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Passive leadership and its relationship with organizational justice: Verifying mediating role of affect-based trust	[ "Organizational justice", "Affect-based trust", "Passive leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past two decades, leadership is the most researched subject and five perspectives of leadership, i.e., behavioral perspective, competency perspective, contingency perspective, implicit leadership perspective and the transformational perspective can easily be identified in the literature (McShane and Von Glinow, 2008). However, the full range model of leadership as proposed by Bass (1985) and Bass and Riggio (2006) is the most comprehensive and complete view on leadership and is widely quoted in research work in area of management and leadership (Tejeda et al., 2001). Among different types of leadership constructs, this framework also illustrated two forms of leadership behaviors, i.e. passive management-by-exceptions and laissez-faire that are collectively known as passive leadership. Harold and Holtz (2015, p. 19) defined passive leadership in terms of different behaviors as \"avoiding decisions, neglecting workplace problems and failing to model or reinforce appropriate behaviors.\" Many researchers like (Judge and Piccolo, 2004) suggested that more research be conducted on passive leadership as its potential outcomes have not been fully investigated. Holtz and Hu (2017) in their recent research on \"passive leadership: relationships with trust and justice perceptions\" explored the relationship of passive leadership, cognition-based trust and the justice perceptions. In this study, they recommended additional research in this area with some different dimension of trust to be treated as mediator.\nLiterature review: Passive leadership and affect-based trust\nOrganizational justice and affect-based trust: Organizational justice is the fair and ethical conduct of people within the organizations (Cropanzano, 1993). Tatum et al. (2003) argued that there is a relationship between leadership style and organizational justice. Greenberg (1993) explained that if organizations fail to provide a fair and ethical environment at work, in return they get a negative reactive behavior from their employees. Many studies by the pioneers of organizational justice suggest that this construct is important because it is associated with many outcomes at work like job satisfaction, job performance, organizational citizenship behavior and job commitment and performance at work (Colquitt et al., 2001; Greenberg, 1993). Early studies in the field of organizational justice focused on equity at work and its outcomes (Adams, 1965). However, lateral (Greenberg, 1993; Leventhal, 1980; Thibaut and Walker, 1975) emphasized fair procedures and treatment with people at work with dignity and respect.\nResearch methodology: Method\nResults: Correlation results of study are presented in Table I, indicating that all relationships are significant. The passive leadership is negatively correlated with all other variables with values (r=-0.256*, p<0.05) for affect-based trust, (r=-0.314*, p<0.05) for procedural justice, (r=-0.208, p<0.05) for distributive justice, (r=-0.198, p<0.05) for interpersonal justice and (r=-0.253*, p<0.05) for informational justice. All other variables have positive and significant relationships with each other as shown in Table I.\nDiscussion: This study was conducted to further explore the relationship of passive leadership with four types of justice perceptions and to verify the mediating role of affect-based trust between passive leadership and organizational justice (including procedural justice, distributive justice, interactional justice and informational justice) as proposed by the Holtz and Hu (2017). It is apparent from the literature that the negative side of leadership is less explored and has vast gaps to be investigated and many researchers like Judge and Piccolo (2004) also stressed the need for more research on passive leadership and its potential outcomes. This study also confirms the trust primacy model proposed by Holtz (2013), wherein he proposed a reciprocal relationship between trust and the organizational justice and further explained that if employees of an organization trust in their leadership, employees will have a positive sense of justice in the supervisors. On the other hand, if employees distrust their supervisors, they will more likely to have perceptions of unfairness. Results indicate that passive leadership is negatively correlated to affect-based trust and this relationship is significant. Further the affect-based trust was positively and significantly associated with procedural justice, distributive justice, interactional justice and informational justice. Finally, passive leadership had a significant impact of the all types of organizational justice through the affect-based trust.\nLimitations and directions for future research: Although the study is useful to understand the association of passive leadership with perceptions of the four types of justice and the mediating role of affect-based trust, this study has some limitations as well. Data were collected from employees of different public sector organizations and from those departments that were convenient, so this might limit the generalizability of this study. Further, data for each variable was collected at the same time, so this might cause a problem of common biased variance and the results of correlations might be inflated between different input and output variables. However, this was necessary to have opinion of employees to recognize their standing to report passive behavior on part of their supervisor, their own level of affect-based trust and justice perceptions. The future researcher may investigate further on these variables by examining the relationship of passive leadership on all types of dimensions of trust at the same time and its further impact on the organizational justice. Also being a negative aspect of leadership the passive leadership approach may have many other outcomes like less OCB, turnover intentions, job satisfaction or many other psychological problems. So, future researchers may explore some new insights to study the passive leadership and its other outcomes.\nConclusion: Passive leadership has been less explored as compared to positive aspects of leadership and so many researchers are moving on to explore the dark sides of leadership. This study concluded that the passive attitude of supervisor or management may lead to negative consequences in subordinates that can harm affect-based trust among management and employees in the workplace. Furthermore, it can also harvest a perception of unfair attitude of management on part of employees. This study suggests that there is a negative relationship between passive leadership and affect-based trust. Passive leadership also has a negative association with procedural justice, distributive justice, interpersonal justice and informational justice. The study adds in the knowledge base related to passive leadership and indicates that affect-based trust mediates the relationship between passive leadership and perceptions of justice on the part of employees in the workplace.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among passive leadership, organizational justice and affect-based trust. In addition, the meditating role of affect-based trust between these relationships is also investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data have been collected using anonymously completed questionnaire that has questions regarding passive leadership as independent variable, affect-based trust as mediator and organizational justice as dependent variable.\nFindings: It is noted that the passive leadership is negatively associated with the affect-based trust and perceptions of organizational justice and the mediating role of affect-based trust is also confirmed between these relationships.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a new insight for social science knowledge base by explaining the direct relationship of passive leadership with organizational justice and through affect-based trust.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The meaning of work dimensions according to organizational status: does gender matter?	[ "Israel", "Gender differences", "Meaning of work", "Organizational status", "Work centrality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the meaningful global economic and social changes is the increase in women's participation in the workforce. The historical gender division, whereby men were breadwinners who worked for pay and women were homemakers who worked at home, has changed dramatically over the course of time (Lips and Lawson, 2009). In recent decades, women have been entering the global workforce at a rapid rate (Carli, 2010; Lips and Lawson, 2009). Women's participation in the US workforce rose over the years to about 59 percent in 2010 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). Similarly, in China and Hong Kong, 46 percent of the workforces are women (Carli, 2010). Recent data from the United Nations Statistics indicate that in more than 60 percent of the countries polled by the United Nations the majority of women are economically active (Lips and Lawson, 2009). This trend has been accompanied by an increase in women's education, occupational status and income (Carli, 2010; Lips and Lawson, 2009). Moreover, it is maintained that these facts escalate the potential for work-family conflict for women and men alike (Cousins and Tang, 2004; Hoobler et al., 2009; Sharabi and Harpaz, 2011b; Westman and Etzion, 2005). These changes seem to have a potential to affect women's work values and expectations regarding the goals they aspire to obtain through work.\nWork and its meaning: Work and its related outcomes play a central role in individuals' lives and in societies, in general. Most people consider working and its outcomes as a central component of their lives for several reasons. First, it has an economic/instrumental aspect - work provides income that ensures one's livelihood and supplies one's material needs. Second, the commitment to work is perceived as part of human nature and needs - work provides the will to strive, learn, develop, and accomplish, and also to construct one's reality. Work also has a socio-psychological aspect - in this case, work fulfills an essential role in giving an expressive spiritual meaning to the individual's life and in satisfying his or her need to be a part of society (MOW - International Research Team, 1987; Sharabi and Harpaz, 2007). The working activity itself fills many hours of the individual's life. Beyond work itself, employees invest extra hours in accomplishing additional education, training, upgrading their qualifications and do job searching, so that a third of the actual waking hours of a person are related to work life.\nThe MOW among men and women according to organizational status: Varied studies indicate that gender roles are the result of socialization processes which take place throughout the individual's life, especially during early childhood. These gender differences depend on culture and change over time according to the social trends. Sex role socialization guides individuals to \"feminine\" and \"masculine\" occupations (Hesse-Biber and Carter, 2004). Fournier and Kelemen (2001) indicate that the structure, culture, and workplace practices in organizations reflect the image of an ideal employee and especially an ideal manager that fits more with cultural images of masculinity rather than femininity. Managerial positions were traditionally occupied by men and were shaped based on masculine characteristics and traits (Smithson and Stokoe, 2005; Ford and Collinson, 2011).\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nMeasures: The measurement of the MOW\nFindings: The correlation matrix in Table II presents demographic variables and MOW dimensions. Organizational status is positively correlated with work centrality (R2=0.20) and intrinsic orientation (R2=0.21) and negatively correlated with economic orientation (R2=-0.15). Intrinsic orientation is negatively correlated with economic orientation (R2=-0.37) and positively correlated with work centrality (R2=0.11), while interpersonal relations are negatively correlated with economic (R2=-0.25) and intrinsic orientation (R2=-0.23).\nDiscussion: During the last four decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of Israeli women joining the workforce, with more and more women reaching managerial positions and those changes are reflected in the current study. The findings indicate that the gender differences regarding MOW dimensions decrease as employees climb higher in an organizational hierarchy and disappear in the middle management level. The expected higher economic orientation among men as compared to women (e.g. Clark, 2005; Konrad et al., 2000; MOW - International Research Team, 1987; Warr, 2008) appears among workers and junior managers and the expected higher interpersonal relations orientation among women as compared to men (e.g. Clark, 2005; Hofstede, 2001; MOW - International Research Team, 1987; Warr, 2008) appears only among workers. There were no gender differences regarding intrinsic orientation contrary to other studies that found higher intrinsic/expressive needs among women (Bigoness, 1988; Clark, 2005; Konrad et al., 2000).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Over the course of time, more and more women have been joining the labor force, achieving meaningful roles and managerial positions. The purpose of this paper is to examine contemporary meaning of work (MOW) among men and women in different organizational statuses and the impact of other demographic factors on the MOW dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Out of 1,201 participants that filled out the MOW questioner, 908 were employed in organizations as middle managers (118 men and 67 women) or junior managers (120 men and 97 women) and workers (208 men and 298 women).\nFindings: No differences were found between men and women middle managers regarding MOW dimensions. It was found that the higher the organizational status, the higher the work centrality and intrinsic orientation and the lower the economic orientation, among both men and women. Regression analysis reveals that demographic variables have a low impact on the MOW dimensions and hardly explain the differences among men and women.\nPractical implications: The understanding of contemporary MOW similarities and differences among men and women according to organizational status and the impact of varied demographic variables on those differences can influence the way organizations consider men's and women's (both managers and workers) needs in their working life, with implications for their satisfaction and productivity.\nOriginality/value: While there are various studies about gender differences regarding work values and the MOW, not a single study focusing on the differences in the MOW between managers and workers according to gender was found.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Introduction: priority setting, equitable access and public involvement in health care	[ "Deliberation", "Priority setting", "Contestatory participation", "Democratic theory", "Public participation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Priority setting in health care is now at the centre of policy and political attention in many parts of the world. More countries move towards attaining universal health care, but many struggle to ensure the sustainability of their health systems under competing demands from patients, a steady increase in medical advances and limited health care budgets. Where trade-offs are inevitable, a process that uses evidence to set priorities is essential. The most visible expression of this central role is to be found in the establishment of health technology assessment (HTA) agencies with the responsibility for determining what counts as value for money in health care and what priority should be given to particular interventions. Although the oldest of such bodies, the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Assessment Committee (PBAC) was founded in 1954, many countries have by now established similar bodies, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK set up in 1999, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in Germany set up in 2004, the National Evidence-Based Healthcare Collaborating Agency in Korea, the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Programme (HITAP) in Thailand as well as many others (Stafinski et al., 2011). At the 2014 World Health Assembly in Geneva, a resolution was adopted for the incorporation of health intervention and technology assessment to support universal health coverage (UHC).\nDefining public participation in priority setting: The term \"public participation\" covers a variety of activities and practices, and no one definition is likely to secure universal assent. Our approach has been to follow the lead of Parry et al. (1992, p. 16) in their path-breaking study of political participation in Britain and to define participation in health policy as a form of political participation, where political participation is defined as \"taking part in the processes of formulation, passage and implementation of public policies\". On this definition, public participation in priority setting involves individuals or groups taking part in processes of policy making that shape the determination of priorities in health care and the conditions of access of different groups in society. Political participation is thus collectively orientated and aimed at securing a decision on public policy or legal rules.\nThe scope of public participation: Public participation in health policy can affect a wide range of issues. Following Lomas (1997), however, it is possible to identify three broad types of question that can be addressed through public participation: decisions on overall levels of funding; decisions of principle on the type of services to be offered or reimbursed, including the principles used in HTAs; and decisions on the eligibility of different types of patients or groups (Compare also Mitton et al., 2009, p. 223, who also add questions of monitoring and evaluation).\nRationales for public participation: Public participation in all its forms in priority setting is an empirical phenomenon, taking various forms in different health care systems. As far as rationales go, the emerging wisdom is that involving the public can increase the chances of successful policy implementation, manage public expectations, improve public understanding of complex policy problems and result in a more empowered citizenry (e.g. Lomas, 1997; Niemeyer, 2011). In light of existing barriers to public and patient involvement (PPI) in priority setting (e.g. Goold et al., 2005) though, ascertaining whether these theoretical expectations translate into empirical actuality remains a challenging issue.\nConclusion: Public participation in priority setting is both a fact and a challenge. It is a fact because through various formal and contestatory routes it exists and plays a role in the way that decisions are made. It is a challenge because we have relatively little empirical evidence as to how it affects the decisions made, whether it \"improves\" decisions against some specified desirable criteria, and few attempts to assess the extent to which it conforms to democratic norms. This special issue is an attempt to address these issues through comparative cross-country analysis.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on improving equitable access to health care through increased public and patient involvement (PPI) in prioritization decisions by discussing the conceptualization, scope and rationales of PPI in priority setting that inform the special issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs a mixed-methods approach in that it provides a literature review and a conceptual discussion of the common themes emerging in the field of PPI and health priority setting.\nFindings: The special issue focuses on public participation that is collective in character, in the sense that the participation relates to a social, not personal, decision and is relevant to whole groups of people and not single individuals. It is aimed at influencing a decision on public policy or legal rules. The rationales for public participation can be found in democratic theory, especially as they relate to the social and political values of legitimacy and representation.\nOriginality/value: The paper builds on previous definitions of public participation by underlining its collective character. In doing so, it develops the work by Parry, Moyser and Day by arguing that, in light of the empirical evidence presented in this issue, public participatory activities such as protests and demonstrations should no longer be labelled unconventional, but should instead be labelled as \"contestatory participation\". This is to better reflect a situation in which these modes of participation have become more conventional in many parts of the world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Training to keep people: Understanding and mitigating the effects of want-away employees in South Korea	[ "South Korea", "Training", "Turnover intention", "Job tenure", "Job satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: \"Do they even want me to work here?\" We have all heard this and similar refrains from disaffected employees who have a particular gripe about how they have been treated by their organization. Maybe they have moved their desk to face a wall; or appointed someone to a senior role who they think is much less qualified than they are; or maybe they are frustrated at not having a voice in a big corporate machine. It is common for people to feel isolated, bitter and even paranoid when they perceive things are not going their way, and it is often a serious question they have when they challenge their employee about whether they sincerely value their contribution.\nEducation and skills: Managing the job change intentions of employees is extremely difficult, not least because it is so hard to understand and track the level of feelings among employees. However, it is agreed that trying to minimize this intention has to be in the best interests of an organization, and it is from this point we can review the article? Exploring the impact of training, job tenure, and education-job and skills-job matches on employee turnover intention\" by Boreum Ju and Jessica Li.\nRight people, wrong jobs: Firstly, some of the terms used in these questions need interpreting. Turnover intention is simply the intention felt by individual employees to change their jobs, which despite what they may think is not generally something an organization wants to happen. This desire to leave may be mitigated by training, which is a common play for human resource (HR) teams, or it could involve two newer concepts - education-job matches or skills-job matches.\nTesting times: In order to answer the two fundamental questions that the authors posed, the authors set out some propositions that they wanted to test by analyzing a large data set of surveys of 1,500 individuals living in South Korea over a period of nearly a decade. Their propositions were:\nReal-world implications: Extracting these proven hypotheses and plugging them into the real world, the authors state that the main implication for HR managers is that while the three different types of training can improve employees intentions to stay at a firm, off-the-job training and distance training were twice as effective as on-the-job training, suggesting that more attention be paid to training that happens away from the workplace. Similarly, education-job matches were a stronger force for reducing turnover intention that skills-job matches, therefore putting more emphasis on the former will be more effective for organizations. Adding these steps to understanding turnover intentions will drop as employees stay longer should reduce turnover intention as a whole for the whole organization, and enable firms to once and for all prove that their employees are valued.\nComment: The article \"Exploring the impact of training, job tenure, and education-job and skills-job matches on employee turnover intention\" by Ju and Li (2019) at first glance seems to rather prove something which many people would hold true anyway - that people in organizations will be less likely to leave if they have better training and roles that fit their education or skills. However, where the value of this article lies in its use of turnover intention as a metric for a satisfied workforce and using data to create programs to improve their satisfaction.\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: \"Do they even want me to work here?\" We have all heard this and similar refrains from disaffected employees who have a particular gripe about how they have been treated by their organization. Maybe they have moved there desk to face a wall; or appointed someone to a senior role who they think is much less qualified than they are; or maybe they are frustrated at not having a voice in a big corporate machine. It is common for people to feel isolated, bitter and even paranoid when they perceive things are not going their way, and it is often a serious question they have when they challenge their employee about whether they sincerely value their contribution.\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" } ]
A collaborative supply chain management: Part 2 - the hybrid KB/gap analysis system for planning stage	[ "Supply chain management", "Knowledge management", "Gap analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) play a vital role in improving the effectiveness of business organisations, whether as service providers or product manufacturers. One of the information systems applications that is widely used in business organisations to support the decision making process is a knowledge-based systems (KBS) or an expert systems (ES). By utilising this application, organisations have made improvements in their operations ranging from the routine job scheduling on the shop-floor to the functional and strategic levels of the organisation (Wong et al., 1994; Jayaraman and Srivastava, 1996; Vokurka et al., 1996). In the supply chain management (SCM) aspects, information system applications are amongst the tools that have been utilised in order to improve organisation competitiveness. Applications such as automatic replenishment, forecasting and scheduling have been used widely in organisations to assist management in enhancing the quality of decision-making process (Stank et al., 1999; Helms et al., 2000). However, the use of KBS application in the SCM is more focused on the area of procurement and purchasing, dealing with supplier selection process, evaluating supplier performance and making \"make or buy\" decision. Examples of these applications are shown in Table I.This study is carried out to complement the work already carried out in KBS utilisation, specifically in planning and designing SCM and present the idea of developing a collaborative supply chain management (CSCM), a concept that has emerged in the mid 1990s and a new strategy in SCM implementation. The methodology of having a KBS which assists in the planning and designing of CSCM has not been developed in the past and this scenario has driven the present research with the following objectives:* to establish the use of a knowledge-based approach for integrated planning and designing a CSCM;* to promote CSCM as a strategy that could reduce the problems that exist in the organisation's SCM and which is related to organisation capability, disintegration within organisation supply chain, and misalignment of organisation's business processes; and* to help management in identifying the current position of the organisation with respect to a benchmark CSCM based on the GAP analysis (Kochhar et al., 1991) that is embedded in the KB system.The utilisation of a KB approach in developing these two stages is a basis for CSCM system development. In this research, the production rule-based type of KBS is used to structure the knowledge and information that is gathered and compiled from literature and interactive session with users. By using the applications manager (AM) software, all modules are developed independently and are integrated based on the phase technique. This technique is used due to the size of knowledge-based collaborative supply chain management (KBCSCM) system and as a proactive action to avoid confusion during the development process.\n2 Framework of knowledge-based collaborative supply chain management (KBCSCM) system: The framework of KBCSCM system is developed to overcome the difficulties that exist in the area of SCM. As mentioned by many earlier researchers, the future SCM in the era of ICT belongs to CSCM (Hoyt and Huq, 2000; Ireland and Bruce, 2000; Mentzer et al., 2000; Horvath, 2001; Frazellle, 2002). In developing a CSCM model, several issues have been discussed amongst researchers, academicians and practitioners, such as trust among parties in SCM, communication, resources sharing, responsibility, profit and risk sharing, technology, business processes adjustment and other issues (Kumar, 1996; Burgess et al., 1997; Boddy et al., 1998; Holmes and Srivastava, 1999; Hoyt and Huq, 2000; Humphreys et al., 2001; Reary, 2002). These issues are taken as basic guidelines in developing the KBCSCM system in this paper. The detailed development of the KBCSCM model for the phase 1 is shown in Figure 1 by explaining all levels and perspectives of the system. In the following discussion, all components and elements are referred as modules and sub-modules as developed in the KBCSCM System.This discussion covers the details contained within modules, including the production rules. The assessment of organisation performance in the KBCSCM System is conducted through a series of questions that measure both qualitative and quantitative information on the current situation of organisation in each level through a gauging absences pre-requisites (GAP) analysis that is embedded in the knowledge-based system of the model. The analytic approach is then implemented to determine the priorities and identify factors from every perspective for improvement purposes towards CSCM development.\n3 GAP analysis in KBCSCM system: The computer-based GAP analysis system has been embedded in the KBCSCM system, which is designed to provide a number of user-friendly facilities described as follows. In this paper, the prototype of KBCSCM system for the planning stage has been tested by artificial data in order to evaluate the system performance and consistency. The model will begin with five modules in the planning stage, which involved the GAP analysis session. An explanation facility is provided to users in order to assist them in answering those questions. Many of the questions will be used with the GAP analysis and are indicated by the problem categories code (PC-1 to PC-5), as shown in Figure 2.This code is used to identify whether the responses given by users is in the good point category or problem category (PC). The PC is ranked from 1 to 5 with the latter PC-5 being the least critical condition. In the example above, PC-1 indicates that it is a serious problem, which should be resolved in the short term.3.1 Interactive questions\n4 Development of KBCSCM system - planning stage: As a foundation in developing the CSCM model, the planning stage consists of three main modules namely: organisation environment perspective module, collaborative business perspective module (financial performance, market analysis and product development) and external-internal chain perspective module (supplier-customer strategy and internal function strategy).4.1 Organisation environment perspective module\n5 Example of KBCSCM initial results: A summarised result for each sub-module of the planning stage is shown in Table VII, which contains the total number of questions that have been asked, the number of good points and the number of bad points, along with their problem categories. Based on the GAP analysis technique, only the bad points are categorised into problem categories, due to the aim of the system being to identify the missing pre-requisites that are needed in order to make the implementation of CSCM success. Through this result, the missing pre-requisites of current organisations position can be identified through the number of bad points. There are a total of 90 bad points in terms of its conditions in implementing CSCM. More importantly, the system has identified, for each sub-module, the problem categories in a prioritised manner. Thus, for example, in the product information, there are four sub-modules. The total number of questions asked for this module is 37, of which only 18 have been satisfactorily answered. More importantly, the module has 13 PC-1 and PC-2 bad points, indicating that this module is far from its benchmark standard, and that the identified problem areas need to be tackled or resolved for a successful CSCM development. This is also the case for most of the other modules and sub-modules.\n6 Conclusion: This paper has described a hybrid KB/GAP analysis CSCM system for application in organisations, specifically for manufacturing environment. Since the utilisation of KB approach in the SCM environment and a systematic planning and design of CSCM has not been developed before, the development of this system is believed to be crucial in order to improve the competitiveness of the organisation's SCM. The valid, practical and consistent solutions that are provided by KBCSCM system would assist organisations in implementing CSCM as a strategy. Furthermore, the application of the KBCSCM system provides an opportunity for users to interact actively and explore knowledge that resides in the system. By incorporating the GAP analysis technique within the rule-based structure, the KBCSCM system assists users to easily understand the position of their organisation. These capabilities would not only assists in implementing CSCM but also in benchmarking the strength of organisations in this area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The intention of this paper is to promote the model of knowledge-based collaborative supply chain management (KBCSCM) system as an alternative strategy for organisations to resolve the problems in their current supply chain management (SCM) in the era of collaborative commerce (c-commerce).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper covers the explanation of the KBCSCM system and the utilisation of the GAP analysis technique, which is embedded in the knowledge-based system (KBS). Through this technique, the missing prerequisites of current organisations' position can be identified before implementation of some improvement programs.\nFindings: - This paper has described a hybrid KB/GAP analysis CSCM system for application in organisations, specifically for manufacturing environment. The valid, practical and consistent solutions that are provided by KBCSCM system would assist organisations in implementing CSCM as a strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research could consider larger sample sizes and cover other industry types which include services industry.\nPractical implications: - The participants or players in supply chain will be able to measure their current capability in order to develop collaboration amongst them.\nOriginality/value: - This paper highlighted the utilisation of KB approach in the SCM environment. A systematic planning of CSCM has not been developed before and the development of the KBCSCM system is believed to be crucial in order to improve the competitiveness of the organisation's SCM by assisting users to easily understand the position of their organisation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The cost of equity estimation in emerging Europe: the case of Bulgarian REITs	[ "GARCH", "REITs", "Bulgaria", "Emerging markets", "Cost of equity", "Salomon Smith Barney model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Chamber of Independent Appraisers in Bulgaria adopted the International Valuations Standards of International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC). The income approach is one of the three approaches for valuation adopted by IVSC (IVSC, 2011). It draws the indication value discounting the expected cash flows. The approach considers the income, which an asset could generate during its useful life, and draws the indication value throughout capitalization. The capitalization transforms the income in a capital amount employing appropriate discount rate. IVSC (2011) prescribes three methods of the approach: capitalization; discounted cash flows (DCF), and various option valuation models.\n2. Literature review: Sabal (2004) and Fuenzalida and Mongrut (2010) critically analyze the ten most used models for cost of equity determination: the local or the classical CAPM of Sharpe (1964); the global or international CAPM proposed by Solnik (1974a, b, 1977); the modified international CAPM model of Sabal (2002); the Goldman Sachs' model suggested by Mariscal and Lee (1993); the hierarchical model of Lessard (1996); the D-CAPM model of Estrada (2002); the Damodaran (2002) model; the Godfrey and Espinosa (1996) model; the Estrada (2000, 2001) model; and the ICCRC model of Erb et al. (1996a, b).\n3. Methodology: Following Pereiro's (2001) stackable premiums and adjustments model for valuing private companies and acquisitions in emerging economies, we propose a CAPM-based method for the cost of equity determination for real estate valuation. Since the reliability of the Bulgarian stock market data series for market risk premium and b is low and the degree of perceived financial integration ranges from low to medium we apply an adjusted hybrid CAPM-based model. The proposed model is a modification of the Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) model proposed by Zenner and Akaydin (2002) and is grounded on the following assumptions: Bulgarian stock market is partially integrated; The purchase parity holds in the long run which simplifies the calculations significantly; and The lack of size effect (Pereiro, 2006).\n4. Illustration of the model: In order to get a sense of the estimates generated by our model, we consider the case of a US investor. We assume that he examines the opportunity to invest in Bulgarian REITs and considers those trusts, which belong to the BGREIT index and are most traded names. Table I presents the descriptive information of the REITs we shall consider. Advance Terrafund and is specialized REIT in acquiring and managing an agricultural land. Bulgarian Real Estate Fund (BREF) is a diversified REIT. The average daily volume over the recent three months is 0.10 percent of free-floated capital.\n5. Conclusion: We proposed a model, which is a modification of the SSB model for cost of equity determination. The model assumes that the Bulgarian financial market is partially integrated into the global market, the purchase parity holds in the long run, and the lack of size effect. Moreover, it reflects some common characteristics for emerging markets: the degree of diversification of the particular investor (imperfectly diversified); country risk; and time-varying risk nature.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The International Valuations Standards Committee adopts the Capital Asset Pricing Model as a method for estimation of the cost of equity. It has several drawbacks and appraisers in emerging markets need more useful model for cost of equity estimation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed model is a modification of the Salomon Smith Barney model for cost of capital determination. The econometric part of the model incorporates the non-synchronous effect, the thin trading effect, the time varying risk nature, and the systematic country risk.\nFindings: The model estimates the cost of equity of Bulgarian REITs more accurate than the one, who uses the traditional b estimation.\nPractical implications: The study provides appraisers, business consultants, and investment bankers with a consistent model for cost of equity estimation. The model incorporates most of the features of emerging markets REITs return series and avoids the weaknesses of the single-factor model for cost of equity estimation in emerging markets.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model reflects the following characteristics: the degree of diversification of the particular investor (imperfectly diversified); country risk; and time-varying risk nature. The political risk is incorporated by more objective measure of the systematic country risk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Computer self-efficacy and factors influencing e-learning effectiveness	[ "Computer self‐efficacy", "E‐learning system", "E‐learning instructor", "Learning methods", "Financial services", "Taiwan" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to the rapid advances in information technologies, large amount of research has focused on the possible influences of the system factor (Pituch and Lee, 2006; Wang, 2003). Studies related to e-learning mainly focused on information transmission, emphasizing the technological perspective instead of the nature of learning. In recent years, relevant studies have gradually shifted the focus from technology to learning (Hamid, 2002). The essence of training via e-learning has changed from traditional instructor-centered to learner-centered, which emphases active and spontaneous learning instead of passive dependence on instructors; thus, it is necessary to emphasize the factors related to learners (Zhang and Nunamaker, 2003).Moreover, due to obvious shifts in teaching styles resulting from progressive technologies, the question of whether teachers' innovative methods are as effective as traditional ones or whether these exceed the effectiveness of traditional approaches is worthy of exploration, as well as probing factors related to instructors (Baker, 2004).Employees' self-confidence in using a computer may influence training effectiveness. Relevant research has demonstrated that computer self-efficacy is correlated to job performance (Compeau et al., 1999; Lim et al., 2007; Hasan, 2006), that this self-efficacy can influence the correlation between organizational support, such as encouragement, as well as personal decisions to use the computer (Compeau and Higgins, 1995). Such self-efficacy can also affect employees' stress and apprehension during training. However, when employees achieve greater computer self-efficacy, their stress and apprehension will be reduced, an effect that helps increase training effectiveness (Salanova et al., 2000). In addition to system and instructor factors, it should be noticed that in the training process employees may self-judge whether they are capable of achieving the learning objectives.Study purpose and research questions\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Training effectiveness\nMethods: Instrumentation\nResults: Among the 314 participants in this study, 38.9 percent were male and 61.1 percent female. The majority age group was 31-40 years, accounting for 48.1 percent. Regarding education, junior high school accounted for 0.3 percent; senior high school, 14.6 percent; college, 56.4 percent; and graduate school, 28.7 percent. In seniority, a 35.4 percent majority had worked more than ten years. As regards job title, a 73.6 percent majority indicated \"general employee\".The mean, standard deviation, and correlation analysis for each variable are listed in Table I. These results reveal that system functionality, interaction, and response all have significantly positive correlations with training effectiveness. The instructors' attitude, technical skill, and instructional method also have significantly positive correlations with training effectiveness. Hence, the results of initial analysis support the research hypotheses.As the moderating variable, computer self-efficacy has a significantly positive correlation to employee training effectiveness, thus indicating that the higher computer self-efficacy employees have, the higher the training effectiveness will be. Therefore, after the initial correlation analysis, hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test and verify whether the hypotheses of self-efficacy effects are supported.The results of the data analysis indicate that system functionality, interaction, and response all have significantly positive influences on employee training effectiveness (b=0.284, p<0.001; b=0.264, p<0.001; b=0.218, p<0.001, respectively). The data listed in Table II show that H1a, H1b, and H1c are all supported. Thus, the better quality that the system functionality, interaction, and response possess, the better the employee training effectiveness can be. Therefore, H1 is supported: the system factor has positive influences on training effectiveness.According to the results listed in Table III, the instructors' attitude, technical skill, and instructional method all have significantly positive influences on employee training effectiveness (b=0.319, p<0.001; b=0.198, p<0.01; b=0.218, p<0.001, respectively). Thus, H2a, H2b, and H2c are all supported. These statistics indicate that the better the instructors' attitude, technical skill, and instructional method are, the better the employee training effectiveness can be. Therefore, H2 is supported: The instructor factor has positive influences on training effectiveness.Hierarchical regression analysis was implemented to examine the role of computer self-efficacy as a moderator. The results are listed as Model 2 in Table IV. The interaction between computer self-efficacy and system functionality has significant predictive effects on employee training effectiveness (b=0.135, p<0.01). Therefore, H3a is empirically supported in this study, thereby indicating that computer self-efficacy has moderating effects on the correlation between system functionality and employee training effectiveness. Moreover, the interaction between computer self-efficacy and system interaction does not have significant predictive effects on employee training effectiveness (b=-0.060). Thus, this result does not support H3b; thereby indicating that computer self-efficacy has no moderating effect on the correlation between system interaction and employee training effectiveness. Furthermore, the interaction between computer self-efficacy and system response does not have significant predictive effects on employee training effectiveness (b=-0.043). Hence, this result does not support H3c, thus indicating that computer self-efficacy has no moderating effect on the correlation between system response and employee training effectiveness. Therefore, H3 obtains only partial support.To examine the interactions of computer self-efficacy with system functionality and training effectiveness, the mean of computer self-efficacy was calculated and the value 3.75 was obtained. Then, computer self-efficacy was divided into two categories according to the mean, namely, high and low computer self-efficacy, to analyze the direction of the moderating effect. It is found that when employee computer self-efficacy is high, the correlation between system functionality and training effectiveness is stronger; i.e., when computer self-efficacy is high, both system functionality and training effectiveness will be high. However, when computer self-efficacy is low, the influence of system functionality will be less significant. In brief, the influence of system functionality on training effectiveness is more significant for employees with high rather than low computer self-efficacy (see Figure 1). The moderating role of computer self-efficacy is thus supported.The moderating effect of computer self-efficacy was examined by hierarchical regression analysis. The results are listed as Model 2 in Table V. The interactive items of computer self-efficacy and instructor attitude do not have predictive effects on employee training effectiveness (b=0.032), a finding that does not support H4a, thus indicating that computer self-efficacy has no moderating effects on the correlation between the instructors' attitude and training effectiveness. Moreover, the interaction between computer self-efficacy and the instructor's technical skill has no significant predictive effects on training effectiveness (b=0.122), a result which does not support H4b, thereby indicating that computer self-efficacy has no moderating effects on the correlation between the instructor's technical skill and training effectiveness. Furthermore, the interaction between computer self-efficacy and instructional method has no significant predictive effects on training effectiveness (b=-0.107), a finding which does not support H4c, thus indicating that computer self-efficacy has no moderating effects on the correlation between instructional method and training effectiveness. Thereby, H4 is not supported.\nDiscussion: System factor and e-learning effectiveness\nConclusion and recommendations: The results of this study indicated that both system and instructor factors have positive influences on e-learning effectiveness. This study examined the moderating effects of employees' computer self-efficacy. It was found that system functionality is a desirable attribute. It was also found that high computer self-efficacy resulted in better training effectiveness.Implications for practice\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of system and instructor factors on e-learning effectiveness under the interactions of computer self-efficacy. In this study, the factors of the e-learning system are functionality, interaction, and response. The factors of the e-learning instructor are attitude, technical skills, and instructional method. The moderating effects of learners' computer self-efficacy are examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study surveyed general employees in the financial services industry in Taiwan. A questionnaire was developed to measure participants' perceptions. Four hundred questionnaires were sent out, and 362 were returned. Of these, 314 were valid, leading to a return rate of 78.5 percent.\nFindings: - The results of data analysis indicate that both system and instructor factors have significant positive influences on e-learning effectiveness. Learners' computer self-efficacy has a moderating effect on the relationship between system functionality and training effectiveness. The higher the computer self-efficacy, the stronger is the relationship between functionality and effectiveness, and vice versa. However, computer self-efficacy does not have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between other independent variables and training effectiveness.\nOriginality/value: - Since both system and instructor factors have positive influences on e-learning effectiveness, HRD managers need to pay more attention to issues in both areas. High computer self-efficacy can result in better training effectiveness; therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to enhancing employee computer skills and their confidence in using e-learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic HRD practices as key factors in organizational learning	[ "Human resource development", "Organizational learning", "Organizational effectiveness", "Mission statements", "Leadership", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Effective organizations have employees who are committed and make contributions to organizational success (Marsick and Watkins, 1999). Hale (1991) pointed out that human resource development (HRD) professionals support organizational learning in order to establish performance expectations, address higher-level problem-solving skills, and account for societal outcomes. Thus, strategic HRD involves long-term development of people within the organization (Gilley and Maycunich, 2000) that fosters continuous organizational effectiveness.\nProblem statement: The concept of SHRD has been explored by several authors in recent years (Becker et al., 2001; Garavan et al., 1995; Gilley and Eggland, 1989; Gilley and Maycunich, 2000; Grieves, 2003; Harrison, 1997; Lee, 2003; Nadler and Wiggs, 1986). For example, Grieves (2003) stated that SHRD provides the foundation for understanding twenty-first-century change management: organizational design, innovation and enterprise, empowerment, strategic downsizing, total quality management, business process reengineering, and teamwork. Lee (2003) argued that SHRD practice is about addressing the underlying assumptions of human conditions and influencing human conditions.To almost the same extent, the role of organizational learning has been much discussed in the literature (Brinkerhoff and Gill, 1994; Dixon, 1994; Gardiner and Sadler-Smith, 2001; Gomez et al., 2004; Klimencki and Lassleben, 1998; Sadler-Smith et al., 2001; Williams, 2001). These studies were used to examine how organizational learning helps employees attain performance results that enable them to accomplish work performance and outcomes. For example, Sadler-Smith et al. (2001) stated that:[...] organizational learning is often presented as one way in which firms may respond to increasingly competitive market conditions by managing their knowledge assets in more effective ways (Sadler-Smith et al., 2001, p. 139).However, there is a need to develop a holistic perspective of the way in which SHRD practices relate to organizational learning. Although several studies have highlighted the positive effects of certain HR practices on organizational learning (Cavaleri, 2004; Ford, 2006; Perez Lopez et al., 2006), there is a lack of studies that explore SHRD practices broadly and their relation to organizational learning. Although several works have emphasized the effects of certain SHRD practices in organizational learning (Gilley and Maycunich, 2000; Grieves, 2003; Wang and Wang, 2004), there is a lack of a conception or model that examines these relationships and their related outcomes. Therefore, because outcomes are important for business success, understanding the relationships among SHRD practices, organizational learning, and HRD outcomes would be a valuable contribution.The purpose of this research was to explore the relationships among strategic HRD (SHRD) practices and organizational learning; and the relationships among organizational learning and HRD outcomes through a literature review. A conceptual framework outlining the relationships among SHRD practices and organizational learning is provided to illustrate how these relationships can enhance HRD outcomes.\nResearch questions and significance: This research clarifies the relationships among SHRD practices, organizational learning, and HRD outcomes by exploring the following two research questions:RQ1. What are the key factors of SHRD practices in organizational learning?RQ2. How do SHRD practices help to maximize HRD outcomes by embracing organizational learning?HRD professionals need to develop an approach that helps the organization focus on its strategic business goals. Such an approach must focus on organizational learning and the key factors that it influences. In this study, the key factors are to be found in SHRD practices (Brinkeerhoff and Gill, 1994). In an organizational learning context, strategy emphasizes the importance and critical nature of employees and organizations in achieving their business goals and organizational effectiveness.Argyris and Schon (1978) pointed out that:[...] organizational learning occurs when members of the organization act as learning agents for the organization, responding to changes in the internal and external environments of the organization by detecting and correcting errors in organizational theory-in-use, and embedding the results of their inquiry in private images and shared maps of organization (Argyris and Schon, 1978, p. 29).In addition, organizational learning establishes a link between the environment and the HRD outcomes that encourages proactive rather than reactive behavior (Perez Lopez et al., 2005). Thus, SHRD practices have the objectives to channel organizational inquiry (Argyris and Schon, 1996), implement organizational learning (Marsick and Watkins, 2003), and maximize HRD outcomes (Antoni, 2004; Bauman, 2005; Perez Lopez et al., 2005). To fulfill these objectives, SHRD must be well-organized and planned, as well as integrated into every aspect of the organization. Therefore, the answers related to the above research questions demonstrate the significance of this approach.\nMethods: In order to conduct a comprehensive literature review, we first identified key words: HRD and outcomes, SHRD practices, and organizational learning, as discussed earlier with their definitions. Second, we identified databases to search; the University of Minnesota's electronic library multiple databases of EBSCO Host's Academic Search Primer, MasterFILE Primer, Business Source Primer, and EBSCO megaFILE, including both journal and book sources, were used, as well as Google Scholar and Google.\nTheoretical framework: Garavan's (1991) paper was used as the foundation of this study, with additional input emerging from the search to provide information on ways in which SHRD has changed since 1991. The literature enhanced our understanding of the nine key factors influencing the framework for SHRD practices in organizational learning. In addition, Gilley and Maycunich (2000) and Perez Lopez et al. (2006) provided the concept of organizational learning used in this study. The study supported the importance of helping employees learn effectively through knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation, and organizational memory. McCracken and Wallace's (2000) findings were applied to the discussion of HRD outcomes to combine SHRD inputs, transformations, and HRD outcomes. In addition to this literature, the system model in organizations discussed by Swanson (1996) was used to examine improvements in organizational performance through organizational learning.\nDefinitions: Definitions are provided for HRD and outcomes, SHRD practices, and organizational learning.HRD and outcomes\nOutcomes and findings: As SHRD emerges and thrives, then so do organizational learning practices (McCracken and Wallace, 2000). According to McCracken and Wallace (2000), HRD outcomes are relevant to consider in the context of SHRD, and there is a need for identifiable organizational culture (Schein, 1985) practices to emerge. Thus, SHRD practices become \"the creation of a learning culture, within which a range of training, development and learning strategies both respond to corporate strategy and also help to sharp and influence it\" (McCracken and Wallace, 2000, p. 288).To achieve the desired outcomes, SHRD practices must be well-organized, planned, and integrated into every aspect of the organization. The impact of the nine key factors of SHRD practices in a systematic learning process is not easily analyzed as the results are not easily observed. A process model looking at inputs, processes, and outputs may be helpful in understanding these relationships, with the nine characteristics of SHRD practice as the inputs, organizational learning as the systematic implementation process, and organizational learning as the transformative output. From the literature, we have concluded that SHRD practices should have a proactive and influential role. This leads to a proposal for a conceptual framework for SHRD practices as key factors in organizational learning as detailed in Figure 1.In the framework, three major components are included in an organizational system model (inputs-processes-outputs) (Swanson, 1996). The nine features of SHRD practices are established as the inputs of the model. The nine traits of HRD outcomes are the outputs. Four aspects of organizational learning are the processes for transformation, which is between SHRD practices and HRD outcomes. The HRD outcomes, relationships among SHRD practices and organizational learning, and relationships among organizational learning and HRD outcomes are discussed.HRD outcomes\nConclusions and recommendations: Considering the contribution to a wider human resource effort, the practices of SHRD have become dynamic activities to link the advantages of nine characteristics of SHRD together (Garavan, 1991). The literature suggests that, when all of the practices of SHRD are implemented as key factors, organizational learning will have a developmental effect on the nine HRD-related outcomes. In order to develop strategic HRD practices that can be introduced in the organizational learning process, SHRD practices, as defined by nine components, are in place, including integration with organizational missions and goals, top management support, environmental scanning, HRD plans and policies, line manager commitment and involvement, existence of complementary HRM activities, expanded trainer role, recognition of culture, and emphasis on evaluation.This research concludes that organizations that take the initiative to learn and develop their SHRD practices have more opportunities to use learning to achieve the nine HRD outcomes. On the other hand, the nine HRD outcomes are cultivated through learning by integration with organizational mission and goals, top management leadership, environmental scanning by senior HRD management, HRD strategies, policies and plans, strategic partnerships with line management, strategic partnerships with HRM, trainers as organizational change consultants, ability to influence corporate culture, and emphasis on individual productivity and participation. Therefore, organizations can become more effective when they know the intended business goals and outcomes regarding their practices in SHRD during the learning process.\nImplications of SHRD practices for the workplace: In the workplace, learning is the crucial component in the transformation from the traditional organization to the developmental organization (Gilley and Maycunich, 2000). In addition, SHRD practices have the potential for being valued components of management by contributing to business strategy and organizational learning. That is why SHRD practices appear to be important for organization learning. For industrial applications, instilling more SHRD practices through organizational learning may lead to a more desired HRD outcome.First, organizational change in the workplace appears to be a benefit when organizational learning is headed by SHRD practices. Second, SHRD practices may help the organization integrate its vision, mission, strategy, and practices. Third, the organization may become more diversified in the workplace. Fourth, individuals and organizations may improve their performance. Fifth, implementing these practices may encourage employees to create innovation, including the process of bringing new problem-solving and value-adding ideas into use. Finally, such practices may provide greater customer and employee satisfaction (Cranny et al., 1992; Smith, 1997; Spector, 1997).Therefore, organizations are increasingly establishing alliances and partnerships with each other, with universities, and with governments to provide services such as training and development, career and financial counseling, and development of portable benefits and other systems necessary to nourish the new workforce. Further, new resources continue to become available to a workforce struggling to adapt to the changing employment environment.\nContributions to new knowledge in HRD: This article provides support for the factors and directions of the relationships of the SHRD practices model suggested in Figure 1. Future research can build on this article to validate the model. This article provides the foundation for future research to examine the link between organizational learning and performance in order to increase understanding of the role of HRD practices that can, in turn, lead to new ideas and technologies. Finally, how to address a wider group of respondents and examine the relationships in appropriate empirical research would be important for future research. We expect different characteristics of SHRD practices in the model to have varied effects on performance and organizational learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among strategic HRD (SHRD) practices and organizational learning; and the relationships among organizational learning and HRD outcomes through a literature review.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Keywords were identified to use in the literature search: HRD, SHRD practices, and organizational learning. All of the several electronic databases available in the university's electronic library, including both journal and book sources, were used to search for resources, as well as Google Scholar and Google.\nFindings: - Organizations that learn and develop their SHRD practices have more opportunities to obtain and integrate the nine HRD outcomes in the learning process: organizational mission and goals, top management leadership, environmental scanning, HRD strategies and plans, strategic partnerships with line management, strategic partnerships with HRM, trainers as organizational change consultants, influence corporate culture, and emphasis on individual productivity and participation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study was exploratory, based on a literature review. Empirical research is needed to examine why some SHRD practices, like culture recognition, environmental scanning, and organizational mission and goals, were suggested as key factors in organizational learning.\nPractical implications: - Instilling more SHRD practices through organizational learning may lead to more desired HRD outcomes.\nOriginality/value: - The research constructs a conceptual framework to outline the relationships among SHRD practices and organizational learning. Value was created when strategic HRD practices were identified as key factors in organizational learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Coal saving in China: from Pareto-Koopmans to Kaldor-Hicks criterion	[ "Energy efficiency", "DEA", "Coal saving", "Kaldor-Hicks improvement", "Pareto-Koopmans improvement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: China has the highest coal consumption in the world, which is closely related to air pollution. To improve air quality, the National Development and Reform Commission of China released a document entitled \"Interim measures for coal consumption reduction and alternative management in key areas,\" targeting eight eastern provinces or province-level municipalities as key areas, which include Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Two basic measures are suggested to accomplish the goal: one is to directly decrease the consumption of coal through promoting coal burning technology, and the other is to replace coal with a non-coal energy source, such as renewable energy, natural gas, electricity, etc.\n2. Literature review: Cooper et al. (2007) classified DEA models into two types, according to the way DMU moving to the frontier: one is a radial model and the other is a non-radial model. A radial model assumes proportional adjustment of all inputs or outputs in improvement toward frontier. Some researchers have criticized that this assumption is invalid when preference structures exist (Thanassoulis and Dyson, 1992; Athanassopoulos, 1996). Thanassoulis and Dyson (1992), and Zhu (2000) proposed a non-radial model, called a factor-specific measure, which can be used under the situation where one single factor is concerned. For this factor, this approach needs to determine the potential decreases or increases while keeping the other factors constant, therefore, no proportional adjustment for all of the factors is needed. Recently, Kumar et al. (2015) proposed a dynamic DEA model to evaluate efficiencies under the influence of lag effects.\n3. Methodology: Let X, C, NC, Y, and B represent non-energy input, coal input, non-coal energy input, desirable output, and undesirable output, respectively. Supposing there are n decision-making units (DMUs, here referring to provinces), non-coal energy is treated as one single energy, whose unit is equivalent to coal. The pollutant produced by burning coal is considered as an undesirable output. The feasible production set can be modeled using non-parametric DEA technology, as follows:(1)\n4. Empirical study: 4.1 Data sources\n5. Conclusion and policy implications: In the creation of coal consumption reduction policy, the Chinese Government is highly concerned with eight eastern provinces or province-level municipalities, which are treated as key areas for coal reduction. To achieve the coal reduction goal, the Chinese Government encourages the use of non-coal energy to replace coal energy, which involves the theory of Kaldor-Hicks improvement. Traditional DEA models under the Pareto-Koopmans improvement framework are not suitable for studying this. To solve this question, this paper proposes a new model that reflects Kaldor-Hicks improvement. By applying two models, this paper studied and compared the coal-saving potential, coal efficiency, and energy efficiency, under different criteria across 30 Chinese province-level administrative units.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In the creation of coal consumption reduction policy, the Chinese Government selected eight provinces as key provinces and encouraged them to replace coal with other non-coal energy, involving Kaldor-Hicks improvement. The purpose of this paper is to answer how much coal can be conserved if Kaldor-Hicks improvement is considered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A DEA model reflecting Kaldor-Hicks improvement is suggested to calculate the potential of coal reduction, and an endogenous directional distance function model is proposed to calculate the energy consumption efficiency.\nFindings: The results show that the non-key provinces wasted more coal than the key provinces, although the latter are of more concern. From the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, ten non-key provinces in a certain year can save more coal from an energy substitution policy and eight key provinces cannot. Through measurement of coal and energy efficiency, it is also found that provinces with an abundance of coal perform the worst in China.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies measuring Chinese saving potential of coal mainly focused on Pareto-Koopmans criterion, not consistent to policy practices. This study changes to Kaldor-Hicks criterion, allowing to make some factors better off and other factors worse off.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Store attributes, relationship investment, culture, religiosity and relationship quality: A cross-cultural study	[ "Nigeria", "Retail", "Religiosity", "Cultural dimensions", "Cross-cultural study" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Relationship quality and its impact on profits were considered important for attaining sustainable competitive advantage, especially in market-based economies (Hunt et al., 2006). Studies on relationship quality were focusing on methods of fostering and rewarding loyalty from existing customer (Delport et al., 2011). Relationship marketing implementation is supposed to be context specific mainly due to economic, cultural and environmental discrepancies across countries (Lages et al., 2005). These discrepancies are so significantly different that Tung (2014) argued that \"The America- and Euro-centric perspectives that have guided our policies and actions have come under intense scrutiny as they may no longer serve us well in this changed calculus of global competition.\"\n2. Conceptual model and hypotheses: The conceptual model in the present study has its roots in the relationship marketing theory. Relationship investments have been shown to generate strong customer relationships (De Wulf et al., 2001, 2003; Yoon et al., 2008), and strength of customer relationship can be best measured using the construct of relationship quality (Yoon et al., 2008; Al-Alak, 2014). Also, it had been found that the religious standards of a customer might guide their perception of relationship investment and relationship quality; hence, in the present study, the impact of customer's religiosity (which measures their religious standards) on relationship investment and relationship quality was investigated (Figure 1).\n3. Empirical study: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Discussion and managerial implication: The objective of the present study was to understand the impact of: relationship investment, culture and religiosity, on relationship quality. Developing an integrated and sustainable model of relationship quality is challenging and surrounded with ambiguity with respect to finding factors that impact the quality of relationship (De Wulf et al., 2001). The present study makes important contribution to the existing literature of relationship quality by achieving all the above three objectives. First, by specifying important store-level attributes that impact customer's perception about relationship investment. By applying these practices, retailers can guide customer's perception of relationship investment. In the present study, empirical evidence was found for the positive relationship between MQ, SQ, rewards and perception about relationship investment (Wang and Ha, 2011; De Wulf et al., 2001) for Indian and Nigerian samples. A likely explanation for the same would be that customers in both the countries value the time and effort invested by retailers on MQ (merchandise stocked, brands and variety), services offered (store personnel, operational efficiency, facility design, etc.) and rewards (rewarding regular customers and offering discounts) to them. With respect to personalization, the present study found a mixed evidence for its impact on customer's perception about relationship investment. The relationship was found positive in both the countries but the value was insignificant for the Nigerian samples. One likely explanation for this could be the lack of adequate effort being perceived by customers, as given by retail stores they had been loyal to. Retailers can improve upon area like keeping regular customers informed about new arrivals, hold personal conversation with regular customers and greet them personally upon their visit to foster a feeling of being recognized.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of store-level attributes, relationship investment, culture and religiosity on relationship quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To attain the above objective, data were collected from 350 customers from India and Nigeria. Data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS.\nFindings: In the present study, empirical evidence was found for the impact of most of the store's positioning attributes on perceived relationship investment and relationship quality, in India and Nigeria. Factors like personalization and their impact on relationship investment and quality were not supported in Nigeria. Additionally, religiosity was found to impact relationship quality only in case of Nigerian customers. Cultural differences were also found between consumers of both these countries.\nOriginality/value: The present study contributes to the theory of consumer behavior and cross-cultural studies by examining the effect of the relationship between various cultural dimensions and religiosity on customer's commitment with a store, which to the author's best knowledge is not done before. The present study makes important contribution to the existing literature of relationship quality in three ways: first, by specifying important store-level attributes that impact customer's perception about relationship investment. By applying these practices, retailers can guide customer's perception of relationship investment, second, this study confirmed the impact of relationship investment on relationship quality, thus demonstrating the retailers as to why should they invest time and effort in building positive perception about relationship investment, third, this study is first of its kind to have investigated the impact of culture and religiosity on the perception of relationship investment and relationship quality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Training decision-makers in flood response with system dynamics	[ "Educational model", "Decision-making", "Flood management", "Flood response", "System dynamics model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and problem definition: This paper presents a model to train decision-makers on flood response by providing them the possibility to analyse and evaluate different scenarios. According to the European Union Floods Directive (European Parliament, 2007), overcoming floods quickly and efficiently is crucial as floods may result in fatalities, damages to the environment and impairments of economic activities. In Europe, 213 floods have been recorded from 1998 to 2009 (EEA, 2011). Even more recent, the Upper Danube Flood of 2013 was one of the largest floods within the last two centuries in Europe (Bloschl et al., 2013). With increasing numbers of disasters and severity, a better understanding of response activities in crisis situations and a raised awareness of decision-makers regarding the consequences of their decisions is imperative. To manage this challenge, European Union Member States are required to determine specific objectives for flood risk management focusing on prevention, protection and preparedness in order to respond to local and regional characteristics (European Parliament, 2007). For instance, in Austria, nearly 12 per cent of the property are exposed to flood risk (Url and Sinabell, 2008) and an increasing number of affected people during a predicted 100-year flood scenario at the Upper Danube region is expected (Feyen et al., 2006).\n2. Method: To generate the SD-model, an analysis of an Upper Danube flood was performed to identify crucial factors that are influencing the disasters' impacts and response (Berariu et al., 2015). To verify our assumptions, background discussions with responsible decision-makers have been conducted. Consequently, the model structure is based on cognition and implemented on a high level of abstraction to keep it as simple as possible. This approach is also mentioned by Ruth and Hannon (1997) and Mella (2012), who state that SD-models are not aimed to cover all the systems facets.\n3. Case study - river flooding at the Upper Danube Region: The presented model simulates the development of a major flood by providing decision-makers the possibility of undertaking two different types of measures: installing mobile flood protection and evacuating people. The duration of these measures depends on various influencing factors previously discussed and allocation of relief units influences flood response. According to the gap between the actual state of the system (need for measures) and the desired state (finished mobile protection, evacuated population), the allocation of relief units for conducting corrective actions (mobile protection, evacuation) is adjusted. We defined two thresholds for the SF model in order to evaluate if the measures have been successful. Threshold 1 is reached if the affected area would be flooded. If the mobile flood protection is finished in time, more time is left for evacuation. Threshold 2 indicates the height of the water level when overflow occurs and the mobile protection does not protect the area anymore. In this case, evacuation should be finished.\n4. Conclusion: Due to lacking information, nonlinear conditions and time delays, flood response requires fast and flexible decision-making under complex settings. Various factors dynamically influence the duration of response activities. To strengthen decision-making skills, professional training is essential. This paper focuses on building an SD-model that captures that complexity and enables the replication of the presented educational model. Through literature review and background discussions with decision-makers, in-depth knowledge for creating the model was gathered. For the system's structure, a balancing behaviour is assumed. According to the discrepancy between the need for measures and the current state, relief units are adjusted by the model. This kind of behaviour was observed for the real-world flood at the Elbe region in 2002, which underpins the determined structure. As quantitative data for some parameters, e.g. cooperation issues, are not available, assumptions of their delaying influences were generated by defining graphical relationships and scenarios. It can be concluded, that the time available to conduct flood response, which is determined by the water level in the model, is the most important factor. This is due to the fact that it triggers the starting point and defines when response measures have to be completed. The number of deployed relief units allows one to influence the time needed for conducting flood response. We also found that besides the number of relief units, cooperation is one major factor that may be influenced by management measures between organisations to reduce the response duration. The model assumes that these delaying conditions are due to the involvement of numerous organisations. It is of interest to investigate if the phenomenon of decreasing cooperation in bigger groups only occurs due to the involvement of different organisations or if it also occurs with only one organisation being active. Hence, further research in that field is of importance to enhance the understanding of factors which influence flood response.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a training model for decision makers that covers the complexity which is inherent in decision-making processes in times of floods.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through literature review, case study analysis and iterative interviews with decision-makers, the model was established. It enables one to simulate different scenarios depending on selected influencing factors and was implemented with Stella 9.1.\nFindings: Flood events are highly complex and their development process is significantly influenced by various conditions. The findings show that the most important factor is the water level which determines the time available to respond. The presented System Dynamics (SD) model has the capability to capture such complex settings. Through what-if analysis and the comparison of different scenarios, learning effects are achieved by using the model.\nResearch limitations/implications: The level of abstraction is high. Not all influencing variables can be incorporated due to the variety of flood events. Based on experts' recommendations, the most relevant factors were included as areas of focus in the model.\nPractical implications: The generated model is presented to facilitate holistic comprehension of the modelling process. It offers the possibility to start learning processes through scenario analyses in order to strengthen decision-makers' understanding of complexity.\nOriginality/value: To the best of our knowledge, there are no comparable studies that focus on the generation process of building an SD-model for educational purposes in flood response.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Internal performance evaluation: the case of bank branches	[ "Banking", "Retailing", "Performance monitoring" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The financial services industry has been undergoing a major revolution in recent years due to deregulation, disintermediation, globalisation, and technological change (Grifell-Tatje and Lovell, 1996, 1999; Kumbhakar and Lozano-Vivas, 2005). Banks have been dramatically affected by these changes, which transform the way services are provided, the channels used to deliver the services, and the nature of financial institutions (Zuniga-Vicente and Vicente-Lorente, 2006). In this hypercompetitive context (D'Aveni, 1994), organisations demand targeted results from each of their organisational divisions, departments or branches. This change of priorities implies a culture change at all organisational levels, from corporate management to frontline employees (Brubakk and Wilkinson, 1996). The role of middle management, such as branch managers, in this culture change is critical, as they are required to be the leaders at the operations level (Wilkinson, 1995). Branch managers are empowered and oriented towards goal attainment, since branches have become decision making units and their managers have autonomy in deciding the best way of achieving goals within a set of banking services. Recent research even insists on the empowerment and goal-orientation importance at the frontline level (Nielsen et al., 2000). In short, branches become profit centres and important contributors to the bottom line of the firm as a whole. Corporate managers are therefore increasingly interested in gaining insights into the performance of their network of branches, and in seeking new ways to add value to their services in such an increasingly competitive industry.There is abundant literature on the performance of financial institutions. See Berger and Humphrey (1997) for a comprehensive survey of studies of efficiency and productivity change in financial institutions in various countries. However, there are fewer studies at the branch level, focusing on analysing efficiency using linear programming techniques[1]. Sherman and Gold (1985) were among the first in applying these techniques to the bank branches' context[2]. When input prices are available, one logical extension of efficiency analysis is the cost approach. In this case, the operating inefficiency is evaluated in terms of excess cost, so that the managers can estimate the potential cost reduction if inefficiency is removed from the network (Athanassopoulos, 1998). However, this literature sometimes acknowledges that cost efficiency is not the sole driving force in managing commercial activity (Camanho and Dyson, 2005, p. 444). One way of solving this problem is to move to the profit side, the bottom line, and this is possible if the output prices are known (Soteriou and Zenios, 1999).In our opinion, the literature to date has two significant shortcomings when it comes to evaluating an organisation's internal decision centres such as the branches of a banking firm. First, it fails to consider that each decision making unit may have a different target, which is a function of a wide set of environmental variables and organisational characteristics. For example, units of different ages, facing different levels of competition and seasonality will most likely have different profit levels demanded of them. Secondly, efficiency approaches do not explicitly include the preferences of network managers in the evaluation. The evaluation is done primarily for their use, and therefore it should be made to conform to their needs and preferences. In this context, preferences can be defined as what the evaluators want to achieve (or avoid), and therefore value as desirable (or undesirable).We have classified the lines of research that do not comply with these two requirements as external evaluation approaches. In contrast, this paper intends to propose a new internal evaluation approach in which each decision centre can have a different target, and the managers' preferences are integrated into the evaluation framework. We have explicitly introduced the target of each unit under evaluation, which has been formulated according to the relevant external and internal conditions. For this purpose, we have looked for literature that explicitly considers targets and the preferences of the evaluators, which we introduce in Section 2. Building mainly on the disappointment model proposed by Jia et al. (2001), in Section 3 the article proposes a methodology for evaluating an organisation's decision centres. Although we have evaluated the performance of a collection of bank branches, the proposed methodology is suitable for the evaluation of the performance of any service organisation, whenever they are structured around central and decentralised units (e.g. branches, retail outlets, or divisions).In Section 4, we carry out the evaluation in a privileged context, since we had access to performance data at the business unit level. In particular, we have evaluated 287 units comprising 145 retail units and 142 small and medium enterprise (SME) units, which correspond to the branches of a Spanish commercial bank. We used monthly data taken from a period of almost four years, from 2001 to 2004. This study uses a sample of 13,202 observations which is, to the extent of our knowledge, the biggest sample employed in a performance analysis of internal units. Moreover, we had the opportunity to learn explicitly about the network managers' preferences, which were included in the evaluation, and to contrast them with some theoretical and experimental findings on performance evaluation. Finally, the discussion and conclusions are presented in Section 5.\n2 Theoretical background: a guided survey: As we have already mentioned in introduction, the internal evaluation of an organisation's operating units, in the banking sector or in another service organisation, has certain traits that make it different from carrying out an external performance evaluation. It needs to be useful and meaningful for the internal evaluators, by complying with their needs and preferences. Existing literature on performance evaluation provides some foundations for designing an internal measurement framework. The most classic examples of literature that explicitly considers targets and the preferences of the evaluators are those dealing with the mean-risk approach, which forms the initial theoretical foundation of our own proposal. This section continues by considering the downside contributions, and finally one that discusses the asymmetry between gains and losses.2.1 Target and preference-oriented evaluation\n3 A measure of internal performance: To address our research question, we will define a measure of internal performance (MIP) which aims at responding to how we evaluate the performance of decision centres according to organisation managers' preferences. To define the measure, we will explicitly consider targets and the asymmetry between gains and losses.We evaluate the performance of a Decision Making Unit (DMU), e.g. bank branches, indexed by i, during n time periods indexed by t. The performance outcome obtained by DMU i in time t is xit. The frequency of a particular xit is denoted by pit, which is bounded between 0 and 1, and complies with[?]t=1npit=1. For each DMU i at each period of time t, a reference level or target is defined, xiref. When the outcome of a DMU exceeds its reference level, i.e. when xit>xitref, it is codified as a good outcome. Otherwise, when xit<=xitref, it is considered as being a bad outcome. Following this notation, we define the MIPi as:\nDefinition: Measure of internal performance.The MIP for a DMU in a period comprised between 1 and n is defined as: Equation 3 where xi and pi denote the vectors xi=(xi0, xi1, ... , xin) and pi=(pi0, pi1, ... , pin), respectively, and t(t) is a function of time.This measure separately aggregates good outcomes (xit>xitref) and bad outcomes (xit<=xitref), as considered in the theoretical developments of the disappointment models presented in Section 2.3. This separation enables good and bad results to be treated asymmetrically at three levels:1. the functions a2 and b2 allow different treatment when evaluating good or bad values of xit, respectively;2. the functions a3 and b3 allow pi to be evaluated differently, corresponding to a good or bad outcome; and3. the parameters a1 and b1, in turn, incorporate the possibility of weighting the overall evaluation of good and bad outcomes differently.The function t(t) is defined equally for good and bad outcomes, and is therefore only dependent on t, such as a discount factor.MIP is more general than the disappointment model in equation (2), proposed by Jia et al. (2001), and so it adapts better to the context of internal management evaluation in the sense that it allows:* a flexible modelling of the function for evaluating the performance discrepancies (xit>xitref), by means of defining the generic functions a2 and b2;* a more general treatment of pi, which stands for frequencies in a ex post evaluation or for probabilities in an ex ante context, by means of defining the generic functions a3 and b3; and* the inclusion of a function t(t) to account for possible time preferences, such as a discount factor[3].\n4 Internal evaluation: bank branches: The measure MIP defined in equation (3) will be used to evaluate the branches of a commercial bank in Spain, a medium-sized firm challenging the large Spanish banks by positioning itself as a leader in the adoption of new technologies. Its total assets in 2004 were almost 30 billion euros, and it is in the top 10 of the Spanish commercial and savings banks rankings. The pre-tax earnings for the same period were over 150 million euros. With close to 3,000 employees and more than 300 branches, it offers a full range of retail banking services: personal and company accounts, foreign currency accounts, and credit applications. However, depending on the client base, each branch is organised to serve different lines of business better.4.1 MIP into practice\n5 Conclusions: Existing approaches for evaluating branches of a firm or DMU follow an external evaluation approach because they do not consider the preferences of the internal evaluators. This paper proposes a new approach which defines a MIP to gauge the performance of the branches of a commercial bank. Our approach is different to others existing in the literature in two main aspects. Firstly, it is consistent with the requirements of internal evaluation, because it is prepared to incorporate the judgments of the branch network managers who evaluate the branches. In this way, this paper uses the managers' real preferences, instead of assuming them. Secondly, it assumes that each branch is requested to achieve a different target according to its specific characteristics. These aspects aim to take into account how network managers understand the performance of branches, and that the values obtained in the evaluation have the meaning that managers want them to have. Furthermore, this paper uses a wide sample of internal performance data at the business unit level. We use this data to show how an MIP can be used to advise the network managers about good and bad performance, to learn from successful practices and implement corrective actions when needed.The measure proposed is based on existing literature on performance. The starting point is the work by Stone (1973), which raises the importance of reference levels or targets, and considers preferences by clarifying the objective of the aggregation. However, to include the opposite judgment that evaluators have of gains (achieving or exceeding targets), and losses (failing to achieve targets), we had to find models which considered asymmetry between gains and losses, such as disappointment models (Jia et al., 2001). Based on these models we extended their proposal by maintaining the importance of target achievement and the asymmetry between gains and losses, but adding the possibility of including more general preferences and a time discount factor. This paper is one of the first to apply the disappointment model approach for internally evaluating an organisation.Implementing this framework in the case of the branches of a Spanish commercial bank revealed that the managers' preferences were coherent with behavioural theories. In particular, they revealed that target or aspiration levels were very important (Cyert and March, 1992), and that they were relevant in the allocation of attention (March and Simon, 1958). Aspiration levels - targets - made a clear distinction between good and bad outcomes, which caused framing differences (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). As in prospect theory approaches, the non-linearity of the valuation function was also obtained, with loss aversion instead of risk aversion, increasing sensitivity when reaching targets, and diminishing sensitivity when staying in the same stratum. This implies that the value function is concave for good outcomes and convex for bad outcomes.Other confirmations include the existence of multiple reference levels (Miller and Chen, 2004), although one acted as the prevalent aspiration level, and the other as second-order reference levels. Some other interesting heuristics were found, such as tolerance around the reference level, so that 95 per cent attainment was considered to be achieving the target, and the insensitivity to extreme values (below 70 per cent and over 130 per cent). All these particularities of the internal evaluators' preferences were captured by the framework proposed, and we believe they cannot be attained by using standard statistical or efficiency analysis techniques.The branch evaluation was based on detailed branch office information provided by bank network management. We had the privilege of gaining access to internal data on monthly performance from 2001 to 2004, showing how the 287 units evaluated covered their targets. MIP provides a synthesis of performance for each unit analysed and therefore a ranking of performance for each evaluation. The implementation of the measure helps to identify good/bad performers with high/low achievements or high levels of improvement/worsening. From this information, the banking firm's network managers became aware of good strategies applied in some branches which could be replicated in others. They could also identify poor strategies, so that these could be substituted by new corrective actions. They also discovered that MIP could be used to analyse possible learning in the target-setting system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach for gauging the performance of the operating units of a retail banking organisation, responding to the special demands of an internal evaluation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper defines a measure of internal performance (MIP) based on behavioural theory, particularly on disappointment models.\nFindings: - MIP is applied for the internal evaluation of a network of bank branches. Application to this real managerial setting reveals that bank managers' preferences support behavioural decision theory, including prospect theory.\nPractical implications: - The paper shows how MIP can be used as a management tool for improving organisational performance. The approach can be extended to other sectors.\nOriginality/value: - The proposal differs from others existing in the literature in two main aspects. Firstly, it is consistent with the requirements of an internal evaluation because it uses the managers' real preferences instead of assuming them. Secondly, it takes into account that each unit has a different target to achieve according to its specific characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
End-to-end business process scenarios	[ "Process management", "Business enterprise", "Control systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The typical enterprise implementation environment is highly complex. Seldom does an organization implement all of its business processes using a single software product, and this compels organizations to understand how their business processes are enabled by multiple systems within the enterprise. Enterprise systems are designed to contain \"most\" enterprise business processes, in a manner in which Gulledge (2006b) has termed \"Big 'I'\" integration. We have found, however, that this is seldom the case. Most enterprises have business processes enabled by many systems, and in some cases, even by multiple-enterprise systems, which Gulledge terms \"Little 'I'\" integration. In fact, we find this to be the norm as opposed to the exception. Companies implement enterprise software products, but they seldom implement them across the entire enterprise. We refer to this situation as \"implementing enterprise software in a non-enterprise environment.\"Most enterprise system initiatives begin as a conceptual rendering of required business functions. As initiatives mature, additional information on requirements becomes available, but to understand the requirements completely the totality of the business processes must be defined, documented and validated. The examples used in this paper are from public-sector organizations, but the underlying methodology and conceptual basis for the paper apply to any organization defining system requirements within a complex technology landscape. Our findings relate directly to implementation success. Information systems enable business processes, and if the business processes are not formally aligned with systems, then it is unlikely the systems will meet management expectations. As noted by Gulledge (2006a), this is a major source of requirements-definition failure in implementation projects.A business process is a sequence of functions executed by organizational units, according to appropriate process logic, using necessary data. This ensures that an overriding task (relating to certain objects) is carried out fully (Kirchmer, 1999). In lay terms, a business process is a sequence of activities executed to perform a particular task. Since, sequences are ordered with respect to time a business process is, by definition, dynamic.Since, managers are interested in how work is performed, business process knowledge is critical for controlling and improving work performance and output. Optimized-business processes result in lower cost, and in many cases, competitive advantage (Bose, 2006). Some business processes are executed manually, but others can be automated. In fact, the management information systems discipline is by and large about how to best automate business processes. Information technologies and systems can be used to eliminate manual steps, making processes more efficient, reducing errors, and improving cycle times. Perhaps, most important is that automating business process steps also produces information which may be used to measure performance and provide input for decision support.Business processes enable enterprise productivity, and technologies and systems enable business processes. However, aligning business processes with technologies and systems is often a challenge. Executives define organizational priorities and objectives, and managers are responsible for ensuring that the business processes are executed to meet priorities and objectives. Alignment involves ensuring the systems and technologies are properly aligned with the business processes. Understanding and documenting end-to-end (E2E) business-process scenarios is consistent with a three-tiered solution framework, as shown in Figure 1.The alignment shown in Figure 1 is not automatic, and misalignment is the source of many organizational problems. A properly designed enterprise integration framework must include alignment across all three levels.Enterprise integration is the alignment of strategies, business processes, information systems, technologies, and data across organizational boundaries to provide competitive advantage. The process of achieving enterprise integration includes all managerial and technological factors that enable cross-functional process integration. The result is a customer-oriented management structure with information systems formally linked to processes and the integration of processes needed to establish and retain customer satisfaction. This definition of enterprise integration also means that business processes flow across organizational boundaries, which adds significant complexity to business-process management.Managers manage business processes implicitly or explicitly. Even if no explicit documentation and management approaches are in place, work is still accomplished, so the processes are managed implicitly; even if that means responsibility shifts from one manager to another with no attempt to coordinate. Explicit management and improvement is desirable, however, so the discipline of business-process improvement is core to the management disciplines.\nE2E scenarios defined: For the purposes of this paper, an E2E scenario documents the flow of event-driven functions across one or more organization and system boundaries. For documentation, we use the event-driven process chain (EPC) as described by Scheer (1998). Our approach recognizes that systems may be responsible for enabling multiple functions, providing a natural \"requirements definition\" layer for composite applications. E2E scenarios help answer three key questions for an enterprise in transition: where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we go about getting there? In enterprise architecture terms, E2E scenarios help define the \"As-Is\" the \"To-Be\" and the migration path from one to the other.At its most basic level, an E2E scenario shows the high-level functions to be executed in realizing a complex-business process flowing across organization boundaries as enabled by multiple-information systems. Bubak et al. (2006) has discussed these relationships with a particular orientation to SAP. In this section, the concepts are presented in general terms from an architecture-driven enterprise integration perspective. A true enterprise-management approach demands an E2E viewpoint that flows unimpeded by the constraints of information systems and organizational boundaries. An example of an E2E scenario is shown in Figure 2. In the figure, the business process flow is documented in \"swim lanes\" and, in this case, flows across four systems. If the process is optimized relative to one system while ignoring the others, the E2E scenario as a whole is sub-optimized. As mentioned earlier, it is the totality of the organization's business processes and the optimal combination of system functionalities that should dictate which functions each system executes, as opposed to designating systems to perform functions based on organizational (artificial) boundaries.Figure 2 also shows the high-level requirements for a composite application that would enable the E2E process, and it clearly demonstrates the process cannot be decoupled from the systems. In fact, many additional processes may be enabled by the same systems, so it is very difficult to selectively improve any one process without affecting another. This fact is often ignored in enterprise initiatives and portfolio analyses, leading to poorly-scoped projects and portfolios that are impossible to implement. One cannot rank systems for investment purposes without understanding completely the impacts the systems have on all business processes they enable.The figure also illustrates the fallacies of the family of systems approach. Once the systems are built, the processes are bound and there is no potential for additional-process improvement. The main result of this discussion is that collections of scenarios define solutions. Software boundaries must be aligned with these collections of scenarios, and once the systems are built, the processes are bound. That is, the opportunities for business-process improvement are limited since individual systems are usually tied to multiple processes. This means that even the smallest business process improvement initiatives must consider collections of scenarios and all systems that enable the collection. This certainly has implications for the literature in business process reengineering, but it is often overlooked by process analysts who do not have a good understanding of the underlying systems.\nExample: joint deployment and distribution architecture: For enterprise-level issues such as how an organization's supply chain should be governed, it is critical to develop a schema which business managers, rather than technology experts, are able to easily understand. There are two key elements impacting how a supply chain is implemented in an organization: complexity and variability (Taylor, 2004). While it is necessary for all parts of a major-business process to be defined, not every detail needs to be shown to all levels of decision makers. Senior executives likely neither know nor care about every detail of how their supply chain works; they simply want to know the supply chain is working as demonstrated in the targets for timeliness, quality, price, and other service-level key performance indicators (KPIs). At the operational level, however, line and mid-level managers must understand the exact functions to be executed in every possible scenario, as within an enterprise environment logistics is handled as a process rather than several independent functions (Bowersox et al., 2002).In the case of a supply chain, the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model has been developed to provide a \"best practice\" definition for supply chain management (Kirchmer et al., 2002). It consists of five components: plan, source, make, deliver, and return, as shown in Figure 3 (These five-value chain activities represent \"Level 1\" of the SCOR model). The chevron above the five components (the \"JDDA\"), represents US Transportation Command's Joint Deployment and Distribution Architecture, the case study for this paper. The small symbols to the right of each chevron on the second row are the equivalents of hyperlinks, and indicate there is additional content relevant to the object available at a lower level of decomposition.This is not enough detail for an organization to understand how it manages its supply-chain processes; additional granularity is required. The SCOR model, for example, encompasses three levels of detail, with \"Deliver Stocked Products\" (part of \"Deliver\" levels 2 and 3) shown in Figure 3, which would have been accessed by clicking on the small icon to the right of the \"Deliver\" chevron shown in Figure 4. With the reference model established, an organization is able to align its unique processes, what may be considered \"Level 4\" to the reference model, as shown in Figure 5.The next level of detail\nApplying the E2E business-process approach: We have tested the architecture-driven approach using E2E business-process scenarios on several international and US organizations, in both government and commercial settings. We believe this architecture-driven methodology addresses an organization's strategic, process, and data priorities. To understand how the business processes are executed and to set the stage for analysis, the entirety of each distinct process variant must be documented, including how the processes interact with each other and the enabling information systems. Functions executed by people who belong to organizations use systems to do their individual jobs. Each function uses, creates and/or transforms data. There are several key elements involved in developing high-quality E2E scenarios. Without any of the following, the E2E-design process will be less likely to produce accurate results:Senior leadership support\nPfM - a critical activity enabled by E2E-business processes: PfM is the practice of determining the set of information systems to be functioning at a particular time and their associated business process requirements. A key element of PfM is to ensure that systems enable the processes as aligned with organizational objectives. A common-business process and system repository is absolutely required for successful PfM. As mentioned earlier in the paper, all employees in an organization must have common naming conventions for business processes and systems. When the same business process or system means different things to different people, the ability to execute PfM is extremely difficult.With a properly accounted-for portfolio, senior leadership is able to consult a single source to evaluate the state of its ability to implement business processes based on current and projected capabilities. Additional-analytical power comes in the ability to evaluate from a high level the impacts and likely solutions for problems that occur when there is a \"break\" in a business process. In many organizations, there is no easily-understood resource for senior management to consult when something goes wrong, and this approach shifts the emphasis of PfM. One still has visibility into the investment dollars, but now one can see how an investment actually impacts the business.When the processes are documented fully, the As-Is and To-Be architectures are defined, and the portfolio of systems and the series of functions within the organization's business processes are known, senior leadership is able to determine optimal courses of action without need to issue an urgent \"data call\" to understand after the fact what has happened. Instead, in a properly defined architecture, reports may be run to determine which business processes are impacted by actual events and \"what if\" analysis may be undertaken to see what would likely happen in a given scenario. This is the major benefit of combining portfolio analysis with E2E-business process scenarios that are embedded in an enterprise solution architecture.Through the IT-evolution diagram, leadership knows that, unless schedules change, a system will begin shutting off and another will begin standing up at a particular date. This allows for funding that would have been used for the legacy system to be transferred to the new system. The gap-fit/gap-overlap analysis enables decision making on which business processes and systems are critical for continued-operational execution. If, for instance, two systems are required for executing the same function within a business process, but for one it cannot be turned off without impacting its other functionality, and for the other it can be turned off without implication, the potential savings in maintenance costs would be a major consideration in making the portfolio decision.Service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementation\nConclusions: When properly constructed, E2Es make a major contribution in showing visually how business processes in an organization's As-Is and To-Be states will be accomplished. They are also a powerful tool in enabling PfM at the enterprise level. To be certain the scenarios are accurate, however, it is necessary to have skilled facilitators charged with gathering the information from SMEs.Because, the process is not natural for the participants providing the expert input, care must be taken to have skilled facilitators follow a coherent methodology. Finally, E2E business-process scenarios serve as a decision-support system for senior leaders, enabling them to view the organization's mission as business processes and to see how a \"break\" in the process could impact the organization as a whole. Furthermore, E2E business-process analysis cannot be executed in a vacuum. To understand the relationships among the processes and to ensure consistency, the business processes must be embedded in the enterprise solution architecture. And, if the organization has a strategy for transitioning to a service-oriented landscape, the E2E business-process scenarios represent the high-level requirements for any resulting composite applications.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Enterprise integration endeavors are complex because they compel an organization to understand how its cross-organizational business processes are enabled by multiple systems. For any large-scale implementation project, specific business process and system information is included in the enterprise-solution architecture. To understand the totality of any organization's business processes, managers must define and document all core and support processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The examples used in this paper are from large public sector organizations, but the underlying methodology and conceptual basis for the paper apply to any complex organization.\nFindings: - The main conclusion of this paper is that end-to-end (E2E) business process scenarios must be used for defining the requirements for any system implementation project in any organization. If the new system does not align with the E2E-business processes, then management requirements cannot be realized. We also note that E2E scenarios must be considered when implementing enterprise software in a non-enterprise environment.\nOriginality/value: - The paper notes that E2E scenarios represent the requirements definition level for composite applications enabled in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Traditional implementation methodologies that enable standard software modules (or integration scenarios across modules) are not effective in non-enterprise environments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Chinese cultural values and gift-giving behavior	[ "China", "Consumer behaviour", "National cultures" ]	[ { "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.Doing business in the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC) - the world's largest single consumer market - poses great challenges for foreign marketers. To successfully compete in this market, foreign firms must learn how to penetrate it (Miller, 1990). This requires a clear under-standing of the Chinese market (Zhao, 1991); particularly the Chinese consumers and their behavior. This research involving an investigation of the gift-giving behavior of the Chinese people, a practice that has been historically central to Chinese tradition and culture during their most celebrated festival, the Chinese New Year, is an attempt to contribute towards this understanding.\nResearch on gift-giving: Conceptualization\nHypotheses: The discussion presented above indicates that the Chinese cultural value as a whole and its various components such as family orientation, guanxi, yuan, face, renqing, and reciprocity may have an impact on the gift-giving behavior of the Chinese people. More specifically, these might have influenced the perceived importance of gift-giving, the amount/dollar value of the gift-given, the gift-selection effort, and the brand of the gift given. Hence, in the light of the literature discussed above, the following hypotheses are proposed. It should be noted that each of the hypotheses H1a, H2a, H3a, and H4a are composite hypotheses with sub-hypotheses (for each component):H1a. Chinese cultural value components are associated positively with the perceived importance of gift-giving.H1b. Chinese cultural value as a whole is associated positively with the perceived importance of gift-giving.H2a. Chinese cultural value components are associated positively with the perceived amount given.H2b: Chinese cultural value as a whole is associated positively with the perceived amount given.H3a. Chinese cultural value components are associated positively with the perceived gift selection effort.H3b. Chinese cultural value as a whole is associated positively with the perceived gift selection effort.H4a. Chinese cultural value components are associated positively with the perceived brand orientation.H4b. Chinese cultural value as a whole is associated positively with the perceived brand orientation.\nResearch methodology: The sample\nAnalyses and findings: Sample profile\nDiscussion and managerial implications: The results of this investigation have several important implications for both marketing practitioners and researchers. They provide a broad understanding of the general consumption patterns of urban consumers in the PRC by offering insights into three antecedents of gift-giving namely, Chinese cultural values, personal values and motivation for gift-giving. They also highlight some other related aspects such as importance of gift-giving, amount given, gift-selection effort, and brand orientation. The results suggest that the choice of gift may not depend only on personal values and motivation for gift-giving; it may also be a function of their cultural values. For example, Chinese consumers generally put more emphasis on brand orientation in buying Chinese New Year gifts. Hence, marketers should take note of the brand orientation in developing market strategies.This study can also help marketers better segment their market based on consumers' personal values, cultural values, and motivation for gift-giving and establish appropriate marketing strategies for their target market. Knowledge about gift-giver and gift-receiver orientation and consequences of gift-giving will help them develop better strategic decisions regarding the gift-market. In developing a suitable strategy for the target market, marketers should note that gift-giving behavior in the PRC is influenced by Chinese cultural values, social value orientation, and recipient orientation as well as giver orientation rather than self-value orientation alone. For example, values such as renqing, guanxi, yuan, saving-face, and reciprocity influence more consumers in China.While the study has reconfirmed Hou's (1999) observation that Chinese New Year is special occasion, in which Chinese consumers are willing to spend much money on gift, it has further revealed that the levels of expenditure are related to a number of demographic factors. Hence it makes sense for marketers to pay more attention to these variables in developing their marketing mix for the gift market in the PRC.Last but not the least, the results tend to suggest that marketers should be aware that although social orientation and Chinese cultural value have positive influence on recipient orientation, they also have negative influence on giver orientation. This particular finding is useful as it provides food for thought for marketers regarding the best ways to promote their products as gifts.It is worthwhile to note that this research develops a scale for measuring Chinese cultural values. In addition, by using AMOS in discovering causality between the various variables such as Chinese cultural value, personal value and motivation for gift-giving and gift-giving behavior, it also displays a methodological improvement over previous research in the area that used LISREL.\nLimitations and future studies: Like other survey-based studies, the study has some limitations as well. Since the sample from Tianjin may not have represented all the sub-cultures of PRC, it may not be appropriate to generalize these findings to all other cities or parts of the country. Second, the gift-giving occasion selected, i.e. the Chinese New Year, may not be representative of other occasions when gifts are exchanged.Keeping these limitations in view, future research may be conducted in other cities or regions of PRC to detect if there are significant differences among the consumers there. The study can also be extended to other areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore where Chinese cultural value is also well established. These studies would help generalize if Chinese cultural value exerts the same degree of influence on gift-giving behaviors across all these areas. It would also be useful to conduct studies on gift giving behavior during occasions such as birthday and the Lantern Festival to establish if gift-giving behaviors differ.\nSummary and conclusions: The main objective of this study was to assess the role played by various components of Chinese cultural value and Chinese cultural value as a whole in influencing gift-giving behaviors. To this end, an explicit and comprehensive model was developed and tested in this study that provides a good explanation of consumers' gift-giving behavior in the PRC. Behavioral measurements studied include the importance attached to gift-giving, the amount/dollar value spent on gift- given, brand orientation and gift selection efforts. Survey results based on a large sample of respondents indicated that the Chinese cultural value as a whole had positive effects on these behaviors. In addition, components of Chinese cultural values such as renqing, reciprocity, guanxi, and yuan were found to exert influence on all aspects of gift-giving behaviors. The \"face\" component was found to have effect on importance attached to gift-giving, the amount given and brand orientation. However, the \"family orientation\" component did not seem to have any positive effect on the four behavioral elements studied.In summary, the results of this study illustrate the need for marketers to engage in different approaches when dealing with Chinese consumers with different value orientations; and consider the importance of motivations (i.e. recipient and giver orientations) of consumers in segmentation, advertising and product brand orientation. The results further imply that Western international operations must familiarize themselves with Chinese culture value when they extend their business to the PRC.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a study undertaken to investigate the gift-giving behavior of consumers in the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the Chinese New Year and the influence exerted by Chinese cultural values on such behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using a survey among a large sample of people in the city of Tianjin, gift-giving behavior was measured by the importance accorded to gift-giving, the amount given, the effort spent on gift selection and brand orientation when selecting gifts. The cultural values examined were renqing (human obligations), guanxi (relationship), yuan (destiny or fate), reciprocity, family orientation and Mianzi (face). Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data.\nFindings: - Results indicated that Chinese cultural values as a whole as well as most of its components investigated in this research had positive effects on the various gift-giving behaviors. The \"face\" component was, however, found to affect only the importance attached to gift-giving, the amount given and the choice of brand.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Research results should be interpreted with caution as the study was limited to Tianjin - one of the several major cities in the PRC. Also the Chinese New Year may not be representative of other occasions when gifts are exchanged.\nPractical implications: - The results of this investigation would benefit practitioners involved in the marketing of \"gift items\" in the PRC by providing them with a clear understanding of the general consumption patterns of the PRC urban consumers, insights into the various antecedents of gift-giving and linking them with various aspects of Chinese cultural values. The research findings would also benefit researchers, academics and others interested in the PRC market by making them familiar with some of the salient aspects that characterize Chinese consumers.\nOriginality/value: - This study develops a new model describing the relationships among values (Chinese cultural value and personal value), motivation for gift-giving and gift-giving behavior. It also develops new scales for measuring the constructs such as Chinese cultural values, motivation for gift-giving and gift-giving behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Changing classroom practices: the role of school-wide capacity for sustainable improvement	[ "Leadership", "Sustainability", "Changed instruction", "School organization", "School-wide capacity", "Teacher motivation and learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the past decade, elementary schools in and outside the USA have been confronted with on-going large-scale educational reforms and restructuring movements, including \"high-stakes\" accountability policies that enforce tightened \"output\" controls, as strategies to improve the quality of education. In the Netherlands, where this study takes place, calls for greater educational accountability as integral part of much broader school reform initiatives became quite insistent in the 1990s. Different strategies for increasing accountability have been developed, ranging from fostering competition among schools, implementing site-based management together with the increase of power for school governors, to national assessment by the schools inspectorate of key areas of the curriculum and student achievement.\nTheoretical framework: In order to conceptualize school improvement and educational change, scholars have used a variety of theoretical perspectives (Sleegers and Leithwood, 2010). Studies into the implementation of externally initiated planned change efforts in education conducted in the 1970s have shown that many innovations in schools were abandoned and that the fundamental features of the reform programs were often modified through \"mutual adaptation\" (see for an overview Firestone and Corbett, 1988). Based on these results, scholars started to frame school improvement as a form of organizational change to better understand the complexity and dynamic nature of planned change efforts in education. As a consequence, the process of implementing changes in schools was modeled as overlapping developmental stages, including adaptation, implementation and institutionalization (Fullan, 1991; Miles, 1986). This line of inquiry has sought to describe and analyze processes that have an impact on successful change in schools, including studies that focus on personal change (Evans, 1996; Rogers, 2003), organizational change (O'Toole, 1995; Weick, 1976) and educational change (Hall and Hord, 2006; Sleegers et al., 2002). The major emphasis was on identifying strategies of change, focussing on the effective management of change processes.\nMethodological approaches: In spite of the awareness that improvement, by definition, entails change in state of schools over time, most of the literature on school improvement and educational change hardly describe change and improvement in schools (Hallinger and Heck, 2011; Thoonen et al., 2012). Case studies generated descriptions of what occurs during efforts to improve schools in other specific context, however, findings from cases studies cannot be generalized and research that relies on a knowledge base from case studies alone is of limited validity and utility. Large survey studies have broadened our understanding of effective conditions for school improvement. As these studies are mainly based on a cross-sectional design, they only offer a one-time snapshot of the state of the school's performance and, therefore, are not equipped to illuminate the effect of school internal conditions on changes in teachers' teaching practices over a period of time.\nFocus of the present study: Framework\nMethod: Sample\nResults: In this section we successively report the results of the longitudinal mixed-models of teacher-level conditions predicted by organizational-level conditions and teacher's background variables, and the results of the longitudinal mixed-models of teachers' instructional strategies predicted by organizational-level and teacher-level conditions and teacher's background variables. We first present changes of teacher-level conditions over time, and the main and interaction effects of organizational-level conditions. Second, we report the effects of time, organizational-level and teacher-level conditions on change in teacher's teaching practices.\nConclusions and discussion: In this study, we examined changes in teachers' instructional strategies over a period of three years and used a model of school internal conditions to explain these changes. Based on constructivist approaches to teaching and findings from one of our earlier studies, we distinguished two instructional strategies: relatedness to students' world and cooperative learning. Based on findings of empirical studies on school internal conditions that promote individual and collective learning and changes in teachers' classroom practices, we distinguished organizational-level conditions and teacher-level conditions and assessed the relations among these conditions and the instructional strategies teachers use. We applied multilevel regression analysis on hierarchical longitudinal data consisted of teachers' scores on four measurement with a sample from 862 teachers of 32 Dutch elementary schools. In this section, we discuss our most important findings. We first discuss our findings with respect to changes in the instructional strategies teachers use, and the effects of organizational-level conditions and teacher-level conditions on these changes. Next to these findings, we discuss the most important findings concerning the role of organizational conditions for the improvement of teacher conditions.\nLimitations and future directions: While we believe that this study makes a unique contribution to increase our understanding of the role of school-wide capacity for improvement can play in changing teaching practices, we also acknowledge its limitations. In this section we discuss these limitations and suggest directions for future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Elementary schools have been confronted with large-scale educational reforms as strategies to improve the educational quality. While building school-wide capacity for improvement is considered critical for changing teachers' classroom practices, there is still little empirical evidence for link between enhanced school capacity for improvement and instructional change. In this study, the authors examined the impact of school improvement capacity on changes in teachers' classroom practices over a period of time. Leadership practices, school organizational conditions, teacher motivation and teacher learning were used to measure school-wide capacity for improvement. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Mixed-model analysis of longitudinal data over a four years (2005-2008) period of time from 862 teachers of 32 Dutch elementary schools were used to test the impact of school improvement capacity on changing teachers' instructional practices.\nFindings: The results showed that organizational-level conditions and teacher-level conditions play an important, but different role in changing teachers' classroom practices. Whereas teacher factors mainly affect changes in teachers' classroom practices, organizational factors are of significant importance to enhance teacher motivation and teacher learning.\nResearch limitations/implications: More longitudinal research is needed to gain better insight into the opportunities and limits of building school-wide capacity to stimulate instructional change.\nPractical implications: By encouraging teachers to question their own beliefs, facilitating opportunities for teachers to work together to solve problems, and through the promotion of shared decision making, school leaders can reinforce the personal and social identification of teachers with the organization. As a consequence, teachers will feel increasingly committed and are more willing to change their classroom practices. Additionally, school leaders can use the findings from this study and the related instrument as a tool for school self-evaluation.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature of changes in conditions for school improvement and its influence on changes in teachers' instructional practices over a period of time.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Customer relationship management in higher education: Using information systems to improve the student-school relationship	[ "Customer service management", "Higher education", "Students", "Relationship marketing", "Colleges", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this dynamic, competitive environment the future success of educational establishments rests on their ability to differentiate themselves and build meaningful relationships not only with existing students but with potential students as well. To achieve this, internal systems need to be maximized to their full potential through the integration and use of internal CRM which can pull together disseminated pieces of information from all types of databases and sources (King, 2005).Customer relationship management (CRM) is a set of practices that provide a consolidated, integrated view of customers across all business areas to ensure that each customer receives the highest level of service (Karakostas et al., 2005; TDWI Industry Study, 2000). CRM enables an ongoing one-to-one relationship with the customer. When relationship management is enhanced by technology, a \"seamless integration of every area of business that touches the customer\" is provided (DCI, 2004). In higher education, students are the customers; some areas that touch the students are the registration processes, transcript services, career counseling and academic support services.Graduating high school seniors today have a wide variety of choices in higher education; competition for their business is keen, especially in a tight economy. Students can choose four-year colleges, technical schools, or community colleges in a face-to-face or online learning environment. While the academic reputation of a school is a major factor in determining its selection, other performance indicators that prospective students may examine include pass rate of licensure examinations, improvement in critical thinking and communication skills, alumni satisfaction with their college experience, and the percentage of graduates who find employment (Cleary, 2001).Satisfaction with the college's programs and services is also a critical performance measure. CRM can play a significant role in this area. While being able to obtain information about a course prerequisite or a schedule listing is not germane to the student's learning, it is nonetheless an integral part of the college experience. Most students view administrative activities as a necessary evil; thus, an information system with an enhanced CRM initiative that provides an individualized fast-track to completing these activities can be a strong incentive for selecting a particular institution.In this paper, we first define customer relationship management, discuss how technology facilitates CRM, and explain its place in higher education. We then offer a brief history of the community college system and explore the concept of students as primary stakeholders. Finally, we examine the life cycle of an actual CRM project in a state community college system.\nCRM: CRM has been described as \"a customer-focused business strategy that aims to increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by offering a more responsive and customized service to each customer\" (Croteau and Li, 2003). In the early twentieth century, managing customer relationships was a fairly simple task. Merchants had fewer customers and most were local. Recordkeeping was done in the merchant's head or in a simple ledger. Merchants knew who their customers were and what they wanted.In the last 20 years, the super store concept, the internet, the rise of the suburbs, and increased consumer mobility, have made the customer relationship more complex. Customers had more choices and marketing needed to become customer-centric. While information systems provided far more customer-related data, making sense of that data became nearly impossible. Attempting to glean useful information from myriad sources was very labor intensive. The organization needed to identify, acquire and retain new customers, to understand what they wanted, and to develop customer loyalty. CRM systems accomplish this task by consolidating information from all customer touch points into a central repository accessible by all business areas.CRM systems enable customers to interact with the business in an individualized, need-specific manner, and include processes to bring together information about both the customer and the business. The tasks performed by CRM systems fall into two main areas - operational and analytical. In brief, the operational side gathers data from various touch points; the analytical systems make sense of it.Although CRM systems employ sophisticated technology, a CRM initiative involves more than just technology. CRM is both a business strategy and a technology-software set. The technology and software automate and enhance the processes associated with managing customer relationships. The business strategy positions the customer as the focus of the organization, creating a \"customer centric\" orientation (Grant and Anderson, 2002).In implementing a CRM system, the firm must first decide what information it needs about the customer and what it will do with it. Next, it must determine how the information is gathered, where the data are stored, how it is used, and who uses it. In the typical firm, information about a customer might be gathered from a web site, a physical store location, sales reports, and mail (electronic or traditional) campaigns. Using the data gained from these customer touch points, analysts can develop a complete view of each customer and pinpoint where additional services are needed (Deck, 2001).While CRM efforts are often daunting, the benefits achieved are impressive. Firms who successfully implement CRM systems report improved customer data and process management, increased number of transactions and improved analysis and reporting. Information is more timely and accurate and customer complaints are reduced (Integrated Technologies Corporation, 2005).CRM in education\nThe community college in America - a brief history: Community colleges focus on the community and its needs and offer workforce training, open admissions and low tuition (Phillippe and Patton, 2000). Courses offered may be applied to a vocational diploma or associate degree, or transferred to a four-year college. Other courses include non-credit, continuing education courses in literacy, basic skills and life enhancement areas. The open admission policy, low cost, proximity, and courses offered at the community college often add up to the only chance for many students to obtain an education.In the early twentieth century, American leaders realized that a skilled workforce was needed for continued economic strength and successful competition in a global economy. However, only 25 percent of high school graduates were continuing their education due, in part, to a reluctance to leave home for a distant college (www.aacc.nche.edu, 2003). From this need the earliest community colleges emerged, committed to meeting local needs through small classes, close student-faculty relations and a program that included academics and extracurricular activities.The initial focus in community college education was on liberal arts studies; however, during the Depression, community colleges began offering job-training programs. After the Second World War, the conversion of military industries to consumer goods created new, skilled jobs. This economic transformation along with the GI Bill created the drive for more higher education options. In 1948, a network of public, community-based colleges was initiated to serve local needs (American Association of Community Colleges, 2003).Today, community colleges provide educational marketplaces where student choices and community needs influence course offerings. Two-thirds of the approximately 20 million students enrolling in community college courses take courses for academic credit; the rest enroll in noncredit classes, typically in workforce training courses.The North Carolina community college system\nStudents as stakeholders: All institutions of higher education have a variety of stakeholders, and while each institution must work to satisfy them, the stakeholder with the most influence is the customer - the student. The typical college student makes several trips to campus before classes start. These include one visit prior to college selection, a registration visit and another visit to pay fees and purchase textbooks. While telephone and web-based registration systems have alleviated some problems, students are still faced with numerous administrative tasks to be completed during their college careers. All too often, these tasks involve considerable time spent waitingFor community college students, many of whom work full-time, these tasks can be a deterrent to completing or even initiating their education. A CRM system can ease the complexities of accomplishing these administrative tasks by providing a means of anytime-anywhere registration, as well as payment, advising and requirements checking that is individualized to meet the student's needs.\nThe CRM project: By 1997, the computing system used by NCCCS, never able to adequately support the larger community colleges, was unable to meet the state reporting requirements. Designed to support only the administrative functions of the colleges, colleges were using it as a management information system to support decision making. At each college, separate databases stored employee and curriculum information. Student data was split in two databases - one for traditional students and the other for continuing education students. This disparate data resulted in inaccurate and redundant data and frustrated students. Continuing education students, for example, were not recognized as students in the college - they weren't in the \"college student\" database! In 1997, a survey of college business managers in the state showed that nearly 80 percent of those responding supported investigating other options for administrative computing systems.In the sections that follow the North Carolina Community College System's CIS project is presented in chronological order from conception to implementation. Since the student system is only one part of the enterprise-wide CIS, it is necessary to take a broad view of the system's development before returning focus to the CRM portion.1997-1998\nThe student system as a CRM system: To support the goal of student-centered learning, the student information system features a streamlined application process that allows anytime, anywhere registration with a date-driven set-up to support traditional and distributed learning offerings. Student services access is provided, and students can access and update their information without requiring assistance or service from a staff member unless problems arise. In addition, comprehensive date tracking maintains all history and status changes with student records available via the web. All transactions are immediately reflected in the database and in related processes (such as a student dropping a course and immediately having financial aid recalculated). Information about students and employees is accessible to all functions (with appropriate security).With the elimination of multiple databases and resulting duplicate records, the student view is no longer fragmented across the organization. Instead, student data is stored in one place on a single system. This data integration increases coordination among functional areas and synchronizes processes, thereby improving customer service. Information about all colleges can be collected and stored centrally in the data warehouse. This central repository accommodates information retrieval and reporting for both analytical purposes such as data mining and for operational tasks such as scheduling and registration. All systems utilize electronic forms and workflow instead of paper forms that must be carried or sent between offices. This enhanced efficiency improves speed, customer service and satisfaction (NCCCS, 1999).\nOne pilot college's experience: Individuals involved with both system development and Phase I implementation at one of the eight Pilot colleges were interviewed in 2003 and 2005 after the initial rollout. The following challenges and successes were extracted from those interviews:Challenges\nConclusion: This paper explored customer relationship management in a higher education setting. The development and implementation of a CRM project in a state community college was examined as were the benefits realized by implementing CRM. These include a student-centric focus, improved customer data and process management, increased student loyalty, retention and satisfaction with the college's programs and services.As colleges increasingly embrace distance learning and e-business, CRM will become stronger and more pervasive. Viewing students as customers provides a competitive advantage for higher education and enhances a college's ability to attract, retain and serve its customers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore customer relationship management (CRM) in a higher education setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The development and implementation of a CRM project in a state community college was examined as were the benefits realized by implementing CRM. As colleges increasingly embrace distance learning and e-business, CRM will become stronger and more pervasive. Viewing students as customers provides a competitive advantage for higher education and enhances a college's ability to attract, retain and serve its customers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals involved with the planning, development and implementation of a statewide CIS system. Student support personnel were additionally interviewed.\nFindings: - The benefits of implementing CRM in a college setting include a student-centric focus, improved customer data and process management, increased student loyalty, retention and satisfaction with the college's programs and services.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The entire community college system has not implemented the project. Rather, only the phase one colleges have implemented at this juncture.\nOriginality/value: - Viewing students as customers provides a competitive advantage and enhances a college's ability to attract, retain and serve its customers. As colleges increasingly embrace distance learning and e-business, CRM will become more pervasive.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Systematic analysis of PPP research in construction journals: from 2009 to 2019	[ "Public-private partnership", "Review", "Comparison", "Construction industry" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: PPP aims to provide an asset or a service under contractual relationships between public sectors (governments) and private sectors (Tang et al., 2013). It is a procurement approach or model to deliver essential public services crossing various sectors and increase the economic value of outputs (Song et al., 2013; Cui et al., 2018). PPP has been widely used to deliver public infrastructure, services, or both since the 1990s (Love et al., 2015; Song et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2014a, b, c). As an increasingly important procurement approach in developed and developing countries, PPP application has been established in the following sectors: transportation, environmental protection, energy, public housing, security, public health and education (Buse and Harmer, 2007; Siemiatycki and Farooqi, 2012; Song et al., 2013; Cruz and Marques, 2014; Hernandez-Aguado and Zaragoza, 2016).Alongside the rapidly increasing influence of private participation in public infrastructure development, research interest and articles relevant to PPP have proliferated (Al-sharif and Kaka, 2004). The development of the knowledge system of PPP has enabled researchers to share and gain access to these research findings, investigate the status quo and explore future trends in the subject area. Therefore, a systematic analysis of published articles in academic journals would be valuable to the research community (Tsai and Wen, 2005; Ke et al., 2009).Several PPP reviews have already been carried out in the past two decades, summarizing the PPP research development process and revealing trends of PPP research. For example, Al-sharif and Kaka (2004) analyzed 34 Private Finance Initiative (PFI) related articles from 1998 to 2003 selected from the following four major academic journals: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM-Construction), Construction Management and Economics (CME), International Journal of Project Management (IJPM), and Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (ECAM). Song et al. (2016) presented 1,036 articles and conference papers from the web of science (WOS) core collection database with publication dates between January 2000 and July 2015 using Cite Space software to visualize emerging trends and changes. Some scholars also reviewed PPP research literature from a specific viewpoint. Based on the perspective of project life cycle, Bao et al. (2018) conducted a systematic review of the PPP publications selected from seven leading construction management journals (JCEM-Construction, IJPM, CME, Journal of Management in Engineering (JME), Journal of Infrastructure Systems, ECAM, Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers-Civil Engineering (PICE-CE)), which is informative for scholars to pay attention to problems in varied PPP phases. Moreover, some studies have reviewed the specific problems encountered in the implementation of PPP projects, such as critical success factors (CSFs) (Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2016; Zhao et al., 2013), residual value risk (Yuan et al., 2015) and critical decision factors of PPP concession (Ullah et al., 2016). Ke et al. (2009) reviewed articles published in seven renowned construction journals. Based on a two-stage literature review, Ke et al. focused on the following information: the annual number of PPP articles published, contributions of writers to the papers and research interests in PPP. The contribution of writers to the papers incorporates country origins, affiliation, and citation analysis. The work of Ke provided a significant and informative overview of the PPP development from 1998 to 2008. Nevertheless, after a decade of development, changes might occur to the PPP development in the construction field. Thus, this study is determined to review the PPP articles published in the past ten years and to carry out a comparative analysis with Ke et al. (2009).This study identified 279 PPP articles published in 12 high-quality construction journals between 2009 and 2019. The result of this study was compared with that of Ke to visualize the processes of development and change in PPP research. This study intends to provide a unique overview of the PPP research status for future exploration in the construction domain by addressing the following questions:What are the main changes in the PPP research in the area of construction between the periods of 1998-2008 and 2009-2019?What are the major streams of the PPP research from 2009 to 2019?What directions will the PPP research go towards for the future?\n2. Methodology: This study conducted a systematic literature review of PPP articles published in 12 top-tier construction journals to learn the research progress on the global development of PPP. A systematic review aims to collect and analyze the past academic articles and find answers to the research questions (Le et al., 2019). This method is suitable for establishing an overview on an issue, hence bringing scholars and practitioners evidence-based insights about a certain topic or research problem (Petersen, 2019). Therefore, in order to build a structure of quantitative summary in PPP research, the current study conducted a systematic analysis of the publications in selected construction journals, contributing to the collection of the following information: the number of articles, journals, research origins, institutions, research streams, research methods, and cited articles. Different from the two-stage literature review of Ke et al., this study adopted a research approach that comprises three main steps: identification of academic journals, selection of target articles, and examination of the target articles. As shown in Figure 1, Stage 1 covered the determination of journals, search engines, and search terms. An analysis of filtered articles was conducted in Stage 2, laying a foundation for the exploration of existing research gaps. A conclusion based on the analysis in Stage 2 was presented in Stage 3. The research procedure for articles related to PPP research involves the following steps of the three stages. 2.1 Stage 1: Preparation\n3. Literature analysis: 3.1 Number of articles\n4. Future research directions: This study has presented a systematic review for PPP research streams. Many researchers have made significant contributions to PPP development. However, some deficiencies still exist in PPP theories and practices in the construction industry. Therefore, some research directions are recommended as follows. 4.1 Area development PPP (ADP) for regional social sustainability\n5. Conclusion: Currently, PPP plays an important role in the delivery of products and services in the construction industry. Meanwhile, it attracts some researchers' attention to reviewing PPP practices and exploring valuable strategies for improving implementation. This study conducted a systematic review of the PPP articles published in 12 widely recognized construction journals from 2009 to 2019. It also compares with Ke et al. (2009) who reviewed the PPP literature of 1998-2008. The review results showed that the number of PPP articles published in 2009-2019 has substantially increased comparing to 1998-2008 and that the trend of PPP research would continue due to some governments' support after their success in other jurisdictions. Based on the number of articles (PPP) and ratio (>3%), the journals JME, IJPM, JCEM-Construction, JCEM-Civil, CME, ECAM and IJCM were considered active in PPP research. In addition, review results also reported that researches related to PPP in Asia showed the rapid progress from 2009 to 2019 due to the active promotion of PPP in the area. Besides, PPP research in Australia, Portugal, Spain, Iran and Belgium were also steadily growing. PPP research in the UK and USA were less than those two decades ago. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Southeast University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology were identified as the most vigorous institutions in PPP research, owing to their stable, productive research teams. As for the citation, there are significant increases in IJPM, JCEM-Construction, JME, ECAM and CME. Particularly, IJPM has the largest increasing range in the aspect of times cited per PPP article. Albert P. C. Chan (China-HK), Ke Yongjian (Mainland China) and Wang Shouqing (Mainland China) are active researchers in PPP research; Wang Shouqing is also active from 1998 to 2008. This review investigated the research methods used in the identified PPP articles and found that case study, survey and modeling were the most prevalent. Moreover, this review presented five major research streams of PPP in the past decade, which are promotion of PPP, risk management process of PPP, financial issues, contract management, legal and procurement issues, governance and performance issues and the literature research of PPP in the construction industry.Although the objectives of this study have been achieved, there are limitations. First, the classification of research streams was proposed subjectively and bias might occur because of the authors' limits to knowledge and experience. Second, the literature search was carried out in WOS only and some PPP articles indexed by other databases might be omitted. Lastly, in order to reduce repeatability in citations, the total citation counts mentioned in this paper are based on the search engine (WOS) only. Citations in some other databases like Google Scholar and Scopus were not included. This may omit citation counts of some articles to a certain extent.Despite these limitations, this study contributes both to the current body of knowledge and to the practice. It identified five future research directions which may answer the following questions. How to define the scope and promulgate proper regulation of ADP? Especially, the risk response and performance appraisal system are important. How to quantify and simplify risk management techniques? How to deal with the systematic market-oriented compensation mechanism for early terminated PPP Project? How to balance the overregulation and deregulation of governments? How to satisfy tripartite stakeholders in different stages and fields? All the questions deserve attention from researchers and practitioners in the future. In addition, the results of this study will allow practitioners to considerably benefit from the research findings of institutions to choose enquiry agencies. Also, it reminds practitioners of complex part, such as risk management process and following proper procedures for PPP applications. In addition, the current findings are informative for researchers to recognize the research gaps and future research directions. Though comparative analysis, both of practioners and researchers can grasp the change of PPP development trend during the past two decades. The number of publications considering PPP demonstrates a growing tendency. The activity of PPP research is related to PPP practice. The future PPP research on underdeveloped area (for example, in Africa) may be vigorous due to the international assistance to infrastructure construction development in recent years.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aims of this study are to conduct a systematic review of public-private partnership (PPP) studies published from 2009 to 2019, to compare the results with Ke et al. (2009) who reviewed the PPP literature published from 1998 to 2008, and to trace the evolution of the PPP knowledge in the past two decades. This study also presents the possible directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future, arguably.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study carried out a top journal-based search to identify the quality PPP articles published from 2009 to 2019. A total of 12 top-tier construction journals were systematically searched in the database of web of science (WOS), from which 279 PPP articles were identified for review.\nFindings: The number of the identified articles, the titles of the journals, institutions, the most cited papers, and prevalent research methods were analyzed and compared. The existing PPP studies in construction journals were classified into seven streams. Through analysis of the PPP research status and gaps, five future research directions were revealed.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the current body of knowledge by revealing the research trend of PPP from 2009 to 2019. It presents the change of PPP development trend in the past decade through comparison with Ke et al. (2009). It also reveals the major research streams and points out the directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future. Moreover, this study is helpful to the practice as well. It can enhance the practitioners' understanding of the PPP development in the past decade. In addition, it identified the research institutions contributing the most in the area of PPP, which may serve as valuable reference for practitioners to locate the best institutions for consultancy or collaboration.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A social exchange perspective for achieving safety culture in healthcare organizations	[ "Social exchange theory", "Healthcare organization", "Safety culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The cost of patient and employee safety breaches continues to be a problem for healthcare organisations' managers, who are concerned with addressing those safety culture issues that increase the potential for patient morbidity and mortality (Colla et al., 2005). The safety culture of an organisation has been defined as \"the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation's health and safety management\" (ACSNI, 1993, p. 23).\nApplying social exchange theory to safety culture: SET assumes that there are tangible and intangible positive benefits and outcomes for all stakeholders from effective workplace relationships (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). In theory, effective social interactions between management/supervisors and employees build trust and positive socio-emotional feelings that in turn result in mutually beneficial reciprocity in behaviours. Employees benefit from the extra resources, information, autonomy and respect given to them by management; managers benefit because of the support they receive from employees for their decision-making, and the organisation benefits from increased efficiency and effectiveness resulting from high levels of co-operation amongst colleagues (Shore et al., 2011). Two SET variables are included in the comprehensive model proposed in the paper: LMX and employee engagement.\nLeader-member-exchange: Positive leader-member relationships involve reciprocal trust, friendship and respect (Uhl-Bien and Maslyn, 2003), and within an organisation can gradually build a profitable working environment for all the stakeholders (Scandura and Pellegrini, 2008). Moreover, a productive leader-member relationships is embedded in a just performance management style of leadership (Dulebohn et al., 2012, p. 1744). Focussing on safety performance, several studies have analysed the impact of leader-member relationships on employees' safety outcomes (Hofmann et al., 2003; Mearns and Reader, 2008; Michael et al., 2006). Precisely, leader-member relationships positively affect safety citizenship role definitions in a positive safety climate (Hofmann et al., 2003), and influence staff's proactive safe behaviours, for example supporting co-workers and reporting hazards (Mearns and Reader, 2008). Moreover, LMX affect safety-related events more than safety communication (Michael et al., 2006). Finally, Fernandez-Muniz et al. (2007) have analysed how leader's commitment to safety improves safe behaviours.\nEmployee engagement: There is increasing evidence that engaged employees are desirable for organisations because they work hard and enthusiastically on the job, and in a meaningful way (Macey et al., 2009; Slatten and Mehmetoglu, 2011). It is management's responsibility to inform, educate, train and performance-manage employees about organisational priorities and procedures as well as organisational expectations of performance and behaviours: as a consequence, a strong predictor of engagement is LMX (Brunetto et al., 2014). We expect to replicate this finding in this study. SET researchers conceptualise employee engagement as a function of workplace relationships (Brunetto et al., 2014; May et al., 2004), whereas other researchers (mainly from the psychology discipline) conceptualise burnout of employees at the opposite end of a continuum to engagement. Using a psychological theoretical perspective, Nahrgang et al. (2011) have identified that high job demand (involving high risks and hazards, physical demands and complexity) is inversely linked to engagement and directly linked to burnout. Whereas, a high level of job resources (knowledge, autonomy, supportive environment: social support, leadership, safety climate) is positively linked to engagement and negatively linked to burnout. Additionally, they also have found that burnout is associated with workplace accidents, employees' injuries, adverse events and unsafe behaviour. Also, Vinodkumar and Bhasi (2010) in their research have found that safety knowledge and safety motivation mediate the impact of safety training and that high management commitment is associated with high employee safety compliance, and high employee involvement increases their participation in safety activities.\nCoopers' model of safety culture: The definition of safety culture provided by the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (1993) has been conceptualised using Cooper's (2000) model of safety culture. Coopers' (2000) model of safety culture argues that safety culture involves a situational, a psychological and a behavioural category of factors. Those factors are part of safety culture. Precisely, the situational dimension of safety culture refers to the organisation's policies, guidelines, procedures safety-related, the psychological dimension of safety culture refers to the staff attitudes about the relevance of safety and the behavioural aspect refers to the safety-related behaviours of the employees. Cooper (2000) states that in combination, the three dimensions provide a means of measuring and benchmarking safety culture across industries. This paper operationalises Cooper's (2000) model of safety culture as part of a comprehensive model of safety culture for healthcare organisations.\nMethods: Following a positivist approach, the research tests the model through SEM. The emerging patterns of data were then compared with the findings of previous research.\nResults: Of 648 clinical staff who responded to the survey, 250 were registered nurses, 226 were doctors, 80 were nursing assistants, 54 were healthcare staff such as biologists, dieticians, pharmacists, psychologists and 38 were health technicians. The sample comprised 421 females and 227 males, of which 96 (14.8 per cent) had been in the job for less than 3 years, 101 (15.6 per cent) for 3 to 6 years, 143 (22.1 per cent) for 6 to 10 years, 186 (28.7 per cent) for 10 to 15 years and 122 (18.8 per cent) for more than 15 years. A descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and correlation table is provided in the appendix (see Table AII in Appendix 2).\nImplications: Top managers of healthcare organisations face a conflict between competing goals (safety outcomes--which are initially resource intensive-- vs high profits/cost reduction), and have to make choices about the extent to which they resource both compliance with safety procedures whilst still wanting employees to report and learn from mistakes or pay rising malpractice claims (Bonetti et al., 2016). The findings from this paper provide healthcare managers with an empirically robust model for examining safety culture within healthcare organisations. The model also provides a roadmap for strategically embedding effective safe behaviours. The roadmap identifies that engaging workplace relationships between management and healthcare professionals are the platform on which all other safety structures and processes are embedded. This means that simply overlaying official safety processes on top of poor workplace relationships is unlikely to be successful. Based on a mixture of these tangible and intangible messages, employees either engage in a productive and energetic manner or slowly dis-engage over time (Brunetto et al., 2014). A good relationship with the supervisor enhances the perceived value among staff of the organisation investment related to the situational dimension of safety culture (safety procedures and training). Moreover, the evidence shows that the supervisor alone cannot directly impact on staff's safe behaviours, but to ensure safe behaviours the supervisor has to rely on the ability to engage the employees and on the strong commitment of the top management visible by the organisation's investments on safety.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using social exchange theory (SET) and Cooper's (2000) model, the purpose of this paper is to operationalise a comprehensive model of safety culture and tests whether SET factors (supervisor-employee relationships and engagement) predict safety culture in a causal chain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The model was tested using surveys from 648 healthcare staff in an Italian acute care hospital and analysed using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: Safety behaviours of clinical staff can be explained by the quality of the supervisor-employee relationship, their engagement, their feelings about safety and the quality of organisational support.\nPractical implications: The model provides a roadmap for strategically embedding effective safe behaviours. Management needs to improve healthcare staff's workplace relationships to enhance engagement and to shape beliefs about safety practices.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this paper is that it has empirically developed and tested a comprehensive model of safety culture that identifies a causal chain for healthcare managers to follow so as to embed an effective safety culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Parent brand quality, service intensity and consumers' usage consideration of service-to-service brand extensions	[ "Retailing", "Automotive", "Brand extension", "Extension fit", "Parent brand evaluation", "Service extension", "Service intensity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the seminal article by Aaker and Keller (1990) on brand extensions, there has been significant research effort devoted to both replicating and extending Aaker and Keller's findings regarding the drivers of brand extension success (see Appendix for an overview of selected key literature in this area). For both goods and services extensions, several factors have emerged from this effort, including the degree of fit between the parent brand and the extension category (Bottomley and Holden, 2001; Carter and Curry, 2013; Grime et al., 2002; Kim et al., 2014; Pina et al., 20062013; Volckner and Sattler, 2006), the consumers' perceived quality of the parent brand (Bottomley and Doyle, 1996; Echambadi et al., 2006; Sunde and Brodie, 1993; Van Riel et al., 2001), the number of other categories to which the parent brand has already been extended (Dacin and Smith, 1994), the consumers' beliefs about the malleability of brand traits (Yorkston et al., 2010), the extent of consumer information about the extension (Klink and Smith, 2001), the nature of the competitive landscape (Millberg et al., 2010) and the depth of association of the parent brand with a given category (DelVecchio, 2000).\nLiterature review: A brand extension is a company's use of an existing brand name to introduce a product or service into a category new to the company. Brand extensions are a common and frequently used strategy for growth (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Volckner and Sattler, 2006). However, because of the risks involved in launching brand extensions, there has been a significant body of academic work undertaken to better understand the dynamics of this strategy. The majority of the past research focuses on the degree of fit between the parent brand category and the extension category; the impact of the perceptions of the parent brand on attitude toward the extension product; and evidence is also beginning to show that for services, the degree of the service intensity associated with the extension category impacts consumers' evaluations of extensions into that category. We explore the impact of these three drivers to derive hypotheses for our empirical study.\nResearch method: Study context\nHypotheses testing: H1 posited that consumers are more likely to consider using service brand extensions that are more similar in fit to the parent's core service than extensions that are less similar. This hypothesis was tested by determining if the percentage of customers indicating they will consider using each extension significantly increases with increasing levels of fit similarity. Standard Z tests for differences between two proportions were used to determine if the per cent of customers indicating they will consider using each extension are statistically different from each other at p = 0.05. The results are in Table V.\nDiscussion: The current study lends support and clarifies past research on the importance of fit, service intensity and parent brand evaluations in driving potential customers' perceptions of new brand extensions. Overall, each of these variables seem to play a role in creating the framework from which to successfully launch additional products and services to existing offerings.\nImplications: The results of this study provide some important insights to businesses that are planning to launch service-to-service extensions. First, these firms need to recognize that perceived similarity between the parent brand service category and the extension category is an important consideration for consumers when deciding whether or not to consider using the new service. Specifically, the closer the fit between the extension category and the parent brand category, the more likely customers will consider using the extension. This suggests that the first strategic option companies should consider for launching service-to-service extensions is the strategy that calls for extending into categories that are similar to the parent brand category. In addition to having the highest success probability in terms of customer usage consideration, this strategy also makes sense in terms of using current tangible and intangible resources that a firm is more likely to possess to launch a new, but related, service offering. It also avoids the potential cognitive dissonance associated with the possibility of alienating current customers with an extension experience that is markedly different from the original service that they are familiar with.\nLimitations and future research: One of the limitations of the current study is that the questionnaire for the main study was driven by real-world practical objectives rather than by academic, theoretical, model-testing objectives, and so the questionnaire did not capture customers' perceptions of fit similarity and service intensity of the planned extensions. Consequently, the authors had to conduct a follow-up study to measure these constructs in their effort to leverage the otherwise very rich data collected from actual customers in a way that would allow examination of whether relationships that have been reported in the literature using hypothetical data also hold for this data set with actual customers of a real company planning brand extensions. This situation is similar to researchers' use of retail scanner data to model relationships by fitting hypothesized models to existing data that were collected without those models in mind. Nevertheless, future studies should consider measuring all relevant constructs using the same pool of respondents, while collecting data from actual customers of a company planning to develop or launch new service extensions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the relative impact of three drivers affecting consumers' usage consideration for a brand extension into a service category using data from actual consumers of a national oil change retailer contemplating various service brand extensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for the study were collected in two separate surveys using structured self-administered questionnaires. Three drivers were measured for their effect on consumers' usage consideration for service brand extensions (dependent variable), namely, parent brand evaluation, extension fit and degree of service intensity of the extension.\nFindings: The results indicate that parent brand evaluations are the strongest drivers of brand extension usage consideration, regardless of the extension fit or the degree of service intensity of the extension. In addition, the findings suggest that the closer the fit to the parent brand, the more likely the extension will be considered. In contrast, consumers are less likely to consider using an extension as the level of service intensity increases.\nOriginality/value: This study's use of actual customers of the brand, for real service brand extensions provides a higher degree of external validity than previous work in this area, and it yields a deeper understanding of the criteria used by consumers when evaluating service brand extensions. The study also provides managerial implications that are of practical value to academics and practitioners alike.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational characteristics fostering intellectual capital in Canada and the Middle East	[ "Organizational behaviour", "Intellectual capital", "Canada", "Iran", "Lebanon" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A number of theoretical studies and case studies have identified the importance of organizational characteristics, in both domestic and international settings, to leverage intellectual assets (human, organizational, and relational). Many past studies have investigated organizational characteristics and their relationship to only one aspect of management of intellectual capital (IC), such as information sharing (House 1999), information technology (Powell and Dent-Micallef, 1997) or knowledge creation (Chua, 2002; Leonard-Barton, 1992, 1995). Other studies have investigated only a few characteristics of culture or climate (Chua, 2002; Lee et al., 2006) and their relationship to IC or have examined IC from a national perspective (Bontis, 2004). The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of three culture variables, four climate variables, and two additional organizational traits that could impact the level of intellectual capital management processes, and to compare those culture, climate, and organizational traits between Canada and two countries in the Middle East (Iran and Lebanon). We are not aware of any studies to date that compare Middle East organizational characteristics to North American characteristics, or that examine the possible differential relationships of variables important to knowledge organizations for each country.\n2. Hypotheses development and study variables: 2.1 Intellectual capital management\n3. Methods: To test our hypotheses a questionnaire was developed comprising questions representing five major constructs:1. intellectual capital management;2. culture;3. climate;4. bureaucracy; and5. citizenship.Each of these constructs was represented by a number of subscales. The intellectual capital construct (19 items) consisted of three subscales representing organizational capital (five items), human capital (eight items), and relationship capital (six items). The three subscales together provide a full measure of the extent to which organizations manage their IC, attempting to create capabilities for competitive advantage.The second construct, organizational culture, consisted of three subscales representing deference to power (three items), fear of the unknown (three items), and isolation versus collaboration/cooperation (five items). The third construct of organizational climate consisted of the subscales of risk-taking (two items), trust (three items), openness (three items), and ownership of ideas (three items). The bureaucracy subscale consisted of three items, as did the citizenship subscale.Respondents used a five-point Likert-type scale with the anchors 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 4=agree and 5=strongly agree. Some questions were reverse-scored to ensure that subjects moved back and forth along the scale as they answered questions. All constructs were developed from a thorough review of the theory. All surveys were in English as the level of employee asked to complete the survey in the Middle East had a sufficient command of the English language.\n4. Results: Demographic characteristics of the Canadian and Middle East samples were sufficiently similar for comparison. Excluding questionnaires with missing data, our final sample is broad-based with a total of 205 respondents (161 from Canada and 44 from the Middle East) (see Table I).We calculated Cronbach's alphas for the subscales of each of the constructs (see Table II). The internal consistencies ranged from 0.66 to 0.88. Even though the alphas for two of our subscales fall slightly below the base standard of 0.70 recommended for reliability (Nunnally, 1967), we found strong support for our hypotheses, suggesting that low reliability was not detrimental to the power of the test and that the effects of the relationships were quite robust.4.1 Correlational analyses\n5. Discussion and conclusions: We observed strong associations for the three components of IC (organizational, human and relationship), and all culture, climate, bureaucracy, and citizenship, providing support for all hypotheses (p<0.01 level). The findings strongly point towards the importance that the roles culture, climate, and traits play in relation to IC management.For the three cultural dimensions examined within organizations (deference to power, fear of the unknown, isolation versus collaboration/cooperation), all are highly associated with all three categories of IC management, lending empirical support to the theoretical observations (Alavi et al., 2005; De Long and Fahey, 2000; Janz and Prasarnphanich, 2003; McDermott and O'Dell, 2001). Culture could impede capability development, as well as the wide dispersal of capabilities throughout the organization, thereby limiting the development of core competencies and competitive advantage of a company.Companies probably face an uphill battle in situations where deference to power and fear of the unknown are high, and where isolationism prevails over collaboration/cooperation. Logically, this makes sense because deference to power impedes the flow of knowledge and limits knowledge sharing activities among employees (Chow et al., 1999). Fear of the unknown, also associated with a fear of risk (Chaminade and Johanson, 2003), within an organization ought to hamper experimentation with new ideas. Further, knowledge hoarding probably occurs with greater frequency in organizations possessing cultures where isolation prevails. Collectivism encourages the sharing of knowledge through cooperation and collaboration, already noted at the societal level (Chow et al., 1999).The four climate variables (risk-taking, trust, openness, and ownership) demonstrated strong associations with the three categories of IC. We found that risk-averse organizations will experience impediments regarding IC management in relation to the creation of ideas (Detert et al., 2000; Leonard-Barton, 1995) and learning from mistakes (De Long and Fahey, 2000). Similarly, perceived lower trust levels among employees will experience impediments to IC management due primarily to a failure to share knowledge, build relationships, and use systems, consistent with previous observations (Alavi et al., 2005; De Long and Fahey, 2000; Gold et al., 2001). Many scholars discuss the importance of openness of an organization in relation to promoting positive knowledge management behaviors (Gold et al., 2001), knowledge sharing and knowledge management behaviors (Alavi et al., 2005), and IC practices (Lynn, 1999). Further, ownership of ideas may prove unintended results in organizations in which mistakes are punished and this could impact knowledge quality and its application (De Long and Fahey, 2000).Finally, our findings suggest that there is a direct significant relationship between organizational citizenship levels within companies and attempts to manage IC. Levels of employees' willingness to help others within an organization and the organization itself over and above the required roles of their jobs automatically prescribe degrees of IC sharing and maintenance of relationships.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study sets out to examine how organizational characteristics are related to intellectual capital and how these variables are different between Canadian and Middle East contexts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire was developed to measure the four major study constructs, i.e. intellectual capital, culture, climate, and organizational traits. Each of these constructs was represented by a number of subscales that were subjected to ANOVA and correlations to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: - The analysis showed that all three categories of characteristics (culture, climate, and other traits) are significantly correlated with IC management. The results also indicated significant differences in all organizational characteristics and IC management between Canada and the Middle East.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Culture, climate, and other traits are important enablers for the effective management of IC. Although the research tested three culture variables, four climate variables, and two other traits, future research should investigate these variables and the interactions among them more thoroughly.\nPractical implications: - The results have implications for organizations operating in different international contexts. Managers can use the results for more effective and efficient management of organizational characteristics that would foster IC management.\nOriginality/value: - The research provides a comprehensive study of enablers of effective IC management, an area of study that has not received much attention in the past. It also provides insight as to why effective IC management may be more successful in certain countries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumers' product evaluations in emerging markets: Does country of design, country of manufacture, or brand image matter?	[ "Country of origin", "Brand image", "Customer behaviour", "Emerging markets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumption is increasing rapidly in developing economies such as China, India, Malaysia, and Tunisia, to name few, whereas a parallel stagnation in the mature markets of developed countries seems prevalent (Wilson and Purushotaman, 2003). International marketers thus are seeking opportunities outside advanced markets, and multinational firms are considering emerging markets with renewed interest (Keller and Moorthi, 2003) because of their unique high-growth potential and current and future size. In such markets, consumers are becoming more aware of products/services available throughout the world as a result of advances in satellite communication, internet access, and travel, as well as increased education. These consumers now have access to a wide variety of foreign products, especially as global alliances and foreign sourcing developments result in the production of many brands outside the countries that originally designed and manufactured them. They also are faced with many different offerings that vary in their brand images, countries of origin (COO), and countries of manufacture (COM), such a German Mercedes car manufactured in Brazil, a French Renault car manufactured in Romania, or a Korean Kia car manufactured in Slovakia.Several studies conducted in developed and mostly Western nations show a significant preference for domestic versus imported (or foreign) products (Balabanis et al., 2001; Netemeyer et al., 1991). However, preference for imported, branded products over domestic ones seems to prevail among consumers in developing countries (Agbonifoh and Elimimian, 1999; Batra et al., 2000; Ettenson, 1993; Marcoux et al., 1997), suggesting some reverse ethnocentrism. Consumers in developing economies appear to perceive that products from developing countries are of lesser quality and will result in higher levels of dissatisfaction (Okechuku and Onyemah, 1999; Wang et al., 2000). However, in contrast with the vast amount of research conducted in Western economies, very little is known about the role of COO images for imported products in comparison with binational or domestic products in developing economies. The importance of these economies makes a clearer understanding of consumer behaviour essential to the formulation of better marketing strategies and policies.Existing knowledge largely is derived from empirical studies of consumers in Western countries, especially the USA. However, more than 80 per cent of the world's consumers live in emerging consumer markets and transitional economies (Steenkamp and Burges, 2002), while developed nations represent a shrinking portion of the world's economy (Wilson and Purushotaman, 2003). These countries differ significantly culturally, economically, and demographically from Western countries and historically have experienced unique and rapid rates of socio-political and economic change (Batra, 1997), which likely makes them the next great opportunity for global growth (Klein et al., 2006). As companies become more global, they must possess a thorough understanding of the attitudinal and behavioural characteristics of emerging consumers markets, because what is known about consumers in one part of the world is not applicable to consumers in other parts. Investigating the COO phenomenon in emerging economies can provide important implications for foreign companies/manufacturers in terms of branding, relocation, and communication strategies, as well as for emerging markets' policymakers who want to establish local design and manufacturing competencies.Consumers in emerging countries consciously shop for quality goods but often are unfamiliar with product category attributes and benefits (Batra, 1997). Therefore, brands and COO serve as surrogates to inform the consumer about products' quality (Reardon et al., 2005). Also, their increased exposure to global media has increased consumers' desire for branded goods from certain developed countries; Western branded products enable them to demonstrate social status (Marcoux et al., 1997) and improve their quality of life. However, through globalization and production relocation, an increasing number of branded, bi-national products render consumers' perception processes more complex, so researchers should consider the various countries included in the process of product design and development explicitly. For example, the decomposition of the COO construct has proven to be an important contribution to the study of its effects on consumers' product evaluations (Insch and McBride, 2004). In turn, brand managers must determine the influence of perceptions of countries of design (COD) and COM, as well as their related skills, on consumer behaviour, especially in emerging countries. Many COO studies focus on consumer behaviour in developed countries (Agbonifoh and Elimimian, 1999; Batra et al., 2000; Reardon et al., 2005) and acknowledge that the processes by which consumers use COO information may differ in developing countries. However, the few studies of developing countries concentrate mainly on \"foreignness\" and individual variables (e.g. ethnocentrism) and fail to address COO decomposition into COD and COM.This research therefore provides a better understanding of how consumers in emerging economies use information related to images of the brand, the COD, and the COM jointly to evaluate bi-national products. We develop a conceptual model to integrate these three effects and propose that COD and COM may each have two sub constructs: one representing country image in global terms (e.g. is the image of France favourable?) and the other representing the perceived capacity of the country to design or manufacture a specific product category (e.g. are automobiles designed or manufactured in France valued?). We also integrate two additional variables, the congruity between the image of the brand and that of the COM (is the country suited to manufacture such a brand?) and the typicality of the brand for the COD (is the brand strongly associated with or related to that country?). We empirically validate our proposed model for two product categories, automobiles and television sets. The categories are distinct in the sense that one (TV) is a private product that offers little social distinction, whereas the other (automobile) is more symbolic and liable to communicate status to others. We collect our empirical data in a developing Mediterranean country (Tunisia), where consumers increasingly have been exposed to imported and bi-national products. In the subsequent sections, we review relevant COO literature and derive research hypotheses linked to COD, COM, and brand effects on product quality evaluations. Then, we describe the research methodology and present our research results. Finally, we offer a discussion of our results and some conceptual and managerial implications.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Country of origin perceptions and evaluations\nResearch methodology: During the past decade, many countries have transitioned to a more Western-based free enterprise system, including Tunisia. This country's economy has received the highest ranking among African countries in the World Economic Forum's 2005-2006 Global Competitiveness Report. Increased consumption and investment spending, combined with an increase in exports, pushed Tunisia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth up 5.1 per cent in 2004, with a GDP per capita of $6,900 in 2004. It agreed to gradually remove barriers to trade by entering the World Trade Organization, as well as through broader privatization and further liberalization of the investment code to increase foreign investment and joint venture arrangements. Therefore, Tunisia represents an ideal emerging market in which COO effects should be studied.Research design\nAnalysis and results: Global country images\nDiscussion: The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of how images of the brand, the COD, and the COM jointly influence consumers' evaluations of bi-national products in an emerging country. Our main results indicate that a country can influence perceived product quality through its two sub constructs, as defined in our model: overall country image and perceived capacity of a country to design or manufacture the product category (country/product fit). More specifically, consumers in emerging markets seem to consider the overall image of the country in which the product is manufactured (COM) as more important than where it is conceived; overall COM image (vs overall COD image) is the most influential on perceived product quality.Consumers also attach importance to the second sub construct, COD/product fit and COM/product fit. Studying the effects of COD and COM on perceived product quality is particularly relevant when the brand is unknown to consumers (and has few strong and positive associations), as is the case for many imported, branded products in emerging markets. Consumers tend to base their judgments on the informational cues available - mainly those related to COD and/or COM - to assess the product quality, because in most cases, they remain unfamiliar with product attributes. Research demonstrates that a highly regarded brand name can alleviate the negative effect of poor COO image in product evaluation (Cordell, 1993). When the brand is unknown to consumers, a negative COD or COM often cannot be compensated for by another product attribute and therefore will have a significant negative impact on product evaluation. This finding highlights the need to identify the importance consumers in emerging markets attribute to COD and COM (through their sub constructs).The relative importance of COD and COM depends on the perceived level of complexity of the product: if a product is perceived as complex to design and manufacture, the COD effect on perceived product quality is more important. In the case of a product with low complexity that is not strongly typical of one or more CODs, the COD image influences perceived product quality weakly, as we show for televisions. For low-complexity products, the possible sources of variation of product quality relate more to the COM, such as its level of development and the quality of its skilled labour. Johansson (1989) mentions that when production technology is not standardized, differences in country manufacturing skills emerge, so COM effects should be more pronounced (as for cars herein).Differences in our results between cars and television sets might be influenced by the level of consumer involvement and the distinction between public and private goods (i.e. cars are public, whereas TVs are private). For highly involved consumers, purchase decisions become more elaborate, indicating that the purchase is important and has social signalling value. Products more commonly owned, such as TV sets, tend to represent lower monetary risk and hedonic value and therefore command less involvement. These results coincide with Li and Wyer's (1994) study, in which they find stronger COO effects for luxury goods than for necessities.Another interesting distinction also pertains to whether the product is a public or a private good. The choice of a product that is used publicly might be influenced by status symbols, self-images, or ideal selves. Consumers often casually display overt preferences for national product categories by publicly consuming or using goods such as Italian and French designer fashions, German cars, or American casual wear. Our results confirm a stronger influence of COD on perceived product quality for public goods (automobiles); that is, for products with symbolic meanings and status, consumers tend to give greater importance to COD. This influence might be particularly strong in an emerging market such as Tunisia, because the symbolic acquisition and communication of social distinctions are valued particularly by consumers in developing countries where interpersonal relationships are important. These results support the concept of \"foreignness\" introduced by Agbonifoh and Eliminian (1999) and Batra et al. (2000) to highlight the importance consumers in emerging markets place on public goods, their foreign origin, and their display.Our results further indicate that for public goods, the influence of COM is also important. The desire to publicly consume a branded product to communicate self- or social image thus appears to be influenced by where the product is actually manufactured or assembled. Consumers seem to value-branded products that are designed and manufactured in foreign countries that have been recognized for either their specific skills or their \"prestige\" status (usually developed countries). In this sense, COD and COM link indirectly to consumers' images, in that consumers wish to be seen publicly with products congruent with their ideal personalities and actual or desired ranking in society.The influence of a congruent brand/COM image on the perceived quality of the branded product also highlights the importance of COD (through brand image) and COM for public goods. Our results reveal weaker congruence for cars than for TV sets, which may indicate that for products with high-signalling value, product quality evaluations might be lowered by any perceived incoherence of the manufacturing location of the branded product. The congruity brand/COM construct also offers a significant explanation in terms of evaluations of branded products. As Heimbach (1991) suggests, the concept of congruity may have been the \"missing part\" in many studies of evaluations of multi-label products. Another explanation of its influence may be that TV manufacturing delocalization seems to be better accepted and more favourably evaluated than car manufacturing delocalization, likely because the technical skills required to manufacture TV sets are more widespread than those needed for cars.For most consumers, well-known brand names and their COD form automatic and strong associations. We confirm the transfer of country image to brand image for both product categories in our study, though it is more pronounced for cars than for televisions. Many manufacturers already use this transfer effect in their branding strategies when they choose brand names (e.g. an electronic equipment manufacturer designs products in France but brands itself KAISUI to benefit from positive associations with Japan). Finally, our results also indicate a moderating effect of the typicality of the brand in the COD for cars. When a car brand is considered by consumers typical of a COD, the effect of COD image on brand image is reinforced. We might explain the insignificant effect for TV sets by noting that most developed countries are perceived as able to design (and manufacture) this product category, which does not require specific competencies that only a few countries might master. This result appears important insofar as it shows that consumers consider some brands as being more representative of the category and COD to which they belong than others. The most typical brands therefore benefit from the positive image of the COD.Managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate, in an emerging market, the simultaneous effects of country of design (COD), country of manufacture (COM), and brand image on consumers' perceptions of bi-national products. A comprehensive model broadens country-of-origin literature by incorporating brand image and the concepts of fit and congruity borrowed from brand extension research. Perceptual (in) coherences that might exist among COD, COM, and the brand are incorporated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Tunisia is the emerging market studied. A total of 389 respondents evaluated different product combinations (COD/COM/brand) in two categories. Relationships between constructs are tested using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: - Consumers are sensitive to the COD (more so for public than for private goods) and also value the COM of branded products. The transfer of the COD image to brand image is significant. It is very high for one product category (cars). Brand/COM congruity is also important since product evaluations decrease when consumers perceive incoherence in a manufacturing location.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper used limited informational cues for products' descriptions and concentrate on fairly complex durable goods. Research design should be expanded.\nPractical implications: - Perceived COD competencies can benefit brand image through strong COD-brand associations. In emerging markets, COD (through brand image) and COM effects are important for understanding consumers' perceptions of publicly versus privately used branded products.\nOriginality/value: - The major contribution consists of a simultaneous examination of the effects of COD, COM, brand, and of their inter-relationships. Investigating bi-national products and related consumer behaviour in emerging markets is of particular interest as it corresponds to the reality of these markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
No barter	[ "Barter", "Trade", "Value analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: His canoe arrives at the campmonthly from Rambutyovolcano island to the south-eastmore often than not haloedin cloud when seen from Los Negros.He brings fruit and vegetables on contract:banana, papaya, pineapple,black-skinned avocadoes,taro, cassava and kaukau,and resting in the thwarta walking stick he has carvedthat is for sale for three pounds:honey-coloured softwoodwith a python entwining the haftand below the grip two warrior headssharing the same pair of ears,and under the heads - twin crocodileshighlighted by mother-of-pearl inlayssecured by obsidian-black wax.In September I offer two poundsand am rejected by the carver of the stickwho has a family to support, children to feed.I bid the same money again in October.The owner remains strong.In November, on a clear daywhen the canoe arrives on a mirror seaand the cloud has disappeared from the face of Rambutyo I pay three pounds.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To reflect on the process of trade between cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Fictional poem.\nFindings: - The poem considers the trading positions of two cultures and the needs of both sides. It suggests a separation of commodities, regular items under contract being treated differently from those produced as unique and more highly valued artefacts.\nOriginality/value: - Promotes reflection on the respective values of the two sides in the negotiation; of their needs and wants, and their economic backgrounds. Provides a unique account of negotiation and settling on price where different cultures meet.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How do Finnish teacher educators implement entrepreneurship education?	[ "Entrepreneurship education", "University", "Teacher training", "University of applied sciences" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the European Union one of the most recent core endeavours has been to develop entrepreneurship education in teachers' training. However, across countries entrepreneurship education apparently continues to be a fairly uncommon theme in initial teacher training (GHK, 2011). Moreover, from the EU perspective teacher training is not as yet fully incorporated into most national strategies and does not form part of teachers' continuing professional development (European Training Foundation (ETF), 2010). Therefore in Finland the Guidelines for Entrepreneurship Education by the Ministry of Education and Culture (2009) indicate how entrepreneurship education should be reinforced within teacher training. In our study we pay particular attention to how entrepreneurship education as a phenomenon is realized in teacher training. Our previous studies point out that teachers or teacher educators have actually implemented it in their teaching without being aware that they were doing so (Hannula et al., 2012; Seikkula-Leino et al., 2010; Ruskovaara and Pihkala, 2013).\nThe literature review: The concept of entrepreneurship is ambiguous and no consensus has been reached about one single, comprehensive theory of entrepreneurship (e.g. Bygrave and Hofer, 1991; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Davidsson et al., 2001; Eyal and Inbar, 2003). According to Schumpeter (1934), the main function of entrepreneurship is innovation or bearing uncertainty or according to Bygrave and Hofer (1991) perceiving opportunities.\nImplementation of the study: The target group of the study at hand consists of teacher educators working in Finnish-language universities, vocational teacher training colleges and practice schools. Data collection was done by a quantitative survey questionnaire in spring 2012. Results from the survey have been compared to the results from two previous surveys that took place in spring 2011 and autumn 2011.\nResults: Learning through entrepreneurship refers to the acquisition of good practices and modes of operation through enterprising activity. At a practical level this requires of the teacher educators or prospective teachers that they are familiar with entrepreneurship or have experience of being entrepreneurs. (Gibb, 2002, 2011). In vocational teacher training, in which the average age of the selected students in 2010 was 41 years (Kumpulainen, 2011, p. 30) the students have already had time to acquire wide-ranging experiences of working life, and possibly also of entrepreneurship. This may be apparent to some extent in the findings presented below. The average values are the most essential ones in the analysis of the results in this research. The median and mode values serve presenting skewness of the distribution (Table I).\nDiscussion: This study describes how entrepreneurship education manifests itself in the teaching of Finnish teacher educators. The findings show that in their teaching Finnish teacher educators use entrepreneurial teaching methods and modes of action actively and regularly. Although the response rate was relatively low, the findings based thereon permit us to draw sufficient conclusions.\nConsiderations, ideas for future research and development proposals: The integration of entrepreneurship education is one way to address the changing needs of society. Unanimity on the issue has been recorded in official documents in both Finland and the EU. Nevertheless we need practical solutions to implement the national and international strategies stressing the need for entrepreneurship education. We should moreover pay special attention to the further development of teacher training. Teacher training lays the foundation for our future society. The teachers currently in training will continue in working life even until the 2070s. To this the study makes a particular contribution in bringing to the fore the present measures in entrepreneurship education, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how the people who train Finnish teachers implement entrepreneurship education in the guidance they provide. The authors show how learning through, for and about entrepreneurship manifests in the self-evaluations of Finnish teacher educators.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected in spring 2012 with a quantitative survey questionnaire to 100 teacher educators and training teachers for vocational and general education, to rectors and managers.\nFindings: The teacher educators used a relatively large number of the pedagogical models and methods pursued in entrepreneurship education, such as problem based learning, experiential and practical descriptions of situations, and they also encouraged their students to take responsibility and to be self-directed. These can be seen to specifically support learning for entrepreneurship. On the other hand there would still be room for improvement as regards the teacher educators' guidance through entrepreneurship.\nPractical implications: It would be appropriate in entrepreneurship education to take account of prospective teachers' authentic experiences of entrepreneurship. For example, in teacher training greater use could be made of practice enterprises, co-operative operations, on-the-job learning and methods such as the Young Enterprise business incubator.\nOriginality/value: The European Union places particular emphasis on the further development of entrepreneurship education in teacher training. The study opens up perspectives on what kinds of skills teacher educators impart to prospective teachers who will continue in working life until the 2070s.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
State and federal legislative interests	[ "Healthcare associated infections", "Mandatory public reporting", "Health care", "Central government", "Regional government", "Public administration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The modern era of infection control began in the 1950s, with outbreaks of Staphylococcus aureus in England's neonatal nurseries prompting creation of the role of infection control sisters (LaForce, 1987). Staphylococcal infections later came to this shore as did the model of employing infection control nurses in American hospitals (Hughes, 1987). Thus a cadre of nurses, without any background in infection control, were suddenly thrust into this pivotal role when earlier recommendations became accreditation requirements (Hughes, 1987; Joint Commission, 1965, 1976; Yarbrough, 1978). The then-named Center for Disease Control (CDC, now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) quickly provided necessary basic education, guidelines, and started a series of decennial international conferences to bring scientific rigor to meet the challenge of controlling what was then termed nosocomial infections.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to briefly describe the increasingly complex array of organizations influencing American healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevention efforts during the modern era of infection control.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is a narrative review.\nFindings: - The modern era of hospital infection control began in the 1950s, but received relatively little publicity until the dawn of the twenty-first century. Since then, there has been a wave of unprecedented magnitude in individual state legislation mandates followed by a shift from state to federal agency activity. The resulting programs are in varying stages of development, ability, sustainability, and coordination.\nPractical implications: - Many government and healthcare entities are in uncharted territory with this new area of activity, facing challenges in having to coordinate work with many new and unfamiliar partners. Perspectives explored in this part of the Universities Council Symposium help by mapping out the various stakeholders in order to foster a research agenda through better understanding of powerful political players and their influence.\nOriginality/value: - This is one of the first efforts to describe and map the evolving range of state and federal forces influencing hospitals' efforts to prevent healthcare-associated infections.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors impacting knowledge transfer success in information systems outsourcing	[ "Knowledge transfer", "Information systems", "Outsourcing", "Public sector", "Knowledge management", "Oman" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information systems (IS) outsourcing is a decision taken by an organization to contract out some or all of its IS functions to one or more external IS vendors, who in return provide and manage the services for an agreed fee over a certain time period (Willcocks and Lacity, 1998; Dibbern et al., 2004). The literature suggests that IS outsourcing decisions are generally motivated by various benefits including the delegation of IS responsibilities to vendors. Consequently, outsourcing clients have the potential to reduce cost, to focus on core business and to share risks (Khalfan, 2004; Young, 2005; Lacity et al., 2009).However, many organizations have other objectives beyond these expected economic benefits; they also have the less tangible goal of transferring new technical and business knowledge (Lee, 2001; Al-Qirim, 2003; Willcocks et al., 2004). In the context of IS outsourcing, knowledge transfer is defined as individual or organizational activities taken by the client to identify and acquire potentially useful knowledge that is externally generated by the vendor (Blumenberg et al., 2009). Edguer and Pervan (2004) found that many clients in the public sector are increasingly looking at IS outsourcing projects as means of transferring and leveraging the vendors' superior technical and business knowledge and benefiting complementary skills and scarce expertise. Likewise, Heeks (2006) argued that one of the main intentions behind IS outsourcing by public sector organizations is to access a pool of new knowledge, skills and expertise that are not available in-house. Externally-generated new knowledge can promote innovations in new methods and practices, which can then be absorbed into the routines and culture of an organization (Darr and Kurtzberg, 2000; Goh, 2002).Despite the recognised benefits of knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing, prior studies have found that knowledge transfer from one organization to another remains challenging and complex in nature (Lane et al., 2001; Volkoff et al., 2004; Pardo et al., 2006). Ranft and Lord (2002) reported that many knowledge transfer projects failed to achieve their objectives and instead resulted in organizational difficulties. The academic literature that has tackled this issue, however, is still scarce. Little systematic and holistic research has been pursued to understand the key factors affecting knowledge transfer success from the vendors to the clients in IS outsourcing (Joshi et al., 2007). Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to fill this void by investigating the key factors that facilitate or inhibit knowledge transfer success from the vendors to the clients in the context of IS outsourcing in public organizations. The remainder of the paper is laid out as follows. The next section reviews the related literature. Afterwards, the research method is discussed. Later, the key findings and discussion are resented. The last section concludes the study, addresses the limitations and suggests directions for further research.\n2. Related literature: 2.1 Knowledge\n3. Research method: As this study is exploratory in nature, a qualitative research method was applied to examine the research inquiry (Sekaran, 2003). This study does not focus on generalising the findings but rather on seeking information, gaining insights and drawing lessons on what is happening in regards to knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing in the public sector.The primary source of data came from semi-structured interviews with IS/IT managers from eight public sector organizations in Oman. The use of semi-structured interviews was judged the most appropriate method for such exploratory research. According to Kvale (1996) interviews are an appropriate method when a researcher seeks to understand themes of the lived daily world from the subject's own perspectives. The selection of IS/IT managers is consistent with the general recommendation regarding the most knowledgeable informant as all of the interviewees were directly involved in the decision and implementation of IS outsourcing projects in their organizations (Venkatraman and Grant, 1986). The interviewees were representatives of various industries in the public sector of Oman as shown in Table I. Conducting cross-organizational interviews allows the researchers to gain evidence from different sources. This technique enhances credibility and provides a means of testing one source of information against other sources (Saunders et al., 2003).All interviews were conducted face-to-face and were tape recorded with the permission of the interviewees. Face-to-face interviews allow the researcher to \"clarify doubts and ensure that the responses are properly understood, by repeating or rephrasing the questions\" (Sekaran, 2003, p. 232). The interviews were conducted in English as it is generally the medium of communication in the IS/IT industry in Oman. Prepared questions were asked and answered in an open-ended manner. The interviewees were asked to share information about their perceptions and experience on knowledge transfer practices and problems in the context of IS outsourcing in their organizations. Each interview lasted for about 40 minutes on average. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached, that is, when the incremental insights provided by additional interviewing were judged to be insignificant (Bowen, 2008). All interviews were transcribed at a later date. To ensure the robustness of the findings, interviewees were e-mailed and asked to review the transcripts for factual verification. Table II presents the organizations and the interviewees participating in this exploratory study. In the interest of protecting the identity of the organizations, they are all given pseudonyms.A variety of other data were collected from the eight organizations such as newsletters, requests for proposals (RFPs) and service level agreements (SLAs). These documents are used as a supplement to complement the data obtained by the interviews and they are useful in better understanding the phenomenon under investigation.Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data collected in this research. Thematic analysis is described by Fereday and Muir-Cochrane (2006) as a systematic process of identifying themes (i.e. patterns) within the data set that emerge as being important to the description of the phenomenon. Figure 1 shows the key phases that were followed to conduct the thematic analysis.\n4. Findings: All the interviewees reported that knowledge transfer is one of the key motives for their organizations to outsource IS. They explained that the public sector in Oman is still lacking adequate IS skills to run its IS operations. Public sector organizations outsource IS with intent to gain access to critical technical and business knowledge that is hard to develop in-house. The following sections discuss the sets of factors that are found to impact the success of knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing projects.4.1 Knowledge-related\n5. Discussion: This exploratory study investigated the key factors that facilitate or impede knowledge transfer success from the vendors to the clients in IS outsourcing. The results indicate that there are four main sets of factors (knowledge-related, client-related, vendor-related and relationship-related) that may be predictive of an effective knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing projects. The \"not invented here\" syndrome that was extensively discussed in the knowledge transfer literature was not an issue for the participating organizations. Instead, individuals appreciate externally generated knowledge and attempt to apply it for their business ends.This study supports the importance of having an organizational culture that supports innovation, learning and cross-boundary knowledge transfer. In IS outsourcing projects, client organizations need to facilitate and encourage the acquisition of new technical and business knowledge and skills that might be applied and shared within the organization. Despite all the respondents in this study having reported that there is no clear reward system for acquiring new knowledge and learning in the public sector of Oman, most of them asserted that motivation and reward are central for creating a learning environment that also supports cross-boundary knowledge transfer. As most of the previous interorganizational knowledge transfer studies were conducted with relevance to the private sector, this empirical investigation examined the knowledge transfer from private organizations (vendors) to public organizations (clients). Therefore, this study has highlighted the issue of organizational culture distance between the source and the recipient as a profound influence in knowledge transfer success in IS outsourcing. As private and public organizations exhibit dissimilar norms and work values, the transfer of knowledge between them was found to be challenging.The study also has also raised several important issues regarding the nature of the public sector and how it impacts on knowledge transfer. For example, the bureaucratic procedures and the hierarchical power structures in the public sector were regarded as major inhibitors for knowledge transfer success. Additionally, the regulatory nature of the public sector constrains many organizations from having access to potentially valuable external knowledge offered offshore.With respect to the relationship between the client and the vendor, the results confirm that national cultural distance may hamper knowledge transfer success, especially in IS offshoring in which the clients and the vendor often have different cultural backgrounds. This study found that language difference is a major barrier for knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing projects in the public sector of Oman. Oman exhibits similar cultural values to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, which are regarded by Hofstede (2009) as collectivistic societies with high power distance. Employees in the client organizations prefer and show high performance when working in groups. Moreover, subordinates are often fearful about disagreeing with their superiors. These cultural values are found to be problematic and could create challenging in knowledge transfer when working with vendors offshore particularly in Europe or the USA which are characterised as high individualistic countries with low power distance (Winkler et al., 2008; Hofstede, 2009).Social ties between individuals of the clients and the vendors are found to be important factors that positively facilitate and influence knowledge transfer success in IS outsourcing. The findings of this exploratory study were consistent with prior literature that has highlighted the importance of informal relationship and face-to-face meetings in IS outsourcing (e.g. Kotlarsky and Oshri, 2005; Blumenberg et al., 2009).\n6. Conclusion: The purpose of this study was to gain insights into the key factors that influence knowledge transfer success in IS outsourcing in the public sector. The preliminary findings suggest that there are four sets of factors (knowledge-related, client-related, vendor-related and relationship-related) that need to be considered and understood when transferring technical and business knowledge in IS outsourcing projects. Past studies failed to examine the four sets of factors together in a coherent manner to investigate knowledge transfer success. This approach thus allows for a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon.Although this was an exploratory study, it provides an important contribution to our understanding of knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing in the public sector. Some limitations of this study are worth noting. The data in this study were drawn from only eight public sector organizations and consequently, they have limited generalizibility. However, the participating organizations are among the largest employers in the public sector of Oman with large-scale IS departments. Therefore, vast and complex IS outsourcing and knowledge transfer issues apply to other organizations in the public sector. This study investigated the client's perceptive only which is one side of the knowledge transfer process. Finally, the results may include some bias since the sample was selected only in Oman's public sector. Therefore, the results of this study may have to be carefully interpreted.Further research involving a more systematic approach is required to produce additional insights in order to generalize the results of this study. As this study focused on the clients' perspectives, future studies may investigate the perception of the vendors. The results of such studies would complement the findings revealed in this research, ensure a more balanced view and may provide additional insights on the phenomenon under investigation. The restriction of the sample to the public sector reinforces the need for conducting the study in the private sector in order to get an overall picture of the phenomenon or perfume a comparison between the public and private organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the key factors that facilitate or inhibit knowledge transfer success from vendors to clients in information systems (IS) outsourcing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The collection of data rested on semi-structured interviews with IS/IT managers at various levels of the subject organizations and careful documents analysis.\nFindings: - The findings suggest that knowledge transfer success in IS outsourcing is affected by four sets of factors: knowledge-related, client-related, vendor-related and relationship-related.\nPractical implications: - This study may provide some useful insights for IS managers on how to manage knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing projects and better understand the key factors that impact its success.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study investigated the client's perceptive only which is one side of the knowledge transfer process. A balanced understanding of the research questions (i.e. from both sides: client and vendor) permits a fuller examination and comparison between the perceptions of the two sides of the relationship.\nOriginality/value: - The value and the originality of this study come from the fact that knowledge transfer in IS outsourcing has not been comprehensively explored. Previous research fails to provide a complete understanding of the factors that impact knowledge transfer success as most are focused on the type of knowledge transferred, the client, the vendor or the relationship between the client and the vendor.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Illuminating the principles of social exchange theory with Hawthorne studies	[ "Social exchange theory", "Elton Mayo", "George Homans", "Hawthorne studies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Hawthorne studies are arguably the most famous studied in management, if not the social sciences more generally, as well as the most misunderstood. They were the \"most audacious social scientific study ever made in the workplace\" (Adams and Butler, 1999, p. 119). They resulted from experiments at the Hawthorne Electric Works in Cicero Illinois in the late 1920s and early 1930s under the nominal supervision of Elton Mayo. George Homans (1910-1989), who was a student of Mayo at Harvard University, was affected by Mayo's explanation of the studies and defended the studies, industrial sociology and Elton Mayo from various critics (Homans, 1949a, 1949b). The studies were also critical in the creation of social exchange theory (SET) by Homans, which helped explain the findings by providing an overarching theory to how groups influence behavior (Homans, 1984).\nLiterature review: The fact that the Hawthorne studies opened new and unexpected vistas for research has produced a combination of insight, debate and confusion not only in management but also in social sciences (Muldoon, 2017; Sonnenfeld, 1985). For some scholars, the Hawthorne studies were a beacon of cooperation in the darkness of the Great Depression (Viteles, 1941). For others, the Hawthorne studies, while recognized as brilliant and a classic study in management (Muldoon, 2017), were an aggressive attempt by elites to regain lost power (Muldoon, 2012). Some scholars view the study as vindication of goal setting; some see it as an example of behavioral management; others see no merit in the studies, deeming them scientifically worthless (Furnham, 2012). There have been various statistical analyses of the Hawthorne studies over the years, often coming up with different interpretations. Sonnenfeld (1985), Muldoon (2012, 2017) and Wren and Bedeian (2018) have reported on the various criticisms, praises and interpretations of the studies. We agree with Wren and Bedeian (2018) that there is so much mystery, we may never quite know what happened at Hawthorne. The original Hawthorne researchers would have agreed with Wren and Bedeian, who argued that the importance of the Hawthorne experiments is found in the questions that they raised rather than the answers that they provided. Whyte, Roethlisberger, Homans and even Elton Mayo felt that the purpose of the study was to create new hypotheses. All Hawthorne had demonstrated was that workplace life was complex. Future research was needed to provide an explanation and understanding of small group phenomena. There were several attempts regarding this over the years from scholars such as Wilbert Moore, Chris Argyris, Whyte and Homans.\nIlluminating the principles of social exchange theory with Hawthorne studies: The Hawthorne studies (1924-1933) were a series of studies at the Western Electric facility in Cicero, IL, which explored working condition and productivity in an attempt for management to understand the sociological, psychological, and physical factors at work (Schlagheck and Lantz, 2014). The studies included several key sub-experiments: illumination (1924-1927), relay assembly group (1927-1933), mica splitting tests (1928-1930), interviewing program (1929-1930), and the bank wiring room (1931-1932). Summary of the findings are listed in Table I. Next, we present evidence for social exchanges in these experiments, especially in the relay assembly room and the bank wiring tests. According to Adams and Butler (1999), many trace the beginning of industrial sociological to those two sets of experiments.\nSocial identity theory versus social exchange theory: There have been other theories and explanations to the increase of production of the Hawthorne studies. Various scholars have offered differing explanations over the years for the findings at Hawthorne-despite the admonishments of both Mayo and Homans who argued the limits of the experiments. Scholars have offered goal setting, learning, behavioral management, and changing of the various workers. While each of these ideas has merit, we would like to focus in particular on the work of Wren and Bedeian (2018) who argued that production increased as time passed, suggesting that trust developed between the various participants--trust is an important element of social exchange.\nConclusion and theoretical contribution: This paper seeks to address several points in the literature. First, we used a combination of published work by Homans, Roethlisberger and Dickson and Mayo and others, as well as oral histories conducted by Bolton and Greenwood, to argue that the Hawthorne studies of the relay Assembly and Bank Wiring tests illustrate (or illuminate, as listed in the paper's title) the principles of SET. The idea is that Homans developed SET to explain findings from studies such as Hawthorne about group behaviors. We provide further support, including Homans' own admission, which was mostly ignored by other researchers, that it is through the attempts to explain the Hawthorne studies, and the post-Second World War controversies over those studies, that Homans developed SET. Second, the paper provides further evidence for the construction of a fundamental theory by linking theoretical concepts to observable behaviors. Homans' SET brought together concepts from multiple disciplines and offered a framework to explain social behaviors. Key concepts in social exchange including reciprocity, group cohesion, reward, cost, and profit have their roots in the Hawthorne studies (specifically, the relay assembly and bank wiring tests) and helped Homans explain ways in which firms can go beyond monetary exchanges. Third, the Hawthorne studies demonstrated how social situations play an important role in task performance and productivity and how social exchanges can facilitate it. For example, approval of fellow group members in the bank wiring room study was shown to be important in the non-compliance of the group to management production goals (Robin, 1976). In a similar way, group cohesion, solidarity, and reciprocity in the relay test group led to full compliance with management, increased morale and increased production. As discussed by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939), while both the relay test room group and the bank wiring group had both formal and informal organizations, in the first there was a compatibility between the informal and formal organizations while in the latter not. This resulted in lower level of collaboration in the bank wiring room. Fourth, SET was what Mayo described as spontaneous collaboration. In Mayo's view, collaborations have declined steadily in society since the sixteenth century, which contributed to absenteeism, restriction in output, unionism and strikes (Wood and Wood, 2004). The solution that Mayo proposed therefore was to train managers in human relations and re-establish spontaneous collaboration. By seeking tools to produce feelings of collaboration and group belonging, Mayo believed social bonds can be created (Mayo, 1933, 1945). With SET, Homans not only provided explanations for the creation of strong feelings of affiliation and trust through interactions and mutual dependence between group members but also provided evidence to Mayo's concept of spontaneous collaboration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to suggest Homans' social exchange theory (SET), a management theory, as an explanation for some of the findings of some of the Hawthorne experiments (1924-1933), which demonstrated how social situations play an important role in task performance and productivity and how social exchanges can facilitate it. The authors also use SET to investigate Elton Mayo's inquiry as to what caused spontaneous cooperation in Hawthorne.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used a combination of published work by Homans, Roethlisberger and Dickson, Mayo and others, as well as oral histories conducted by Greenwood and Bolton in 1982-1984, to argue that some of the Hawthorne studies illustrate the principles of SET. Homans' SET brought together concepts from multiple disciplines and offered a framework to explain social behaviors.\nFindings: The relay assembly room and the bank wiring tests of Hawthorne studies can illustrate SET as developed by Homans. With the development of SET, Homans not only provided explanations for the creation of strong feelings of affiliation and trust through interactions and mutual dependence between group members but also provided evidence to Mayo's concept of spontaneous collaboration.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitations of the paper are that the studies themselves can lend themselves to multiple perspectives due to design flaws. Therefore, our argument is only one interpretation - even if it is something that the researchers would have supported.\nOriginality/value: The paper augments the ongoing discussion about the Hawthorne studies in the literature and in the development of management theories such as SET. The authors provide support that it is through the attempts to explain the Hawthorne studies and the post-Second World War controversies over the studies that Homans developed social exchange. Building on previous work, the methods show perspectives beyond the motivations and sentiments of Homans by demonstrating observable behaviors from the Hawthorne studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing the health risks of extreme weather events by managing hospital infrastructure	[ "Hospitals", "Risk", "Climate change", "Systems", "Adaptive capacity", "Extreme weather" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Extreme weather events are caused when an individual climate variable such as wind speed temperature or rainfall \"exceeds a particular threshold and deviates significantly from mean climate conditions\" (Linnenluecke and Griffiths, 2010, p. 2). In recent years there has been accumulating evidence of an increased incidence of such events (such as temperature extremes, floods and storms) and one of the most concerning impacts is anticipated to be on human health (Hennessy and Fitzharris, 2007; Stern, 2009). For example, in Australia, heatwaves kill more people than any other natural disaster and are associated with increased incidence of Malaria and Dengue fever, respiratory diseases and heatstroke and exhaustion (McMichael and Woodruff, 2007; Luber and McGeehin, 2008; PWC, 2011). These health impacts affect the most vulnerable in our communities and are anticipated to increase into the future as populations in many countries age, grow and urbanise.\nAdaptive strategies to cope with extreme weather events: Given growing international concern about the resilience of health facilities in the face of climate change, many countries have strengthened and developed legal frameworks, research and funding schemes for disaster reduction and climate change adaptation. For example, the Pan-American Health Organisation has published extensively on the structural integrity of hospitals, with special attention to high winds and earthquakes, including guides on how to construct, maintain and retrofit hospitals (PAHO, 2008; WHO, 2010). The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the Hyogo Framework for Action are also addressing the broader task of global disaster reduction, which includes the safety and continual operability of health services (ISDR, 2008; Shaw et al., 2010). Outside the UN, individual countries are also producing their own research and guidance. For example, in Australia, BRANZ produced a climate change adaptation report for the Australian Greenhouse Office (BRANZ Ltd, 2007), which addressed climate change impacts on buildings and adaptation options. The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) has produced several extreme weather case studies (Kiern, 2010), which take various approaches, and the Australian Building Codes Board has produced two recent drafts on flood mitigation (ABCB, 2011). In the USA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Building Science Branch develops and produces multi-hazard mitigation publications that aim to create disaster-resilient communities and reduce loss of life and property. These publications mainly focus on floods, high winds and earthquakes. FEMA's design guide for improving hospital safety provides important insights into multi-hazard mitigation for health facilities (FEMA, 2007b) and is complemented by their design guide for improving critical facility safety (FEMA, 2007a). In the UK the FloodProBE project aims to provide cost-effective solutions for flood risk reduction in urban areas. FloodProBE develop and test adaptation technologies and research ways of integrating flood protection into urban planning (Van Ree et al., 2011). A review of the literature in this area (which includes the above) indicates the adaptive strategies in Table I are widely recommended for different types of extreme weather events.\nMethod: To investigate the types of adaptive strategies which may be suitable in practice and their relative impacts on extreme weather event impacts, this research employed a multiple case study approach. This is important in the context of this research because understanding the operation of hospitals requires more than a simple appreciation of building related issues. As Becker and Carthey (2007) point out, a hospital is a complex organisation with many diverse stakeholders and functions which need to interact in the delivery of appropriate health services to a community. Responses to extreme weather events are similarly complex and given their scale are likely to require many parts of these systems working together. They are also likely to involve an interplay of many economic, social, organisational, political and cultural forces which can only be explored fully using a case study approach. Other approaches to data collection, such as a large survey/questionnaire of people who have been involved in responding to such events, would have failed to provide the depth of insight we needed to fully understand the social and organisational issues in this complex adaptive system.\nData collection: Data collection was by means of a series of focus group sessions using a proprietary risk and opportunities management system called ROMS (ROMS, 2011). ROMS was used for a number of important reasons. First, it provides a multi-stakeholder approach to risk management which brings together perspectives from a range of stakeholders. Given the complexity of hospitals and the large diversity and numbers of stakeholders involved in responding to extreme weather events, the involvement and buy-in of key hospital stakeholders is crucial to an actionable outcome. Second, ROMS had been tested and refined in a hospital context in a previous pilot study project in New South Wales Health which looked at the risks to hospital infrastructure posed by climate change (see Carthey et al., 2009).\nDiscussion of results: Although each case study faced a different scenario, we have sought here to present the results as one combined analysis in line with the efficient multi-hazard philosophy described above. To this end, the common organisational objectives across all case studies which emerged were:\nConclusion: The aim of this paper was to explore the range of controls that hospital organisations can put in place to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events. Because of the case study approach adopted, the qualitative nature of this research and the complexity and variety of hospital facilities and stakeholders involved, significant benefits are likely to be derived from further case studies in this area, particularly in terms of the generalisability of the findings. Nevertheless, within this limitation, the findings indicate that hospital buildings and the facility managers that manage them are an important part of a much larger open system which must work in an integrated way if any response is to be effective. The RPD analysis shows that one part of the system cannot be considered in isolation and the analysis here shows that the controls identified fall under the control of many organisations (often external to a hospital). This raises important governance issues for facility managers which should be explored in future research. The findings also show that it is important for hospital facility managers to work cooperatively with other external authorities such as public infrastructure, aged care and government organisations in developing effective responses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A predicted increase in climate change-related extreme weather events will present hospitals with new health-related and physical risks which were not originally anticipated in building and infrastructure designs. Markus et al.'s building systems model is used to analyse a range of adaptive strategies to cope with such events. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Focus group interviews were conducted with a wide range of hospital stakeholders across three case study hospitals in Australia and New Zealand which have experienced extreme weather events.\nFindings: It is concluded that effective adaptive strategies must balance responses across different organisational sub-systems. Contrary to previous research, the findings indicate that hospital managers do see hospital infrastructure as an important component of disaster response. However, it is the least adaptable of all response subsystems, making other options more attractive in the heat of a crisis.\nResearch limitations/implications: A focus on three case studies allowed the researchers to explore in-depth the experiences of stakeholders who had experienced extreme weather events. While producing highly valid results, the inherent limitation of this approach is the lack of breath. So further case studies are needed to generalise from the results.\nPractical implications: Recommendations are made to improve the adaptive capacity of healthcare facilities to cope with the future health challenges of climate change risk.\nOriginality/value: By acknowledging that no one group holds all the knowledge to deal with extreme weather events, this paper capture the collective knowledge of all key stakeholders who have a stake in the process of responding effectively to such an event. It shows that hospital adaptation strategies cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding emergency management systems in which a hospital is imbedded.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Student engagement and learning: Case study of a new module for business undergraduates at Cass business school	[ "Correlation", "Student engagement", "Statistical methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The importance of developing an educational environment that enables students to achieve a high quality of deep learning cannot be overestimated. The developing needs of employers, business organisations and societal trends are all towards requiring individuals to operate independently applying their own judgement in each unique situation. This puts a high value on individual understanding and judgement. The development of learning theory over the last few decades has led to the creation of a wide range of pedagogical methods that complement the traditional transmissive methods and can be designed into modules at Undergraduate level (Gibbs, 2010; Astin, 1993; Goodyear, 2001; Chickering and Gamson, 1987; Nicol, 2007). In addition the development of reliable and easy to use virtual learning environments (VLEs) now offers the tools for managing and monitoring these more demanding teaching methods (Campbell et al., 2007).\n2. Using action research methodology: Unlike most research methods action research embraces change. Other research methods seek to study and understand existing organisational and social structures. The action researcher seeks to create organisational change and study the results (Baburoglu and Ravn, 1992). This is an interventionist approach that encourages social experimentation. Indeed Baburoglu and Ravn would go further in proposing that this method could be used normatively to create the future that we want to live in - which is exactly what module designers want to achieve to create modules that achieve relevant and effective learning for their students. It is a method of particular relevance to fluid situations that are subject to continuous development and change - exactly the current situation with respect to business education.\n3. Literature and theory underpinning the module design: The overall architecture of the MPS module was influenced by the need to optimise \"process variables\". These are directly related to students' learning and include measures of teaching strategies, and approaches to feedback. One of the most important process variables represents student engagement (Gibbs, 2010). Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999) writing in an era when use of the internet to support university learning, especially in environments where teaching and learning essentially took place face to face, was in its infancy, also refer to engagement in the context of technology-based learning. To achieve engagement they suggest that learning should occur within collaborative teams, should be project based, and should have an \"authentic focus\" on an external task or problem.\n4. The MPS module design: This section outlines the key elements of the module and establishes the case for claiming that the design supports the development of high levels of student engagement.\n5. The student data: The data collected on and by the student cohort of 2011 can be categorised into five types:\n6. Results of the analysis of factors affecting student performance: Correlation analysis was used to search for significant positive or negative relationships between the performance measures and the four categories - learning styles, personality, background factors and student engagement. The correlation matrices are shown in the appendix - Tables AI-AIV. The results for each category are discussed below.\n7. Conclusions: Creating a credible measure of student engagement remains a problem. With the measures developed for this analysis, we have found only limited evidence that student engagement is an important factor in the level of student performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a new undergraduate one-term double module called management practice and skills - which sought to change the learning environment for the new intake of undergraduate students based on constructivist ideas aimed at creating a high level of student engagement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Action research focusing on the evaluation stage of the first cycle of an intervention. The intervention is described in a case study explaining the features of the new module combined with the statistical analysis of the hard data collected on the first cohort of students taking the module using mainly correlation techniques.\nFindings: The module design did achieve to a great extent the objective of catering to all learning styles and personalities within the cohort. The results from the first cohort established the elusive nature of the concept of student engagement and the challenge in measuring it quantitatively.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is an evaluation of one case example of the application of constructivist ideas in teaching and hence can make no claim to generalisability. The quantitative measure of student engagement was developed for this study - hence it needs to be applied in other situations and tested for credibility. The student data did not include any measures of their views on the module. The collection of their levels of satisfaction at the end of the module and again after two more years at university would offer a richer view of student engagement.\nPractical implications: This type of module makes high demands on the teaching staff. It requires, for example - design effort, tutors with both business and teaching experience, administration of the logistics, expertise in handling moodle. The role of the moodle virtual learning environment is key to delivering the module and to collecting much of the data.\nSocial implications: The module design explicitly aims to foster students' social interaction and create a community of learning among them. It supports students' personal development, development of individual business and team working skills as well as relevant management theory.\nOriginality/value: The paper describes an unusual application of constructivist concepts to teaching in a business degree and the development of an innovative and distinctive approach to the creation of a quantitative measure of student engagement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social economics of health and medical care in the age of global financial crisis: a teaching proposal	[ "Ethics", "Financial crises", "(In)equity and (In)equality", "Health care medical care", "Social determinants of health", "Social economics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Neoclassical economic theory dominates the subjects of health and medical care and shapes associated policies in the USA as well as in most of the world[1]. In line with its methodological individualism, neoclassical economics defines health as a durable good (such as a machine or an equipment in a factory) that continuously provides services, therefore, utility over an individual's lifetime (Grossman, 2000). It assumes that health is determined by biological factors (e.g. genes) and life style \"choices\" (e.g. eating healthy, exercising, quitting smoking, etc.). Similarly, despite the theoretical inconsistencies pointed out by Arrow (1963), it applies standard supply and demand analysis for medical care as if it is just another commodity as an input for \"health production function.\"[2] Accordingly, it prescribes competition and market-based policies (e.g. \"managed competition,\" disciplining \"customers\" via risk-sharing, personal responsibility, etc.) in the name of \"efficiency,\" improving quality and reducing costs.\n2. A course proposal and theoretical foundations: The course is designed to teach about health, health care and medical care in general even in the absence of global financial crises, one of the most important concerns of the SDH as well as the triggers of them. Thus, what follows is a description of theoretical structure of the course that consists of four major modules that build on each other.\n3. Application of global financial crisis: It is clear from the preceding section that there are various SDH and their triggers including wars, immigration, trade, financial crises, etc. In that sense, the course can be modified by putting the emphasis on any of those factors. In this section, we will demonstrate how to integrate global financial crisis into social economics of health and medical care.\n4. Learning outcomes, activities and writing: Our course aims to achieve four learning outcomes corresponding to the modules introduced earlier. We hope to develop a critical understanding of the following issues from an interdisciplinary, social economics perspective: inequities in health and their consequences from the SDH perspective; medical care and its organization, delivery and financing; politics and policy of health, health care and medical care in comparison with national health systems in other countries and health reform debates in the USA; and equity in health, health care and medical care from medical ethics and moral and political theories.\n5. Concluding remarks: We developed this course out of our frustration with health economics courses based on neoclassical theory in almost all textbooks. It is inevitably an eclectic one. Yet, by no means, it is based on arbitrary ideas from different sources. On the contrary, we believe that the three pillars, i.e., social economics, SDH and ethics offer an alternative theoretical foundation for the course by embracing and being open to explanations and arguments from other disciplines. They are consistent with and reinforce each other.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative, interdisciplinary teaching of health, health care and medical care based on three pillars: social economics, the social determinants of health (SDH) and ethics. Based on these three pillars, the global financial crisis is presented as the moment of manifestation of the SDH at individual and aggregate levels that require a critical analysis from a broader perspective that is possible with social economics and ethics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author designed a writing-intensive course based on four modules about definition of health, health care, medical care and determinants of health; political economy of financing and organization of medical care; policies including reform proposals; and medical ethics and moral philosophies that reflect back on the previous topics, respectively.\nFindings: The course attracts students from different disciplines who found it realistic and comprehensive so that it can be related easily to other disciplines owing to its interdisciplinary design. It also helps students to improve their writing skills.\nResearch limitations/implications: The course is taught only in US context and is still open to further development.\nPractical implications: The theoretical pillars of the course can be adopted and experimented with in different contexts (e.g. wars, plagues, immigration, etc.) and inform the participants about the subject matters from a broader perspective.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a successful and novel teaching experience of health and medical care by putting social economics, SDH and ethics together.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interview with Matthew Brearley	[ "Human resource management", "Innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Matthew Brearley was appointed UK HR Director at Vodafone in 2006, a role that enabled him to apply his wealth of commercial experience in driving business performance through coherent and innovative people strategies.\nWhat attracted you to your current role?: It was a natural evolution for me. My degree is in Engineering from Bath University. I spent my first six or seven years with Esso, now Exxon Mobil, and I worked in distribution management. I did larger and larger operational people management sort of roles. I did internal consulting with Esso and I found that my focus was changing; I was less purely interested in the technical engineering side and more and more interested in the operational people side.My time at Esso was really the start of me moving into HR. I then joined Kingfisher and particularly B&Q. B&Q were building the B&Q warehouse concept, and the person who was leading that wanted someone to head up HR who was not effectively a through and through HR person. He wanted a fresh very much a commercial business dynamic and a strong cultural ethos in terms of how we built that organization. So I got that role and I've been in different HR roles ever since.\nYou've held leading positions in a number of top companies, including Associated British Foods, B&Q, M&S and now Vodafone. Are there noticeable differences in how the HR function operates in each of these?: Yes, there are very noticeable differences. I would probably say one difference is everyone deploys slightly different HR operating models that are appropriate to their businesses, but the things that are really different are that some businesses have a real people ethos, so their philosophy and culture of the business is very much people-centric. When you have that you have a different type of HR function to one where maybe the people ethos is less strong, and therefore HR becomes more transactional and less integrated in the whole culture of the organization.Of course one of the dynamics in that is not just the ethos and culture of the business which is really strong; it is also the ethos of the chief executive or managing director and the executive teams. If you have got a highly commercial team and it's results at any cost and it does not really matter too much that is one view. If you have got a highly brand focused, highly customer focused team with people who understand the importance of the organization and the people you have a very different focus.\nCould you tell me about the \"employee experience\" strategy you lead at Vodafone?: Vodafone wants to be a leader with our customers, and therefore we have a very clear customer experience strategy. We are trying to create the best possible customer experience. If you ever do any work on trying to drive the best customer experience you have to have a very aligned employee experience, so in a very structured way we look at all of our key employee touch points: where we touch our people, what sort of experience they have, what proposition we create for them, and if it is the right one that is aligned to the business we are trying to build and the customer experience we are trying to create.Examples of employee experience touchpoints might be around our resourcing, might be around learning and development, might be around reward and recognition, it could be around well-being, it could be around organization and change, or communication and involvement. What the employee experience strategy is trying to do fundamentally is to drive towards an environment of high employee engagement and high employee advocacy, and of course we are trying to do that in a high performing organization context.\nHow do you measure the success of your people strategies?: Our people strategy is absolutely integrated with our business strategy. So the first way you measure it is through our business performance. We look at our business performance very much in the context of a balanced scorecard, so we look at the financial performance and the customer performance - our brand preference, our customer satisfaction. We will look at our internal operations, and we will also clearly look at our people focus. In the people area I would probably pick three metrics; our employee engagement index which we measure every three months, our net performance score, which is our measure of employee advocacy, and finally we would measure our retention rates.\nHow important do you think the brand of Vodafone is to employee engagement levels?: Very important. If you can get the type of people that have a natural alignment to your organization and what you are trying to create then I think it can be a very motivating place for those people to be. We are in the world of communication, the world of technology, and people who love the advancement of technology can check with the Vodafone brand. It is pride in the brand and loyalty to the brand that is going to be a significant factor in driving your engagement.\nHow can HR help to maintain employee engagement during change?: Employee engagement is a business issue, not just an HR issue, so clearly what we will do is act as champions, facilitators, agents of change in terms of driving and trying to uphold a great employee experience. Even when you are managing a really tough change program, when there are acquisitions, when there are redundancies, where there are structural changes in your business, you can still do that if you have an engagement ethos.That does not mean you do not make the tough calls, it is not about being soft, it is about being hard but doing it correctly. If you think about when you are dealing with acquisitions or integrations or redundancy programs you are thinking about how to make the best experience we can for our people, how we can genuinely help them in the next step in their life and in their career. HR can act as a catalyst, working with leaders and line managers to really get that ethos in place and make sure that that the experience is a positive one. I have seen examples of where we have managed a tough change program and employee engagement has actually risen as a consequence, even though you have significant numbers of people who are losing their jobs and you have got a site closure.\nWhat challenges in general do you think the HR function faces to get the support of the board?: HR has to be credible; it has to bring value. You have got to have a well thought out strategy plan, so what you are doing has to be different; you have got to have the right people with the right capabilities to make an impact and to be able to engage with the organization, and you have got to be able to execute. Strategy is not good enough on its own, you have got to be able to deliver and see right through to execution.You also have to have the right relationships. I need to have the right relationship with Nick Reid, our CEO, as if the two of us see the word in different ways it is not going to work. So you need to have a values alignment and you have to really work in harmony together.\nWhat has been your greatest achievement in your current role?: I've got two. One is having our people strategy as an absolutely integral part of the business strategy, owned by the business not just HR. Secondly, at a personal level, building and creating the HR leadership team that I have at the moment of people who are passionately taking forward our people strategy and have the capability to really bring it to life.\nFinally, what is the biggest challenge you will be facing in your current role over the next few years?: Our company and our industry face many challenges. It is a sector that changes at a great rate. We are going to see real convergence of technologies, so our organization will continue to go through structural change. I think our biggest challenge is how we will adapt our people strategy to meet the changing needs of the organization and move quickly too.Being part of a global organization has its own challenges, so while you are focusing on your customers in your local operating company (UK for us); you are also always managing to a global agenda and thinking about the global context of what you are trying to create. So that is just another dynamic I think that is quite unique to me and to our organization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present the views ofMatthew Brearley UK HR Director at Vodaphone.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper provides an interview with Matthew Brearley who has a wealth of commercial experience in driving business performance through coherent and innovative people strategies.\nFindings: - The paper finds new insights into the methods of people management at Vodaphone.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides an insightful interview with Matthew Brearley.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Methods for modeling and supporting innovation processes in SMEs	[ "Innovation", "Modelling", "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Italy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An innovation is a product, service, or process that is new or perceived as new by its developers (Van de Ven, 1986). Some processes (e.g. new product development) are essential to develop innovations within companies. This paper discusses the use of modeling techniques to support innovation processes. We argue that techniques for process modeling and analysis, which we refer to collectively as business modeling techniques (BMTs), can be used to support and improve innovation processes. Such techniques are commonly used in many fields, e.g. for information system development. In these fields, the importance of such techniques is broadly recognized and benefits of their use have been shown empirically in the literature (Maylor, 2001; Wheelwright and Clark, 1992). However, BMTs have often been considered inappropriate for processes such as new product development (NPD) that are highly unstructured and characterized by difficult-to-forecast activities linked by reciprocal rather then sequential dependencies. Nevertheless, interest in modeling techniques to support innovation is rapidly increasing, though as yet, few modeling techniques have been proposed to support innovation processes (Presley et al. 2000). We suggest that there may be BMTs that are appropriate to support such processes (e.g., design rationale techniques or cognitive mapping). By providing models of the innovation process, BMTs can support the identification of problems and the assessment of alternative modes to perform the process. Moreover, by their adoption organizations can learn how they innovate and improve the process.We specifically focus on BMTs to support the innovation development process (IDP) within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The importance SMEs play for economic development is widely recognized in the literature and their role as innovators is indisputable (Rothwell and Zegveld 1982). Nevertheless, there are few studies to support the management of innovation within SMEs (Hoffman et al., 1998, March-Chorda et al., 2002, Motwani et al., 2000) and little attention has been devoted to how innovation is pursued or how to support it (project management techniques and quality function deployment are among the few supporting tools to be considered). Furthermore, a lack of specialized resources to effectively manage IDPs makes it difficult for such firms to identify suitable methods and adopt them.The research question this paper addresses are which BMTs can be used to support and improve IDPs in SMEs. Addressing this question requires the assessment of the specific characteristics of IDP within SMEs, the analysis of existing BMTs and a study of their effectiveness in modelling such a process. In particular, based on a review of the analysis perspectives on IDP and some theoretical and empirical insights, SMEs' specific needs and problems are assessed and BMTs to support such needs are identified. For each technique the role and IDP phase they can be adopted are also discussed. Finally, some conclusions and future research lines are drawn.\nInsights on innovation processes: seven perspectives for analysis: IDPs are complex, knowledge-intensive and often not ex-ante defined or definable. Characteristics of innovation processes have been deeply investigated in the literature (detailed reviews on this issue are proposed in Gopalakrishnan and Damanpour , 1997; Slappendel, 1996; Tang, 1998; and Wolfe, 1994), though most studies focuses on a few aspects, such as information management, creativity, management and organization etc. In order to present a complete picture of IDP, in this section different analysis perspectives are reviewed and discussed. Within each perspective a brief description of the most significant studies and research approaches is also proposed. Note that the proposed perspectives describe the same process: an IDP is simultaneously a sequence of tasks, a political process, a cognitive process etc. But recognition of different analysis perspectives is useful for identifying problems and needs that arise within firms and assessing suitable supporting techniques.Sequence of tasks\nInnovation development within SMEs: problems and needs: A major topic in the innovation literature is the importance of SMEs for innovation. Studies have shown that SMEs contributed to the main innovations of the twentieth century (Oakey, et al., 1988; Rothwell and Zegveld, 1982; Rothwell, 1994).SMEs have some advantages because of their size. Many are flexible and have strong relationships with customers, enabling rapid response to technical and market shifts. Small firms usually have good internal communications and many have a dynamic and entrepreneurial management style (Rothwell, 1994). As well, some studies suggest that the average capability of technical people is higher in small firms and that innovations in these firms can be less expensive (Cooper, 1964). SMEs usually explore new technical spaces. In summary, innovation in small firms can be (more) efficient and effective (Vossen, 1998).On the other hand, many SMEs are not innovative at all. Researchers have stressed the differences between a limited number of very innovative small firms and a large number of non-innovative firms (Acs and Yeung, 1999; Hadjimanolis and Dickson, 2000) Many obstacles to innovation in SMEs are also stressed in the literature. The lack of financial resources, inadequacy of management and marketing, lack of skilled workers, weakness in external information and linkages, and difficulty in coping with government regulations are factors that limit their competitiveness (Buijs, 1987; Freel, 2000; Rothwell, 1994). SMEs may be unable to exploit new products because of the limited organizational and marketing capabilities. Other studies discuss cultural barriers to innovation, such as reluctance to change, tendency to ignore procedure, focus on short-term requirements, lack of strategic vision and the diffusion of a blame culture (Filson and Lewis, 2000; Freel, 2000). SMEs' main problems are due particularly to the scarce attention devoted to organizational and managerial problems especially in the field of innovation (Cobbenhagen, 1999).Table I lists problems that are relevant within SMEs, classified according to the perspective of analysis from which they are usually studied. For example, the tendency to ignore procedures (which are often not codified), not to assume responsibility, the absence of process monitoring activities and a poor management are problems mainly stressed in the studies that interpret the innovation process as a sequence of tasks. Issues related to problem framing and problem solving (mainly due to the absence of technology watch and technology search roles) and the lack of structured organizational memory are mentioned as significant problems in the studies that interpret the innovation process as a flow of decisions. A major problem is also considered the lack of a strategic vision to drive the innovation development. Such problems strongly compromise the success of IDP within SMEs. On the contrary, less crucial for SMEs are problems identified in the studies that interpret the innovation process as a political process (because of the low number of employees and the entrepreneur power), as am interpretative process (again due to the low number of employees who often have more roles) and as a communication and information flow. Problems associated to the creative perspective, such as the existence of a blame culture, depend on the skills and capabilities of the entrepreneur, so they are not common to all firms.\nA field study: some initial results: In this section, we present some initial results of a field study carried out on a sample of 19 SMEs that work in the Puglia region (Italy). The study was designed to investigate needs and problems within Italian SMEs in order to properly design a questionnaire to submit to a significant sample of Italian firms in a future study and to provide an initial test for the hypotheses (problems considered as relevant) proposed in the paper.Sample selection\nTechniques to support innovation processes: In this section models and techniques to support and improve IDPs within SMEs are examined. Some recent studies showed that innovation can be fostered and supported by the use of structured techniques (Buijs, 1987; Cardinal, 2001). To adopt them, firms would have to follow well-defined procedures and practices. Moreover, they would become more aware of some innovation issues and aspects. The techniques proposed below are indeed adopted by very innovative and successful firms (Libutti, 2000; Maylor 2001; Rinholm and Boag, 1987). Models and techniques are enabling structures (Chiesa et al., 1996): their adoption represents a necessary, though not sufficient, condition to achieve success. Of course, not all innovation problems can be addressed by adopting some technique. Some problems require cultural solutions or government support (such as an increase in the work flexibility, infrastructure building, definition of gatekeeper roles among firms and universities). As a result, such aspects are not examined here.Innovation development process: a model for SMEs\nBMTs to support innovation development within SMEs: In this section we review BMTs for IDP in SMEs. We draw on the database proposed by (Kettinger et al., 1997), which contains 72 techniques and supporting methodologies. The techniques are reviewed based on the perspective of analysis mentioned in the second section. To make the connection, the methods are classified according to their ontology, that is, the entities, categories or class of objects that model uses to describe the world and the relationships among those classes. We identified six main ontologies, namely, activities, states, decision criteria and decision variables, roles, concepts and data flow, that characterize BMTs. Such information is then used to identify, for each perspective, the most suitable supporting techniques, as shown in Table II.Sequence of tasks\nConclusions: The main result of the paper is the identification of the problems facing SMEs in innovating and possible useful supporting BMTs. Though methods and models alone do not assure the success in IDP, they are enabling factors and can support the creation of strategies, reasoning, insights and communication. The adoption of such techniques, facilitating the codification of the characteristics of the IDP might be particularly useful in those environments where, due to the lack of specialized resources, it is difficult to structure all of the information related to the innovation process and to exploit the related benefits and opportunities. Moreover, formal techniques and methods can have a didactic role. They can teach firms how to develop innovations and also make them more sensible towards innovation, so reducing their tendency to act based solely on intuitions and routine rather than structured knowledge. Among BMTs, design rationales and cognitive maps are most relevant. Design rationales can be used to structure the decision process, capture the decisions made about products and create a sort of organizational memory whereas cognitive maps can be used to capture the different interpretations held by various players in the IDP and support the strategy development.Of course, identifying possible methods is easier than seeing them implemented. What is lacking therefore is not applicable BMT methods, but rather process-based research to identify the problems and needs SMEs encounter during innovation development. Our paper has made a start in this direction. We call for further process research on SMEs and IDP to fill this gap in the current literature. These studies could also be useful to record best practices and provide a guide to innovation, similar to the approach adopted for large firms by (Van de Ven and Poole, 1990). This knowledge could be used to create a generalized model of IDP in SMEs and a handbook such as that proposed by (Malone et al., 1999). In this way SMEs could have a standard against which compare their performance as well as a repository of knowledge and a reference to guide their work.This paper represent the first stage of a research project aimed at studying innovation development within SMEs and methods to support it. The field study we presented only refers to SMEs that work in traditional and mature markets, which mostly develop incremental innovations. However they are not representative of all the typologies of SMEs. The analysis we proposed thus needs to be extended to a larger sample of firms and to firms working in new sectors, such as information technology and biotechnology.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Sets out to investigate business modeling techniques (BMTs) which can be used to support and improve innovation processes within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a literature review, different analysis perspectives on innovation processes are identified and discussed, and some firm needs and problems are pointed out. The importance of BMTs to firms is further tested by an empirical study whose initial results are reported. Finally, by matching problems and techniques characterized by the same ontology, the BMTs most suitable to address SME needs are identified and their role within the innovation process discussed.\nFindings: - The main result of the paper is the identification of the problems facing SMEs in innovation processes and the possible support offered by BMTs. Though methods and models alone do not assure the success in the innovation development process (IDP), they are enabling factors and can support the creation of strategies, reasoning, insights and communication.\nOriginality/value: - The adoption of such BMTs, facilitating the codification of the characteristics of the IDP, might be particularly useful in those environments where, due to the lack of specialized resources, it is difficult to structure all of the information related to the innovation process and to exploit the related benefits and opportunities\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational communication and occupational stress in Australian Catholic primary schools	[ "Organizational communication", "Occupational stress", "Catholic schools", "Primary schools", "Support", "Openness", "Democratic leadership", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent times there has been much concern expressed about the status of teachers, their morale and attrition rates, especially in the early career stages (Committee for the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education, 2003; Goddard and Goddard, 2006; Marsh, 2010; International Labour Organization/United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2000). Occupational stress has frequently been cited as an antecedent of reduced morale, burnout and turnover intention (e.g. Goddard and Goddard, 2006; McCormick and Barnett, 2011; Shalem and Hoadley, 2009).\nOccupational stress: Occupational stress, generally regarded as a negative or unpleasant experience (Spector, 2008), is also referred to as job stress and work stress (Geving, 2007; Spector, 2008). While it is recognized that some stress may be beneficial to individuals in terms of motivation and challenge (Selye, 1976), the negative psychological impacts of a substantial level of felt stress, referred to as distress (Luthans, 2010), can affect individuals adversely over time.\nOrganizational communication: Organizational communication is defined for this study as the process whereby people share information relating to the organization's goals, functions or operations (Goldhaber, 1993; Samson and Daft, 2009). Organizational communication has a number of dimensions. Messages are shared vertically (upward and downward) between hierarchical levels in an organization, as well as horizontally among people at the same level and interactions occur via formal and informal channels (Dwyer, 2009; Samson and Daft, 2009).\nOrganizational communication and occupational stress: Of the antecedents listed above, several may relate to the features and functions of communication mentioned earlier. The literature suggests that aspects of organizational communication, such as openness, supportiveness and direction, for example, may be related to occupational stress.\nWhy Catholic schools?: Australian Catholic schools warrant particular attention because they have cultures reported to be more normative than, and in other ways different to, government schools (Solman and Feld, 1989; Johnson et al., 2000). A recent study of school types reported that Catholic schools had very collegial and cooperative cultures, with many staff members describing a \"family\" atmosphere among staff, while public school cultures were described as \"mechanistic\", focused on standards, testing and having a factory-like feel (Dorner et al., 2011). Indeed, the family metaphor has been reported by other studies of Catholic school culture (Belmonte and Cranston, 2009; Scholefield, 2005). It is clear that an important facet of Catholic schools is the sense of community (Belmonte and Cranston, 2009; Cook and Simonds, 2011; Flynn and Mok, 2002; Scheopner, 2010).\nTwo studies: The use of two studies needs some explanation at this point. Schooling in Australia experienced significant change between 1998 and 2008. Moves toward greater accountability for student achievement, accompanied by the introduction of external testing programmes and a national reporting standard have been related to a drive for better student outcomes in that period (Council for the Australian Federation, 2007; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2005). Teachers and other staff members have been expected to have greater input into school decision making as well as the development of schools as professional learning communities (Allen Consulting Group, 2004; Pont et al., 2008). This has resulted in job intensification, particularly from the amount of extra paperwork and other administration tasks teachers and other staff have been required to do (Timms et al., 2007).\nMethod: Relationships between organizational communication and occupational stress were investigated via two studies. Both studies were based on a quantitative research design involving a questionnaire survey. Participation was voluntary and confidentiality and anonymity were assured. The first study was conducted in Catholic primary schools in New South Wales as part of a larger study of school communication involving variables other than occupational stress, such as job satisfaction and communication methods. Data were collected between June 1998 and March 1999. The second study was conducted in Catholic primary schools in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Queensland. Data collection for this study took place between May 2008 and June 2009.\nResults: first study: Factor analysis of the organizational communication items\nResults: second study: The second study utilized an updated version of the OCPSQ and an identical form of the TARSQ. The OCPSQ was modified in light of issues identified with some items in the first study. Specifically, some items did not load well on any factors in the first study and were removed from OCPSQ, while new items were constructed to better account for the concepts of adequacy and communication underload in order to achieve more definitive factors than vertical load of communication, a factor that while interpretable, only dealt with overload, and adequacy of information which was less clear than equivalents developed in other research (Day et al., 1998). In all, four items were deleted and eight new items (to do with underload and adequacy) were added. This resulted in a new version of the OCPSQ comprised of 66 items.\nDiscussion: The two studies confirm the importance of openness of communication between principals and staff. It is clear that greater openness between staff and school executive is associated with lower stress from school organization and climate, and vice versa. Previous literature had not produced such clear linkages. The association is logical because open communication between staff and executive is needed to facilitate genuine information sharing within a school in terms of general information, support for staff and participation in decision making.\nImplications for policy and practice: It is acknowledged that the participants in the two studies represent only a fraction of the total population of staff members in Catholic primary schools within the given states. It is also to be recognized that other sectors of Australian schooling, such as government and independent schools, were not represented in either study. While this may limit the generalizability of the findings, the focus on Catholic schools did allow for an initial view of the hypothesized relationships uncluttered by considerations relating to any possible sector differences. As such, some implications can be drawn for leaders of Catholic primary schools and systems to which they belong.\nImplications for future research: There are implications for future investigation of organizational communication and occupational stress. The two studies reported here focused on Catholic schools as a unique cohort. To aid the generalizability of results and advance our knowledge of how communication may influence stress, research of this type needs to be conducted that involves government and independent schools. Additionally, more sophisticated statistical analyses and the use of qualitative data would help to explain the relationships with greater clarity.\nConclusion: The studies reported here used a conceptual framework of organizational communication that was comprehensive in relation to previous research and supported empirically and was relatively stable over time. The main purpose was to test hypothesized relationships between aspects of organizational communication and domains of occupational stress. While the results do not point to causal relationships, it can be at least asserted that aspects of organizational communication such as support, openness, access, participation in decision making (democracy) and load have important associations with domains of occupational stress relating to school, students and personal orientation to work in schools.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper reports two related studies of relationships between organizational communication and occupational stress of staff members in Catholic primary schools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from both studies were obtained using survey questionnaires. Participants were staff members of Catholic diocesan primary schools in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Queensland, Australia. Research hypotheses were tested using correlation and multiple regression analyses.\nFindings: Ten organizational communication factors and four occupational stress domains were identified. Several organizational communication variables were found to be predictors of occupational stress in four identified domains.\nPractical implications: The findings provide implications for school administrators in relation to staff member access to formal communication channels, openness and approachability of principals, and support giving between school administration and staff, as well as among staff.\nOriginality/value: The studies used a conceptual framework of organizational communication that is unique and comprehensive. The paper contributes new knowledge in an area that has received little attention, namely, communication in schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Contemporary views in gender and management	[ "Women", "Career development", "Research methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This issue of Gender in Management: An International Journal was stimulated by a selection of papers from the 2007 British Academy of Management (BAM) Annual Conference held at Warwick Business School. The location was chosen to celebrate both Warwick Business School's 40th Birthday and BAM's 21st Birthday, a fitting venue as BAM held its first annual conference at Warwick Business School.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A brief description of the Gender in Management track at the 2007 British Academy of Management (BAM) Annual Conference held at Warwick Business School and an outline of the papers in the issue.\nFindings: - The track examined various issues and the papers chosen from the track for the special issue are closest to the central concerns of the journal.\nOriginality/value: - Provides a summary of the perspectives considered.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A cross-cultural comparison of choice criteria for wine in restaurants	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Wines", "Australia", "United Kingdom", "France" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The internationalisation of markets reaches its limits in what are commonly called \"cultural differences\". This observation is particularly true in the field of food, in which countries considered as being culturally close (European Union) show pronounced differences in their diet habits and practice (Askegaard and Madsen, 1995). Many authors have shown experimentally the extent to which individuals' eating habits and preferences are constructed from birth through to adulthood (Fischler, 1990; Rozin and Nemeroff, 1990) under the influence of the different social groups to which they are exposed: family, school, clubs, groups of friends and others. Food choices are also choices of identity, and are therefore markers of these cultural differences (Askegaard and Madsen, 1995; Rozin et al., 1999; Trompenaars and Turner, 2007), which no doubt explains the considerable inertia of diet models and continuing cultural differences in food preferences.Wine is an emblematic example of a product for which consumption is marked by local culture. Wine is a part of Judeo-Christian culture and has been a source of poetic and musical inspiration since times immemorial, being the subject of much literature and iconography since ancient times. According to Bartoli and Boulet (1989), \"quality\" of wines is a \"social construction\" in which producers, the trade, consumers and the state all play a part. In this respect, we often talk of the opposition between wine culture a la Francaise and that from the New World. In the crisis hitting the French wine sector in recent years, much has been made of the straightforward approach of British or Australian producers and the (overly) complex approach of their French counterparts.Can cultural differences be measured through the choice criteria used by consumers in these three countries? It is known that choice is very much determined by the consumption context, and in each of these countries, studies show that choosing a wine is indeed a difficult task which is largely dependent on that context (at home, in a restaurant, in a bar, with an ordinary meal, with a socialised meal) and that consumers make use of quality indicators which are pretty much the same in most countries (Aurifeille et al., 2002). To make relevant comparisons, we therefore propose to study the choice of wine in a restaurant situation corresponding, in each of the three countries, to a convivial moment of sharing involving comparable expectations.The hypothesis underlying this empirical study of 734 consumers in Australia, the UK and France, is that national belonging is strong enough to be an important explanatory factor of wine choice behaviour in restaurants, along with other major factors such as gender, age or the consumption frequency of individuals. The method that has been chosen is therefore based on the classical attribute choice model of Fishbein and Ajzen (1975). The main objective of the study is to highlight noticeable differences in the relative importance given to these attributes by consumers in the three countries. The method used is the \"best-worst\" method which offers advantages in comparing samples from different culturesThis paper is organised as follows. The first section addresses the question of defining \"culture\" and the way of applying its traits and limits operationally. The second section presents the \"best-worst\" method, as yet little used in cross-cultural studies, and the results of the surveys conducted in the three countries. The results are then discussed and conclusions are proposed, not only on the method but also on the managerial interest of this type of study.\nTheoretical framework: Hofstede (1980) proposes two levels of definitions for culture. The first defines culture as qualifying the state of \"knowledge\" applied to the domain of art and literature, on the level of an individual or a group. The second acception refers to all the simple and human activities of everyday life - \"greeting, eating, expressing or hiding feelings, keeping a certain distance from people, making love, respecting hygiene rules\"... . Hofstede specifies that this is mental programming resulting from ongoing learning processes that are not always conscious in the different social environments to which individuals are exposed. We find here the notion of habitus defined by Bourdieu (1980); in the words of the sociologist, habitus is a set of durable, transposable dispositions resulting from the incorporation of experience, with this incorporation enabling the individual to act and to interpret the social world. The role of primary (childhood, adolescence) and secondary (adult) socialisation is very important in structuring the habitus. It is this second acception of culture that we will take as our reference here.For Bourdieu, like for Hofstede, \"programming\" is done in milieus that are marked notably by socio-economic differences (the \"social classes\" of Bourdieu), regional particularities, family habits, institutional and public discourse. The question is then raised as to the operational use of this cultural/habitus component. What is the most appropriate level for defining a homogenous sub-group of consumers, in particular in our societies with their multiple influences, and in which consumers are led to refer to several cultural models at the same time? There are many ongoing criticisms of cross-cultural studies. On the occasion of a literature review covering an eight-year period, Albaum and Peterson (1984) noted that, apart from the difficulty of setting up international protocols (and making them sufficiently explicit in the studies) most of the studies suffered from a lack of conceptualisation. Douglas and Craig (1997) took up the criticisms of Albaum and Peterson, and proposed to bring up the notion of the culti unit, defined on the basis of ethnic, racial, demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and within which a set of \"memories, myths, values and symbols woven together in the popular consciousness\" are shared (Featherstone, 1990).The culti-unit can be situated on the \"macro\" level, aggregating broad groups encompassing several countries (linguistic regions, north and south, developing, industrialised, etc.). These units can also be defined on the national level, with the country forming the culti-unit, on condition that we remain aware of the inter-penetration of cultures and the role of \"micro cultures\", as well as of the fact that consumers increasingly belong to diversified micro-cultures.In this way, many studies aim to detect the points of convergence or divergence between countries or groups of countries. On the subject of beef, for example, Grunert (1997) noted that the model of perception of quality by French, German, Spanish or British consumers was relatively homogenous, although the French stood out from the three other nationalities on certain points. Olsen et al. (2007) explored the relationships between fish consumption and the perceived convenience of consumption in Poland, Spain and The Netherlands. They showed convergences regarding the attributes used to define fish quality, but differences in particular concerning the focus on perceived convenience. A study by Bredhal (2001) compared attitudes to GM products in four countries (Denmark, Germany, UK and Italy), and seemed to show a difference in this respect between Italians and consumers in the northern European countries.What stands out in particular in these studies, is the choice made by researchers to define the country as the culti-unit, no doubt justified by the convenience of the definition and of implementation of the survey protocols. It is also due to the national approach to markets which is preferred by companies, with the underlying question being whether supply should be adapted to each different country or not.Wine is a product that can lend itself to interesting cross-cultural analyses. Influenced by the Bourdieu-style structuralist approach of French society, Bartoli and Boulet (1989) showed the extent to which wine consumption was the result of a collective learning process which has marked the French deeply and lastingly, associating the question of wine quality with product origin and the values attached to this notion: local agricultural and climate specifics, winemaking traditions and collective management of the asset of the regional appellation. One result of this collective learning process has been to define the quality of the product on the basis of its production attributes, rather than referring to its purely market qualities.Although this \"French model\" may have imposed itself on the worldwide market, it is having difficulty remaining competitive today in countries that do not produce commercial quantities of wine (such as the UK) or have recently become producers (such as Australia or California). Consumers in these countries are more and more interested in wine, but have not been exposed to this \"culture\" of the terroir[1]. Their model tends to be that of intrinsic product quality as testified by its consistency of style and identified by the brand, merchantable quality and value for money. This diverging vision of food quality is so strong that it leads to major clashes in international negotiations at the WTO. On the one hand, there are the advocates of terroir-based quality, with France in the front line, and on the other the proponents of the commercial brand, generally headed by the English-speaking countries who consider the argument of the terroir as obstructing fair competition.A few cross cultural studies on consumption and attitudes toward wine bear testimony to this cultural particularity of the French, which seems to remain present among younger age groups. For example, young French students express greater actual and self-perceived knowledge of wine than their German or American colleagues (D'Hauteville and Goldsmith, 1997). We can therefore expect to find pronounced contrasts in the importance given to wine choice criteria between French consumers and those in English-speaking countries.\nMethodological choices: The restaurant as the field of study\nMain results: importance given to the different criteria by the best-worst method: The sample of respondents (Australia n = 283, UK n = 304, France n = 147) corresponded to a convenient selection of a population that had been to the restaurant at least once in the previous month. The instructions given to the investigators were to respect a balanced proportion of men and women and of age groups (Table I).In total, 13 choice criteria were compared by the persons being surveyed, using the best-worst method, on the basis of their last experience in a restaurant. These criteria were chosen based on interviews and pre-tests of attributes in choosing wine in restaurants. The attributes were:(1) Alcohol level below 13*.(2) Waiter recommended.(3) I matched it with my food.(4) I have had the wine before and liked it.(5) Suggestion on the menu.(6) Suggested by another at the table.(7) Available by the glass.(8) Try something different.(9) Varietal.(10) Region.(11) Promotion card on the table.(12) vailable in half bottles (375 ml).(13) I read about it, but never tasted.Initially, these criteria were produced and validated on Australian consumers. A balanced incomplete block design of type (13,13, 4, 1) was adopted to distribute the attributes into several groups of choices presented to the consumers. In this way, the 13 attributes were used to construct 13 tables (blocks), each comprising four criteria. Each attribute appeared the same number of times, which is to say four, and each pair of attributes appeared the same number of times, which is to say one. The consumers had to choose from each table, representing one of the 13 choice tasks, the criterion they considered most important in their choice of wine, and the least important criterion.Analysis by criterion\nDiscussion and conclusion: The hypothesis of a contrast between the French and consumers in the English-speaking countries would appear to be confirmed, in the light of the criteria emphasized by the different groups. The supposed cultural difference of the French therefore finds interesting empirical validation in this study, and it does therefore provide validation of the national level as culti-unit.The explanation of the differences shown between the countries could be the subject of several hypotheses. The first concerns the weight of restaurant-going practices: in France, a recommendation by the waiter seems an important factor, while the choice tends to be that of the client alone in the English-speaking countries. These results confirm those of the study by Durham et al. (2004) observing that in the USA, the first factor in the choice of wine in restaurants is the menu, while interaction with the waiter is infrequent. Ultimately, the differences observed on the wine choice criteria would seem to be a reflection of the social rituals involved in situations as particular as those in a restaurant.A second hypothesis concerns the structure of the offering: rejection of the grape variety as an important criterion in France is related not only to the power of signs of quality, but also to relatively limited supply of varietal wines there, unlike in Australia and the UK. A recent study of a representative sample of the French population showed that only a small minority of French people were familiar with the varietal concept. Only 17 per cent of respondents were capable of citing one or several varieties correctly (Aurier et al., 2007).However, this study does not quite escape the criticisms already made by Albaum and Peterson (1984) and Douglas and Craig (1997) concerning the question of the choice of attributes: the list was validated in Australia. Are the relevant attributes the same for France and the UK? This question is all the more important in that the result could be sensitive to the collection of attributes proposed (Sharma and Weathers, 2003). The non-equivalence of measurements could then limit the general validity of the results. The problem is partly resolved by the \"best-worst\" method regarding each individual attribute, but not necessarily when all the attributes as a whole are taken into consideration.Also, the best-worst method does not avoid the bias inherent to declarative methods: difficulty of translating items when making cross-cultural comparisons, or of comparisons between samples with structures that are not comparable. Nor does it eliminate the question of \"desirability\" biases.It should also be emphasized that while the empirical approach to the cross-cultural question can give interesting results in the framework of marketing research, explanation of the differences that are observed refers to interpretations of the history and collective learning processes of the cultural groups being compared, requiring knowledge and skills that may be outside those of the researcher's discipline. It could therefore be suggested that cross-cultural studies should be carried out by multi-disciplinary teams including managers, historians, sociologists and anthropologists.In conclusion, this study has shown a hierarchy of wine choice attrributes in restaurants in three countries, revealing large differences relating to the nationality of the samples. However, it seems necessary to us to compare these results with accounts of restaurant consumption experiences coupled with observations, to reach a better understanding of wine choice criteria in restaurants and their combination with each other.\nNotes: 1. Indeed, it is interesting to note that this word is used in French, and does not have a precise translation in other languages.2. In France in 2006, for example, 59 per cent of people had lunch out of the home (98 per cent in Paris) and food services represented turnover of 74.5 billion (Gira Sic Conseil, Neo-Restauration, May 2007).Opens in a new window.Figure 1.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the difficulties raised by the question of cultural differences in consumption behaviour studies, and proposes the best-worst method as a tool for comparing data from a cross-national survey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from samples of wine consumers from Australia (n = 283), the UK (n = 304) and France (n = 147), using the BW procedure, where respondents have to assess what are the most and the least important attributes when choosing a wine at a restaurant.\nFindings: - Results show differences between the countries, with a clear contrast between the French, on the one hand, and the Australians and British, on the other. They confirm empirically the idea that the country may be a valid \"culti unit\" in cross-cultural research.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The authors suggest that the method works well in the context of this research, but does not avoid some of the uncontrollable biases of declarative data, nor the question of the relevance of some choice items in cultural contexts that can be very diverse (such as the role of a waiter in a restaurant).\nPractical implications: - The paper shows that the method can be used quite easily in a large number of studies where it is important to hierarchize choice cues and compare different segments of a population.\nOriginality/value: - This fairly large scale study contributes to the marketing literature dealing with country of origin as a segmentation criteria, and exploring the concept and measurement of \"cultural difference\". Finally, it fosters a scarce literature dealing with consumer behaviour in \"on premise\" situations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The Excellence Grid - a tool to identify attributes that drive service excellence	[ "Service quality", "Kano model", "Service excellence", "Excellence Grid", "Importance grid", "Ordinal logistic regression" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"Service excellence\" is a motivational goal that any firm aspires to achieve. The notion of \"service excellence\" refers to a provider being perceived to be excellent (by both professionals and customers) in the market and capable of delivering excellent service quality beyond expectations of customer. Achieving goals of service excellence, results in customer delight, loyalty and long-term profitability (Edvardsson and Enquist, 2011; Gouthier et al., 2012). Services are a complex integration of multitude of attributes related to people, process and technology skills. A continual effort in delivering excellent service requires that service providers develop insights on the attributes that drive customer perception of service quality and excellence (Boulding et al., 1993; Parasuraman et al., 1988). Extant literature that studies the impact of service attributes on quality and customer satisfaction, focus on distinguishing between good performance and bad performance of service attributes. Researchers demonstrate that the relationship between service attributes and service quality is asymmetric such that certain attributes may impact service quality negatively at low performance level but have an insignificant incremental impact when performed at high levels (Kano et al., 1984; Johnston, 1995; Matzler and Sauerwein, 2002; Matzler et al., 2003; Conklin et al., 2004; Mittal et al., 2008; Matzler and Renzl, 2007; Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011; Finn, 2011; Arbore and Busacca, 2009, 2011). However, an implicit assumption made by research in this domain is that, when customers perceive positive performance, the impact of \"good\" performance of attributes is equivalent to the effect of \"excellent performance\" of attributes.\n2. Literature review: Research efforts in identifying significant service attributes that impact overall service quality (OSQ) and customer satisfaction is firmly rooted in the Kano model (Kano et al., 1984) and the importance-performance analysis (IPA) developed by Martilla and James (1977). Noriaki Kano proposed that quality attributes may have differential impact on the extent of satisfaction (when attribute is present) and dissatisfaction (when attribute is absent) and attributes were classified as \"must be\" or \"dissatisfiers,\" \"attractive\" or \"satisfiers,\" \"one dimensional\" or \"performance,\" \"indifferent\" and \"reverse.\" IPA focuses on identifying attributes that are high in importance and low in performance and hence should be the focus of improvement efforts. Researchers in this domain focused on a central research goal - \"What is the best way to categorize attributes as basic/dissatisfiers, performance/hybrids, and excitement/satisfiers.\" The following subsection highlight some predominant categorization tools and techniques - the importance grid (I-G) (Vavra, 1997) and relevance-determinance grid (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2012); penalty reward contrast analysis (Matzler and Sauerwein, 2002) along with impact range and impact asymmetry (IA) (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2008) and marginal utility analysis (MUA) (Bacon, 2012).\n3. A new approach for attribute categorization - the Excellence Grid: This research addresses the research lacunae identified in the previous section by proposing a tool to categorize attributes on the basis of their ability to drive perception of excellence as opposed to good or satisfactory performance. The tool is named \"The Excellence Grid.\" The categorization of attributes is based on the technique of OLR without proportional odds assumption which allows a two function model to be developed for three different levels of OSQ and therefore is able to address service quality evaluations at different reference levels. Section 3.1 provides an overview of the OLR technique and Section 3.2 details how the OLR technique is deployed to map the Excellence Grid.\n4. Case data analysis and findings: The proposed approach detailed in the earlier section is applied to service delivery process in two different industry contexts - a radio taxi service (RT service) and a piped gas service (PG service) process. The OSQ is hypothesized to be a function of service attributes identified with the help of a tool - touchpoint-dimension matrix (T-D matrix) proposed by Roy and Mukherjee (2012, 2015). To identify the attributes, this matrix is developed by mapping the service blueprint (detailed by Bitner et al., 2007) against the dimensions of service quality based on SERVQUAL model (e.g. reliability, responsiveness, etc.) (Parasuraman et al., 1988).\n5. Managerial implications: Usually managers and practitioners operate in a dynamic complex environment and continuously make improvement efforts while addressing the changing needs of customer. In such circumstances, service process owners may be unaware that attention on certain service attributes and features may lead to perceptions of excellent service. The Excellence Grid and the 3D Excellence-Performance model are tools which can be applied to identify such attributes.\n6. Contribution to research: As highlighted in the review of literature, various studies on attribute categorization, based on Kano's model of asymmetrical effect of positive and negative attributes on OSQ have been reported. However, there seems a dearth of research which specifically focuses on the positive zone of performance with an objective of identifying the drivers for excellence in service. The \"Excellence Grid,\" proposed in this research, is expected to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on operational tools for achieving service excellence.\n7. Limitations and future scope of research: This paper outlines the methodology to build the Excellence Grid and 3D Excellence-Performance model based on the performance of attributes that the customer experiences during a service. The methodology needs to be enhanced further to incorporate attributes which the customer may not be experiencing currently but which the firm plants to implement in the future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a tool, \"The Excellence Grid,\" to categorize attributes on the basis of their ability to impact customer perception of \"excellence\" in service compared to perception of \"good\" service. In addition, provide a three dimensional (3D) model for excellence-performance analysis, which can aid managers in formalizing the strategies for building perceptions of excellence about the service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The positive zone of performance is analyzed through a two-function modeling technique of ordinal logistic regression (OLR) with the non-proportional odds to categorize attributes on grid. Tool is applied to two case studies to validate and establish the asymmetric impact of attributes on perceptions of \"good service\" and \"excellent service.\"\nFindings: Similar to the Kano model for impact of attributes on positive and negative performances, findings from cases confirm the asymmetric impact of attributes on the positive zone of performance and establish \"Excellence Grid\" as a means to categorize attributes as drivers of excellence.\nPractical implications: The \"Excellence Grid\" tool is expected to empower managers to focus on strategies directed toward the goal of \"service excellence\" and recommends that managers should not only strive for process improvement, but also sharpen the external communication of service excellence.\nOriginality/value: The \"Excellence Grid\" and the \"3D Excellence-Performance model,\" proposed in this research, are expected to enrich the body of knowledge on operational tools to achieve service excellence. Using parameter estimates of the two-function model of OLR for service quality has not yet been reported in open literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Entrepreneurship and innovation: Setting an agenda for greater discipline contextualisation	[ "Training", "Innovation", "Entrepreneurship", "Education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship and innovation are widely regarded as an important basis for competitive advantage in a rapidly changing international business environment, enhancing capabilities for sustainable business growth, economic activity and the wealth of nations (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; O'Connor, 2013). Entrepreneurship relates to the discovery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities in the process of business start-up, creation and growth; entrepreneurial dynamism is key to economic renewal and growth (Shane, 2012; Lewrick et al., 2010). Innovation relates to the development, adoption and exploitation of value-added activities in economic and social areas; a key factor for competitiveness and growth (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; Lewrick et al., 2010).\nContextualisation: Prior to delineating the entrepreneurship and innovation education disciplines, contextualisation of entrepreneurship and innovation education and training delivery is paramount (Maritz and Brown, 2013). Most programs are typically offered by higher education institutions (Neck and Greene, 2011), although well represented in the training and development field (Jones, 2010; Donovan et al., 2013). Contextualisation includes, but not limited to, outcomes (Edwards and Muir, 2012; Matlay, 2008); audience (Fayolle et al., 2006); student and educator diversity (Jones, 2010); knowledge and attitudes (Matlay, 2008); type of entrepreneur/innovator; teaching methods and pedagogy (Fayolle, 2010; Balan and Metcalfe, 2012) and evaluation (Harte and Stewart, 2012) to name but a few. Of particular importance is the delineation of the entrepreneurship and innovation constructs, an accepted definition of each is important:\nTheoretical underpinnings: Many of the theoretical bases for engagement between innovation and entrepreneurship inherently incorporate similar approaches. Such examples include network theory and resource based view (Ireland et al., 2005), practice-based view (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010) and knowledge management (Adams et al., 2006). This is particularly as a result of both constructs being process and output driven (Shane, 2012). While knowledge and capabilities based theories traditionally lie at the firm level, many researchers and practitioners have challenged this conceptualisation and have argued for viewing value creation from a more individualistic foundation (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010). Entrepreneurship and innovation education research certainly resonates well with this proposition, however, appropriate to the necessary contextualisation. Of particular variance, however, is the measurement of audience outcomes, and in this instance, we refer in particular to entrepreneurial intentions and self-efficacy (Douglas, 2013; Volery et al., 2013). These two cited empirical studies examined intentionality and self-efficacy of nascent entrepreneurs. The grounded theoretical concept peculiar to entrepreneurship in this context is Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behaviour. In contrast, institutional theory is more appropriate to innovation, due to the organisational significance (Ireland et al., 2005). Many scholars view innovation diffusion from a macro-economic perspective, whereas entrepreneurship is often viewed from a micro-economic perspective. This resonates well with a micro-economic foundation of entrepreneurship effectuation theory, unique to entrepreneurship, where one set of alternatives may result in a series of different outcomes (Sarasvathy, 2008).\nMeasurement and distinctiveness: There is a considerable literature on innovation measurement, predominantly focused on evaluation of innovation management. Adams et al. (2006) identify a framework for innovation management measurement with a series of areas to be considered in brackets: inputs (including human resources, or physical and financial resources); knowledge management (ideation, knowledge and information flows); innovation strategy (strategic approach, leadership for innovation); organisation (culture and structure); portfolio management (portfolio optimisation, balance between risk and return, tool use); project management (project efficiency, tool use, communication and collaboration); and commercialisation (market research and testing, marketing and sales). Intellectual property, patents, and research and development (R&D) expenditures are often utilised as measures for innovation output.\nContent and pedagogy: Due to varying measurement, systems and assessment of programs, one would assume that entrepreneurship and innovation programs would employ different content (Maritz et al., 2011; O'Connor, 2013) and pedagogy (Fayolle, 2010; Matlay, 2008; O'Sullivan, 2003). Whilst contextual (Jones, 2010; Fayolle et al., 2006; Lewrick et al., 2010) in their own right, we now explore possibilities of such variation. The purpose of entrepreneurship education may be to help entrepreneurs launch new ventures and understand the consequences of their decisions (Maritz and Brown, 2013); whereas the purpose of innovation programs may be to enhance the innovative performance of individuals and organisations (Donovan et al., 2013; Maritz et al., 2014). To achieve these outcomes, different content and pedagogy is required.\nDiscussion: The propositions do not represent an all-incident list of variation between the two disciplines, but the result of an intensive review of the literature. We accept all propositions in the contexts in which they are presented. It is, however, important to view each proposition within the context of the discussion, including the background of the framework provided (Maritz and Brown, 2013). Indeed, each proposition most certainly has dependencies of various dimensions upon each other proposition. We provide a practice-based view of the application of the propositions, using the entrepreneurship education program framework as developed by Maritz and Brown (2013). This framework consists of components of context, outcomes, objectives, audience, content, pedagogy and assessment; adapted in an entrepreneurship and innovation context.\nConclusion: Our aim has been to challenge the context of entrepreneurship and innovation education and training. This we have demonstrated using seven key propositions, a result of an extensive literature review. We conclude that the disciplines have many synergies between them, but also unique education and training characteristics. This may also be seen between the overlap of content, as represented in Table I. These have been demonstrated using a practice-based view against a previously developed framework of an entrepreneurship education program (Maritz and Brown, 2013). We believe we have also built a bridge across the gap in knowledge on innovation education and training.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the synergies, similarities and differences between entrepreneurship and innovation education and training programs, with the aim of challenging the context of such programs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study utilises an extensive review of extant literature in the fields of innovation, entrepreneurship and education. The literature, propositions and discussion are intended to provide a bridge between entrepreneurship and innovation education and training programs and seek to address the scientific legitimacy of these education and training disciplines as separate, yet integrated disciplines.\nFindings: Identifies a need to reconsider the diversity and relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship education and training, primarily from contextual, theoretical, measurement, distinctiveness, content, pedagogical and typology points of view. The range of multiple teaching models and learning processes to embrace in various contexts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The propositions allow for the combination of teaching initiatives in a theory-driven framework and their applicability to specific entrepreneurship and innovation education and training situations.\nPractical implications: The authors' contribution identifies the synergies and differences between entrepreneurship education and training programs. The propositions highlight areas of contextualisation and practice-based view application, to adopt specific learning initiatives between constructs.\nOriginality/value: The authors address a gap in the literature regarding the delineation of entrepreneurship and innovation education and training, which has thus far remained sparsely addressed in the education and training literature. The authors provide a practice-based view of propositions, developed for future testing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Contextualising work-life balance: a case of women of African origin in the UK	[ "Gender", "Work–life balance", "Career development", "Job satisfaction", "African women" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In spite of the numerous efforts to curb gender gaps and foster equality in the workplace, research (Durbin et al., 2017; Conley and Page, 2017; Independent, 2017; Kelan, 2017) shows that inequality still exists, especially in relation to the slow improvement of women's job satisfaction and progression in the workplace. One of the ongoing discussions that reveal this is work-family balance, which is integrated as part of the work-life balance phenomenon. In response to concerns about work-life balance, job satisfaction and career advancement of women, studies (Frone et al., 1992; Goff et al., 1990; Netemeyer et al., 1996; Adame et al., 2015; Bateman et al., 2016) have established the conflict between family duties and career demands. This conflict arises because some aspects of work and family roles are incompatible (Adame et al., 2015), and depend on the career or family stage of women (Beigi et al., 2018). Employers have responded by developing policies that reinforce the need for best practices on work-life balance (De Cieri et al., 2005; Dupre and Day, 2007; Giardini and Kabst, 2008; Ribeiro-Soriano and Urbano, 2010). Despite research, publications and institutional efforts to foster best practices, work-life balance remains a challenge, which affects how organisation's address and manage the work-life balance experiences of male and female employees. This suggests the need to understand the perceptions of diverse groups of people in the workplace and factors that influence their decisions concerning achieving work-life balance.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Conceptual views on work-life and work-family balance\n3. Research methods: 3.1 The context - women of African origin\n4. Findings: We highlight in (Box 1) some language used by respondents in sharing their experiences on work-family balance. Each quote is from a different interviewee.\n5. Discussion and theoretical implications: This research explores the experiences of women of African origin as they position themselves within the work-family discourse. We specifically reflect this within the context of work-family conflict and gender inequality theories to identify, recognise and validate the role of time-based, behaviour based and strain-based conflict in managing these responsibilities. In addition, we reveal the significance of shared roles in division of family responsibilities, including household, childcare and wage labour (Kelliher et al., 2018). We also establish the use of functionalities such as support systems towards goal attainment, integration and adaptation for work-family balance.\n6. Practical importance and implications of research: Diversity in the workplace calls for the need to work for inclusion rather than marginalisation (Kamenou, 2008; Ali and French, 2019). Women of African origin, as other migrants, face cross-cultural adjustment problems (Hajro et al., 2019) and their acculturation may depend on time spent in the UK. In this work, we examine women as social entities and reveal how specific factors can influence their work-family balance and career advancement. Drawing on Kim and Omizo (2006), we postulate the need for organisations to pay attention to the acculturation and enculturation of these women, which would indicate observing their cultural behaviours, values, knowledge and identities to understand how they integrate, assimilate and to also prevent separation and marginalisation. We also propose the use of (internal and external) women networks as support systems for these women. These networks create the opportunities for informal learning (Manuti et al., 2015) even beyond the workplace. We reemphasise the need for situational leadership and flexible work patterns that can allow for job satisfaction and career advancement. In addition, we recommend training around management assumptions and support towards career development and job satisfaction for these women. This should include awareness trainings that focuses on giving these women safe spaces to discuss their work-life conflicts with management. Likewise, these trainings should also consider mindful responses that are built on facts and not assumptions to help these women identify and consider the choices available to them. Finally, organisations should create structure that support workplace learning (Park and Lee, 2018). These structures should include activities such as decision-making, communication, career advancement planning and flexible work patterns that ensure these women have the opportunities and expertise required to meet organisational objectives.\n7. Limitations and future research: Although this work draws from empirical findings to explore the experience of women of African origin in the UK, an increase in sample size can provide more insight to other indicators of how work-family balance occurs. This study ascertains similarities and differences concerning gender and ethnic diversity issues. In addition, we believe this work acts as a lens to more studies as we propose the impact of personality trait and cultural positioning in the broader study of work-family balance, women and career advancement. Likewise, we propose the opportunity for future studies that focus on enhancing the theoretical contribution as highlighted within this study, which emphasises the inclusion of the discussed themes within the theoretical framework we used.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The existing gender gap in the workplace, that affects job satisfaction and career advancement of women, creates a need to understand further the causes and effects of the gender gap phenomenon. Although, there are many challenges that affect women's job satisfaction and advancement in the workplace, this paper aims to investigate work-life balance using multiple theoretical lenses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women from Nigeria and Ghana residing in the UK, they were selected using a purposive sampling method.\nFindings: The findings show four main factors that explain the choices these women make in relation to work-family. These are cultural sensitivities, current phase in family and work-life, personality types and other influences such as policies and financial commitment. Results also show how these women make these work-family choices using networks and services.\nPractical implications: The paper postulates the need for organisation's to pay attention to the acculturation and enculturation of these women, which would indicate observing their cultural behaviour's, values, knowledge and identities to understand how they integrate, assimilate and to also prevent separation and marginalisation. In addition, the use of (internal and external) networks as support systems for these women can create the opportunity for informal learning. Finally, organisation's should create structure that support workplace learning and should include activities such as decision-making, communication, career advancement planning and flexible work patterns.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to theory using multiple theories (work-family, gender inequality and Theories X and Y in explaining the work-family construct of women of African origin in the UK.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Performance analysis and measurement of reconfigurable manufacturing systems	[ "Performance measurement", "Flexibility", "Manufacturing systems", "Manufacturing flexibility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is considered to be a new philosophy of manufacturing. The RMS can be defined as a system designed at the outset for rapid change in structure, as well as in hardware and software components, in order to quickly adjust production capacity and functionality within a part family in response to new circumstances (sudden changes in market or in regulatory requirements), by rearrangement or change of its components (Koren et al., 1999). Although this definition was named Koren's definition (Bi et al., 2008), there is a controversy about the definition of RMS. Bi et al. (2008) said, at the 3rd Conference on Reconfigurable Manufacturing held at the University of Michigan during May 2005, \"The attendees have had a controversy about the definition of RMS. Some insist that a RMS is an intermediate paradigm between mass production and flexible manufacturing system (FMS), some argue that an RMS is an advanced paradigm whose flexibility must be higher than that of an FMS, and the others think it is not very meaningful to distinguish RMSs from FMSs.\"\n2. Related review: In evaluating manufacturing systems (firms), a common industry practice is to evaluate system performance regarding the most recommended objectives. These objectives are different according to the analysis perspective. Zhong et al. (2000) and Speredelozzi and Hu (2002) suggested quality, productivity, convertibility, and scalability as the most important performance measures for machining systems with configurations which were somewhat different than those of a manufacturing system. They measured productivity using a machine reliability concept. Quality was measured by the mean and standard deviation of product characteristics at the end of the production line. Convertibility and scalability are important when considering the responsiveness of a manufacturing company. Convertibility was considered as the time required converting a machining system into different configurations while scalability was related to production volume. Zhong et al. (2000) and Speredelozzi and Hu (2002) did not present a performance measure model to evaluate the major objectives and their research were based on the physical arrangement of a manufacturing system without regarding the type of their evaluation system design.\n3. A new aggregate quantitative metric: In this paper, analysis for reconfiguration measures is suggested to answer one of the most important questions: \"How do we evaluate the reconfiguration process or methodology in response to new circumstances?\" New circumstances involve changes in market demand, changes in product design or/and introduction of a new product. How can these new circumstances be related to the reconfiguration systems analysis? Figure 1 illustrates an answer to this question by adjusting the manufacturing firm's functionality (product variety and/or introducing a new product) and productivity (production volume or demand).\n4. Case study implementation: The XYZ Company is the only extrusion company in Oman. The company has a unique process of powder coating applications for the manufacture of aluminum products and accessories. More than 80 percent of its products are used by the construction and architectural sectors for doors and windows. The product range includes mill finished products, powder spray painting, anodizing and wood coated products. Online monitoring, offline quality checks, and preventive maintenance practices are applied to achieve precision and a high level of quality. The company has International Organization of Standardization certification (e.g. 9000-9001) that ensures premium quality of their products. Almost 80 percent of their material is derived from raw materials while the remaining 20 percent is scrap sent back to the original supplier. The company is a major exporter, exporting 60 percent of its product to Gulf countries, 12 percent to Europe, and almost 20 percent to other neighboring countries like India, Pakistan, and Africa while the remaining 8 percent remains in Oman.\n5. Conclusions and recommendations for further work: This paper presents a novel performance measurement model to evaluate the reconfiguration process. Six important major objectives (cost, responsiveness, system productivity, people behavior, WIP, and quality) with estimated their relative weights using the AHP were considered. During the evaluation process, the relative weights of minor objectives were also estimated in the new metric of performance. The weight for both the major and minor objectives can be frequently modified and estimated in response to new circumstances. It can be concluded that responsiveness, cost, system productivity, quality, work in process, people behavior, and inventory are the basic foundations on which every manufacturing system stands. Based on the analysis of the real case study, some of these objectives are very important such as responsiveness, system productivity, and cost. Some objectives are important such as product quality and WIP. People behavior represents the smallest value on the performance focussed mainly on hiring new employees. These comments can be changed from case to another case based on the new circumstances and the perspectives of the manufacturing managers, plant managers and/or other decision makers who are involved as a stakeholder.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a new performance analysis and measurement regarding reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) taken into consideration new circumstances which include changes in the market demand, changes in a product design, and/or introduction of a new product. As the reconfiguration process is applied to a manufacturing system to improve the system's performance due to new circumstances, the RMS process has potential quantitative and qualitative measures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The manufacturing system has a great impact on the performance measurement and the selection of the objectives to measure the performance is very important. These objectives include the critical requirements for a RMS and they are as follows: product cost, manufacturing response, system productivity, people behavior, inventory, and quality of the finished products. Because each criterion measure in a RMS is a potential source of evaluation, it should have a relative weight with respect to the other measures. First, each criterion will be measured individually. Second, these measures need to be evaluated through an aggregate quantitative metric because there is a lack of analytical techniques to analyze and evaluate both qualitative and quantitative measures.\nFindings: Performance evaluation of a RMS from one circumstance to another is highly desired by using the new quantitative metric regarding updating (upgrading) the system for the next period based on the previous one. The results show that the applicable of using this new technique in evaluating the RMS. The results also support the new quantitative metric.\nOriginality/value: The suggestion of a new aggregate performance measurement metric including the all potential objectives is highly considered. This paper provides an insight into each objective individually to measure it. It is also used from 0 to 1 as range of measure to evaluate the potential and aggregate metrics toward next reconfiguration with respect to the existing one.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A Colombian classic management thinker: Alejandro Lopez Restrepo	[ "Alejandro López Restrepo", "Colombia", "Management history", "Scientific management", "Work", "Efficiency" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Alejandro Lopez Restrepo (1876-1940), a Colombian civil and mining engineer, introduced scientific management into the country with a discussion of political and industrial economics from the perspectives of sociology and psychology. In addition, from a liberal perspective, he provided a definition of work, enterprise, and management alternative to that of the Catholic Church, which promoted ideological discourse deeply rooted in Colombia's ruling elite. During the first half of the twentieth century, Lopez tried to reconcile theoretical development with administrative practice through his work as a public servant and his lectures, writings, entrepreneurship and managerial activities.\nColombian context during early industrialization: The transition from a productive system of family shops into a manufacturing industry in Europe and the USA was marked by the promotion of a work ethic that allowed for the transformation of craftsmen's logic into their efforts being valued as a function of machines' requirements and being part of the poor class under a controlled system fed by \"countless speeches from church pulpits\" (Bauman, 2004, p. 16) and such organizations as the \"Christian youth associations that would stop the euphoria and foster a more reliable workforce\" (Barley and Kunda, 1992, p. 82). Colombia was not the exception. In fact, it was heavily influenced by Catholic church and its power to influence the rationale and motivation of work ethic.\nBiography: Alejandro Lopez Restrepo was born in Medellin in 1876, to a family of craftsmen tailors with strong morals based on integrity, self to control, austerity and education as the source of personal and social growth. In his family's shop, workers were treated fairly and respectfully, while favoritism was scorned; this circumstance consolidated Lopez's interest in studying workers and their needs (Mayor, 2001). Lopez graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Antioquia in 1899 and as a mining engineer from the National School of Mines of Medellin in 1908. His degree thesis, La Quiebra Tunnel of the Antioquia Railroad (Lopez, 1899), was a proposal to connect a productive region to the seaport through the mountain. This idea made Lopez famous, but it also became a topic of political discussion because costs were two and three times higher than those of other projects that bordered the mountain, but it reduced travel time and costs by half. Lopez's idea of efficiency, a long-term vision discussed below, was understood almost three decades later when, with the support of President Pedro Nel Ospina,[4] the government of Antioquia started construction of the tunnel in 1926 (Mayor, 2001).\nLegacy: As a field of study and an academic discipline, administration was introduced in Ibero-America with Elements of Administrative Science (1839) by Colombian Florentino Gonzalez (Guerrero, 1997). However, Lopez extended this field by taking advantage of knowledge he gained in Europe and North America (Orozco and Villaveces, 2015), thereby establishing foundations for its institutionalization as a practice and science in Colombia (Mayor, 2001).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present the Colombian Alejandro Lopez Restrepo as a classic management thinker from the first half of the twentieth century and discuss his ideas in the light of Anglo-Saxon authors at that time and his contributions as a professor, manager and public servant.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Bibliographic material including Lopez's books and essays and their biography published by Mayor (2001) are reviewed to organize a new reading of Lopez as a management thinker and practitioner.\nFindings: Beyond several classical managerial thinkers, Lopez reconceptualized scientific management with a critical discussion of classical economic theory using sociology and psychology to present a unique conception of work, enterprise and efficiency as a public service that gives sense to individual and social realization to face the future and create development.\nResearch limitations/implications: Techniques as critical biography and interpretation of data have not been used, instead the aim to contribute to the literature of management history a Latin American' thinker.\nPractical implications: Including Lopez as a classical management thinker can improve the study of management history. His life and ideas give new reflexive insight to understand the development of management in Colombia and serve to inspire administrators to seek improvements in society.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a new approach toward studying Alejandro Lopez beyond previous sociological work by Mayor (2001) with the discussion of the contributions in the lenses of managerial practices and theoretical insights at that time.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring the impact of out-of-class communication through instant messaging	[ "Student engagement", "Classroom communication", "Instant messages", "Remind", "Technology in teaching and learning", "Out-of-class communication" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which the use of outof-class communication (OCC) between students and lecturers using an online instant message application known as \"Remind\" (www.remind.com/) influences students' learning. Developing an effective teaching and learning process has been a profound area of interest in education today. The areas are expanded into various influencing factors to be successful in achieving the teaching and learning goals. In a traditional teaching method, a lecturer passes on the knowledge to the students who would passively receive the knowledge and learn them by heart. This didactic teaching and learning method is found to have negative effects toward students' learning ability and hence prevent them from unleashing their potential (Dolan et al., 2002). In order to overcome this, one increasingly accepted view is to consider teaching and learning as a two-way process in which students, not only passively receive knowledge from lecturers, but also engage actively in pre-, in- and post-class activities. Therefore, interaction plays a vital role in ensuring a mutual and thorough understanding between lecturer and student about each other's issues and concerns. According to Kansanen (1999), besides the direct face-to-face interactive phase in the classroom, interaction process also includes an indirect phase when students seek private consultations with their lecturers or stay in touch with them outside the classroom using computer-facilitated communication.\nOCC: The concept of OCC has been suggested by extensive research from academic journals. Using Google Scholar and RMIT Databases, this paper provides a comprehensive revision of existing literature on OCC. The most common theme in OCC research has been the ability of OCC to facilitate the closeness between lecturers and students (Hayes and Weibelzahl, 2015 p. 279). This is particularly valued by first-year students as a vital element in fostering their confidence and success in higher education (Jones et al., 2009). OCC is defined as learner-lecturer interaction which occurs outside of the classroom setting with the purpose of handling the students' needs (Imlawi et al., 2015). It includes structured actions like emailing or visiting the lecturer during office hours to seek help; and unstructured actions including informal pre- or post-class conversations (Kurucay and Inan, 2017; Sidelinger et al., 2015). It is this unstructured interaction that is favorably considered to be an effective way of promoting social bonding and social learning (Nardi et al., 2000; Pai et al., 2017), which can ultimately lead to positive outcomes for students such as increased student motivation and reduced pressure (Rau et al., 2008; Komarraju et al., 2010), improved commitment and involvement within the classroom (Dobransky and Frymier, 2004) and increased readiness for the job market (Komarraju et al., 2010) since informal OCC offers students the chance to clarify concepts and ideas from class activities and readings (Hoffman, 2014; Goldman et al., 2016). Jones (2008) found that higher levels of out-of-class supports provided by lecturers have a positive impact on students' motivation to learn and increase their satisfaction. Moreover, empirical studies have shown well-established benefits of OCC include improved GPAs, better GRE scores, better-prepared career plans, superior college experiences, and better intellectual and personal development (Nadler and Nadler, 2000).\nAcademic utility of computer-mediated technologies: Email, social networking sites (SNS) and IM are prevalent technologies in higher education. Since the adoption of computer-mediated communication (CMC) by college and university students continue to grow, it is critical to understand the utility of each technology to select the most appropriate one to foster learner-lecturer relationship.\nApplication of technology in education: Prensky (2001) calls the younger generation of students \"digital natives.\" They are surrounded by an environment that inspires them to learn through technology such as mobile phones, online videogames and computers since childhood (Prensky, 2001). Younger generation is more comfortable communicating via computer rather than face-to-face (Boyle and O'Sullivan, 2016). Hence, the technology in education has become the preferred mode of communication. Growing up as \"digital natives,\" students are used to the exposure and process of excessive information (McCarthy, 2010; Chao et al., 2011). Consequently, students' learning skills and preferences are influenced by the digital culture in the education environment (McCarthy, 2010). Naturally as students are familiar with the technology and the understanding of its necessity, they evidently prefer active to passive learning (McCarthy, 2010; Chao et al., 2011).\nClarification reason and students' perceived content quality: In this study, clarification reason is perceived as course-related questions from learners to their lecturers such as seeking help if they did not understand the topic, requesting lecture materials, tutorials as well as further guidance in doing assignments on the IM app, namely Remind. The chat feature on the app allows learners to request a clarification or responses for their inquiries and build interpersonal rapport with lecturers. The extant research on the use of CMC has found that students use popular technologies such as e-mails for educational assistance and interpersonal communication (Dutton, 2012; Weiser, 2000; Waldeck et al., 2001). According to Young et al. (2011), using such form of computer-mediated OCC to communicate with the lecturers can foster student-lecturer professional relational development. Similar to e-mails, IM is also a favored form of communication for personal and social relationships (Vrocharidou and Efthymiou, 2012). However, unlike e-mails, which are asynchronous and time-delayed communication, IM can become synchronous to interact in real time, which improves the relatedness, that is feeling connected to others (Butz and Stupnisky, 2017), thus, enhance student-lecturer relationship. Lo and Leung (2009) stated that most students would choose IM over e-mails, if they were able to select one medium for social communication. The IM application like Remind is used as it allows 140-character limit for each post, forcing the message to be short, meaningful, less formal, and more attractive than long messages.\nRelationship between students' perceived content quality and their performance: Socially related communication can improve students' task-delivering and problem-solving abilities, and consequently have both direct and indirect impacts on their performance (Yu et al., 2010). Proposing an assessment model for learning management systems (LMS), Ozkan and Koseler (2009) found that a strong positive relationship exists between content quality; which is defined as the ease of understanding, concurrence and richness of materials content; and students' perceived satisfaction. Additionally, the use of online informative platforms for clarification reason has been found to consolidate learner-lecturer interpersonal connections, which ultimately leads to academic success on the part of the students (Young et al., 2011). Students' perceptions about the quality of the contents received from IM as well as their interactions with lecturers and peers are believed to have an impactful weight on their performance in the course.\nMethodology: The study design\nResults: Convergent and discriminant validity\nDiscussion: Learning interaction process comprises of direct face-to-face communication in the classroom and indirect communication outside the classroom (Kansanen, 1999). Clarification reason for online communication using the chat feature on \"Remind\" outside the classroom, according to Kansanen (1999), is indirect interaction (Figure 2) whereby students ask their lecturers about course content and assignments is stated to build up the bond between lecturers and students and thereby, support the students' confidence and success in higher education (Young et al., 2011; Jones et al., 2009). Within indirect interaction, there are structured interaction and unstructured interaction. Structured interaction is an institution's formal and instructional processes; whereas unstructured interaction is not compulsory and deals with informal conversations (Terenzini et al., 1999). In this study, the chat feature via \"Remind\" is also informal and optional; in other words, it is unstructured interaction (Figure 2). The informal interaction method has been proven to bring a number of positive learning outcomes (Rau et al., 2008; Dobransky and Frymier, 2004; Nadler and Nadler, 2000), and to promote social bonding and social learning (Terenzini et al., 1999; Nardi et al., 2000). In addition, \"Remind\" is facilitated with either smartphones for messaging or any device with internet-based notification (e.g. e-mails and websites), so it is CMC (Figure 2). This makes the clarification more convenient, and more participative; and enhances bonding, learning efficiency and effectiveness. (Kansanen, 1999; Ericson, 2011; Olaniran, 2006; Abu and Abdul, 2012; Lauricella and Kay, 2013).\nConclusion: The findings conclude stating that using the IM system is favorable to students. The results of the students' perceived content quality is supported and online communication for learning purpose has a positive influence on their perceived performance proficiency. Before using the \"Remind\" messaging system the students were unclear and unsure of the information and the classroom materials and would require constant reminding and re-assurance from the lecturer. This took up class time and sometimes led to unclear communication and class performance. In addition, not all first-year students were assertive and had confidence to seek clarification (Maheshwari and Thomas, 2017). However, after using the \"Remind\" messaging system, allowed a better form of communication to occur which integrates structured and unstructured communication in the teaching and learning process with positive outcomes. This research shows perceived content quality as a mediating variable in the causal relationship between teaching and learning online communication and outcomes. The use of IM tool, \"Remind\" in this case, should be weighed up carefully. The research has a practical importance in the sense that there is pressure to integrate technology into all educational settings and \"Remind\" emerges as one of preeminent means for teaching and learning CMC. The role of communication in enhancing student experience be it in the use of new technology in blended learning or simply keeping up with class materials should not be underplayed in any form of education setting be it in higher education or primary and secondary education system, and hence the increasing need for communication tools like \"Remind\". This research would be of interest to educators who are exploring different forms of blended learning and communication approach or staff who are developing curriculum for non-English speaking students and distance learning. The \"Remind\" application can also be used in other forms of educating the society such as by health care practitioners to remind and educate patients to come for appointments and take appropriate medications.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the growing body of literature demonstrating the role of communication in educational settings, there are limited up-to-date studies exploring the use of an instant messaging (IM) tool and its impacts on students' learning outcomes, especially in the tertiary education in Vietnam. This study approached IM as an out-of-class communication (OCC) approach in computer-mediated communication. The purpose of this paper is to investigate students' perceived quality of information received and its influence on their perceived performance proficiency as a result of their lecturers' clarification of their enquiries through an online instant message application, namely Remind (www.remind.com/).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The target groups were first-year business students in an international university in Vietnam. The analysis of the data gathered from the questionnaire was carried out using a measurement model and a structural equation model.\nFindings: The findings indicate that using OCC technology creates social bonding between students and lecturers by allowing students to clarify the ambiguity of concepts learnt in class and create a sense of connection with their lecturers which leads to better student engagement and hence improved learning outcomes.\nOriginality/value: The authors highlight the evidence of effective usage of IM tool by university students as a meaningful communication tool and the need to integrate technology into all educational settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Application of Gini, Theil and concentration indices for assessing water use inequality	[ "Water", "Sustainable development", "Inequality", "Gini coefficient", "Concentration curve", "Theil index" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Water is imperative for life on earth. Different parts of the earth are endowed with different quantities of fresh water resources, but human settlements can be seen in varied parts of the world irrespective of its water potential. For example, many major cities around the world can be seen transporting water from distant sources to fulfill its massive demands. Hence, access to water largely depends on the economic wealth and infrastructure availability in the area. In other words, having access to clean water is a developmental challenge. Because of inequality in factors such as finance, infrastructure and natural water resource; access and quantity of water used by different sections of the world population can vary and might not be equal. Again, with improved economic health of a nation, demand and use of water may also be on the rise because of adoption of water-siphoning lifestyles.\n2. Data and methods: 2.1 Lorenz curves and Gini coefficient\n3. Results and discussion: 3.1 Distribution of domestic water use\n4. Conclusion: One of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is having equitable access of water across populations (United Nations, n.d.). But currently, water use varies with different countries and is not equal. Rare attempts have been made to quantify this inequality. In this study, Gini coefficient, concentration and Theil indices have been used to quantify the inequality in domestic water use among 30 countries in the world.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose the application of Gini, Theil and concentration indices for measuring inequality in water usage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Gini coefficients and Theil indices have been used to estimate the overall inequality in domestic water use in a sample of 30 countries around the world. Along with Theil's L (unweighted) index, liters per capita per day and gross national income weighted Theil index have also been estimated. Theil indices have been further disintegrated into within- and between-group inequalities. Concentration curve is also constructed to study the inequality in water use in accordance to the countries' economic standing.\nFindings: Domestic water use is high among the well-off countries considered in the study. Also, the Theil indices indicate that between group inequality contributes more to the overall inequality. It is observed that Theil indices, which consider only per capita water usage and can be decomposed, give a better insight into the existing inequality.\nPractical implications: Different approaches were used to quantify inequality. The choice of index depends on the context of the study. The proposed approaches can contribute to planning of sustainable water management and development policies.\nOriginality/value: There is a dearth of metrics for quantifying inequality in water access or use. The study presents the application of indices, widely used in quantifying inequality in access to other resources such as income and energy, in assessing water inequality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimal lockout/tagout, preventive maintenance, human error and production policies of manufacturing systems with passive redundancy	[ "Preventive maintenance", "Human error", "Lockout/tagout", "Passive redundancy", "Production control" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Production systems optimization is an interesting topic for researchers as well as industry. To increase the availability of machines at the functional level, several maintenance strategies have been developed (Njike et al., 2011; Boulet et al., 2009). The problem of optimally controlling production rates in a manufacturing system has been widely discussed in the scientific literature (Hajji et al., 2009; Kenne et al., 2007, 2009). In this view, Rishel (1975) developed the optimal conditions to obtain the optimal solution using dynamic programming. Based on the formalism of Rishel (1975), Sethi et al. (2002) modeled the stochastic control production planning for a flexible manufacturing system subject to random failures, which allowed them to obtain the dynamic programming equation of optimal control. In this way, Sethi et al. (2002) modeled the uncertainties of manufacturing system by homogeneous Markov processes and determined the production policy in which the inventory and backlog cost are minimized according to the production rate. The homogeneous process assumes that state transition rates are constant. This is not actually applicable in the manufacturing system in which the failure rate depends on the machine age (Boukas and Haurie, 1990).\n2. Assumptions and notations: This paper incorporates the following assumptions.\n3. Problem statement: This section develops a manufacturing system for two machines that are not identical in passive redundancy and producing one type of part. These machines are prone to random breakdowns and repairs. The machine could be shut down and locked for preventive maintenance. Repairs will be carried out for machines breakdowns in the context of a year-to-year operation of the system. The system is shown in Figure 1. In the system under consideration, the main machine operates any time. The other machine called the cold-standby redundancy goes online immediately when the main machine fails. Then, the maintenance service is triggered to restore the failed machine. After the failed machine is restored, it will be returned into the standby position. The main machine has two states: x\n4. Numerical example and sensitivity analysis: In this section, a numerical example for a manufacturing system consisting of two non-identical machines in passive redundancy is presented. The system capacity is described by a five Markov process with states x(t)[?]B=[1,2,3,4,5]. The generator matrix Q(*) described by Equation (3) is explicitly defined as follows:\n5. Conclusion: This paper sought to verify the influence of human error on the preventive maintenance activity with lockout/tagout. In this paper, the control policy is based on an extension of the hedging point structure. Based on the numerical solution obtained, a parameterized near-optimal control policy was derived. The proposed approach using a numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are illustrated and validated. This work demonstrates clearly that human error during maintenance activities can increase the production cost while reducing the safety of workers. In order to avoid this problem, the maintenance technicians must be better trained and also the production cadence must not be increased brutally. Because the maintenance technician can make a mistake and the occurrence probability of an incident or accident will be increased. Furthermore, a larger inventory level must be stored in order to meet the demand during the maintenance activity. Lastly, a number of conditions must be met to make effective use of the model presented in this paper.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The analysis of the optimal production and preventive maintenance with lockout/tagout planning problem for a manufacturing system is presented in this paper. The considered manufacturing system consists of two non-identical machines in passive redundancy producing one type of part. These machines are subject to random breakdowns and repairs. The purpose of this paper is to minimize production, inventory, backlog and maintenance costs over an infinite planning horizon; in addition, it aims to verify the influence of human reliability on the inventory levels for illustrating the importance of human error during the maintenance and lockout/tagout activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is different compared to other research projects on preventive maintenance and lockout/tagout. The influence of human error on lockout/tagout as well as on preventive maintenance activities are presented in this paper. The preventive maintenance policy depends on the machine age. For the considered manufacturing system the optimality conditions are provided, and numerical methods are used to obtain machine age-dependent optimal control policies (production and preventive maintenance rates with lockout/tagout). Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach. The system capacity is described by a finite-state Markov chain.\nFindings: The proposed model taking into account the preventive maintenance activities with lockout/tagout and human error jointly, instead of taking into account separately. It verifies the influence of human error during preventive maintenance and lockout/tagout activities on the optimal safety stock levels using an extension of the hedging point structure.\nPractical implications: The model proposed in this paper might be extended to manufacturing systems, but a number of conditions must be met to make effective use of it.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this paper is to consider the preventive maintenance activities with lockout/tagout and human error simultaneously. The control policy is obtained in order to find the solution for the considered manufacturing system. This paper also brings a new vision on the importance of human reliability during preventive maintenance and lockout/tagout activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ISO 9001 certification and corporate performance of Italian companies	[ "ISO 9001", "Corporate performance", "ISO 9000 standards", "Quality certification", "Risk of failure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The evolution of the concept of \"quality\" in company management systems has encouraged the development of several models that focus on the various aspects of the organizational process with different levels of involvement (Withers et al., 1997). Quality certification has become a common practice, in particular ISO 9000 standards are one of the most diffused models in the world for the design, implementation, maintaining and certification of quality management system (QMS) (Franceschini et al., 2006; Marimon et al., 2009; Sampaio et al., 2009, 2011a; Marimon et al., 2010). Promoted by International Organization for Standardization, ISO 9000 series are a set of policies, rules and activities necessary for quality assurance of products and services provided by an organization, and may be applied to any kind of small, medium or large organizations either in the manufacturing or service (private or public) field. (ISO 9000, 2005; ISO 9001, 2008; ISO 9004, 2009; ISO 19011, 2011).\n2. Literature review: Data published on \"The ISO Survey of Management System Standard Certifications - 2013\" show that, up to the end of December 2013, at least 1,129,446 certificates had been issued all over the world (ISO, 2014). The 2013 total represents an increase of 3 percent (+32,459) over 2012. Even if the global situation is close to reach a saturation level, for many countries the diffusion trend is still increasing. In particular, Italy, USA, Eastern-European and Asian countries (these latters introduced quality certification only in the recent years) are among the ones in continuous rising for number of certificates. The top three countries for the total number of certificates issued up to the end of 2013 were China, Italy and Germany, while the top three for growth in the number of certificates from 2012 to 2013 were Italy, India and USA.\n3. The methodology: In order to produce an objective response to the risen questions a statistical approach has been implemented. The Altman indicator Z-score (Altman and Hotchkiss, 2005) has been used to give an aggregate expression of the economic/financial profile of a company. This index summarizes, through a single numerical value, five macro-aspects of a company: liquidity, profitability, leverage, solvency and activity. High values of Z-score indicate that the company is in a situation of stability and economic security, conversely, low values of Z-score signal that the company is at risk of failure.\n4. Results of the analysis and discussion: From a first rough descriptive analysis of the obtained data, it is possible to see that among the 63,400 companies with registered offices in Italy, that have been detected and analyzed, 19.06 percent of these are certified and, in particular, 5.27 percent attained a quality certification in the period from 2008 to 2010, while the remaining 13.79 percent got it before 2008.\n5. Conclusion: This study aimed at investigating whether there is a relationship between ISO 9001 quality certification and the risk of failure of Italian companies in the period 2008/2010, characterized by the beginning of a serious economic crisis. In this regard, a statistical analysis was performed on a sample of 63,400 Italian companies in the manufacturing sector. The risk of failure associated to Altman's Z'-score has been assumed as the response variable of a statistical model considering the following factors: certification, company size, regional development and manufacturing sub-sector.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to verify a possible relationship between quality management system certification according to ISO 9001 standard and risk of failure of Italian companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A synthetic index which summarize the most crucial economic/financial aspects of the studied companies is assumed as the response variable of a statistical model for studying the effects of four specific factors: certification, company size, regional development and manufacturing sub-sector. The analysis is conducted on a sample of Italian companies belonging to different manufacturing sub-sectors. The used data are obtained from the database Aida(r) by Bureau van Dijk and from the database of the Italian accreditation body Accredia. The study is based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) and contingency tables.\nFindings: Preliminary results of ANOVA show that only company size, regional development and manufacturing sub-sector can be considered fully significant. Furthermore, the major conclusion from the analysis of contingency tables is that ISO 9001 certification is connected to the legal status (active, not active) of a company only for a portion for the studied manufacturing sub-sectors. Hence, the scenario is quite variegated and a significant positive interaction between certification and corporate performance is not always confirmed.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the research shows some interesting results, it is liable to extensions and improvements. In particular, at the current exploratory level, it is limited to a specific period of time and considers only the Italian sector, but it could be extended to a wider number of years and to European and international level.\nPractical implications: The study opens a way for a number of important questions about the meaning, usefulness and effectiveness of ISO 9001 certification. In particular, it may be time to ask whether the paradigm of certification actually needs a radical rethink.\nOriginality/value: This work represents a first exploratory attempt to correlate the risk of failure with the achievement of ISO 9001 certification. There are several similar works in literature which, however, focus mainly on sectorial aspects of the corporate background.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Currency substitution in selected African countries	[ "Currency options", "Money supply", "Supply and demand", "Africa" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Currency substitution, in which foreign monies substitute for domestic money in its three traditional roles such as medium of exchange, unit of account and a store of value, makes execution of monetary and fiscal policy extremely difficult (Imrohoroglu, 1994; Calvo and Vegh, 1993; Niskanen, 2000; Giovannini and Turtleboom, 1992; Agenor and Khan, 1996; Rodriguez and Turner, 2003). A large number of factors make domestic residents substitute away from the domestic currency, namely, the foreign trade transactions, the domestic transactions, the portfolio diversification, and the avoidance of excessive financial losses from inflationary taxation[1] (Brand, 1993). In a country where currency substitution is prevalent, interest rate (both real and nominal) changes would be uncertain due to the instability of the money demand.Researchers examined the existence of currency substitutions and its adverse effects on policy making for both developed and underdeveloped countries[2]. Three distinct methods are used to identify the presence of currency substitution. Thomas (1985) argued that the ratio of real domestic balances to real foreign balances should be negatively related to the domestic nominal interest rate and positively to the foreign nominal interest rate if currency substitution exists in those economies. Other researchers used optimizing framework with both domestic currency and foreign currency as assets to identify currency substitutions[3] (Selcuk, 2003; Agenor and Khan, 1996). The presence of currency substitution has been also tested by examining the stability of the money demand function as the presence of currency substitution increases the volatility of money demand (Darrat et al., 1996; Sharma et al., 2004).The latter approach is the one considered in this paper. It is an indirect way of investigating the existence of currency substitution in a country by paying attention to the changes that take place in the money demand for domestic currency. We consider this approach because the data on foreign monies circulating in the economy and foreign deposits of domestic residents are not available for the countries considered here. Moreover, this approach has an advantage because it accounts for both capital mobility and currency substitution. Recently, Prock et al. (2003) investigated the presence of currency substitution in Latin America countries using this approach. They examined the money demand function of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in a vector error correction model. Their findings indicate that currency substitution is prevalent in all three countries, but it is more pronounced in Brazil and Argentina than in Mexico. Also, Darrat et al. (1996) examined the stability of money demand function for Japan while other researchers used a similar approach to study currency substitution in Asian developing countries (Sharma et al., 2004) and Mexico (Rodriguez and Turner, 2003).The stability of the money demand function is crucial to conduct an efficient and independent monetary policy. Haug and Lucas (1996) used a co-integration analysis to study the stability of the Canadian long-run money demand. They also estimated the parameters with the fully-modified estimation method using quarterly data from 1953:1 to 1990:4, and observed a stable money demand function for Canada. Lutkepohl et al. (1999) studied the stability and linearity of a German money (M1) demand function. They used smooth transition regression techniques capable of accommodating both smooth and sudden change in regression coefficients over time. Using quarterly data from 1960:1 to 1995:4, they noted that the relationship was linear and stable before 1990 and the monetary unification barely changed this relationship. Ibrahim (1998) using co-integration technique examined the stability of money demand in Malaysia by considering both M1 and M2 and observed that M1 is unstable in the long run, while M2 is stable in the long-run but unstable in the short-run. Consequently, he concludes that using M2 as a target in monetary policy will be recommended provided that the policy makers figure out the structural break in the money demand. There are only few studies devoted to money demand in African countries (for example see Agenor and Khan, 1996; Alami, 2001; and Elkhafif, 2003).Generally researchers examine whether currency substitution exists between domestic currency and US dollar, British pound, or Japanese yen. However, countries with weaker trade ties to these rich countries along with underdeveloped foreign currency market might lead agents to substitute other regional currency that might make their money demand unstable. As African countries are moving towards a more market based monetary regimes, a crucial part of this framework is to understand the behavior of their money demand functions. But, only few studies have been devoted to investigate the money demand in African countries. Moreover, all these studies investigated the stability of money demand by using currency substitution between US dollar and domestic currency. In this paper, we investigate the existence of currency substitution in eight African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Tunisia, Zambia, South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt by examining the stability of the money demand function in these countries using quarterly data from 1976:1 to 2005:4. Towards this goal both the US dollar and regional currencies are used as anchor currencies. We chose these eight African countries mainly for two reasons. We intend to reexamine using a different approach the findings of Agenor and Khan (1996) and Elkhafif (2003) who included Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa in their papers. We added four more countries (Ghana, Kenya, Tunisia and Zambia) since these countries follow somewhat floating exchange rate regimes and they have relatively stable political environment. Also, the availability of (reliable) data has been a factor in our choice for these countries.The extent of currency substitution could be determined with precision if one could get data on the quantity of foreign money with the public, the quantity of foreign money deposits in the domestic banking system and the amount of foreign currency deposits made abroad by domestic residents. However, the data on quantity of foreign money in circulation are not available even in developed countries. So applied researchers commonly use proxies like expected change in depreciation of exchange rate to circumvent the data problem (see Prock et al., 2003; Elkhafif, 2003).Our results indicate that there is no evidence of currency substitution in Kenya, Tunisia, and Zambia for both US dollar and regional currencies. However, for Ghana we observe that people substitute for CFA franc for their currency but not the US dollar. This means that if we take into account only the US dollar to examine the currency substitution we would have missed the presence of currency substitution in Ghana. We also note that Nigerians substitute both the US dollar and the CFA franc for their currency. This is quite possible since the rate of inflation in Nigeria is about 25 percent, so in order to protect the value of their liquidity Nigerians opted for substituting for foreign currencies. In Egypt and South Africa, we observe no evidence of currency substitution with respect to the US dollar. Morocco yields currency substitution when the US dollar serves as anchor, but it is insignificant. On the other hand, when the Egyptian pound is used as anchor currency, Morocco yields no evidence of currency substitution.This paper is structured as follows. In section 2 we specify the model. Data descriptions are presented in section 3, while the results and the policy implications are discussed in section 4. At the end some concluding remarks are made.\n2. Monetary policies in Africa: African countries have adopted different monetary policies depending on whether or not a country was colonized by France or Great Britain. Honohan and O'Connell (1997) have identified five types of monetary regimes adopted by countries across Africa since the 1960s. First, we have a rule-based regime. The currency board system is defined as a set of rules preventing the exercise of discretion in most dimensions of central bank activity (see Honohan and O'Connell, 1997). For instance, in most of the British colonies (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, among others) this system prevailed throughout the 1960s. On the other hand, in the French colonies (Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, among others) a rule-based system with much more control from France was implemented. It simply pegged local currencies to the French national currency (the French franc). As a result, monetary policies of these countries were almost entirely conducted by proxy by France throughout the 1960s to the 1990s. Recently, these countries are conducting somewhat more independent monetary policies.The second form of monetary regime is the automatic monetary financing system. In this system, authorities make extensive use of deficit financing by issuing high-powered money to accommodate any macroeconomic shock. Fiscal deficits for instance are essentially financed through inflation tax. Countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Zambia (in the 1980s, 1990s); Angola (in the 1990s) and Democratic Republic of Congo (from the 1970s to the 1990s) fit in this category. In other words, the quest for a controlled inflation is not a key objective of monetary decision-makers in these countries. As a result, these countries have experienced persistent inflation, or even hyperinflation.Third, there is the controlled economy regime or rationing regime. In these regimes, goods and exchange rates are rationed meaning that prices and quantities cannot fluctuate to clear markets. Authorities keep a tight control over the money supply. All shocks are accommodated through the establishment of rations. Thus, monetary policy in these economies is almost entirely passive or inactive. Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda among others implemented such regime in the 1970s; while other countries like Angola and Mozambique among others used it for a longer period throughout the 1970s and 1980s.Fourth, there is the monetary arrangement with credit ceiling. In this regime, commercial banks are limited in their ability to create money by the monetary authorities. Many African countries have introduced this form of monetary arrangement starting in the 1980s (see for instance Killick and Mwega, 1990). Ethiopia, Malawi and Nigeria have had a monetary policy driven by credit ceiling from the 1970s to the 1980s. Others like Kenya, Zambia and Ghana among others have used this regime in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively.Finally, we have market-clearing regimes. In these regimes, most of the decisions made by monetary authorities find their rationales through the forces of markets. They enjoy much more independence vis-a-vis the government and in the implementation of their policies. The government itself barely relies on expansionary monetary policies to offset the fiscal deficit. There is no preset credit ceiling as in the previous monetary arrangement: markets' conditions dictate the creation of money by banks. This form of regime is not currently widely observed in Africa. However, as more and more African governments are becoming fiscally responsible and embracing the rules of good governance, we are witnessing a movement towards the establishment of independent central banks able to implement independent and market-based monetary policies. For example, Kenya has been implementing a market clearing approach since the 1980s and Ghana started in the 1990s.\n3. Model specification and methodology: 3.1 Model specification\n4. Results and policy implications: Most of the studies in currency substitution examine whether people in a country hold foreign currencies of developed countries like US dollar, British pound, or Japanese yen. However, we examine whether people of these African countries hold some regional currencies. In addition to this, we examine whether they hold US dollar in their portfolio. The home currency and anchor currencies for each country are reported in Table I.4.1 Long-run analysis\n5. Conclusion: In this paper we examine the existence of currency substitution in eight African countries. Using a portfolio balance model we estimate money demand functions where expected depreciation rate of the exchange rate is an explanatory variable. A significant negative coefficient for this expected depreciation rate of the exchange rate indicates the presence of currency substitution. We examined currency substitutions related to regional currency and we find the existence of currency substitution in three countries- namely, Ghana (anchor currency: CFA franc), Nigeria (anchor currency: CFA franc) and South Africa (anchor currency: US dollar). We also estimated the money demand function using the US dollar as an anchor currency for all countries. We find that currency substitution exists in Nigeria but not in Ghana. Also for Morocco we find weak evidence of currency substitution when US dollar is the anchor currency. These results indicate that we need to be careful about choice of anchor currency when we are conducting analysis related to currency substitution.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to investigate the presence of currency substitution in eight African countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study investigates the presence of currency substitution in eight African countries - Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia - for the period 1976 to 2005 using both regional and US dollar as anchor currencies.\nFindings: - The paper finds that currency substitution is prevalent in Ghana and Nigeria when CFA franc is used as an anchor currency. However, when US dollar is used as an anchor currency there is no evidence of currency substitution in Ghana, but the presence of currency substitution in Nigeria is still observed. The paper also finds the presence of currency substitution in South Africa, but not in Egypt when the US dollar is the anchor currency. For Kenya, Tunisia and Zambia there is no evidence of currency substitution irrespective of the anchor currencies considered. In the case of Morocco, no evidence of currency substitution is observed when the Egyptian pound is used as anchor currency, but there is weak evidence of currency substitution when the US dollar is considered.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides useful information on the presence of currency substitution in African countries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are lifestyle centres unique? Consumers' perceptions across locations	[ "Shopping centres", "Consumer behaviour", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Retail location has long been considered as an important strategic business decision for a number of reasons. First, consumers' store choice decisions are influenced greatly by accessibility of retail locations according to spatial interaction models, which denote the relationship between a consumer's perception of utility and characteristics of a destination (Fotheringham and O'Kelly, 1989). Second, retailers may be able to develop a sustainable competitive advantage through location strategy (Levy and Weitz, 2007). In the USA, there are a number of location options for retailers, from unplanned retail locations such as central business districts to planned shopping centres such as traditional shopping malls. Among the options are the recently emerging lifestyle centres.According to the International Council of Shopping Centres (2006, p. 3), a lifestyle centre is defined as \"an open-air project located near affluent residential neighbourhoods that includes at least 50,000 square feet of retail space occupied by upscale national chain specialty stores\". The design of lifestyle centres, which is different from that of traditional enclosed shopping malls, allows consumers to have a distinct shopping experience through walking around in an open-air plaza with individual storefronts in sight. Guidry and Montero (2005) suggested that shopping has become more purpose driven for consumers' lifestyle centre shopping trips and the outdoor retail settings provide an ambiance that encourages consumers to feel more relaxed. It is also noted that lifestyle centres are similar to downtown district retail locations except that parking can be easier at lifestyle centres (Guidry and Montero, 2005).Lifestyle centres have become a popular retail concept in the United States because of the provision of a new location option for retailers to open more stores and because of the distinct shopping environment, which helps draw an increasingly large group of American consumers. As the popularity of lifestyle centres has increased, competition among retail locations has become more intense. To remain competitive, traditional enclosed shopping malls undergo renovation and redevelopment to attract consumers by offering a new destination retail centre concept (Levy and Weitz, 2007). Central business districts have also been declining due to various factors (e.g. security issues and parking problems). A number of cities have committed to planning and redevelopment in order to reinvigorate shopping in city centres (Mitchell, 2001).Knowledge gap\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Consumer shopping orientation and patronage behaviour\nMethod: There is limited information on consumers' responses to recent developments in retail locations. As such, an empirical study of how individual and retail characteristics influence consumers' patronage behaviour at different retail locations is warranted. The knowledge will shed light in various ways. Theoretically, instead of viewing retail attributes as being universal for a range of retail locations, this study recognizes that various retail locations possess unique characteristics and thus consumers' beliefs about those attributes may differ, which, in turn, may impact consumers' decision to patronize retail locations. Managerially, understanding consumers' evaluations of the three retail locations in regard to retail attributes may help shopping centre managers in developing and/or revising their retail strategies in order to be competitive in the current market.A mid-sized city in the Rocky Mountain region was selected as the site for data collection because three retail locations available in the geographic area offered distinct shopping environments:1. central business district;2. in-town traditional enclosed shopping mall; and3. out-of-town lifestyle centre.The central business district of this city has been considered \"iconic\" and the crown jewel of the area as a result of continual downtown revitalization projects (Campbell, 2007). The traditional enclosed shopping mall is located in the prime area of the city. Similar to many shopping malls in the USA, the selected shopping mall has declined for the past few years (Anthony, 2007; Feldman, 2004) and the property management has attempted to make changes to revive the shopping area. The recent construction of the lifestyle centre, however, generated much discussion and disagreement in the community concerning future retail development and whether existing retailers were meeting the needs of consumers (Haugen, 2006; McManus, 2005).Instrument\nResults: Preliminary analyses\nDiscussion, conclusions, and future research: Building upon store image and shopping orientation literature, the researchers investigated whether individual characteristics (i.e. shopping orientation and perceptions about the importance of retail attributes) and retail characteristics (i.e. beliefs about retail attributes) impact consumers' patronage behaviour at the different retail locations. This research has implications for theoretical development and retail strategies. Theoretically, this research addresses gaps in the literature wherein image has been examined by studying attribute importance of one retail location in an aggregate manner without comparison to other retail locations, and information concerning the effect of individual characteristics on patronage of retail locations is lacking. Acknowledging that consumer behaviour is a product of both internal (decision-making approach) and external (behavioural influence approach) forces (Mowen and Minor, 2001), this research suggests that shopping orientation, perceptions about the importance of retail attributes, and beliefs about retail attributes influence patronage behaviour (i.e. shopping frequency) at the three retail locations (i.e. central business districts, lifestyle centres, and traditional enclosed shopping malls). This research further expands the investigation by incorporating one of the emerging retail locations (i.e. lifestyle centres) and suggests that consumers did regard lifestyle centres differently from the central business district and traditional enclosed shopping malls on many aspects of retail attributes examined in this research.From a practitioner's perspective, analyses of the hypotheses have contributions to the understanding of consumers' evaluations of the three retail locations. Findings may help practitioners in developing and/or revising their retail strategies in order to be competitive in the current market.Shopping orientation\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Lifestyle centres are emerging retail locations and yet have not been included in past studies of shopping centres. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how individual and retail characteristics impact consumers' patronage behaviours at three popular retail locations (i.e. central business districts, lifestyle centres, and traditional enclosed shopping malls) in the USA and understand consumers' perceptions of the three different retail locations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A mail survey was conducted and 410 surveys were returned. Multiple regression analyses and t-test were conducted to test proposed hypotheses.\nFindings: - This study revealed that shopping orientation, importance of retail attributes, and beliefs about retail attributes influence patronage behaviour (i.e. shopping frequency) at the three retail locations. Additionally, consumers' responses suggest that they did regard lifestyle centres differently from the central business district and the traditional enclosed shopping mall on many aspects of the retail attributes examined in this research.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study is limited in that respondents were consumers of a specific geographic area with certain retail locations. Findings may not be generalizeable.\nPractical implications: - Understanding how consumers evaluate the three retail locations enables practitioners to develop and/or revise their retail strategies in order to be competitive in the current market.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study investigating consumers' perceptions of three major retail locations by including the newly emerging lifestyle centres in the USA.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus": a hoax revisited. Or: How vulnerable are school children to fake news?	[ "New literacies", "Replication study", "Fake news", "Hoax", "Reliable digital information", "School children", "Tree octopus spoof website" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: If we, as a society, are seeking to achieve equal opportunities for all, accessible information is of prime importance. In that context, Van den Hoven (1994, p. 369), referring to Rawls (1993), goes so far as to refer to information as a \"primary good.\" As all citizens have an equal right of access to information, Bovens (2002) and Bovens and Loos (2002) have advocated establishing access to information as a basic right for all citizens, to be upheld in a similar manner as the classic (human) rights (De Jong and Rizvi, 2008). In our digitizing society, fake news threatens the accessibility of information for citizens. New literacies are therefore becoming more and more important. These new literacies consist of the skills, strategies and disposition required to be successful at using and adapting to the changing information and communication technology context that defines our lives today. These new literacies permit us to use the internet to identify questions, locate required information, critically evaluate that information, integrate information from multiple sources and communicate our understanding to others (Leu et al., 2013).\nLiterature review: New literacies\nMaterial and methods: Leu et al. (2007) conducted an empirical study on 13-year-old US school children's ability to critically evaluate online information for reliability. The sample included the top quartile of school children (n = 53) in samples from the states of Connecticut and South Carolina. Each student was exposed to the spoof site Save The Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/), a site devoted to this rare species of octopus, complete with pictures of the animal itself and its environment:\nResults: Since the original empirical study in the USA took place, about 10 years have passed. Fortunately, the spoof website Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is still online, which allowed us to use it to conduct this empirical study in another country: The Netherlands. In Spring 2017, the Dutch author of this article was introduced by the teacher to school class of 27 Dutch children (13 girls and 14 boys, 11/12 years old). The teacher and the schoolchildren were told that the lesson that would follow would be an online reading comprehension exercise; the real purpose of the lesson was not revealed in advance. The children were asked to visit the abovementioned website (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/). They were given the following instructions:\nConclusion: how to deal with fake news: In this last section, the paper comes back to the research questions and outlines a few implications for future research:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose a new literacies approach to get insight into young people's capability to detect fake news.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a replication of a US empirical study in The Netherlands to examine whether schoolchildren were able to identify the spoof website \"Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus\" as fake.\nFindings: In The Netherlands, only 2 out of 27 school children (7 per cent) recognized the website as being a hoax; results that are worse, even, than those of the 2007 US study, where the website was recognized as being unreliable by slightly more than 6 out of 53 school children (11 per cent).\nResearch limitations/implications: A similar but large-scale quantitative empirical study should be conducted in several countries to see if the trends in the US and The Netherlands are indeed significant.\nPractical implications: It is important to start teaching children at an early age how to critically evaluate online information.\nSocial implications: The perceived reliability of digital information is a hot issue, given the frequency with which fake news is circulated. Being able to critically evaluate digital information will help to have access to trustworthy information.\nOriginality/value: Instead of using technological fact checking by Google, Facebook and Twitter, this paper suggests the adoption of a new literacies approach, focusing on young people's capability to detect fake news.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A conceptualization of suppliers' and buyers' abilities in product development: Cases from the retail industry	[ "Cooperation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It has been pointed out that the parties involved in a product development process must be able to understand and agree on what product should be developed and how a new product should be developed; they need certain abilities (Ford et al., 2011, p. 29). The buyer must have so-called demand ability, i.e. the ability to explain to the supplier what properties the desired product shall have. The supplier must then have a problem-solving ability in order to understand the buyer demands to be able to develop the product accordingly. However, there may be cases where the buyer lacks sufficient demand abilities and where suppliers lack appropriate problem-solving abilities.\nConceptual framework: Demand and problem-solving abilities\nThe case illustrations: Method\nDiscussion: Having been able to study product development processes between retailers and suppliers, we realized that existing generic concepts regarding the parties' abilities - i.e. demand and problem-solving abilities - do not capture all of the complexities that may characterize these processes. Other frameworks highlight the interface between the actors (Araujo et al., 1999, 2016) or type of involvement (Aune and Gressetvold, 2011; Wynstra and ten Pierick, 2000), but do not specify the abilities necessary on both sides to create a functioning interface.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of specified buyer and supplier abilities which may be apparent in processes when firms wish to develop products where other features than function are important.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through personal interviews with managers at eight major Swedish retail chains. The framework has been developed from an analysis of the data. Three of the cases are presented to illustrate how the framework may be applied.\nFindings: The framework contains the concepts specification ability and description ability, which define and specify the demand abilities of the buyer, and the concepts translation ability, interpretation ability and implementation ability, which define and specify the problem-solving abilities of the supplier.\nOriginality/value: The framework presented here contributes to the business relationship and network literature on product development processes by highlighting and conceptualizing the process between buying firms who have different abilities or even inabilities to specify and explain desired product qualities, and the suppliers who should interpret the demands of these buyers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Moral norm is the key: An extension of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) on Chinese consumers' green purchase intention	[ "Theory of planned behaviour", "Green purchase", "Moral norms", "China", "Subjective norms", "Perceived behavior control" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The growing level of environmental awareness changes the way people live and the products they purchase (do Paco and Reis, 2012; Chua et al., 2016). Consumers are more willing to become involved in environmental preservation, and their behaviour tends to be green and ecological. In fact, as a great proportion of environmental degradation is caused by private consumption activities (Stern, 1999; Gocer and Sevil Oflac, 2017), consumers play an essential role in encouraging a country's green revolution (Steg and Vlek, 2009; Sun and Wang, 2019). Meanwhile, consumer preference for green products has become the driving force to encourage more companies to improve their environmental performance in the marketplace (Liu et al., 2012; Kumar, 2017). Therefore, it is of great importance to advance knowledge about the factors that shape consumer intentions for green consumption (Nguyen et al., 2017; Yen et al., 2017; Wu and Cheng, 2019).The theory of planned behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) is one of the most influential models employed by several studies in the consumer behaviour domain (e.g., Jang et al., 2014; Oreg and Katz-Gerro, 2006). With the inclusion of a new construct, perceived behavioural control (PBC), the explanatory ability of this model is strengthened, especially for non-volitional behaviours. It is appropriate as an initial framework for studies investigating consumer pro-environmental behaviours.Despite the extensive and successful application of TPB to consumer behavioural studies, the theory has been criticised for its lack of consideration of moral influences on green purchasing behaviour (Chen, 2016; Botetzagias et al., 2015; Chen and Tung, 2014; Chan and Bishop, 2013). Since environmental resources are limited, one person's consumption will come at the expense of other people. Therefore, many scholars argue that green purchasing behaviour has a certain level of moral engagement (e.g., Botetzagias et al., 2015; Chan and Bishop, 2013; Armitage and Conner, 2001). Meta-analysis also confirms that, besides attitude and perceived behavioural control, moral norms are a third significant predictor of green behavioural intentions (Klockner, 2013; Bamberg and Moser, 2007). Conner et al. (2007) reported that moral norms add (on average) 3 per cent to the prediction of intentions after considering other TPB variables, which is a significant change. In this research, we argue that moral norms, which are considered as a person's perception of the morally right or wrong of performing behaviours (Ajzen, 1991; Sparks, 1994), would extend TPB to explain Chinese consumers' green purchase intentions. More recently, drawing on Ajzen (1991) TPB, and Stern's (1999) value-belief-norm framework, Nguyen et al. (2017) suggested a new model of environmentally responsible purchase behaviour to test the influence of altruistic values and the other determinants on energy-efficient appliance purchases. Currently, there is also some debate regarding how moral norms should be fitted in TPB framework. Either moral norms are largely unrelated to the TPB constructs and have a predominantly direct effect on behaviour (e.g., Chen, 2016; Chen and Tung, 2014), or moral norms are highly correlated with some TPB concepts and their effect is mainly indirect and mediated through the various TPB constructs (e.g., Botetzagias et al., 2015; Chan and Bishop, 2013). For example, Yen et al. (2017) argued that an individual's moral identity, traits, goals and behaviours were significant factors that influence the intention to purchase Fairtrade products. Similarly, drawing on the TPB, Jung et al. (2016) built and tested the value-belief-attitude framework that explained how environmental concerns and moral issues were socially constructed to affect eco-friendly faux-leather (EFFL) products' attributes. Thus, whether the effect of moral norms on intention is direct or mediated through the constructs of the TPB needs to be further tested.In addition, despite that most of the behavioural theories have been developed and tested in developed countries (e.g., Polonsky et al., 1998, 2011; D'souza and Taghian, 2005), relatively few efforts have been made to validate their effectiveness in other cultural settings (Soyez, 2012). Thus, to prevent further environmental deterioration, more research is needed to help better understand the consumers' green purchasing behaviour in developing countries (Perrea et al., 2014; Chu et al., 2015; Le et al., 2019; Ray and Sahney, 2018), as empirical evidence reveals that consumers from developing countries have varied environmental concerns, beliefs and attitudes about the environment compared to those from developed countries (Singh and Gupta, 2013). Yen et al. (2017) also called for future research to focus on green product consumption at a cultural level by studying different cultural settings.The purpose of this study, therefore, is to adopt and extend the TPB to explain Chinese consumers' green purchase intentions. It has the following objectives: (a) to identify the applicability of a morally extended TPB model in predicting green purchase intentions in China, (b) to reveal the underlying mechanism of the morally extended TPB model regarding consumers' green purchases and (c) to illustrate that moral norms have more power for explaining the green attitude and green purchase intentions compared with subjective norms.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Green consumption and green purchase behaviour\n3. Study 1. Morally extended version of the TPB model: 3.1 Questionnaire and scale design\n4. Study 2: Mediation role of moral norms: 4.1 Methods\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This study contributes to understanding the green purchasing behaviour of Chinese consumers by adopting a morally extended version of the TPB model. Based on the research results and previous literature, a mechanism explaining how people choose ecologically friendly products is demonstrated. In the current research, it is proposed that consumers' moral norms, rather than their subjective norms, influence their purchase intentions towards green products. Indeed, the morally extended TPB model outperformed the original TPB model in explaining Chinese consumers' green purchase intentions (Study 1). The moral norms became more pronounced when we primed participants with moral awareness (Study 2), which led to higher purchase intentions for green products. In addition, in both Study 1 and Study 2, the construct moral norms was found to play a mediation role between the relationship of the original subjective norms and green purchase intentions. Together, these studies suggest that Chinese consumers' green purchase intentions may primarily be influenced by how much they consider the green purchase to be a moral behaviour. 5.1 Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research extends the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and aims to study the underlying factors that influence Chinese consumers' purchase intentions towards green products. The conceptual model encompasses four elements (subjective norms, perceived behaviour control, moral norms and attitude) and one consumer response (purchase intention).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The current research employs a questionnaire survey and two experiments. In Study 1, the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling with 485 consumers in China. Study 2 employed a single-factor, two-condition (morally engaged vs control), between-subject design.\nFindings: The findings reveal that the morally extended TPB framework is more applicable in predicting Chinese consumers' green purchase intentions than the original TPB model. Attitude plays the most significant role in predicting purchase intentions, and moral norms prove to be a mediator of the relationship between the original construct of subjective norms and purchase intentions. The findings further revealed that moral norms comprise the underlying mechanism of the relationship between subjective norms and attitude.\nOriginality/value: This study therefore expands the TPB theory by including moral norms. Moreover, it contributes to the literature by clarifying the direct, indirect and total effects of each TPB element on the purchase intentions towards green products. Finally, managerial implications are given.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Increasing revenue and attendance in Canadian Baptist churches	[ "Religion", "Economic philosophy/theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Voluntary donations and worship attendance[1] are two important indicators of the health of a Christian church. Donations are essential to churches because without adequate revenue, it is difficult for ministries to grow or even survive. Declining financial support may be one of the early signals that a church is in decline. Likewise, attendance at weekly worship services may be another important measure of a church's health and viability since it is normally the key indicator of the number of people who identify with a particular congregation. While some local churches continue to flourish, many North American churches face struggles in either attendance or revenue, and sometimes both. To secure a bright future, it is critically important for struggling churches to find ways to increase both donation revenue and worship attendance. This study aims to explore the relationship between worship attendance and revenue so that churches can allocate resources more efficiently in order to increase both.\n2. Theoretical model: In Ronald Wintrobe's book The Political Economy of Dictatorship published by Cambridge University Press in 1998, he argues money and power are two important objectives of dictatorial economies. On one hand, the more power a dictator has, the more likely the dictator can squeeze increasing amounts of money by increasing the oppression of citizens. On the other hand, the more money a dictator has, the more he or she can invest in policing and military equipment thus reinforcing his or her power. In other words, these two variables (money and power) are simultaneously determined. Wintrobe then proposes a theoretical model, using these two simultaneously determined dimensions, to analyze different dictatorships and classifies them into four different types: Tyrant, Totalitarian, Tinpot, and Timocrat.\n3. Data: Data used in this study were collected from member churches of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches. The Convention is ministry partnership of 502 Canadian Baptist churches located in Canada's four Eastern most provinces: Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Through the Convention, these churches operate a variety of ministries including a university, a seminary, a network of residences for senior citizens, and a foundation that functions like a credit union. They also support each other through sharing staff in areas such as ministry to youth, leadership training, and mission activity.\n4. Empirical analysis: 4.1. Estimation\n5. Calibrated model: The pooled average of AA (average Sunday school attendance) and BS (number of youth in Bible study) are 40 and 15, respectively. Taking these two average values into Equations (1) and (2), the transformation curves are plotted in Figure 7.\n6. Conclusions: This study employs annual data from member churches of The Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches to explore the question of how churches can grow their donation revenue and worship attendance. The calibrated model suggests that of the variables examined, the only variable that impacts a church's level of donations is Sunday worship attendance. At the same time, this study has also concluded that only Sunday School attendance and youth Bible study attendance affect worship attendance among all variables that are available in the survey. This means that churches of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches that wish to increase their donations should consider focussing their efforts on increasing their Sunday morning worship attendance. It is comparatively uncommon for believers to donate through automatic deposits. Most believers will give when they are present at the time of worshiping. Therefore, as suggested by this study, churches should find ways to improve their church attendance in order to receive more giving. It is also noted that some churches that adopt a more vivid contemporary worshiping style is likely to be able to draw more worshippers. Therefore, it is not surprising to see more and more churches are investing in their respective music ministries. Some churches may have a worship pastor whereas some traditional churches have launched multiple worship services so as to attract worshippers of different styles.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Church giving and attendance are two important indicators of church health and performance. In the literature, they are usually understood to be simultaneously determined. The purpose of this paper is to estimate if there a sustainable church congregation size using Wintrobe's (1998) dictatorship model. The authors want to examine the impact of youth and adult ministry as well.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the data collected from among Canadian Baptist churches in Eastern Canada, this study investigates the factors affecting the level of the two indicators by the panel-instrumental variable technique. Applying Wintrobe's (1998) political economy model on dictatorship, the equilibrium level of worship attendance and giving is predicted.\nFindings: Through various simulation exercises, the actual church congregation sizes is approximately 50 percent of the predicted value, implying inefficiency and misallocation of church resources. The paper concludes with insights on effective ways church leaders can allocate scarce resources to promote growth within churches.\nOriginality/value: The authors are the only researchers getting the permission from the Atlantic Canada Baptist Convention to use their mega data set on church giving and congregation sizes as per the authors' knowledge. The authors are also applying a theoretical model on dictatorship to religious/not for profits organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge management, workplace climate, creativity and performance: The role of authentic leadership	[ "Performance", "Creativity", "Jordan", "Knowledge management", "Authentic leadership", "Workplace climate" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's dynamic work environment, creativity and innovation are valuable resources for gaining competitive advantage. More specifically, in the face of evolving technology, fierce domestic and global competition, uncertain and turbulent economic environment, organizations need to outpace innovative competitors and promote creativity to survive and prosper. Beside this, leadership is deemed to be a contextual factor affecting employee creative performance and innovation; it has become a major concern for organizations to address a leadership approach based on their strategic plans (Muceldili et al., 2013). Employees can be \"supported by leaders via making creativity a job requirement, giving feedback on creative goal progress, rewarding employees when they achieve creative outcomes\" (De Stobbeleir et al., 2011, p. 2). Authentic leaders foster a pleasant and harmonized work climate by manifesting their personal values; these values are believed to transform the whole organization's values (Luthans et al., 2006).\n2. Underpinning theories and literature review: 2.1 Authentic leadership and workplace climate\n3. Method: In this study, the researchers used a quantitative data collection completed through the questionnaire and for analyses. Given the nature of the model developed for this study, a structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was adopted, and AMOS version 22 was used for analyses. As a first step, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) will be carried out. The full population size in the target companies was 1,900; the researchers sent 1,000 invitations via email, inviting them to take part in the survey by human recourses department (HRD) in each company by explaining the random sampling techniques to HRD. The total number of respondents was 370; 25 were rejected because of missing data, therefore the number of questionnaires used in the analysis was 345, which is above the average rate for using Online surveys (Hamilton, 2009; Nulty, 2008). The non-response analysis is conducted in the next section. The possibility of nonresponse bias was examined following Armstrong and Overton's (1977) and Collier and Bienstock's (2007) suggestions. We compared the construct mean value and the mean value of the first 25 per cent of survey responses against the last 25 per cent. We concluded that nonresponse bias does not appear to be a significant problem, as no significant differences were found.\n4. Data analysis: 4.1 Reliability and internal consistency\n5. Discussion: AL received an attention from the researchers' and practitioner in the past decades; this is because empirical and practical evidence shows that managers who possess such leadership skills help workers find connection and meaning in their workplace, leading to core and important development in organizations (Cartwright and Holmes, 2006). Based on this evidence, the present work tests the effect of AL on creativity and performance of staff working in the Jordanian telecommunication sector, and at the same, examines the mediating role of workplace climate and the moderating role of knowledge sharing behavior. In doing so, the study seeks to determine the effectiveness of AL in manifesting and stimulating creativity and performance among employees.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims at providing empirical evidence pertaining to the interaction among authentic leadership, workplace harmony, worker's creativity and performance in the context of telecommunication sector. These research streams remain important issues and of interest as the world continues to migrate toward a knowledge-based economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applying structural equation modeling, this study diagnosed the impact of Authentic leadership (AL) on employees (n = 345) in two Jordanian telecommunication firms, specifically, how it shapes workplace climate, creativity and job performance. The study also tests the moderating role of knowledge sharing in the model, as well as the mediating role of workplace climate on the relationship between AL and positive organizational outcomes.\nFindings: The empirical result suggests that AL positively influences workplace climate, creativity and job performance; workplace climate positively influences creativity and job performance; workplace climate mediates the relationship between AL and creativity, and job performance; and knowledge sharing behavior moderates the relationship between AL and workplace climate.\nOriginality/value: This study highlights the magnificent power of AL and knowledge sharing, not only in shaping the workplace atmosphere but also in delineating how these variables stimulate creativity and performance among employees. The implications for research and practice are discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A decision-making system for accelerating roadway construction	[ "Construction works", "Motor roads", "United States of America", "Transportation", "Time measurement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A vast majority of US roadway projects are now reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. For example, most of the infrastructure of the US interstate highway infrastructure was built in the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, the capacity of the existing infrastructure has not kept pace with increases in traffic demand. This scenario has pushed State Transportation Agencies (STAs) to execute more highway rehabilitation and expansion projects in recent years. Under increased public and political pressure to deliver new roadway projects faster, STAs are turning to rapid construction/reconstruction methods for roadway projects.Obviously, the interest in accelerating roadway construction is not unique to the USA. One motivation for accelerating construction is to deliver projects faster, and another motivation is to minimize disruptions to the traveling public. A recent study completed by the US Federal Highway Administration that examined accelerated road construction techniques in Europe (FHWA, 2003). One emerging European strategy about how to accelerate construction is to pursue technologies that simplify the construction process through sophisticated means. For example, self-consolidated concrete is a relatively complex material in comparison to regular concrete but involves a significantly simplified process for installation. Another experience among European countries in their efforts to accelerate roadway construction is that accelerated will also improve quality in most instances.The authors conducted a research project to identify rapid construction methods and developed a decision-making system for selecting the most appropriate and effective methods to expedite construction for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. A database of rapid construction methods was developed based on a literature review and case studies of past projects in Kentucky that utilized rapid construction techniques. Next, a classification scheme to organize the methods was developed. Finally the research developed a decision-making system for use in rapid roadway construction methods based on conceptual road user costs (RUC) and basic project characteristics. A series of RUC tables was developed, which reflected different socioeconomic conditions within Kentucky by varying the value of time based on average hourly per capita income and wages for different counties in Kentucky.\nLiterature reviews and case studies: The research performed a literature review to identify the published innovative rapid methods that had successfully been used to expedite construction and reconstruction projects. The research examined the archives of several construction and transportation research associations, magazines, and journals. As a result, 95 rapid construction methods were identified. The primary categories of the rapid methods of construction, along with examples of methods that fall into each category, are shown in Table I.\nCase studies and lessons learned: Next, the research conducted a series of case studies on successful expedited roadway projects in Kentucky and identified the rapid methods used in those projects. Prior to the development of the case studies, focus groups were held with key officials of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (hereinafter referred to as Cabinet) and the research team to select potential projects. This paper discusses in detail the rapid construction methods used in the following projects:* I-264 Shawnee Expressway Rehabilitation Project.* I-65 Road Widening Project.* I-64 Weekend Rehabilitation Project.The research also investigated the rapid methods used on the Blue Grass Airport Runway Paving Project, the Bridge Deck Repairs Project in Paducah KY, and the KY-90 Truss Bridge Project; however, in consideration of page limitations, these case studies are detailed elsewhere (Goodrum et al., 2005).I-264 Shawnee Expressway Rehabilitation Project\nRapid construction methods decision-making system: Through the literature review and case studies, the research identified 95 rapid construction methods, which were incorporated into a database of rapid construction methods for roadway projects. In order to help contractors and engineers select appropriate methods for a specific project, a rapid construction method decision-making system was designed to provide a list of alternatives, which can be implemented in order to accelerate construction.It is generally evident to STAs that projects located in urban areas with high traffic volumes, warrant accelerated construction. However, the need for expediting roadway construction is not always obvious on roadway projects in rural areas, which is common in many states like Kentucky. In order to address this problem, Road User Cost (RUC) was used as a criterion to identify the need to accelerate construction and also to help identify the proper rapid construction methods. The research established a method that determines a project's conceptual RUC during initial planning stages, when many project parameters may be unknown but when it is also the ideal time frame for making a decision regarding if rapid methods are to be used. Since the system is designed to be used by a STA, the database is geared towards methods within its control, such as contract provisions and innovative planning techniques.\nA review of current RUC models and programs: In order to establish a process to quickly obtain RUC during a project's preliminary and conceptual design stage, a literature review of current RUC calculation methods was conducted by examining six current RUC models and programs including:1. QuickZone (Mitretek Systems, 2002).2. MicroBENCOST (McFarland et al., 1993).3. Queue and User Cost Evaluation of Work Zones (QUEWZ) (Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) 1998).4. Kentucky User Cost Program (KyUCP) (Rister and Graves, 2002).5. Arizona RUC Model (Arizona Department of Transportation, 2002).6. Texas Transportation Institute Road User Cost Tables (Daniels et al., 1999).QuickZone, MicroBENCOST, QUEWZ and KyUCP calculate many different attributes about work zone delays, solve complex work zone user cost problems, and generate relatively accurate RUC. However, they generally require many input variables, such as work zone in place schedule, traffic classification, data on alternative routes, percentage of roadway grade, and degree curvature of the existing or proposed route. Unfortunately, many of these variables can be difficult to identify during the preliminary and conceptual design phases of a project development process. On the other hand, the Arizona RUC model and TTI Road User Cost Tables were developed specifically to provide preliminary RUC estimates. The Arizona RUC Model was developed by the Arizona Department of Transportation for A+B contracting. The input variables required for this method, such as annual average daily traffic (AADT), the percentage of truck traffic, and vehicle speed in normal and work zone conditions, are typically available during the early design stages. The TTI Road User Cost Tables provide RUC values based on project types (e.g. added-capacity projects or rehabilitation projects), AADT, and percent of truck traffic (Daniels et al., 1999). These two models provide a preliminary estimate of user cost values, however their accuracy is suitable to allow STAs to begin making the conceptual decisions required during early design stages.\nA proposed method to determine conceptual road user costs: Based on the literature review of current RUC models and programs, a method was developed that combines the TTI RUC Table approach and KyUCP algorithms to rapidly determine the conceptual RUC during preliminary and conceptual design stages in order to begin the decision-making process of identifying the need and type of rapid construction method for any given roadway construction project. The research developed RUC tables reflecting different types of highway projects (four-lane, six-lane), various topographical conditions (level, rolling and mountain), different AADT, and the construction schedule (daytime, night and overtime). The RUC tables are also designed to reflect different societal economic conditions throughout Kentucky through adjustment of the value of time. KyUCP, developed by the Kentucky Transportation Center, utilizes algorithms developed in FHWA DP115. Due to page limitations, the algorithms behind KyUCP are not described here, but the reader is referred to Rister and Graves (2002) for more details.\nValue of time: A primary variable used to determine RUC is the value of time (VOT), which is the cost rate assigned to user delay. Currently, most STAs use a constant VOT in the process of determining RUC, which neglects variances of actual VOT between metropolitan and rural areas in a given geography. A significant point of departure of how this research estimates RUC versus other existing RUC models is that it identifies RUC based on varying socioeconomic conditions. A common dilemma for many STAs is determining when the added investment of using a rapid method of construction is warranted versus using conventional contracting strategies. While it is typically evident that projects in urban areas do warrant the added effort and expense of accelerating construction due to prevailing wages, income, and traffic volumes, the decision is less clear on rural projects. Unfortunately, most STAs have limited resources for expanding and maintaining their existing roadway infrastructure. By examining a project's specific VOT, STAs can make an accurate assessment of whether the added investment to accelerate construction is warranted over building a project using conventional methods.The practice of adjusting VOT when determining RUC does occur in other states. Florida utilizes a rural versus urban value of time. The urban VOT is approximately $12 per hour (1,998 dollars) while the rural VOT is $10 (Daniels et al., 1999). North Carolina and Georgia use a varying VOT based on the average annual hourly wage rate in the county where the analysis of road user cost is being done. In California, VOT is developed for each particular project based on an individual wage of the project location (Daniels et al., 1999).The current method for determining VOT in Kentucky\nDevelop RUC tables for different regions in Kentucky: After determination of VOT for different county groups in Kentucky, KyUCP was used to establish the conceptual RUC tables. KyUCP determines the basic work zone variables, roadway normal capacity and work zone capacity based on the equations used in the Highway Capacity Manual (Transportation Research Board, 2000).The RUC tables developed by the research are designed to reflect the following differences regarding highway construction projects:* Value of time in each county group in Kentucky and interstate travel in Kentucky.* Topographical conditions (level, rolling, mountain).* Type of roadway (four lane, six lane).* Different AADT (from 5,000 to 100,000).* Length of work zone (from one mile to five miles).* Traffic classification (10 per cent truck, 15 per cent truck).* Construction schedule (day, night, overtime construction).Using these RUC tables, a project manager can quickly identify the conceptual RUC according to basic project information, which will assist in identifying the need for and selection of rapid construction methods during planning and conceptual design phases of a project development process. Figure 4 shows a sample RUC table developed during the research, which is one of 48 RUC tables developed during the research. For example, as shown in Figure 4, a four-lane freeway with an ADT of 54,000, 10 per cent truck, level terrain, an 8 am to 4 pm daily construction schedule, and a one-mile work zone in county group I, would experience an estimated $23,719 in daily RUC. In contrast, if the project occurred in county group IV, which has the highest VOT, and with the identical parameters, the RUC would increase 47 per cent to $34,795. Finally if the project involves an interstate travel, the state average of VOT would be used to produce a conceptual RUC of $30,622.\nA decision system for selection of rapid construction method based on road user cost: System overview\nConclusion: In order to help STAs identify the need for and understand how to accelerate construction on any given project, a conceptual RUC model was developed to determine road user cost during the planning and conceptual design stages in order to facilitate a selection of rapid construction methods for highway construction projects. The road user cost calculated by these efforts is based on varying values of travel time to reflect the different social economical conditions between metropolitan and rural areas. The conceptual RUC model is not intended to replace other detailed estimating RUC programs or models, such as QuickZone, QUEWZ and KyUCP, which are typically used to help establish liquidated damages and incentive awards for a given project. The direct application of conceptual RUC tables in this instance is to establish a decision system that identifies the methods of how to accelerate construction. This decision-making system recommends potential applicable rapid construction methods for a specific roadway construction project based on the ERUC to MAUC ratio and other features of the project.The decision-making system developed by the research can help project managers and other project participants in other STAs identify the need for and type of rapid construction methods during the early stages of a project development process. Making this type of decision early in the project development process allows for the necessary time to develop the design and contract agreements to accommodate and facilitate these types of accelerated construction methods.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to show the way in which State Transportation Agencies throughout the USA are under increasing pressure to preserve and expand the nation's roadway infrastructure in the shortest possible time with only a finite pool of resources with which to meet a state's transportation needs. With this in mind, a rapid construction methods decision-making system was developed, to be used during the preliminary and conceptual design stage of a roadway project.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research completed an extensive literature review and examined case studies to identify rapid construction methods and summarize valuable lessons learned. Designed for use by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the research developed a series of conceptual road user cost (RUC) tables that reflect different socioeconomic conditions by varying the value of time based on average hourly per capita income and wages for different counties in Kentucky.\nFindings: - The case studies identified that the most effective mean for State Transportation Agencies to accelerate construction is through their construction contracts. Furthermore, determining RUC as outlined in the research way simplifies the method of calculating RUC by using fewer variables than would typically be available during the preliminary and conceptual design stage.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The proposed decision-making model is designed for State Transportation Agencies who are involved in the scenarios of determining the value of accelerating construction in both an urban and rural environments.\nPractical implications: - The project's intent in determining conceptual road user costs is to support a decision-making process to identify the need and type of rapid construction methods for any given project.\nOriginality/value: - A specific decision-making process is proposed, and it uses the ratios of the Conceptual Road User Cost to the Maximum Allowable Road User Cost and a set of additional criteria based on project features to recommend a selection of rapid construction methods for a given highway project.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A qualitative study of mother-adolescent daughter-vicarious role model consumption interactions	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Socialization", "Qualitative research" ]	[ { "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 traditional paradigm in marketing views parents as role models for their children in the consumption domain (Clark et al., 2001). This paradigm is based on the perspective that experienced parents serve as a primary source of information for their children. However, in today's Western cultures, an ever-increasing emphasis on a youthfulness ideal may cause a shift in role modeling, making children potential role models for their parents. Attempting to feel, look, and behave youthfully, parents might perceive their children as experts/role models.Women engage in youthfulness-oriented activities and annually spend $3000 more than men to stay young (Weiss, 2002). Additionally, maturing women seek reaffirmation of their self-concept of youthfulness as a normal, healthy, positive, and acceptable image of aging (Barak and Stern, 1985). They recalibrate their inner age to make youth important and tend to adopt consumption patterns fitting a younger cognitive rather than chronological age. Integrating a youth ideal with lower cognitive ages may lead mothers to view their adolescent's daughters as role models in certain consumption situations making the mother-daughter dyad a preferred unit of analysis (Moore and Lutz, 1988). Additionally, vicarious role models, such as celebrities, can impact both mothers and their adolescent daughters' consumption behaviors.This paper develops and qualitatively evaluates an integrative perspective on consumption interactions of mothers, adolescent daughters, and vicarious role models. These interactions are studied using three theoretical frameworks (consumer socialization, intergenerational influence, and role models) and focusing on the influence of adolescent daughters on their mothers' self-consumption.The first framework, \"consumer socialization\", suggests that parents serve as socialization agents to their children through consumer learning (Caruana and Vassallo, 2003; Moschis and Churchill, 1978). Though consumer socialization provides insights on how children acquire motivations, attitudes, and behaviors about the marketplace (Carlson et al., 1994), it has focused mainly on a uni-flow of socialization from parents to their children.The second framework, \"intergenerational influences\" (IGI), refers to the within-family transmission of information, beliefs, and resources across generations (Moore et al., 2001). Although studies under this framework have emphasized mostly transmission from older to younger generations, it can also explain adolescent daughters' influence on their mother's consumption, adding a dimension to socialization theory.The third framework deals with the impact of role models on individuals' consumption behavior (Martin and Bush, 2000; Clark et al., 2001). Any person, who can potentially influence individuals' behaviors through direct or indirect contact, can be a role model (Bandura, 1977). Given Western cultures' increasing emphasis on youthfulness (Thompson and Hirchman, 1995), adolescent daughters and their mothers might use similar consumption role models (e.g. celebrities) for expressive products. Such products are consumed to fit one's personality and lifestyle and to make favorable social impressions (Shah and Mittal, 1997). Thus, the approach developed here extends beyond the mothers-adolescent daughters dyads.In combination, children's influence on family consumption, children's socialization, IGI, role models, and the Western cultural environment might be useful in explaining if, when, and how adolescent daughters impact their mother's behaviors for products that are relevant to and used by the mothers. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this combined approach has not been studied before. The frameworks are described first. Then, the results of a two-phased qualitative study, conducted to assess consumption interactions, are presented, integrated, and discussed.\nLiterature review: Consumer socialization\nQualitative study - Phase 1: method: Design\nQualitative study - Phase 1: analysis: The interviews were analyzed using a content story approach to identify what the story is about, what are its central themes, and what happened. (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990).The analysis transformed and reconstructed the field text to a research text resulting in a coherent storyline, which incorporated appropriate field texts. The research text, distanced somewhat from the field text, was used to identify a storyline, examples, or common themes. The text was read several times until the repeated foci and central themes of the story were discovered (Lieblich, 1998). The goal was to combine pieces of information to create a whole namely, a story framework ordered in a significant manner. An illustrative writing style was used with the data presented in its literal form and serving as examples for analysis (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990).The criteria for creating the story were derived from the goals of the study: to explore if adolescent daughters serve as role models for mothers, if mothers serve as role models for adolescent daughters, and if a youthfulness ideal influences the consumption of mothers and adolescent daughters. Six research criteria were used: similarity in product-relevant lifestyles; similarity in fashion items' usage; advertisements' influence on consumption behavior; cognitive ages' gap between mothers and their adolescent daughters; influence of non family role models on mothers' and their adolescent daughters' consumption of expressive products; and the strength of family relationship A set of ten interviews was conducted first. Then, one of the authors read the detailed transcripts to identify themes. A first draft of the paper was written and read by the other two authors. The three authors discussed the interviews, themes, and examples and sought consensus on both themes and examples. Then, a second set of ten new interviews was conducted and analyzed by the same author. These new observations led to revising the themes and enriching the set of examples used. This continuous process of a description of the phenomenon and its interpretation (Hirschman, 1986) was used to clarify and challenge the emerging themes. A second draft of the paper emerged at this stage. This version was also read by the other two authors as a credibility check (Hirschman, 1986). This discussion, consensus-seeking phase was used to authenticate and enrich the interpretations, leading to confirmability of the findings (Hirschman, 1986). After accounting for this phase, the current version was written. The themes identified in the first ten interviews are marked throughout as \"I\" after quotes and additional ones from the other ten interviews are marked as \"II\" after quotes.Cognitive ages gap between mothers and their adolescent daughters (1)\nQualitative study - Phase 2: method: Design\nPhase 2 - joint interviews: analysis: The following support the findings of the first phase and add some new aspects of mothers'-adolescent daughters' consumption interactions. The analysis follows the same order of themes as in Phase 1.Cognitive ages gap between mothers and their adolescent daughters (1)\nSummary of joint interviews: In sum, the joint interviews paint the following picture, which was mostly similar to Phase 1's. In many cases, mothers and adolescent daughters shop for fashion items together and in the same stores. Joint usage mostly occurs in fashion accessories. Additionally, mothers confirmed that their daughters' fashion opinion is very important to them. Moreover, some mothers liked their daughters' style but found it too provocative for them. Finally, a new theme emerged, namely that of daughters' credibility, without which their influence was diminished.\nPhase 2 - analysis of in-store observations: The five in-store observations were designed with two goals in mind. First, they were carried out in search of new themes of mothers'-daughters' consumption interactions. Second, they allowed a triangulation of the themes identified in the interviews.As we have already mentioned, in-store observations helped us to learn about the behavior's and the sensation's dimensions.\nMothers' credibility for daughters' choices: As was noted earlier, the theme of mothers' credibility for daughters' fashion choices was new to Phase 2. In-store observations provided additional support for this theme. In most cases, when daughters' choices were viewed as credible, mothers asked for their daughters' fashion opinions. These opinions strongly affected mothers' consumption behavior. The dialogs between mothers and their adolescent daughters below illustrate this theme:\"I want to buy this blouse but I do not know if its blue color will fit me. What do you think?\" (M: Ya.); \"It is very nice. It suits your blue eyes\" (D: Ba.).\"I must find shoes. What do you think about this pair?\" (M: Li.); \"Mom, you surprise me. This is totally old fashioned\" (D: Ta.); \"O.K. let's find something else\" (M: Li.)\"You shock me! You want to be my mother or my grandmother???\" (M: Liz.); \"OK. What about this one? \" (D: Lin.)\"Let's see the winter fashion. What do you say about this blouse?\" (M: Ro.); \"Too old\" (D: Ga.); \"This is a winter color. Your opinion killed my desire for it\". (M: Ro.)\nSimilarity in product relevant life-style: Mothers and daughters shared similar lifestyle and shopped for fashion items together in the same stores. This theme is consistent with the findings from the separate and joint interviews. The dialogs between mothers and their adolescent daughters below illustrate this theme:\"This is a nice bag, isn't it?\" (M: Gi.); \"It can suit me too\". (D: Ad.)\"What do you think about this shirt?\" (M: Ro.); \"It is beautiful. Maybe I will take it\" (D: Ga.); \"I want it for myself\" (M: Ro.); \"OK, but you probably knew that I will love it - it is exactly my style\".(D: Ga.)\nConsumption similarity of mothers and adolescent daughters: In many cases, mothers' and adolescent daughters' consumption behavior was similar, as was found in the interviews. In one case, a saleswoman also noticed it: \"I know you two very well. You have the same taste and style, and you are not behaving like typical mothers and daughters. You are friends\":We can share it. It comes with rubber and we can use it together (M: Ya.).Did you see the bags here? I must buy a bug for Friday. This one is for you and for me. It is a very good color, it fits everything (M: Ya.).You forgot that I have a very similar blouse. Buy it for yourself and I will borrow it from you (D: Ta.).The small size is cute. Let's buy it for both of us (D: Lin.).It is hard to know. Try it on. If it fits you, I will try it too. After all, we are the same size (M: Ro).\nLimits on acceptable level of provocative clothes: As seen in the interviews, some mothers liked adolescent daughter's fashion style but found it too provocative for them. The cases below refer to low-cut or skinny jeans, found to be too provocative for the mothers:They have very nice trousers but they are cut too low (M: Gi.).I need jeans. You need jeans too. Maybe you will choose something not cut too low that I can take too? (M: Ya.).It is really nice but cut too low for me (M: Li.).Too skinny for me. I like different shapes (M: Liz).In sum, the in-store observations triangulated the interviews' findings. In support of the interviews' comprehensiveness, no new themes were found. The observations illustrated that many mothers and adolescent daughters found fashion items for both in the same stores. Some mothers perceived items such as skinny jeans as too provocative and refused to wear them.\nAn emerging consumption interaction model: We developed a framework based on the seven themes identified throughout the research process. The framework summarizes Phase 1 and Phase 2 and includes the themes and their inter-relationships. It is summarized graphically in Figure 1.According to the framework, when the gap between mothers' and adolescent daughters' cognitive ages decreases due to youthfulness of mothers and/or oldfulness of daughters, their fashion consumption's similarity tends to increase. However, since most adolescent daughters felt that their chronological and cognitive ages were the same, the lined arrow represents a weak relationship between daughters' oldfulness and similarity in relevant life style. Smaller cognitive age gaps between mothers and daughters lead to similarity in product-relevant lifestyles and, through such similarity, to a resemblance in consumption of expressive products (subject to limits on acceptable level of provocative clothes). Similarity of consumption behavior also results from weak influences of shared vicarious role models and exposure to the same advertisements. Regarding credibility, we found a relationship between cognitive age and credibility. However, in some cases credibility did not lead to similarity in product relevant life styles, mainly due to mother's conservative attitudes.\nDiscussion, future research, and implications: Discussion\nConclusions: Our research supports the idea that most mothers view their adolescent daughters as role models for fashion items. In addition, most interviewed dyads shop for fashion items together in the same stores and share fashion items. Regarding the cognitive-chronological ages' gap there is a gap between mothers' cognitive and chronological ages in support of cognitive age theory and the youthfulness ideal of Western cultures. Finally, external role models such as celebrities did not have a great influence on mothers or their adolescent daughters.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purposes of this research are to examine the extent to which daughters view their mothers as consumption role models, the extent to which daughters serve as consumption role models for their mothers, and the extent to which external role models are shared by mothers and their adolescent daughters.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two qualitative studies focused on mothers-adolescent daughters-vicarious role models interactions as drivers of consumption behaviors in Western cultures. Study 1 included 20 in-depth interviews with mothers and their adolescent daughters (conducted separately). Study 2 included five of the original dyads interviewed jointly and observed in fashion stores.\nFindings: - Regarding adolescent daughters' use as role models and fashion markers for their mothers, most mothers confirmed that their adolescent daughters' fashion opinion was very important. Second, based on consumer socialization arguments, mothers served as role models for their adolescent daughters. Most dyads shop for fashion items together and in the same stores. Regarding the issue of cognitive versus chronological ages, the studies suggest that there is a gap between mothers' cognitive and chronological ages in support of cognitive age theory and the youthfulness ideal of Western cultures. Notably, such a gap mostly failed to materialize for adolescent daughters. Hence, consumption similarity appears to be driven more by the gap for mothers than the gap for daughters. Finally, external role models such as celebrities did not have a great influence on mothers or their adolescent daughters.\nOriginality/value: - The research used in-depth interviews with and in-store observation of mothers and adolescent daughters. Future research might use similar interviews with younger daughters. Another extension of the work reported here that can provide triangulation for the findings is to change from a qualitative to a quantitative methodology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Seasonality of cargo theft at transport chain locations	[ "Antagonistic threats", "Cargo theft", "Supply chain risk", "Transport", "Transport chain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cargo theft poses a significant problem worldwide. The majority of cargo transport in the EU takes place over land; this leads to road-related cargo theft incidents, which thereby present a threat to one of the core principles behind the formation of the EU, namely, the free movement of goods (Europol, 2009). It is estimated that at least US$10 billion is lost annually owing to theft in the USA and US$30 billion worldwide (Anderson, 2007). Most cargo thefts go unreported; therefore, these figures are quite conservative and merely reflect the value of the items. The EU is estimated to suffer over 8.20 billion in losses annually owing to cargo theft, which is an average value of 6.72 per trip (EP, 2007). Despite these figures, cargo theft is a low priority in most countries and is often perceived as the cost of doing business (EU, 2003).\nResearch purpose: To describe the seasonal patterns of reported cargo theft value and frequency in the EMEA with respect to different transport chain locations.\nMethod: All data utilized in this paper are secondary. According to Rabinovich and Cheon (2011), secondary data analysis is overlooked in logistics research and should be used to address contemporary challenges in logistics and supply chain research; this paper adheres to their reasoning. The database analyzed in this paper is the TAPA EMEA IIS, which contains nearly 20,000 individual reported incidents of crimes against road transport operations within the EMEA area, during the years 2000-2011.These reports are prepared by different members of TAPA and by different law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the EU. In all the reports, the identities of the companies involved (both directly and indirectly) are removed from the data in order to prevent negative publicity and to ensure better data reliability from those reporting incidents to the IIS. Furthermore, the reporting entity determines the extent to which the details of the incidents should be revealed, which implies that the quality of the data varies across different incidents and countries. Nevertheless, over the years, this strategy has led to the TAPA EMEA IIS database being considered undoubtedly the most accurate in the EU for these types of incidents (Europol, 2009). The result of this reporting procedure ensures that the database presents a true picture of cargo theft incidents in terms of trends over time or in terms of absolute numbers. The geographical limitation of the data for the EMEA region is a result of the global TAPA structure, as there are three TAPA regions (Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific). Within the EMEA region, the vast majority of data are geographically linked to countries in the north and west of Europe. This means that the data cover the same seasonality (time of year), as they follow the northern hemisphere seasons.\nResults: Table II describes the observed total incident value for all combinations of month and location type. As expected, there are great differences between months for many of the location types. Hence, a deeper analysis is needed.\nDiscussion: There are seasonal variations in theft incidents at transport chain locations. This variation is observed during particular months of the year and days of the week for many transport chain location types; nevertheless, the patterns are dissimilar among different categories. As Table VIII shows, there are statistically significant differences in incident frequency for many transport chain location types based on the months of the year and days of the week; however, the variation over a year is approximately the same for all location types, whereas the variation over a week is different, which is interesting and deserves further discussion.\nConclusion: First, seasonality patterns can be observed in terms of time of year in cargo theft at transport chain locations. The previously known seasonality in property crimes (crime rate increase during fall and winter) (Cohen, 1941) is visible for 82 percent of all incidents, with a decreasing December effect valid for 90 percent of all incidents. Second, seasonality patterns are observed in terms of day of the week in cargo theft at transport chain locations. Weekly seasonality is demonstrated by a reduction in crime during the weekend. This weekend effect can be strong, which includes adjacent days, or it can be normal, which does not include adjacent days. The strong effect is valid in 52 percent of cases, whereas the normal weekend effect is valid for 70 percent of all incidents. This may be because of fewer available targets, as seen from a perpetrator's point-of-view, or because the transport chain location types - non-secured parking and en route - are those where crimes occur during the beginning of the following week, rather than during the weekend. The lack of data regarding an appropriate time of the day for crime in the TAPA EMEA IIS database provides no explanation. The fact that there is no visible weekend effect for facility-bound transport chain location types indicates the likelihood that more professional perpetrators know that goods are stored in facilities during weekends.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the seasonal patterns of reported cargo theft value and frequency in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) countries with respect to different transport chain locations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a system-theoretical approach, which emphasizes a holistic rather than an atomistic view. The research method used in this paper is deductive; the analysis is based on the data taken from Incident Information Service (IIS), a transport-related crime database of Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) EMEA; and the result is analyzed and discussed within a frame of reference based on supply chain risk management and criminology theories.\nFindings: There are seasonal variations in cargo thefts at different transport chain locations during particular months of the year as well as days of the week; however, each transport chain location has a different pattern. Indeed, hot spots, modus operandi, theft-endangered objects, and handling methods change frequently during the period under study. However, the basic theoretical frame of reference continues to be the same.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is based on theoretical deduction using official statistics regarding antagonistic threats. Its geographical limitation to the EMEA is owing to the limitations of the utilized database, although the frame of reference can be applied to analyze antagonistic threats against transport chains globally.\nPractical implications: This study is limited by the content and classification within the TAPA EMEA IIS database; nevertheless, this database is the best available one, with reports originating mainly from the industry itself, as different TAPA members anonymously report their losses.\nOriginality/value: This paper is one of the first on supply chain risk management that uses actual crime statistics reported by the industry itself to analyze the occurrence of cargo theft by focusing on the value of the vehicle/goods stolen from transport chain locations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Continuous improvement in product development: Improvement programs and quality principles	[ "Continuous improvement", "Quality management", "Product development", "Sweden" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is in the product development process that the business opportunities of tomorrow are created. Using a formal process for product development has, during the last decade, become a differentiating factor between success and failure in product development (Cooper, 1993). A study by Griffin (1997) of 140 American firms concludes that about 40 percent of the firms have adopted a formal product development process. The percentage of manufacturing companies using a formal process is even higher and ever increasing. The typical structure of a product development process is a multi-functional stage gate approach (Cooper, 1993; Ulrich and Eppinger, 1996). When an increasing number of companies implement stage gate processes, organizations must find new ways to stay ahead of their competitors, i.e. they need to develop new methods and standards to work with product development and find ways to improve these standards on a regular basis. Being able to rapidly assimilate and implement strategies to increase the effectiveness of new product development may prove to be as important to a firm's competitiveness as the innovative products themselves (Schilling and Hill, 1998).In a study by Barclay (1992), 87 percent of the surveyed organizations stated that the product development process needs ongoing improvements. Despite this, many times the organization for product development is excluded in quality initiatives (Caffyn, 1997; Sterman et al., 1997). The differences between processes of manufacturing and product development provide a number of fundamental problems (Bartezzaghi et al., 1997; Caffyn, 1997; Keating and Olivia, 1998; Wheelwright and Clark, 1992). One of the main differences deals with the separation of cause and effect in distance and time. In manufacturing, most problems arise in the near temporal and geographical surroundings of the causes, while often both of these distances are larger in the context of product development (Bartezzaghi et al., 1997). Thus far there is a lack of studies investigating the effects of continuous improvement programs within the context of product development. It is an important decision choosing which quality principles and practices are to be considered and included when initiating a continuous improvement program in product development. Continuous improvement theories must be expanded to include approaches that improve product development performance.The overall purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of continuous improvement in the context of product development. The focus of the study is the kind of improvement programs organizations implement, and the quality principles displayed and embodied in the work with continuous improvement in product development. Qualitative case studies have been conducted in three organizations, referred to as Clean, Space, and Make. Our results show that all three organizations have multiple improvement programs in the context of product development, but that some configurations of improvement programs seem to be more successful than others. For instance, co-ordination of the improvement programs and separating between product development processes and project management models are important success factors for continuous improvement.\nContinuous improvement in product development: Originally, the concept of continuous improvement was brought to Japan from the US after the second world war to assist in the reconstruction of the Japanese industry (Schroeder and Robinson, 1991). A well-known concept related to continuous improvement is kaizen, which has its origin in Japan and means continuous change for the better by involving all employees (Imai, 1986). After the success of the Japanese industry in the world markets, western industry started to develop and implement continuous improvement programs in the beginning of the 1980s (Choi and Liker, 1995). The success of continuous improvement programs in western industry has been limited (Choi and Liker, 1995) and the programs have primarily been applied in the operations part of the business (Caffyn, 1997).Investigating theoretical perspectives on continuous improvement applied in research on product development, we found that research adopting a quality perspective is not common. Actually there are few studies in quality management journals that focus on continuous improvement in the context of product development. Instead, the three main perspectives identified in our research have been published in journals outside the quality management field. These perspectives are continuous improvement as a distinctive capability, continuous improvement as knowledge transfer, and continuous improvement as a dynamic process (Nilsson, 2002).Bessant and Caffyn (1997) define continuous improvement as \"an organization-wide process of focused and sustained incremental innovation\". Continuous improvement is viewed as a particular set of routines that can help an organization to improve performance (Bessant et al., 2001). A number of key routines are considered essential if continuous improvement is to be developed to its full potential in an organization, such as learning from experiences, and capture and deployment of individual learning. The empirical results of Barnett (1994) from the automotive industry indicate that a continuous improvement activity that involves a combination of different forms of learning generates the most favorable results for an organization.Bartezzaghi et al. (1997) conceptualize continuous improvement based on knowledge transfer between different individuals, projects, and organizational units (see also Nobeoka, 1995; Nobeoka and Cusumano, 1997). Intra-project learning is where both the acquisition and the use of experience occurs within the same project, while inter-project learning is \"where experiences are acquired in one project and transferred to other ones over a period of time\" (Bartezzaghi et al., 1997). It is argued that these concepts represent two different levels of learning, which require different interpretive models and enabling mechanisms.Researchers viewing continuous improvement as a dynamic process, focus on improvement programs and their relationship to other organizational elements in the organization and its environment. An improvement program in this case, is understood as an induced change effort, focused on improving the effectiveness of an organization's existing processes (Repenning and Sterman, 2003). An improvement program is tightly coupled to other processes in the firm and to the firm's customers, suppliers, competitors, and capital markets (Keating et al., 1999). The research perspective has identified several trade-offs and they are believed to explain some of the failures organizations experience with quality initiatives.The previously mentioned perspectives on continuous improvement in product development, all have their strengths and weaknesses. One issue to consider is that an improvement program is often based on theories of quality management or continuous improvement. What these research perspectives fail to consider is which kind of improvement programs are used, which characteristics they possess, and which quality principles are to be embedded in a program on continuous improvement.\nA quality perspective on continuous improvement: There are several alternatives available when adopting a quality perspective on continuous improvement. Hellsten and Klefsjo (2000) view total quality management as a management system consisting of core values, techniques, and tools. Hackman and Wageman (1995) use core values and interventions (structures, systems, and/or work practices) as their building blocks. In this study, quality management is viewed as an approach to management that can be characterized by its principles, practices, and techniques (Dean and Bowen, 1994). The advantage of this perspective of quality management is that the application of quality principles can be investigated by interviews concerning conducted improvement activities, i.e. the practices of quality management.We argue that continuous improvement can also be viewed as a concept based on principles, practices, and techniques. The principles of continuous improvement are a set of underlying assumptions about how to view the organization and its relationship to customers, competitors, and suppliers. Each principle is implemented through a set of practices, which are activities designed to display and embody the principles. The practices are, in turn, supported by a wide array of techniques to make the practices effective. Along these lines continuous improvement can be defined as a purposeful and explicit set of principles, practices, and techniques adopted to generate ongoing, systematic, and cumulative improvement in the processes and output of an organization. The suggested definition emphasizes the importance of the principles of quality management as well as the need to put the principles into practice to improve organizational performance. An organization adopting a continuous improvement program in product development will have several improvement programs working in parallel. Some of them might be focused on improving the products, while others might be aimed at improving the performance of the product development process. Each of these improvement programs will be based on a number of quality principles (see Figure 1). When these improvement programs are implemented in product development they are in an organizational context, which is different than manufacturing. This context includes a project environment where perhaps only a few projects are conducted and the timeframe for product introduction might be several years.Improvement programs\nResearch methodology and the empirical study: The aim of the empirical work was to investigate the improvement programs used and the quality principles evident in the studied organizations.Research methodology\nAn analysis of continuous improvement activities: In the following sections, a quality perspective on continuous improvement will be adopted to analyze the three case studies. First, the different degrees of success are discussed. Second, a thorough analysis of the different improvement programs and adopted quality principles is presented.Results of the improvement programs\nConclusions and implications for quality practice: Continuous improvement is a continuous activity, which is in contrast to the one-off characteristic of projects within product development. This tension can be alleviated by a continuous improvement approach adapted to the specific needs of product development. In product development, the heroes are the innovators who come up with a new technical solution to a problem or the project leaders that turn a doomed project into a success. In such an environment, it is difficult to find agreement to work with continuous improvement. This can be one of the explanations why continuous improvement has had limited success in product development, especially concerning process improvements. Clean is rather successful in their work with product improvement programs, while their improvement efforts concerning work practices have not gained acceptance. Make started from a similar position, but has succeeded with process improvements. This success has been made possible by the inclusion of process improvements in programs that traditionally have been focused on product improvements. Process improvements have now been provided with the necessary status to gain acceptance by the engineers involved in product development.Our intent has been to introduce a conceptual framework for how companies can plan, introduce, and follow up their continuous improvement programs in product development. Thus far, the main research perspectives have been to view continuous improvement as a distinctive capability, as a knowledge transfer, or as a dynamic process. The adoption of a quality perspective focuses the research on quality programs and quality principles. A focus on quality principles specifically, is what is lacking in the alternative perspectives of continuous improvement. Our empirical investigation provides evidence supporting the claim that the quality principles chosen for an improvement program can be vital for the success of quality initiatives. For instance, Clean initiated a continuous improvement program that was not based on the principle to improve continuously. Such an initiative should be replaced with the development of alternative improvement programs based on a larger set of quality principles.One of the most significant differences between the descriptions of quality principles and how they are applied in practice concerns process orientation. The process concept in product development has its focus on control of the process, while the focus in the quality literature is on improvement. The difference between control and improvement explains certain variables in the infrastructure surrounding the process concept in product development and quality management. In product development, the infrastructure of the process has a high degree of solution content. For instance, the process must be divided into different phases separated by gates recommending which methods to use in each phase. When studying quality management, the infrastructure of the process is of little interest; instead, the infrastructure for the improvement activities is the focus. Thereby, the infrastructure surrounding the process has two different purposes, one being improvement and the other control.What strategy should an organization, that previously has been successful with continuous improvement within manufacturing, adopt to spread the success to a product development context? Our adoption of a quality perspective on continuous improvement and analysis of three case studies provides the following suggestions:* Break with the assumption that management should be in charge of improvements of the product development process. Instead, involve people in the improvement work to make sure that changes reach the work practice.* Use multiple improvement programs that focus on different issues, but make sure to co-ordinate the different improvement programs regarding strategy, time, scope, and resources.* Expanding the scope of an improvement program (e.g. from product to process improvements) can be a good strategy to initiate an improvement program, but such a scope might, over time, lead to a fundamental change of the improvement methodology to ensure the effectiveness of the improvement program.* Adopt a critical mass of quality principles. An introduction of a continuous improvement program without adoption of quality principles is doomed to fail.* It is difficult to combine a control instrument and an improvement process in the same description of work practice. Instead, make separate models for the product development process and the project management model.One of the ongoing activities in product development is organizations trying to create lean product development processes. This can be done through the elimination of non-valued activities and by trying to decrease the number of iterations before convergence to a solution. Another way of improving the process is by introducing new methodologies such as QFD, design for assembly, and design for manufacturing. Larger organizations implement these methodologies in one project or location and then, if the attempt is successful, incorporate them into the product development process of the organization. Although advantages may be gained through these efforts when it comes to productivity and assuring product quality, standardization can also affect the innovative climate in an organization (Kondo, 1993). One such risk is that the standardization of work will be inconsistent with motivation (Kondo, 1993). Giving people freedom in their work heightens their motivation and sense of ownership (Amabile, 1998). A clear and rooted process encourages the product developers to structure their administrative work and other routines, which will hopefully result in more time for creative work. As a consequence, instead of viewing the continuous improvement of product development activities as something that limits the freedom of the developers, it can be viewed as something that creates even more flexibility and liberates creativity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Continuous improvement has become an important strategy in improving organizational performance. Unfortunately, product development is often excluded in continuous improvement programs due to the special characteristics of product development activities. The overall purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of continuous improvement in the context of product development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A central aspect in this context is that many organizations find it difficult to improve and learn if work is carried out in the form of projects. In this paper, a quality perspective on continuous improvement is introduced and its usefulness is tested empirically through three case studies in Swedish organizations. The focus is on the improvement programs used and the quality principles displayed in a product development context.\nFindings: - The results show that the three investigated organizations have multiple improvement programs, but that some configurations of improvement programs seem to be more successful than others. For instance, co-ordination of multiple improvement programs, scope creep, and separating between product development processes and project management models are important success factors for continuous improvement. In addition, an introduction of an improvement program without adoption of a critical mass of quality principles is doomed to fail.\nOriginality/value: - The research initiative is one of the first to conduct an empirical investigation of how organizations design and work with improvement programs in the context of product development. It provides knowledge to both academics and practitioners on how organizations can design and implement initiatives on quality management, especially in the context of product development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information literacy through inquiry: A Level One psychology module at the University of Sheffield	[ "Learning", "Information literacy", "Curriculum development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The CILASS context\nAims and objectives: The aim of the research was to evaluate the curriculum development project based on criteria established through the Theory of Change process described in the following. Broadly the objectives were to investigate student and staff perception of the inquiry-based learning task; investigate the relationship between information literacy and inquiry and determine whether the inquiry-based learning activity helped students develop information literacy capabilities.\nLiterature review: What is inquiry-based learning?\nPEBBLE: The Department of Psychology was granted funding for their first departmental programme of IBL curriculum development in summer 2006. The Project leaders were explicit about the aims of the project to enhance conceptual, methodological and transferable skills in students from Level One upwards. There was a significant focus on the development of IL in students through inquiry in all three strands of the programme; including the development of \"higher order\" (Bruce, 1997) information literacy competencies such as the ability to critically evaluate information.Critical appraisal of the public presentation of psychology\nMethodology: Project level evaluation\nResults: The results from the various evaluation methods used in the project will be presented using the framework of the SCONUL \"Seven Pillars\" of information literacy.Pillar 2\nDiscussion and conclusion: IBL for IL\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to report on the evaluation of a curriculum development project that took place in the Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield. The project, funded by a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CILASS), sought to embed information literacy development in a Level One module using an inquiry-based learning pedagogical approach. Students worked collaboratively to find news stories that were purportedly based on real psychological research and then searched for the related research paper. They reflected on this task and the differences between the two sources as part of the assessed work for the module.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper synthesizes the results of a number of evaluation instruments (questionnaire, information literacy competency test, focus group, student reflective work) to examine staff and student perceptions of the inquiry task, and how effective the task was in building students' information literacy. A \"Theory of Change\" evaluation methodology was used to define the scope of evaluation activities.\nFindings: - The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model is used to structure the findings from the various evaluation methods. Students developed their knowledge of, and ability to search, appropriate academic resources, although they demonstrated a preference for searching via Google Scholar over Web of Knowledge.\nOriginality/value: - Students demonstrated through their reflective comments that they had developed significant abilities to compare and evaluate news stories and journal articles, although they reported a lack of confidence in these abilities. Postgraduate tutors thought the inquiry task was successful in developing students' information literacy and both students and staff responded positively to the ability to choose topics of interest to investigate.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Acculturation of local new product development team members in MNC subsidiaries in Thailand	[ "Acculturation", "Thailand", "New product development", "Multinational companies", "Performance management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of globalization, knowledge of cross-cultural business practices enhances the ability to operate businesses in different countries or cultures (Lindholm, 1999). When multinational companies (MNCs) expand their businesses in a foreign country, they inevitably encounter a host-country culture which more or less differs from the home-country culture. Understanding the host-country culture enables the headquarters to adapt business strategies and practices in accordance with local cultural beliefs, norms, attitudes and behaviors. On the contrary, lack of sufficient knowledge of the other culture potentially hinder work processes shared with local employees, especially in the coordination between expatriate managers and local employees (Kopp, 1994; Sriussadaporn, 2006). Hence, MNCs need to recognize and identify the most effective way to cope with the host-country culture in order to achieve international business goals.MNCs' success relies on a variety of international strategies including new product development (NPD) which significantly strengthens competitiveness and increase market opportunities (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 2000). Managing NPD projects abroad is more challenging than in domestic market as customer needs become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Changing customer preferences and needs are important considerations for NPD, especially for market pull innovations which often are incremental improvement of existing products (Rothwell and Zegveld, 1981). To facilitate NPD and marketing process, cross-functional teams that hold expertise from different disciplines and functions (e.g. marketing, R&D) are employed. Specifically, marketers use tactical ability to examine customer requirements and develop competitive advantage strategies. In addition, R&D professionals exploit technological know-how to transform a product concept into a prototype and then pass through manufacturing to production. The combination of these individuals with distinctive knowledge and skill enables the team to solve more complex problem, make faster decisions on NPD management, and increase NPD success (Cheng and Shiu, 2008; Griffin, 1997; Song and Thieme, 2006).Given fierce global competition, MNC headquarters transfer technological knowledge to their subsidiaries in order to improve technological capability (Techakanont and Terdudomtham, 2004). Under this circumstance, traditional cross-functional teams comprising only local members (i.e. monocultural team) may not be sufficient to ensure the success of NPD projects. Expatriates are sent from headquarters as part of the control mechanism for business operations and involved with local NPD teams (e.g. marketing and R&D managers). These expatriates are considered as transfer agents who disseminate knowledge to improve performance of local operations (Minbaeva and Michailova, 2004). On the other hand, local managers provide valuable information of market needs, local resources, and competition situation. Having different country of origin, both expatriates and local employees constitute a multicultural team in which different ethnicities and cultural values intertwine. Such multicultural settings offer knowledge sharing that is useful for new product idea creation, especially for international markets (Schweiger et al., 2003).\nLiterature review: Previous cross-cultural studies have demonstrated the impact of cultural difference of NPD team members on practices and performance. McDonough et al. (2001) found that a multicultural NPD team faced greater challenges associated with effective communication, project management and interpersonal relationship than a monocultural team. This is because members from different countries may have different work norms, beliefs, and experience that hinder project coordination. Murray and Chao (2005) suggest that NPD team members who are from different cultural backgrounds may experience a less harmonious relationship and reduce team performance. In the context of expatriate and local members, Speece and Suwannaporn (2004) found that different cultural backgrounds of two parties can disrupt the communication between them. Local employees view themselves as in-group members whereas expatriates are perceived as out-group members. With this perception, communication between both parties is inhibited and NPD outcomes are undermined. Although a large body of research has demonstrated the impact of cultural difference on NPD team behavior and performance (Garrett et al., 2006; Shaw et al., 2004), the empirical studies on acculturation of NPD team members is scarce. This study, therefore, aims to explore the phenomenon of acculturation in NPD teams in multicultural working environment.Acculturation theory was initially introduced by anthropologists, Redfield et al. (1936), who explain the outcomes of cultural change of immigrants who migrate across regions. Acculturation was defined as a phenomenon in which groups of individuals of one culture have changed their value, attitude, and behavior due to a continuous contact with another culture for a period of time. In other words, after one cultural group adapts with the other group and vice versa, the original culture of either or both groups subsequently changes. In later applications to social studies by Berry (1980), acculturation refers to the result of cultural change due to the diffusion of cultural elements between two cultural groups. The change of an individual's cultural values depends upon how this person perceives the own and the foreigner's cultural values. This perception determines the degree to which one wants to:* adopt foreign cultural values encountered during ongoing interaction with a person from a different culture; and* maintain own cultural values of one's society.Acculturation has been increasingly examined in many fields of studies including marketing (Martin, 2005). This study focuses on the acculturation within NPD teams whose members are expatriates and local employees.In a multicultural team, coordination between local and expatriate managers is crucial, especially for a NPD project. Since expatriates come from different national cultures, they remain, to some extent, tied to their own national culture-specific behaviors and norms (Adler and Graham, 1989; Smith and Berg, 1997). While working with expatriates, local employees hold their own national culture and related work values which cause different behaviors. Experiencing behavioral differences makes both expatriates and locals adjust their work styles and values to accomplish the NPD project (Toh and Denisi, 2003, 2007). Many previous studies have found that expatriates tried to acculturate to the host-country culture to feel more comfortable and adapt to living and working more efficiently in the new environment (Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000). However, it is necessary that local managers need to be aware and understand how foreign managers are different in their behaviors, work cultures, and performance assessment and expectations (Neupert et al., 2005). More importantly, local employees, who acculturate to parent-country business practices and norms, tend to gain more promotion opportunities within MNCs (Herrmann and Werbel, 2007).To date, management literature confirmed the existence of \"local acculturation\" in multicultural organizations. Selmer and De Leon (1993, 1996, 2002) found the local acculturation of local middle-level managers who have worked for Swedish subsidiaries in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong for a period of time. To measure the local acculturation, they applied the concept of \"work value\" which refers to the individuals' perception and opinion about job goals and related behaviors (Elizur, 1996). Essentially, these studies found that local managers adopted a significant level of work values from Swedish expatriates (e.g. meaningful work, chances for promotion). Work value adoption occurs when local employees perceived changing work values and related behavior useful for their career opportunities. Nevertheless, these studies investigated local acculturation in subsidiaries of MNCs only with managers from Western countries. Since most corporate headquarters are located either in Western or Asian countries, acculturation study should explore, understand, and compare the results of local acculturation between both groups of these countries. Moreover, the study of local acculturation in the context of NPD teamwork is not very well understood. This research, therefore, investigates local acculturation that is defined as the result of cultural change when local NPD team members adopt foreign work values during NPD work.Between 2007 and 2009, Thailand had become one of the most preferred destinations for foreign direct investment in Asia. Many MNCs from the West (e.g. the USA, Germany) and Asia (e.g. Japan, South Korea) established business operations through majority-owned subsidiaries in a wide range of industries mainly in food and electronics products. Thai cultural characteristics are considerably different from Western cultures and are also not very similar to other Asian cultures (Hofstede, 1980). In addition, given that NPD activities in MNC subsidiaries located in Thailand are mainly performed by local employees, this provides a suitable choice to explore patterns of acculturation among the local NPD team members in both Western and Asian MNC subsidiaries.Taking all aforementioned contentions into consideration, we propose the following research questions:RQ1. Does acculturation occur among local NPD team members in MNC subsidiaries located in Thailand?RQ2. Are there any differences between acculturation types of local NPD team members in Asian and Western MNCs?RQ3. What are the effects of acculturation on the outcome of NPD project undertaken in these foreign-owned subsidiaries?\nResearch methodology: To gain an in-depth understanding of the nature of local acculturation and its formation in multi-cultural NPD teams, a qualitative research approach using discovery-oriented, in-depth interviews was chosen. A narrative approach was employed to gain very detailed information about participants' experience in working expatriates during NPD process. This method involves personal interaction of the researcher who carefully observes participant's expressions of their experience, feelings, and perceptions in addition to the reply to questions and thus renders a deeper understanding of human experience and perspectives (Neuman, 1997).Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 15 local Thai NPD team members and nine expatriates holding managerial positions in MNC subsidiaries located in Thailand. Each interview lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, depending upon the information provided by each participant.Participants\nFindings: research propositions: This study aims to explore the phenomenon of acculturation of local NPD team members by comparing two groups of MNC's origin of culture; Western (USA/Canada) and Asian (Japan/Singapore) countries. Based on insights obtained from the literature review and the field data, the research propositions were developed. Table II presents cultural characteristics, cultural distance with Thai culture, and the results of three core categories emerged during the interviews:1. causes of local members' acculturation working in multi-cultural NPD teams;2. types of acculturation; and3. effects of acculturation on the team performance.Causes of local acculturation in NPD teams\nConclusions and future research: The exploratory findings have extended acculturation theory (Berry, 1980) into the context of managing multicultural NPD teams. Specifically, we provided a deep understanding of the phenomenon of acculturation among local NPD team members working in subsidiaries of foreign MNCs located in Thailand. The findings of our research shed light on three important topics.First, causes of acculturation in local NPD teams include the headquarters-subsidiary relationship and social interactions during NPD project. As assigned by corporate policy, the role of local NPD team members in both Asian and Western MNC subsidiaries is to coordinate with expatriates in carrying out complex tasks such as NPD project. Moreover, they need to establish close relationships through social activities so as to increase job performance and career opportunities. These causes of regular contact may lead to the phenomenon of acculturation in NPD teams. Especially, when local members are motivated by the value of job's outcomes and rewards, they tend to acculturate to foreign work culture exhibited by expatriates.Second, two types of local acculturation are found as a result of foreign work values adoption. This finding extends Elizur's (1996) work into the context of multicultural NPD team. That is, acculturated Thai NPD team members accept and then adopt foreign work values because they perceive these values as instrumental for their future career advancement. Interestingly, local members (eight from Asian and three from Western MNCs) mostly maintained Thai work values in NPD projects while four of local managers from Western subsidiaries did not. Whether an individual maintains local work values, leading to assimilation, depends upon a person's educational background and experience gained from working in foreign-owned companies.Third, acculturation was proposed to impact on NPD project work and its outcomes, namely task performance and interpersonal relationship. As such, acculturated managers can improve new product performance and strengthen the relationship with expatriates better than the non-acculturated ones.In addition, we have offered recommendations for MNCs to support acculturation of their local NPD managers in overseas subsidiaries. This research also provides recommendations for MNCs to deal with problems created by cultural differences between non-acculturated and assimilated local managers and between non-acculturated local managers and expatriates. Highly recommended to MNC subsidiaries is to develop cross-cultural training programs for local team members.From the findings, two types of acculturation (i.e. integration and assimilation) are consistent with the work of Berry (1980), who identified four types of acculturation in the society; assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization. However, our interview and survey-based findings did not specifically show that any Thai NPD team member identified his/her situation as separated or marginalized. Therefore, the non-acculturated group of local employees in multi-cultural NPD teams should be further investigated with larger sample and in different countries. A large empirical survey will enable researchers to gain quantitative data to test the relationships between the proposed constructs. Also, since acculturation is a dynamic process, a longitudinal study should be conducted to understand the process of acculturation among individual NPD team members and the related change of NPD work performance over time.\nLimitations: The explorative nature of this study offers rich and detailed information on the phenomena of acculturation within multi-cultural NPD teams in MNC subsidiaries. Although this research method yields several interesting insights, it only provides research propositions rather than conclusions. These propositions must be tested by using a more conclusive method (e.g. survey) which is directed toward a large sample of a specific group (e.g. NPD team). Moreover, small sample size limits the ability to generalize the findings to the entire population. Despite the small size interview respondents and survey sample, we ensured high reliability by comparing and finding strong consistency among interview responses and a pilot survey confirmed the findings from the interviews. In addition, since the participants worked for MNCs subsidiaries only in Thailand, the findings might not represent all aspects of local acculturation in other countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of acculturation in new product development (NPD) teams in a multicultural working environment. This paper provides recommendations for multinational companies (MNCs) in dealing with problems among team members from different cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected through 24 in-depth interviews with local middle-level managers (e.g. R&D, marketing managers) and expatriates working on NPD projects in MNC subsidiaries located in Thailand. A qualitative method was employed to explore and attain insightful information about the acculturation of local NPD members when working with expatriates.\nFindings: - Results show that local NPD team members may acculturate themselves to foreign work culture when they have regular contact with expatriates during the product development process. The acculturation may also affect the team performance and the relationship among team members. Cultural training programs for local NPD team members are recommended.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Since this qualitative pilot research has a rather small sample size of cases, it limits the ability to generalize the findings. The findings from MNCs subsidiaries may not represent all other cultures of MNCs operating in Thailand.\nPractical implications: - The findings of this study significantly contribute to MNCs from North America and Asia that develop new products in Thailand. Cultural training programs and frequent and two-way communications are suggested to increase the familiarity of local employees with the foreign work culture, to develop mutual objectives, and to promote shared interests among multicultural NPD team members.\nOriginality/value: - This study extends the application of acculturation of local NPD team members within a multicultural setting, which has been rarely explored. Theoretically, the findings provide an in-depth understanding of the local managers' acculturation pattern found in NPD teams. Also, it provides recommendations on how to support the local NPD team members more effectively in adopting critical values of the parent firm's culture so as to achieve NPD tasks facing less miscommunication and improving project performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Tales from the margins: small fishers in post-tsunami Thailand	[ "Tidal waves", "Thailand", "Communities", "Fisheries", "Tourism" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Small fisher communities in southern Thailand were already vulnerable when tsunami struck their boats and homes with incomprehensible ferocity on the morning of the 26 December 2004.Small fisher households cannot afford to miss too many fishing trips in a row. They have few assets apart from a small boat and some fishing gear. Their houses are modest and alternative sources of income irregular. Decades of escalating pressure from deep sea trawlers and their own fishing activities on the ocean-side, and of charcoal concessions and shrimp aquaculture expansion on the landward side had squeezed many poor Muslim households and the ecosystem upon which they depend to the edge (Janchitfah, 2005; Barbier et al., 2002; Johnson, 2000). They have to spend longer and longer at sea to return with smaller and smaller catches. All this occurred during a decade when they could look around at their neighbours in the towns and cities enjoying new wealth as Thailand's economy grew at a rapid rate (Croissant, 2005).The tsunami had devastating consequences for many small fisher households, firstly through loss of lives, and secondly through damage and losses of houses and fishing boats. For a small fisher household a delay in repairing or replacing boats had amplified impacts because it prevented re-starting of a key livelihood activity forcing affected families into relief-dependency and poverty. As of the 30 June the Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) reported 5,395 casualties (UN-Thailand, 2005). Around half were Thai many from families living in coastal fishing villages.In this paper we focus on how post-tsunami reorganization and politics have affected the livelihood security of small fisher communities (Figure 1). It is based on field-work in affected areas and pertains up to the period of mid-August 2005 or almost nine months after the killer waves struck. The work was carried out as part of our longer-term research program on shrimp aquaculture and coastal zone management in southern Thailand some areas of which were affected by the tsunami (Lebel et al., 2002; Manuta et al., 2005) and on flood disaster management by the Thai state (Lebel et al., 2005; Manuta et al., 2004). Much of the original material in this paper is based on observations and repeat visits to three villages in Takuapa District of Phang Nga province and an island in Kantang District of Trang province.The paper is organized in two parts. In the first we look at how the first nine months of re-organization has impacted the livelihood prospects of small fishers. As a result of our many negative findings, in the second part we look back at key decision-exploring and decision-making processes and what they mean for future of development in coastal southern Thailand. A short conclusion re-iterates key implications for future research and action.\n2 Restoring livelihoods: A key goal of recovery programs was to assist those affected regain or find alternative livelihoods as quickly as possible. For small fishers this would mean loans or direct compensation to help with repair of fishing boats and gear or job creation schemes and new skill training programmes.2.1 Staying alive\n3 Negotiating development: 3.1 Tourism led-recovery\n4 Conclusions: Small fishers in southern Thailand were vulnerable before the tsunami disaster, and despite many well-meaning efforts remained so nine months after. The recovery process was poorly coordinated and often unfair (Figure 1). The opportunities created by the tsunami for re-organization and control of coastal resources was noted early and seized making it difficult for households with some of the least livelihood options. Overall, post-tsunami reorganization and politics has further eroded the livelihoods and political voice of small fishers in the overall scheme of development in southern Thailand.Networks of local NGOs have played a major role, filling critical short-comings in state response. A good illustration is the efforts of various groups to help with boat repairs, but NGO support has also been critical around land disputes and citizenship issues arising in the recovery process. The SAN, an ad hoc alliance of more than 30 organizations nation wide, was able to mobilize alternative funds, resource and assistance in stimulating post-tsunami recovery and rehabilitation processes. At the same time they have helped coordinate activities with state agencies. Academic institutions have largely contributed through technical assessments, most with only minimal public participation and knowledge inputs.We see four areas where responses are needed. Firstly, broader participation is needed in negotiating recovery and development strategies and plans. In the post-disaster rush new regulations, infrastructure and zoning were introduced with little deliberation often when there was the greatest need to listen to alternatives. Secondly, the primary focus of reconstruction program should be on securing sustainable livelihoods of poor and socially vulnerable groups, including what were small fishers. Government has responsibility to the poor in disaster management that extends beyond emergency relief to encompass livelihood recovery. The reliance on a tourism-led recovery is misplaced. Thirdly, a much greater emphasis on coordination among state authorities with initiatives of firms, communities and non-state organizations in disaster recovery is needed. Although some competition is probably desirable, often it is more cooperation and collaboration that is needed. The capacities of the state, and DDPM in particular, were overwhelmed by the tsunami. Evidence of corruption and state failures abound. The governance of disaster management like regional development planning needs to be greatly improved. Fourthly, innovative thinking is needed to reduce vulnerabilities and promote recovery as path to sustainable development. Often this will mean building coastal villages and access points in ways that work with rather than in spite of the coastal protection functions of mangroves and other vegetation.Ultimately one of the primary goals of post-Asian tsunami reconstruction should be to enhance ecological and livelihood resilience of the poor living in the coastal zone. Small fishers households were among the most vulnerable stakeholders in the coastal zone. Much of the social and ecological re-organization that has happened in post-tsunami Thailand, unfortunately, has done little to change that.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To critically examine how the post-tsunami recovery process has affected the livelihoods of small fisher communities in southern Thailand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study was carried out as part of on-going work with small fisher communities in southern Thailand. It was based on direct observations and interviews in fishing communities and following decision-making processes through attending meetings and reviewing secondary reports.\nFindings: - The Indian Ocean tsunami had immediate devastating and longer-term debilitating consequences for small fisher communities in southern Thailand. Delays in repairing or replacing boats have had a major impact on well-being. The tsunami by removing housing and other coastal infrastructure also created opportunities for both social and ecological reorganization. These opportunities were seized upon by powerful interests groups with already strong connections to state through membership in taskforces and other links to power, in particular the tourism and conservation sectors to the detriment of interests of small fishers. A narrow focus on tourism-led recovery is unlikely to do anything but recover tourism.\nPractical implications: - As a marginalized and vulnerable group small fishers need to be directly involved in negotiations around disaster recovery programmes and setting priorities for future regional development in southern Thailand.\nOriginality/value: - This study draws attention to persistent problems in the disaster recovery programs in Thailand that have left small fisher communities in a perilous condition.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparison of two multivariate analysis methods for segmenting users of alternative payment means	[ "Decision trees", "Segmentation", "Discriminant analysis", "Payment means" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: When a trading transaction of goods or services is concluded, the consumer has several options of payment means to select from. As suggested by some authors (Bolt and Chakravorti, 2010) cash, checks and \"plastic money\" (that is cards issued by banks and used as payment instruments, in any financial settlement possibility of credit, debit, prepaid, charge card) are used as payment means to purchase the goods or services. Large international financial corporations compete with each other to introduce new alternative payment means and ensure an important part of the international payment pie, which only for European Union card transactions in 2011, was as large as EUR1.9 trillion (European Central Bank, Eurosystem, 2012). Recent innovations in payment means have fundamentally changed the way customers pay and there is an emerging need to identify the taxonomy of payments and the best method to predict the factors that lead to a new segmentation payment landscape (Hedman et al., 2017).\n2. Background and literature review: 2.1 Payments means\n3. Research framework and methodology: 3.1 Research framework\n4. Results: The responses from the questionnaires were imported to the statistical analysis software package, IBM SPSS Statistics.\n5. Comparison of the two multivariate analysis methods: From the results of the two multivariate methods used, we observe the following.\n6. Discussion: Results of the two segmentation methods revealed that the discriminant analysis method presented a much better classification rate, although both methods had a strong effect in segmenting the customers into separate groups. This finding is in conjunction with the results of Curram and Mingers (1994) comparing these two methods. Moreover, both methods are proper for segmentation purposes, because of their ability to explain the differences in groups in terms of classification rates. These findings constitute the contribution of this research to the academic community for researchers to use these methods for segmentation purposes.\n7. Research limitations and suggestions for future research: The empirical results of this research face limitations in terms of the sample which cannot be considered as representative of the total bank population. As explained in the methodology, the convenience sample is a limit in the generalization of the empirical results. In addition, it refers to a specific country and culture, especially one under economic crisis.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Alternative payment means have been expanding rapidly in recent years. The need to identify the segments of customers that are targetable for both financial and nonfinancial institutions is growing. The purpose of this paper is to use two different methods, discriminant analysis and decision trees, in order to compare the effectiveness of the two methods for segmentation and identify critical consumer characteristics which determine behavior and preference in relation to the use of payment means.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data from 321 bank customers, decision tree and discriminant analysis methods are used, first to test the same set of variables differentiating the customers and then to compare the respective results and prediction ability of the two methods.\nFindings: Results show that discriminant analysis has a better model fit and segments the customers in a more effective way than the decision tree method. In addition, each method shows different variables to differentiate the customer groups.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings are limited to the sector and country of the study, as well as the convenience sample that has been used.\nPractical implications: Suggestions for financial managers to better understand their customers' behavior and target the right group are discussed.\nOriginality/value: This is the first attempt to compare decision trees and discriminant analysis as alternative segmentation methods for payment means.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social media brand engagement practices: Examining the role of consumer brand knowledge, social pressure, social relatedness, and brand trust	[ "Information seeking behaviour", "Social media", "Consumer behaviour", "Structural equation modelling", "Human–computer interaction (HCI)", "Interactive media" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social media plays a cardinal role in the consumer's life (Akman and Mishra, 2017; Prado-Gasco et al., 2017) while serving as a conduit for brand connection and engagement (Dimitriu and Guesalaga, 2017; Osei-Frimpong and McLean, 2018). For instance, Solem and Pedersen (2016) note that social media channels provide a novel communication platform to encourage customers' participation in both social exchanges and brand engagement practices. In addition, given that there are over a billion Facebook users across the globe (Anderson et al., 2016; Karikari et al., 2017), more than 15m businesses or brands have registered on Facebook globally (Koetsier, 2013) in an attempt to interact and engage with customers in the wider community. In effect, businesses are encouraged to have a social media strategy as a part of their marketing efforts to engage with customers (Ashley and Tuten, 2015; Potdar et al., 2018).\nBrand engagement practices: Consumer brand engagement practices have gained traction in both research and practice in recent times. Hollebeek (2011, p. 790) defines customer-brand engagement as \"the level of an individual customer's motivational, brand-related and context-dependent state of mind characterised by specific levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity in direct brand interactions\". This presents a multidimensional attribute of customer engagement (de Villiers, 2015), which seems to build strong emotions and brand relationship. Further, brand engagement practices focus on the behavioural aspects of the customer-brand relationship (Hudson et al., 2016; van Doorn et al., 2010). While brand engagement on the part of the customer is considered as an individual's state of mind, the psychological state of the actor can influence their level of commitment, bonding and loyalty towards a brand (Brodie et al., 2011). Accordingly, customer engagement gives participants the opportunity to exercise \"voice\", where they share their experiences in relation to the brand, or \"exit\", where they are likely to strengthen their relationship with the brand (van Doorn et al., 2010). As a result, consumers voluntarily participate in brand engagement activities, which are driven by their own specific needs. In this case, participants commit their own resources (e.g. time, effort, cost and cognitive abilities) to engage with brands. This study, therefore, pays particular attention in examining some pertinent drivers and consequences of consumer brand engagement practices on social media platforms.\nSocial cognitive theory and social media brand engagement (SMBE): SCT has featured prominently in IS literature (Chiu et al., 2006; Compeau et al., 1999) and often considered as one of the most powerful theories to explain human behaviour. Accordingly, human behaviour is motivated by self-influence be it external or inherent. In this vein, Bandura (2001, p. 267) considers the \"cognitive, vicarious, self-regulatory, and self-reflective processes as the central tenets of SCT\". In effect, a consumer's intended behaviour towards SMBE practices could be considered as a function of their behaviour, personal (cognitive) and environmental (external) factors (Boateng et al., 2016). Furthermore, Bandura (2001) notes that external factors influence behaviours indirectly through their cognitive processes. This suggests consumers' cognitive processes or factors help determine which social networking activities to observe and associate with, and its eventual participation.\nHypothesised model development: Figure 1 illustrates the hypothesised model for the study, and the various relationships are discussed in detail.\nMethodology: Following a quantitative research approach, an online survey design was used in this study to better understand the SMBE phenomenon. This fundamental yet systematic and standardized research design was considered appropriate to help achieve the defined objectives and as well help obtain measurable and objective data from the respondents (Osei-Frimpong, 2017). This study is limited to Facebook users, but, however, not focussed on any particular brand. Facebook was selected because it is the \"most ubiquitous example of social media\" (Ferguson et al., 2015, p. 305). In total, 1,023 consumers of Facebook in Ghana, who have experience following and engaging with brands on social media, were conveniently selected from Facebook users. This technology savvy population was selected considering their exposure to social media and their inclination to following brands. Prior to the main study, a pilot test with 30 respondents from the population of interest was conducted. A preliminary analysis of the pilot study satisfied the content validity and reliability of the data (Cronbach's a>0.7).\nData collection: In the main study, Facebook users were interviewed using an online questionnaire. To ensure only respondents with prior experience following and engaging with brands on social media were involved in the study, inclusive and exclusive question was included in the questionnaire. Out of the 1,023 respondents that responded to the messages posted on Facebook, 712 qualified respondents completed the questionnaire, suggesting the other respondents were excluded following the inclusion and exclusion question. Following an initial screening of the completed questionnaires, questionnaires with three or more unanswered questions were rejected following Hartline et al. (2000), which resulted in 687 useable questionnaires representing a valid response rate of 67.2 per cent.\nMeasures: All scale items were drawn from the existing literature with slight modifications, and measured on a five-point Likert scale (unless specified) that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). PSR was measured with a three-item scale adapted from Kim and Drumwright (2016). Again, a five-item scale was adapted from Osei-Frimpong and McLean (2018) to measure SMBE. Also, brand trust was measured with a three-item scale adapted from Habibi et al. (2014). A three-item scale was developed from Akman and Mishra (2017) and Karikari et al. (2017) to measure perceived social pressure. Brand knowledge was measured using a five-item scale developed and validated by Flynn and Goldsmith (1999) that mainly focuses on subjective brand knowledge of the consumer. All modifications were done with caution to suit the context of this research. All measures with their factor loadings are presented in Table II.\nAnalysis and results: The data were first screened using SPSS 23.0. Following the slight modifications made in the scale items, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted using the principal component analysis and Varimax rotation Hansen (2017). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.883, exceeding the cut-off value of 0.6 with a p-value<0.0001 for Bartlett's Test of Sphericity. All items loaded well on constructs they were intended to measure and there was no evidence of cross-loading. Following a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS 23.0, employing the maximum likelihood estimation, the internal consistency of the scale items was examined, with no evidence of cross-loading. The factor loadings as presented in Table II and the fit indices indicated a reasonably fit to the data (kh2(140)=406.111 p=0.0001, kh2/df=2.901; GFI=0.941; CFI=0.970; RMSEA=0.053).\nStructural model estimation results: The full structural model was estimated using SEM with AMOS 23.0. The model evaluation presented the following acceptable fit indices (kh2(160)=422.723, p<0.001, kh2/df=2.642, GFI=0.940, AGFI=0.922, CFI=0.967, TLI=0.960, RMSEA=0.049, PCLOSE=0.613). A detailed list of the standardized path coefficients with their respective t-values and R2 are presented in Table IV.\nResults: The results (Table IV) indicate that the control variables (Age, Gender, Education and Frequency of visit to brand social networking site) had no significant effects on consumers' participation in SMBE practices, and therefore, will not influence the findings. Effectively, brand knowledge had significant influence on participation in SMBE practices (b=0.117, p<0.05), hence, supporting hypothesis H1. This suggests that consumers' prior knowledge of a brand motivates them to engage in SMBE activities to gain new information regarding the brand. Perceived social pressure also significantly influence consumer participation in SMBE activities as reported in Table IV (b=0.240, p<0.001), hence, supporting hypothesis H2. This suggests that consumers are more inclined to yield to external pressures and for want of being associated with such a group are influenced to engage in SMBE activities. Further, brand trust also significantly influence consumer participation in SMBE activities as reported in Table IV (b=0.159, p<0.001), hence, supporting hypothesis H3. The result indicates that customers trusting the brand are motivated to engage further with the brand on social media.\nDiscussion and implications: This study proposes an integrated framework of SMBE encompassing personal-level factors (brand knowledge and brand trust), perceived social factors (perceived social pressure and PSR) from a SCT perspective. The findings shed light on the application of SCT on consumers' participation in SMBE activities. For instance, SCT argues that individuals' perceptions of a system or social practices consistent with their beliefs among other environmental factors are likely to drive behaviours towards certain activities (Bandura, 2005; Boateng et al., 2016). Hence, this paper has established the role of consumers' prior brand knowledge, brand trust and perceived social pressure in SMBE practices. While there is a general assertion that consumers with prior brand knowledge are inclined to seek further information (Brucks, 1985), its effect in driving consumer participation in SMBE activities has not been established. Also, this study confirms Karikari et al. (2017), and has established that perceived social pressure does not only drive individual social media use, but also motivate consumers to follow brands on social media platforms.\nManagerial implications: In addition to the theoretical contributions highlighted above, this study also provides implications for practice or managers. The findings suggest consumers' prior brand knowledge drives consumers' interest in participating in SMBE practices. This suggests that while social media has come to shape brand communications in practice, these will not fully replace conventional above the line marketing communications (Sweeney et al., 2014). Hence, there is a need for managers to build brand awareness or knowledge by engaging in other forms of communication channels, which will influence consumer interest in engaging with the brand on their social networking sites. Hence, a good integration of these channels is critical in enhancing brand interactions and engagements, which is likely to build brand trust and subsequently lead to brand purchase intention.\nLimitations and directions for future research: This research provides empirical evidence backing the relationships between consumer-level factors (brand knowledge, brand trust and perceived social pressure) and SMBE, and the moderating effect of PSR in SMBE practices. However, there are some limitations that need to be considered. First, the study was cross-sectional meaning that respondents were not studied over a period of time. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions about causality. For instance, taking into account a consumer's PSR that seems to influence their autonomous motivation, it will be interesting to employ a longitudinal experimental research to bring out other pertinent insights. In addition, future studies are encouraged to build and extend on the model presented here and consider other variables of interest such as the moderation effects of consumer demographics (e.g. age, gender and usage frequency), differential effects of pressures emanating from electronic word of mouth and offline word of mouth. In addition, examining the effects of other social factors and market characteristics on SMBE and the intended outcomes will be interesting to study. While PSR moderates SMBE activities, future research could extend on this finding to establish the relative effects of perceived critical mass, perceived homophily and other socio-psychological factors that could elicit some sense of belongingness on the part of the consumer. Furthermore, the lack of a significant positive interaction effect of PSR on the relationship between brand trust and SMBE requires further research to explain the basis of this result and also to ascertain the results or otherwise.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding on social media brand engagement (SMBE) practices by exploring the impact of consumer brand knowledge, perceived social pressure, perceived social relatedness (PSR) and the role of brand trust.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model is proposed to suggest the influence of consumer-level antecedents and moderators of SMBE. Following a survey design approach, data collected from 687 respondents on Facebook are examined through structural equation modelling using AMOS 23.0.\nFindings: The findings reveal significant relationship between the examined antecedents (brand knowledge, perceived social pressure and brand trust) and SMBE. Examination of the moderation role of PSR revealed significant interaction effects on the relationship between brand knowledge and SMBE, as well as perceived social pressure and SMBE. The findings also suggest a lack of interaction effect of PSR on the relationship between brand trust and SMBE.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research provides empirical evidence in support of understanding SMBE practices by testing theoretically grounded hypotheses. The study focussed on technologically savvy respondents and only Facebook users in Ghana, which could limit the generalisation of the findings reported.\nPractical implications: This study illustrates a need for managers to integrate multi-communication channels to enhance brand interactions and engagements. Firms must also adopt strategies that would enhance the sharing of interesting information about their brands on their social media platforms to attract others through customer networks.\nOriginality/value: The conceptualization of SMBE in this study zooms out our understanding of online SMBE by examining pertinent variables that drive or moderate consumer participation in SMBE activities. The integration of these variables brings out new empirical understanding and extends our knowledge on SMBE.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Online news recommendations based on topic modeling and online interest adjustment	[ "Recommendation system", "Collaborative topic modelling", "Online recommendation", "Recommendation adjustment", "Semantic latent topic analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the ubiquitous internet, growing numbers of people are obtaining news articles on various topics, such as lifestyle, fashion and entertainment from new types of online media platforms. As these new media platforms have become the primary news sources for users, information overloading can make it difficult to meet individual user demands. In order to address this problem, recommendation systems have been developed to enable users to access news on desired topics, thereby increasing user loyalty and browsing aspirations for online media platforms.\n2. Related work: This section introduces related work and the methods adopted in the proposed system.\n3. Proposed approach: 3.1 Overview\n4. Experiment and evaluation: The experiments and evaluations were conducted in two phases. The offline experiment phase determined the most appropriate parameters for prediction models. The online evaluation was then conducted on the online media NIUSNEWS website (www.niusnews.com/).\n5. Conclusion and future work: This study proposed and implemented a novel online news recommendation system. We employed word embedding semantic vectors to design an SLDA method. Then a semantic latent factor for MF was built to design a CSTM method based on combining CTM with SLDA. In addition, the SLDA and CSTM methods were integrated to design an EM for analyzing user preferences. The offline experiments and online evaluation results show that the proposed methods can improve recommendation quality and achieve better performance than typical CTM and MF methods can. This implies that the proposed CSTM considering semantic analysis with word embedding (SLDA) can more effectively extract the latent features of news articles, and thus can provide more effective news recommendation than the CTM can. Moreover, the proposed EM achieved higher recommendation quality than that of the CSTM. This result implies that combining SLDA and CSTM can use the merits of CBF and CF approaches to enhance the recommendation of news articles with possible cold start news articles.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Providing online news recommendations to users has become an important trend for online media platforms, enabling them to attract more users. The purpose of this paper is to propose an online news recommendation system for recommending news articles to users when browsing news on online media platforms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A Collaborative Semantic Topic Modeling (CSTM) method and an ensemble model (EM) are proposed to predict user preferences based on the combination of matrix factorization with articles' semantic latent topics derived from word embedding and latent topic modeling. The proposed EM further integrates an online interest adjustment (OIA) mechanism to adjust users' online recommendation lists based on their current news browsing.\nFindings: This study evaluated the proposed approach using offline experiments, as well as an online evaluation on an existing online media platform. The evaluation shows that the proposed method can improve the recommendation quality and achieve better performance than other recommendation methods can. The online evaluation also shows that integrating the proposed method with OIA can improve the click-through rate for online news recommendation.\nOriginality/value: The novel CSTM and EM combined with OIA are proposed for news recommendation. The proposed novel recommendation system can improve the click-through rate of online news recommendations, thus increasing online media platforms' commercial value.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leveraging human touch in service interactions: lessons from hospitality	[ "Hospitality", "Relational models", "Service work", "Automation", "Hospitable service", "Human touch" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Automation of service processes and a shifting balance of service co-production from employees to customers is becoming the norm in many industries, creating a more commoditized and digitized economy (Bolton et al., 2014). This movement away from the human touch is particularly evident in the realm of hospitality. Where human touch was once regarded as a source of competitive advantage, technology (e.g. front-desks, concierge services, food and beverage, and housekeeping) is rapidly becoming accepted as meeting the needs of both organizations (reducing labor costs and human errors) and guests (improving the efficiency of service delivery) (Wirtz et al., 2018). The estimated probabilities of technology replacing people are particularly high in frontline hospitality positions - hosts and hostesses (probability of 0.97), cooks (0.96), receptionists (0.96), first-line supervisors (0.94) and desk clerks (0.94) (Frey and Osborne, 2013, pp. 57-59).\nHumans as catalysts for value creation: In an era of explosive technological advancement, adoption and growth, where machines and technology exceed new milestones every day (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011), it is nearly impossible to track these changes statistically. While increased productivity plays a leading role as a driver for technological replacements of the human touch in the service industry, affordability, reliability and multi-tasking capabilities are also significant drivers of technological applications.\nHospitable service: does human touch create competitive advantage?: Leading hospitality organizations understand that \"hospitality\" and its principles constitute a competitive advantage, and emphasize this through the organizational mission, vision, cultural values and operational practices (Golubovskaya et al., 2017). These organizations exemplify how to provide guests with genuine care and comfort and the feeling of warmth, authenticity and the sense of being in a home away from home. Their messages and behaviors, all focus on hospitality and signify through what they say, do and write that their organizations offer a special kind of service, hospitable service. Providing hospitable service (i.e. enhancing the service process with qualities of hospitableness such as authenticity, warmth, respect) can give firms a unique competitive advantage (e.g. Meyer, 2008), inviting guests to participant in a \"dialogue\" is particularly valuable in the age of diminishing human touch. Through numerous definitions of hospitality the hospitable service typically includes some human interaction or interpersonal exchange that creates the human touch, King (1995), Reuland et al. (1985) and Brotherton (1999) all have argued the importance of the human exchange that happens in a service experience. Similarly, Hemmington (2007) stresses the importance of focusing on caring and building strong human interpersonal relationships in providing hospitable behavior. Similarly, the service literature is replete with studies on how the human touch adds value to a service. These include, authentic smiles (Grandey et al., 2005), a warm welcoming with opening of the doors, friendly greetings with help handling luggage (King, 1995; Lashley, 2008) and authentic caring behavior straight from the heart (Ariffin and Maghzi, 2012).\nTheoretical foundation: a host-guest relational model: To better understand the relationship between the degree of hospitableness provided by the relational value of the service experienced via the human touch vs that provided by technology, we propose a model defining four distinct organizational configurations representing different amounts of human touch in hospitableness. While we recognize that each customer - and each experience is unique, the model assumes some commonalities among the customers and their experiences to simplify the presentation of the key ideas. As used here, an organizational configuration represents a \"multidimensional constellation of conceptually distinct characteristics that commonly occur together\" (Meyer et al., 1993, p. 1175). These characteristics, such as employee-organization relationships and HRM practices, are related to each other in distinct ways within each configuration, such that changes in any one characteristic will have an impact on all others in that constellation. Further, the configurational approach predicts both within-configuration consistencies and across-configuration differences (Meyer et al., 1993) that are relatively stable, emerge from distinct organizational experiences, manifest in different organizational behaviors, yet create equally functional (or dysfunctional) outcomes. It is typical for these configurations to be identified using some combination of internal-organizational characteristics (e.g. strategy or structure) and features of the external environment (e.g. environmental stability or dynamism), with each configuration reflecting a unique type of niche or fit (e.g. mechanistic vs organic forms of organizations; Burns and Stalker, 1961).\nModel of service configurations: Dimensions of service delivery\nConfigurations of degrees of human touch in service: The above three dimensions covary to create four distinct configurations that are described in this subsection. In each configuration we summarize the EOR, HRM system, and tech-touch tradeoff and then offer an example of hospitality firms that currently operate in each configuration. To support the discussion below, Figure 1 provides an illustration of each configuration on the two axes, while Table I summarizes the details for each configuration.\nAlignment between and within configurations: It is also essential to consider the internal alignment among the components of each configuration. For example, the organization's EOR preferences, to a large extent, dictates the type of HRM system - with overinvestment supported by human relations systems, mutual investment by commitment systems, and so forth. Similarly, the HRM system is defined by the tech-touch strategy adopted by the organization. For example, the adoption of a high tech-low touch process will use a limited cohort of employees to enable the interface between technology and the guests (e.g. to direct guests toward a self-service kiosk, or troubleshoot a service robot). An understanding of how the human touch, even a brief one, can affect the customer experience. Employees can be trained and rewarded to perform these \"enabling\" roles without trying to substitute for the tasks performed by the technology - a perfect example of a control based HRM system. Here again, change in value creation orientations will require a broad restructuring of HRM systems, service delivery processes and most importantly senior management's EOR preferences.\nFuture research opportunities: There are myriad opportunities to expand the ideas presented in this paper to seek improved understanding about how service can incorporate elements of hospitable behavior as a point of competitive difference in a world growing in technology and automation. Confirming the nuances of hospitable service and understanding its application into different industry segments is an area ripe for further research. Similarly, HRM researchers can identify specific strategies for managers to hire and develop the right people trained to understand how to identify human touch opportunities. Equally important will be to address the known workforce challenges (e.g. generational and demographic differences, evolving worker needs, changes in the nature of EOR). Future research can seek to identify ways, boundary conditions and circumstances under which a service gains or loses value when co-producing with an automated delivery system vs a person. Similarly, there is a need to study the possible impacts of AI on each of the configurations presented in our model and how more advanced forms of AI might substitute for some human touch in the service experience. Because there are nearly infinite ways that service can be configured following the logic outlined in this paper, further research should lead to more complex matrices to categorize not only distinct business configurations, but also within (intra) organizations when there are either multiple service level offerings or different segments of customers.\nConclusion: Technology as a substitute or augmenter of the human touch in service will only continue to grow (Bolton et al., 2018). The key question we seek to address in this paper is how organizations determine the level of human touch and the level of hospitable service expectedly their targeted customers. Answering this question required our exploration of the roles that employees play in hospitality and the ways in which technology can be used in those roles without failing to meet the expectations of the targeted customers. The key to responding to the customer in the way that yields customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat visits is to identify the tradeoffs described by the configurations in our model. Clearly understanding the configuration of resources allows a firm to use technology to its greatest advantage because of its ability to draw implications from vast amounts of data and to deliver service with high levels of efficiency and consistency. If a customer prefers customization and a place where name recognition is important, technology can augment the human touch humans provide by making that information available. If humans want to substitute their own labor for that provided by a service organization, the technology can help identify and direct that customer segment to the kiosks instead of the front desk. In other words, the configurations suggested by this paper promote the thinking of how technology can be used to both enhance the guest experience and the organization's effectiveness in providing experiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: With the ever-increasing adoption of technology and automation radically changing the nature of service delivery, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of human touch, introducing hospitable service as an enhancement for value creation in service organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on management, social sciences and hospitality literatures, a four-configuration model is presented to illustrate dimensions which arise from the confluence of different degrees of relationship orientation - shared mental models held by the host organization (self- or other-oriented), and guests' service preferences (transactional or relational).\nFindings: A theoretically grounded model of configurations resulting from variations on three key dimensions is offered. These are: employee organization relationships - social exchange processes governing the interactions between employees and their employers; HRM systems - internally consistent combinations of HR practices; and tech-touch trade-off - prioritization of technology vs employees to deliver services.\nResearch limitations/implications: Embedding hospitable service as a construct to support the leveraging of human touch in service organizations opens up new research opportunities including avenues to further conceptualize the nature and dimensions of hospitable service. Future research that supports further understanding about the role of human touch and value creation in service organizations is proposed.\nPractical implications: Through the value-enhancing capability of human in the service encounter, firms can be enabled to accurately position themselves in one of the four relational configurations on offer and then identify opportunities for managers to leverage human touch to combat the diminishing role of the human touch in a technology-ubiquitous service context.\nOriginality/value: This is among the first papers to explore the influence of technology on the degree of human touch in the interface between hospitality employee and customer, and to develop a configuration model through which researchers and practitioners can operate during this declining era of human to human service interactions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Stemming the tide of work-related stress: it's not rocket science, it's neuroscience	[ "Stress", "Neuroscience", "Solutions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Advances in brain imaging technology in the past 3 decades, are giving us incredible insights into the machinery of mind. Although still a vast amount to discover, we now know more than we have ever known. Applying this new knowledge translates into surprisingly simple tools, which could be key to tackling one of the main issues plaguing the global business world today- the toll of stress.\nFight! Flight! Freeze!: As neuroscience parlance comes into popular consciousness, many people are familiar with this concept. Working practices are inadvertently over-loading the most influential systems in our brain, continually activating our Fight, Flight, or Freeze response (FFF). The ramifications and affect that this has on other brain functions is possibly less well known. Delving into the details of the specific and negative impact that this has on our overall performance will illuminate why Applied Neuroscience is by far the most effective and sustainable way to reduce stress.\nSo what can be done? Actually, quite a lot ...: Specific strategies and tools dramatically diminish stress. The limbic brain is also known as the emotional brain. Because our responses are first felt as emotions, neuroscience shows us how important emotions are, as they serve as rapid significance indicators Gordon, 2012. How we feel about something determines whether it is perceived as a threat or reward. This is why feelings feel more factual than fact, more real than reality, truer than truth. Applying this knowledge now means we can work in line with the brain's organizational hierarchy. Working practices have tended to emphasize the importance of suppressing emotions in the workplace. Neuroscience is proving that this is wrong; hiding a powerful emotion can trigger a subconscious threat response in other people. Obviously, we do not want people over emoting at work; instead, what we need is an intelligent response to emotional stimuli, at both an individual and organizational level.\nEmotional intelligence: Training programs in this give people the capacity to better manage themselves and their colleagues. This also naturally builds emotional resilience. This is not just a concept, emotional resilience literally changes the architecture of our brain, strengthening the white matter connections between the limbic system and the PFC. This lessens our responses to perceived threat. What excites one can petrify another, illustrating powerfully the importance of individual perception.\nThree brains: It is important to be aware that the brain in our head is influenced by huge concentrations of neural cells in the heart and the gut. These neurons can act independently or collaboratively with our main brain. When these systems conflict, stress is also caused. The neurons in our heart directly influence our physiology in the same way as the brain does. Techniques to harmonize this heart-brain system mean people can deal with stress more effectively and simple interfaces have been designed to visually highlight this correlation, allowing people to cognitively balance this system. These offer effective ways for organizations to best support the wellbeing of their workforce. Obviously, exercise and nutrition have a huge impact on stress; covering these in depth would take another article. What is worth noting though, is that stress is our body's way of signaling that something is wrong. When it comes to food, we can misinterpret these signals, believing we are hungry, when a break, a walk, or just standing outside will calm us.\nCommunicating: Another key area which will help alleviate our primal threat-response is communication. Our internal dialogue has a hugely significant impact on our limbic system. At an individual and organizational level, implementing a model such as the SCARF model (Rock, 2009), would vastly improve \"communication\", enabling more effective information exchange, PFC to PFC.\nNeuroplasticity: The strategies mentioned, along with many more from Applied Neuroscience, work toward leveraging a recently discovered brain process known as Neuroplasticity. In simple terms, the brain has the ability to re-wire and make new connections constantly. Usually, it does this outside of our awareness. By focusing our attention on this process, we can leverage the power of intentionality and when it comes to the brain, nothing is more powerful.\nConclusion: As the limbic system has an inverse correlation to our higher executive functioning, we cannot think clearly whilst in survival mode. Limbic working conditions negatively impact productivity, whereas promoting integrated brain practices does the opposite. If organizations align working practices with biological processes, we can heal this potential epidemic. As the generator of emotions, it is worth bearing in mind that the limbic system is also what gives life meaning and purpose. It is where we feel love, truth, and beauty.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to illuminate how the findings from neuroscience, translate into simple, elegant, and easily applied tools which offer highly effective strategies to help stem the rising tide of stress in global work-forces.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Focusing on how current working practices inadvertently activate the brains primal survival mechanism, this paper details the brain's main organizing principle and the negative effect this has on performance and productivity.\nFindings: Exemplifying why, how, and when this automated stress response is triggered, the paper suggests practical, real-world solutions to overcome the primal fight, flight, and freeze mechanism. As this mechanism is responsible for the majority of work-related stress, it discusses the brains capacity to re-wire and change behavioral responses to stress at an individual and organizational level\nOriginality/value: This study seeks to introduce the concept of aligning work place practices with biological processes. Hoping to open a debate around shifting cultural perceptions of what constitutes the real well-being of work forces, it offers a unique and fresh perspective into the machinery of the mind.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Finance, corporate value and credit market freedom in overinvesting US firms	[ "Firm value", "Leverage", "Cash-holdings", "Institutions", "C33", "G30", "G32", "G38", "G39" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The effect of capital structure on firm value has been a subject of intense debate in the finance literature. The Modigliani and Miller (1958) result of a capital structure irrelevance for the firm value, under restrictive assumptions, caused economists to devote a lot of effort to relax some of these assumptions.\n2. Background: 2.1 Related literature\n3. Empirical framework: 3.1 Methodology\n4. Empirical results: 4.1 Target of investment and overinvesting firms\n5. Concluding remarks: This paper, by using a large panel of non-financial US firms for the period 1990-2013, investigates the relationship between corporate value and alternate financing policies in a sub-sample of 2,769 firms affected by overinvestment tendencies, likely to be driven by empire-building managers. In particular, once having estimated the target level of investment, we define a sub-sample of firms more likely to be affected by agency problems between managers and shareholders as those having a level of investment greater than their target level and an amount of cash-holdings larger than the amount which is needed to finance the first-best level of investment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Using a sample of US firms more likely to be affected by agency problems, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate value and financial policies and to study whether credit market freedom (CMF) affects this relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors identify a sub-sample of non-financial US firms potentially affected by agency problems using a joint criterion of over-investment and high cash-holdings. A generalized method of moment econometric framework is then used to estimate the impact of cash-holdings and leverage policies on firm value for this sub-sample. This exercise is also performed by taking into account the level of CMF of the state where the firm operates.\nFindings: The results show that the relationship between cash-holdings - or leverage - and firm value is \"U-shaped.\" In addition, when the authors focus on the role played by the level of CMF, the authors find a number of interesting facts: CMF facilitates the firms' access to external finance, thereby relaxing the need of internal funds for investing; the relationship between cash-holdings and firm value is \"U-shaped\" only in states enjoying high levels of CMF; the probability of observing firms more likely to be affected by agency problems is higher in states with high levels of CMF.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical findings provide important insights to policymakers, shareholders and practitioners. To policymakers, the results suggest that providing institutional environments with greater CMF can enhance the firm access to external finance, the level of corporate investment and the economic growth. To shareholders, the findings highlight that the conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders may be more severe in states with higher CMF; therefore, adequate financing policies and corporate governance mechanisms must be used to mitigate these conflicts and maximize the firm value. Finally, to practitioners, the evidence suggests that, in valuing a firm, they must take into consideration whether the economic environment provides managers with more freedom to stockpile cash and invest sub-optimally.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the corporate finance and governance literature in two respects. First, it provides new evidence on the shape of the relationship between cash holdings and firm value for firms affected by empire-building managers. Second, at the best of the knowledge, it is the first corporate finance study, which analyzes the role played by the CMF at the state level on the capital structure and the level of investment of the firms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Machine learning facilitated business intelligence (Part I): Neural networks learning algorithms and applications	[ "Data analytics", "Machine learning", "Learning algorithm", "Feedforward neural network", "Industrial management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The widespread popularity of the feedforward neural network (FNN) to solve problems exists in its universal approximation capability (Ferrari and Stengel, 2005; Hornik et al., 1989; Huang, Chen and Siew, 2006). It can solve any complex non-linear problem more accurately which is difficult using classical statistical techniques (Kumar et al., 1995; Tkac and Verner, 2016; Tu, 1996). The FNN range of applications is numerous and some areas include regression estimation (Chung et al., 2017; Deng et al., 2019; Kummong and Supratid, 2016; Teo et al., 2015), image processing (Dong et al., 2016; Mohamed Shakeel et al., 2019), image segmentation (Chen et al., 2018), video processing (Babaee et al., 2018), speech recognition (Abdel-Hamid et al., 2014), text classification (Kastrati et al., 2019; Zaghloul et al., 2009), face classification and recognition (Yin and Liu, 2018), human action recognition (Ijjina and Chalavadi, 2016), risk analysis (Nasir et al., 2019) and many others. Business intelligence makes use of data analytics techniques to generate useful information from high-dimensional data that may support making better informed decisions. Machine learning is gaining popularity in all aspects from data gathering to discovering knowledge and its role in enhancing business decisions is gaining significant interest (Bottani et al., 2019; Hayashi et al., 2010; Kim et al., 2019; Lam et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018; Mori et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2005; Wong et al., 2018). The study explores the machine learning FNN and its application in facilitating business intelligence. The application of FNN in diverse topics is not simple and extensive knowledge is required to build an optimal network to achieve the intended results in the shortest possible time. In its simplest form, FNN with a single hidden layer is powerful in solving many problems, given that there are a sufficient number of hidden units in the layer (Nguyen and Widrow, 1990).\n2. Survey methodology: 2.1 Source of literature\n3. Feedforward neural network: an overview: FNN is a parallel information processing structure consisting of a processing element known as neurons (hidden units), interconnected together with unidirectional distributed channels known as connections. Each processing neuron receives an incoming connection from all input features, sum and activate it using non-linear activation function, and branch it to as many connections as desired. The processing neuron output which can be of any mathematical type depends upon input features with its weighted sum and activation function (Hecht-Nielsen, 1989). The FNN concept originated by motiving from the human brain neuron functioning system. The human brain has approximately 100bn neurons that communicate through thousands of electro-chemical connections and send signals to other neurons if the sum of connections exceeds a certain threshold. In this perspective, a simple FNN consists of a minimum of three layers interconnected by unidirectional channels known as connection weights: an input layer, hidden layer and the output layer. FNN processes information in one direction starting from the input layer, through the hidden units in the hidden layer and finally the output layer without any loop or cycle. Figure 6 illustrates a simple FNN with three layers. The number of hidden layers in FNN determines its architecture. FNN with one hidden layer is known as a shallow type, whereas more than one hidden layers are known as deep type (Bianchini and Scarselli, 2014; LeCun et al., 2015). The input layer consisting of input features x with an added bias bu are connected to the hidden layers u through the input connection weights wicw. The hidden layer sums the product (wicwx) and squash it through the non-linear activation function fhu(z). The hidden layer with an added bias bo and the output layer are connected by the output connection weights wocw. The output layer sums the product (wocwfhu(z)) and squash it through the non-linear activation function fou(z) to estimate output vector p. The values of p at the output layer are compared with target vector a and the loss function E is determined. These all steps proceed in a forward phase and known as the forward propagation. This can be expressed mathematically as:(1)\n4. Learning algorithms: In this section, the authors made an effort to uncover the answers to the questions highlighted in the introduction section. The proposed algorithms in the selected literature were reviewed to understand the inspiration, research gaps, merits, limitations and application areas. In current practice, a single algorithm in FNN is not sufficient for all types of applications. There is always a trade-off between network generalization performance and learning speed. Some algorithms have the advantage of being more efficient than others but may be constrained by memory requirements, complex architecture and/or more learning time. Since the early FNN development, many improvements have been made and many of them are mentioned below.\n5. Discussion of future research directions: The literature survey was conducted to get an in-depth insight of FNN and researcher contributions in improving its generalization performance and learning speed. The existing learning algorithms have a major contribution and further improvements in future research can create a significant contribution. In Section 4, it can be understood that any existing improvement is not straightforward, and researchers are making continuous efforts to propose algorithms that are computationally efficient and have better generalization performance. By analyzing the existing research, this section provides future research directions that will be beneficial in improving the FNN convergence.\n6. Conclusions: We conducted a review on FNN learning algorithms and optimization techniques designed to achieve better generalization performance and fast learning speed. Traditional FNN is slow and it may take hours, days or even a week to generate results. The results are highly influenced by global (learning rate, initial weight and a number of hidden units in the hidden layer) and local (proposed in the specific algorithm) hyperparameters. The repeatedly tuning of the connection weights with hyperparameters creates a complex coadaptation in the network which decreases generalization performance and being trapped in a local minimum if a global minimum is far away. The convergence may be increased by the large learning rate, but it will make it unstable, whereas small learning rate will slow convergence. The optimal FNN with maximum error reduction capability is not always evident. A lot of experimental trials are required to be performed with different combinations of hyperparameters to select the network with minimum error. The selected FNN may not perform well, even on unseen data and the generalization performance may decrease.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review of the noteworthy contributions made in the area of the Feedforward neural network (FNN) to improve its generalization performance and convergence rate (learning speed); to identify new research directions that will help researchers to design new, simple and efficient algorithms and users to implement optimal designed FNNs for solving complex problems; and to explore the wide applications of the reviewed FNN algorithms in solving real-world management, engineering and health sciences problems and demonstrate the advantages of these algorithms in enhancing decision making for practical operations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The FNN has gained much popularity during the last three decades. Therefore, the authors have focused on algorithms proposed during the last three decades. The selected databases were searched with popular keywords: \"generalization performance,\" \"learning rate,\" \"overfitting\" and \"fixed and cascade architecture.\" Combinations of the keywords were also used to get more relevant results. Duplicated articles in the databases, non-English language, and matched keywords but out of scope, were discarded.\nFindings: The authors studied a total of 80 articles and classified them into six categories according to the nature of the algorithms proposed in these articles which aimed at improving the generalization performance and convergence rate of FNNs. To review and discuss all the six categories would result in the paper being too long. Therefore, the authors further divided the six categories into two parts (i.e. Part I and Part II). The current paper, Part I, investigates two categories that focus on learning algorithms (i.e. gradient learning algorithms for network training and gradient-free learning algorithms). Furthermore, the remaining four categories which mainly explore optimization techniques are reviewed in Part II (i.e. optimization algorithms for learning rate, bias and variance (underfitting and overfitting) minimization algorithms, constructive topology neural networks and metaheuristic search algorithms). For the sake of simplicity, the paper entitled \"Machine learning facilitated business intelligence (Part II): Neural networks optimization techniques and applications\" is referred to as Part II. This results in a division of 80 articles into 38 and 42 for Part I and Part II, respectively. After discussing the FNN algorithms with their technical merits and limitations, along with real-world management, engineering and health sciences applications for each individual category, the authors suggest seven (three in Part I and other four in Part II) new future directions which can contribute to strengthening the literature.\nResearch limitations/implications: The FNN contributions are numerous and cannot be covered in a single study. The authors remain focused on learning algorithms and optimization techniques, along with their application to real-world problems, proposing to improve the generalization performance and convergence rate of FNNs with the characteristics of computing optimal hyperparameters, connection weights, hidden units, selecting an appropriate network architecture rather than trial and error approaches and avoiding overfitting.\nPractical implications: This study will help researchers and practitioners to deeply understand the existing algorithms merits of FNNs with limitations, research gaps, application areas and changes in research studies in the last three decades. Moreover, the user, after having in-depth knowledge by understanding the applications of algorithms in the real world, may apply appropriate FNN algorithms to get optimal results in the shortest possible time, with less effort, for their specific application area problems.\nOriginality/value: The existing literature surveys are limited in scope due to comparative study of the algorithms, studying algorithms application areas and focusing on specific techniques. This implies that the existing surveys are focused on studying some specific algorithms or their applications (e.g. pruning algorithms, constructive algorithms, etc.). In this work, the authors propose a comprehensive review of different categories, along with their real-world applications, that may affect FNN generalization performance and convergence rate. This makes the classification scheme novel and significant.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Invisible value formation: a netnography in retail banking	[ "Customer dominant logic", "Customer value", "Netnography", "Retail banking", "Customer context", "Invisible value formation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The value that customers experience from relationships with companies has been emphasised as a main source of competitive advantage (Woodruff, 1997; Huber et al., 2007; Steenkamp and Geyskens, 2006) and organisational success (Slater, 1997; Wang et al., 2004). Customer value is recognised as a foundation of all effective marketing activity (Holbrook, 2006; Gronroos and Voima, 2013) and a primary goal of marketing itself (AMA, 2007; Khalifa, 2004; Babin and James, 2010). As competition in the retail banking industry grows continuously and customers become more empowered and demanding (Arasli et al., 2005; Gan et al., 2006; Hedley et al., 2006), an understanding of how customers experience value from their bank relationships has become increasingly important (Lahteenmaki and Natti, 2013).\nCustomer value of bank relationships: Much research has been done on customer value within the domain of marketing since the 1990s, and various definitions have been suggested. Customer value is often defined as the customer's evaluation of the perceived benefits or utility obtained from a product in comparison to the perceived sacrifices or costs (Dodds and Monroe, 1985; Zeithaml, 1988; Monroe, 1990; Teas and Agarwal, 2000). This approach conceives of customer value as the trade-off between benefits received and sacrifices made by the customer. Perceived benefits can be economic, social, or relational, while perceived sacrifices include price, time, effort, risk, and convenience (Grewal et al., 1998; Cronin et al., 2000). Monroe (1990) draws from early studies on the price-quality relationship (Dodds and Monroe, 1985) when he defines customer value as the ratio between perceived benefits and perceived sacrifice. In a similar way, Zeithaml (1988, p. 14) defines customer value as \"[...] the consumer's overall assessment of the utility of a product based on a perception of what is received and what is given\". While Monroe (1990) takes a rather objective view on the ways in which consumers evaluate value from products, Zeithaml (1988) regards value as a subjective and personal concept.\nMethod: This study employs the qualitative research methodology called netnography to explore invisible value formation in retail bank relationships. The netnography approach utilises an ethnographic research method to study online consumer discussions (Kozinets, 2002). It allows researchers to unobtrusively collect data from publicly available online communities and \"to identify and understand the needs and decision influences of relevant online consumer groups\" (Kozinets, 2002, p. 62). The methodology has been found to be especially suitable for sensitive research topics (Langer and Beckman, 2005). As netnography is \"based primarily on the observation of textual discourse\", qualitative content analysis is used to code and analyse data (Kozinets, 2002, p. 64). This research approach differs from many existing bank studies that typically, either through qualitative or quantitative means, ask direct questions to customers.\nFindings: The analysis of the 579 online postings revealed four factors of invisible bank service value: shared moral value, responsibility value, relationship value, and heritage value.\nDiscussion and contribution: The study contributes to the service marketing and bank marketing literature by describing four factors of bank service value within the customers' domain but outside the line of visibility of service providers: shared moral value, responsibility value, relationship value, and heritage value. These factors reside in the customers' life worlds outside the visible interaction and emerge through the mental and invisible actions of the customer. Thus, our findings suggest that the value emerging from customer-bank relationships is more multifaceted than previously documented. The characteristics of the two factors shared moral value and responsibility value are indirectly related to how banks operate, whereas relationship value and heritage are based more specifically on customers' own logic. We argue that the latter two thus refer more to the mental experiences of customers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore value formation in the customer-bank relationship outside the line of visibility of service encounters. The customer's own context has been overlooked by the bank marketing literature as it is traditionally focused on value created by the service process and outcome.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Positioned within the customer dominant logic, a netnography was conducted to explore how bank relationships are realised in customers' own contexts and experiences. A total of 579 postings from discussions of retail banking in 18 online communities were collected and analysed.\nFindings: The study uncovered four factors of invisible bank service value experienced by customers: shared moral value, responsibility value, relationship value, and heritage value.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study conceptualises bank service value as realised in the customers' own contexts and thus highlights previously hidden sources of value in banking. The findings can be used for further conceptualisations of the customer dominant value formation of bank services.\nPractical implications: The netnographic method illustrates how naturalistic data about customers' retail bank experiences can be retrieved unobtrusively. The findings help bank management to understand what comprises customer value beyond the service encounter.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the research in service marketing and bank marketing in three ways: first, a methodological contribution is the introduction of a netnographic approach to bank service value research. Second, a theoretical contribution is the uncovering of invisible value formation in the customer-bank relationship. Third, the paper uses the customer dominant logic in a banking context, thus providing insights into how banks are involved in the customer's own life.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How subjective processing fluency predicts attitudes toward visual advertisements and purchase intention	[ "Attitude", "Attention", "Advertisement", "Processing depth", "Processing fluency" ]	[ { "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.\nOverview of the experiments: Our investigation involved two studies. The first was a pretest of an ad hoc scale to measure subjective processing fluency. We hypothesized that the objective visual and semantic clarity of an advertisement would predict self-reported conceptual and perceptual processing fluency, which, in turn, would predict the attitude toward the advertisement. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that individuals are at least partly conscious of (and therefore able to self-report) the perceptual and conceptual fluency with which they process advertisements (Mazzoni and Nelson, 1998; Winkielman et al., 2003; Wurtz et al., 2008). Because there is as yet no psychometrically validated measure of self-reported subjective processing fluency, we had to build an ad hoc subjective processing fluency scale. This scale is divided into two subscales: a perceptual subscale (five items) and a conceptual subscale (five items). To verify that the scale was psychometrically sound, we tested its internal consistency and theoretically bi-dimensional factor structure.\nStudy 1: In Study 1, we investigated the basic psychometric properties of an ad hoc measure of subjective processing fluency. We hypothesized that self-reported perceptual and conceptual processing fluency would predict the subject's attitude toward the advertisement. An advertisement that was easily processed conceptually or perceptually was expected to elicit a positive attitude. We also hypothesized that visually altered advertisements would be rated as more difficult to process perceptually, whereas semantically altered advertisements would be rated as more difficult to process conceptually.\nProcedure: The whole procedure was computerized, and its total duration was about 20 minutes. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the 12 items resulting from the 3 x 2 x 2 experimental design (advertisement x visual clarity x semantic clarity). Participants were told that the experiment was about advertising and that they would have to evaluate an advertisement on several criteria. After a short description of the experiment, the computer program switched to the experiment. The participant was asked to look at the advertisement on the screen for as long as he/she wanted and was able to look at it while responding to the questions. Participants were administered the SPFS, followed by the \"Ad attitude\" questionnaire.\nResults: Scale score reliability\nDiscussion: The results of this first study revealed that the ad hoc measure of subjective processing fluency had satisfactory psychometric properties. First, the scale and both its subscales showed satisfactory internal consistency. Furthermore, the two-correlated-factor theoretical model showed acceptable fit, contrary to alternate models.\nStudy 2: Study 2 aimed at investigating self-reported processing fluency and its relationships with other key constructs in advertising research: attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the brand and purchase intentions. We aimed to investigate the relationship between self-reported processing fluency and various advertisement processing variables, as identified by Smith et al. (2007). More specifically, we hypothesized that processing fluency would be positively related with the self-reported amount of attention dedicated to processing the advertisement, the self-reported motivation to process the advertisement and the self-reported depth of processing. In turn, these variables would predict attitudes toward the advertisement, attitudes toward the brand and purchase intentions as part of a cognitive effort justification (Song and Schwarz, 2008; Norton et al., 2011).\nResults: Reliability\nDiscussion: Study 2 replicated the results of the first study and further demonstrated the relevance of taking into account self-reported processing fluency when investigating advertisement processing, Ad attitude and brand attitudes and purchase intentions. As in Study 1, the ad hoc self-reported measure of subjective processing fluency showed good internal consistency and satisfactory factorial validity. Furthermore, as in Study 1, we found a positive and significant correlation between self-reported processing fluency and self-reported attitude toward the advertisement.\nGeneral discussion and conclusion: The results of Study 1 suggest that our ad hoc scale was successful in capturing subjective processing fluency. More specifically, visually altered advertisements were reported as eliciting less fluent perceptual processing, compared with the original version of the same advertisements. Likewise, semantically altered advertisements were reported as eliciting less fluent conceptual processing, compared with the original version of the same advertisements. Consistent with the theory of hedonic marking of processing fluency, this research also used a multi-mediation analysis to show that self-reported processing fluency mediated the relationship between the advertisement's visual and semantic clarity and attitude toward the advertisement. Indeed, while perceptual processing fluency mediated the relationship between the visual clarity of the advertisement and the attitude toward it, conceptual fluency mediated the relationship between the semantic clarity of the advertisement and the attitude toward it.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the role of attention, processing motivation and processing depth in the relationship between self-reported subjective processing fluency and relevant advertisement variables such as ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two empirical studies were conducted using self-report questionnaires.\nFindings: In Study 1 (N = 176), the measure of self-reported subjective processing fluency was pretested. As expected, it was found to be sensitive to visual and semantic features of advertisements and to predict attitudes toward an advertisement. In Study 2 (N = 204), mediation analyses showed that self-reported subjective processing fluency was a predictor of attitude toward the advertisement (through attention and processing depth), attitude toward the brand (through processing depth) and purchase intentions (through processing depth).\nResearch limitations/implications: The results emphasize the role of cognitive processing in explaining the effect of processing fluency on attitudes in marketing research.\nPractical implications: Practitioners could use this theoretical framework and take into account the fluency with which consumers process information to improve the way they advertise their products.\nOriginality/value: The results suggest that self-reported subjective processing fluency can be relevant to predicting consumers' attitudes because it increases attention and processing depth of the advertisement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
High performance work practices and organizational performance-mediation analysis of explanatory theories	[ "Organizational performance", "Job characteristics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the concept of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) has emerged in 1990s (e.g. Arthur, 1994; Robinson et al., 1994; Huselid, 1995; Becker and Gerhart, 1996; Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Delery, 1998), a large number of researchers have explored the linking pin between HPWPs and organizational performance (Obeidat et al., 2016). The association has been studied with the help of various conceptual approaches (Tsai, 2006). These frameworks include: resource-based view, expectancy theory, ability-motivation-opportunity model, social exchange theory, behavioral theory, resource dependency theory, labor process theory, human capital theory, strategic management, etc. (Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Guest, 1997; Appelbaum et al., 2000; Jiang et al., 2012; Darwish and Singh, 2013; Obeidat et al., 2016; Ogbonnaya and Valizade, 2018). Majorly, the theories link HPWPs with both firm-level outcomes and employee-level outcome (Tsai, 2006) through their impact on employees' skills, knowledge, values, ability, opportunities, motivation, communication, participation, relevance and flexibility (Arthur, 1994; Delaney and Huselid, 1996; Guest, 1997; Ichniowski et al., 1997; Whitfield, 2000; Obeidat et al., 2016).\nTheoretical framework: The linkage between HPWPs and organizational performance has been advocated by different schools of thoughts, namely configurational, contingency, universalists, mutual gain and integrationist (Delery and Doty, 1996). Universalistic perspective favored the positive relationship between HPWPs and organizational benefits regardless of organizational context. HR practices create organizational value in a different business context. In nutshell, the perspective supports the fact that an HR practice is always beneficial for the organization irrespective of organizational values (Pfeffer, 1994; Huselid, 1995). Integrationist argued that organizational benefit of HR practices multiplies when the practices are implemented in complementary bundle. Contingency perspective advocates the aligning of HPWPs with strategic choice of the organization. They favored a vertical fit between HRM practices, organizational strategy and environmental characteristics to achieve competitive advantage in the market (Youndt et al., 1996). Further, configurational perspective demanded both vertical and horizontal fits of HR practices. Horizontal fit refers to the internal consistency of the practices. Although different lines of thoughts explored the domain of HPWPs, there is little consensus over the HR practices to be included in a model of HPWPs.\nResearch framework: The aim of the present study is to explore the conceptualization problem of HPWPs with the help of two theories: job characteristics theory and psychological impact theory. Conceptualization issue has been addressed through investigating meditation effect of the theories in relationship of HPWPs and organizational performance. The research setting for this empirical analysis is companies located in National Capital Region (NCR), India. The research setting is appropriate as modern organizations and MNCs which are implementing HPWPs are readily available in NCR region. Random sampling was applied to collect data from respondents. As many as 40 companies, banks, insurance educational institute, car, rice, shoe, business processing organizations, etc. were chosen and it was targeted to access information from 20 responses from all 40 companies. Respondents were approached through e-mail, personal interaction and through references (friends or colleagues). Author got 432 responses from 800 approached respondents and thus response rate was comfortably higher than 50 percent. Demographic representation of sample is presented in Table I.\nData analytical strategy: Correlation tables were produced for all variables of the study. Structural equation modeling was used to examine mediation effect of two explanatory models of HPWPs.\nDiscussion: The present study extends the knowledge and understanding in the domain of HPWPs. First, findings confirm the positive relationship between HPWPs and organizational performance in a non-western setting, i.e. India. Although previous researchers (e.g. Youndt et al., 1996; Delery and Doty, 1996; Black and Lynch, 2001; Shih et al., 2006; Obeidat et al., 2016) have already applauded the said linkage but similar findings in Indian sample are interesting and demand further exploration and discussion given the vast differences in cultural and organizational settings in India. The paper tried to address the concern of lack of studies in Asian countries (as highlighted by Obeidat et al., 2016) via investigating HPWPs in Indian companies. Although it is extremely premature to suggest, the acceptance of mostly similar set of high-performance practices in eastern world favors universal approach rather than the contingency approach of HPWPs. More structured and focused researches are required to reveal conclusive evidence for the same. Universal perspective of HPWPs adores the idea of universal validity and utility of HR practices irrespective of organizational and cultural factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although high-performance work practices (HPWPs) are considered to have a strong influence over organizational performance, researchers are not unanimous about the exact mechanism through which the impact of HPWS transcends to organizational performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore two explanatory theories (job characteristics theory and psychological impact theory) of HRM and examine their possible mediation effect on the relationship between HPWPs and organizational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediation effect.\nFindings: Four constituents of job characteristics theory (autonomy, feedback, skill variety and task significance) and two constituents of psychological impact theory (job satisfaction and organization citizenship behavior) reported partial mediation.\nOriginality/value: The paper is based on primary data collected by author.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Joined on rather than joined up?" Primary mental health work in Scottish schools	[ "Mental health services", "Schools", "Scotland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The need for change\nMethods: The subjects of study\nResults: Results from the primary mental health workers\nDiscussion: Qualification and experience\nConclusions: Primary Mental Health Work in Scotland appeared from this study to be patchy and under-funded, in that some posts were short-term and mainstreamed posts described as thinly spread. This confirmed the Workforce Review findings that CAMHS in Scotland is under resourced (Scotland's Health On the Web (SHOW), 2005). However the results from interviews with school staff in West Lothian suggested that their knowledge of, and skills in dealing with, mental health and mental health problems were increased through contact with link workers, often informally. Both sets of interviewees described reaching children with real and acute psychiatric need and that children in need of psychiatric treatment were receiving it more quickly. School staff reported that children in need of assessment were being seen in the community, rather than waiting for hospital appointments. Both sets of interviewees stated that children were receiving support at home and in school, informed by the link worker's expert opinion and increased knowledge of school staff.Barriers to working jointly were identified by the PMHWs including difficulties of time, attitudes and professional differences, but all of the interviewees were positive about the community approach. School staff described problems with clarity of the link worker role and with embedding the approach into school structures as it remained temporary. Most PMHWs described their main contribution as improving the capacity of families, schools, social work and primary care. There were four themes of \"capacity building\":1. Making space for school staff reflection.2. Making relationships, particularly informal.3. Providing skills and knowledge.4. Providing containment, helping others to feel supported in dealing with severe difficulties.The other main gain was seen as direct local access for children and their parents to information and support, which also allowed early identification of problems and early intervention. However, lack of sustainable or adequate funding was likely to undermine development of the service and led to comments in schools like \"it feels more joined on than joined up\".Recommendations for Scotland\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Primary mental health workers have been based in West Lothian schools since 2003 to act as links between the community and hospital-based services. The research programme this paper describes aimed to examine how this model worked and its impact for children and their families.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper reports on interviews with secondary school staff, the link workers and comparative post-holders. The research study was qualitative and the research question was \"What is the perceived impact of Mental Health Link Workers in West Lothian schools?\".\nFindings: - The paper finds that Primary mental health workers felt that their main contribution was building capacity in the community to support children with mental health problems, and identified four strands to this: space, relationships, skills and containment. Two described direct access for children and their families as the main gain. Secondary school staff considered that the greatest impact was for children at the onset of mental illness, and their own knowledge and skills.\nPractical implications: - Primary mental health work in the community is fairly new in Scotland. This study suggested that it speeded up and improved access to services for children in need of mental health assessments and services. It was based on temporary contracts and short-term funding. Sustainability within schools may only take place when the work becomes well resourced.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is a detailed look at the views of Primary Mental Health Workers based in schools and school staff.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Abroad but not forgotten: Improving the career management of employees on international assignments	[ "Expatriates", "International business", "Human resource management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Companies that send employees - often their top performers - on international assignments are failing to capitalize on this investment and losing talented staff through inadequate arrangements for repatriation and professional development.\nBusiness reasons for expatriate assignments: According to the report, the main business reasons for expatriate assignments are the need to: make up for a skill shortage in the foreign country; deploy expertise rapidly; achieve greater control; transfer corporate culture; transfer process technology; launch new initiatives; or develop global leadership. Organizations that are clearest about the purpose of a foreign assignment have a higher-than-average level of top performers on assignment, or their people on assignment show the most marked performance improvement while abroad.\"Clarity is needed about organizational goals, support mechanisms and future opportunities for individuals,\" say the authors. \"These all increase the chances of expatriation success.\"The report reveals that there is a 13 percent net performance improvement of expatriates on assignment. But the authors find no correlation between higher pay for expatriates and improved performance. The higher the pay, the longer assignments tend to last - with some employees happy to prolong an enhanced financial existence abroad, with little incentive to return.The average length of an assignment abroad is 29 months, and only four percent of assignments are terminated early. Organizations that do not specify a projected assignment duration tend to pay the highest assignment allowances and have longer-than-average assignment durations.The report's authors recommend that only when a post requires specialist skills or senior leadership experience should the employee be able to leverage an enhanced package. International postings are actively sought by many employees and in these cases financial reward equal to colleagues in the destination county - or \"destination pay\" - should be a sufficient incentive.\"When problems arise, the first reaction of organizations is often to offer more money to the employee, perhaps in the hope that this will delay or prevent having to deal with the more difficult issue of performance or even early return,\" say the authors. \"This might provide a short-term solution but we would question whether it achieves a longer-term benefit for either the employee or the organization.\"The report clearly shows the value employers give to working abroad. In some organizations, it is becoming a prerequisite for advancement to the top. Some 5 percent of UK managers currently have international experience. This rises to 20 percent for senior managers and 25 percent at board or executive level. Almost one-fourth (23.7 percent) of returned expatriates are promoted in their first year of repatriation.The report finds each international assignment costs companies an average of $311,000 a year. People sent abroad to work are supported by twice as many HR specialists (one to 37) as employees who stay in their home country (one to 70). One participating organization has one HR specialist dedicated to every 15 expatriate workers.\nTen tips for improvement: The authors conclude their report with the following recommendations:1. Be clear about the overall organization and individual objectives for international mobility and their link with business strategy.2. Ensure that assignee selection is a three-way process (assignee, home and host business sponsors) with a documented business case.3. Be clear about the assignment purpose and the assignment-specific objectives to be achieved.4. If the purpose changes, be sure to reframe the assignment purpose and business objectives.5. Manage the performance-appraisal process during the assignment by keeping a focus on the achievement of the assignment objectives.6. Involve the home and host country, where possible, in the performance management process, and particularly the long-term career development discussions.7. If the assignment objectives have been achieved, make a critical assessment of whether the assignment should be ended.8. Beware of individual assignees' needs relating to repatriation and help to facilitate the transition back to the home country.9. Focus on the next role and use of the international experience in the subsequent state of an individual's career development.10. Regularly review the performance of the international assignment policy and benchmark results against other organizations.The research tracked 3,450 expatriates over an average of three years. The nine multinational organizations taking part in the research represent industry sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, engineering, information technology and other professional services industries. With headquarters in the USA, Britain and continental Europe, they employ more than 500,000 people in total.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article using information kindly supplied by Cranfield School of Management and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Copies of the research report, Measuring the Value of International Assignments, are available from Fiona Leslie, Press and PR Officer, Cranfield School of Management, at fiona.leslie@cranfield.ac.uk\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to develop a detailed understanding of expatriate return on investment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on research by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Cranfield School of Management, UK, which tracked 3,450 expatriates over an average of three years. The nine multinational organizations taking part in the research employ more than 500,000 people in total.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that companies that send employees on international assignments are failing to capitalize on this investment and losing talented staff through inadequate arrangements for repatriation and professional development.\nPractical implications: - The paper lists ten ways for companies to improve the effectiveness of international assignments.\nOriginality/value: - The paper helps organizations to maximize their investment in foreign postings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The value of being a conscientious learner: Examining the effects of the Big Five personality traits on self-reported learning from training	[ "Training", "Personality", "Conscientiousness", "Big Five", "Learning outcomes", "Workplace development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: How are personality traits associated with learning outcomes from training? While research has examined how individual differences influence training outcomes (Chen et al., 2000; Brown, 2001), the absence of pre and post-measurement of learning criteria in such studies means that the role of personality traits in individual development and change is not fully understood. In the present study, we examine the associations of the Big Five on self-reported learning longitudinally, measuring learning before, immediately following and one-month after the training intervention. Our study contributes to the academic literature on individual differences and training at work, by examining the associations of personality with learning controlling for pre-training learning, within a field-study setting and has implications for future research in this area.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Table I presents correlations between all the variables in the study and shows that, as expected, pre-training (Time 1) learning was significantly associated with learning measured at Time 2 and 3. Conscientiousness was significantly associated with learning at all three time points. Neuroticism was negatively related to pre-training (Time 1) learning.\nDiscussion: This study examined how personality traits of the Big Five model were associated with learning following a self-awareness training workshop. By measuring learning at three time points, we were able to examine personality trait associations with development and change as a result of the training. Our results showed that Conscientiousness was associated with self-reported learning after controlling for pre-course learning immediately following the training, and one-month after the training, supporting H1. Our results likely reflect the working style of people with higher levels of Conscientiousness. Associated traits of high Conscientiousness such as self-discipline, responsibility, dutifulness and industriousness are likely to lead people to be more motivated to commit to training and to work harder during workshops or training courses. People high on Conscientiousness may also feel a sense of responsibility or obligation to learn and develop from training if their employer has invested in the program, leading to more positive training outcomes. Our findings contribute to the literature on Conscientiousness and training outcomes by showing the association of this trait with individual development from training, including one-month after the training workshop in our sample.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of personality traits of the Big Five model on training outcomes to help explain variation in training effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Associations of the Big Five with self-reported learning following training were tested in a pre- and post-design in a field sample of junior medical practitioners (N = 99), who attended a training workshop on self-awareness. Associations are reported of personality traits with post-training learning measured immediately following the workshop and one-month later controlling for pre-training learning.\nFindings: Conscientiousness was related to post-training learning at both times. None of the remaining Big Five factors were associated with post-training learning.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study contributes to the literature on personality and training outcomes, clarifying the associations of traits with outcomes in a pre-and-post design. Although the study sample has limitations, the findings have implications for numerous lines of future research, in particular in understanding the role of training in relations of personality and job performance.\nPractical implications: Practitioners should consider ways to encourage training participants to approach training conscientiously. Personality assessment might help people reflect on their approach to learning to adapt it during training.\nOriginality/value: No study has previously examined the role of personality traits in training outcomes using a pre- and post-design. The role of conscientiousness in workplace learning is underlined by the findings. While dimensions such as openness and extraversion may encourage people to participate in training, conscientiousness may make the difference in promoting internalized individual development and change following training.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A new approach to prioritizing SME regulation reforms	[ "SME", "Policy reforms", "Data mining", "Business regulations", "Doing Business" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been recognized as playing a crucial role in the economic development and growth of countries around the world as they greatly outnumber large companies in terms of the proportion of the labor force and the number of establishments. To enhance the start-up and sustainable growth of SMEs, policy-makers have recently been paying increasing attention to the quality and efficiency of the business regulatory environment (e.g. Acemoglu et al., 2001; Klapper et al., 2009; Kraay and Tawara, 2013). Business regulations act as the rules of the game, supporting and restraining economic agents (Schmid, 2008; Williamson, 2000). Successful economic development requires well-designed business regulations for SMEs in a variety of areas, such as reducing the cost of resolving disputes, establishing property rights, protecting contractual partners, and correcting for power imbalance among market players (Aidis et al., 2012). Sound business regulations enable new entrants with innovative ideas to get started in business and compete on an equal footing, and they also help existing market players to invest in new projects and expand their businesses.\nOverview of the 2016 Doing Business Data set: The main objectives of the 2016 World Bank's Doing Business are to provide a framework to assess business regulations targeting SME development, identify strengths and weaknesses in business regulations, and allow for comparison in business regulations across countries. Doing Business reports on several aspects of the business regulatory environment as it applies to domestic SMEs in 189 countries. Drawing on inputs from professionals who routinely administer or advise on legal and regulatory requirements, Doing Business collects a total of 36 component indicators of business regulation and converts each indicator to the distance to frontier score (DTF), which is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst performance and 100 the best. To compute the distance to frontier score, individual indicators are normalized to a common unit by using a linear transformation[1]. For example, starting a business in China requires 11 procedures, whereas the best and the worst performances across all economies are one and 18 procedures, respectively. Thus the distance to frontier score for starting a business in China is 100x(18-11)/(18-1)=41.18.\nThe four-stage integrative analytical framework: Our four-stage integrative methodology consists of EM cluster analysis, BN-TAN data mining, PLS path modeling, and IPMA. The rational and explanation for each is briefly presented as follows.\nEmpirical results: EM cluster analysis\nConcluding remarks: The ten category scores for business regulations reported by the Word Bank's Doing Business are powerful benchmarking indicators for developing the business regulatory environment for SMEs. These categories consist of starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Nevertheless, the unwonted effect of using category scores for business regulations is that often their purpose is overshadowed when the equal-weighted overall score is taken as a single indicator and a whole measure of the business regulatory environment. A decision-making process dependent on the overall score is questionable because the computation of the overall score is based on flawed assumptions that category scores contribute equally to the overall score and are mutually independent without any interrelation between them. It is, in fact, necessary to look beyond the overall score. To this end, the key objective of this paper is to implement a framework that enables policy-makers in charge of a country's business regulations to become aware of the causal relationships among categories of business regulations and to identify the categories that should be prioritized for policy reforms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite their important role for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) policy reform, the individual scores of the ten categories of business regulations in the World Bank's Doing Business report are often overshadowed by the equal-weighted overall score and ease of doing business ranking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal interrelations between category scores and pinpoint the critical categories for reform.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the latest 2016 Doing Business report, this paper applies the four-stage integrative framework to investigate the causal relationships between category scores and the overall score for business regulations for SMEs. The four-stage analysis includes cluster analysis, data mining, partial least square path modeling, and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA).\nFindings: The overall score for business regulations is not only influenced by the direct effects of the category scores but also by the indirect effects of the causal interrelations between these scores. The IPMA suggests that policy-makers should examine the priorities of the category scores before making a decision about business regulatory reforms for SMEs. This paper suggests that policy-makers should allocate resources in order of priority - to resolving insolvency, getting credit, trading across borders, registering property, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, enforcing contracts, getting electricity, dealing with construction permits, and, finally, starting a business.\nOriginality/value: This four-stage methodology is the first attempt to construct a roadmap for business regulatory reforms for SMEs that addresses the problem of equal weighting and subjective causal relationships between category scores.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multiple intelligences of transformational leaders: an empirical examination	[ "Transformational leadership", "Intelligence tests", "Emotional intelligence", "Cognition", "Charisma", "Management skills and qualities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Over the last decade, the majority of the leadership research has been dominated by transformational and charismatic theories of leadership. Briefly, these theories posit that leadership is most effective when an individual utilizes emotional and inspirational influence tactics on the behalf of bolstering the well being of the organization and its members (Bass, 1985). A recent meta-analysis indicated that transformational leadership is an important determinant of a variety of outcome variables including: subordinate commitment and satisfaction as well as the effectiveness of the leader's work group (Judge and Piccolo, 2004). Less evident are the specific traits, dispositions, and abilities that facilitate the display of transformational behaviors.\nTransformational leadership: Transformational leadership has traditionally been defined as the display of the following components: charisma, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Avolio et al., 1999). The charisma dimension is associated with a leader who instills pride, faith, and respect in subordinates and who provides a vision and a sense of mission to a team through excellent communication skills. Intellectual stimulation characterizes a leader who promotes intelligence, rationality, careful problem solving, and who encourages subordinates to pursue innovative solutions to problems. A leader who gives personal attention to subordinates, treats each employee as an individual, and takes an interest in the long-term development of each employee characterizes the individualized consideration component of transformational leadership.\nMultiple intelligences and leadership: As mentioned above, cognitive, social, and emotional intelligences have been postulated as key contributors to the display of the transformational dimensions (Bass, 2001). Very little research though, has been conducted on the cognitive component of intelligence as it relates to the transformational leadership dimensions. Cognitive intelligence includes aptitudes such as dealing with abstract concepts and complex problem solving. It can be assessed through both traditional IQ tests and problem solving tasks of both the paper-and-pencil and simulated forms. In regards to the dimensions of transformational leadership, cognitive intelligence would seem to most likely explain a leader's ability to intellectually stimulate followers. One would need to have strong problem solving skills to firstly, serve as a role model through a series of problem solving successes, secondly to challenge and mold objective reasoning capabilities, and finally to identify the resources needed to empower innovative and creative work from others. In other words, it would seem that for a leader to encourage careful-problem solving and creativity in his subordinates, he himself would have to possess cognitive intelligence. Without strong cognitive skills, it would be difficult for one to challenge and stimulate the cognitive capacities of others. Therefore, it is proposed that:H1. Cognitive intelligence will be positively related to subordinate ratings of their leader's intellectual stimulation behaviors.\nAssessing multiple intelligences: Previous research on the multiple forms of intelligence has measured the components solely by way of paper-based ability and personality tests. Meanwhile, researchers have argued that alternate methods of assessing these multiple intelligences be employed (Zaccaro, 1991; Yukl, 2002). Research has found that individuals willingly distort their responses on self-report personality measures (Barrick and Mount, 1996; Douglas et al., 1996; Ones et al., 1996; Rosse et al., 1998). Rosse et al. (1998) found that both job applicants and incumbents significantly distorted their scores to present themselves in a favorable light. Similarly, Bass (2001) argued that range restriction may attenuate the relationship between traditional paper-and-pencil measures of cognitive ability and intellectual stimulation. Further, method bias is often an issue with research using paper-and-pencil measures as predictors and criteria. Researchers studying the multiple intelligences of leaders have called for the design of new methodologies in order to advance science beyond what leadership behaviors we already know are predicted by established ability and personality tests and also to more accurately capture the complex concepts of emotional and social intelligence.To illustrate, Bass (2001) called for the incorporation of alternate methods of assessing cognitive intelligence that would be more discriminative in differentiating between above average and exceptional levels of cognitive ability. Specifically, Bass recognized range restriction as a primary limitation of existing paper-and-pencil intelligence measures. One potential method for remedying this problem is the assessment center methodology.\nUse of AC behavioral dimensions: To operationalize the constructs associated with the multiple intelligences of leaders, this study will employ assessment center (AC) dimensions (for definitions see Appendix 1) in addition to the traditional paper-and-pencil measures. The exercises in assessment centers include real-life job simulations of one-on-one and group meeting settings. Essentially, these AC exercises encapsulate real-life managerial settings by requiring candidates to respond to a wide range of work-related issues across diverse situations. That is, candidates are placed in a variety of socially, emotionally, and cognitively challenging situations and assessed on their ability to read, adapt, and manage the behavior and emotions of themselves and others. Therefore, with the appropriate conceptual model, these AC behavioral ratings can serve as another methodology for measuring the multiple intelligences of leaders.AC dimensions, however, have yet to be explored as a potential solution to the need for alternative and more accurate methodologies of capturing the key components of the multiple intelligences. Further, despite the established success of AC's in predicting managerial performance (Gaugler, 1987), no study to date has examined the relationship between AC dimension ratings and transformational leadership. Nevertheless, research has shown that AC's explain additional variance beyond paper-and-pencil measures of personality in predicting general job performance (Goffin, 1996). Therefore, it was predicted that:H4. Assessment center dimensions will add incremental validity beyond paper- and-pencil measures in predicting the dimensions of transformational leadership.\nPresent research agenda: operationalizing the multiple intelligences: The present study operationalized the constructs associated with the multiple intelligences of leaders using a personality inventory, a paper-and-pencil measure of cognitive ability, and final dimension ratings from an assessment center. The two authors independently assigned dimensions of these measures on a conceptual basis into the framework of cognitive, social, and emotional intelligences. The measurements of the constructs associated with each form of intelligence are discussed herein in order to clarify hypotheses regarding the predictions of the transformational leadership components.Cognitive intelligence was assessed using overall test scores on paper-and-pencil measures of intelligence (specific traits and their corresponding transformational dimension are displayed in Table I). Past research supports the association between measures of intelligence and perceptions of leadership (see Lord et al., 1986). Additionally, the AC dimensions of analysis and judgment were assigned as measures of cognitive intelligence.Social intelligence was assessed using AC dimensions and scales from the personality inventory. Dominance has received support as a predictor of leadership (Judge and Bono, 2000) and is a trait indicative of social intelligence (Bass, 2001). Confrontation and influence skills are characteristic of social intelligence (Zaccaro, 2002). Oral communication skills are also indicative of social intelligence in that they facilitate the solving of social problems (Bass, 2001). Oral communication skills are intuitively necessary to communicate the motivational message associated with charismatic leaders. Teambuilding skills are a component of social intelligence in so far as this skill set would allow for \"the enhancement of collective motivation\" (Zaccaro, 2002; pp 34). Self-acceptance is indicative of social intelligence in that this trait facilitates the willingness to \"stick one's neck out\" and seek out ways to improve the organization (Zaccaro, 2002). Social presence involves awareness of and boldness in social situations. This trait is similar to the environmental awareness and self-presentation components of social intelligence. Capacity for status is described as a desire to be successful and willingness to express one's views and opinions. This trait is similar to the social intelligence concept called \"social acumen\" (Zaccaro, 2002). Finally, leadership, as measured in the AC, is defined as the ability to impact others. This is conceptually similar to the components of social intelligence that stress the implementation of mutually acceptable solutions in small group settings.Emotional intelligence was also assessed using personality scales and assessment center dimensions. Caruso et al. (2001) proposed that conscientiousness is an important component of emotional intelligence. For example, because conscientious individuals are more likely to be attentive to the detailed needs of their subordinates, they will likely be characterized by a high level of emotional intelligence. Empathy, defined as an understanding of how others feel, is very similar to the core definition of emotional intelligence. Further, interpersonal sensitivity, or the display of behaviors indicating a concern for the feelings and needs of others, is an important component of emotional intelligence. Finally, since Caruso and his colleagues suggested developing others as a primary skill of the emotionally intelligent, the AC dimension of coaching was also grouped under the emotional intelligence framework.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Preliminary analyses\nDiscussion: The results of this study indicate that the multiple intelligences framework proposed by Bass (2001) provides a useful framework for understanding the individual differences associated with the dimensions of transformational leadership. More specifically, the results supported the propositions that specific forms of intelligence would be related to particular transformational dimensions. Significant relationships were found between cognitive intelligence components and intellectual stimulation, social intelligence components and charisma, and emotional intelligence components and individualized consideration. In particular, the abilities and traits that make up the environmental diagnosis and behavioral response flexibility components of social intelligence appear to be important factors for facilitating the display of charismatic leadership. Similarly, the abilities and traits necessary to consistently recognize and respond to followers' emotional needs appear to facilitate the display of individualized consideration.The results do not indicate though that the specific traits, dispositions, and abilities that comprise each form of intelligence are exclusive to a particular transformational leadership dimension. That is, each form of intelligence predicted its hypothesized transformational dimension better than the other two dimensions; however, each of the forms of intelligence was also related to each of the three dimensions of transformational leadership. One possible explanation for this finding is that all three incorporate some form of interpreting abstract cues and solving problems through behavioral response choice.This study did, however, produce some evidence to support the use of assessment centers as an alternative methodology for capturing the multiple forms of intelligence. That is, AC dimensions explained significant incremental variance beyond paper-and-pencil measures in the prediction of transformational leadership. These results also have implications for the practitioner interested in transformational leadership. Assessment centers, a previously unexamined method of assessing multiple intelligences and leadership, evidenced criterion-related validity in the prediction of the dimensions of transformational leadership. Thus, ACs may prove to be a fruitful area for assessing transformational leadership.As always, it is necessary to recognize weaknesses of the study's design when interpreting the results. First, the generalizability of these results is suspect inasmuch as we drew our sample from physicians enrolled in an MBA program. Another potential limitation was the linkages drawn from the scales used to measure the multiple intelligences. Specifically, the decisions for classifying particular personality scales and AC dimensions into the dimensions of emotional and social intelligence may have inadequately captured the emotional and social intelligence constructs. Many of the same traits, abilities, and skills have been included in descriptions of both emotional and social intelligence. For instance, confrontation skills, social awareness, self-confidence, and adaptability have all been described as essential components of both emotional and social intelligence (Caruso et al., 2001; Zaccaro, 2002).Based on the findings from this study, future research should explore other methods of assessing the emotional and social intelligences. This study has highlighted assessment centers as a fruitful arena for explorations of this kind. Assessment centers, by presenting individuals with socially, emotionally, and cognitively diverse and challenging situations, may have a strong future with multiple intelligences researchers. Also, given the generalizability limitations mentioned above, future research should attempt to replicate our findings with larger and more diverse samples.In sum, this study enhances our understanding of the essential components of transformational leadership and points to the multiple intelligences framework as a useful classification of the traits, dispositions, and abilities associated with transformational leaders. It is our hope that this study will serve to stimulate future research on the linkages between multiple intelligences and aspects of leaderships as well as instigate investigations into additional methodologies for adequately measuring the multiple intelligences of leaders.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To examine the impact of emotional, social, and cognitive intelligences on the dimensions of transformational leadership using both paper-and-pencil measures and assessment center dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Multiple measurement methodologies were used to conceptualize emotional, cognitive, and social intelligence. Subordinate ratings of three dimensions of transformational leadership were used as the criteria. Correlation analysis and a series of multiple hierarchical regressions were used to determine the relationship between the multiple intelligences and three dimensions of transformational leadership.\nFindings: - Results indicate that a multiple intelligences framework is a useful approach to predict transformational leadership. Correlation analyses and multiple regression results indicated that the multiple intelligence framework explained between 10 and 25 percent of the variance in perceptions of transformational leadership and that assessment center dimensions explained additional variance beyond paper-and-pencil measures in transformational leadership.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends previous research by examining the impact of cognitive, emotional, and social intelligences on transformational leadership using multiple measurement methodologies. The results of this study provide a useful framework for practitioners interested in assessing precursors to transformational leadership, with a focus on assessment centers as a useful tool for predicting transformational leadership.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How game difficulty and ad framing influence memory of in-game advertisements	[ "Advertising", "Affect", "Recognition", "Video games", "Message framing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 2016, consumers spent over US$34bn on video games and accessories, and two-thirds of the US homes own a device to play games, resulting in an average of 1.7 game players per household (2017 Essential Facts, 2017). Therefore, an increasing number of companies are investing in in-game ads, which let brands interact with potential consumers in a more refreshing and engaging manner than other forms of advertising (Clifford-Marsh, 2009). In fact, global in-game advertising spending was estimated to top US$7bn in 2016 (2017 Essential Facts, 2017). Additionally, the current gaming audience increasingly tends to be made up of individuals who are physically active, early and obsessive product or service adopters, leaders in their social groups and focused on the world beyond gaming (Major League, 2009). Thus, advertisers and marketers increasingly are turning to the medium to reach extremely valuable consumers in an environment with a captive audience who fits their desired demographics (Sung and de Gregorio, 2008). For example, Terlutter and Capella (2013) have noted that, according to the Entertainment Software Association, the average US game player has been playing games for an average of 12 years, and that over 40 per cent of all US gamers are female. Further, video game players have been shown to be accepting of brand placement because they believe it provides more realism to the game (Nelson et al., 2004).\nLiterature review: Game difficulty: affective and cognitive effects\nMethod: Study 1\nGeneral discussion: The general conclusion from the three studies is two-fold. Game difficulty seems to be quite robust in producing differing affective states among players - more so than other game-based features like calm or stressful music, and in-game ads framed as either gain or loss messages could interact with mood to produce congruency effects on ad memory, but these effects were not clearly demonstrated in multiple studies. This actually makes the three studies described above - especially Study 1 and Study 3 - tend to agree with the literature on mood and message-framing effects: sometimes there are congruency effects, and sometimes there are not.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In-game advertising continues to increase in importance for both industry and academia. However, game difficulty - an important, real-world factor - has received little attention as a specific game-related factor that might impact the effectiveness of in-game advertisements. This study aims to investigate the influence of game difficulty on players' affective response and subsequent memory of in-game ads, which were presented as either gain- or loss-framed messages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three experiments were conducted. Study 1 and Study 3 implemented a 2 (difficulty: easy/difficult) x 2 (ad framing: gain/loss) design. Study 2 implemented a 2 (background music: calm/stressful) x 2 (ad framing: gain/loss) design. All experiments took place in a research laboratory in which participants consented to the study, completed a pre-test questionnaire, played a video game, completed a post-test questionnaire and were debriefed.\nFindings: More difficult game play led to greater negative affective response. A different game-based attribute - background music - did not influence affective response. A significant interaction in Study 1 revealed that brand recognition increased as players in a more negative affective state were exposed to the loss-framed message. The results were explained to occur via the congruency effects that game difficulty exerts on players' affective and cognitive states.\nOriginality/value: The studies are the first to incorporate both videogame difficulty and ad framing into one study, which two real-world factors that can influence advertising's effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Thirty years of public management scholarship: plenty of "how," not enough "why"	[ "Democracy", "Accountability", "Constitution" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Reflecting upon 30 years of scholarship in any field is a daunting assignment. When the field is public management, there is much to applaud: scholars have made important contributions to our understanding of everything from bureaucratic motivation, public budgeting processes, the promises and pitfalls of contracting out and identification of the skills needed to be an effective public manager, to the scientific arcana of sustainability and the respective responsibilities of public administrators and elected officials. These and other insights into what we might call the \"nuts and bolts\" of managing government operations are valuable and the copious research that has produced them has been both instructive and worthwhile.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the overarching lessons to be gleaned from 30 years of public management literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology was simple: review the professional literature generated during that time period.\nFindings: Despite important contributions to our understanding of everything from bureaucratic motivation, public budgeting processes, the promises and pitfalls of contracting out and identification of the skills needed to be an effective public manager, to the scientific arcana of sustainability and the respective responsibilities of public administrators and elected officials, the profession would benefit greatly from more sustained emphasis upon the history and philosophy of the constitutional choices made by those who framed America's original approach to governance.\nOriginality/value: The lack of a common understanding of America's legal culture, or even a common vocabulary for exploring our differences poses immense challenges to public administrators, whose effectiveness requires a widely shared, if necessarily superficial, agreement on the purposes of America's governing institutions and an ability to recognize the bases of government legitimacy. In the past 30 years, however, literature that addresses the important connections between constitutional theory and management practice, between the rule of law and the exercise of public power and discretion, has been all too rare. Let us hope that the next 30 years corrects that deficiency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing cancer services strategy in primary care in England: Primary care trust managers' views of the primary care cancer leads initiative	[ "Health services", "National health trusts" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: More than one in three people in England will develop cancer at some stage in their lives, and one in four will die of the disease. Every year, over 200,000 people are diagnosed, and around 120,000 people die from cancer. In the UK, cancer is amongst the three leading causes of death. The most common killers are lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancer, which account for 62,000 deaths each year. The government recognised the need to improve cancer survival rates.The Calman Hine Report (1995) highlighted the importance of primary care and cancer. It noted that:The primary care team is a central and continuing element in cancer care for both patients and their families from primary prevention, pre-symptomatic screening, initial diagnosis, through to care and follow up or, in some cases, death and bereavement.It also stated that \"Primary care is seen as the focus of care.\" However, it did not set out what to do or how to make this happen.In July 2000, the government unveiled a blueprint for reforming and modernising health and social care in England in pursuit of its vision of a modern, patient-centred health service. There was a lack of national standards; out-dated demarcations between staff and barriers between services; a lack of clear incentives and levers to improve performance and over-centralisation and disempowered patients. The government identified ten priorities for improving health and social care which included cancer care (Department of Health, 2000).The NHS cancer plan (Department of Health, 2000a) was the:... first ever comprehensive strategy to tackle cancer drawing together a programme of action linking prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care and research.It also recognised the key role that primary care plays for people with cancer. It stated that:People with cancer spend much more of their time living in their own homes than in hospital or hospice. GPs, district nurses, social services, home nursing services and community specialist palliative care teams provide essential support for patients and their families at different times.It also took the first steps to taking some action in this area. The primary care cancer lead clinician (PCCL) initiative in England developed from an undertaking, set out in the NHS cancer plan (Department of Health, 2000a), that each primary care trust (PCT) should have the funds to recruit a PCCL for at least one session (3-4 hours) per week. The department of health committed PS3 million per year for the first three years of the scheme, in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Relief. It also gave a commitment to establish a primary care cancer dataset as a tool for clinical governance in primary care, and committed to investing PS2 million per year for three years in training for district/community nurses in palliative care.The introduction of PCCLs in each PCT, as set out in the NHS cancer plan, was aimed at involving primary care professionals in the Cancer Networks, and providing them with the opportunity to contribute to network development. Cancer networks are designed to ensure that all providers of cancer care for a defined population work together effectively to deliver high quality care. In addition, PCCLs would raise standards of care within their PCTs and improve communication and understanding across primary, secondary and tertiary care.The Department of Health and Macmillan Cancer Relief jointly invested in the PCCL initiative. Macmillan contributed a total of PS2.2 million over three years for the PCCL support programme (Department of Health, 2000b). The department of health funding (more than PS6 million over 3 years) was to enable the PCCLs to have dedicated time to contribute to the development of Cancer Networks and raising the standard of cancer care within the PCG/T. There are five main aspects to their role:1. to provide strategic leadership within the PCG/T in line with the NHS cancer plan to develop services for cancer patients;2. to contribute to network development and, where appropriate, to represent the PCG/T and primary care in the Cancer Network;3. to contribute to the development of network service delivery plans in order to streamline patient care;4. to raise the standards of cancer care within the PCG/T in collaboration with the clinical governance lead; and5. to ensure that services are responsive to the needs of people affected by cancer (Department of Health, 2000b).Most PCCLs are GPs, but the role has also been taken on by other primary care professionals, notably nurses, but also pharmacists, public health doctors and managers. The remit of the PCCLs was to act strategically to raise standards of care and improve communication and understanding across primary and secondary care and to provide a link between the Cancer Networks and primary care. Macmillan developed a support programme for all PCCLs (Macmillan Cancer Relief, n.d.). One aspect of the study to evaluate the scheme investigated the views of PCT managers about the introduction of PCCLs (Leese et al., 2004).\nMethods: Contact details of PCT Chief Executives were obtained from PCT web sites on the internet. After piloting locally in two PCTs, postal questionnaires were sent to all PCT Chief Executives in England. A covering letter describing the study and a pre-paid return envelope were sent out with the questionnaire. A reminder was sent to non-responders after two weeks, together with another copy of the questionnaire. After further two weeks, chief executives were contacted by e-mail and were asked to remind the person who was dealing with the questionnaire that it should be returned. It had been anticipated that in some instances the chief executive would pass on the questionnaire for completion by an alternative senior manager with closer working links with the PCCL. Although some questions were of the \"tick box\" or \"Likert scale\" type, most were open-ended to allow for individual comments. The questionnaire covered PCT and PCCL characteristics, achievements, collaboration and the future of the role.Questionnaires were coded and entered into SPSS (version 11) and descriptive statistics were used. Thematic analysis of open-ended questions was undertaken. Not all respondents completed all questions so the total numbers may differ in the results set out in this paper.\nResults: Response rates\nDiscussion: Responses were received from PCTs of widely differing sizes suggesting that the findings are nationally representative. A response rate of 61 per cent is as would be expected considering that the PCCL initiative represents a very small part of PCT activities. PCCLs interacted most frequently with the PCT's Director of Public Health.The focus of the PCCLs was predominantly on palliative care and the GSF. This is the aspect of cancer care most often identified with primary care. However, there are many other neglected areas of cancer care in the primary sector and it would be disappointing if PCCLs did not move into these areas when time permits. Lack of time was seen as a major problem for PCCLs to complete all that was required. One way forward would be to embed the role more closely within the PCT management and support infrastructure, as well as sharpening the focus of the remit to promote greater clarity.With the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer (2004) recognising that \"reducing the number of premature deaths from cancer is a public health priority\" PCCLs are at the forefront of improving primary care cancer services and contributing to this priority. Furthermore, the recent Public Health White Paper \"Choosing Health\" (Department of Health, 2004) identifies the importance of healthy lifestyles, smoking cessation and prevention as important public health issues.It is encouraging that many PCT managers felt that PCCLs had contributed to raising the standard of care and hence contributing to service improvement by raising the profile of primary care cancer at all levels. However, it is still early days and greater contributions are likely as PCCLs consolidate their role within PCTs.The key achievements reflected the problems of starting out in a new role where other key individuals were less well informed than might have been expected so achievements were mainly associated with developing relationships locally and raising awareness of primary care cancer. These are the sorts of achievements to be expected in the early phases of a new initiative. Focusing on palliative care is also to be expected and it perhaps reflects the goal-orientated approach of PCTs. In that context, it is also not surprising that the PCCLs' own characteristics were regarded as important in allowing them to achieve their goals, foremost of which were identified by PCT managers as communication skills, having the respect of colleagues, enthusiasm and commitment.The confusion around the impact of the new GMS contract is also to be expected but is likely to be resolved as the new processes are consolidated. In particular, PCCLs were expected to have an impact on enhanced services and to be required to contribute more to the development of cancer registers and to support practices in achieving their quality standards.It is encouraging that PCT managers endorsed the role with enthusiasm and this should help to ensure that it develops in the future, providing substantial improvements to primary care cancer services. PCCLs are at the forefront of improving cancer services in primary care and are well placed to promote the developing public health agenda in England.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Primary care cancer lead clinicians (PCCLs) act strategically in primary care trusts (PCTs) in England to improve communication and understanding of cancer across primary and secondary care and provide a link between Cancer Networks and primary care. The aim is to evaluate the first three years of the initiative.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A postal questionnaire was sent to all PCT chief executives in all PCTs in England and some were passed on to other PCT managers for completion. The response rate was 61 per cent. PCT directors of public health were the largest group of respondents (29 per cent). Most (74 per cent) PCCLs were GPs and 22 per cent were nurses.\nFindings: - PCCLs were most likely to focus on palliative care and preventive services. Key achievements were identified as raising awareness of cancer, developing relationships and promoting primary care. The personal skills of the PCCLs were important as was support of colleagues at all levels. Lack of time was a major barrier to achievement, as was a lack of understanding of the role from others. Links with the Cancer Networks were being developed. About 85 per cent of managers wanted the role to continue.\nOriginality/value: - The paper illustrates that PCCLs are at the forefront of improving cancer services in primary care. They are particularly important in view of the priority of reducing premature deaths and promotion of healthy lifestyles.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Technology and talent: Creating an effective combination	[ "Mentoring", "Talent management", "Employees development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Change is a constant factor in today's business world. Technology continues to play an important role in driving change and in helping organizations operate successfully in the wake of ever-intensifying competition.\nA virtual boost for mentoring: The demand for talent has naturally soared as a result, making it imperative to identify, nurture and manage top-performing employees more effectively. In many firms, the response has been to increase the emphasis on mentoring. Leaders are increasingly utilizing this strategy in their quest to achieve knowledge transfer, leadership development and succession planning objectives.Of course, it's rarely that simple. Setting up any mentoring program involves the often arduous job of finding suitable applicants then matching them with the right mentors. Program content must be appropriate. Ditto its goals. Then there's the necessary evaluation to ascertain the program's effectiveness. And all this must be customized to fit the requirement of the company in question. Sure sounds a pretty daunting challenge.But that's where technology might help. Using an online platform can greatly enhance the implementation and efficiency of any mentoring program. Take for instance, mentor-mentee pairing. Now this already tough task intensifies greatly when a high volume of participants need to be matched. Without an online platform, allowing individuals to make their own arrangements obviously becomes an attractive proposition. A wrong one though. In these situations, the norm is to base choice on favorable personality comparisons rather than objective criteria.On the other hand, data generated by technology offers a methodical approach that ensures pairings are determined by need, expertise and business purposes. Throw in the flexibility to match single pairs or large numbers simultaneously and the value of such tools is enhanced even further.It can be equally difficult to communicate information about the program, especially if many people need to be reached. Technology is useful here too. The secret? Publish program content on a central platform for participants to access. This can stimulate those already involved while also raising awareness and interest among others. Rather than using a generic company platform, one dedicated to mentoring better serves the purpose and focuses attention on the program.Mentoring is a marathon rather than a sprint so organizations need to sustain participant interest for as long as the program lasts. In this respect, content is important. Publishing information, advice and other relevant material helps motivate and engage both mentors and mentees alike. As with any instruction method though, catering for a diversity of preferred learning styles is imperative if the content is to achieve the intended effect.Training at the outset is likewise a must. Teaching participants how to use the technology helps them to:* recognize its potential to enrich the mentoring program;* become more aware of their responsibilities during the program; and* understand the program's vision and goals more clearly.Many firms believe that technology will prove a panacea for all their challenges. That is clearly a dangerous assumption to make. Implementing new technologies is invariably complex and requires considerable investment. Leaders must therefore exercise due diligence in order to ascertain feasibility and ensure that the right decisions are made. Anything else could have damaging repercussions. Putting technology in place before demand is measured invites similar problems. The recommendation is to conduct surveys and interviews to ascertain interest levels and build a pool of prospective participants.Defining objectives at the outset is essential and also serves as a benchmark for the program's success. Managers need to monitor performance on an ongoing basis and tools offered by the technology platform can simplify this task. Through measuring the success of different pairings, use of platform resources and goal achievement, those responsible can help the program to grow and improve.\nThe clear benefits of cloud: Managing talent effectively places considerable demands on any organization. The sheer scope of the task means that a successful strategy becomes much likelier when technology is utilized. For each talent management function, most companies have traditionally used various standalone applications. Storing these applications and the data generated on each user's personal computer or network servers at the firm is normal practice in these circumstances.However, such arrangements often pose huge logistical problems. Frequent software updates are required in order for the content to stay relevant to company needs. This can prove a nightmare for clients and developers alike. Why? Because hardware used by customers will invariably differ in its capabilities. Firms will therefore have to pay for customized upgrades or invest to keep pace with hardware developments. Throw in the need for IT support and costs spiral even higher. Hardly welcome news anytime, let alone in the aftermath of a global economic downturn.The costs and complexities ensure that executing a traditional system is a non-starter for many organizations. But talent management is critical to the firm's well-being and an integrated solution can positively impact on performance, employee loyalty and business strength.Fortunately, the advent of cloud computing has provided companies with a feasible alternative. Many of the headaches associated with the conventional approach can be eliminated using a solution that offers:* Cost effectiveness. There is no requirement for a company to regularly invest in hardware, software and in-house IT support services. Corporate servers are removed from the equation as applications and data are hosted by the provider's own network.* Flexibility. The dynamic nature of the technology provides real-time access, upgrades when required and the capacity to swiftly adapt the application's configuration and processes as user needs evolve.* Integration. It becomes simpler to merge the various talent management processes currently handled in different parts of the firm. Better integration with other HR functions is likewise attainable.* Wider application of training and development programs. The problems associated with conventional technology systems invariably meant that talent management activities were confined to high performers. Because cloud computing allows all employees appropriate levels of access to the system, scope exists for an organization to maximize the potential of its entire workforce.Despite these advantages, some remain skeptical towards cloud computing. Perceived security issues are the cause. Companies fear that relinquishing control increases the risk of sensitive information getting into the wrong hands. Such anxieties are easily allayed though. For a start, ownership of the data remains with the organization; therefore nothing is actually relinquished. And keeping it secure? System providers have this responsibility and it would be folly on their part to perform the duty to anything below the highest standards if they hope to attract and retain clients. Of course, firms should do their homework beforehand when seeking a provider and limit consideration to those certified as working to the latest security standards. Ensuring that user access is properly managed at their end is mandatory too.With an effective talent management strategy in place, organizations can offer more career development opportunities to its workforce. It becomes easier to motivate and retain gifted employees, thus increasing the firm's competitiveness while lowering the need for external recruitment.\nHow to define and identify talent: Where many companies are concerned, the greater challenge is finding talented workers in the first place. Now this task could become more daunting still in the years ahead. In Australia, for instance, reports suggest talent shortages will hit most industries. Clearly, then, no company can afford to rest on its laurels.Talent arguably comes in three different guises:1. at the individual level, where high performers need to be identified;2. particular skills and capabilities vital to the operations and strategy of the firm; and3. certain roles and functions the company deems important to its strategic success.Determining what is regarded as talent in each of these categories should direct the talent identification process.One suggestion gaining credibility is that the process must be consistent and based on clearly identified talent metrics. Advocates believe that formalizing the approach to talent management is best achieved by using technology. A range of tools are available to help identify talent, build a talent database and measure existing and future supply and demand. Knowledge about its human capital can enhance decision making and efficiency in the organization.Technology enables HR managers to measure both people-based and financial-performance metrics. Such objective criteria allow for consistency of evaluation and the opportunity to create and access detailed electronic records.Is this method of identifying talent universally approved? Apparently not. Critics question its objectivity, pointing out that some data needs to be interpreted. Others believe that technology reduces the task to something of a cloning exercise where diversity counts for nothing. On the contrary, this school of thought places considerable value on the intuition of experienced managers and their ability to recognize talented individuals through observation of relevant behaviors. Since seeing is believing, it's hard to argue with that philosophy. Subjective evaluation also encourages discussion among leaders with the likelihood being that a more comprehensive definition of the talent construct will emerge. Another benefit of healthy debate is the ability to constantly renegotiate this meaning as the firm's competitive environment evolves.Perhaps some form of compromise offers the best solution. Efforts to identify talent can exploit human knowledge, experience and judgment, while using appropriate technology to bring a necessary degree of formality and structure to the process.\nComment: The review is based upon: \"Tech-infused mentoring\" by Judy Corner, \"Managing talent in the cloud\" by Jason Corsello, and \"Do you see what I see? The role of technology in talent identification\" by Sharna Wiblen, Kristine Dery and David Grant. In her engaging piece, Corner argues that use of an online platform can help firms overcome recognized problems associated with mentoring. She presents a strong case to suggest that the support provided by technology can help participants and ensure program success. Cloud computing is explored by Corsello who similarly addresses barriers which make building an integrated talent management system difficult for many companies. This detailed account points out several advantages of a cloud-based solution and the argument for its use is compelling. Wiblen et al. focus on how technology can be utilized to make the identification of talent a more objective process. They examine the practice within a large professional services firm in Australia and report how managers rely mostly on experience and intuition to define and identify talent. This balanced and interesting account concludes that the potential offered by technology is not being fully exploited by this firm.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - Change is a constant factor in today's business world. Technology continues to play an important role in driving change and in helping organizations operate successfully in the wake of ever-intensifying competition. The demand for talent has naturally soared as a result, making it imperative to identify, nurture and manage top-performing employees more effectively. In many firms, the response has been to increase the emphasis on mentoring. Leaders are increasingly utilizing this strategy in their quest to achieve knowledge transfer, leadership development and succession planning objectives. Of course, it's rarely that simple. Setting up any mentoring program involves the often arduous job of finding suitable applicants, then matching them with the right mentors. Program content must be appropriate. Ditto its goals. Then there's the necessary evaluation to ascertain the program's effectiveness. And all this must be customized to fit the requirement of the company in question. Sure sounds a pretty daunting challenge.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer valuation of Airbnb listings: a hedonic pricing approach	[ "Hedonic price", "Sharing economy", "Price model", "Airbnb listings", "Customer valuation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The sharing economy businesses in the hospitality industry, such as Airbnb, represent an alternative business model that shares the accommodation function with traditional hotel businesses (Guttentag, 2015; Pairolero, 2016). The basic accommodation functionality drives the growth of the sharing economy in two ways. On the one hand, it meets the escalating needs of consumers searching for affordable accommodations, and on the other hand, it monetizes house ownership for owners through sharing their spare resources (Jefferson-Jones, 2015). The boom of the sharing economy is driven by technology, through which the functionality is augmented on both the supply and demand sides to connect a massive number of hosts and guests (Guttentag, 2015; Zervas et al., 2015b). Airbnb also represents a novel business model, having distinct consumer appeals, such as cost savings for both hosts and guests, and a wide variety of household amenities and local experiences for guests (Guttentag, 2015).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Hedonic price and the demand for tourism and hospitality\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Model specifications\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Performances of the models\n5. Conclusions: 5.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to identify a wide array of utility-based attributes of Airbnb listings and measures the effects of these attributes on consumers' valuation of Airbnb listings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A hedonic price model was developed to test the effects of a group of utility-based attributes on the price of Airbnb listings, including the characteristics of Airbnb listings, attributes of hosts, reputation of listings and market competition. The authors examined attributes as they relate to the price of Airbnb listings and, therefore, estimated consumers' willingness to pay for the specific attributes. The model was tested by using a dataset of 5,779 Airbnb listings managed by 4,602 hosts in 41 census tracts of Austin, Texas in the USA over a period from Airbnb's launch in Texas up until November 2015.\nFindings: The authors found that the functional characteristics of Airbnb listings were significantly associated to the price of the listings, and that three of five behavioral attributes of hosts were statistically significant. However, the effect of reputation of listings on the price of Airbnb listings was weak.\nOriginality/value: This study inspires what they call a factor-endowment valuation of Airbnb listings. It shows that the intrinsic attributes that an Airbnb listing endows are the primary source of consumer utilities, and thus consumer valuation of the listing is grounded on its functionality as an accommodation. This conclusion can shed light on the examination of competition between Airbnb and hotel accommodations that are built on the same or similar intrinsic attributes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The challenge of ensuring gender equality in Vietnamese and English high schools: Espoused and real commitments	[ "Teacher education", "Gender equality", "Gender policy", "Vietnamese schools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Vietnam has suffered a turbulent history and, for centuries, fell under the hegemonic influence of China prior to a more recent domination by colonial powers including France and the USA. During the long feudal regime, society was paternalist in nature, which resulted in an educational perspective that not only favoured boys structurally but was also characterised by commonly held patterns of belief that boys were more able than girls. Although Vietnamese society has undergone dramatic, and largely positive, developments since the ousting of the US-backed government in the 1970s, such viewpoints have tended to persist in much of Vietnamese society despite the fact that government policy has been one of complete equality of opportunity. England, by contrast, has enjoyed a comparatively developed and stable economy over the last 40 years and much has been achieved across society in terms of gender equality.\nBackground to the study: Theories about gender equality in education in developing countries\nMethods: The research focus for this study was on the last stage of compulsory public education at high school level for students aged between 16 and 18 years in both Vietnam and England. The research sought to:\nData presentation: In a society which places great emphasis on social cohesion and deference to authority, it is of little surprise that all of the respondents in the high schools in Vietnam stated without equivocation that they supported the Vietnamese Government's commitment to gender equality in education and that they believed that education was paramount in securing greater equality in society as a whole. However, their responses also made it clear that their attitudes were complex and multifaceted, and that many respondents held atavistic views in relation to gender. For instance, the headteacher of school A noted that some female teachers continued to prefer to have sons to daughters whilst a male maths teacher in school B declared openly that he had daughters but he had always wished to have a son. In addition, there was a clear differentiation in the role expectations of men and women, even among university staff, and the idea that it was inappropriate, or even shameful, for men to do housework was prevalent. One male teacher stated:When I got married I felt I was ashamed to do housework. I felt it weird because my father did nothing. In my family, my mother did all things round the house, my father just wandered(Male lecturer of literature at pedagogic university).\nDiscussion and recommendations: The data revealed that despite the wholly commendable commitments to gender equality that have been made at the national and local levels, Vietnamese educators remain subject to hegemonic cultural and historical attitudes which place girls at a disadvantage in schools, especially in certain areas of the curriculum which are considered to be solely an appropriate sphere of activity for boys. Correlatively, the data from England suggest that much has been achieved in addressing the imbalance in levels of achievement that existed prior to the 1970s, but a danger exists that the recent focus on the underachievement of boys will distract and detract from the debate on gender and it is important that \"advanced\" or \"developed nations\" do not fall prey to the temptation to view themselves as locations of \"genderless gender\", where mute or hidden gendering and sexualisation converge with the gender-neutral rhetoric which create a myth of gender equality. In doing so, both theory and practice need to focus on the \"mundane materialities of classrooms\" since these \"do crucial work in enacting gendered power\" making it vital to rethink classroom space as \"an emergent intersection of multiple, mobile materialities\" as part of a \"material feminist praxis\" (Taylor, 2013, p. 689).\nConclusion: History is often embedded, explicitly or implicitly, in discourses on contemporary aspects of gender and education (Tinkler and Jackson, 2014, p. 70). This applies no less to England than Vietnam. However, England has enjoyed some considerable success in promoting gender equality in education in the last 30 years. Vietnamese society has made great strides since the 1970s, but this study has revealed that the attitudes of many educators and students are still dominated by traditional cultural values that contribute to the subjugation of girls and women in society. Despite the dangers that can be associated with wholesale policy borrowing, the Vietnamese Government should seek to adopt some of the strategies that have been deployed in England and other nations that have sought to challenge the way that society is constructed in relation to gender roles. In order to create the step change in attitudes that is needed, a comprehensive programme is required that addresses all aspects of the educative experience of girls. Such actions in education need to be part of drive across the wider society of Vietnam for gender mainstreaming that will enable women to begin to escape from the history that currently holds them in thrall so that they can gain greater self-fulfilment and contribute fully to the wider economy of this fast developing nation. Meanwhile, in England, a more complex conception of gender and education must emerge that will take account of the complex and shifting discourse on gender and the rapidly changing nature of societal values and attitudes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to comparatively examine the issue of gender equality in high schools in Vietnam and England.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data gathering consisted of interviews with teachers in two high schools and the staff of a pedagogic university in Vietnam and staff of one high school and of the initial teacher training department of a university in England. Data were analysed using a combination of grounded theory, cross-cultural study and narrative analysis within a liberal feminist framework.\nFindings: The main findings from Vietnam include that despite a strong commitment to gender equality by the central government, both pedagogy and curriculum in Vietnamese high schools fail to promote gender equality, and that gender equality is, therefore, espoused rather than enacted. Findings from England revealed considerable success had been achieved in gaining equality of both opportunity and outcomes, but that a more sophisticated discourse on gender in education needed to emerge.\nPractical implications: Implications of the study include recommendations that more extensive training on gender equality is provided in both countries, but especially in Vietnam, in relation to curriculum, pedagogy and school leadership.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides analysis and commentary on the issue of gender equality in both Vietnam and England. No such study has previously taken place in the context of Vietnam, and a comparison is offered with the more \"developed\" situation in the UK.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Navigating discourses in academia: challenging the status quo	[ "Discourses", "Culturally responsive pedagogy", "Critical race theory", "CRT", "White privilege" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The 2016 US presidential election ushered in a new era of white identity politics (Maskovsky, 2017). The intensity of the campaign made visible a racially divided nation, giving \"strength and momentum\" to white supremacy and its concomitant racialized discourses (Monzo and McLaren, 2017, p. 14). This is not, however, endemic to the USA, as a surge of nationalism has created a \"global phenomenon\" (Wodak, 2015, p. 70). While once tied to notions of citizenship, nationalism is increasingly defined by exclusionary ethnic, racist categories, marking some as outsiders. In addressing the current state of US affairs, Maskovsky coined the term \"white nationalist postracialism\" to refer to politics that advance merit-based, colorblind ideologies and anti-immigrant, anti-global and anti-multicultural agendas. White nationalist postracialism calls for people to be judged on merit and not on race. Maskovsky further notes that Trump's anti-immigrant, merit-based ideologies encourage expressions of racially charged views, not only in the political arena but also in teacher preparation classrooms.\nTheoretical perspectives: CRT offers a framework to deconstruct race, power and privilege within the USA (Delgado and Stefancic, 2013). Scholars who subscribe to CRT challenge the privilege endowed to whites at the expense of people of color. CRT addresses the intersection of race, power and privilege and the impact of these on people of color in a predominantly white society with deep-seated racism. Drawing on the notion that racism is ingrained in American society, CRT operates on the following premises: it challenges status quo/mainstream viewpoints, offers a platform for counter-narratives from non-dominant groups, subscribes to a social justice framework and draws on an integrative (interdisciplinary) approach to investigate a plethora of worldviews (Howard and Navarro, 2016).\nSituating the cross-cultural context of our narrative: In this section, the authors situate the cross-cultural context of their narrative. They describe the regional context in which they teach and establish their identities as cultural border crossers.\nMajoritarian versus counter stories in teacher discourse: Yosso (2006, p. 4) describes two types of stories that explain unequal educational outcomes: majoritarian and counter stories. According to Yosso, majoritarian stories begin with assumptions that all individuals have access to the same kinds of \"opportunities and conditions\". Gee (2014) refers to these stories as \"typical stories\", oversimplified models of the world that vary based on one's assumptions, values and beliefs. Conversely, counter stories or narratives tell about the lives and experiences of those who live in the margins. Counter storytelling is a tool to analyze and contest public narratives put forth by those in power (Solorzano and Yosso, 2002). Counter stories, therefore, offer \"alternatives to hegemonic discourses of race, class, gender, and sexuality\" (Elenes, 2006, p. 245). They give voice to those whose voices have often been silenced.\nDiscussion and implications for practice: The stories presented in this narrative demonstrate the need for teacher educators to rethink the practice of culturally responsive teaching in teacher education. Quoting James Baldwin, Duncan-Andrade (2011, p. 309) encourages us to \"confront the principal facts of our shortcomings and [find] the creativity to correct them\". He calls on teacher educators to rethink teacher education and move away from \"reinforcing the status quo to redesigning it\". Redesigning teacher education cannot happen without the support of administrators. Faculty who challenge the status quo often experience backlash when they adopt critical, anti-racist pedagogies (Evans-Winters and Hoff, 2011). Moreover, failure to confront racist ideologies perpetuates the status quo and contributes to Castagno's (2013) notion of \"powerblind sameness\". Thus, classroom experiences must be tied to pedagogies that engage pre-and in-service teachers in reflection, dialogue and action (Freire, 2000).\nConclusion: In this practitioner narrative, the authors provided a theoretical frame for understanding majoritarian stories and illustrated counter stories of hope, demonstrating concrete ways to disrupt the status quo. The first counter story described teachers working with children in a migrant/farmworker center. This setting provided teachers with new insights about the language and culture of a community, which affected their practice. This experience was transformative and contributed to teachers reconceptualizing their beliefs and perceptions. The second counter story described another out-of-school setting, a community study group designed to help parents advocate for their children and express their views to those in authority. Through this study group, participants gained access to language that enabled them to negotiate with those in power. Finally, the third counter story described the possibilities that can influence instruction when teachers have an opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the language and culture of students and families.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the seepage of current national discourses into the fabric of university classrooms. The authors describe their experiences navigating politics and accompanying discourses in their undergraduate and graduate courses at a rural Midwestern university in the USA. Their narrative provides a socio-historical context in response to events related to the 2016 presidential election.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors situate their cultural and linguistic identities within a critical race theory framework and unpack discourses of privilege that \"other\" students and families from nondominant communities. They highlight promising practices that challenge the status quo, creating opportunities for critical teaching and reflection.\nFindings: Teacher educators are called on to engage pre- and in-service teachers in practice-based pedagogies and inquiries around authentic issues that present possibilities for transformative social change.\nOriginality/value: This narrative addresses teaching in contentious times and reflects on transformative practice to engender critical hope.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lead-lag relationship between futures and spot FX market in India	[ "Cointegration", "Error correction", "Foreign exchange (FX)", "Lead-lag relationship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A lead-lag relationship in a spot and futures market observes the linkage between the two markets and reflects how well the new information is reflected in the prices and thus reveals how the price is discovered in the market. In simple terms, it identifies the leading and the lagging market. The issues of price discovery and lead-lag relationship between the market components are topics of interest to participants like traders, economists, analyst, etc. (Debasish and Mishra, 2008). If the prices adjust to the new information promptly in both the markets, then arbitrage opportunities do not exist for the traders, and the market becomes fully efficient. However, if one market is discovered as a lead market, then this means that the discovery of price in that market would provide valuable information about the price in the other market. Thus, arbitragers, traders, and analyst can take benefit of such information and earn profits, develop price forecasting models, etc.\n2. Literature review: This section discusses the existing research work on the lead-lag relationship in the developed as well as the emerging markets. A related concept with the lead-lag relationship is the efficiency of the market which is also discussed briefly.\n3. Objectives of the study: To understand the lead-lag relationship between the futures and spot currency market in India, the following objectives are formulated for the study:\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Empirical results and analysis: The descriptive statistics of the data are presented in Table III. Standard deviation is highest for USD for both futures and spot market whereas it is lowest for JPY for both futures and spot market. This means that INR witnesses most variation in its price against USD and least variation in its price against JPY. The 2016 BIS survey on FX declared USD to be the dominant currency since it was on one side of 88 percent of all trades. Indian corporates and market are also more exposed to USD movements. INR is witnessing more variation against USD over the past few years because of various reasons. Initially, Euro Zone crisis strengthen the USD against various emerging market economies including India, then tightening of interest rates by the US Fed in 2015 led to the reallocation of FII's portfolio away from emerging markets like India. This brought a lot of volatility in the Indian market with INR fluctuating against USD. Japan, on the other hand, has been struggling with stagnation and low inflation. Additionally, it is not a dominant currency in the list of India's trading partners. Therefore, INR witnessed the least variation in its price against JPY. In the case of skewness, the futures and spot market is negatively skewed for USD and GBP, and it is positively skewed for Euro and JPY. Since the value of kurtosis is less than three for all the four currencies in both futures and spot market, this means that the tails of the curve for all the currencies in both the markets are shorter and thinner. The skewness and kurtosis of the log series of the currencies in the futures and spot market violate the assumption of normal distribution.\n6. Conclusion: Over the years, India has gained importance globally with increasing inflows and outflows of various currencies. Also upsurge in market participants like mutual funds, insurance companies, and multinational corporations, etc., increasing number of hedgers, speculators and arbitragers and thriving derivative products have added to the development and complexity of Indian FX market. With complexity comes a need to understand the market. Understanding the lead-lag relationship and eventual price discovery in the market is one of the ways to understand the nuances of the market. The relationship of the currency futures and spot market for the four currencies - USD, GBP, EURO and JPY is analyzed through Engel-Granger and Johansen Cointegration test. These results confirm the long run equilibrium relationship between the futures and spot market for these currencies. This long run relationship reveals working of an error correction mechanism which helps the market in reaching the equilibrium in the long run. The results of the present study reveal that the spot market follows the futures market to attain this equilibrium. The price, therefore, is first reflected in the futures and then participants like arbitragers and speculators by their actions to take advantage of this mis-match, move the spot market price toward equilibrium too. Thus, the futures market leads the spot market to attain the long run equilibrium and this further means that the futures market is playing a major role in price discovery and is more efficient in disseminating new information. This further implies that the Indian forex market is informationally inefficient.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the lead-lag relationship between the futures and spot foreign exchange (FX) market in India to understand the price discovery mechanism and the relationship between these two markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The estimation of lead-lag relationship is realized in three steps. First unit root and stationarity tests (Augmented Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron, and Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin) are applied to check the stationarity of the data. Second, cointegration tests (Engle and Granger's residual based approach and Johansen's cointegration test) are applied to determine long run relationship between the markets. Third, error correction estimation is carried out by applying Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to determine the leading market.\nFindings: The study finds that there is a long run relationship between the futures and spot market where the futures market has emerged as the leading market for the four currencies studied in the paper.\nOriginality/value: Majorly, the studies on Indian FX market limit themselves to identifying the efficiency of the market and the studies which talk about the lead-lag relationship focus on the Indian stock market. This paper enhances the existing literature on Indian FX market by exploring the less explored subject of the lead-lag relationship between futures and spot FX market in India.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Origin stories in CSR: genesis of CSR at British American Tobacco	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Internal communication", "Organizational change", "Tobacco industry", "Origin story", "Legacy tobacco documents" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: If you ever have viewed a major motion picture about Batman, Superman, Black Widow, Catwoman, or any other graphic novel character, you have been exposed to a concept known as the origin story. According to Hatfield et al. (2013), it is an essential element of the superhero genre. The origin story provides background information on how a hero or villain came into being and is an essential narrative tool for character development beyond graphic novels. Writers often revise and revisit origin stories to enhance character development. While corporations are not super heroes, they do invest time and resources in developing the narratives that help to construct their character or reputation (Aula and Mantere, 2013). Modern corporations rely heavily upon CSR to help construct their reputational narratives (Fombrun, 2005). But how do corporations conceptualize their CSR origin stories? How do corporations decide to incorporate origin stories into their characters?\nBackground literature: Any discussion of CSR must begin with a definition because the lack of a definition can create confusion. The EC defines CSR as \"the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society\" (European Commission, 2011, p. 6). Firms are encouraged to \"have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders\" (European Commission, 2011, p. 6). This paper adopts a broad treatment of CSR to cover the various social and environmental impacts firms have on society. Because the paper focuses on a tobacco company, we must consider its position as a sin industry and its relationship to CSR. This section begins with an explanation of sin industries then moves to a discussion of prior research examining CSR in sin industries.\nMethods: Qualitative content analysis\nDocument analysis: The examination of the early documents reveals an organization trying to come to terms with this new idea of corporate social responsibility. CSR was broadly defined as \"broader social and economic impact on society\" (Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, 1996, p. 1). BAT management, and the consultants they hired, searched for the meaning CSR could and should have for the organization and its stakeholders. The primary themes of the rationale for CSR and environmental factors capture the essence of this search for meaning.\nDiscussion: This section answers the three research questions and reviews the themes in the BAT documents to determine how well the ideas expressed in the origin story fit with extant research in CSR. BAT was attempting to use CSR to advance business goals. Therefore, the discussion will reflect the strategic focus of CSR and the instrumental use of CSR communication.\nConclusion: As to be expected, BAT's CSR origin story is an instrumental narrative focused on the strategic use of CSR and CSR communication (Castello et al., 2013; Garriga and Mele, 2004; Schultz, 2013). Its fledgling CSR program is about bringing value to the firm. Even the strong emphasis on NGOs and employees is associated with the anticipated benefits they can yield for BAT. One of the two dominant themes in the documents is the \"business case\" for CSR. More specifically, the themes of reputation and operating environment capture Porter and Kramer's (2006) reputation and license to operate arguments for CSR. Each argument has an external focus whereby the CSR is driven by stakeholders outside of the firm. We would expect such arguments as a firm begins a CSR program because it must justify the expenses and time dedicated to creating the new program. Additional research into origin stories of CSR is likely to find a similar instrumental emphasis for firms that did not consider CSR in their early business models. In contrast, organizations that were founded by social entrepreneurs and created with CSR as part of their DNA will recount very different origin stories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Graphic novels have a concept known as the origin story. The origin story is background information on how a hero or villain came into being. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origin story of corporate social responsibility at British American Tobacco (BAT). The CSR origin story is unpacked by examining corporate documents from BAT that discuss the initial development of the company's CSR program. The BAT documents are part of the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL), a searchable, digital archive developed and managed by the University of California, San Francisco. It contains 85,569,326 pages in 14,360,422 documents. The library was created as part of the tobacco company settlement of a major law suit in the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this case study, the authors searched the archive for documents from BAT that had the key words \"corporate social responsibility.\" The documents were then analyzed using qualitative content analysis to identify key themes related to BAT's created of its CSR programs.\nFindings: The two dominant themes were business case BAT made for CSR and the environmental factors that shaped CSR. The business case had sub-themes of the new operating environment and reinforcing employees. The environmental sub-themes were the importance of NGOS and the top issues to be addressed in CSR efforts. The themes helped to explain why BAT was engaging in CSR, the factors shaping the start of its CSR programs, and the issues it intended to address through CSR.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis is limited to one organization and does not include interviews to go with the archived documents.\nPractical implications: The paper considers the implications of the analysis for theory and practice for internal CSR communication.\nOriginality/value: The documents provide a rare glimpse inside a corporate decision to begin a CSR program and how the managers \"talked\" about CSR. Instead of examining external CSR communication, it examines the early days of internal CSR communication at a specific firm. The yields of the document analysis provide insights into how BAT conceptualized CSR and communicated the rationale for creating a CSR program internally. Research has relied primarily upon speculation of corporate motives or corporate public discourse designed to frame their CSR efforts. The internal documents provide an unfiltered examination of the motives for a CSR program. This allows us to better understand why a CSR program was created including the motives, targets, and desired outcomes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Category-specific RECIPEs for internet retailing quality	[ "Internet shopping", "Retailing", "Quality" ]	[ { "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: Various researchers have developed scales for measuring quality in internet retailing. Most treat all types of internet retailing as the same and develop \"one-size-fits-all\" quality measurement scales (e.g. Collier and Bienstock, 2006; Janda et al., 2002; Long and McMellon, 2004). In contrast, some studies suggest that the dimensions of quality may vary for different types of products or delivery methods. However, these cases only examine quality in situations that involve purchasing tangible goods (e.g. Francis and White, 2002; Parasuraman et al., 2005; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003). As such, limited attention has been given to the stability of the dimensions of quality across different types of internet retailing. Also, there is an absence of scales that are specifically designed to measure quality in situations that involve digital goods (e.g. software) or service products (e.g. airline tickets, brokerage).To explore this gap in the literature, Francis (2007) delineated internet retailing into four categories then examined the requirements of internet shoppers relative to each category. The findings indicated that each category involves the quality dimensions of website, transactions, delivery, customer service and security. However, the quality criteria within the dimensions differed across the categories depending on the type of product (goods or services) and the purchase fulfilment method (offline or electronic). Francis (2007) proposed that the exploratory results should be examined by developing and refining a separate quality measurement scale for each category of internet retailing.This paper extends the literature by constructing, refining and assessing the recommended scales. The discussion commences by examining the concept of internet retailing quality, the scales that have been designed to measure quality in this field and the four category-specific variations of quality that were proposed by Francis (2007). A separate scale for measuring quality in each category is then developed and administered to internet shoppers. The collected data is used to refine and assess the statistical properties of each instrument. The results indicate that there are four category-specific variations of internet retailing quality and that the differences across categories primarily relate to paying for and obtaining products from retail sites. The limitations and implications of the study are also discussed.Quality in internet retailing\nMethod: Scale development\nResults: RECIPE: offline goods\nDiscussion: The practice of developing general or generic measures of quality emanates from conventional service quality literature - with SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) being a notable case in point. Over the years, however, it has emerged that the SERVQUAL dimensions of quality are not always stable across different service contexts. In turn, various researchers have expressed concerns about the extent to which the general scale must be modified to suit different services (e.g. Babakus and Boller, 1992; Buttle, 1996; Carman, 1990; Gagliano and Hathcote, 1994). In a similar manner this study challenges the merit of the \"one-size-fits-all\" approach to measuring quality in internet retailing.In particular, comparing the RECIPE scales identifies that there are similarities and differences in the dimensions of quality across categories of internet retailing. For instance, quality in each category comprises four dimensions. However, only two of these - customer service and security - are universal to all four categories. The security dimension is identical for all categories and includes four items about the safety of credit card and personal details. Also, customer service has a common set of five criteria that relate to the process and outcome of contacting a firm's customer support services. This includes the ease of contacting the firm, and the speed and helpfulness of the firm's response. There is a relatively minor difference, however, in that offline goods and electronic services each have one additional service criterion: offline goods also includes information about delivery delays, and electronic services includes the provision of live online customer service staff.Where customer service and security appear to be generic dimensions of quality, the dimensions associated with selecting, paying for and obtaining products reveal varying degrees of disparity across the categories. Regarding the pre-purchase \"selection\" phase, offline goods and offline services include reasonably similar website dimensions that deal with the site design, content and range of products. By contrast, quality in the selection phase for electronic-goods deals with providing product details. This reflects the technical nature of the products and includes specifying the size, system requirements and compatibility of digital goods. For electronic services, selection is addressed by an account set-up dimension that looks at the ease, speed and reliability of establishing an account or membership through which to access and consume the core online services.Each category also includes a quality dimension that focuses on paying for and obtaining the sought-after products. For offline goods this is the exchange dimension, and it covers the process of placing an online order as well as the correct goods being delivered on time in good condition. Electronic goods also has an exchange dimension. In this case, though, the quality of the fulfillment aspect is determined by the clarity of instructions for downloading digital goods as well as the speed and reliability of the download process. For offline-services, internet shoppers evaluate the reservation/purchase. This includes the ease and reliability of booking a service via the internet, the speed and clarity of the booking confirmation, and the booking being processed correctly. Finally, the equivalent dimension for electronic-services is online services. This deals with the ease and reliability of logging into the core service as well as that service being easy to use and meeting the service description.These results indicate that there are four variations of the construct of internet retailing quality and that the differences across categories deal with selecting, purchasing and obtaining products. The ability to purchase and obtain products are defining features that distinguish retail sites from information-only websites. Furthermore, the category-specific quality dimensions that deal with these issues display the strongest influence on customer behavioral intentions. For offline goods the dimension with the strongest influence on customer intentions is exchange (B=0.372), for offline services it is reservation/purchase (B=0.357), for electronic goods it is product details (B=0.221) and for electronic-services the strongest influence was displayed by online services (B=0.327). Thus, from either a theoretical or managerial perspective, the \"one-size-fits-all\" perspective of internet retailing quality does not appear to be adequate.\nResearch limitations and implications: The key limitation of this study is that the RECIPE scales were only subjected to one phase of administration and refinement. The single phase was sufficient to demonstrate that there are at least four variations of internet retailing quality and to establish quality measurements scales for the three internet retailing categories where such instruments do not otherwise exist. Also, it was not feasible to perform additional scale administrations within the confines of this paper. However, new scales should be examined through multiple phases of administration, refinement and testing, with the second and subsequent phases using confirmatory factor analysis (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Cattell, 1978; Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Therefore, further assessment of the RECIPE scales is recommended. In particular, collaborating with one or more internet retailers from each category and administering the appropriate RECIPE scale to a sample of their customers would provide the data that is needed to assess the instruments through confirmatory factor analysis. Adopting a case study approach would also facilitate examining the managerial usefulness of the scales.From a broader perspective, the assumptions of this study should also be considered. This study adopted a process-and-outcome view of quality rather than an emotions-based view, and it assumed that quality is comprised of reflective rather than formative indicators. Theory and precedents support the selected position (e.g. Buttle, 1996; Dabholkar, 1995; Gronroos, 1984; Parasuraman et al., 2005). Nevertheless, it may be seen as a limitation by readers who advocate for the alternatives. By comparison, the issue of reflective versus formative indictors has received limited attention. Also, the one study that conceptualised internet retailing quality as formative later used the conventional procedures for constructing a scale of reflective indicators (i.e. Collier and Bienstock, 2006). Far from being a matter of semantics or debate for psychometricians, the reflective versus formative issue has substantive implications for scale development, assessment and application (Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001; Rossiter, 2002). Therefore, it would be insightful to develop a measure of internet retailing quality by following Rossiter's (2002) C-OAR-SE procedure for formative measures and to then demonstrate the theoretical and managerial implications through a comparison of reflective and formative based measurement instruments.\nManagerial implications: It is reasonable to say that managers appreciate the importance of managing quality and that the literature is abundant with principles and strategies to guide the process. Within this nexus of literature is information regarding scales for measuring quality. In essence, these instruments summarise the factors that contribute to or determine customer evaluations of quality and they provide the means through which to assess customer evaluations of quality. Presenting the determinant factors via conceptual models fosters the development of meaningful, justifiable and readily communicated management goals (Ghobadian and Gallear, 2001; Zeithaml et al., 1988) while measuring quality provides data that is used to monitor performance and determine improvement priorities (D'Cruz and Fleck, 1989; Fisk et al., 2000). Also, the combination of meaningful goals and measured outputs aids the process of motivating personnel and building a customer-oriented culture (Berry et al., 1994).It is towards the next level of operational detail that the present study provides a contribution. That is, this study demonstrates that the actual determinants of quality differ across categories of internet retailing. Different determinants mean that there are different functions, processes and criteria to manage and, as the discussion of regression coefficients indicated, different primary drivers of customer loyalty. In turn, it may be seen that quality measurement scales that treat all types of internet retailing as the same may generate incomplete or misleading management recommendations, while modifying such instruments on an ad hoc basis may also be problematic. Thus, the key message for managers is that the extent to which their quality management activities will be successful depends heavily on selecting the most appropriate measure of quality for their type of internet retailing.Furthermore, the present study provides a framework through which to identify and measure the different types of internet retailing quality. That is, managers can use the Fulfilment-Product classification scheme (Table I) to determine which category of internet retailing best represents their situation. Managers are then able to select the corresponding category-appropriate RECIPE scale. Having done so, the given scale can be used to guide quality management activities in the manner that is outlined above and described more fully in the related service quality management literature (e.g. administer the scale to customers, diagnose and report performance, determine improvement priorities).In particular, it is strongly advisable for managers in the categories of internet retailing other than offline goods to administer the category-appropriate RECIPE scale to their customers. As the literature review revealed, no studies have directly examined the determinants of quality in offline services, electronic goods or electronic services situations, nor have they provided scales for measuring quality in these situations. As such, it is foreseeable that diagnosing the results obtained from administering the appropriate RECIPE scale is likely to bring new and previously neglected issues to light. For example, in the electronic goods category, it would be beneficial to examine the customer's perspective of the product details and download process, especially since many customers may not have a high level of technical expertise or sophisticated equipment. Or in the electronic services category, it would be useful to examine closely the customer's perspective of the account set-up process to ensure that the procedures do not deter prospective customers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Limited attention has been given to the stability of the dimensions of quality across different types of internet retailing. This study aims to identify four distinct categories of internet retailing, develops a separate quality measurement scale for each category, then compares the dimensions of quality that emerged for each context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Four category-specific quality measurement scales (or RECIPE scales) were developed, one for each Fulfilment-Product type of internet retailing. The scales were administered to 1,262 internet shoppers, then the data were used to refine and assess the statistical properties of each instrument. A cross-category review of the refined quality dimensions was performed.\nFindings: - All four categories of internet retailing involve the quality dimensions of customer service and security. However, the dimensions of quality associated with selecting, paying for and obtaining products vary according to the type of product that is purchased (goods versus services) and the fulfilment method (offline versus electronic).\nResearch limitations/implications: - There are four category-specific variations of internet retailing quality. This study provides a framework for distinguishing and measuring each variation.\nPractical implications: - The \"one-size-fits-all\" approach to measuring and managing internet retailing quality is not sufficient. Managers should develop quality management strategies that cater to the purchase and fulfilment requirements of customers in their type of internet retailing.\nOriginality/value: - This study delineates internet retailing into four categories and presents a quality measurement scale for each category. This includes scales for three categories where such instruments do not otherwise exist.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Characteristics and determinants of the board of directors of growing Spanish SMEs going public	[ "IPO", "SMEs", "Board structure", "Board size", "Board composition" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, regulators, researchers, and practitioners have paid more attention to corporate governance in large and listed companies. However, corporate governance of other types of companies also remains highly relevant and shows a very high degree of heterogeneity (Uhlaner et al., 2007; Karoui et al., 2017). The particular issue of corporate governance in smaller growing companies that are preparing to go public deserves attention (Filatotchev and Wright, 2005; Djerbi and Anis, 2015; Lowry et al., 2017).\n2. Board of directors in IPOs of SMEs: literature review: Private firms, and particularly SMEs, that are undertaking IPOs generally suffer from a liability of market newness, therefore the establishment of a good corporate governance system is crucial for the regulators and investment community (Certo, 2003). Specifically, the board of directors is regarded as one of the most essential governance mechanisms (Bennett and Robson, 2004; Uhlaner et al., 2007; Jonsson, 2013).\n3. Research hypotheses: Board structure varies across firms and is potentially influenced by a set of variables to the company (Uhlaner et al., 2007; Boone et al., 2007). The previous research has focussed on a number of firm factors as potential determinants of board structure (Boone et al., 2007; Larcker et al., 2007; Linck et al., 2008; Ali, 2018). However, a \"one-size-fits-all\" approach can be inappropriate (Matolcsy et al., 2009), and the determinants of board structure may differ on the context and the type of firms analysed. Given that board size and board independence remain a relevant question when SMEs undertake IPOs, the study of firm factors that affect these board characteristics would increase our understanding regarding how firms transit from private to public ownership. In this research, the firm factor determinants of board size and board independence in the SME IPOs considered are size and age of the firm, level of financial leverage, ownership structure, and the business sector.\n4. Data and methodology: 4.1 Market environment: Spanish equity market for SMEs\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive results\n6. Conclusions and implications: This paper is the first to study the board structure in IPOs by focussing on an area of hitherto largely unexplored companies: SMEs in the process of going public, and in a country within the continental European corporate system that remains largely unchartered in this field: Spain. Our research examines the characteristics of board structure and explores several firm characteristics as potential determinants of both board size and board independence.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics and the determinants of board structure in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the process of going public within the continental European corporate system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: These issues are explored through the study of all the initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Spanish equity market for growing SMEs, and the statistical methodologies of ordinary least squares regression and stepwise regression are applied.\nFindings: The results show that board size is larger than the minimum level established in law and that boards are composed of a majority of non-executive directors. In addition, the determinants of firm characteristics of board structure are firm age, level of financial leverage, and ownership structure.\nPractical implications: This research is significant since its findings should help entrepreneurs reflect on which board structure is most appropriate for this new stage of the life cycle of their company as a listed firm. This evidence is also of interest for regulators and investors, who can, therefore, better understand board structures of SMEs at the moment of IPO.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to study characteristics and determinants of the board of directors of growing SMEs at the moment of going public. This study implies a step forward in research into the governance of small business and IPO literature, since the results differ from the evidence found for large company IPOs and contribute towards the debate regarding the need to consider the context and the type of firm in corporate governance studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Synthesizing the effects of green experiential quality, green equity, green image and green experiential satisfaction on green switching intention	[ "Dimensions of green experiential quality", "Green equity", "Green experiential quality", "Green experiential satisfaction", "Green switching intention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today, the term \"green\" involves more than environmental issues. It relates to all aspects of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (International Tourism Partnership, 2016). Erdogan and Baris (2007) define a green hotel as a hotel that evaluates surrounding ecological conditions before starting construction and tries not to aggravate impacts on the environment. Recently, more and more hotel organizations in Taiwan have been increasingly paying attention to environmentally friendly issues. They build green hotels to provide customers with a new accommodation alternative (Lin and Lin, 2011). Recently, the concept of green hotels in Taiwan has been increasingly receiving a lot of attention (Li et al., 2014). However, only a few hotels enter the green hotel fashion by saving energy or reducing the use of chemical detergents (Lin and Lin, 2011). To enable customers to revisit or return to a green hotel, green hotel management should focus on decreasing customers' switching intention (Han et al., 2011).\nLiterature review: Green switching intention\nResearch model and hypothesis development: Interaction quality represents the first dimension, which explores how the service is provided (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Czepiel et al., 1985). The second dimension, physical environment quality, is based on the equipment provided when a service is given to a customer (Bitner, 1992). Outcome quality represents the third dimension, indicating customers' perception of the service and the concept of service quality (Ko and Pastore, 2005). The fourth dimension focuses on access quality, indicating how easily and quickly customers can reach the place to receive the service (Shonk and Chelladurai, 2008). The last dimension, administration quality, refers to whether customers have proper access to services (Lesko, 1998).\nResearch methodology: Questionnaire and pre-test\nResults: Demographic profile of the respondents\nDiscussions and conclusions: The results support the propositions of several studies (Clemes et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2014b; Wu and Ko, 2013) that physical environment quality is an important component of overall experiential quality. Access quality is the second most important relevant dimension of green experiential quality. This concurs with the propositions of Wu et al. (2014b) and Wu and Li (2014, 2015) that access quality is an essential dimension allowing customers to experience the green experiential quality. Interaction quality represents the third relevant dimension to explain the green experiential quality. The result of this study agrees with Wu and Ko (2013), indicating that interaction quality is a key determinant of experiential quality in the hotel industry. Administration quality represent as the fourth dimension to explain the green experiential quality. The finding of this study agrees with several studies (Dagger et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2014b), proposing that administrative service elements can help increase the customer service experience in a green hotel. However, the result of this study shows that the outcome quality is unable to form a dimension of green experiential quality. A possible reason is that the overall feelings the customers receive from a green hotel cannot influence their perceptions of experiential quality. This finding does not concur with Wu et al. (2014b) that outcome quality has a positive effect on experiential quality.\nImplications: Theoretical implications\nLimitations and direction for future research: This study contributes to information on the management theory for the customer experience in a green hotel. However, there are still some limitations in the study. First, the empirical research in this study targets a green hotel in Taipei City of Taiwan, so the result may not be applicable to other regions or countries. Future research may examine the conceptual research model developed in this study and use it in different green hotels of other regions or countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to fill a conceptual gap by identifying the dimensions of green experiential quality and empirically examining the interrelationships among green experiential quality, green equity, green image, green experiential satisfaction and green switching intention. A multi-dimensional model is used as a framework to synthesize the effects of green experiential quality, green equity, green image and green satisfaction on green switching intention of green hotel customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data used in this study were collected from a sample of 535 customers staying in one green hotel of Taipei City, Taiwan. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis.\nFindings: The findings support a multi-dimensional model consisting of four dimensions (interaction quality, physical environment quality, access quality and administration quality) to conceptualize and measure perceived green experiential quality. Perceived green experiential quality significantly influences green equity and green image, which, in turn, result in green experiential satisfaction. Green switching intention is influenced by green experiential satisfaction and green image. However, outcome quality is not a component of perceived green experiential quality, which, in turn, insignificantly results in green experiential satisfaction. Green image plays a role in moderating the relationship between green experiential quality and interaction quality, outcome quality, access quality and administration quality.\nPractical implications: To increase green experiential quality and green equity, enhance green image and green experiential satisfaction and decrease green switching intention, the finding of this study will help green hotel management to develop and implement market-oriented service strategies.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to synthesize the effects of green experiential quality, green equity, green image and green experiential satisfaction on green switching intention in a green hotel setting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Training program lifts product reliability at NACCO Materials Handling Group: ... and safeguards relationship with main dealer and customers	[ "Training", "Quality assurance", "Organizational performance", "Employee development", "Product reliability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: When a lift-truck manufacturer's main dealer reported that a large number of its trucks were failing within 90 days of being delivered to their customers, fast action was needed to improve product quality and restore customer confidence.\nBefore the training: Before the training, in-house problem-solving was not robust and problem \"fixes\" were not permanent. Close-out time for issues was too long and lessons were neither being learned nor applied. Project-management skills were deficient and teams were not operating effectively.\nThe training content: Management agreed that the expertise of an external training provider was needed to deliver first section of the program. This was to ensure that proven methods and practices were used. Six weeks later, the external trainers would return for a mentoring and coaching session. Later still, they would deliver project-management training, targeting project leaders. Internal trainers would then develop the program throughout the plant.\nBenefits of the training: \"There were clear, tangible and intangible benefits for both the employees and the company,\" enthused Ian McIlveen. \"Within all roles we saw a real change in trainees' performance and behavior, and a significant improvement in morale, as a direct result of the training. Teamwork, in particular, has become much better, and the plant as a whole has moved away from the blame culture.\"\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Describes a training program that helped to lift product reliability at NACCO Materials Handling Group.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Explains the reasons for the program, the form it takes and the results it has achieved.\nFindings: Reveals that, before the training, in-house problem-solving was not robust and problem \"fixes\" were not permanent. Close-out time for issues was too long, and lessons were neither being learned nor applied. Project-management skills were deficient and teams were not operating effectively.\nPractical implications: Details the improvements that have resulted from the training, including more-reliable products, more-skilled workers and better working practices.\nOriginality/value: Provides the inside story of an award-winning training program.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Communication strategies in the age of accountability	[ "Governance", "Attidues", "Social responsibility", "Communication management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: For corporate chiefs it seems that every year is a year of living dangerously. The CEO departing at short notice is becoming an increasingly common story. At AIG, Boeing, Disney, Krispy Kreme, HP and Sony, to name a few, we have seen leaders fall from grace, fast. Careers at the top are becoming shorter and more pressurized.\nThe Enron effect: It has been said that Enron did for business what Watergate did for politics and although we have yet to have the Oscar-winning film it can only be a matter of time. For corporates the post-Enron world is a very different one - the Zeitgeist has gone from celebrating CEO's as the new celebrities to a much more mixed picture where they are just as likely to be Mr Hyde as they are Dr Jekyll. A good indicator of the state of attitudes to business can often be found simply by examining the books in airport lounges. Now they are as likely to examine the death of democracy, the destructive influence of brands on world trade or the captive state as they are to celebrate business excellence and offer tips for success. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that accountancy has moved from being regarded as a dull profession - a profession that perhaps you wouldn't admit to being a member of at a party - to having a similar status to participating in extreme sports! (For a wry look at the phenomena see www.extreme-accounting.com).\nAn age of complexity: The challenge of complexity is one that greets almost every senior executive on a daily basis. The business challenges are getting tougher and this trend shows no sign of abating.At the same time as the major brand manufacturers are seeking to consolidate their portfolio (e.g. Unilever cutting its brands from 1,600 to 400) there is a massive increase in the number of brands in the market place. We, based on McKinsey (2003) data, estimate that since 1991 the number of brands on US grocery shelves alone has increased six-fold.Within this competition there are a range of brands that have very successfully developing niche offerings quite capable of challenging the big brands for both share of market and share of wallet. These niche offerings benefit from the proliferation in channels of information and, with online, channels through which products can be purchased.The media environment has changed dramatically. There is a fast growth in new media delivered to PDAs and mobiles. There is the flood of free media, for example there are now 43 free dailies in the USA targeting youth transit zones. The traditional press is reinventing itself with new formats and new ways to consume. On the broadcast side, consumers are increasingly able to create the programs they want to watch at the time they want to watch it.Time is an ever more valuable commodity. The successful affluent consumer is increasingly time-poor making him/here harder to reach and more demanding when you do so. The legal climate is getting tougher, with litigation an ever more pressing concern. In fact seven out of ten companies claim litigation is a serious concern (2004, Corporate Reputation Watch, H&K/Economic Intelligence Unit, www.hillandknowlton.com/crw).Corporates are operating in a world in which the competition is more intense; the consumer is more demanding (and litigious) and harder to reach. Demonstrating relevance is becoming a real challenge for many.\nReputation - bottom line benefits: Business is under ever-greater scrutiny and managing reputation is, therefore, an ever more pressing concern. As Warren Buffett famously observed \"If you lose dollars for the firm I will be understanding. If you lose reputation I will be ruthless\". The past two years have demonstrated beyond doubt the validity of this sentiment. Companies who have failed to manage their reputation properly have disappeared.The importance of reputation is understood, in the abstract at least. Our own Corporate Reputation Watch (undertaken in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit) looks at the views of senior executives worldwide on a range of reputational issues and shows that executives believe strongly that reputation benefits the bottom line. When asked what benefit the company derives from the good reputation, the answer is surprisingly consistent: the ability to recruit and retain employees, to generate additional sales and to facilitate strategic transactions and partnerships. In every one of the previous five Corporate Reputation Watch studies we have undertaken, these three top the bill.The same executives believe that reputation is an important factor in influencing the decisions of customers, investors, potential partners and a range of other audiences (Figure 1).Reputation is also, not surprisingly, regarded as an important factor in recruitment, with executives citing it in the top three, alongside compensation packages and career growth opportunities, as the top factors that attract employees to join a company. It is interesting to note that the study shows that corporate reputation, together with company values and culture and work/life balance, are all things that executives believe employees regard as more important now than they did five years ago (2004, Corporate Reputation Watch).The executive challenge is clear. When asked what is the most difficult task for the company to do well or get right the top three factors are: promoting continuous innovation (29 percent), building a strong and distinctive corporate culture (20 percent) and managing risk and crises (19 percent) (2004, Corporate Reputation Watch). This demonstrates clearly that the pressures to deliver results in a quarterly economy, protect the corporation in a time of anxiety and build a culture that can deliver both better results and better business practices are front of mind.These challenges occur in the context of a decline in trust in business. The World Economic Forum, in a survey prepared for its 2003 meeting, (2002, Gallup International Voice of the people survey, www.weforum.org) showed that global companies had a trust rating of -9 and large national companies had a trust rating of -10 compared to positive trust ratings of 27 percent for non-governmental organizations and 43 percent for the armed forces - even government (+3) and the media (+2) scored better than business.This kind of assessment is backed by a number of other surveys (2003, Mori's Trust in Business survey found that eight people in ten disagree that \"Directors of large companies can be trusted to tell the truth,\" www.mori.com). The challenges facing businesses have brought about two important trends both of which present significant communications challenges.\nThe challenge of the new reporting environment: Companies are operating in a new reporting environment. The events of recent years have provided impetus to significant changes in governance. Over the past 15 years there has been a steady and gradual move towards requiring companies to organize themselves in a way that ensures a pivotal role for the independent director, report more and report more frequently. What the events in Houston et al. have done is to bring that forward with greater speed, as shown by the move to adopt international accounting standards, company law reform in the UK, the EU Corporate Governance Action plan and the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the USA.The result is that a paradigm shift has occurred. No matter how much companies may want to return to a gentler, quieter and more deferential world that is no longer an option. The reality is that much more of what a company does and how it does it is considered a legitimate subject for questioning and debate. As going private is not really a realistic option for most, the challenge is how to respond to this change.\nCompliance has its costs: Governance reform is expensive - BP has been quoted as saying that the cost for them of complying with all the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley is around $125,000 (2004, Evening Standard). Of course, not all companies have a market capitalization of circa $180 billion and over 100,000 employees, but you get the point. However, the real implications could be even more significant. In Corporate Reputation Watch 2004, only 22 percent of respondents cited cost as the greatest price their company had paid as a result of stricter governance requirements. In fact, diversion of management time and increased administrative complexity were cited as more important, with the prospect of increased aversion to risk not far behind. If management time is diverted and companies become more risk averse, then the impact on new product development and innovation could be significant. The subsequent implications this that could have for company performance (and economic growth) would put even a multi-million dollar compliance bill into perspective.For communications professionals the real challenges of the new reporting culture hinge on the cultural challenges that it will pose. The new climate requires companies to make more information more available, more often. This will include some of the difficult issues that many companies do not like talking about - and do badly.Think back. Can you remember a company that has successfully communicated through a row about boardroom pay? How much easier should it be to communicate paying even a modestly successful CEO than the closure of a factory or a corporate catastrophe? Yet the reality is that most companies handle the latter better than the former. Why? Because they discuss it, agree on a strategy and deliver it with carefully crafted messages. Whereas on CEO remuneration one gets the impression they hope no one will notice!The new reporting requirements which are being introduced within the UK, for example, require the company to include information about its policies towards employees, its customers and suppliers, as well as its impact on the environment, society and the wider community (where that information is necessary to make an assessment of that company). With those topics come many more difficult issues that companies will need to be willing to discuss internally, agree a position and then communicate on.But it cannot just be the communications department alone that examines these issues. Reputation management in the twenty-first century requires a much more integrated approach. The audiences who determine a company's reputation cut across functional silos and geography. There is a need to manage relations with them in an integrated way which goes well beyond what most companies communications departments are set up to do. Looking forward, companies need a Board-led communications structure, which is able to manage reputation in the twenty-first century effectively. The figure below shows some of the functions that need to be covered - a useful checklist for companies to measure their own arrangements against (Figure 2).The rise of social responsibility\nRealizing the opportunity: No one is pretending the challenge is easy. A climate where competition is intense, pressure to deliver results immense and consumers are more difficult to reach and prescriptive about their needs would be hard enough. If you add to this is a requirement to be more open and transparent and report more, as well an expectation to engage with a wider range of stakeholders and behave in a more responsible manner then it is little wonder headhunters report that it is becoming harder to fill senior posts. With every challenge comes an opportunity.The companies who adapt quickest to the new environment can derive competitive advantage, but to do so they must be willing to take ultimate responsibility for communications strategy beyond just the PR team and on to the boardroom table; break down the functional silos and deliver integrated communications; think afresh about their role and responsibility and, most of all, be willing to take a more confident and proactive approach to handling the challenges of the age - showing the same confidence that created the successful businesses that they are.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To help executives understand the communications implications of the current climate and devise successful strategies. To promote a better understanding of the importance of reputation, its determinants and the role of communications in managing it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Economist intelligence unit conducted a survey of 175 senior executives in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific for Hill & Knowlton looking at executive attitudes to a wide range of litigation issues. We analyzed this research and came to a number of important conclusions.\nFindings: - That reputation is central to business success and is importance to a range of audiences. That litigation is a serious concern. That corporate social responsibility is gaining ground but full value is not been achieved from it\nPractical implications: - The companies who adapt quickest to the new environment can derive competitive advantage, but to do so they must be willing to take ultimate responsibility for communications out of the PR team and on to the boardroom table; break down the functional silos and deliver integrated communications; think afresh about their role and responsibility and, most of all, be willing to take a more confident and pro-active approach to handling the challenges of the age - showing the same confidence that created the successful businesses that they are.\nOriginality/value: - A combination of quality attitudinal research plus practical advises from a leading advisor on reputation management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Market orientation, learning orientation and business performance: The mediating role of innovation	[ "Innovation", "Ghana", "Banks", "Banking", "Market orientation", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While marketing scholars accept the concept of market orientation as a major strategic element for success under competitive environmental conditions, there is an ongoing debate in the marketing literature about its role. This debate stipulates that developing a market-oriented culture is only the first step towards market success and an organization's ability to learn faster than its competitors may be its only source of sustainable competitive advantage (Han et al., 1998; Baker and Sinkula, 1999). Building on this line of argument, some studies suggest that a learning orientation has more of a positive impact on organizational performance than a market orientation (Farrell, 2000). On the other hand, other studies have either found no linkage or have found market orientation to have a more positive influence on business performance than does learning orientation (e.g. Farrell and Oczkowski, 2002; Farrell et al., 2008).\nBrief background information on Ghana banking industry: Practitioners and researchers working in the banking sector are attempting to understand how to increase key relationship marketing variables to help further increase employee productivity and performance (Pousa and Mathieu, 2014). The Ghanaian banking industry is noted for the adoption of key marketing changes needed to meet the growing demands from the sector banks (George and Bob-Milliar, 2007; Hinson et al., 2009). The last decade has witnessed phenomenal growth in the number of banks which operate in the Ghanaian banking sector. A relatively stable political economy, consistency in implementing political and economic policies, and stability of the local currency among other things, have led to the emergence of diverse types of banks which include local-private, Pan-African, Nigerian, South African, and Libyan banks (Hinson et al., 2009). The resulting consequences include increased competition, positioning and marketing activities which are coupled with macro-environmental challenges. While customers are becoming more active and empowered, other important trends such as rapid information technology development and increasing non-banking competition put pressure on the market efficiency of Ghanaian banks. Ghana's banking sector is, today, one of the most competitive among sub-Saharan African emerging market countries (George and Bob-Milliar, 2007). With Ghana's democratic dispensation becoming more vibrant and gaining widespread recognition in the international arena (Whitfield, 2005), it can be asserted that interest of local and foreign firms in the banking sector will experience continued growth and that turbulent competitive conditions will be unabated.\nConceptualization and research propositions: Premised upon the marketing concept, market orientation has become a cornerstone of marketing theory, developing rapidly over recent years within two dominant streams in nature. The first stream argues that market orientation is a set of behavioural activities (e.g. Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Hunt and Morgan, 1995), while the second sees market orientation as an aspect of organizational culture (Deshpande and Webster, 1989; Narver and Slater, 1990). The first stream of research is representative of the work of Jaworski and Kohli (1993), who explore the nature of market orientation as three sets of specific activities: first, organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs. Second, dissemination of the intelligence across departments. Finally, organization-wide responsiveness to it.\nResearch methodology: To test the above propositions, a convenience sampling method was employed. Data were obtained through a drop-off-and-collect self-administered survey of 28 licensed banks with over 600 branches. The sampling frame was the list of banking institutions in Ghana, published by the Bank of Ghana (Ghana's Central Bank). It covers a range of banks including commercial, development, and merchant. In line with Hinson et al. (2009), the unit of analysis is the bank branches - referred to as strategic business unit (SBUs), across the ten regions of Ghana. The branch managers served as the key informants. These people were targeted because of their experience in the industry and knowledge of their banks' marketing practices and innovation activities. Moreover, the use of SBUs as the unit of analysis is popular in market orientation research (see, Narver and Slater, 1990). Each informant was requested to evaluate the operation of their SBU.\nAnalyses and constructs validation: Descriptive statistics displayed in Table I indicate a large number (38.3 per cent) of Ghanaian banks are new in the industry, having been established in the last decade. Indigenous Ghanaians dominate the ownership of banks with 60.9 per cent of the sampled SBUs being fully local-private (31.3 per cent) or local-public (29.6 per cent) banks. Yet foreign representations (32.2 per cent) and joint-venture (6.1 per cent) are quite encouraging. Most (49.6 per cent) of the bank branches are making more than five million Ghana cedis (US$3.57 million) in annual revenue although some (19.1 per cent) are struggling to achieve one million cedis (US$0.714 million). Finally, using the number of employees to measure the size of bank branches in Ghana, generally, all the banks can be classified into small (62.6 per cent) and medium (36.5 per cent) size.\nResults: Following suggestions by Rowntree (1981), this study utilized correlation analysis for two purposes: first, to examine whether distinct variables discriminate each other, and second, to explore the relationships between variables. The former has been dealt with already. Thus, this section is interested in the latter. The correlation was subject to a two-tailed test of statistical significance at the 0.01 level (see, Table III).\nDiscussion and managerial implications: The aim of this study was twofold: first, to show the relationship between the constructs of market orientation, learning orientation and bank innovativeness; and second, to examine the role of innovativeness, market orientation and learning orientation on banks business performance. To achieve this, five research propositions were formulated following an extensive literature review. The findings indicate that each of the constructs is significantly correlated to each other. Based upon the results of the multiple linear regressions, P1 is supported given the reported significant positive relationship between market orientation and learning orientation with market orientation explaining 64 per cent of the variance in the learning orientation of the sample. This finding is consistent with the extant literature. Previous studies (e.g. Sinkula et al., 1997; Farrell, 2000) report a positive relationship between these variables. Thus, in line with Slater and Narver (1995), market orientation is the underlying set of organizational values from which a learning orientation is developed.\nLimitations and future research directions: Despite the due diligence given to the theoretical development, the research design, the choice of measures, and the analyses procedures; we acknowledge the same limitations to other cross-sectional exploratory studies. Thus results are tentative and situated within the Ghanaian study context. It would be worthwhile to replicate this study in other developing countries. In addition, a limitation of this study pertains to the sample size and response rate, which could have been overcome by conducting a validity test, something recommended by Armstrong and Overton (1977) (i.e. a comparison of early and late responses) which showed no significant differences between groups. Future research should endeavour to work with a large sample size as well.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between market orientation, learning orientation and innovation; and second, assesses the role of innovation, market orientation and learning orientation on firms' business performance using a developing country (i.e. the Ghanaian banking domain) as a study context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following a nation-wide survey among senior managers of 28 banks in Ghana, five research propositions were tested using multiple linear regression analysis.\nFindings: Results demonstrate that market orientation has significant association with innovation while learning orientation has significant impact on innovation. Moreover, innovation mediates the relationship between market orientation and business performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study adopt the cross-sectional research design and as such acknowledge the same limitations as other cross-sectional studies.\nPractical implications: The research will help bank executives especially in Ghana and other developing countries to appreciate these marketing variables.\nSocial implications: Banks innovation efforts, concurrently with the development of market orientation culture and improvement in organizational learning processes must benefit bank customers and stakeholders as a whole.\nOriginality/value: The research will help banks in Ghana and other developing countries to appreciate that their innovation efforts should concurrently be in sync with the development of market orientation culture and improvement in organizational learning processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What happens after the developmental assessment center? Employees' reactions to unfavorable performance feedback	[ "Assessment centres", "Feedback", "Employee behaviour", "Conservation", "Resources" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Generally, performance feedback has been shown to be beneficial to both organizations and individuals by improving individual performance (Elkins and Phillips, 2000; Gilliland, 1994; Jelley and Goffin, 2001; Lam et al., 2002). Moreover, performance feedback can play a significant role in the development of employees' attitudes and behaviors (Lam et al., 2002). However, the favorableness of the feedback - whether it is perceived as positive or negative - can be expected to be critical to how recipients exactly will react to it (Kluger and DeNisi, 1996). Employees receiving favorable feedback are expected to be more motivated to achieve their career goals (Lowry, 1994). However, how employees react to unfavorable performance feedback, and the consequences of such feedback (implying that valued career goals will be beyond one's reach) is less well understood (Jones and Whitmore, 1995).\nCOR theory and unfavorable performance feedback: According to Hobfoll's (1989) COR theory, employees have a basic motivation to obtain, retain, and protect that which they value, i.e. their resources. Strain occurs when employees are threatened with resource loss or fail to retain resources following investments (Hobfoll and Shirom, 1993). COR theory has been successfully employed in predicting stress outcomes, ranging from the consequence of traumatic stress to experiencing everyday stressors (Hobfoll, 2001, 2002). Moreover, the loss of resources concept has received support in various contexts, including organizational settings and health contexts. For instance, Hobfoll et al. (2003) found that resource loss (loss of social support among inner city women) was associated with depressive mood and anger. Grandey and Cropanzano (1999) found that chronic work and family stressors drained resources over time and for their sample of university professors this meant more job and life dissatisfaction. Experiencing these negative states was related to a desire to minimize this loss of resources, in this case by intention to leave. As a final example, the study of Monnier et al. (2002) indicated that fire-emergency workers' loss of resources was directly related to depressive symptoms and anger.In this study, we conceptualized unfavorable DAC feedback as resource loss. To date, some studies indeed support this idea. For instance, the study of Jansen and Stoop (2001) examined the relationship between outcomes of an assessment center and turnover. They found a higher tendency to leave among persons with lower ratings in the AC exercise. Furthermore, the study of Engelbrecht and Fischer (1995) showed that participation in a DAC affected behaviors, e.g. task structuring and empathy, and that these behaviors were positively related to the favorableness of the DAC feedback. In their ten-year follow-up evaluation of a management AC in a large insurance company, Jones and Whitmore (1995) showed that DAC feedback and recommendations tended to be followed only if the feedback sent a positive message about future advancement.In the present study, we will examine the association of these resource losses with negative attitudes, i.e. dissatisfaction, reduced affective commitment, and increased intention to leave. Moreover, since employees may also react with burnout to such stressful events, we will also examine the relationship between resource losses and burnout (Hobfoll and Shirom, 1993). Burnout is a work-related stress reaction that can be found among employees in a wide range of occupations, including constabulary officers (Bakker et al., 2002; Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998). Most contemporary researchers agree that the syndrome is characterized by three related, but empirically distinct elements, namely exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy (Leiter and Schaufeli, 1996; Maslach and Jackson, 1984; Maslach et al., 1996). Feelings of exhaustion, or energy depletion, are generally considered a core symptom of the burnout syndrome (e.g., Shirom, 1989). Cynicism refers to the development of negative, cynical attitudes toward work and the people with whom one works (e.g., clients and colleagues). The third dimension of burnout, reduced professional efficacy refers to the belief that one is no longer effective in fulfilling one's job responsibilities. Thus, burned-out individuals suffer from feelings of chronic exhaustion, behave indifferent toward their work and clients, and they believe that their performance has suffered accordingly.In the remainder of this section, we will specify two simple direct relationships: resource loss through negative performance feedback; and resource loss through excessive job demands. After that we will specifically elaborate on the differences between employees that did not receive unfavorable feedback versus employees that received unfavorable performance feedback, by using the loss spiral concept to specify moderating relationships.(1) Resource loss through negative performance feedback\nMethod: This study was part of a written survey on working conditions and occupational health among all employees of the Royal Dutch Constabulary Officers (response rate 61 percent). Questionnaires were sent to the private addresses of all constabulary officers, with free return envelopes. Anonymity was guaranteed, and an information campaign supported the study. From this research population, we selected those respondents that indicated they were invited to attend and actually had attended a DAC within the Constabulary: 272 respondents (all men). From these 272 respondents 80 percent were classified as not having received unfavorable DAC feedback and 20 percent as having received unfavorable DAC feedback. The high percentage of DAC participants that did not receive unfavorable DAC feedback will be a reflection of the personal invitation to participate to only those candidates with good performance records.Measurement\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: What happens after participation in a DAC with those employees who received unfavorable feedback? It was shown that there were some direct associations between resource losses (i.e. excessive job demands and unfavorable DAC feedback) and negative outcomes. Moreover, there were indications for the development of loss spirals by recipients of negative performance feedback for four out of six negative outcomes. That is, the relationship between job demands and negative outcomes was stronger for those who were confronted with unfavorable feedback than for those that were not confronted with unfavorable feedback.Generally, unfavorable performance feedback can be expected to be a disconfirmation of most employees' long-held beliefs, since most employees tend to overestimate their own level of performance (Lam et al., 2002). Such unmet expectations tend to evoke negative attitudes and behaviors. Especially for this group of constabulary officers, the expectations may have been high since they were all personally invited to participate in the DAC. We found for this specific group that the moderating effects of the unfavorable performance feedback on the relationship job demands and negative outcomes were eminent. This may signal that when resource losses add up, negative outcomes are more likely. This points at the possible development of loss cycles with increasing magnitude and more profound effects on employees' attitudes and behaviors (Hobfoll, 2002).Except for the direct relationship between unfavorable performance feedback and cynicism, no direct relationships between feedback and the other outcome variables were found. It is possible, that the existence of this relationship emphasizes that in some cases employees perceive the performance feedback as so-called \"dead-end feedback\": feedback that results in no noticeable change. This type of feedback breeds cynicism (Antonioni, 1996). Alternatively, it is also possible that employees evaluate feedback also for its perceived \"harm-benefit\" potential for the self (Audiaa and Locke, 2003). Believing that one is pursuing the wrong strategy to obtain a certain goal may reinforce the development of negative, cynical attitudes toward work and the people with whom one works. These symptoms are typical for the cynicism dimension of burnout (Bakker et al., 2002).Next to this study, it will be interesting to know if resource losses by negative performance feedback actually lead to impaired job performance, especially since this is a group of employees that was specifically asked to participate in a DAC although the present study only examined the relationship between resource losses and negative attitudes and burnout, the literature offers indirect indications for the existence of resource losses with associated negative behaviors. For instance, burnout has been associated with various negative behaviors, such as absenteeism, intention to leave the job, and actual personnel turnover. For people who stay on the job, burnout has been shown to lead to lower productivity and effectiveness at work (Maslach et al., 2001). Further, meta-analyses indicate associations of job performance with affective commitment (Meyer et al., 2002) and with job satisfaction (Petty et al., 1984). Because of the importance of the observing such relationships, future research should examine whether a direct relationship exists between resource losses and loss spirals on the one hand and lower job performance and/or negative behaviors on the other hand, within a longitudinal design.Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Departing from Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory, the paper aims to examine the relationship between resource losses (excessive job demands and unfavorable performance feedback) on the one hand, and negative job attitudes (dissatisfaction, reduced commitment, intention to leave) and burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment) on the other hand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The sample included surveys from 272 male constabulary officers who had participated in a developmental assessment center. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression.\nFindings: - The results showed direct associations between resource losses and negative outcomes. There were indications for the development of loss spirals for four out of six negative outcomes. Specifically, these relationships between job demands and negative outcomes were stronger for those officers receiving unfavorable feedback than for officers not receiving unfavorable feedback.\nPractical implications: - Employees confronted with excessive job demands and unfavorable developmental assessment center (DAC) feedback were most vulnerable to combined resource losses, and this experience was associated with negative outcomes (i.e. more dissatisfaction, less affective commitment, more emotional exhaustion, and more cynicism).\nOriginality/value: - The unique contribution of this study is that, besides balancing the benefits of using DACs with the costs of implementation, it is emphasized that it is important to anticipate consequences of unfavorable feedback. Moreover, the disappointment and association with negative outcomes should be explicitly considered in the design of the DAC.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Promotion to hospital consultant in NHS Scotland	[ "National Health Service", "United Kingdom", "Career development", "Medical personnel" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in Great Britain, employing around 1.2 million people and accounting for 5 per cent of total employment (Elliott et al., 2002). Although health care is becoming increasingly technologically advanced, it remains a labour intensive industry with almost 70 per cent of total expenditure on labour. The drive to improve the performance of public services is a key aspect of government policy. During 2004, the national employment contracts of hospital consultants, general practitioners (GPs), nurses and all other non-medical staff changed. Workforce issues have become a major area of policy development. Changes have been set against the context of the Wanless report that justified unprecedented increases in NHS expenditure, and therefore, increases in the demand for labour and other factor inputs (Wanless, 2002).The medical profession plays a key role in the delivery of NHS services. There were 84,000 doctors employed in the NHS in 2000, about 7 per cent of the NHS workforce. Although a relatively small proportion, doctors are responsible for all decisions regarding patient care, and so have a significant influence on costs and quality. The role of incentives is key in improving performance and productivity.Although there are employment opportunities for doctors outside of the NHS, this is an option for few except the most senior doctors. Labour markets internal to the NHS, therefore, play a major role. The internal labour market and the structure of careers, promotions, administrative rules and internal remuneration within the NHS, therefore, become key motivating factors in a public service that is under great pressure to enhance performance and productivity. The operation of the internal NHS labour market is particularly important as recent policy changes include a new consultants contract, ambitious targets for the recruitment of new consultants, and changes to the medical career structure and medical training. Within a fixed system of salaried payment and in a dynamic context, each of these can potentially have major effects on behaviour, effort and productivity.1.1 Internal labour markets and incentives in health care\n2 Theoretical framework: Tournament theory has been used to examine the incentives in promotion tournaments. The main prediction is that the larger the difference between the reward of the winner and the reward of the loser (the wage spread), the higher the level of effort. Promotion is a function of the relative ranking of individuals' output, dependent on effort and a random term reflecting luck. Attitudes to risk and the cost of effort are also relevant (Lazear and Rosen, 1981; Audas et al., 2002). This is useful, in that changing the size of the prize at a given level in the promotion hierarchy (e.g. a new consultant contract or a new contract for junior doctors) will change incentives to supply effort. Tournament theory, therefore, focuses on the relative pecuniary rewards between different levels in the promotion hierarchy.Since pay is fixed nationally for hospital consultants, there will be little variation in rewards across different promotion opportunities in any given year. A more general prediction of tournament theory is that promotion depends on relative effort and output. This assumes that promotion is not automatic, but depends on individuals' human capital and on their supply of effort. Automatic promotion may occur when employers base promotion on seniority and \"time served\" in a post, or other factors that are easily observable. Bureaucratic promotion rules may be a rational response to the high costs faced by employers in measuring and observing effort or output in complex jobs. The main hypothesis we test is, therefore, whether:* promotion is automatic (i.e. independent of effort and related measures) or* promotion depends on effort exerted by hospital doctors prior to promotion.\n3 The data: Data were obtained from the Information and Statistics Division (ISD) of NHS Scotland. The Medical and Dental Census (MEDMAN) includes individual level data for all doctors and dentists working in hospital and community health services. The accuracy of the data relies on NHS Trusts who supply the data to ISD on an ongoing basis. For example, every time a doctor leaves or joins the NHS, a return is sent to ISD and the database updated. At the end of September every year, the annual dataset is produced by ISD and used to report on the size and nature of the workforce. Each annual dataset between 1990 and 2000 was merged using a unique individual identifier to create a longitudinal dataset. Although the data extends before this period, definitions and the structure of the data have not been standardised with later years. This provides data on between 8,000 and 9,000 hospital doctors per year. A descriptive analysis of this data can be found in Elliott et al. (2002).The data contain information on age, ethnic origin, country of birth, country of qualification, year of qualification, grade, specialty, type of contract, whole time equivalent (WTE), date started in post, date appointed to grade, provider (hospital) and health board.The analysis concentrates on the promotion to consultant in any given year, t. The year 1990 had to be excluded because of incompatibilities in the coding of specialties. All consultants at the start of the observation period were excluded from the sample as they had already been promoted. The sample was then restricted to all those who were in the following grades at some point in time during the observation period: registrar, senior registrar, and specialist registrar. The paper uses the pool of all doctors who could potentially be promoted to consultant during the relevant time frame. Individuals who were observed for only one period were excluded. A promotion variable was generated which took the value one for those who were not consultants in the previous period and consultants in the current period (promotion) and zero for those who were not consultants in both the previous and current period (no promotion). The promotion variable was used as the dependent variable in all estimations.Experience was calculated for each period as the number of years after graduation[1]. Thirteen experience dummies were generated for experience from 9-21+ years, in order to investigate in a semi-parametric context the influence of experience on the probability of promotion (reference category experience less than 9 years). Two country of qualification dummies were generated; one for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and one for non-UK qualifications (reference category Scotland). A set of year dummy variables were included to control for a possible time trend in promotion probabilities. Ten Health Board dummies were used in order to control for the possibility that the employer may influence promotion probabilities. These dummies will control a mix of regional and other employer specific effects. A gender variable, which takes the value of one for females, was also included.An important part of this analysis is the investigation of whether effort influences promotion or not. The main information in the data relating to the level of individual effort is the individual WTE supplied in a given year[2]. Several measures of effort have been used. The first effort variable was the change in WTE before promotion, as an indication of the signal of willingness/ability to take on further work and responsibilities. This has been measured by the difference between WTE two years and one year before promotion (variable CHWTE2). This assumes that individuals increase their own labour supply before promotion in order to signal their willingness to put in higher effort. The second effort variable was the change in WTE, which coincided with promotion, as an indication of actually taking on further work and responsibilities upon promotion. This has been measured by the difference in WTE before and after promotion (variable CHWTE). Further variables that relate to the quality and quantity of effort have been used. Honorary status in any of the two years prior to promotion (variable HON12) reports whether the doctor is involved in academic work, such as research or teaching, and is a measure of human capital acquisition. Part-time status in any of the two years prior to promotion (variable PT12) and the switch from part-time to full-time in any of the two years prior to promotion (variable PTFT) also measure effort. The use of information from past periods in the efforts variables reduces possible endogeneity problems in the promotion equation.Descriptive statistics of the sample are shown in Table AI in the Appendix. The average promotion incidence across the whole period was 12.25 per cent. This does not include new entrants to NHS Scotland at the consultant level who were not in the sample in the previous year.\n4 Estimation and results: 4.1 Fixed effects panel estimation\n5 Conclusion: This paper examined the promotion of medical staff from registrar to consultant in the Scottish NHS during the 1990s. The paper concentrated on the impact of experience, effort and medical specialty on the probability of promotion. Micro-data was used from administrative NHS records on all hospital doctors in Scotland between the 1991 and 2000. A panel fixed effects model was estimated controlling for unobserved specialty-specific heterogeneity. Results showed clearly that increased contracted hours are positively associated with promotion probabilities. Part-time work was also negatively associated with promotion probability. The overall picture from all effort proxies used was that effort, past or present, is increasing promotion chances. Females and non-Scottish qualified doctors were less likely to be promoted. Experience, measured in years after graduation was shown to have a quadratic effect on promotion probability with its maximum reached at 16 years.Specialty specific fixed effects were derived and the promotion probability of each specialty was decomposed into the part attributable to the observed characteristics of the doctors in each specialty and the part attributable to the specialty-specific unobserved fixed effect. Specialties with high prestige and high potential for further career development (principally surgery of various types) were shown to impose a promotion penalty on the doctors who choose them in the form of a negative fixed effect, presumably, due to increased competition. By contrast, specialties with lower prestige (principally laboratory based) were shown to grant a promotion advantage to the doctors who chose them in the form of a positive fixed effect, presumably, due to lower competition.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence promotions of medical staff from registrar to consultant in the Scottish NHS.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper addresses the question of what determines the incidence of promotion, concentrating on the impact of experience, effort and the choice of specialty in promotion outcomes. A unique panel data set is used that contains individual level information on all NHS hospital doctors in Scotland from 1991 to 2000. Probabilities of promotion are decomposed by specialty into the part attributable to the mean characteristics of the doctors in each specialty and the effect of belonging to a specialty itself.\nFindings: - The paper estimates a panel model of promotion and identifies specialty effects on promotion. Effort in the two years before promotion is shown to have an influence on promotion probabilities. Specialties are found to exhibit considerable differences in their rate of promotion over and above the differences explained by the characteristics of the doctors in them.\nOriginality/value: - The paper examines the promotion of medical staff from registrar to consultant in the Scottish NHS during the 1990s. The paper concentrates on the impact of experience, effort and medical specialty on the probability of promotion.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The individual side of ambidexterity: Do inspirational leaders and organizational learning resolve the exploitation-exploration dilemma?	[ "Organizational learning", "Ambidexterity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The current business environment, which remains complex and unpredictable, requires organizations to focus on those capabilities that provide sustainable competitive advantage (Wu, 2010). However, limited investigation addresses the drivers of these capabilities (Lopez-Cabrales et al., 2017). In the public health sector, organizations have to achieve trust and efficacy with limited resources (Callan et al., 2010). These pressures are even more deeply perceived in the context of the prolonged impact of the economic crisis of 2008. Even though economic indicators suggest a change in the current trend, resources in public healthcare organizations will remain limited, thus requiring the use of a strategic rationale model. Lubatkin et al. (2006) raised the question about the extent to which increased performance is sustainable, bearing in mind the relevant competitive challenges coupled with limited resources.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Individual ambidexterity\n3. Method and measurement: 3.1 Design and procedure\n4. Results: 4.1 Statistical analysis and analytical procedures\n5. Discussion: The current stream of research on ambidexterity focuses on the organization and unit level of analysis. Although it has been recognized that ambidextrous organizations need ambidextrous members (O'Reilly and Tushman, 2004), research at the individual level of ambidexterity is scarce (Mom et al., 2009; Turner et al., 2013), and further understanding about which leadership behaviors and coordination mechanisms facilitate individual ambidexterity is needed (Jansen et al., 2006). This paper offers two main contributions: we have developed a theoretical model on both the direct and mediating effects of inspirational leadership and OLC on individual ambidexterity as a capability; we tested the direct and mediating hypotheses on a sample of 194 medical specialists at individual level. The research contribution suggests important questions for both theory and practice.\n6. Limitations and future research directions: First, our research focuses on a knowledge-intensive context in the public sector. Further research should explore other public organizations, as well as the private sector, and evidence if significant differences could be found. Second, this study uses cross-sectional data and perceptual scales, which could cause a common method bias. We performed Harman's one factor test, and we did not find a single factor to account for most of the covariance in the dependent and independent variables.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine whether inspirational leadership of heads of specialized medical units is related to individual ambidexterity of their dependent physicians; and second, to study the possible mediating role of organizational learning capability (OLC) in the relationship between inspirational leadership and individual ambidexterity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling was used on a sample of 194 medical specialists from Spanish public hospitals.\nFindings: Results show that inspirational leadership is positively related to individual ambidexterity among healthcare physicians. In addition, the results of the study revealed that the relationship between inspirational leadership and individual ambidexterity is mediated by conditions that facilitate learning, namely, OLC.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study uses cross-sectional data, which do not guarantee causality relationships among the examined variables.\nPractical implications: The results of this paper suggest first that heads of healthcare units should inspire followers to achieve both exploration and exploitation. Second, it is also necessary to consider that inspirational leaders promote those conditions that facilitate learning, which should be particularly taken into account to enhance both physician's exploration and exploitation.\nOriginality/value: In stressing an evident gap in the relationship between leadership and ambidexterity at the individual level, this paper attempts to advance in the leadership literature by revealing how the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions, and enhancing enthusiasm and confidence, empowers physicians to both explore and exploit knowledge. The results also indicate that the inspiration transmitted by the heads of medical services, facilitate physician's perceived learning conditions which, in turn, fosters their individual ambidexterity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Green IT/IS investments evaluation within the aviation industry: A focus on indirect cost management	[ "IS evaluation", "Cost management", "Green IT/IS investment", "Green IT/IS within aviation industry", "Indirect costs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The information systems (IS) evaluation research domain has been evolving for more than two decades, and the continuous demand for IS evaluation and the development of comprehensive frameworks are still critical for organizations, especially those facing massive information technology/systems (IT/IS) expenditure for new infrastructure investments (Bjornsson and Lundegard, 1992; Gunasekaran et al., 2006; Joshi and Pant, 2008; Jukic and Jukic, 2010; Bernroider et al., 2013).\n2. Aviation industry (study context): Throughout the 1990s, airport growth increased rapidly, and this then led to adverse impacts on the environment, causing concern for local communities, and resulting in environmental regulators creating requirements (National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 2013). The fact is that aviation is one of the fastest-growing industries among other transportation modes in the world (Sarkar, 2012). Other means of transportation (rail, sea, and road) are not as speedy as air travel (Capoccitti et al., 2010). Albeit aviation is considered as a substantial sector in the transportation and tourism industry, it also has negative impacts, such as air pollutants and noise, and contributes to climate change and other economic and social issues (Chang et al., 2015). Various concerns over the aviation industry, owing to the continuous expansion of air travel, have increased, leading to climate changes and increased carbon emissions into the environment (Smith and Grosbois, 2011; Brown, 2013). Anxiety regarding such environmental pressures has led numerous stakeholders to encourage both researchers and practitioners to investigate corporate greening solutions (Sarkis et al., 2013). The aviation sector is embracing the \"Green\" trend in many ways (Brown, 2013). Additionally, there are green projects associated with the development of new technologies and harnessing existing ones within the aviation sector that strive to combat climate changes and reduce emissions (Brown, 2013; Weir, 2013). NASA (2013) states that eliminating such potential harm to the environment should be carried out quickly. Therefore NASA has taken considerable action with its government, industry, and university partners on a number of environmental issues, including fuel burn, emissions, noise, and improvements in new technology in innovative ways. For instance, the International Air Transport Association (2009) vision is aimed at carbon neutral growth by 2020, a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, and zero-emission aircraft within 50 years.\n3. Literature review: Exploring the Green IT/IS investments evaluation research domain is currently a prevalent research topic; thus the current paper examines literature from overlapping streams including IS evaluation studies (concentrating on indirect costs), Green IT/IS adoption, and Green initiatives and practices within an aviation industry.\n4. Research gaps: There remains a void in the normative literature of IS evaluation pertaining to green initiatives undertaken by organizations. Therefore, there is a need to address this void in the literature and to develop a conceptual model for Green IT/IS investment evaluation, emphasizing indirect costs (Table I).\n5. Developing the conceptual model: Although a few studies related to Green IT/IS adoption have tried to involve internal and external organizational factors by employing theoretical groundings in understanding the factors or motives that influence such adoption (Molla, 2008; Bose and Luo, 2011; Nedbal et al., 2011; Lei and Ngai, 2013), the current literature surrounding Green IT/IS does not incorporate both internal factors and external factors in tandem; rather, each individual factor is quantifiable and assessed alone to assist in evaluation (Hertel and Wiesent, 2013; Bai and Sarkis, 2013). Hertel and Wiesent (2013) claim that Green IT/IS investment and traditional IT/IS investment have similar characteristics because their effects are consistently multidimensional. Nonetheless, Corbett (2010) contends that there must also be other factors considered; otherwise, it would be difficult to justify Green IT/IS investments. The review of the existing literature has made it apparent that there is certainly a need to further investigate Green IT/IS investments particularly costs implications and understands factors influencing such adoption and implementation. Institutional theory is selected amongst other theoretical groundings as it provides a rich and complex view of how organizations become standardized in comprehensive institutional environments (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Scott, 2001). Institutional theory is used to depict how new practices are adopted in organizations and has been applied to Green IT/IS studies, which directly influences a complex decision concerning Green IT/IS adoption (Chen et al., 2008, 2010; Daly and Butler, 2009).\n6. Suggested research methodology: The authors suggest a research methodology that would enable the testing and validation of the proposed model empirically. An interpretivist approach is intended to be adopted by the authors as qualitative research is considered suitable for testing this model that is established (Walsham, 1995). Despite the fact that interpretivist research seeks to explore people's experiences and their perspectives, it is typically inductive in nature and often associated with qualitative approaches to data gathering and analysis (Gray, 2013). Because this paper does not emphasize variables' measurement or formal propositions, positivism (quantitative research methods) cannot be selected (Walsham, 1995; Yin, 2014). When investigating a phenomenon across events, it is necessary to consider the collaboration of different variables, such as times, people and culture (Irani, 1998), where two conditions are not identical. The fact is that IS research is concerned with human beings and behaviors because people influence IS research, as referred to by (Irani et al., 2000; Irani and Love, 2008). Given the nature of this paper, the choice of method was influenced specifically by the need to capture rich contextual information. For instance, this paper is concerned with people (e.g. various stakeholders) who are involved in a decision-making process to investigate and evaluate Green IT/IS. Given the nature of the study (in a single authority); alternative data collection tools such as questionnaires were seen to be of little value.\n7. Conclusions and contribution of the model: Although there are many appraisal techniques, their use is frequently limited to a number of IT/IS or Green IT/IS investments because of their inability to capture many human, organizational and environmental factors. Nonetheless, it emphasizes the need for decision makers to recognize the softer issues associated with developing Green IT/IS infrastructure, and illustrates the inclusion of such concerns with a robust costs model for Green IT/IS investment evaluation more effectively and efficiently. Institutional theory has selected as a theoretical grounding for understanding this complex phenomenon to enrich a better understanding of such adoption. Correspondingly, the internal organizational factors have been identified from the taxonomy of the literature (referred to Table II). It then results in the identification of key internal organizational factors, which can be used to assist in managing comprehensive lists of indirect costs (i.e. human, organizational, and environmental costs).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to utilize the existing theories and knowledge surrounding information systems (IS) evaluation and Green information technology (IT)/IS investments to develop a conceptual model for helping decision makers to overcome and reduce the impacts from Green IT/IS investment related to cost overruns or under-optimized budgets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is discursive, based on the analysis and synthesis of literature pertaining to IS evaluation, Green IT/IS adoption and Sustainable/Green/CSR within an aviation context. Gaps in the preceding research have been identified, and a conceptual model is proposed. Additionally, further research and a methodology are suggested.\nFindings: The paper proposes a conceptual model that can identify factors including external factors derived from institutional theory, internal organizational factors, and a list of indirect costs associated with Green IT/IS investments for an aviation organization.\nResearch limitations/implications: As a conceptual paper, the study is limited to literature, identifying gaps, and proposing a model. The paper recommends further empirical validation of the proposed conceptual model.\nPractical implications: The conceptual model is helpful for decision makers within the aviation industry to enhance their understanding of the identification and management of indirect costs within the aviation context, which results in effective management of Green IT/IS indirect costs.\nOriginality/value: The paper fills gaps in the knowledge of IS evaluation, Green IT/IS adoption/evaluation within aviation context through helping decision makers to understand, identify, and manage the associated indirect costs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cross training efficiency and flexibility with process change	[ "Productivity", "Flexibility", "Responsiveness", "Operational performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organizations have been under increased pressure in recent decades to become more productive, have higher levels of quality, and generally move toward leaner operations (see e.g. Gel et al., 2007; Bordoloi, 1999). This is due, in part, to intense competition and a broad spectrum of market challenges (Shah and Ward, 2003; Pine, 1993). Further, there is a movement toward greater agility and flexibility with increases in product and service diversity (Qin and Nembhard, 2010; Hottenstein and Bowman, 1998). Changes in automation, process technologies, and other advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) create a challenging set of requirements for the frontline workforce and the management of their operations. While in many cases AMTs are intended to mitigate the traditional trade-off between shop floor efficiency and flexibility (e.g. Pagell et al., 2000; Swink et al., 2005), insufficient management of human resources has often led to failed AMT performance (Snell and Dean, 1992). Further, Pagell et al. (2000) suggest that managers, who are better able to make appropriate choices regarding workforce skills, will have higher levels of AMT performance.\n2. Literature review: In the literature, cross-training has been used as both a knowledge management tool for creating and transferring technological knowledge within an organization, and as an operational technology, wherein management can increase flexibility, quality and efficiency. Organizations often make use of cross-training, job rotation systems, work flexibility, and teams in an attempt to manage process change brought on by technological and market forces (see e.g. Azizi et al., 2010; McCune, 1994). However, we nonetheless note that cross-training has been additionally advocated for a wide variety of purposes including quality improvement (Tiwari et al., 2009), team building (Marks et al., 2002; McCreery and Krajewski, 1999), worker motivation (Umiker, 2000; deTreville and Antonakis, 2006), well-being (Lodree and Norman, 2006), reducing turnover/absenteeism (Hopp and VanOyen, 2004), and enhanced problem solving (Nash, 2006). Other work in workforce scheduling has focussed on flowshops (e.g. Cheng et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2011, 2012; Yin et al., 2012; Li et al., 2011).\n3. Hypotheses: Koste and Malhotra (1999) and Bokhorst and Gaalman (2009) outline useful frameworks for conceptualizing the various measures of manufacturing flexibility including labor flexibility and provide a useful survey of many studies involving flexibility. For example, Van Oyen et al. (2001) describe an approach for assigning flexible workers to stations in a serial production system to improve efficiency. The so-called dual resource constrained literature, which addresses limited labor and machine resources, has often focussed on labor flexibility in addressing workplace performance. In several of these studies, including Bokhorst and Gaalman (2009); Bobrowski and Park (1993); Kher and Malhotra (1994), labor flexibility was quantified by a measure of the number and heterogeneity of tasks that a worker can perform.\n4. Method: We examine the efficiency and flexibility of workers in a modern, dynamic workplace subject to on-the-job cross-training. This workplace is characterized by frequent product and process change in addition to worker turnover and absenteeism. In this environment, workers must adapt to and learn new tasks frequently, while at the same time responding to demand in the shortest possible time. We remark that simulation studies have commonly based their findings on a homogeneous and hypothetical workforce. Shafer et al. (2001) describe how results from a homogeneous group of learners/forgetters can significantly differ from those for a heterogeneous workforce. In the current study, we model such a heterogeneous population informed by an empirically measured workforce. We use simulation to study this dynamic workplace due to the extreme complexity of using closed form analytical models to capture the interactions between the workers and the tasks considering the many sources of variation we examine including having a heterogenous workforce, absenteeism, worker turnover, and product design changes (both frequency and magnitude of the changes).\n5. Results and discussion: We summarize the 72 treatment means and standard errors in Table II, where these resulted from the 30 independently chosen heterogeneous worker teams. Table III summarizes two ANOVAs for the simulation results, one for efficiency and one for flexibility, with the corresponding main effects shown in Figure 3 and interaction plots in Figures 4 and 5. We include both the ANOVA results and means with standard errors as two complementary analyses wherein 95 percent confidence intervals may be directly constructed from the means and standard errors in Table II (i.e. mean +- 2 x SE).\n6. Conclusions: Cross-training may have significant efficiency and flexibility benefits for manufacturing organizations. Quantitative benefits include the potential for cross-trained workers to better respond to change, including process change and employee change. We note that there may also be significant costs involved with cross-training since workers must divide their time and learning among multiple activities. A unique aspect of the current study is in quantifying the costs associated with productivity losses due to cross-training that stem from the fact that workers learn and forget, and that these workers are heterogeneous with respect to learning, forgetting, and efficiency characteristics.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the tradeoffs between efficiency and flexibility in production processes involve a cross-trained workforce. The study quantifies production losses that stem from worker learning and forgetting in a cross-training environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper examines multiple levels of cross-training in the context of several workplace factors including absenteeism, turnover, process change frequency, and process change magnitude using discrete event simulation. The parameters of the simulation model are informed by data from a operating manufacturing system.\nFindings: Results suggest that productivity gains obtained from a moderate level of cross-training (e.g. two tasks) can outweigh the production losses from additional training, and that adding further cross-training beyond this may negatively affect system performance.\nOriginality/value: Production systems exist in an environment of process change and competitive pressure. Cross-training is an often-used operational technology for managing process knowledge in an environment of change as well as providing employees with a richer work environment. While the potential benefits of enriching the workplace experience include greater motivation, less boredom and fatigue, greater task vigilance, and other effects generally regarded as beneficial, productivity losses brought about by training and retraining disruptions associated with cross-training have not been examined as widely.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leader effectiveness in emerging markets: an empirical study of the managers in India	[ "Emerging markets", "Leader effectiveness", "Emotional intelligence", "Tolerance of ambiguity", "Asia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Practitioners and scholars alike are interested in the potential influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on leader effectiveness. EI became popular with practitioners after the publication of Daniel Goldman's, 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, which was on The New York Times bestseller list for 18 months and has sold over 5,000,000 copies. Many Fortune 500 companies have incorporated EI as a key element in their leadership development programs (Boyatzis et al., 2013; Dries and Pepermans, 2012; Kets de Vries, 2012), with some believing that EI accounts for 90 percent of the differences between average and star leaders (Walter et al., 2011).\n2 Hypotheses development: Individuals with high EI are those who:\n3 Method: 3.1 Sample\n4 Results: Before examining the hypotheses, we completed a confirmatory factor analyses for tolerance for ambiguity, leader effectiveness, and the four dimensions of EI (SEA, ROE, OEA, UOE) (Fornell and Larcker, 1981; Gerbing and Anderson, 1988). The six factor model appears to fit the data well. The kh2 (X2=782.32, degrees of freedom (df) - 178, p<0.01. The adjusted goodness of fit index (GFI)=0.91, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI)=0.94, and the root mean square error approximation (RMSEA)=0.07. The average variance extracted (AVE) estimates of all the dimensions were above 0.5, indicating adequate convergent validity. The average variance (AV) for each construct was greater than the squared factor structural coefficient, indicating discriminant validity. Additionally, because a single survey was used, we followed common practice (Prati et al., 2009) and conducted the Harman's one-factor test. The test indicated that no one factor accounted for most of the variance, suggesting that common method bias was not a problem.\n5 Discussion: In this study, we found that TOA was significantly related to leader effectiveness. Individuals who have a high TOA are less likely to shy away from an uncertain or complex situation. Instead, individual with high TOA may see uncertain situations as an opportunity for exploration and experimentation; they are able to effectively manage despite the vague or unknown environmental factors. Our findings are in line with previous studies which suggest that TOA may be a critical skill for making high-quality organizational decisions in complex environments (Lewin and Stephens, 1994; McCormick, 2001; Mitton, 1989).\n6 Study limitations and directions for future research: Like much of the research in our field, this study has several limitations and its results should be considered in light of these limitations. First, this study is based upon a single survey and may suffer from common method variance. In an effort to determine whether common method variance was a problem, we did complete a Harman test. The results of the Harman test suggested that common method variance was not a problem in this study. Moreover, recent examinations of common method variance suggest that concerns about the its presence and effects have been overstated (Conway and Lance, 2010; Meade et al., 2007, for discussions). In conducting future studies, scholars should gather data from multiple sources in order to reduce the possibility of common method variance. Second, while we controlled for some demographic variables in our analysis, we did not control for other variables which may have been relevant. For instance, some (Harms and Crede, 2010) have argued that it is especially important to control for the impact of cognitive intelligence when studying EI. While a recent meta-analysis by O'Boyle et al. (2011) found that EI explained variance in performance which was above that explained by cognitive ability, scholars still need to make careful use of relevant control variables when studying EI. Third, this study examined a relative small sample of managers working in the New Delhi region of India. In the future, scholars should survey a larger number of managers and should survey individuals across the different regions of India in order to account for potential regional differences.\n7 Conclusions: This study examined the relationship between TOA, EI and leader effectiveness. Using a sample of managers in India, we found that TOA and EI, respectively, were significantly related to leader effectiveness. We also found that EI moderated the relationship between TOA and EI. The findings of this study make two contributions to the research on EI and leadership effectiveness. First, this study answers calls for more research on EI, specifically on EI as a moderating variable (Prati et al., 2009; Yin, 2010). This study suggests EI moderates the relationship between the personality factor of TOA and leader effectiveness. Thus, a manager who has high TOA should be a more effective leader if he/she also has high EI. Second, this study contributes to a better understanding of the cross-cultural generalizability of the EI construct. While previous research on EI has been completely almost exclusively in Western countries, our study examines EI in India. This study suggests that EI may be a valuable construct to study in India as well as other Asian countries. We hope this study encourages greater research on the generalizability of Western theories, such as EI and leader effectiveness, in other countries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to respond to call for the greater study of emotional intelligence (EI) and leader effectiveness as well as the potential role of EI as a moderating variable in non-Western countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper surveyed 352 managers in India in order to examine the relationship between EI and tolerance of ambiguity (TOA), respectively, and leader effectiveness as well as the potential moderating effects of EI on the relationship between TOA and leader effectiveness.\nFindings: The paper found that both EI and TOA were significantly related to leader effectiveness. Additionally, EI significantly and positively moderated the relationship between TOA and leader effectiveness.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study was composed of a single survey of a relatively small number of managers in one region of India. Also, while the paper controlled for some demographic variables, other factors, such as cognitive ability, which may have influenced the relationship between EI and leadership effectiveness, were not measured.\nOriginality/value: Despite the relative lack of empirical research on EI, it remains a highly popular topic. This study contributes to research on EI, has implications for the generalizability of EI in Asian countries, and contributes to an increased understanding of leadership in emerging markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service experience co-creation: conceptualization, implications, and future research directions	[ "Service logic", "Co-creation", "Value", "Service-dominant logic", "Service experience", "Service management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In past few decades, experience has become a central phenomenon of interest for service researchers and managers. Ever since the notion emerged that consumer behavior has an experiential dimension (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), academics and practitioners have increasingly recognized the need for a deeper understanding of the role of the customer's experiences in key marketing phenomena (Edvardsson et al., 2005; Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). The creation of a superior customer experience is considered key to attaining satisfied and loyal customers (Grewal et al., 2009; Klaus and Maklan, 2012), and is thereby the ultimate goal for service offerings and organizations (Verhoef et al., 2009). The importance of experience has been further elevated by service-dominant (S-D) logic, by emphasizing the experiential nature of value (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). In particular, this phenomenological approach to service experience has affected how we think about business in general, shifting the focus from the production of outcomes to how those outcomes are contextually and uniquely interpreted and experienced by the individual.\n2. Approach: This paper provides an integrative literature review that is a suitable approach to address new or emerging topics which would benefit from a holistic conceptualization and synthesis of the literature to date (Torraco, 2005). The review is not systematically organized to rely on certain predetermined key words, as the research phenomenon - service experience co-creation - is emergent and lacks conceptualization and a common terminology. Instead, we first identify the literature fields that address service experience, and within those fields review and synthesize any research that might be seen to contribute to understanding its co-creative aspects. Our initial literature review resulted in the identification of relevant fields offering varying perspectives on service experience (cf. Helkkula, 2011): service management, S-D logic and service logic, consumer culture theory, and service innovation and design. Next, we analyzed how research in these fields characterizes service experience, and how it has contributed to understanding service experience co-creation, resulting in a framework synthesizing the multiple dimensions of the phenomenon (cf. Torraco, 2005).\n3. Conceptual background of service experience co-creation: This section addresses the first research question - how co-created service experience has been characterized in the recent literature - by analyzing and comparing different research perspectives on service experience and its interactive nature. On the basis of this analysis, an integrative conceptualization of service experience co-creation is developed.\n4. Wider implications of the service experience co-creation concept: The second research question addresses the wider implications of service experience co-creation for current service research, and for research in marketing. On the basis of the present conceptual analysis and the expert commentaries, we identified three marketing topics that are affected by the phenomenon of service experience co-creation: circularity of experience and value, the foundational sociality of markets as a foundation for co-creation, and renewal of measures for experience related concepts.\n5. Future research on service experience co-creation: The present review of current research perspectives relating to service experience co-creation, in conjunction with leading scholars' insights on the trajectory of this phenomenon, has revealed several shortcomings in current research that can serve as signposts for further knowledge development in this area, and for the development of research questions to inform future studies (see Table II).\n6. Conclusions and implications: 6.1. Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The collective, interactive aspects of service experience are increasingly evident in contemporary research and practice, but no integrative analysis of this phenomenon has been conducted until now. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize service experience co-creation and examines its implications for research and practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To map the multi-approach research area of service experience co-creation, the study draws on literature in the fields of service management, service-dominant logic and service logic, consumer culture theory, and service innovation and design, together with invited commentaries by prominent scholars.\nFindings: A conceptualization is developed for \"service experience co-creation,\" and multiple dimensions of the concept are identified. It is postulated that service experience co-creation has wider marketing implications, in terms of understanding experiential value creation and foundational sociality in contemporary markets, as well as in the renewal of marketing methods and measures.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors call for cross-field research on service experience, extending current contextual and methodological reach. Researchers are urged to study the implications of increasing social interaction for service experience co-creation, and to assist managers in coping with and leveraging the phenomenon.\nPractical implications: For practitioners, this analysis demonstrates the complexity of service experience co-creation and provides insights on the aspects they should monitor and facilitate.\nOriginality/value: As the first integrative analysis and conceptualization of service experience co-creation, this paper advances current understanding on the topic, argues for its wider relevance, and paves the way for its future development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Vendor-managed-inventory (VMI) in construction	[ "Vendors", "Inventory control", "Logistics data processing", "Construction industry", "Supply chain management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The logistics and supply chain management literature commonly deal with the issue in the context of consumer goods, repetitive manufacturing, and retailing. To some degree the findings of the research and guiding principles found from the literature can be considered generic. However, when the proposed principles and solutions are analyzed deeper, we soon notice that there are a lot of situational factors affecting their applicability. In this paper we focus on small item logistics in construction that is a specific case of project-based production. By small items we mean cheap standard products that are continuously needed in production, such as nuts and bolts. From the logistics management perspective, construction industry differs from repetitive manufacturing and consumer goods in several respects:* Each construction project is different.* The final product is one-of-a-kind.* The production takes place at its final use of the building thus the place, where production takes place changes each time when a new project starts.* The production of the construction firm take place in a number of different locations.* The site organization may stay relatively stable but the external organization (designers, engineers, suppliers) is different in every project, and the project typically has a lot of power to decide about its own practices such as production methods, purchasing and material delivery.* There are a lot of companies operating simultaneously at each site.* Product specifications are often for the most outside the control of the contractor.These features of the construction industry make the integration and coordination of supply chains challenging both in vertical and horizontal dimensions. Vertical integration - the integration of site and upstream supply chain - is challenging because of the uniqueness of each site. The scarce literature about logistics and supply chain management in construction has mostly dealt with this challenge. For example the literature about lean project management and lean construction has highlighted the importance of cooperation between construction site and material suppliers in order to improve the logistics processes (e.g. Ballard and Howell, 2003; Koskela, 2000; Arbulu et al., 2003; Elfving et al., 2005). Also Vrijhoef and Koskela (2000) in their article about SCM in construction focus on this dimension.Managing the horizontal dimension is challenging, because of the large number of suppliers and subcontractors in each project, constantly changing production locations, characteristically high uncertainty and variability (Koskela, 1992), and high freedom of each site to decide about its own practices. Horizontal integration is an issue that is discussed more in context of production strategies of multinational companies (Turkulainen and Ketokivi, 2006), and less in SCM context. The lack of horizontal integration in construction companies can be considered a major reason why the efforts to apply advanced logistics and supply chain management practices in construction have often been unsuccessful. Many successful pilots never have been turned into company-wide established practice, because horizontal integration has been weak. This study aimed at considering both horizontal and vertical dimensions when designing solutions for construction logistics.In this paper, the adaptation of a specific solution for small item logistics in the construction industry will be described. This solution is vendor-managed-inventory (VMI). In VMI, the supplier is responsible for making replenishment decisions on behalf of the buyer on the basis of information provided by the buyer (Simchi-Levi et al., 2003). VMI has been implemented quite widely in construction in recent years. However, due to the challenges listed above the solution has not easily been introduced on the company or corporate level, but the adoption has typically been on a project-to-project basis and ad hoc. The specific research question is how can VMI be introduced as a corporate level solution for small items logistics in the construction industry? This question is studied from the viewpoint of logistics and supply chain management.\n2. Methodology: Our chosen methodology is design science. The design science approach focuses on the design intention and the responses of the designer to practical problems and obstacles. In this respect it is similar to actor network analysis see, e.g. Pickering (1995), Jones and Dugdale (2002) and Eisenhardt's (1989) inductive case study. It differs from these, however, in that the intended use is to describe and orient design in action, rather than to describe and analyze historical actor networks or evaluating management decision that have already been made. We can divide a research process into three stages (Figure 1) depending on the focus of research: initial solution design (or \"jumping in\"), co-optation of unintended consequences, and explanation, where the last stage corresponds to the network analysis or inductive case study. The research reported in this paper focuses on the first two stages, as there is not yet implemented solutions that can be evaluated with the objective of explaining.Practical problem solving, design science, and case research is everything but a linear process with clearly distinct phases, instead the different activities often run in parallel. At any rate, the front end of the research process consists of multiple rudimentary design conjectures, from which it moves to stages where there are already concrete implementations of these conjectures, and where the research focus can shift from active exploration through design to explanation and understanding of the consequences of various actions. In sum, design is dominant when problems are ill-defined, but conventional research approaches start to dominate later when the problem domain and case is clearly defined and evaluation is possible.The key concept in design science is the means-ends proposition that outlines a possible solution design in addition to the expected result and circumstances of applying the solution. Several authors in design science and related disciplines have used the concept of the means-ends proposition, although under different names: the technical norm (Niiniluoto, 1993), the technological rule (Popper, 1963; van Aken, 2004), and base case (Kaplan, 1998). We have adopted the term the means-ends proposition from Simon (1996, p. 211).The setting of the study is a construction company that designs and tests a solution for small item logistics in practice. The problem was ill-defined at the outset. VMI was not defined as the means-ends proposition at the outset, but became the focus of the solution design through the problem-solving process and practical trials.The case company has dedicated resources for designing and test logistics solutions in practice. The participants on the corporate level were the primary designers, whereas the construction sites were responsible for trials and bringing problems and unintended consequences to the attention of the designers. On the corporate level those dedicated to development were a level of a vice president and a development manager who were jointly responsible for design and development. The development manager was hired at the end of the jumping-in phase after the first means-ends propositions had been formulated. The responsibility of the development manager was detailed design and responsibility for testing the solutions at assigned construction sites, so called \"laboratory projects\". These were construction sites that had some extra resources allocated for implementing and evaluating proposed designs.The role of the two academic researchers involved was most significant in the beginning of the problem solving and design process. They also participated in the design and development, as well as evaluation, but were not directly involved in the implementation and testing.The final stage of a designs science study is the explanation stage. Explanation is the analysis of means-ends propositions, solution designs, and most importantly, the intended and unintended consequences of the implementations. The main new element is theoretical constructs. Mid-range theory (e.g. Merton, 1957) is a theoretical account, an explanation of the causal structure of the means-ends proposition: what are the important concepts and variables, how and why they are related to one another, and what are the important boundary conditions? Mid-range theory is highly context-specific, and should not as such be generalized to other contexts.\n3. CASE company description and means-ends exploration: 3.1 Company description\n4. Discussion and further development: The pilots were clearly successful and reached their targets. However, it is not yet proven if the final goal of having a corporate-wide solution for small item logistics will be reached. The initial calculations show that the required investments are justified if they can be shared with many sites. The only remaining question is if there are some site types and situations in which the piloted VMI does not suit. All pilots were relatively large residential project sites in the metropolitan area. How does the solution work at small sites, remote sites, office building sites and infrastructure sites? At the next phase of the project the plan is to test the VMI store at diverse sites in order to find out the limits of its use, and how it should be modified to different site types. One challenge is also how to shift the responsibility and ownership of the concept from the development organization to the line organization and to establish its use. Another goal of the next phase of the project is to prepare for that change. If the results of the next phase are as promising as the first pilots, a full scale implementation will follow.Our objective was to find out \"How can VMI be introduced as a corporate level solution for small items logistics in the construction industry?\" It is still too early to claim that the small-item store is an effective means to resolve the logistics problems typical of the construction industry. Only pilots have been conducted, and the solution design is still evolving. However, regarding the solution design we propose that future case research looking at constructs, such as the following, would be theoretically interesting and help move the means-ends proposition towards grounded understanding and mid-range theory. These are:* factors affecting the distribution of tasks between suppliers, sites, and centrally for the construction company; and* factors affecting the scaling up of the small items store.It is likely that the limited duration of the individual projects, differences and deficiencies in supplier's capabilities, and the construction company's central capabilities affect the success of scale up efforts. However, how the solution is designed also is likely to affect scalability. From the pilots we can, however, make the conclusion that VMI can potentially reduce significantly the logistics and administrative work to manage procurement of small items at construction sites. Indeed, the practical solution must be such that takes into account the specific features of construction sites.VMI can be implemented either as suppliers' service or as customer's inventory management solution. The findings from this case indicate that making VMI work at corporate level requires that the construction company owns the solution. It enables integrating VMI to the other IT systems, which brings a big share of the benefits of the system. It is also better from the procurement point of view, because there is less risk for locking in to one or few suppliers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenge of managing logistics at corporate level in construction industry; and to present and evaluate vendor-managed-inventory (VMI) as a potential solution for small item logistics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study has a design science approach. It describes and tests a possible solution design for small item logistics in construction.\nFindings: - The paper finds that VMI is an efficient solution for small item logistics at construction sites, provided that it is well designed and movable. When the construction company owns the solution, it can more potentially be a corporate-wide solution.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The VMI solution is tested at only three pilot sites, so there might be many situational factors affecting its feasibility that could not be observed.\nPractical implications: - The proposed solution is potentially a major step in moving from site-by-site logistics towards corporate level logistics management in construction industry.\nOriginality/value: - The VMI solution presented in this paper is unique for construction industry. The study indicates that it improves significantly the effectiveness of small item logistics in construction. More generally, the value of the paper is in combining horizontal integration (across sites) and vertical integration (supply chain) views in designing logistics solutions for construction industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explaining small-retailer patronage through social capital theory	[ "Social capital theory", "Behavioural commitment", "Civic commitment", "Perceptual commitment", "Small retailer", "Town management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: All through the world, city centres increasingly lose their businesses (Sands et al., 2010; Ozuduru et al., 2014) and every week, small local shops go bankrupt in those areas (Nilsson, 2016). The economic crisis partly explains this phenomenon since other factors such as the development of peripheral areas also has an impact (Cheshire et al., 2014). According to Procos (2016), the Federation of Specialised Commerce in France, commercial vacancies have increased in city centres by 1.8 points (from 9.3 to 11.1 per cent) between 2014 and 2015. Since 2012, the phenomenon has increased by one per cent every year.\nLiterature review and research hypotheses: When explaining the factors that encourage consumers to patronise small local retailers, studies have been divided into two main streams of research. A first line of research has focussed on the transactional relationship between small local retailers and consumers. This avenue of research relies on classical marketing theories in trying to identify the factors on the demand and offer side, which potentially attracts customers towards the points of sale.\nMethodology: Operationalisation of the variables\nResults: Validation of the measurement instruments featured two phases: exploratory and confirmatory validation. The exploratory factor analysis suggested the need to reduce the initial number of items by excluding those that simultaneously displayed high loadings on several factors, or loadings that were too low. After this refinement, a satisfactory factorial structure emerged for the CPC construct, according to well-established validity indicators (Table AI). Internal consistency has been assessed through the Cronbach's a estimate of reliability (Nunnally, 1978, p. 230). All the estimated valued for the constructs are above Nunnally's (1978) threshold recommendation except for one (cost of commitment). The a estimated for the different constructs has a value of 0.67 which is acceptable for exploratory studies (Nunnally, 1978).\nDiscussion and implications: Discussion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand why people shop at small retailers in their community. The authors investigate the influence of consumers' civic commitment, measured at behavioural and perceptual levels, on small-retailer patronage (SRP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 984 respondents represent four French cities that host common town-centre shopping streets and large out-of-town retail parks. A structural equation model applied to the theoretical framework tests the relationships between civic behavioural commitment (CBC), civic perceptual commitment (CPC) and declared SRP.\nFindings: The more an individual consumer exhibits civic behavioural commitment (CBC) to his/her community, the greater his/her small-retailer patronage (SRP). Furthermore, consumers who express strong civic perceptual commitment (CPC) prefer to patronise small retailers. Results show that CPC has a stronger impact on SRP than CBC does.\nPractical implications: If the CPC has stronger effects on SRP than CBC does, town managers can catch people's attention by communicating civic commitment to enhance CPC. Solidarity could be developed through large-scale social projects to send a strong signal to consumers regarding retailers' commitment in the community. Finally, the study highlights the role businesses, retailers and consumers play in building communities. Partnerships across all local stakeholders should be built.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to define civic behavioural commitment within consumers' life place based on social capital theory. Moreover, it offers a new framework for understanding perception of commitment within a community, and its impact on SRP. This measurement scale allows more efficient capturing of civic commitment to communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The historical evolution of employee engagement and self-efficacy constructs: An empirical examination in a non-western country	[ "Engagement", "Individual behavior" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizations seeking high levels of productivity have focused on human resources activities, such as skill training, performance appraisal, compensation and career development, which have been known to enhance and sustain their organizational performance (Appelbaum and Hare, 1996; Combs and Skill, 2003). Today, the outcome of the work gains characteristics from the job performer, and \"modern work imposes more demands on the self than before\" (Varje et al., 2013, p. 50). During the past decade, the literature has witnessed a great deal of interest in the notion of employee engagement (Wollard and Shuck, 2011; Chalofsky, 2010; Robertson and Cooper, 2010), which has been shown to be positively related to performance (Saks, 2006; Bakker and Demerouti, 2008; Xanthopoulou et al., 2009), and related to higher levels of affective commitment (Shuck, 2011). An increase in the scholarly interest in the employee engagement construct crossed many disciplines, such as management, psychology, health care and human resource development (Shuck and Reio, 2011; Shuck et al., 2011; Christian et al., 2011; Rich et al., 2010).\nLiterature review: Historical roots of employee engagement\nA historical evolution of employee engagement: Although employee engagement has gained popularity and the term is broadly used to describe engagement, there is a lack of academic and empirical research (Shuck and Wollard, 2010), and most of what has been written can be found in practitioner journals where its core is in practice, rather than in empirical research and theory (Saks, 2006). For example, Reuteman (2014) wrote an organizational leadership piece on Gordon Bethune (Continental Airlines), which specifically discusses employee engagement and provides research findings based on quantitative measures (e.g. earnings per share [EPS] growth rates) for companies citing active engaged employees. As a result, the definition and meaning of employee engagement is unclear and vague and has been interchangeably misused with many different terms.\nA historical evolution of self-efficacy: Extant literature in all disciplines (i.e. management, organizational behavior and human resource management) has established that managing people and their behavior is a core success for better work-related performance and higher output. A number of theories have been anticipated to explain human psychosocial functioning, and social cognitive theory is one of these theories (Wood and Bandura, 1989). One of the mechanisms in the social cognitive theory is self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1988).\nHypotheses development: Organizations today are very concerned about managing their performance (Tams, 2008), and with the presence of unstable environmental circumstances resulting from the development of new global and technological trends, employers are urged to search for multi-skilled employees who can achieve effective performance in any setting (Ballout, 2009). Organizations, nowadays, are on the look to stimulate employee behaviors that would enhance organizational performance. The literature suggests that higher levels of self-efficacy and the concept of employee engagement are positively related to performance.\nMethodology: Measures\nDiscussion and implications: To understand the contemporary management, it is important to examine and understand its history. Bedeian (2004, p. 93) argues that:\nLimitations and future research: Although we tried to minimize the limitations of our study, as in any study, our study has limitations. The first limitation is the data; data were collected from one industry, the service industry. Future research should target different industries, and this may lead to obtain a larger sample from different types of industries that will allow the generalization of the results. The second limitation is the self-reported data; employees self-evaluated themselves, which may lead our data to be contaminated with bias. Future research should attempt to obtain data from employee and supervisor or manager to have a better understanding of the level of employee engagement at the workplace. Future research should expand on the dimensions of employee engagement and self-efficacy through a global lens via cultural differences and similarities (Carraher, 2003; Carraher et al., 2003, 2008; Huettinger, 2008; Lunnan and Traavik, 2009; Varje et al., 2013). It is important that future researchers try to collect data from other Arab countries to provide a better understanding and further insights for both the practitioners and academics, with regard to the Arab employee population. As stated, there is a huge gap of studies regarding Arab countries and a variety of management-related factors. A study of the modes of approaches to increase employee engagement (e.g. explicit goals, feedback) or attributes (e.g. pay, insurance) and whether one plays a stronger role in increasing employee engagement would be welcomed. Previous studies have found that increased employee satisfaction may increase profits in other populations (Harter et al., 2002). Furthermore, future research should examine the climate for engagement, as suggested by Bakker et al. (2011); employees who find that work is of no meaning and lack the resources to perform their job, they develop the feeling of loneliness and rejection (Maslow, 1970).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to highlight the historical roots of employee engagement and empirically examine the influence of self-efficacy on the three dimensions of employee engagement (vigor, dedication and absorption).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 426 male and female respondents in the service industry from Lebanon was surveyed using a multi-scale measure composed of 25 items. Regression analysis was used to test the data for the hypothesized relationships between the variables.\nFindings: History of management continues to be the backbone of the so-called modern concepts. Although the term employee engagement was not used in scientific management or in the human relations movement, the characteristics were incorporated in these early schools. The three factors of employee engagement explained 78 per cent of the total variance of employee engagement construct and were significantly influenced by self-efficacy.\nResearch limitations/implications: The first limitation of this study is the self-reported data, and the second limitation is the source from one industry (service), although different organizations were incorporated. Caution is advised against generalizations of the findings.\nPractical implications: The results of this study provide insights for both researchers and managers to better understand the relationship between three dimensions of employee engagement and self-efficacy from a non-Western context. The belief in one's own capabilities helps promote employee engagement.\nSocial implications: Lebanon offers an interesting context; it is considered as the only Arab country that provides an interaction between the Western and Middle Eastern countries.\nOriginality/value: This study aimed to trace the historical roots of employee engagement to the early management schools. Moreover, studies similar to the present investigation exist; however, this is the first time that a non-Western Arab sample was used to examine the influence of self-efficacy on the three dimensions of employee engagement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Nineteenth century handmaids or twenty-first century partners?	[ "Hospitals", "Doctors", "Nurses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Doctors and Nurses [are grouped together] not as partners but as people in charge on the one hand and their \"handmaidens\" on the other (The Briggs Report (Briggs, 1972)).\nAn historical perspective: In the very early days of nursing, Florence Nightingale had to convince the army physicians of the Crimean war that nurses had something to offer that was of use (Palmer, 1983). At that time medicine had undergone several decades of image reconstruction. Having dispelled its eighteenth-century image as a collection of quacks and rogues (Porter, 2001) medicine had become a profession with power that was fully integrated into institutions and bureaucracies with social and civil influence. Nursing by contrast found itself dependent on the approval of medicine for its very existence (Keddy et al., 1986). The educational systems that evolved for both doctors and nurses endeavoured to maintain the relationship much as it was in its infancy. Nurses were taught, examined and employed by physicians in apprenticeship programs run by hospital institutions (Bradshaw, 2001). Crucially, nurses were socialised early to be passive and subservient, but at the same time to believe themselves indispensable. Medical education by contrast encouraged independence and autonomy. Dating back to the 1852 Medical (Registration) Act and the subsequent formation of the General Medical Council (GMC) the medical profession controlled its own education, entry was restricted and practice was peer-regulated (Witz, 1992). Though control over itself was part of what gave medicine its professional status, Friedson (1970) argued that it was its control over appropriate knowledge and the division of labour across other health care workers that truly afforded the medical profession power. It would be mistaken to assume that the dynamics of the doctor-nurse relationship were grounded in mutual consent. For the past 100 years nurses have struggled to redefine their relationship with doctors and to improve their professional status (Witz, 1992).From the opening quotation it would seem that little had changed by the time of the Briggs report. However, the last 30 years has seen considerable flux in nursing, a variety of challenges to the dominance of medicine and a growing political discourse espousing the value of communication, collaboration and consultation. If nineteenth-century values ensured that the twentieth century belonged to medicine, has nursing come far enough to leave the handmaiden behind and claim true clinical partnership for the twenty-first century?\nNurse education and professionalisation: In the years following the Briggs report, several governmental, institutional and educational reforms were to have an enormous impact on nursing (see Table II). Of these changes the formation of a single regulatory body with a professional register; the conception of Project 2000; the introduction of clinical grading; and most recently, the drive for clinical nurse specialists have arguably been amongst the most influential. General outcomes have included greater control by nursing and its regulatory body over the design and content of educational programmes and practice regulation (Witz, 1994). A specific outcome for the individual nurse was that she[1] could no longer be passive in her approach to dealing with patients or doctors. In administering drugs for example, it became the nurse's duty to be knowledgeable and assertive enough to employ her professional judgement rather than merely performing the task in strict compliance with a doctor's written prescription (UKCC, 2000).Career development in nursing became more diverse with potential for considerable clinical progression. The publication of The New NHS (DoH, 1997) and Making a Difference (DoH, 1999) introduced the concept of the nurse consultant, espoused as central to facilitating the implementation of clinical governance and increasing individual accountability. This role, conceptualised as an expert practitioner, an educator, a researcher, a process consultant and a transformational leader (Manley, 2000a), is intended to be in every sense (and not least in remuneration) a \"professional\" role. As a result of these changes the structure and governance of nursing gradually became similar to medicine in terms of specific training, practice standards and autonomy in registration in turn furthering the professionalisation of nursing (Pascall, 1993). In addition, perhaps as a direct consequence of these changes, this period was also characterised by the emergence of nursing research and the growing influence of the concept of evidence based practice (Fatchett, 1998).\nThe games we still play: One might wonder, in the face of all this obvious progress, why it even needs to be asked whether the relationship between doctors and nurses has moved on. At the beginning of the 1990s Stein and colleagues (Stein et al., 1990) returned to the doctor-nurse game first defined in the late 1960s. They claimed that, for some, the game was still being played out in much the same way, however the majority of nurses were simply not playing anymore (Table I). One study of nurses' decision-making models (Porter, 1991) describes how relations between nurses and doctors may have changed (Table III). This study reclassified Stein's game as informal covert decision making and conceptualised three further models including unproblematic subordination, informal overt and formal overt decision making. Though it is possible these other models already existed when Stein first described his model, historical information suggests they were not prevalent (Keddy et al., 1986). The account of these four models clearly suggests things are still far from balanced and straightforward. Notably more overt decision making by nurses seems most common to specialist clinical settings. This perhaps suggests that nurses with specialised knowledge feel they are in a better position to utilise their voice. However a further description of the doctor-nurse relationship, referred to as the staging game (Manias and Street, 2001) (see Table IV), suggests that games are still being played to ever greater degrees of subtlety. It would seem that nurses are trying to move away from the handmaiden image, but in the attempt are having to resort to varying levels of subterfuge. So it is worth asking why there is still a need to resort to games in order for nurses to validate their contribution. And, what factors are maintaining the power imbalance and preventing true clinical partnership?\nPoliticians, policy makers and external influences: Just as an historical perspective is important to inform the development of the doctor-nurse relationship, consideration needs to be given to the macro features that have affected their relative positions. Some of the changes described were initiated and led by nurses for nurses, though often in the face of opposition. For example, the Department of Health brought pressure to bear against the original Nurse-led proposals for Project 2000 to be entirely degree level. The concession was the provision of diploma courses instead (Pascall, 1993). The financial implications of an all-graduate workforce fighting for professional status must indeed have been cause for concern. This kind of pressure was not just a feature of Conservative Government policy. The current Labour Government attempted (but failed) to push through plans to extend access to the professional register to non-nurse trained health care assistants (Norman, 2002), which would have effectively resulted in a \"de-professional register\". It has even been suggested that incentives for extending specialised nursing practice arguably came from government and managerial attempts to contain costs, reduce junior doctors' hours and rise to public demands through the creation of a cheaper two-tier workforce (Neenan, 1997; Pascall, 1993). It is questionable whether nursing could have achieved this development of specialist practice if it had not suited the political and managerial agenda.External forces have worked many changes to the entire NHS dependent on the political will of the time. Clinical grading was seen as an overt attempt to divide and conquer in the guise of a career structure, and resulted in very public (but ultimately unsuccessful) industrial action by those opposed to it (Fatchett, 1998). Imposed changes such as the internal market united many nurses and doctors in mutual objection. Doctors however, were more likely to be involved in discussions and/or directly addressed in policy documents than nurses (Fatchett, 1998). In the Griffiths' report, Doctors are espoused as natural managers, whereas the only two references made to nursing are a vague allusion to manpower (Griffiths, 1983, p. 8) and a facetious comment about Florence Nightingale (Griffiths, 1983, p. 12). This in fact was not unusual; the health reforms instigated during the 18 years of Conservative government have been described as a stunning case study of the marginalisation of the nursing contribution (Gough, 1997). Politicians may have lionised their \"angels\" publicly but their policy documents suggested a willingness to marginalise them politically. Such attempts to control professional development and prevent nurses from gaining genuine power and influence in the political arena clearly undermine the attempts of nursing to redefine itself.Doctors and nurses: two to tango?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to consider the processes influencing the nature of the relationship between hospital medical and nursing staff.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Posits the question \"how far has this relationship come?\" since the influential Briggs Report of the 1970s declared that the nineteenth-century handmaid model remained a powerful concept. To address whether this still holds true, a series of potentially influencing factors are explored. These include the differing historical development of medicine and nursing. Also how the relative roles, of nursing in particular, are changing and the effects of the external policy and political influences at play. Gender issues are considered, with particular regard to how care is conceptualised, and not least the contribution to relations by doctors and nurses themselves are explored.\nFindings: - The paper discusses how three doctor-nurse relationship models have attempted to account for the way these two groups interact. A fourth perspective is put forward as a potentially revealing way of viewing group relations, taking from the social psychology-based theory of social identification.\nOriginality/value: - The paper maintains that a frank and open discussion of the problems that may be encountered in developing the doctor-nurse relationship is a vitally important ingredient for modern health care. By employing a polemic style the key aim of this paper is to stimulate debate between the relevant parties in this area and to attempt to highlight some of the less obvious factors that may represent tangible barriers to effective partnership.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Building bridges for change: how leaders enable collective change in organizations	[ "Organizational change", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Anna is the head of human resources at a leading, global design firm and she faces a challenge. Despite the overall economic climate, recent growth has led to hirings and an influx of new mid-career employees. Many new hires are struggling to navigate the firm's flat, autonomous, and team-based culture. \"They just aren't asking for help,\" she remarked to a colleague, \"In the orientation we're clear on what's expected, but when they work in groups they don't seek out peers and mentors to give them a hand.\" After a few months many new hires become frustrated and feel alienated. How can Anna help them learn to change their ways?\nBuilding emotional bridges: \"It's the emotional barriers that are often the biggest challenges for changes in collective action,\" suggests Dr Marshall Ganz of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Ganz draws on his decades of work with a diversity of large-scale organizations, such as the US civil rights movement, the Sierra Club, and the Obama presidential campaign. He believes that in order to motivate people to adopt new attitudes and actions, leaders must be skilled at creating specific kinds of emotional narrative that enable change. \"If your living in fear, you're in no place to experiment with new behaviors,\" Ganz points out. Feelings of fear, apathy, inertia, self-doubt, and isolation can undermine the ability for change. To counteract these emotions, Ganz works with leaders to tell stories that spark a sense of hope, purpose, urgency, efficacy, and solidarity - all are affective states that enable change. When participants are engaged in these emotions they become motivated and new capacities for change can be developed.Ganz advises that the collective telling of stories should be done in the spirit of organizing versus mobilizing. Mobilizing is the traditional marketing approach of influencing choices by pushing a message throughout the social system. In contrast, an organizing approach engages listeners in the narrative by finding ways to become part of the story through their own actions. \"We took an organizing approach in South Carolina in the Obama Presidential campaign,\" tells Ganz. \"It was effective not because Obama won, but because after the primary over twenty of the local organizers filed to run for political offices.\" The approach encouraged individuals to become involved in the change.In the case of Anna, crafting and sharing stories of help seeking and cooperation might enable new employees to feel at ease with taking on more pro-social behaviors. Newcomers know all too well the mythological stories of her firm's founder brilliance and individual success. But they are not well acquainted with stories that highlight the importance of help seeking and interdependence. Engaging new employees in examples of collaborative success might well help tip the scales towards changing behaviors. Of course, bridging change through emotional narrative is just one approach and Anna may also consider other more social solutions.\nBuilding relational bridges: How can change socially spread throughout an organization? After decades of research in the field of social network analysis a key lesson has emerged: Diffusion of ideas and new behaviors reaches a larger number of people and traverses a greater social distance when passed through weak ties (e.g. casual acquaintances) than strong ties (e.g. close friends and family). Family and friends move in similar social circles and information one receives will greatly overlap with what one already knows. In contrast, acquaintances move in quite different social circles and will receive much more novel information, thus accelerating the diffusion of ideas and behaviors.\"For information and disease, this standard model of diffusion is absolutely correct,\" Dr Damon Centola of MIT points out. \"However, if multiple social contacts or sources of social reinforcement are needed in order for a change of behavior to occur, weak ties may in fact inhibit diffusion.\" His research introduces the notion of \"complex contagions,\" behaviors that require multiple social contacts before individuals feel sufficiently confident or pressured to adopt the behavior themselves (e.g. fashion fads, unproven technologies, high-risk social movements, change in health behaviors, etc.). Complex contagions require several exposures because they depend on strategic relationships, credibility, legitimacy, and they need emotional reinforcement.The desired help seeking and knowledge sharing behaviors in Anna's organization may well be complex contagions. New employees may need several reinforcements and exposures in order for them to understand how to do it and to feel comfortable experimenting with new actions. When dealing with complex contagions, Centola advises against traditional buckshot approaches to training, such as typical orientations, in which fairly random members of a community are gathered together, exposed, then return to their distant social circles. Like a failed New Year's resolution, most individuals will struggle to sustain newly acquired behaviors on their own. They will quickly revert to old habits that are sustained by the local culture. Instead, it is best to identify clusters of people, 3-5 colleagues with fairly strong ties, and work with them. These groups will be able to socially reinforce one another to sustain the behaviors in practice. And after several cycles of working with new clusters Anna might well have a stronger web of support for all her employees.But how can these clusters be selected and connected? This brings us to a third bridge to support change that involves patterns of social structure in an organization.\nBuilding structural bridges: Building top down narratives and bottom up social connections are important, but noted Harvard historian Dr Theda Skocpol draws our attention to the role that mid-level associations play in bridging change. \"Leaders must avoid the simple theories of change that suggest it occurs from either a top-down or a bottom-up approach,\" Skocpol warns. \"It's both and social change occurs through institutions within the larger system that have the capacity to coordinate across levels simultaneously.\" Her recent ground-breaking historical analysis of the changes in the USA, such as the civil rights movement, suggests that what matters most are not grassroots efforts or well designed policies. Instead, deep and lasting change of entrenched behaviors occurs by leveraging pre-existing social groups, such as artisan communities or volunteer associations, which are able to coordinate local action across the country.Organizations have many mid-level social structures, such as communities of practice, unions, and interest or hobby groups. These groups can play a vital role in supporting change in organizations since they connect individuals across organizational levels and do not operate solely at the top or the bottom.In Anna's organization there are already communities of practice around disciplines such as engineering and human factors. And there are informal affinity groups, such as parenting groups or athletic teams. Seeding and developing help seeking and knowledge sharing behaviors in these existing social groups might go a long way toward bridging the same behaviors throughout her organization.\nConcluding lessons for leaders: With these three bridges in mind we can offer Anna and other leaders of change some concrete advice:* Understand the kind of change you are aiming for. Is it complex? Does it require people to unlearn deeply entrenched habits? If so, then think creatively about how to leverage emotion, social connections, and existing social associations in your favor.* Understand the current stories in play and create stories that can be told that promote enabling emotions. Avoid stories that spark emotions that undermine the change you're aiming for, such as feelings of fear or apathy.* Focus on working with clusters of people. Don't work with isolated individuals no matter where they sit in the organizations' hierarchy.* Understand and leverage your organization's hidden, mid-level associations. Communities or informal affiliation groups can provide robust pathways to spread the change you are seeking.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present multidisciplinary, research-based insights into the challenges of changing behaviors at large-scale in organizations and articulates practical approaches for leaders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A literature review of research and practices of social and organizational change was conducted and thematically summarized. The themes were discussed and revised with input from twenty global leaders and a dozen university researchers at a two-day conference held at Harvard University's Learning Innovation Laboratory.\nFindings: - Supporting changes of practice in organizations depends on a leaders understanding how to best affect collective behaviors. Emerging research from the fields of political science, social networking, and social change suggest that leaders can build three types of bridges that support large-scale change: emotional bridges by creating strategic narratives, relational bridges by targeting social clusters, and structural bridges by leveraging pre-existing social associations in organizations.\nPractical implications: - The themes illustrate practical approaches that leaders can use to diagnose the types of change they wish to support and offer concrete strategies for designing and supporting changes in collective behaviors.\nOriginality/value: - This article aims to present a unique synthesis of emerging, multidisciplinary research on supporting collective change in organizations and offers an intuitive model to support leaders in their actions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Coloured stochastic Petri nets modelling for the reliability and maintenance analysis of multi-state multi-unit systems	[ "Reliability", "Maintenance", "Degradation", "Coloured stochastic Petri nets", "Series-parallel-series systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A manufacturing system consists of interconnected elements organised in serial, parallel, mix or more complex structures. Each element has a particular failure rate and can degrade continuously. The system does not necessarily fail if a set of elements fails. In some cases, the system may fail if one element fails. Each element has a particular impact on the system availability. We have developed a modelling approach that considers the importance of each element of the system. The model may be used for identifying the actual status of the system and all the scenarios of future behaviour, to identify the critical elements, choose the appropriate maintenance policy and keep the system in good condition. When dealing with a repairable multi-unit system, it can quickly become very complicated, because of interactions among states (Chen and Trivedis, 2005). Without strong restrictive hypotheses, the analytical state models are very cumbersome and even impossible in certain cases. Instead, for dependability studies, researchers prefer to rely on computer simulation (Zille et al., 2007; Zio, 2009).\n2. Problem statement: In this paper, the main objective is to model a multi-state system involving several units (components) subject both to stochastic degradation process and to the maintenance process. Such a system may be complex due to its structure or dependencies among its stochastically degrading units. Classical or hidden Markov (Park and Padgett, 2006) model would fail to model both the degradation and maintenance processes of such a system. In order to study both the multi-state system involving several units subject to stochastic degradation and the maintenance processes of this system under the above-mentioned condition, it seems more suitable to use the stochastic coloured Petri nets (CPNs)-based simulation model, which is capable of considering system units with degradations (Kececioglu, 1991; Vrignat et al., 2012).\n3. Petri net modelling: To simplify, we first introduce the modelling process of basic structures of a system through single, two parallel and two series multi-state units. Then, it becomes easier to include these basic networked units into multi-unit systems, which allow us to deal with SPSS. In the sequel, we consider that the performance of the system units is modelled by a generic variable called L(t). This variable may be obtained from different features, among which the instantaneous failure hazard rate, or the reliability function of time (Murata, 1989; Zhou et al., 2007), or the performance feature introduced by the authors in (Lee et al., 2006; Marseguerra et al., 2002) and known as confidence value (CV) of units. This variable stands for various types of performance features and the choice is left to the discretion of the decision maker. The CV level L\n4. Corollary of Theorem 3 and extension to k-out-of-n structure systems: From the proposed CSPN model, we have also derived the relationships between minimal cuts on one hand, the constraint and the stop functions of multi-state k-out-of-n system, on the other hand. Let us recall that the modelling approach is generic and applies also to SPSS. These relationships enable us to use the constraint and stop functions to control the network's markings and the evolution of the operational status of the system. For systems with complex structure, a more advanced modelling approach needs to be developed.\n5. CSPN model: Stochastic Petri nets are modelled with random firing delays associated to transitions, where firings are atomic. CSPN (Marseguerra et al., 2002) model enable more concise specifications, with coloured tokens on a finite set of places and transitions. The CSPNs' graph is alike to ordinary SPNs' graph and the marking of a CSPN assigns non-negative integers to places, which corresponds to the number of tokens of each colour in each place. A transition may be concurrently \"enabled in\" one or more colours. This model is suitable for tracking similar behaviours of specific units in a system. In the current case, a transition enabled in a colour \"fires in\" this colour by instantly moving 1 token from input places to \"output places\" deterministically, and the token's colour in a place rests unchanged until the token is removed from the place.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we introduced a new method, and we suggested an algorithm to build up a graphical simulation model for assessing the state and the performances of a multi-state system such as a manufacturing system. The number of states of the units incorporated in the case studied in this paper is limited to three. They are modelled by three places in the Petri net. The proposed model may also consider units with more than three states for each unit and whatever is the size of the system. For that, it will suffice to consider the number of states modelled by the same number of places in the Petri net. Then a place of maintenance action can be associated to each of these places of units status if required. The proposed Petri net model takes into account the structure of the system, with guards called \"stop function\" and \"stop constraint\", involving use importance factors. We established a relationship between these functions and the minimal cuts, which allows distinguishing total and partial unavailability of the system over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method for modelling the multi-state repairable systems subject to stochastic degradation processes by using the coloured stochastic Petri nets (CSPN). The method is a compact and flexible Petri nets model for multi-state repairable systems and offers an alternative to the combinatory of Markov graphs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method is grounded on specific theorems used to design an algorithm for systematic construction of multi-state repairable systems models, whatever is their size.\nFindings: Stop and constraint functions were derived from these theorems and allow to considering k-out-of-n structure systems and to identifying the minimal cut sets, useful to monitoring the states evolution of the system.\nResearch limitations/implications: The properties of this model will be studied, and new investigations will help to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach in real world, and more complex structure will be considered.\nPractical implications: The simulation models based on CSPN can be used as a tool by maintenance decision makers, for prediction of the effectiveness of maintenance strategies.\nOriginality/value: The proposed approach and model provide an efficient tool for advanced investigations on the development and implementation of maintenance policies and strategies in real life.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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