, successful managers are those who are able to create good \"rules of the game\" which align the incentives of labor with the goals of the firm.\nPractical implications: - Smith's contributions provide a foundation for the division of labor and demonstrate the importance of establishing the right \"institutions\" within a firm.\nOriginality/value: - The paper arrives at practical implications for managers from the paper of an eighteenth century economist.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Making the transition to retirement: appraisals, post-transition lifestyle, and changes in consumption patterns	[ "Retirement", "Lifestyles", "Baby boomer generation", "Market segmentation", "United States of America" ]	[ { "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.The fastest growing age cohort in the USA is Seniors, the group traditionally defined demographically by marketers as consumers age 65 plus. The size of the over 65-population in this country is expected to double between the years 2011 and 2029 (Reynolds, 2004) as the first baby boomers, the massive cohort of 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964, reach the official age of retirement (Lindquist and Sirgy, 2003). As a cohort, the baby boomers at each life stage have consistently defied marketers' preconceived notions about what it means to belong to a particular demographic profile, forcing marketers to refine their approaches to segmentation by incorporating psychographic variables like \"values\" and \"lifestyles.\" Like all major life transitions, the transition from work to retirement presents unique challenges and opportunities for marketers as consumers adapt to changes and attempt to redefine self. If the baby boomers tackle this life stage transition as they have all others, they seem poised to redefine what it means in our society to be age 65 plus. An examination of the meaning of retirement and a greater understanding about how retirees reflect new self-identities in post-transition consumption changes may help marketers tailor their appeals to not only this cohort, but also to future generations following in their footsteps.\nTheoretical background: Significant events in the lives of consumers often lead to changes in self-definition and upheaval in established patterns of how consumers interact with their environment (Andreasen, 1984). Examples of these significant life stage transitions include marriage, divorce, birth of children, and retirement. \"Life transitions\" are defined in this paper as occurrences that elicit changes in an individual's perceptions (of self, of the world) and in the organization of his/her roles, resources, and central relationships. Researchers in marketing have investigated a wide range of transitions and their impact on consumer behavior: divorce and separation (Fellerman and Debevec, 1992; Marcoux, 2004; McAlexander, 1991; Young, 1991); household relocation (Goodwin and Sewall, 1992; Mehta and Belk, 1991); job loss (Mergenhagen, 1995; Roberts, 1991), and aging or critical health issues (Heslop and Marshall, 1991; Moschis, 1994). To a lesser extent, the transition to retirement has been examined (Burnett, 1996; Schewe and Balazs, 1992). Overall, these studies and others demonstrate the powerful effect of life transitions on consumers' self-identity structures and the resulting stress life transitions can evoke. Two main theories, role theory and coping theory, have proven useful in explaining why experiencing life stage transitions can evoke heightened feelings of stress.Role theory\nStudy hypotheses and model: Changes in resources and appraisals\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: Measurement model assessment\nDiscussion: While prior research has established the connection between life transitions and the self-redefinition process, including the importance of products in defining/redefining self (Solomon, 1983; Wood, 1995), we have inspected more closely how the retirement experience is cultivated via the appraisal process and reflected in post-retirement lifestyle and consumption patterns. We find that perceptions of resource availability are important determinants of retirees' experience. Appraisals tend to be positive if retirees enter into their new life circumstances feeling they have more available resources. For example, retirement can result in loss of income, but monetary losses can be offset by gains in time to spend on personal hobbies, and with family and friends.However, our findings also emphasize that retirement transitions are not just about gains/losses of resources. We find appraisal has a significant impact on the approach retirees take toward post-retirement lifestyle. Retirees who view the transition as a positive event approach retirement as either a continuation of their pre-retirement lifestyle or as a new start. Retirees who see the transition as a negative event tend to approach retirement as a major life disruption or as a passage into old age. Ultimately, how a retiree chooses to internalize the event for self can have ramifications on post-retirement spending. Our findings suggest some trends, such as increases in spending for experiential- and activity-oriented product categories among retirees adopting \"new start\" or \"disruption\" approaches. On the other hand, retirees adopting the styles of \"continuation\" or \"old age\" are more likely to increase expenditures in product categories that are less experiential and more passive- or inward-oriented.An interesting aspect of these findings is that appraisal of the retirement event as positive or negative appears to manifest itself in post-retirement consumption expenditures differentially depending on how a retiree internalizes the event in terms of self-definition/redefinition. Both \"New start\" and \"Continuation\" retirees appraise the event as positive; however, the changes they make to post-retirement living reflect differences in how they choose to experience this release from former work roles and obligations. \"New start\" retirees view the release as a time to experience new things and actively pursue activities that mirror their former outward-oriented work selves in an equally active but more self-directed manner. \"Continuation\" retirees also view the release from work roles in a positive manner, but seize the opportunity to direct their energies toward more inward-oriented or \"home-centric\" activities that perhaps have taken a back-seat to work obligations. Both groups perceive resources are available, whether time, money, or social support, to capitalize on these opportunities. On the other hand, \"Disrupted\" and \"Old age\" retirees appraise the event as negative. Resources have been diminished in some aspect. Disrupted retirees feel the loss of the work role and seek to replace this important aspect of self-identity by channeling their energies toward similar outward- and activity-oriented pursuits, although perhaps in a diminished capacity. Old age retirees accept the transition as a natural course of events and relinquish their former active lifestyle to pursue activities more in accordance with what they perceive is their final phase of life.\nManagerial implications: Our model of the retirement transition process suggests segmentation strategies marketers can use to target and meet the needs of consumers unified by a common life experience, but yet diverse in terms of how they assimilate the retirement event into their lives. The baby boomers have had the largest impact on marketing strategies ever witnessed to date by a cohort, due to their sheer size and ability to dictate trends based on their spending power and unique attitudes. This cohort has continually redefined psychographic segmentation strategies and appears now to be poised to redefine what it means to be a post-retirement consumer. Key industries, such as financial planning, health care, and real-estate providers, to name a few, could benefit from a greater understanding about how retirees make the transition to post-retirement living based on perceptions of changing roles and resources. Individuals can appraise the impact of the release from former work roles on self-identity structures quite differently, and their attitudes toward this major life transition may direct how retirees choose to go about reconstructing self-identity through consumption changes.\nFuture research: Our study is a step toward linking retirees' appraisals of the process and enactment of self-realignment strategies in post-retirement living. More research is needed to fully understand the linkage between retirees' strategies for self-realignment and increased/decreased spending on particular product categories. Future research could examine how planning for the event impacts how a retiree appraises the event. For instance, do retirees who plan for the retirement experience feel more in control over the event and therefore view it more positively than those who do not plan? Another very interesting question revolves around retirees who experience the retirement event as a \"disruption\" to current selves. \"Disrupted\" retirees may feel lost and frustrated about the loss of a valued role, yet remain optimistic about the opportunities retirement presents to reinvent self. Does \"wishful thinking\" lead to higher expectations? Is this group more likely as a whole to be unsatisfied with attempts to reinvent self through consumption changes because they have idealized post-retirement living and have somewhat unrealistic expectations about the capability of products and experiences to \"fill the whole\" left by former work roles?These are important questions that remain unanswered. This study demonstrates that appraisal of the event is an important determinant of post-retirement lifestyles and that adoption of a post-retirement lifestyle can predict consumption changes. A more complete understanding of factors that determine post-retirement lifestyle postures and their incorporated meaning is needed to fully understand how to effectively market to this influential cohort in the future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This research proposes to examine how the retirement experience in the USA is cultivated via the appraisal process and reflected in post-retirement lifestyle postures and consumption changes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 298 recent retirees were surveyed to test hypotheses suggested by a proposed model of the retirement experience. The model proposes that the appraisal process is integral in determining how a retiree interprets impact of the event for self-identity and reflects self-realignment strategies in post-retirement consumption patterns.\nFindings: - Findings show that perceptions of resource availability are important predictors of retiree appraisals. Furthermore, appraisals directly impact retirees' adoption of a post-transition lifestyle posture, whether \"new start\", \"continuation of life\", \"disruption to life\", or \"beginning of old age\". Also explored are differences between lifestyle postures and post-retirement consumption expenditures across a number of product categories. Generally, retirees who adopt the perspective of retirement as a \"new start\" or as a \"disruption\" tend to increase expenditures in \"experiential\" and \"outward-oriented\" product categories. Retirees who adopt the perspective of retirement as the beginning of \"old age\" or as a \"continuation\" of past selves tend to increase expenditures in \"non-experiential\" and \"inward-oriented\" product categories.\nPractical implications: - Retirees are an increasingly important cohort for marketing in many industries. The findings demonstrate that individuals appraise the retirement event very differently and in turn respond to marketing activities very differently, which has implications for marketing segmentation strategies.\nOriginality/value: - This research extends prior research of life transitional events by highlighting the importance of considering individuals' attitudes toward major life transitional events as an important factor in predicting their responses to these events.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information security governance implementation within Ghanaian industry sectors: An empirical study	[ "Risk management", "Benchmarking", "Information security", "Business alignment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Studies conducted in few developing nations suggested that information security programs have not been effectively implemented or governed by the top organizational leaders (Abu-Musa, 2010; El-Meligy, 2011; Wolfpack, 2011). An empirical study, South African Information Security Thermometer Survey, found that only 26 per cent of the 80 organizations surveyed have established information security steering committee (Wolfpack, 2011). The study further found that 42 per cent of organizations studied had their boards assumed responsibility for the governance of information security, while 58 per cent had plans or no plan to implement information security governance (ISG) board responsibility.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Motivation for ISG implementation\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Population and sampling strategy\n4. Results: 4.1 Characteristics of respondents\n5. Discussion: In all, the Financial Institutions had the highest level of ISG implementation. This can be attributed to laws and regulations made by the inspection bodies, such as the central bank, that control the operations and activities of the financial sector. Banks and other financial institutions are under strict compliance reporting with specific laws that make them strengthen internal controls. In addition, the alarming spade of cyber crime in the sub-Saharan Africa (Modern Ghana, 2009) may have necessitated the financial institutions to take strict measures to protect their IT systems and sensitive data from possible security breaches.\n6. Conclusions: This study assesses the levels of ISG implementation among major Ghanaian industry sectors with the intent of identifying the focus areas that require improvement. Six industry sectors: Educational Institutions, Public Utilities, Finance Institutions, Public Services, Health Care and Others (IT companies, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing) were rated to ascertain the level of ISG implementation through ISG focus areas, including RM, SA, PM, VD and RM in each industry sector. The ANOVA analyses showed that the null hypotheses were not supported, indicating that the level of ISG implementation differs significantly among the industry sectors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the levels of information security governance (ISG) implementation among major Ghanaian industry sectors. The intent is to benchmark inter-industry sector ISG implementation and to identify areas that may require improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Random sampling strategy was used, and data were collected via Web survey. The data analysis utilized a one-way analysis of variance to determine the differences in means of the levels of implementation of ISG focus areas among five main industry sectors.\nFindings: The results showed that, as a whole, all the industry sectors have only partially implemented ISG. In particular, there existed statistical significant differences in ISG implementation among the industry sectors. Ranking ISG implementation, Financial Institutions were close to completion, Utility Companies, Others (Information Technology, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing) and Public Services had PI ISG and health care and educational institutions were at the planning stages. The result also revealed that all the industry sectors made marginal effort trying to align information security to business strategy, and performance measurement remained the least implemented focus area.\nOriginality/value: Organizational leaders could use these findings to benchmark industry sectors' ISG implementation, which could lead to competitiveness. Again, international enterprises that do businesses with these industry sectors would better understand the level of involvement of the top executives in governing information security toward the protection of valuable information assets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Infection control: behavioural issues for healthcare workers	[ "Behaviour", "Hygiene", "Nurses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There are official guidelines that cover the hand washing/hand hygiene practices of healthcare workers, such as the widely accepted ones developed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC, Atlanta). These guidelines are evidence based and it is important to realize that rates of hospital acquired infections may be reduced by up to one-third if healthcare workers comply with such guidelines (Pittet, 2000; Larson, 1988; Haley et al., 1985). However, compliance rarely exceeds 50 per cent (Creedon, 2005; Bischoff et al., 2000; Maury et al., 2000; Moongtui et al., 2000; Pittet, 2000; Pittet et al., 1999; Larson et al., 1992; Graham, 1990).The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the evidence surrounding healthcare workers compliance with hand washing guidelines. Behavioural theories are discussed prior to investigating results from a study which drew heavily on behavioural aspects of PRECEDE theoretic model. Conclusions are drawn.\nCompliance: Compliance is the degree to which a person adheres to advice (Haynes, 1979) and may be defined as \"the act of complying, yielding, or acting in accord\" (Reid, 1996, p. 26). According to Kelman (1967) compliance or obedience occurs when another person or group influences an individual. Raven and Haley (1982) conducted a survey of nurses' (n=7,100) reported compliance to hypothetical situations involving infection control practices. In relation to allowing an infectious patient out of isolation 39 per cent stated that they would allow this happen if instructed and 22 per cent said that they would proceed to catheterize a patient with a contaminated catheter. With regard to permitting a child to keep a pet turtle in his hospital room, 24 per cent said that they would agree to this. Reasons given were that a doctor, who was apparently viewed as having more knowledge or authority, had requested or expected this action and therefore they had complied or obeyed with the request.In reality, compliance appears to be more than simply obeying or yielding as suggested by Reid (1996) or Kelman (1967). Its definition is closer to that described by Rungapadiachy (1999) in that it is a behaviour exhibited as a response to a direct request or wish of an influencing source. However, the rate at which this behaviour occurs appears to be dependant on the legitimacy or credibility of the request, influencing source or information.\nNon-compliance: Non-compliance, therefore, is defined as lack of a behaviour exhibited as a response to a direct request. Healthcare workers non-compliance with hand washing guidelines has been well documented. Various reasons have been cited: insufficient time (Voss and Widmer, 1997, Gould and Ream, 1994, Larson and Killien, 1982), inaccessible hand washing supplies (Harris et al., 2000) and skin irritation (Larson and Kretzer, 1995; Zimakoff et al., 1992).Many attempts have been made to improve compliance such as provision of an educational program (Gould and Chamberlain, 1997; Dubbert et al., 1990; Conly et al., 1989) a motivational program (Simmons et al., 1990), automated sinks (Larson et al., 1997) and patient educational programs (McGuckin et al., 1999). However, having found compliance shifts of 12 per cent or less, researchers have concluded that healthcare workers hand washing rates are difficult to shift, despite best efforts. The absence of a behavioural theory underpinning most of these interventional studies is important. Therefore, a review of some behavioural theories is justified prior to examining results from a study which drew heavily from a theoretical model - PRECEDE (Predisposing Reinforcing and Enabling Constructs in Educational Diagnosis and Evaluation). This model was originally constructed by Green et al. (1980) and is based on the proposition that because health risks are determined by multiple factors, efforts to effect behavioural, environmental or social change must be multi-faceted.\nBehavioural theories: Most compliance studies have been guided by one of the major theoretical orientations:1. Biomedical model.2. Operant behaviour and social learning.3. Communications approach.4. Theory of reasoned action.5. Theory of planned behaviour.Each of these theoretical orientations view compliance from a different perspective and gives more or less attention to the following processes: disease perspective, risk perception, and intention.Biomedical model\nConclusion: In conclusion, healthcare workers compliance with hand hygiene guidelines is sub-optimal. Many efforts have been made to address this problem but with poor success rates. Unifaceted interventions designed in the absence of behavioural theories appear to have the lowest success rates. Multifaceted interventions, based on behavioural theories, have more chance of success than single approaches or promotional programs focusing on one or two elements (Gopal Rao et al., 2002; Pittet, 2000; Larson et al., 2001). Choice of theory on which to base an intervention appears to be crucial to the success of a hand hygiene program. The Biomedical Model focuses strongly on disease perspective and personal characteristics as indicators of compliance or non-compliance. Operant and social learning models focus on motivation to comply with heavy emphasis on reinforcement. The communications approach is concerned with motivation to comply and disease perspective in that emphasis is on delivery, content and structure of the message. The Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behaviour are concerned mainly with attitude and intention. However, these theories have been in existence for at least the last 50 years and have been guiding studies of compliance over that time. The problem of non-compliance with hand washing guidelines remains. Therefore, what may be needed is a more comprehensive theory or model which integrates the major theoretical perspectives. The PRECEDE theoretic model may represent such an approach.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to explore healthcare workers' infection control practices from a behavioural viewpoint. Major behavioural theories are explored. Findings from a study which drew heavily from the PRECEDE theoretical framework are presented. The main purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to observe health care workers' behavioural compliance with hand hygiene guidelines during patient care in an Intensive Care Unit in Ireland before (pre test) and after (post test) implementation of a multifaceted hand hygiene program. Health care workers' attitudes, beliefs and knowledge in relation to compliance with hand-washing guidelines were also investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected through non-participant observation and survey methods. A convenience sample of nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and care assistants (n=73 observational subjects, n=62 questionnaire respondents) was used.\nFindings: - Data (n=314 observations, 62 questionnaires) were analysed descriptively and cross-tabulated using Chi Square (Pearson's) and Mann Whitney statistical tests. Results revealed that a significant shift (32 per cent) occurred in health care workers' compliance with hand washing guidelines (pre-test 51 per cent/post-test 83 per cent, p<0.001) following the interventional hand hygiene program. Similarly, significant changes were also found in relation to health care workers' attitudes, beliefs and knowledge (p<0.05).\nOriginality/value: - Findings from this paper are also of value to future researchers investigating any form of behavioural change. Recommendations from this study are that future research which aims to investigate behaviour should be underpinned by an appropriate theoretical framework. Only multifaceted interventions are justified.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The second generation in a family business: an agent of change or continuator of family tradition?	[ "Family business", "Internationalization", "International entrepreneurship", "Poland", "First and second generation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Major expansion in worldwide interest among researchers in family businesses occurred in the 1990s. Growth with each successive year can be seen in the number of research studies conducted on such companies. Study results appeared in renowned journals and were presented at conferences (Sharma, 2004, p. 1). The basis behind such interest lies in the noting of the weight and importance of this type of organization in the national economy. They are dominant among the population of economic entities in many countries - the USA, Japan, and Great Britain (Sharma, 2004, p. 3; Astrachan and Shaker, 2006; Goto, 2006; O'Sullivan and Koutsoukis, 2008).\nInternationalization of small and medium sized enterprises: the Uppsala model: With respect to small and medium sized enterprises, it is the Uppsala model that is most popular in attempting to explain their internationalization processes (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975; Johanson and Vahlne, 1977; Bell et al., 2003). This model assumes that internationalization takes place in phases that differ in the manner of involvement of the company in foreign markets. The authors of this model identify the following four phases (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975):\nFactors determining the internationalization of family businesses: Family businesses are among entities that are characterized by a great variety of definitions. This is the result of the application of diverse criteria in attempts at their defining. Among the most important is the level of ownership by the family, the scope of company control in family hands, possibilities of family influence on the company's direction of development, and the number of generations involved in management. Such criteria match the set of three systems making up a family business as identified by Gersick et al. (1997), i.e. the ownership axis, the family axis, and the business (company-organization) axis. These systems overlap each other, creating a unique constellation of activities and problems appearing in such entities, e.g. divergent company and family goals, divergent values and needs, and potential conflicts among family members (Ward, 1998).\nMethodology: The objective of this paper is identification of the role of the first and second generation in the process of internationalization of a family business active in the SME sector in Poland. Due to the specifics of Polish family businesses - seen in their relatively young age, which is the result of the fact that the main impulse for their emergence was the transformation processes that took place in the Polish economy at the start of the 1990s - the following definition has been used (Kowalewska, 2009, p. 19):\nFactors initiating the process of internationalization of the studied small and medium sized family businesses: A good starting point for any presentation of the examined Polish family businesses in the process of internationalization is a defining of the type of vision that accompanied the entrepreneurs at the moment of launching business activities and if operations on foreign markets were taken into account at all (this is a particularly interesting question in looking at the phenomena of international entrepreneurship). The examined population of family businesses tended to be dominated by the idea of creating a company operating on a small scale, satisfying the day-to-day needs of the owners (Pol-Meat, Al-KON, Coach, BOOT, and Dewon). Only the owner of one company (Black Glasses) assumed from the very beginning that the company will develop and will expand to a greater scale.\nThe first and second generations in the internationalization process of family businesses: The amassed collection of experiences relating to the organization and implementation of export operations makes it possible to identify several approaches and actions taken by the studied population of family businesses. However, prior to any presentation, it should be added that the person watching over this sphere was primarily the owner-founder (representative of the first generation). This is no cause for surprise. The reason behind this is not only the absence of separation of ownership and management, but also the fact that the first decision to undertake sales to foreign partners was made by the owner-founder (with the exception of Pol-Meat). Moreover, the activities of the owner-founder did not end with the taking of such a decision in the initial phase of export activity. The owner-founder was also directly involved in just about every phase of this type of transaction. However, with the passage of time, the owner-founder received support in either the involvement of children or through the employment of professionals such as sales directors or marketing and sales staff members. Currently, the participation of the owner-founder in export transactions is mainly seen on a supervisory level or in the taking of decision. To a lesser extent, it occurs in direct involvement in related operating activities, although there are exceptions.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Prior to drawing conclusions stemming from the above-presented analysis of experience in the internationalization of Polish small and medium sized family businesses, it should be recalled that the character of the conducted study was a qualitative one. The case study was the research method applied, a method that is very useful in the process of in-depth examination of concrete phenomena and processes taking place within the studied organization, but one with its limits. Data accumulated through its use cannot be generalized onto the whole of the population of companies in the SME sector. They apply only to the research sample, consisting of six Polish family businesses in the SME sector.\nImplications: The phenomenon of family business internationalization continues to be a sphere that calls for the continuous expansion of our knowledge (Casillas et al., 2007). The experiences of family businesses in the SME sector seem to be particularly interesting. This is because, as practice shows, they too are becoming active participants in the process of globalization. With time, some of them discover foreign markets, while some enter them as \"born global\" companies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of the first and second generations in the process of internationalization of a family business active in the SME sector in Poland.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Conducted research was qualitative in character. The research method used was the case study. A total of six case studies were developed that demonstrate the experiences of Polish exporters - family companies in the SME sector. The primary research tool was the unstructured questionnaire-based interview. Interviews were conducted over the years 2008-2009. The group of examined respondents included both the first and second generation.\nFindings: Analysis of the developed case studies indicates that it was the first generation that was responsible for making decision and undertaking operations in the first phase. With time, that generation kept only decision-related responsibilities. The second generation tends to continue tradition rather than being an agent of change.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper has been to make a characterization of the process of internationalization of family businesses in the SME sector in Poland - a country undergoing radical systemic transition. Its large-scale effect is the commencement of the process of creating companies, including family businesses. On the other hand, it makes possible the defining of the role of the second generation in the process of internationalization of family businesses, regardless of whether that generation is a continuator of the initiative of the first generation or is itself the initiator of changes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Why consumers hesitate to shop online: An experimental choice analysis of grocery shopping and the role of delivery fees	[ "Internet shopping", "Retailing", "Delivery", "Consumer behaviour", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Grocery shopping has been regarded as stressful and as a chore (Aylott and Mitchell, 1998; Geuens et al., 2003). A survey conducted by the founders of the online grocer Peapod.com suggested that consumers regarded grocery shopping as the chore they dislike most next to going to the dentist (Corral, 1999). Similarly, a study by the University of Michigan found that among 22 favourite household tasks, grocery shopping came in next-to-last, just ahead of cleaning (Richards, 1996). This fact, together with the increasing levels of internet penetration and consumer time poverty (ONS, 2001, 2002a, b), suggests that it would be reasonable to expect consumers to eagerly embrace the convenience brought by online grocery retailing.Surprisingly, however, the uptake of online grocery services has been slower than anticipated. A study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that in the US, internet sites capture only about one per cent of consumers' monthly grocery shopping trips. Only 7 per cent of respondents with online shopping experience indicate that they do at least half of their grocery shopping online, while almost half admit doing it \"very little\" (Pastore, 2000). Similarly, in the UK, online consumer expenditure accounted for only 0.4 per cent of the whole PS95 billion UK grocery market (Peppers and Rogers, 2001). Even for Tesco, the most successful online grocery retailer, the internet division represents only less than 2 per cent of its total group sales (Rigby, 2005).One of the reasons for the low uptake seems to be the delivery fee that grocery retailers charge. Indeed, a survey conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Clarke, 2000) indicated that 46 per cent of internet users cited free delivery of large orders as the factor that most likely will entice them to use an online grocery service in the future. In research conducted by OMD snapshots, delivery charges deterred 20 per cent of the respondents from shopping for groceries online (Anonymous, 2001).Obviously, delivery charges are only one of the possible reasons why a majority of consumers is still reluctant to use the internet for grocery shopping. Other reasons include issues surrounding privacy and security (Maignan and Lukas, 1997; Miyazaki and Fernandez, 2001). The uptake of online grocery shopping, however, is much lower than the average online shopping rate. In other words, many consumers who are not shopping for groceries online do have online shopping experience with other products. Research shows that for these experienced online shopping consumers, online privacy and security is less an issue (Forsythe and Shi, 2003). Security hence seems not the sole or main reason for the low uptake of online grocery shopping. This study, therefore, focuses on other factors that may influence consumer decisions of whether to shop for groceries online or in-store.Studies to date on online grocery retailing have mostly been undertaken from the perspective of retailers, focusing on the cost structure and limitations of the business model (Anckar et al., 2002; Doherty et al., 2003; Kamarainen et al., 2001; Punakivi and Saranen, 2001), as well as on lessons learned from the success and failures among online grocery retailers (Keh and Shieh, 2001; Ring and Tigert, 2001; Tanskanen et al., 2002). Existing consumer research has investigated consumers' different choice behaviour when shopping online versus in-store (Degeratu et al., 2000), the relationship between demographic characteristics and the usage of online grocery service (Hiser et al., 1999), and the attitude of existing online grocery shoppers (Morganosky and Cude, 2000; Rajias, 2002). Only limited empirical research has been conducted into the effects of situational factors on consumers' channel choice (Verhoef and Langerrak, 2001).This study, therefore, aims to find out if and how several situational factors affect consumer decisions of whether to shop online or in-store for groceries. We focus on delivery charge and three other specific factors and test how they affect shopping channel preferences. The other factors are time availability, travel time to the store, and trip purpose. We posit that the effects of these factors are mediated by consumer perceptions of convenience, risk, cost and shopping enjoyment.We test our hypotheses in a choice experiment that was carried out among a sample of intercepted shoppers. Respondents were asked about their last grocery trip and were then presented with a choice experiment consisting of two hypothetical scenarios. For each scenario they indicated the extent to which they would like to shop online/in-store. They were also asked about their attitude towards online grocery shopping and their willingness to use the online channel. These latter measures allow us to assess the reliability and validity of the mediating constructs assumed in the conceptual model. This combination of experimental testing with exploratory analysis of the assumed constructs represents a novel way of assessing the validity of choice experimental results and contributes to a better understanding of the effects of our experimental factors on channel preference.The data for this study were collected in the UK. Whereas the US market has been dominated by pure-plays (Finch, 2001) and only recently saw the launch of internet services by traditional retailers (Reyes, 2004), in the UK market the key players have been traditional retailers with an online channel, including Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, and Waitrose (Mills, 2001; Stewart, 2000; Thomas, 2002; Wearden, 2002). The only exception is Ocado, a pureplay supermarket service that was funded by Waitrose owner the John Lewis partnership and the investment bank UBS (Thomas, 2002). Retailers in the UK who have ventured into the online business have shown mixed results. Tesco was the first grocery retailer in the UK to enter the online business and is now the biggest online supermarket operator in the world. It has been in profit since 2001. To expand its product range Tesco recently started using a combination of the warehouse model, where deliveries are collected from a central warehouse, and the pick-and-pack model, whereby pickers collect orders from the shelves and the deliveries pass through the individual store's accounts. It delivers groceries from local stores, and non-grocery items from its warehouses (Rowley, 2003). Recently, Ocado has realised its first operating profit after its launch five years ago (IMRG, 2005). However, the others are still struggling with profit margins as they strive to reach a critical mass (Thomas, 2002; Veitch, 2002). Delivery charges by the online grocery retailers in the UK range from 0 (for large orders) to PS5.99.The rest of this paper is structured as follows. In the next section, the model is explained and hypotheses are developed. Next, the data collection method and experimental design are described. This is followed by a presentation of the results. In the last section, contributions, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.\nTheoretical framework: The conceptual model that we propose and test in this research is shown in Figure 1. As shown, we identify four factors (purpose of the trip, time available for shopping, delivery charge and travel time to a physical store) as the most relevant in the context of the present study to characterise a grocery trip. We propose that they affect consumers' channel choice for grocery shopping, and that the effects are mediated by the perceived differences between online and in-store shopping conditions in terms of costs, convenience, enjoyment and risk. The four factors are now briefly discussed.Cost factors\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nAnalysis and results: Internet access and last grocery shopping trip\nConclusion and discussion: A majority of consumers seems still reluctant to use, or regularly use, the internet for their grocery shopping. This study aimed to find out how delivery charge and three other situational factors impact upon consumers' inclination to shop online or in-store for their groceries. Our results show that these four factors all affect the decision whether to shop online for groceries. It was further established that, though of influence, delivery charges were not the most important factor. Fifteen minutes difference in travel time to the grocery store had a greater impact on the relative preference to shop online or in-store than the delivery fee of PS5. It thus seems that the sampled consumers are at least as concerned about the travel time to the store as they are about delivery fees. This suggests that attempts to promote online grocery shopping can equally well, if not better, focus on communicating the time savings gained by shopping online than on lowering delivery charges.This study also tested if and how perceptions of costs, risk, convenience and enjoyment of online versus in-store shopping mediate the effects of these factors on shopping channel preference. It was hypothesized that delivery charge and travel time to a physical store influence shopping channel preference because they affect consumers' cost perceptions of online and in-store shopping. Travel time to a physical store was expected to also have an effect through consumers' perceptions of convenience of the two channels. Similarly, it was proposed that the purpose of the grocery trip influences shopping channel preference through affecting consumers' risk perceptions. Finally, it was posed that time available for shopping affects shopping channel preference through affecting both consumers' convenience and enjoyment perceptions.The empirical results confirmed several of these hypotheses. However, trip purpose was not found to affect the difference between consumers' perceived risk of online and in-store shopping. Instead, it was found to have an effect on the difference in perceived enjoyment provided by the two channels. In addition, it was not supported that time available for shopping has an effect on the difference between perceived online and in-store shopping convenience. Also, delivery charge effects are only partly mediated by the constructs in our model. Based on these results we proposed a revised model (Figure 3). The revised model includes a direct link between delivery charges and online shopping preference. It no longer specifies a relationship between any of the situational factors and perceived risk channel differences. Perceived risk difference is retained in the model because it was shown in this study to influence online purchase intention. It can be expected that other variables, including socio-demographics, will influence levels of perceived risk.This study also explored the differences between those who have shopped online for groceries before and those who have no such experience. Our results suggest that although the latter perceive the same level of online shopping cost as the former, they enjoy in-store shopping more and do less mind about the associated effort. Moreover, interestingly, those who had used online shopping before agreed less on the point that they expect online shopping to take less time than going to a store. There were, however, no differences between these groups in their responses to the experimental conditions.Our methodology included a novel approach to including constructs in choice experiments and testing their validity. We added measures of hypothesized mediating constructs to our choice experimental task such that hypotheses could be tested about how the factors (attributes) influence the dependent variable. We furthermore were able to establish the validity of these constructs, by adding a battery of items to the experimental task that were assumed to parallel the construct items in the earlier tasks. We are not aware of other studies having taken this approach before. This validation exercise conducted here resulted in additional insights, in particular that the constructs of shopping convenience and shopping enjoyment are not independent. As discussed in the paper, this is understandable if it is realized that convenience can act as a facilitator for enjoyment.Clearly, there are several limitations to this study. Firstly, this study included only a limited number of respondents with online grocery shopping experience. In addition, while this study provides information on the different perceptions held by those who have online grocery shopping experience and those who do not, it did not distinguish between the \"deserters\", those who were discouraged by previous experience, and the \"offline buyers\", those who have never purchased groceries online at all. While both may exhibit similar levels of preference for buying in-store or online, the reasons behind this may be quite different. Finally, as the study is based on a limited sample, generalizations to other audiences may not be valid. However, the results did provide insights into the shopping behaviour of a population of relatively high education and income level (see sample description). This composition of the sample may partly explain the low importance of delivery fees relative to travel time. Samples drawn from populations with a different socio-demographic composition may display a higher sensitivity to delivery fees relative to travel time. Developing such applications of our method for different populations could, therefore, provide a basis for developing micromarketing strategies.Regarding possibilities for further research, the first recommendation would be to investigate which perceptions other than the ones included here may mediate the effects of delivery charge. Delivery charges could be considered an inconvenience and a risk as well as a cost, however, there is no support for this alternative hypothesis in our data. Further research is required to better find out what determines consumer response to delivery charges. To further establish this, further research should test the results of this study on a larger scale and on a sample size more representative of the national population of grocery shoppers. The study could also be conducted with a fuller range of scenarios, which should ideally include more situational factors, to see whether the variance in consumers' preferences can be further explained.In addition, in order to refine market segmentation strategies, further research might consider distinguishing the \"deserters\" from the \"offline shoppers\", and investigating their perceptions separately. Also, as suggested by previous studies (Morganosky and Cude, 2000), the group of older/physically challenged consumers should be investigated as a potential market for online grocery services.Although this issue was not measured in the survey, several respondents commented to the interviewer that they consider it inconvenient to wait at home for the delivery. This issue could be further examined to see how it is related to consumers' reluctance to use the online grocery service. Moreover, in light of the practice of the US online grocery retailers (Baker, 2000; Punakivi and Saranen, 2001), this inconvenience could be reduced by either reducing the time of the delivery window (e.g. whereas Tesco uses a delivery window of two hours, Webvan used a delivery window of only half an hour), or by providing unmanned reception equipment (e.g. Streamline.com provides a reception box at its customers' garage or home yard). Consumers' likely response to these two options could be investigated to decide a feasible way to improve consumer value.Finally, the combination of experimental and survey methods served well in this study to evaluate the effects of the individual factors on consumers' preference and to establish consumers' perceptions of the benefits of online and in-store grocery shopping. In this study, multiple regression analysis was employed to test the relationships presented in the conceptual model. It could be attempted in future work to have multiple indicators for each factor, construct and dependent variable, either within the experiment or in a parallel set of items appended to a balanced subset of the experimental tasks similar as in this study. Such data would allow the application of structural equation modelling to fully take into account the different sources of measurement error in the models.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To find out if and how delivery charge and three other situational factors affect consumers' grocery shopping channel choice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey was conducted among a convenience sample of 152 supermarket shoppers in South England. Each respondent was presented with two hypothetical grocery shopping scenarios characterised by four situational factors. Respondents were asked to indicate their preference for shopping online or in-store in each described situation. They also provided information about their last grocery shopping trip.\nFindings: - The results show that all four situational factors affect consumers' shopping channel preference. It was further established that, though of influence, delivery charges are not the most important factor. Fifteen minutes difference in travel time to the grocery store had a greater impact on the relative preference to shop online or in-store than a delivery fee of PS5.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although experimentally controlled, the findings are based on behavioural intentions and not on real market behaviour. Also, they are based on a convenience sample of intercepted shoppers only.\nPractical implications: - Attempts to promote online grocery shopping should focus on communicating the time savings gained by shopping online rather than lowering delivery charges.\nOriginality/value: - Only few studies have investigated effects of situational factors, including delivery charges, on consumer channel choice for grocery shopping. Experimental studies are particularly scarce.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Military technology development: a future-based approach using scenarios	[ "Forecasting", "Risk assessment", "Risk management", "Decision trees", "Military aircraft" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: National security and protecting one's homeland are critical concerns all countries share. However, strategic planning efforts regarding military forces are at a crossroads as the international security environment has changed dramatically in the last two decades. The \"Cold War\" has been replaced by a landscape dotted with insurgents. In some cases, the unconventional tactics the insurgents use often negate to a large degree the perceived advantage of technological superiority. In other cases, the knowledge-based \"flat\" world of today and the rapid spread of technology minimize the perceived advantages as well. The threat environment is thus a dynamic one with many new and emerging technologies that complicates long-range planning efforts, yet the assessment of the threat environment remains critical. This presents unique challenges to countries as they evaluate the military component of national security strategy planning. In light of the need for both counterinsurgency efforts vice traditional military forces, which defense technologies should be pursued?When considering which defense technologies to invest in, Martel (2001) suggests three categories:1. technologies that are mature;2. those that are promising but will not improve capabilities for another decade or so; and3. those that show promise but will not be mature for decades.Regardless of which category is being addressed, he also suggests that proposed technological improvements should be considered with an eye to the future - will the technology present an advantage in future wars against insurgent enemies? To address this question, we propose a multi-level approach that combines an estimation of the most likely course of technology development and a projection of the most likely future adversaries.Obviously, including all aspects of national security planning would be a monumental task. Therefore, we limited our scope and only examined future technological threats to a new long-range strike aircraft being considered by the USA. However, it is not our intent with this paper to present the results of any technology forecasting efforts or analyses of future states. Instead, we relied on information from existing studies; furthermore, these studies are available from open sources (i.e. non-classified). Therefore, our goal is to demonstrate a systematic methodology that combines the concepts of future-based scenarios and expected future technologies. The result is a credible scenario-based model to help decision-makers develop a strategy to counter the most likely future threats to a long-range strike aircraft.\nBackground: With our emphasis on long-range future strike capability, there were two distinct challenges. The first challenge was determining the most likely type of technology to be available in the 2025 time period that would enable an adversary to negate, or seriously challenge, the Air Force's traditional strike aircraft advantages of range, speed, and stealth. However, we wanted to move beyond trend analysis and predictions based on historical data; instead, we considered it more important to prepare for unexpected and disruptive technologies that potentially generate orders-of-magnitude improvement in capability or change the very nature of warfare. The second challenge was to characterize the mostly likely adversaries in 2025. This required a much broader look at the political and economic trends in the world to determine future environments.Technology development\nDevelopment of risk scenarios: The threat scenarios we analyzed as part of this research were determined by considered a long-range strike aircraft and evaluating the impact of an adversary's technology development within the context of various alternative futures, with the ultimate goal being to provide additional insight to the decision-maker. Since decision analysis is often based on decomposition (Kenney and Raiffa, 1976), we considered it appropriate to decompose the threat scenarios into risk scenarios; this also made the task more manageable. Therefore, we used the risk filtering, ranking, and management (RFRM) framework developed by Haimes et al. (2002), who suggest that the method can be used to \"identity, prioritize, assess, and manage risk scenarios\" (p. 383). The RFRM framework consists of eight phases:1. Scenario Identification;2. Scenario Filtering;3. Bi-Criteria Filtering and Ranking;4. Multi-Criteria Evaluation;5. Quantitative Ranking;6. Risk Management;7. Safeguarding Against Missing Critical Items; and8. Operations Feedback.Before proceeding with the RFRM method though, various assumptions need to be stated. All modern weapon systems we considered were assumed to be designed as an integrated element of a larger \"system of systems\". This is relevant for two reasons. First, all of the major systems must work properly for the aircraft to operate. Therefore, if a major system is substantially damaged, the aircraft was assumed to be inoperative from a mission perspective. Second, even though a thorough systems approach would consider external elements beyond the aircraft system boundary, this research focused solely on the area inside the aircraft system boundary and on direct threats to the aircraft. Additionally, the offensive weapon systems of the aircraft were not considered in the analysis.Scenario identification\nModeling a decision tree: In addition to developing and filtering scenarios, there are several decision analysis techniques to aid in the final determination. One example of particular value to this research was a decision analysis approach employed to consider installing anti-missile systems on commercial aircraft (von Winterfeldt and O'Sullivan, 2006). This technique seems to have value for applying decision analysis to future scenarios as well. Although it is clear that additional technical data is required on each threat concept to make informed decisions, it is still possible to develop a decision tool by generating reasonable ranges for specific technical values and cost considerations. To demonstrate how the technique could be applied to analyze a decision maker's options, we developed a decision tree model to decide whether or not to invest in an onboard, anti-missile directed energy weapon (AMDEW) to counter many of the threat scenarios under consideration. This same process could be used for EMP hardening, adding redundant control structures, investing in \"active stealth\" research, etc.In developing the decision tree, we first created logical pathways that included every significant decision point. The next phase of the analysis required us to estimate the cost of developing and fielding the AMDEW system; these costs are shown in Table XV along with the probability values. Using the probabilities and expected costs, a decision tree can be developed and solved. For the base case shown in Table XV, the expected equivalent cost of employing the system ($180.7 million) is significantly less than the expected equivalent cost of not employing the system ($408.7 million). To ensure the decision-maker's choice is clear, we performed sensitivity analysis on all of the factors used in the decision. The decision was found to be sensitive only to the Mission Value variable; if the Mission Value is more than $267 million, the AMDEW system should not be pursued.\nConclusions: The purpose of this research was to help generate useful threat scenarios to aid decision-makers in planning defensive systems for a long-range strike aircraft operating in the 2035 timeframe. We should emphasize that the purpose of this paper was to demonstrate a process to achieve those aims. The paper is clearly not intended to be a technical report on advanced technologies, nor is it intended to be a definitive prediction of future technologies or the world geopolitical situation. Those goals are well beyond the scope of this effort. Instead, we relied on an established process called the \"risk filtering ranking and management\" (RFRM) method to generate and evaluate possible risk scenarios. We then showed how decision tree analysis could be incorporated to provide further insight to decision-makers. Although not addressed in the paper, we also used various forms of sensitivity analysis to provide more detailed insight. All of the reports and data we used in this research were explicitly from open sources. Therefore, we fully recognize that the decision-makers for future Air Force development projects would need much greater technical granularity to facilitate a true quantitative analysis. This would require access to the most current and classified information, as well as access to classified expert assessments, regarding the threats posed by US adversaries and the impact on operational decision-making. Additional research would also be appropriate (as separate projects) to develop more detailed projections of capabilities regarding each of the three major threat areas we included in this research:1. electromagnetic pulses;2. directed energy weapons; and3. advanced detection systems.More detailed quantification of the value of a strike mission so that it can be properly considered in a risk management plan would also be necessary. However, this study has provided insight into reasonable starting points for more detailed exploration; as such, it serves as a foundation (or at least as a methodology template) for more detailed analysis. At the very least, the approach we explored in this research should provide decision-makers with a method for incorporating formal studies, technology demonstrations, and additional research into a coherent decision structure that can be evaluated and adjusted over time. Using actual parameters of weapon systems (including both operational-based and cost-based data) would enable military planners to establish tracking indicators to determine when emerging technologies might possibly compromise current systems.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The threat environment countries face is a dynamic one, with many emerging technologies. This paper presents unique challenges as countries evaluate which technologies to pursue in support of national security. Rather than addressing a broad range of strategic options, this paper limits its scope to a single type of aircraft. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a methodology to counter the most likely future threats to a long-range strike aircraft.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To address future threats, the paper examined the most likely course of technology development within the context of various alternative futures. To decompose general threat scenarios into specific risk scenarios, the risk filtering, ranking, and management (RFRM) framework was used. After identifying the most significant risk scenarios, decision tree analysis provided insight into whether or not to pursue a given technology (e.g. electromagnetic pulse hardening, redundant control structures, etc.).\nFindings: - It is found the RFRM and decision tree tools to be very complementary in developing a credible scenario-based decision model that incorporates expected technology development and alternative futures.\nPractical implications: - The paper is not intended to be a technical report on advanced technologies or predict future technologies and the world geopolitical situation. However, the approach explored should serve as a foundation for more detailed analysis that incorporates formal studies, technology demonstrations, and additional research into a coherent decision structure that can be evaluated and adjusted over time.\nOriginality/value: - The paper combines the RFRM and decision tree tools to examine concepts from both technology development and alternative futures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovation practices success in China: the use of innovation mechanisms in Chinese SOEs	[ "Innovation", "Stakeholder analysis", "Public sector organizations", "China", "Case studies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: After two decades of gradual, piecemeal reform and opening-up, the economic environment of China has been changing from the centrally planned economic system to a more western-like open market system. With the reform and China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in particular, the status of the mainstream of the socialist economic system and the main contributors to the government's revenue are changing. This means that the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are now confronted with fierce challenges from the non-state sectors (such as the private economy, the township and village enterprises (TVEs) and the foreign-funded enterprises).Management of technology in China has roughly experienced three phases. Firstly, before the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China had long been in a self-closed situation except for some technologies introduced from the former Soviet Union and East Europe in the 1950s. The whole country followed the basic tenets of \"acting independently and with the initiative in one's own hands; reconstructing through one's own efforts\". The government set up technology standards and platforms for industries and let the SOEs design and produce, with no R&D activity involved in an enterprise. One of our case companies (i.e. LocoCo) can be regarded as a good example of this period. LocoCo was firstly founded as a locomotive repairing works. With the Chinese government importing the first locomotive from the former Soviet Union in the 1950s, little by little LocoCo began to own such technologies and gradually developed its own technology. LocoCo became, and still is the (semi-) monopolistic locomotive producer and supplier in the Chinese markets. In the second phase (early 1980s till mid-1980s), the Chinese state-owned manufacturing enterprises imported a large number of technologies under the support of the government, which saw the focus of technology management in this period as technology selection and project implementation (i.e. technology transformation) from abroad. Those imported technologies are product designs; manufacturing techniques and equipment; production management techniques (including quality assurance); auxiliary equipment; testing techniques and devices and standards (Gu, 1999). The third phase started in the mid-1980s till the late 1990s, the focus was on the localization of imported technology, absorbing and assimilating technology from abroad. Thus the core of technology management in Chinese manufacturing industry during this period was imitation and partly improvement. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Chinese firms are trying to construct the core competence and the indigenous innovation capabilities of their own. This could be regarded as the start of a fourth phase.With many SOEs losing their market share in the past decade, the SOEs and the Chinese government have been seeking to better understand management of technical innovation, in order to get out of this dilemma. In the mid-1990s, the issue of technological innovation has been called on by the Chinese government. During the late 1990s, this issue has been put on many Chinese firms' agenda, drawing practitioners' as well as scholars' attention in studying innovation management in the Chinese context (Gao, 1997; Fu, 1998; Liu, 2001).Based on a comprehensive literature study and their own empirical research and experience, Bolwijn and Kumpe (1990) developed an evolutionary model of western manufacturing firms. This model describes the evolvement of large-scale manufacturing firms from the 1960s to the 1990s in terms of market requirement and performance criteria, from efficient firm via quality firm and flexible firm to innovative firm. According to Bolwijn and Kumpe (1990):... the (Western) innovative firm since the 1990s is most successful with its capabilities of creating new demand and innovating products and processes in a short time.A relatively similar evolution may be recognized in the phases described above for the Chinese SOEs. Hence, it may be concluded that more attention should be paid in gaining knowledge about the SOEs' effectiveness of management of technical innovation in the changing context of China.Numerous western authors have provided an answer to the questions of why to innovate and how to innovate (Burgelman et al., 1996; Tushman and Anderson, 1997; Tidd et al., 1997; Radnor and Robinson, 2000; Brockhoff et al., 2000). The question here is what insights of western theories on good practices in management of technical innovation can contribute to the knowledge about the effectiveness of management of technical innovation in the changing context of Chinese SOEs. In regard to the transition from a centrally planned system to a market economy, many scholars argue that the management setting in China is changing, and a holistic viewpoint is needed to study the management of technical innovation in the Chinese context (Fu, 1998; Liu and Gao, 1999).However, there are not many researches have been done concerning technical innovation in the Chinese context. Also, the research method is relatively singular. One example can be seen from Gao (1997). Gao's (1997) research data were based on the six times of questionnaire, which were carried out by the Economics and Management Research Institute of Tsinghua University, the leading institute in China. Supplementary data were from China (science and technology) statistical yearbooks. The author himself used mathematical statistical method for the analysis. Another example is Wang et al. (2002). Without stating what research method(s) they used in their study, in their paper they put forward strategies for large and medium SOEs' technological innovation. Wang et al. (2002) advise: \"properly introduce advanced technology and equipment; put emphasis on assimilating and absorbing; establish and perfect interior innovation mechanism which is propitious to enterprise's technological innovations\".The above literature brought us the impetus to set up our objective of this research as to explore the technical innovation status of the SOEs and the possibilities for the application of (western) good practices in management of technical innovation to the Chinese SOEs. In view of the fact that the Chinese enterprises are following the evolution process of the western innovative firms, we aim to investigate the extent that innovation mechanisms are in use in the Chinese SOEs, by applying a technical innovation assessment tool that is based on western good practices.This paper is structured as follows. After this introduction part, it continues to describe the methods used in this research, on which three case companies are selected and how the technical innovation audit tool developed by Chiesa et al. (1996) are used for data of the technical innovation status in the three Chinese SOEs. Information was also collected through triangulation methods (Jick, 1979) in an attempt to examine more deeply the cultural and behavioural activities in influencing the Chinese SOEs' technical innovation capabilities, and to validate the empirical results obtained via the use of the technical innovation audit tool. The empirical data are presented in a qualitative way, by applying the guide by Miles and Huberman (1984). In the concluding section it is discussed that Chinese SOEs have some innovation mechanisms in place, but more could be done to adapt to the world level. Benchmarking (through the application of the audit tool) may guide management in adopting more and other appropriate innovation mechanisms as the basics for successful innovations. We also found that in the transition economy of China, SOEs with less openness to the market (i.e. with high government involvement) has had a more widespread use of innovation mechanisms and vice versa. This finding seems to contradict the positive relationship between market focus and innovativeness as suggested in \"Western\" innovation management theories. The analysis to the case companies also enriches to a certain extent the theory of transition. It reveals that being open to the market is not the solution for SOEs to be more competitive and more innovative. In this largest socialist system of the world, the main stakeholder (i.e. government) still plays an important role in the openness of the SOEs and in their use of innovation mechanisms. To apply this point to a broader population of enterprises in China, more studies on both SOEs and non-SOEs need to be done, which indicates our future research.\nMethods: Case study for this research\nDiscussion: Dynamics of stakeholder composition of the three SOEs\nFurther research: By doing case research, the authors realized that the major stakeholders of Chinese SOEs have had significant influences on their openness to the market, their technical innovation capabilities and use of innovation mechanisms. More case studies need to be conducted to see how this is applicable to other Chinese firms. Factors such as the extent of market openness, the government influences, company size, innovation input and output, etc. will be considered. Not only the state-owned and non-state-owned, but also the emerging phenomenon of Chinese enterprises operating abroad could also be studied to compare with the research results.In order to test the research results, the authors submitted a research proposal together with a Chinese institute for a further research. The joint research proposal (titled Management of Technical Innovation of the Chinese Firms in the Transition Economy) has recently been approved by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (Netherlands) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (China). This future research will focus on specific stakeholders' influence on the company's openness to the market and innovation mechanisms. This is to obtain knowledge about the way management of technical innovation taking place in China, to what extent and in what respect it differs from the western \"best practices\" and if these differences can be explained by the way Chinese management teams deal with environmental complexity. This includes whether and how Chinese enterprises, which wish to globalise in the world market, can make positive use of the strategies of complexity absorption or perhaps should be advised to turn to the strategies of complexity reduction in operating in a different cultural and institutional environment. The expected research results are aimed to contribute to the theory of transition, to provide insights for appropriate government policies in China's socialist system in transition, and to help Chinese enterprises in their transition to market-oriented companies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The climate for technical innovation has been improving in the past few years in China. This paper describes a case research concerning technical innovation practices success in three Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the manufacturing industry. This is executed by applying a technical innovation audit tool based on \"Western\" good practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Studies on technical innovation in the Chinese SOEs started in the 1990s, but most investigations in this field were based on statistical survey and mathematical modelling. In this research, case study research method, including such strategies as open-ended, in-depth questions, intensive interviews and observations, are applied for the validity of information.\nFindings: - The data and results reveal that the investigated Chinese SOEs have already some mechanisms for innovation in place. But there is still room for improvement and enhancement with respect to the effect on innovation success. It is also concluded that benchmarking (through the application of the technical innovation audit tool) does guide the Chinese management toward deciding which innovation mechanisms to adopt so as to provide the basics for innovation success. Additionally, based on the case studies the interesting conclusion could be drawn. In the context of the Chinese economy in transition, the case companies with less openness to the market (i.e. with high government involvement) have a more widespread use of innovation mechanisms.\nPractical implications: - The last finding seems to contradict the positive relationship between market focus and innovativeness as suggested in \"Western\" innovation management theories. For clarification we relate this to the way the SOEs deal with their adaptive cycle, thereby considering their way of dealing with (increased) complexity as compared to \"Western\" companies (complexity absorption versus reduction). The considered cases are embedded in the institutional setting of China in transition. Therefore, the conclusions and findings enrich the theory of transition by revealing the point that entering an open market abruptly may not be the solution for SOEs, which are rooted in a socialist economy, to become more competitive and more innovative. This was mostly elaborated through the influence of the two main stakeholders (i.e. government and customer/end-user) on the openness of the SOEs and their use of innovation mechanisms in China, the largest socialist system of the world.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is based on a doctoral research project, containing reliable, first hand data from the practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Socio-ecological school environments and children's health and wellbeing outcomes	[ "Schools", "Ireland", "Health promoting schools", "Health", "Wellbeing", "Primary schools", "Environments" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The school setting has always been important for health education because it provides a location to target large groups of children or young people at the same time, and is considered an important setting for promoting health and learning (Pommier et al., 2010). The Ottawa Charter (WHO, 1986) acknowledged the influence that surroundings can have on an individual's health, and established a course for the settings approach in health promotion, which informed the development of health promoting school (HPS) programmes in the 1980s. The main goal of the settings approach to health promotion is to transform a setting, such as a school, into a health promoting setting (Noblet, 2003).\nMethodology: Study participants\nFindings: Socio demographic characteristics of participants\nDiscussion: The results of this study suggest that pupils' general health and wellbeing outcomes were associated with socio-ecological environments of the schools. Irish primary school pupils had a relatively positive perception of their school socio-ecological environments and their health and wellbeing albeit with some differences by gender and school types. The mean scores for pupils' perceptions of school socio-ecological environment and health and wellbeing outcomes were higher among pupils in non-DEIS schools than in DEIS schools. This may be related to the characteristics of the DEIS schools where pupils are more likely to be personally disadvantaged and to be living in a socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhood.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Attention to improving the school environment is a common activity in school health promotion. The role of the school environment in supporting improved health and wellbeing has a theoretical base, but has rarely been directly investigated empirically. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the associations between school socio-ecological environment and health and wellbeing outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaire data were collected from 231 pupils in nine primary schools: urban and rural; single and mixed gender; disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged; and health promoting schools (HPS) and non-HPS. Questionnaire items included perceptions of the school socio- ecological environment (school perception, class relationships, teacher relationships, school policy and parental participation) and health and wellbeing outcomes.\nFindings: Reported school perception (OR 1.21, 95 per cent CI 1.12-1.30), class relationships (OR 1.13, 95 per cent CI 1.06-1.21), relationship with teacher (OR 1.20, 95 per cent CI 1.11-1.29), perception of school policy (OR 1.25, 95 per cent CI 1.13-1.37) and parents' participation in school life (OR 1.32, 95 per cent CI 1.15-1.51) were all significantly associated with health and wellbeing outcomes for all groups of pupils. Very few differences emerged between different school types on the measures of either school socio-ecological environment or measures of health and wellbeing.\nOriginality/value: The socio-ecological environment is clearly related to general health and wellbeing outcomes, which underlines its relevance to school health promotion. The lack of discernable differences between HPS and non-HPS demonstrate the lack of clarity in definitions of the health promoting status of schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Global brands or local heroes?: evidence from the Spanish beer market	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Brands", "Brewing industry", "Consumer purchasing decisions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The recent growing globalization has led to an increased market competition and intensifying international marketing activities on a global scale among brands originating from various countries, with many global brands competing with local brands in their host countries. The market globalization contributes to the availability of foreign products and brands, stimulating local companies to market their products competitively, enabling consumers to purchase and experience both global and local brands and products. So, in today's marketplace it is increasingly important to understand whether consumers prefer global or local brands, and the reasons that underlie such a preference. In this context, marketing managers need to understand that consumer response to global and local brands may be more complex than is commonly assumed (Van Ittersum and Wong, 2010); since consumers are hybridizing global and local cultural influences, resulting in unique outcomes depending on national cultural values (Van Ittersum and Wong, 2010). This understanding is critical in determining the focus on the global or local aspects on branding and marketing strategies for companies operating in different markets worldwide (Gielens and Steenkamp, 2007; Zhang and Khare, 2009). There is a need to analyze whether consumers prefer global brands to local brands and, if they do, the reasons that underlie such preference.\n2. Literature review: 2.1. Consumers' preference for global or local brands\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Product and brand selection\n4. Results discussion: 4.1. Differences among consumer evaluations\n5. Conclusions: As it was mentioned before, many multinational companies are offering global brands, believing that consumers worldwide prefer global brands to local brands, despite this belief has not been systematically researched. Some previous studies (Alden et al., 1999; Steenkamp et al., 2003) highlighted that many numerous companies were positioning their brands as global; while research has not yet established if this practice is justified nor even analyzed why consumers might prefer global brands to local alternatives. So, the main purpose of this study was to evaluate consumer preferences and assessment for local and global brand alternatives, within a given consumption sector, to identify sources and consequences of such preferences. Our study shows that consumers' evaluations and preferences toward global and local brands have significant differences, making an interesting contribution to the existing body of knowledge in consumer behavior, focussing in a mature developed European market. This study provides an important empirical test of the frequent assumption that consumers prefer global brands, since we do not find support in the Spanish brewery sector for such a generalized pathway. Indeed our results show the better consumer evaluation for the local beer alternatives. More importantly, beer brand loyalty exerts the strongest effect on customer-based brand value, purchase intention and premium prize disposition. Although global brands are supposed to communicate higher prestige, perceived quality as well as higher awareness and brand associations, our findings show that loyalty appears to be more heavily weighted by consumers, maybe indicating that quality and image perceptions are more transitory than consumer loyalty.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers perceive and evaluate local and global brands - in a developed mature European market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, four dimensions and two consequences of brand equity are evaluated, based on consumers' standpoint. Structural equation modeling is carried out in order to analyze results obtained.\nFindings: The findings suggest that brand loyalty, brand image and perceived quality exert the higher influence on consumers' brand value; while there are relevant differences in consumer's assessment toward local and global brands.\nOriginality/value: This study provides local and global brand marketers with further specific knowledge on how to market and enhance their brands' value in a globalized increasingly competitive world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do women in top management affect firm performance?A panel study of 2,500 Danish firms	[ "Denmark", "Managers", "Corporate governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the latest decade, there has been an increasing focus on the gender of top executives and boards of directors of firms. The proportion of women reaching top positions is still very low in most countries, though it has been increasing in for instance the US and in some European countries. Some governments, like in Sweden and Norway, have even introduced regulations of the gender composition of the boards of directors of private firms in order to improve equal opportunities. In Norway, the government has decided that for large Norwegian firms at least 40 percent of the members of the boards of directors must be women in 2005. This seems to have had a major impact on the recruitment practices for Norwegian board members (Hoel, 2004). According to Hoel, the proportion of women in Norwegian listed firms increased from about 6 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2005.Parallel to this discussion, focus has been on good corporate governance in many countries (see for instance for the US TIAA-CREF, 2004 and for Denmark Norby-Johansen et al., 2001. One of the aspects of good corporate governance is management diversity, i.e. a heterogeneous composition of top management. If it is actually the case that more women (or minority groups) as top executives or members of boards of directors have a positive effect on shareholder value and firm performance, this may be a strong argument for having more women in top management.In this study, we analyse whether female top executives and women on boards of directors have any significant effect on firm performance measured by alternative performance measures. The study examines the relationship between management diversity and firm performance for the 2,500 largest Danish firms observed during the period 1993-2001. Management diversity is defined as the proportion of women among the highest-ranking CEOs in firms and on boards of directors. We estimate various panel data models of firm performance and control for factors that are traditionally found to affect firm performance, e.g. firms' age, size, sector, export orientation. We find that after controlling for these observed factors, the proportion of women among top executives and on boards of directors tends to have a significantly positive effect on firm performance. A large part of this effect is attributed to the female managers with the best qualifications in terms of education, and for the female board members it appears that the ones representing the staff have the largest positive impact on firm performance. However, when controlling for unobserved firm-specific factors, the effect often turns insignificant. This may reflect that until now very few Danish firms have had women at the CEO level, and thus panel estimates of the performance effects of female CEOs are determined with a large statistical uncertainty. An alternative explanation may be, that the relatively few firms who hire women at the top level of their organization are firms, which are also doing well on a number of other unmeasured characteristics (for instance good working conditions and work environment, a more focussed recruitment policy, etc.). Another crucial issue is the direction of causality (i.e. do women on boards really affect firm performance or is it actually the case that better performing firms are more likely to hire women?). Therefore, tests for causality between the gender proportion on boards of directors and firm performance are performed. We find that the positive relationship is due to board diversity affecting firm performance, not the opposite.\nTheoretical considerations and earlier findings: There are a number of arguments in favour of diversity of board members to be found in the previous literature (Bantel and Jackson, 1989) and (Murray, 1989). Carter et al., 2003 list five positive arguments from a \"business case perspective\" and also discuss management diversity in a principal agent framework. Among the arguments pro management diversity is that a more diverse board of directors (or executive board) is able to make decisions based on the evaluation of more alternatives compared to a more homogenous board. Women directors may have different experiences from their working life and non-working life compared to men. They may have a better understanding than men of some of the segments of the market place of the firm, and this may improve the creativity and quality of the decision making process of the board (Singh and Vinnicombe, 2004). A more gender diverse board may also improve the image of the firm and in this way have positive effects on firm performance and shareholder value if the positive image has positive effects on customers' behaviour. Another argument for aiming at a more diverse composition of board members is that if only male individuals are potential candidates for the boards, the selection of board members will take place from only this selected distribution of qualifications, and on average this implies a much lower quality than if the candidates are selected among the best from the distribution of both men and women (or include minority groups). Furthermore, women in top management positions may have positive effects on the career development of women at lower levels within the organizations through mentor and role models effects. Women at senior levels may affect positively the career aspirations of younger women in lower positions (Ely, 1990); (Burke and McKeen, 1996); and (Bell, 2005). This may increase firm productivity directly and more indirectly through a larger pool of potential candidates for top positions in the firm.However, there may also be arguments against management diversity. If a heterogeneous board produces more opinions and more critical questions, this may be time-consuming and may not be as effective as a more homogenous board of directors, especially if the firm is operating in a highly competitive environment where the ability to react quickly to market shocks is an important issue. A culturally, ethnically or gender diverse board may experience more conflicts, and even though the decisions may have a better quality in the end, this may not balance the negative effects of a more slow decision-making process if the market place of the firm demands quick responses (Hambrick et al., 1996). Thus, based on theory, the answer concerning the financial effects of management diversity and women on boards is undetermined a priori.Predictions from the previous empirical evidence are ambiguous. Most of the empirical studies have been based on US data1, and most of the studies include only the largest firms. Shrader et al., 1997 analyse the 200 largest US firms and they are unable to find any significantly positive relationship between the percentage of female board members and firm performance (measured by return on assets, ROA, and return on equity, ROE). They even find significantly negative relations in some cases. Kochan et al., 2003 also find no positive relations between gender diversity in management and firm performance for US companies. Contrary to these findings, Catalyst, 2004 and Adler, 2001 find positive correlations between \"female-friendly\" US Fortune 500 firms and the performance of these firms2. Carter et al., 2003 also find a significantly positive effect of the percentage of women and minorities on boards of directors and firm value after controlling for a number of other factors, which may affect firm value. The study by Carter et al., 2003 also controls for the direction of causality by estimating an instrument variable model (IV-model), see below.Only very few studies from outside the US exist on this topic. Du Rietz and Henrekson, 2000 analyse firm performance and women on boards for a sample of Swedish firms. They find that if not controlling for firm size and sectors, firms with women on the board seem to under-perform. However, when controlling for these factors, the under-performance hypothesis could not be confirmed. A recent Norwegian study by Bohren and Strom, 2005 finds a significantly negative relationship between gender diversity (proportion of women among board of directors) and firm performance (measured by Tobin's Q) in Norwegian listed non-financial firms observed during the period 1989-2002. For Denmark, a study by Rose, 2004 finds a negative, but insignificant relationship between the percentage of women on the boards of directors and firm performance (measured by Tobin's Q). The study by Rose is based on cross section data for the 116 largest listed Danish firms. Thus, his study is based on a quite small sub-sample of the firms included in the analysis presented in this paper.Thus, the conclusion from the previous empirical studies is ambiguous. Besides the ambiguous theoretical predictions, the diverse empirical evidence may be due to different estimation methods. In some studies, no controls for other factors are included. For instance size and age of the firm (which are factors known to affect firm performance) may correlate with the percentage of females on boards, and thus it may blur the picture if not controlled for. Further, there may be a number of other unobserved factors which are important for firm performance, but which will perhaps never be observable for the researcher. Therefore, panel data where the same firms are observed in a number of years may give a more reliable picture than cross-section studies based on only one year of observation.A further problem with many of the existing studies is that the samples used are typically only based on the largest (listed) firms for which it is possible to get reliable information. Therefore, the results may not be representative for all firms in a given country. Finally, it is important to control for the direction of causality. If well-performing firms decide to employ more women (or minorities) because they decide on a more risky strategy with respect to recruiting board members, the observed relationship between a gender diverse board and firm performance will tend to become positive. If this is the case, causality may run from performance to management diversity and not the reverse.\nData and methods: In this study, we aim at overcoming a number of the weaknesses by using a rather unique data set based which is fairly large, compared to many earlier studies. Further, we have information on the same firms during a number of years and thus we are able to control for unobserved heterogeneity among firms, which may affect some of the earlier estimates of the relationship between gender diversity and firm performance.Sample description\nResults: Basic estimations\nConclusion: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of the proportion of women in management on firm performance. There is a theoretical as well as an empirical motivation for dealing with this issue of corporate governance. In the theoretical section of the paper, we argue that board diversity affects the performance of the firm. However, according to the existing theory the influence can be positive as well as negative. The empirical motivation comes from the increasing focus on the gender composition of top executives and boards of directors of firms. The proportion of women who reach top positions in the business sector is still very low in most countries, though it has been increasing in some countries. If it can be shown statistically that more female top executives (or other minority groups) or women on boards of directors have positive effects on firm performance, this may be a strong argument for having more women on boards.Using a sample of the 2,500 largest Danish firms over the period 1993-2001, we analyse empirically whether the proportion of female top CEOs or members of boards of directors really affects firm performance. The conclusion is ambiguous and depends both on the measure of performance and the measure of the proportion of women in management. The effect on firm performance of a higher fraction of female top CEOs varies from none to positive. Performance measures, which approximate the mark-up, e.g. gross profit, are affected more positively and more significantly than the other performance measures, e.g. net income after taxes. Furthermore, the results show that the positive performance effects are mainly related to female managers with a university degree while female CEOs who do not hold a university degree have a much smaller or insignificant effect on firm performance.Next, female members of boards of directors elected by the staff seem to have positive effects on firm performance. However, this positive effect does not carry over to other female board members, where the effect is negative - a result, which may be explained by the fact that a significant part of the women on boards have family ties to the owners. However, we are not able in this study to identify whether the board members have family ties or not. An important topic for future research would be to identify the performance effects of female - as well as male board members - who have family ties to the owners.The question concerning getting more women on boards and in top executive jobs is a highly debated issue in many countries. In Norway, there have already been political initiatives regulating the proportion of women among board members. Our results are to some extent supporting the view that a more gender diversity in top management positions would improve the financial performance of Danish firms. However, since our results also indicate that qualifications are important, it is important that there is a sufficient potential pool of qualified women who can fill the positions as board members or who might be recruited as top CEOs. Therefore, the main implication from our study is the importance of attracting and recruiting more women into the higher ranking positions in firms and thus increasing the number women who are qualified to be selected into boards of directors or as top CEOs. It may have negative boomerang effects in the longer run if for instance very rigid quotas are imposed on the composition of board members.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine the relationship between management diversity and firm performance in the case of women in top executive jobs and on boards of directors. Corporate governance literature argues that board diversity is potentially positively related to firm performance. This hypothesis is tested in the paper.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper with the use of data for the 2,500 largest Danish firms observed during the period 1993-2001 various statistical models for firm performance are specified and estimated. The main focus in the models is the estimated relationship between the proportion of women in top management (CEOs and on boards of directors) and firm performance.\nFindings: - The results in this paper show that the proportion of women in top management jobs tends to have positive effects on firm performance, even after controlling for numerous characteristics of the firm and direction of causality. The results show that the positive effects of women in top management strongly depend on the qualifications of female top managers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides solid statistical evidence of the effects of women in top management on firm performance. The use of a large sample and the panel nature of the data set make it possible to properly control for direction of causality and, furthermore, much firm and individual information is included to estimate genuine effects of women in top management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The efficacy of sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation	[ "Employment legislation", "Discrimination", "Equal opportunities", "Sexual discrimination", "Sexual orientation", "Homosexuals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: On June 26, 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, and exactly two years later, the Supreme Court made marriage equality a reality across America. After this ruling, many believed that the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the Equality Act, or some executive order by Barack Obama guaranteeing protection against LGBT individuals in the workplace would be imminent. Unfortunately, this has yet to be realized as 32 states still lack comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination laws. Hence, discrimination is not only extant but also still legal, with some individuals arguing that laws will not change the prejudice that people have. We position the current paper by focusing on the repercussions of behavior that legal action can have. We focus our manuscript on reviewing previous research that suggests why and how laws might impact discriminatory behaviors. The legislative aspect of sexual orientation discrimination is markedly understudied in the management and diversity literature, and we believe that our review has significant promise in terms of identifying trends related to anti-discrimination legislation, and thus implications for theory, future research, and policy.\nEmpirical evidence of sexual orientation discrimination: Although there is considerable research about attitudes toward homosexuality (e.g. Hicks and Lee, 2006), relatively little experimental evidence exists with regard to meaningful discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. It is estimated that approximately 3 percent of employees in the US workforce are LGBT (Gates, 2011). It is important to note that there is controversy regarding the exact number of Americans who identify as LGBT, and the 3 percent estimate is the average based on five population-based surveys conducted in the last 12 years whose estimates range from 1.7 to 5.6 percent. The lack of consensus regarding the size of the LGBT population in the US stems from a number of challenges, including variation in the definition of who is considered LGBT (e.g. same-sex attraction vs behavior), variation in survey methodology (e.g. in-person interviews vs online questionnaires), and the lack of consistent questions asked longitudinally. Regardless of the exact number of LGBT Americans, the persistence of negative attitudes toward LGBT individuals (e.g. Pew Research Center, 2011) has led to widespread workplace discrimination, and we review some of the relevant experimental field studies conducted on this.\nWhy sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation may reduce discrimination: Although we will discuss why anti-discrimination legislation may be successful in reducing discrimination, there is at least one criterion that is necessary for laws to have an impact. At a minimum, the public generally and HR professionals specifically must be aware of the existence of such legislation. The only large-scale study documenting awareness of sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation that we know of is a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Instititute in 2013, which found that \"75% of Americans incorrectly believe it is currently illegal under federal law to fire or refuse to hire someone because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender\" (p. 3). This data suggest that Americans' knowledge of sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation is generally limited. Thus, the success of sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws will likely hinge on how well public campaigns and media coverage do in creating awareness of such laws among the public.\nThe efficacy of sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws: There are four known empirical studies that have examined the success of state and local sexual orientation laws (Flatt and Klawitter, 1998; Ragins and Cornwell, 2001; Barron, 2009; Barron and Hebl, 2013). These and future studies, however, face a major challenge: the presence of less discrimination in areas with (vs without) legal protection does not necessarily mean that legislation reduces discrimination. That is, such an effect may occur because: first, certain areas are more accepting of gays and lesbians and these areas are simply more likely to enact anti-discrimination laws (reduced discrimination causes legislation); and/or second, legislation actually does cause a reduction in discrimination. The level of discrimination likely is already lower in areas that do (vs do not) adopt gay rights laws - even before the laws take effect (Wald et al., 1996). However, the legislation itself may further promote discrimination reduction. This means that research on the efficacy of legislation must attempt to control factors leading to the adoption of anti-discrimination legislation and the extent of community discrimination at baseline. This control is a goal that Barron and Hebl (2013) successfully achieved, leading to a more compelling argument that legislation does in fact cause a reduction of sexual orientation discrimination.\nImplications for research and managerial practice: Up to this point, we have summarized the modest body of research focusing on how effective anti-discrimination legislation can be in the goal of reducing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. There are two ways in which we urge others to make future contributions to the scholarship on sexual orientations. This includes the continuation of both critical research that addresses yet unanswered questions related to sexual orientation discrimination and remediation; and managerial, organizational, and legal practices that further pave the way for inclusion and equality in workplaces regardless of employees' sexual orientations. We discuss both implications in more detail.\nConclusion: Given ongoing debate on expanding anti-discrimination legislation, the research we have outlined in this manuscript has the potential to serve as important information to politicians who will likely play a key role in whether such protections become law, particularly to those who may have publicly opposed sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation by characterizing the likely efficacy of such legislation as dubious (e.g. moderate Republican Senator Collins) (empirical findings and future directions are summarized in the Table I). Researchers investigating the presence of sexual orientation legislation have limited power in experimentally manipulating the presence or absence of legislation in a given community; however, the research that they have conducted, as a whole, approximates this. Such research also goes far in statistically controlling for factors previously shown to influence whether legislation is adopted in a given community, so as to otherwise equalize jurisdictions. As such, research findings to date provide strong evidence that anti-discrimination laws on the basis of sexual orientation do actually reduce prejudice and acts of discrimination in the employment sphere. Thus, we believe this research provides strong empirical justification for enacting legislation that will promote a more equitable workplace and protect employees from pervasive acts of discrimination.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to summarize the limited body of research that focuses on the efficacy of sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation in reducing discrimination.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Reviews past research that documents overt and subtle forms of workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals and describes how legislation plays an important role in changing social norms and underlying attitudes.\nFindings: Empirically demonstrates that legislation effectively can reduce discrimination.\nOriginality/value: Informs legislative debate and promotes the expansion and adoption of national, state, and local legislation on sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluating the implementation of the Empowering Coaching(tm) programme: Balancing fidelity and adaptation	[ "Evaluation", "Implementation", "Motivation", "Physical activity", "Qualitative methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The last few decades there has been an increased focus on the importance of evaluating the implementation of interventions in real-world settings in order to understand if and how an intervention works (Domitrovich and Greenberg, 2000; Durlak, 1998; Durlak and DuPre, 2008). Previous research defines several aspects of implementation that ought to be assessed (e.g. Dane and Schneider, 1998; Durlak and DuPre, 2008; Dusenbury et al., 2005). Berkel et al. (2011) claim that four aspects are of particular importance when implementing a programme: first, fidelity (whether a programme's core components are delivered as prescribed by the programme developers); second, quality of delivery (how well the programme is delivered to the participants); third, participant responsiveness (the degree of participant satisfaction or involvement); and fourth, adaptations. The first three aspects are for the most part defined in a consistent way across implementation studies. The first aspect, implementation fidelity, is often also referred to as adherence (Dusenbury et al., 2003) and programme integrity (Dane and Schneider, 1998), and the level of fidelity appears to influence an intervention's effectiveness (Durlak and DuPre, 2008).\nMethod: This observational study applies video recordings to explore the CEs' delivery of the Empowering Coaching(tm) programme.\nFindings: Part 1: quantitative scoring of fidelity of content delivery\nDiscussion: The findings showed that overall the CEs delivered the Empowering Coaching(tm) programme with moderate to high fidelity, based on both their total mean fidelity scores and also the computed means for motivation, ABC-principles and climate strategies. However, the in-depth exploration of the fidelity of delivery, illustrated that especially CE4 and CE7 delivered some of the critical elements with low fidelity. This indicates, in line with Molloy et al.'s (2013) findings, that total mean fidelity scores can be misleading regarding how a programme protocol has been adhered to, and that fidelity of implementation needs to be studied more in-depth.\nConclusion: The purpose of this study was to explore the implementation of the Empowering Coaching(tm) programme in Norway, through observational methods, focusing on both implementation fidelity and adaptations. The findings showed that the programme for the most part was implemented with moderate to high fidelity. However, some critical elements were delivered with low fidelity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the implementation of a theoretically grounded coach education training programme for youth football coaches in Norway, through observational methods. In particular, it focuses on implementation fidelity and programme adaptation, and possible differences between the coach educators (CEs) according to their level of experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Implementation fidelity and programme adaptations for seven CEs were explored through the use of a fidelity scale and in-depth qualitative analyses. Participant responsiveness was applied to inform the observational analyses.\nFindings: Results showed that most of the programme was implemented with moderate to high fidelity, and that it was adapted when delivered. Most of the adaptations seemed to be positive, aligning with the programme's theoretical foundation and goals. A few negative and neutral adaptations also occurred. The most experienced CEs seemed to deliver the programme with highest fidelity and they also made most positive adaptations. The findings, supported by the participants' evaluation of the programme delivery, indicate that these CEs also delivered the programme with high quality.\nResearch limitations/implications: In the field of implementation research there is a need for further studies applying observational methods to explore programme effectiveness in relation to implementation fidelity, adaptations made and the quality of programme delivery.\nOriginality/value: This study applies observational methods to evaluate the fidelity of implementation and adaptations made when implementing a coach education programme, and based on these findings quality of delivery is discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ICT-based innovation and its competitive outcome: the role of information intensity	[ "Information and communication technologies", "Competitive dynamics", "Digitalization", "Digital transformation", "ICT-based innovation", "Industry effects" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information and communication technologies (ICT) enable a variety of innovation types, due to their long-term evolution trend from being an asset supporting information processing and automation of administrative activities to ubiquitous technologies that today can make products capable of processing and communicating information over the internet (Nolan, 1979; Porter and Heppelmann, 2014).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 ICT-based innovation: implications of ICT spending on competitive dynamics\n3. Hypotheses: The fact that industries characterized by a higher spending in ICT are expected to have a higher strategic dependence on ICT implies that in these settings firms may more likely use ICT-based innovations for broadening their repertoire of competitive actions (Sambamurthy et al., 2003). Specifically, industries where products, services and processes can be powered by digital technologies have increased possibility to rapidly scale up operations and revenue - due to the low marginal costs in replicating information - (Brynjolfsson et al., 2008), to expand their operations in foreign countries (Malhotra and Temponi, 2010) and to support product innovation and collaboration with partners (David et al., 2003) - even in sectors that have been traditionally unrelated to the one of the focal firm. At the international level, evidence of this trend can be observed in how digital platforms such as Google and Amazon reapplied their core competences by entering a multitude of markets (e.g., publishing, advertising, media, smart appliances). In countries like Italy, this can be the case of the utilities industries that in the last years have intensified their ICT spending to seize the opportunities of enlarging their bundle of services towards new markets like internet provisioning, electric mobility solutions and smart home services (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014; Iansiti and Lakhani, 2014). The same could be applied in sectors like luxury goods (with wearable applications), car making and appliances (connecting them through IoT architectures).\n4. Empirical methods: 4.1 Data\n5. Findings: 5.1 Descriptive statistics and hypotheses validation\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Main findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Prior research highlights the vital role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for innovation in response to environmental conditions. However, there is a lack of studies that analyse the determinants of ICT investments on the innovation activities of firms in relation with their impacts on the industrial and competitive dynamics using large data sets. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors investigate the effects of ICT investments on the industrial and competitive dynamics for a large and representative panel data set. All the industries are included, and lagged effects of ICT investments are studied. The model is tested on a seven-year panel (2008-2014) of 231 Italian industries using two-stage least squares instrumental-variables estimators with industry time and fixed effects.\nFindings: The results indicate that munificent industries and higher ICT spending are interrelated facts, showing that in sectors with more growth opportunities firms invest more in ICT and this leads to higher industry concentration, greater profit dispersion and higher competitive turbulence in the sector. Also, the paper shows that SMEs can rarely take advantage of their ICT-based innovation to start high-growth phenomena.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that ICT-based innovation may create competitive advantages that are hard to sustain over the long-term raising important implications for managers involved in ICT-enabled innovations and policy-makers involved in building programs to foster innovation.\nOriginality/value: Against the backdrop of today's digital transformation, the paper enriches our understanding on the disruptive effects exerted by the digitalization of the innovation process and provides a base to continue the investigation of industrial changes and competitive dynamics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

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