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Business, industrial marketing and uncertainty
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"Editorial",
"Industrial marketing",
"AEDEM 2012"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This special issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, entitled \"Business, Industrial Marketing and Uncertainty\", presents selected extended studies that were presented at the European Academy of Management and Business Economics Conference (AEDEM). This edition of the conference was hosted by the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, between 5 and 7 June, 2012. The event had several invited speakers, including Fynn Kydland, Nobel Prize of Economics in 2004. More than 200 persons participated in the conference presenting different issues regarding business and management. The main focus of this year was reflected in the slogan: \"Creating new opportunities in an uncertain environment\". The objective was to show the importance that uncertainty has in our current world, strongly affected by a lot of complexities and modern developments, especially through the new technological advances.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This special issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, entitled \"Business, Industrial Marketing and Uncertainty\", presents selected extended studies that were presented at the European Academy of Management and Business Economics Conference (AEDEM 2012).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The main focus of this year was reflected in the slogan: \"Creating new opportunities in an uncertain environment\". The objective was to show the importance that uncertainty has in our current world, strongly affected by many complexities and modern developments, especially through the new technological advances.\nFindings: One fundamental reason that explains the economic crisis is that the government and companies were not well prepared for these critical situations. And the main justification for this is that they did not have enough information. Otherwise, they would have tried any possible strategy to avoid the crisis. Usually, uncertainty is defined as the situation with unknown information in the environment.\nOriginality/value: From a theoretical perspective, the problem here is that enterprises and governments should assess the information and the uncertainty in a more appropriate way. Usually, they have some studies in this direction, but many times, it is not enough, as it was proved in the last economic crisis.\n",
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Evaluation of labor hiring policies in construction projects performance using system dynamics
|
[
"Performance management",
"Human resource management",
"Construction projects",
"System dynamics",
"Earned value management",
"Labour hiring policies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is clearly specified that the human resource management (HRM) is in charge of the strategic roles in organizations and companies (Belout and Gauvreau, 2004; Keegan et al., 2018). Additionally, HRM is regarded as a fundamental process for the effective use of workforce in order to reach desired project performance. In fact, project targets are met only by human resources and project success depends heavily on human resources (Armstrong, 2003). Projects are constantly experiencing either an excess or shortage of workforce (Paul, 2010) and these conditions have varying effects of effectiveness. Shortage of workforce leads to the reduction of project progress and eventual postponement. In contrast, excess of workforce results in crowded work areas, communication difficulties, productivity reduction, waste of labor and the project may incur cost overrun. Therefore, an accurate estimate of the amount of labor needed, along with the proper planning and implementing of various labor hiring policies, presents a managerial opportunity whereby the effective allocation of human resources can be optimized leading to drastic improvement in project performance.\n2. Methodology: The SD presented in 1961 by Forrester, is a method for studying and managing complex systems (Sterman, 2000). SD models capturing a wide array of such behaviorally grounded feedbacks are now widely used to gain understanding of a system with complex, dynamic and non-linearly interacting variables (Shen et al., 2005) and also in proactive management improve project performance (Godlewski et al., 2012). Moreover, SD models aggregate stocks and the flows into and out of them (Bowles and Gardiner, 2018) and help the managers to understand the long- and short-term consequences of actions. By this method, accurate assessment of labor hiring policies of the project is made possible considering dynamics in project. The advantage of SD is illustration of system behavior by modeling system feedback processes through stock-flow diagrams (SFDs) and non-linear relations. In general, SD models have three types of variables: stock variables (state variables); flow variables; and auxiliary variables and constants (Garcia, 2006). Stocks show system behavior which includes labor, as an instance while variables of rate flow, like labor hiring and turnover, show change of system. The workforce hiring model is expressed as (Abotaleb and El-adaway, 2018):(1)\n3. Model structure: General model structure will be explained in the form of model subsystems and their relation to each other. Furthermore, causal loop diagram (CLD) of the model will be presented. The CLD of research is constructed using cause and effect feedback loops. Finally, subsystems of research will be explained in SFD. From the following presented model, the effects of implementing different labor hiring policies on performance improvement of construction projects could be assessed.\n4. Validation and application of the model: To show the efficiency and capabilities of the model in simulation, current model is implemented on a sample project for the activity of tiling (Table I). Table I shows the value of different variables in a real case including: contract official time and cost, project scope, productivity of non-skilled/skilled labor, initially expected quality, time duration to find error, skilled/non-skilled labor wage, material/equipment unit cost. The project being studied is part of a housing project executed in Iran. Model validation process is performed to make the model results reliable. In order to validate the presented model and simulation results, several standard tests suggested in the literature are used (Table II). They include adequacy of model boundary (to assess the model's boundary adequacy and coordination in term of purposes), structure assessment (assessing the model's compatibility with real case knowledge and description of system relation to purposes), dimensional consistency (to ensure that all variables are mathematically consistent and further, to have variables that have real-world meaning), assessment of variables (to assess the value of each parameter in terms of its reasonability), extreme conditions (whether the model behaves in a realistic fashion no matter how extreme the inputs or policies imposed on the system are), behavior reproduction (to assess a model's ability to reproduce the expected behavior of the system) and sensitivity analysis (to test the robustness of the model behavior in uncertain conditions). For instance, the model boundary test is presented, which identifies endogenous, exogenous and the excluded variables (Figure 8).\n5. Labor hiring policies: To improve the behavior of a system and its results, appropriate and efficient policies are needed to be implemented. Applying any of the designed policies must be according to the facts and conditions of the project. Policy design involves creating totally new strategies, structures and decisions (Sterman, 2000). Lack of employment policy for a project's workforce can have undesirable effects on the project performance. Figure 11 shows the time of project completion comparing the use of fixed labor with the use of hiring policy (base run). As demonstrated in Figure 11, the project will be delivered later in case of using constant labor compared to use of hiring policy.\n6. Conclusion: Due to the labor-oriented nature of the construction industry, with regard to other industries, along with the heavy influence of human resources in relative costs associated with the implementation of construction projects, it is necessary to pay particular attention to the HRM. One of the fundamental measures in HRM is the estimation and supply of the project labor required. A cornerstone advancement strategy applied in project labor supply is employment; the employment of adequately skilled individuals, when performed in a timely and accurate manner, can significantly affect the utility of a project. Project labor supply must be compatible with the natural dynamics and complexities of the project, these are satisfied by SD. Research conducted in the field of labor hiring under SD have generally studied the issue of hiring, but they often have not considered construction projects and employment in their assertions. Different labor hiring policies were studied in current research. Accordingly, the most important effective factors were determined through the dynamic project work-flow, estimation, hiring and turnover of labor, feedback and causal relationships among them were identified. The CLD is then produced. By formulating a model in the form of an SFDs, the quantitative model of hiring manpower in construction projects was built. To maintain consistency of the model in regards to reality, data were used from a real project in Iran. Presented policies for labor employment were divided into two categories:\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess different labor hiring policies for construction projects using system dynamics (SD) which have a considerable impact on project performance. Time intervals and work crew composition are two such policies. Through the implementation of a variety of policies, a managerial opportunity presents itself for the effective allocation of human resources and improvement in project performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study developed a dynamic model to assess different labor hiring policies using SD based on literature. To further distinguish between findings, the effects of the applied policies on performance were considered using earned value management. Based on a real case for validating the model, the paper discusses the potential benefits of the model, including: having a systematic and holistic view, considering dynamic the labor need and allocation, identifying alternative strategies for performance improvement and simulating the reality of the projects in a virtual model.\nFindings: The achieved simulation results show how different hiring policies affect project performance. This research model can aid decision makers to assess labor hiring policies in various time intervals with different compositions and assist them in selecting the best policies for effective implementation of project.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model would be a major attempt using SD to model labor hiring policies more accurate in construction projects performance. In fact, an accurate estimate of labor needed, along with the proper planning and implementing of various labor hiring policies, presents a managerial opportunity whereby the effective allocation of workforces can be optimized leading to drastic improvement in project performance.\n",
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Capstone interdisciplinary team project: a requirement for the MS in sustainability degree
|
[
"Capstone course",
"Inter-divisional team project",
"Inter-disciplinary sustainability course",
"MS in sustainability",
"Sustainability curriculum"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: In 2010, the City College of the City University of New York (CCNY) launched a new graduate program, Sustainability in the Urban Environment, leading to the degree of Master of Science (MS) in Sustainability. The program was developed by a college-wide committee of faculty, representing four academic divisions: architecture, engineering, science and social science. Faculty developers insisted upon a fully interdisciplinary program that would apply to the administrative structure as well. The program is not housed within any of the College's component divisions. This structure created a number of administrative challenges, ranging from sources of budgetary support to faculty-hiring decisions and even to the details of commencement procedures.\n2. Capstone project criteria: The Capstone course is crucial to the success of our sustainability program and as such it requires careful planning and execution. Our first task was to establish project criteria. Four were identified:\n3. The role of the US Department of Education: support by the Funds for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE): Preparations to launch the MS in Sustainability program focused attention on three aspects:\n4. Creation of 22 Capstone projects: Soon after receiving FIPSE support, our participating faculty held a series of meetings to discuss and plan the development of the educational materials for the project. Each faculty member was asked to develop materials for three Capstone projects. By the end of the second year of the grant, materials for 22 projects had been developed. Prior to the grant expiration, project leaders decided to apply for a no-cost extension of the grant for three reasons:\n5. Capstone projects workshops: Based on the feedback from the project evaluator and our experience with the undergraduate capstone senior design course, even very well-designed Capstone projects will be much more likely to succeed if reinforced by supplementary training that provides some useful background information and suggests basic methods and approaches for working on projects. Our program has institutionalized this broader understanding of the problem with a series of Capstone Workshops.\n6. Beyond FIPSE: perpetual development and mentoring of capstones: The FIPSE grant for Capstone project development helped solidify cross-divisional collaboration at CCNY. This collaboration was an outcome not entirely certain at the outset. Even within academic departments, thoroughgoing teamwork is not always to be assumed. Fostering such teamwork among those from entirely different divisions and with widely diverse disciplinary perspectives can be challenging indeed. The set of 22 initial Capstones, as well as our experience with their creation, represents a body of collective experience and learning that has begun to have larger ramifications and to influence CCNY faculty members beyond the original cadre of FIPSE-supported faculty. The first task was to secure the Administration's commitment to provide the appropriate amount of released-time for mentoring Capstone projects. With this in place, and using the initial 22 projects as exemplars, additional interdisciplinary projects have been created, and ten additional college faculty members have been recruited into the effort. These additional faculty members are meeting a definite need, given the imperative to continually develop new projects, and the need for additional mentors able to take over for mentors who become unavailable because of newly acquired research grants, sabbatical leaves or increased teaching loads.\n7. Early experience and lessons learned: With no prior experience with Capstone projects, our program anticipated a need to make modifications and take corrective measures as our work progressed. During the first two years of the program, feedback from our program evaluation allowed us to fine-tune the Capstone course.\n8. Evaluation: Formative feedback was received from an independent evaluator, while the students were engaged in the first semester of the Capstone course. It allowed us to troubleshoot and make corrections midstream. Such feedback is particularly important when faculty members are first starting up a Capstone course, and the Capstone experience is new to students and teachers alike.\n9. Conclusions: Our activities have progressed during four years from initial Capstone project planning to development of projects, implementation of project mentoring and creation and implementation of our Capstone Workshops. Valuable feedback has been received from participating faculty members, students and the program evaluator. From this accumulated experience and feedback, the authors draw a number of general conclusions that could be offered as advice to others who may be contemplating a program of Capstone Project development similar to ours.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to describe experience gained with a required six-credit year-long course, the Capstone Interdisciplinary Team Project, a key component of the Master of Science (MS) in Sustainability degree at the City College of New York. A common feature of sustainability problems is their interdisciplinary nature. Solutions to sustainability problems often require professionals with different training and backgrounds to work as a team. A sustainability curriculum should provide students with the skills needed to competently participate in an interdisciplinary team.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Instructors drawn from different departments and divisions of the college developed a pool of sustainability-focused Capstone projects and acted as mentors to teams of students with diverse undergraduate backgrounds. Students attended workshops designed to provide training in teamwork, research and report preparation. An independent evaluator designed an evaluation protocol to assess the course's impact both while it was implemented and after the course was concluded.\nFindings: Early experience with the program strongly indicates that the Capstone project requirement is an effective learning tool. However, identifying qualified mentors, developing suitable projects, assembling teams and administering the Capstone course are demanding tasks. Although students often experience difficulties in the early stages of their work, they ultimately express satisfaction and appreciation for the skills learned in the course.\nPractical implications: The inclusion of a capstone team project in a graduate sustainability curriculum is strongly recommended. Adopting such a course requires significant effort and sustained faculty engagement.\nOriginality/value: Although there is considerable experience with undergraduate engineering Capstone course requirements, little is known about interdivisional capstone requirements at the level of master's degree in Sustainability. This paper details new and relevant experience helpful to the implementation of such a requirement.\n",
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Organizational efficacy, job satisfaction and well-being: The Italian adaptation and validation of Bohn organizational efficacy scale
|
[
"Cognition",
"Organizational effectiveness",
"Job satisfaction",
"Measurement",
"Employee surveys",
"Work psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Bandura (1997) states that the strength of families, communities, organizations and social institutions depends, in part, in people's sense of collective efficacy that is in their belief to be able to solve problems and improve their lives through joined efforts. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), indeed, acknowledges that personal agency operates within a broad network of socio-structural influences and extends the analysis of mechanisms of human agency to the exercise of collective agency people's shared beliefs that they can work together to produce effects. Collective agency is performed \"through group action in mastering tasks that require socially interdependent efforts to secure what cannot be accomplished by an individual\" (Borgogni et al., 2010, p. 507). The connotation of efficacy necessarily changes when the focus shifts from individual competence to group competence (Katz-Navon and Erez, 2005). Such a move occurs in two steps. First, when individuals estimate team efficacy, they shift their reference from the individual to the group. Second, when all team members act as a whole they raise the construct itself to the group level (Chan, 1998).\nAims and hypothesis: In two studies, we aimed to evaluate the validity of the Italian version of the Bohn OES (Bohn, 2010), examining the structure, reliability, convergent and divergent validity, discriminant validity, and invariance for group. A further aim is to expand on the US study by challenging some of the deficiencies of the previous study and analyzing the relation between organizational efficacy and psycho-social well-being.\nMethods: Translation process\nStudy 1: The purpose of study 1 was to exam the structure of the scale and convergent, divergent and discriminant validity, considering employees of pasta factory.\nResults: First, descriptive statistics on each of the 17 items were examined (Table I).\nStudy 2: The purposes of study 2 were to: confirm the structure of the scale; exam the convergent, divergent and discriminant validity, considering hospital health workers; and evaluate the invariance of the OES for type of organization (hospital vs factory).\nResults: Descriptive statistics on each of the 17 items were examined (Table VII).\nConclusion: \"Organizational efficacy is a generative capacity within an organization to cope effectively with the demands, challenges, stressors and opportunities it encounters within the business environment\" (Bohn, 2002, p. 65). The goal of this study, to analyze and confirm the structure of Italian OES an instrument to measure organizational efficacy, was accomplished. Results yield support to the measurement of the collective efficacy of the organization.\nImplication for practitioners: In implementing collective efficacy, people pool their knowledge, skills, and resources, and act, as a whole, to shape their future (Bandura, 2009). For practitioners having a valid and reliable measure such as the Italian OES may be useful for both designing and evaluating interventions. From an organizational perspective, measuring organizational efficacy is an efficient way to determine if employees believe their organizations can survive and flourish (Bohn, 2010). Practitioners can use such an instrument to: evaluate possible organizational problems before to putting into action any major intervention; follow-up on evaluations of existing training programs; investigate organizational dynamic problems; target interventions designed for enhancing organizational efficacy; integrate the evaluation of organizational efficacy in the regular employee assessments.\nImplications for research: Our findings confirm that the socio-cognitive concept of organizational efficacy is indeed a robust construct, which readily generalizes to business context. Torraco (2005) pointed out that it is important to reflect on systemic implications related to the multiple levels of the organization. It is necessary to consider the work behaviors and outcomes of the employees from the individual level, as well as the department/sector or group level and the whole organization. The OES provides reliable data, which is useful for analysis within and between organizations. Moreover, these analyses should allow \"researchers to suggest interventions that may improve an organization's overall level of efficacy, thereby enhancing the performance of the entire organization\" (Bohn et al., 2006, p. 87).\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure, reliability, construct validity, and group invariance of the Italian version of the Bohn Organizational Efficacy Scale (OES), a self-report questionnaire for organizational efficacy assessment in the business context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The first study included Italian employees of a pasta factory (n=120) to test divergent, convergent, and discriminant validity of the OES with existing instruments. The second study combined three hospital (n=180 Italian health workers) to confirm the structure of the scale.\nFindings: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the three-factor solution (collaboration, sense of mission and future, and sense of resilience), and that the structure of the scale was the same across employees of hospital and pasta factory. Results revealed a high internal reliability. The OES correlated positively with corresponding aspects of organizational functioning, well-being, and job satisfaction. The scale did not correlate with measures of general self-efficacy and personal empowerment. Levels of job satisfaction and well-being resulted higher among people with moderate/high organizational efficacy than among adults with low organizational efficacy.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the chosen research approach could lead to common method variance issues: it will be important to determine the associations of OES with non-self-report assessments of the same construct.\nPractical implications: The OES can be applied optimally in the empirical study of factors influencing organizational setting and used in training aiming at strengthening employees' collective skills.\nOriginality/value: The OES is a valid instrument to measure organizational efficacy. Findings highlighted a strong relationship between collective efficacy, job satisfaction and well-being.\n",
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The challenges of adopting new engineering contract: a Hong Kong study
|
[
"Challenges",
"Hong Kong",
"Contract",
"Construction",
"Project management",
"Partnering",
"Construction planning",
"New engineering contract"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The increasing complexity in construction projects has a significant impact on the procurement system as well as on the forms of construction contracts. Construction contracts are largely procured in many countries using standard forms of contracts (Lord et al., 2010; Rameezdeen and Rajapakse, 2007). Macneil (1973) classified three different types of contracts, i.e., classical, neoclassical and relational contracts. Contract mechanism can play an important role in the formation of relationship between parties. \"Contracts are therefore used to outline duties and responsibilities, specify tasks to be performed, set out rules for determining compensation and laying down how actions of parties may be monitored\" (Lord et al., 2010, p. 151). Chen et al. (2018) analyzed the distribution of the three functions of construction contracts, i.e. control, coordination and adaptation in four forms of FIDIC 1999 model contracts. FIDIC (International Federation of National Associations of Consulting Engineers) is another standard forms of contract and is being used in international construction contracts. Chen et al. study showed that these three functions are all non-trivially reflected in construction contracts and are influenced by project complexity. Quanji et al. (2017) analyzed the effects of contractual governance on contractors' cooperation in construction projects. They found that contractual control has a positive influence on obligatory cooperation and a negative influence on voluntary cooperation. Further contractual coordination positively influences both obligatory and voluntary cooperation while contractual adaptation positively influences voluntary cooperation, and it has no significant impact on obligatory cooperation.\n2. Literature review: Through the review of studies concerning the culture of Hong Kong construction industry, in particular the existing guidelines of NEC and traditional contracts, the challenges of adopting NEC in Hong Kong are identified and categorized as follows.\n3. Research methods: 3.1 Research design\n4. Analysis methods: The data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 20.0) (Norusis, 2012). The data collected were analyzed using various (non-parametric) statistical tests (Hill and Lewicki, 2007), given that the data involved were based on ordinal measurement scales. These non-parametric tests include: descriptive statistics; Kendall's coefficient of concordance (W) analysis; Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (Rs); and Cronbach's a. Non-parametric tests are useful for small and unequal sample sizes and when the nature of the population distribution is not exactly known, while parametric tests are based upon known statistical assumptions, such as distribution and variance patterns (Siegel and Castellan, 1988). The \"mean score\" is an ideal approach to establish the relative importance in terms of challenges of adopting NEC in the construction industry. Whilst it is simple to understand without the complication of other probabilistic parameters, this type of descriptive statistic reflects the representative score for each sampled item, as long as the standard deviation is not excessive. In fact, this method has been popularly used in similar research studies (Chan et al., 2003; Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1995; Tripathi and Jha, 2018). Chan and Kumaraswamy (1995) used the mean score to establish the relative importance in identifying reasons in delaying civil engineering projects in Hong Kong, while Chan et al. (2003) used the same approach to evaluate the benefits of partnering projects. Tripathi and Jha (2018) used the above mentioned non-parametric tests to analyze the organizational performance attributes of construction firms in India. Following Chan and Kumaraswamy (1995) and Tripathi and Jha (2018), the present study also used the mean score method to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire survey in order to establish the relative importance (of the challenges and difficulties) of implementing NEC in the Hong Kong construction industry. All the respondents were divided into three groups: the client, the consultants and the contractors. The mean scores of each question were ranked in each group. The following formula was used to compute the mean score (m) for each element (challenge) in the study:(1)\n5. Results and analyses: The top three most significant challenges found are, \"People are not willing to change,\" \"Limited number of trained professionals\" and \"There are insufficient case law and adjudication experience\" (Table III). That means, all the three groups are of the opinion that these are the three most important challenges of adopting NEC in Hong Kong. Respondents tended to give neutral score to the statements that they had no concrete idea on NEC, and expressed their opinions according to their knowledge and experience in traditional contract projects.\n6. Discussion: It is important to note that the ranking exercise of the challenges about adopting NEC in the Hong Kong construction industry was based on stakeholder perception, not an objective assessment. However, their ranking assessment is expected to be close to an objective assessment because their perception is largely based on their experience in handling NEC projects. It is recognized that this subjective assessment does not give an absolute value on the ranking position. Therefore, in the analysis, the emphasis was mainly on factors that were considered as the most significant and the least significant in the ranking list of challenges for adopting NEC (Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1995). The results revealed some interesting findings, which show some agreement among some groups, but not among other groups. For example, as seen in Table V, the rankings of challenges, in order of significance, given by the clients, consultants and contractors were not statistically different as indicated by the level of significance (p=0.000). All the three groups of stakeholders believe and rated \"People are not willing to change,\" \"Limited number of trained professionals\" and \"Insufficient case law and adjudication experience\" as the top three challenges. These three issues were also echoed and emphasized by the professionals in the semi-structured interview discussions. The interviewees categorically mentioned that the traditional mind-set of our construction professionals need a substantial change if we are to enhance construction productivity and project performance. This is largely in line with the findings of Bayliss (2000), Drexler and Larson (2000). They emphasized that partnering should be promoted to create a better working environment that enhances the relationship and risk sharing approach between various parties. Fairer risk allocation will positively influence the contractors' cooperative behavior in construction projects (Zhang et al., 2016).\n7. Conclusions: In this paper, a questionnaire survey followed by semi-structured interview discussions were conducted in order to explore the major challenges of adopting NEC in the Hong Kong construction industry as perceived by the clients, consultants and contractors. NEC contracts have proven to be effective in enhancing the performance and efficiency of public sector projects and it has several other advantages over traditional contracts. However, it has not been fully implemented by the public and private sectors in Hong Kong. The study found that all the three main stakeholders - clients, consultants and contractors - generally agreed on the rankings of challenges. According to the clients group, the most significant challenge was \"Unwillingness of people to change themselves (their mind set),\" while both consultant and contractor groups ranked \"Limited number of trained professionals\" as the most significant challenge to adopting NEC in Hong Kong. The questionnaire findings are largely in line with the partnering literature in the construction industry.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: Project delays and cost over-runs are few common major problems arising from conventional contracts. To overcome these issues, the Hong Kong Government has been practicing the use of the New Engineering Contract (NEC) forms in several public works projects. However, despite the successful outcomes and the positive signs of adopting NEC, it appears that NEC forms of contracts are not widely adopted in the Hong Kong construction industry even after 25 years of their first introduction. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges and barriers for not implementing NEC widely in Hong Kong.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a questionnaire survey data collected from 45 senior industry professionals, and six semi-structured interviews, the study evaluated the perceptions of construction professionals as to why NEC is still not popular in the industry and reported the relative importance of challenges in the implementation of NEC in Hong Kong.\nFindings: The results reveal that \"People are not willing to change,\" \"Limited number of trained professionals\" and \"Insufficient case law and adjudication experience\" are the most significant challenges and barriers in adopting NEC. These findings are also supported by the opinions of construction professionals through semi-structured interviews.\nPractical implications: The findings are relevant and would benefit to the industry stakeholders for adopting NEC contracts by informing them of the most significant challenges so that proper strategies may be devised to overcoming them for early contractors' involvement, controlling cost and time overruns in infrastructure projects.\nOriginality/value: The empirical evidence of the study provides an insight into the challenges faced by the construction industry of Hong Kong. NEC form of contract is the way forward in order to create a better working environment conducive for all the parties that would result in better construction project performance and productivity.\n",
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Impact of ICTs on leadership practices: representations and actions
|
[
"Information and communication technology",
"Leadership",
"Supervisor/subordinate relations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the workplace\n2. The issues: The literary review presented in the introduction emphasizes the relevance of investigating leadership practices related to ICTs, in order to define, on the one hand the causes, and on the other hand the interdependent links between practices of influence and the use of technologies. In response to this preoccupation a study has been made of an army corps working in the civilian world, the French Gendarmerie Nationale (national military police force), because:\n3. Study situation and methodology: 3.1. Population and situations\n4. Results: 4.1. Leadership of men\n5. Discussion: The analysis of ICT use by the gendarmes shows that their implementation depends on several factors related to the technical characteristics of the ICTs, the constraints inherent to their various work situations, the objectives associated with the tasks to be carried out, and the nature of the information to be transmitted; all of these elements relate back to the usefulness or usability of these tools (Grudin, 1992). Such concepts, which are considered in a functional and instrumental approach to ICTs, in the definition of the ergonomic quality of technical systems, are inadequate when accounting for the psychological processes which condition the adoption of one form of technology in favor of another. According to Dubois and Bobillier-Chaumon (2009), other factors and dimensions intervene in the manner in which users evaluate and appreciate the advantages of using a particular device, above and beyond its functional properties. Indeed, the choice of a device depends largely on the perception of its usefulness and simplicity of use (Colvin and Goh, 2004). These variables, together with other psychosocial factors such as social influences, social norms or even self-image, have a major influence on the acceptance of a given technology. Nevertheless, in the work situations we studied, ICTs are used taking into account the psychosocial issues, which are placed in a temporal perspective characterized by work phases involving a more or less confirmed degree of urgency. To this, one must add the constraints imposed by the professional universe, which lead to situations of subordination in which an agent cannot easily refuse to use a given tool, without violating instructions. Moreover, Benedetto-Meyer and Chevallet (2008) underline the fact that it is necessary, on the one hand to reposition the issue of the acceptability of ICTs in the social, organizational and symbolic context of their use, and on the hand to study their use in terms of a form of social, individual, organizational and collective construction.\n6. Conclusion: As a result of this research, it appears that the use of technology is determined by the combination of three factors: first, the nature of the task to be completed (collect information, transmit directives, enter data into a database, etc.); second, the inherent capabilities of the available technologies (speed, autonomy, cost of use, etc.); and finally, the situational constraints (urgency, place, temporal context).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the results of field research carried out within a civil army corps responsible for the security of people and property.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study deals with e-leadership as it leadership practices related to information and communication technologies (ICTs).\nFindings: Having initially described the position of ICTs in current workplace contexts, the authors review the question of the role of leadership as well as that of knowledge acquired in e-leadership.\nPractical implications: The results reveal variations in the use of ICTs in leadership situations, which find their origins in multiple determinisms related to the types of task, the technological tools and the constraints inherent to customary situations.\nOriginality/value: These conclusions are discussed in the light of research centered on the predictive variables arising from the adoption of technologies in the context of the workplace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Evidence of franchising on outperformance in the restaurant industry: A long term analysis and perspective
|
[
"Financial performance",
"Franchising",
"Restaurant franchising",
"Restaurant industry",
"Hospitality services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since first used by A&W Root Beer, restaurant franchising in the USA has become a growth technique that has been popularized by companies like Howard Johnson, McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken (Parsa, 1996). A few years ago, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2004) found that more than 56 percent of fast-service restaurants and 13 percent of full-service restaurants are franchises. The restaurant industry is now the largest user of franchising (Michael and Combs, 2008). Franchising is defined as:\nLiterature review: Superior performance or a value/price premium continues to be sought after by investors and managers alike. One way to outperform competitors may be through the practice of franchising. While the connection between franchising and superior performance has not been proven with certainty, it is clear that franchise businesses of all types play an important role in the economy of the USA and will continue to do so (Hsu and Jang, 2009).\nData and methodology: Data of this study come from COMPUSTAT Industrial Quarterly. First, this study identifies publicly traded restaurant firms based on the North American Industry Classification Code (NAICS) of 722 for food service and drinking places during the period of 1980-2010. Then we obtain the following quarterly financial information for the identified firms (data item abbreviation shown in parentheses): business description (busdesc); North American industry classification code (naics); the closing stock price (prccq); earnings per share excluding extraordinary items (epspxq); total shareholders' equity (seqq); and common shares outstanding (cshoq). We calculate book value per share by taking the ratio of total shareholders' equity and common shares outstanding and present detailed summary statistics in Tables I-III.\nDiscussion of results: Descriptive statistics of the closing stock prices, earnings per share, and book value per share are reported in Tables I-III for all ten-year windows that span 1980 and 2010. Three columns of (1), (2), and (3) are created for each summary statistics to accommodate the full sample, franchise subsample, and non-franchise subsample, respectively. Preliminary evidence of price premium as well as superior earning powers associated with franchising is offered by the standard t-tests between the two subsamples of franchise and non-franchise groups - the stock price and earnings per share for the franchise subsample are consistently and significantly larger than those of the non-franchise subsample for all ten-year testing windows that span 1980 and 2010 (Tables I and II). Book value per share for the franchise subsample is larger for all ten-year testing windows until 2006, when the difference starts to turn insignificant (Table III), indicating the stock of value may not be the critical driver of outperformance. Overall, the descriptive statistics shown in Tables I-III appear to support the notion of financial outperformance by franchise firms over non-franchise firms consistently over the long term, at least for the restaurant firms used in the analyses.\nConclusions and implications: This study uses and expands the models derived from Ohlson (1995), Amir and Lev (1996) and Lev and Zarowin (1999) to address the financial impacts of franchise in the restaurant industry from a long-term and consistent perspective. Carrying out empirical tests over all ten-year testing windows that span 1980-2010 with quarterly data, this study finds that franchising is an effective mechanism to systematically and consistently outperform non-franchise firms in the long term and provides compelling empirical evidence to answer the research question. Findings of this study suggest that the advantages of franchising tend to systematically outweigh disadvantages in the long term. According to Shane (2005), these advantages can be summarized as:\nLimitations and future research: Several limitations in this study result from trade-off decisions in the research design. First, guided by the literature, this study creates dummy variables to address the impacts of franchise and limited-service operations. As more parsimonious measures are developed with ready data access, researchers may further examine these two variables in future research. Second, because this study examines franchise and limited-service operations from a dummy variable's perspective, findings are qualitative in nature. Unavoidably, this results in a relative lack of depth of understanding of franchise and limited-service operations. Future researchers should focus on developing more accurate measures of these two variables and examine the potential of more novel process measurement approaches. Third, it is likely that institutional pressure and internationalization may help explain firm financial performance beyond the factors considered in the studied model (Combs et al., 2009; Oak and Dalbor, 2010; Denis et al., 2002). It is a direction worth exploring further in the future. Finally, data of this study come from publicly traded companies, which are in general larger than many private restaurant firms. It would be extremely interesting to explore the private side of the restaurant industry to see if findings of this study are robust.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The existing research finds a positive financial impact of franchising for relatively short time windows, usually less than ten years. As a result, these studies leave one critical research question unanswered: does franchising influence restaurant firms' financial performance consistently in the long term? The purpose of this paper is to address the research question and offer relevant managerial implications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses and expands the models derived from Ohlson, from Amir and Lev and from Lev and Zarowin to address the financial impacts of franchise in the restaurant industry from a long-term and consistent perspective.\nFindings: Carrying out empirical tests over all ten-year testing windows that span 1980-2010 with quarterly data, this study finds that franchising is an effective mechanism to systematically and consistently outperform non-franchise firms in the long term and provides compelling empirical evidence to answer the research question. Further, limited-service restaurants also exhibit consistent and positive impacts on firm financial performance in the long term, suggesting limited-service operations are also effective to enhance firm value and outperform competitors.\nOriginality/value: First, this study expands the set of variables employed by many financial researchers to explain stock price in the restaurant industry. Second, this study tests and shows that franchising systematically leads to financial outperformance over the long term. Third, this study tests and shows that limited service restaurants consistently and systematically outperform their peers in the long run. Finally, the results of this study can be used to help investors and fund managers select restaurant company stocks and offer compelling evidence in support of franchising and limited service operations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An overview of extra-curricular education for sustainable development (ESD) interventions in UK universities
|
[
"Sustainable development",
"Higher education",
"Surveys",
"United Kingdom",
"Questionnaires"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It seems plausible that extra-curricular interventions, such as the use of awareness campaigns, the creation of groups and networks, the provision of events and visits, and changes to the fabric of university buildings and campuses could be used as part of efforts to advance education for sustainable development (ESD) in higher education (HE). However, this aspect of HESD practice has been subject to little exploration. This paper presents findings from a survey of all HE Institutions (HEIs) with degree awarding powers in the UK, designed to investigate the use of such extra-curricular interventions. To avoid ambiguity, the term \"extra-curricular\" is used to mean outside of the curriculum requirements of formal HE courses and work directly involved in the planning and delivery of these courses; \"interventions\" is used to mean planned actions undertaken as part of the work of the institution; \"education for sustainable development\" is used to mean learning that promotes \"sustainable development\"; and \"sustainable development\" is referred to as development that \"meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs\" (WCED, 1987, p. 9), accepting that what this \"definition\" means is open to debate. The paper begins by setting the context for the survey; it then outlines the methods employed, the main findings and some of the implications and conclusions.\nBackground: HE can contribute to sustainable development in several ways, through education, operations, and research. However, the educational contribution appears to be the weakest thus far (HEFCE, 2005) and is subject to much critique. Commitment and resources may be lacking, leaving ESD under-supported and under-funded (Calder and Clugston, 2004). Even where institutions express some commitment, rhetoric is not always reflected in practice (Thomas, 2004; Higgit et al., 2005). A recurrent critique is the fragmentation of knowledge behind disciplinary boundaries (Cullingford, 2004; Huckle, 2004; Camino et al., 2005; Haigh, 2005; Higgit et al., 2005) and also the division between academic and lay knowledge (Bawden, 2004; Huckle, 2004). The focus on accommodating sustainable development within the curriculum instead of pedagogic change is also a concern (Sterling and Scott, 2007); Blaze Corcoran and Wals (2004, p. 224) suggest that sustainability has been treated as \"expert (pre)determined, and essentially teachable products\", with little attention given to the creation of the \"space for social learning\" that they see as essential. A narrow \"environmental\" interpretation of sustainable development is seen to predominate and even where wider views are in currency, few HEIs embrace \"strong\" variants that challenge the dominant economic paradigm (Higgit et al., 2005). The vague or contested nature of the very idea of sustainable development has been suggested as a barrier to its uptake (Haigh, 2005); yet is also presented as an opportunity for learning (Wals and Jickling, 2002). Blewitt (2004) suggests that learning to be sustainable requires sustainability to be a part of everyday life.Systems theories suggest a complete transformation of HE is needed if it is to realise its potential educational contribution to sustainable development (Sterling, 2004). It is less clear how such transformation can be nurtured from within HE. Extra-curricular ESD interventions appear to have some potential to provide a locus for personal and institutional change within HE. They may:* engage both students and staff thus providing an opportunity for both to learn;* create a space away from traditional departmental boundaries where trans-disciplinary perspectives can emerge;* take place away from the physical constraints of lecture hall or laboratory, allowing for different types of teaching and learning to emerge;* reach those that \"curriculum greening\" fails to reach, or on whom (by virtue of subject area) will have limited impact;* draw more directly on experience beyond HE; and* contribute to a sustainable development-friendly culture on campus and in the wider community.Despite this potential, extra-curricular interventions have been subject to little scrutiny. Day-to-day experience of university life and occasional references in published case studies (e.g. Clugston and Calder, 1999; Ferrer-Balas and Bruno, 2004) confirm that such interventions are a part of practice, but their extent, type and potential remain to be explored. The survey detailed below illuminates the extra-curricular dimension of ESD through an exploration of UK HE practice.\nMethod: A postal questionnaire survey was employed. The postal route was chosen over e-mail or web survey options, because it was not possible to clearly identify who would complete the questionnaire prior to it being sent; there being no obvious single position linked with extra-curricular ESD common to every university. The approach was thus to send a paper questionnaire personally addressed to the head of each institution and rely on them, or their office, to either complete the questionnaire, or forward it to the most appropriate person within the institution.Prior to deployment, the questionnaire was pre-tested and refined. It was designed with a mixture of closed questions - to record the use of particular types of interventions, and to gather views about both their value and the context of their use - and open questions, to gather views about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and barriers associated with extra-curricular ESD work.Questionnaires were sent out in May 2006, to the head of each of the 140 HEIs listed by the UK Government as having degree awarding powers (DfES, 2006 - www.dfes.gov.uk/recognisedukdegrees/annex4.shtml, accessed April 2006). A reply paid postcard was included as part of the survey package, so that if the questionnaire was to be forwarded to another person to complete, their contact details could be returned, thus enabling direct follow-up contact. Up to three reminders were sent to non-respondent HEIs at approximately ten day intervals. In total, 72 HEIs responded to the survey representing 51 per cent of UK HEIs, a reasonable return for such a survey. Tables I and II illustrate the character of the sample showing response rates from each part of the UK, and by date of attaining university status, pre and post 1992 (In the UK, in 1992 existing polytechnics were able to become universities). The sample broadly matches the wider university population with respect to these parameters.\nFindings: The use of extra-curricular ESD-related interventions\nDiscussion: Extra-curricular ESD interventions appear to occupy an important position within ESD work in UK HE and thus merit attention. The picture that emerges is one where extra-curricular interventions are common, perceived to have value, and, perhaps surprisingly, thought to be developed in similar measure to curricular work.The survey suggests that UK ESD practice in HE is predominantly its infancy, being perceived as relatively recent and limited. This supports the view that the educational contribution of HE is underdeveloped (HEFCE, 2005). Work on ESD may have started earlier and be more developed in some institutions, but in the majority of HEIs this is not the case. The current importance of extra-curricular work could, in part, reflect the limited development of ESD as a whole, as well as the relative ease in initiating some types of extra-curricular interventions. The inherent potential of extra-curricular interventions to raise awareness, reach wider audiences and motivate people to act, suggests they could have an important developmental role to initiate wider change. In addition, a potential to reinforce learning suggests a useful complimentary role in support of curriculum work. At worst, if extra-curricular interventions are undertaken in an ad hoc fashion they may simply be a diversion.Significantly, respondent opinions suggest the extra-curricular space provides a place where it is possible to cultivate wider perspectives. It may thus have a role to reconnect knowledge that is believed to be fragmented between disciplines (Cullingford, 2004; Huckle, 2004; Camino et al., 2005; Haigh, 2005; Higgit et al., 2005). It may also be seen to provide the \"space for social learning\" that Blaze Corcoran and Wals (2004, p. 224) believe is essential. The opportunity to develop extra-curricular work in the wider community also presents a chance to bridge the divide between academic and lay knowledge identified by Bawden (2004) and Huckle (2004). Physical modifications to campus environments, though least prevalent, suggest that attempts are being made to make ESD learning a part of everyday life in line with Blewitt's (2004) vision. There may be some way to go, but the survey suggests many institutions have at least begun to adapt the fabric of campuses to promote ESD.Paradoxically, extra-curricular interventions are seen to be able to reach a wider audience, including those who do not meet ESD in their subjects, while simultaneously being viewed as limited in reach because they are often voluntary and optional.It seems plausible that different types of extra-curricular practice may arise from different sections of the university community. For example, environmental awareness campaigns may stem from environmental management work linked to estates departments; while occasional lectures may be initiated by individual academic departments. With multiple instigators, there may be a need for some co-ordination and, with this, an inherent opportunity to link actors from campus, curriculum and wider community.The survey suggests the extra-curricular sphere is permeable to external influence. The frequency of Fairtrade campaigns and \"widely observed\" theme days/weeks illustrate this point. This permeability presents an opportunity for external bodies who seek to promote ESD. In the past, direct attempts to influence the curriculum from outside of HEIs have met resistance (see Knight (2005) for a damming response to an earlier attempt to promote ESD in the curriculum). The extra-curricular space may thus be a more fertile ground for externally driven ESD initiatives.Concerns about a lack of commitment and resources for extra-curricular ESD echo the same concerns raised for ESD as a whole (Calder and Clugston, 2004). However, the marginal status and lack of ownership for none \"core\" work, could make extra-curricular interventions particularly precarious. It seems important to try to make stronger links to mainstream work to protect the viability of such interventions.As a cross sectional survey, the research presents a \"snap shot\" of UK practice at one point in time, only. The views of representatives from different HEIs have been grouped together to build an overall impression of the extent, nature and value of extra-curricular ESD related interventions. In order to explore actual practice and its impacts more thoroughly, further research is needed. To this end, a detailed case study of practice at one HEI has now been initiated.\nConclusions: Despite little attention in the literature, extra-curricular interventions form a key part of contemporary ESD practice within UK HE; nearly all HEIs have made use of them in the recent past. The survey suggests a prominent position, where extra-curricular interventions are perceived to be developed in equal measure to curricular ones in many HEIs; or form the primary approach to ESD in a similar proportion to those where curricular interventions are primary. This prominence suggests extra-curricular work deserves greater attention among those with an interest in advancing ESD in HE.Extra-curricular interventions are widely believed to have utility to help advance ESD in HE and are highly valued by the majority of respondents. At best, they have the potential to tackle many of the issues seen to limit the educational contribution of HE towards sustainable development. At worst, they may only create the impression of action. Barriers remain, not least resource pressures; but there are a number of opportunities too, often through connecting extra-curricular work to mainstream concerns, or perhaps drawing on resources from those seeking to promote ESD from outside of HE.Generally speaking, ESD work by UK HEIs is relatively recent, developed in a limited way and, more commonly than not, restricted to a small number of departments. In this regard ESD practice is in its infancy and extra-curricular interventions may play an important developmental and complimentary role in curriculum change.The voluntary nature of extra-curricular interventions can be seen to both extend and limit the reach of ESD. They have the potential to reach those involved in disciplines where ESD is absent. Yet, when optional, are unlikely in themselves to reach everyone. Perhaps most significantly, while extra-curricular interventions may not extend to everyone, they could help broaden and deepen learning among those that they do reach. This is the focus of ongoing research by the University of Chester.In the UK, much recent work to support ESD in HE has been focused on curriculum change within disciplines and directed at academics. In the future, support should perhaps also be directed at the extra-curricular sphere, with recognition that such work may not always be initiated by academics and may involve others within and beyond HE.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent and type of extra-curricular ESD-related practice in UK universities and to record opinions about the utility of such work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A postal questionnaire survey of all UK universities was undertaken in 2006. Over half (51 per cent) of the UK's 140 universities with degree-awarding powers responded.\nFindings: - Extra-curricular ESD-related interventions were found to be widespread and in 31 per cent of cases were the primary approach to ESD. Respondent opinions highlight a paradox whereby the voluntary nature of extra-curricular interventions can both extend and limit the reach of ESD.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The survey approach gathers impressions of UK practice at one point in time, only. Further case study research to look at the impact of such practice is now under way.\nPractical implications: - In the UK, much recent work to support ESD has focused on efforts to support curriculum change. The paper suggests that attention should also be directed at the extra-curricular sphere in parallel.\nOriginality/value: - This paper partly fills a gap in the literature, there being little empirical enquiry into extra-curricular ESD in higher education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Attachment to work, job satisfaction and work centrality
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Turnover intentions",
"Work attitudes",
"Attachment to work",
"Work centrality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Employee retention continues to be a salient topic in management. In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reported that 80 percent of respondents to its 2008 benchmarking survey were experiencing retention difficulties and 74 percent believed that turnover was having a negative impact on organizational performance (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2008). Cascio and Boudreau (2008) estimate that the costs of hiring and training a replacement can be as high as 150 percent of the departing employee's annual salary. There are also intangible costs associated with the generic and company-specific knowledge that the organization loses along with the employee (Somaya and Williamson, 2008), as well as lower organizational performance (Mohr et al., 2012). Employee turnover received considerable theoretical and research attention (e.g. Lee and Mitchell, 1994; March and Simon, 1958; Mobley, 1977) and attitudinal path models were suggested assuming that job dissatisfaction initiated the turnover process. However, low predictive power with high variability across samples (Griffith et al., 2000) led researchers to continue in their attempts to understand the myriad factors that cause employees to want to quit their jobs. This study attempts to facilitate our understanding of this topic by investigating the composite relationships between employees' attachment style, job satisfaction and work centrality with turnover intentions.\nAttachment theory: Attachment theory is grounded in Bowlby's (1969, 1973, 1980) work, which posits that the individual's behavior is driven by a primary need to seek protection and support from significant others while confronting physical and psychological distress (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003). According to Bowlby's (1969, 1973) theory, the reactions of significant others to one's own needs at times of hardship has crucial implications on mental health, affect regulation and interpersonal relations. In Bowlby's (1973) view, interactions with significant others who are available and responsive to one's needs promote a sense of attachment security, whereas lack of responsiveness generates insecurity. Attachment security comprises positive representations (\"working models\") of the self and others, as well as the belief that maintaining proximity to significant others is an effective affect regulation device (Bowlby, 1973). In contrast, interactions with significant others who are unavailable and unresponsive to one's needs elicit insecurities regarding the responses of others, one's own value and the effectiveness of proximity-seeking strategies. Thus, attachment research has shown that attachment representations significantly contribute to subjective well-being, affect-regulation, high self-esteem, positive person perception and well-adjusted interpersonal cognitions and behaviors (Mikulincer and Florian, 2001; Mikulincer et al., 2003; Shaver and Mikulincher, 2002).\nJob satisfaction: Job satisfaction is defined as the pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the overall evaluation of one's job or job experiences, and is a factor of the extent to which individual needs are met in the work setting (Tziner, 2006). Consequently, it can be both intrinsic, deriving from internally mediated rewards such as the job itself, and extrinsic, resulting from externally mediated rewards such as satisfaction with pay (Porter and Kramer, 2004).\nTurnover intentions: The relationship between behavioral antecedents and turnover intentions has not received a great deal of attention in empirical research (Slattery and Selvarajan, 2005). However, the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover has been amply corroborated (Sagie and Kozlowski, 1998; Nyberg, 2010). Turnover intentions constitute an antecedent of actual turnover (Tziner and Meir, 2002). Thus, job satisfaction should demonstrate a relationship with turnover intentions which constitute behavioral intentions that reflect dissatisfaction with the organization. However, if the purpose is to detect the factors and the process by which they lead to irreversible turnover ahead of time, the research should focus upon turnover intentions that can be thwarted. Thus, in the present study we decided to investigate turnover intentions, and hypothesized that job satisfaction would relate negatively to turnover intentions (H2).\nWork centrality: Work centrality is defined as \"individual beliefs regarding the degree of importance that work plays in their lives\" (Walsh and Gordon, 2008, p. 46). Mannheim (1975), Mannheim et al. (1972) maintains that part of the individual identity is determined by work. A high work-centrality person is cognitively and attitudinally embedded in his work, and therefore part of his identity is traceable to work-related experiences. Work forms a considerable part of our life. Researchers (Harpaz, 1999; Harpaz et al., 2002) contend that it is of relatively high importance compared to the rest of life arenas. Therefore, it affects the individual self-concept to a greater extent than any other activity domain (Harpaz and Snir, 2003). Hence, individuals identifying with their roles, construing work as a dominant aspect of life and attaching a higher value to work that to any other life domain hold a high level of work centrality (Bal and Kooij, 2011). Work centrality has been reported to associate positively with a variety of outcomes such as job satisfaction (Kanungo, 1982), because a high work-centrality individual centers his interests and energies on work and consequently derives his pleasure and satisfaction from it. Hence we hypothesized that work centrality would positively link to job satisfaction (H3).\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Table I provides the descriptive statistics of the study variables.\nDiscussion: Voluntary turnover can be very detrimental to organizations' performance. Tziner and Birati (1996) demonstrated, using amended mathematical formulae, that the overall before-tax cost of dysfunctional turnover (i.e. a high performer deciding to leave his job) of a single employee could be US$103,434 annually. Moreover, Cascio (2007) suggested that the replacement costs of a departing employee cannot be ignored. To these costs one should add several categories of expenses such as separation costs and training costs of a replacement employee. Most probably, these staggering costs have lead Hatch and Dyer (2004) to conclude that companies with low turnover financially outperform companies with high levels of voluntary turnover. Thus, the wish to cast light on the underlying factors fueling the voluntary turnover process has captured a great deal of research interest (Maertz and Campion, 1998; Lee et al., 2004; Maertz et al., 2007). Likewise, detection of early signs (symptoms) of the intention to voluntarily quit a job in an organization has also preoccupied researchers. Turnover intentions have been suggested as the immediate precursor of actual turnover (Mobley, 1977). Although antecedents of turnover intentions have been investigated (Slattery and Selvarajan, 2005), we nonetheless considered that there was still some unconquered territory, i.e. to shed light from the perspective of the attachment theory. Hence, this has been the purpose of the current study.\nLimitations: The first limitation of this study is the research sample itself, which consisted of a relatively small number of workers (125), all of whom were concentrated in one geographical area. The second limitation is true for any study that relies on self-reporting questionnaires. The fact that employees are required to state their positions on work-related issues might, on one hand, evoke an \"acquiescence\" response, namely, a tendency to agree with a statement without really paying attention to its content, and on the other hand, are more prone than other tests to the social desirability bias and are affected by the interviewees' reluctance to express negative views about their workplace (although anonymity was assured). In addition, employees' intentions to leave the workplace are sensitive, personal and very private, and it is likely that not all respondents felt comfortable to answer these questions candidly.\nProposals for future research: Our findings raise a number of questions that could serve as a basis for further research on the connection between attachment styles and turnover intentions in organizations. First, the findings concerning the connection between anxiety attachment and an employee's turnover intentions support the accepted assumption about the negative effect of insecure attachment styles in the organizational and work context, and are a basis for additional work in other contexts and other organizations. For instance, comparisons between various fields of work (such as service-industry employees vs other industries) should be considered.\nContribution of this study: Whereas one of the important research areas of organizational behavior is employee turnover, this study helps to expand our understanding of the connection between personality characteristics, namely attachment styles and employees' turnover intentions. Research of the connection between attachment styles and behavior patterns in the workplace is still young and requires more empirical work, which this study has aimed to provide by examining the link between attachment styles and turnover intention in depth. Showing that anxiously attached individuals are more prone to turnover intentions contributes to the theoretical foundation of the impact of attachment styles in the organizational context.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the associations between attachment styles, work centrality and job satisfaction with turnover intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A self-report questionnaire that included psychometrically sound measures of the key constructs was completed by a sample of 125 employees. A structural equation model was conducted to test the proposed relations and mediating hypotheses.\nFindings: Attachment styles were found to be linked directly to turnover intentions, and not mediated by job satisfaction and work centrality, as predicted. Avoidant and anxious employees showed higher levels of turnover intentions. A positive relationship was found between work centrality and job satisfaction; job satisfaction was negatively related with turnover intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the study involved cross-sectional self-report data, it shed light on the associations between attachment theory and the costly organizational phenomena of voluntary turnover.\nPractical implications: Managers should pay particular attention to employees characterized by an insecure attachment style. Efforts should be made to improve work centrality and job satisfaction among employees.\nOriginality/value: The study adds attachment styles as an additional tool available to managers in their efforts to manage turnover.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Virtual currency schemes - the future of financial services
|
[
"Internet",
"Forecasting",
"Information society",
"Scenario planning",
"Financial services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Technological development, cost reduction pressure and product customization requirements are key drivers for current changes of the financial sector. Observable contradictory tendencies like globalization accompanied by decentralization and networking expansion combined with attempts to tighten control over the sector make the foresight difficult.\n2. Environmental trends and the future of financial services: Contemporary reality is shaped mainly by fast technological development, which influences all spheres of social life, economy, education, administration and culture (Matusiak et al., 2009). As technological foresight research shows, computing power will rise - according to Moore's law - and the creation of new computing machines will lead to ubiquitous computing based on smart grids. Fast development of new software will increase the usage possibilities of new machines (Technological Foresight of Industry, 2011). Changes in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector will shape the demand for workforce in computing, biotechnology, medicine, education, security and entertainment, as well as finance (Matusiak et al., 2009), which is why the creation of the supporting information technology (IT) infrastructure is considered to be one the most important factors of sustainable development and the knowledge-based economy (National Program Foresight Poland, 2020, 2009).\n3. The power of decentralization - networks era: Although some changes resulting from technological development can be observed, it seems that the future trends will be self-contradictory (Kotler et al., 2010). Apart from globalization and the role of the global standard in the competitive advantage creation, the technology development will also lead to decentralization, which will be related to giving power to individuals and favoring local adjustment instead of centralizing. The situation will probably also apply to some strategic and government-controlled fields, whose continued functioning is critical to societal well-being (such as energy, food, water, transport, telecommunications, government and public services, health or finance) (FORESEC, 2009). A good example can be energy production for private needs only. In the future, energy from such sources as solar power, thermal or wind energy will be captured and stored in small, autonomous devices, made up of one or more sensors (Government Office for Science, 2012), which might, to some extent, replace huge power stations. The financial sector will also have to face such a challenge.\n4. The virtual currency concept: The answer to self-contradictory changes can be virtual currency. Virtual money is not a new concept. It has derived from the concept of cooperative currencies or complementary currencies, the examples of which can be flyer miles (e.g. Lufthansa), Local Exchange Trading System created in Canada or Chiemgauer (used in Bavaria). This kind of currency is characterized by higher velocity of circulation, as they were created as a medium of exchange. They often carry a negative interest rate, and because of that, they cannot usually be used as a measure of savings. Their main characteristic is the fact that the local communities use them apart from real money. The purpose of such currency is usually to meet societal objectives (to motivate people's behavior) or to support local businesses. The conditions necessary for the system to function are, among others, the win-win model for all participants, professional management of the system, transparency of the accounts and the system, democratic control, guarantee of circulation and willingness to collaborate with other projects (Lietaer and Dunne, 2013).\n5. The virtual currency as payment system of the future: The Bitcoin system is developing rapidly. The infrastructure enables storage of Bitcoins, facilitating payment transactions and being the marketplace for exchanging the virtual currency proliferates. A lot of Bitcoin-related businesses are emerging and currency followers are appearing on the market. However, the future of virtual currency schemes is still uncertain. Determining their potential significance and role in financial system requires the use of systematized criteria. The useful ones are specified by the Bank for International Settlements in the document called \"Core Principles of Systematically Important Payment Systems\" (Bank for International Settlements, 2001; European Central Bank, 2012).\n6. Scenarios of the virtual currency development: The founder of the Bitcoin network \"was motivated by the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis\". The concept of currency scheme, functioning without the central authority controlling money supply and being authorized to seize citizens' funds is \"the way to immune the system against the machinations done by relevant authorities\" to gain their particular objectives in favor of a few and at the expense of the whole community. The sudden increase in the number of Bitcoin users is \"an expression of the broader collapse of trust in current banking system and fiat money\". It reveals the expectations of societies concerning a future form of the global financial system (Bustillos, 2013).\n7. Conclusions: Virtualization, networking, globalization, cost reduction and active customer participation are the signs of changing reality, influencing also the financial services. Currently operating payment systems controlled by entities bereft of social trust, based on local currencies, predestinated to generate profits, have no chance to keep up with the users' expectations. Virtual currencies, on the contrary, are the society's expression of the need for changes in the financial sector. They are predestinated to become global. The lack of central issuer and intermediaries makes their use cheaper and the network idea of the money lets customers create it according to their own needs. They are seen as the \"currency for a post-trust world\" (Grossman, 2013). Their compliance with the ubiquitous market trends helps them overcome competitors operating according to outdated rules and thus establish the new principles for the whole system.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to determine the future role of virtual currencies. This paper indicates their pros and cons as alternatives to \"real\" money and explains their appearance as the reflection of the present trends. It also presents the possible scenarios of their development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on the former foresight research results and literature review. It highlights the main trends in contemporary economy and their impact on financial services. The Bitcoin case is the starting point for the virtual currencies' market analysis and construction of possible market changes scenarios.\nFindings: Virtual currency schemes are the reflection of present trends. They are just ahead of our times but may become a common means of payment, changing the way of providing financial services, eliminating intermediaries and marginalizing the role of financial institutions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The multiplicity of virtual currencies and ceaseless introduction of innovations impede the presentation of the complete market picture. The lack of reliable statistical data makes the estimation of the market growth difficult.\nPractical implications: This paper indicates influence of technology development, virtualization and networking on payment systems' functioning.\nSocial implications: This paper shows the impact of environmental changes on consumers' acceptance of virtual currencies.\nOriginality/value: The virtual currency as a payment system is quite new and still a marginalized phenomenon. Nevertheless, the pace of virtual currency market growth after its recent introduction and appearance of Bitcoin successors seems to be the signs of future changes in financial service sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding consumer perception of food quality: the cases of shrimps and cheese
|
[
"Fish (food)",
"Dairy products",
"Quality",
"Perception",
"Price"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumers' perception of quality has received considerable interest in relation to the investigation of consumer food choice (e.g. Babin and Darden, 1996). Perceived quality has been shown to affect, e.g. perceived value (Chang and Wildt, 1994), satisfaction, and loyalty (Hansen, 2001). It is therefore highly relevant for food producers and retailers, among others, to gain insight into the consumer quality perception process in order to reach the desired position in the food marketplace. Due to the potential complexity of the perceptual process several problems may, however, arise in connection hereto. For example, the way consumers perceive the quality of a food product before a purchase is often different from the way quality is perceived after consumption (Jover et al., 2004). The perception of quality in the usage situation may therefore be important for the consumer's future associations between quality stimuli and quality benefits, and consequently, for the a priori beliefs of the consumer in the next purchasing situation (Kopalle and Lehmann, 1995). This suggests that an understanding of the perception process in relation to food product quality should be sought on the basis of both the purchasing and the usage situation. As another example, the quality perception process may be moderated by a number of both personal (e.g. involvement, past experiences and the like) and situational variables (e.g. physical surroundings, buying purpose, and the like), which also must be taken into account when seeking to understand consumers' perception of food quality.It is probably impossible to define any unambiguous interpretation of quality, which can be applied to all consumers in relation to all food products in all situations. The perception of quality is a result of an interaction between the consumer's conceptual perception and the consumer's subjective assessment of a food product's quality in a given situation. A study of consumer perception of quality must therefore aim at mapping various aspects of food products, situations and people which, taken as a whole, lead to variations in consumer perception of quality. On the basis of such considerations the first purpose of this paper is to develop a framework, which may serve as a frame of reference for the study of consumers' quality perception process. Using the framework as a point of departure, the second purpose of this paper is to investigate the quality perception process of two consumer food products: shrimps and cheese.\nFramework and research hypotheses: The framework\nResearch hypotheses and research questions: The investigated food products\nExperimental design: The proposed framework along with the research hypotheses and questions guided an experimental investigation of consumers' quality perception process in relation to shrimps and solid cheese.Overall design of experiments\nResults: Exploratory factor analysis\nDiscussion and conclusions: The results of this research showed consumer expectancies about eating quality and naturalness to be derived from physical appearance, and not from price. In both experiments perceived physical appearance positively affected expected eating quality and expected naturalness. The effects of price and physical appearance on expected eating quality/naturalness were, however, moderated by the level of purchase involvement. Interestingly, perceived price showed (in both experiments) a significant positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents, but not for low-involved respondents. Also, for experiment I the effect of perceived price on expected naturalness was higher for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. This result is in contrast to previous research suggesting that poor motivated consumers more often tend to use price a quality stimuli (Mitra, 1995). On the other hand, the result is in line with other findings showing that the absence of other stimuli (e.g. brand) lead to stronger price effects among consumers (Doods and Monroe, 1985). As noted previously the effect of price on perceived quality remains ambiguous in the empirical quality literature. It is therefore very important that the effect of price is considered closely to the particular research setting. Apart from price-level, this study did not take other extrinsic stimuli into account indicating that the absence of such stimuli (e.g. brand) may in itself have increased the usage of price (by high-involved respondents) as a quality stimuli in the experiments. In this research, we sought to experimentally replicate the real-world offering of shrimps and cheese in Danish fresh food encounters (known also as delicatessen departments) in which it is common not to attach any brand, or other kinds of extrinsic stimuli, to the food products apart from price. We therefore do not suggest that the results of the present study can be generalized to other kinds of food encounters in which other kinds of stimuli than the ones used in this study may be present.Perceived physical appearance positively affected expected eating quality in both experiments. The level of purchase involvement did not moderate this effect. For both experiments, the positive effect of perceived physical appearance on expected naturalness was significantly stronger for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. As for perceived price, the explanation for this result is probably that high-involved consumers are more willing to devote the necessary cognitive resources to establish links between available product information than are low-involved consumers (e.g. Celsi and Olson, 1988). The results of both experiments suggest that consumers use assimilation for the purpose of reducing the cognitive dissonance, which may arise from a gap between expectation levels and performance levels. Hence, in both experiments expected eating quality positively affected experienced eating quality and expected naturalness positively affected experienced naturalness. However, in experiment II the level of purchase involvement moderated the effect of expected eating quality on experienced eating quality. Expected eating quality showed a significant positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents, but not for low-involved respondents. Also, the effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was in both experiments stronger for high-involvement respondents than for low-involved respondents. These results are in line with previous research suggesting that high-involved consumers more likely will experience cognitive dissonance as a result of a perceived expectation-experience gap and, therefore, will be more motivated to close such gaps. In experiment II, an additional \"cross over\" effect was detected as expected eating quality positively affected expected naturalness and as experienced eating quality positively affected experienced naturalness. These effects, which were not hypothesized beforehand, indicating that although consumers perform a cognitive division into perceived eating quality and perceived naturalness they might not regard the quality dimensions as unrelated. These results thus underline the complexity of consumer food quality perception.The results also reveal that food consumption is not just a matter of getting nutrients but that food consumption is a psychological (cognitive-affective) matter too (see French et al., 1994). We like food products of perceived high quality. In both experiments experienced eating quality positively affected pleasure-feeling, whereas experienced naturalness showed no effect on pleasure-feeling in either of the experiment. The explanation for these findings is probably that while eating quality most likely is an affective construct, which consumers will associate with positive emotions, perceived naturalness is most likely a cognitive construct and thus more evaluative than emotional. Very interestingly, the effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling in experiment I was moderated by the type of physical surrounding in the manipulated usage situation. The positive effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling was stronger for respondents exposed to the elegant physical surroundings than for respondents exposed to the less elegant physical surroundings. These results emphasize that pleasure-feeling in the food usage situation should not only be seen as being linked to the food product itself but is also linked to the situation - in this case the physical surroundings in which the usage situation took place.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper proposes to investigate empirically consumers' quality perception of shrimps and cheese.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 320 respondents was included in an experimental design in which two food products, shrimps and cheese, two price-levels, two levels of purchase involvement, and two types of physical surroundings, elegant and less elegant, were manipulated. The experiments included both simulated buying situations and simulated usage situations.\nFindings: - The research finds that in the buying situation both experiments perceived price had a positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents but not for low-involved respondents. In the usage situation the effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was in both experiments stronger for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. In addition, experienced eating quality positively affected respondents' pleasure-feeling. The positive effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling was stronger for respondents exposed to elegant physical surroundings than for respondents exposed to less elegant surroundings.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research concentrated on analyzing two food products, fresh-shelled shrimps and solid cheese. This could mean that the results may suffer from a lack of generalizability. A large cross-section of products ought to be studied to improve the generalizability of the results. Also, the manipulation of price and physical surroundings were confined to two different levels. Thus, this research offers no specific guidelines on how to set specific prices or how to establish specific physical surroundings for the purpose of manipulating, e.g. consumers' perceived quality.\nPractical implications: - The results emphasize that food producers and retailers, among others, should seek an understanding of consumers' quality perception process in relation to both the buying and the usage situation.\nOriginality/value: - This paper empirically investigates consumers' quality perception in both buying and usage situations. Also, the paper includes purchase involvement and physical surroundings as moderating variables of the quality perception process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Encouraging people to embrace feedback-seeking in online learning: An investigation of informational and relational drivers
|
[
"Online learning",
"Feedback-seeking",
"Informational value",
"Online communities of inquiry",
"Relational value"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Different types of online communities have been rapidly growing in recent years (Islam et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2017). Among various online communities, online learning communities have attracted the interest of both researchers and practitioners. Online learning communities are groups of people who interact for mutual learning with a common learning goal (Liu et al., 2010). The focal online learning community in this study is the online community of inquiry (OCoI), which refers to groups of individuals who interact with others online to engage in critical discourse and reflection to develop new knowledge and skills (Rubin et al., 2013). OCoIs place emphasis on the development of social learning (Chakraborty, 2015) and the pursuit of inquiry (Swan et al., 2009). On one hand, OCoIs provide opportunities for learners to share experiences and exchange ideas with others (Chakraborty, 2015; Liou et al., 2016). On the other hand, OCoIs encourage critical thinking and practical inquiry, which set the stage for constructing personal meaning and confirming mutual understanding (Remesal and Friesen, 2014).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Feedback-seeking\n3. Research hypotheses and research model: 3.1 Antecedents of feedback-seeking intention\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Data collection and respondents' profiles\n5. Data analysis and results: Partial least square (PLS) analysis was used to test the research model. PLS can simultaneously assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model, as well as test the structural model (Reinartz et al., 2009). PLS puts minimal restrictions on sample size and residual distributions and is more suitable when the study is exploratory (Reinartz et al., 2009). Due to the exploratory nature of our study, we used PLS to analyze our data. Following the two-stage analytical approach, we first examined the measurement model and then tested the structural model.\n6. Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Discussion of findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of perceived informational value and perceived relational value on feedback-seeking intention in online communities of inquiry (OCoIs). To develop an integrated theoretical framework, the antecedents of perceived informational value and perceived relational value are also investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study builds on the relational communication theory (RCT) and the social psychology perspective to develop an integrated research model regarding feedback-seeking. Hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 262 subjects who are members of OCoIs.\nFindings: The results indicate that feedback-seeking intention is positively affected by perceived informational and relational value of feedback-seeking. Furthermore, perceived informational value partially mediates the effects of feedback-seeking self-efficacy and learning goal orientation on feedback-seeking intention; perceived relational value partially mediates the effects of social influence and social risk on feedback-seeking intention.\nPractical implications: The results suggest that practitioners can promote feedback-seeking by enhancing learners' informational and relational dependencies on OCoIs. To achieve effective online learning, practitioners should consider learners' characteristics to provide personalized learning interventions.\nOriginality/value: This study advances RCT and the social psychology perspective to develop an integrated model for understanding feedback-seeking. The empirical results complement information-related explanations of feedback-seeking by finding that a relationship-related explanation is more important for promoting feedback-seeking in OCoIs. The proposed model also indicates that tolerance for ambiguity serves as a moderator in the relationship between perceived informational value and its antecedents.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A special feature of corporate income taxation in Portugal: the autonomous taxation of expenses
|
[
"Autonomous taxation of expenses",
"Corporate income taxation",
"Tax base"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The analysis of the corporate income tax (CIT), especially in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, has mainly focussed on global trends, such as the evolution of statutory and effective tax rates or the fight against international tax evasion (Richardson, 2006; Bartelsman and Beetsma, 2003).\n2. Literature review: The CIT is levied on a surplus, equal to revenues minus expenses. Thus, the use of expenses as a significant tax base, in the context of corporate income taxation, is not regularly observed around the world. Therefore, to the best of our knowledge, there is a relative scarcity of global literature on this topic.\n3. Methodology: The methodology used in the paper is a blend of legal research method and case study analysis. According to van Hoecke (2011), the legal research method takes many forms. Here, the so-called evaluative approach is the chosen perspective. We discuss if an apparently anomalous type of rules (inserting ATE in the legal body of CIT) is justified by technical, political or other underlying reasons. Also, how it relates to comparative ways of approaching the complex issue of taxing corporations.\n4. Corporate taxation and its importance as a source of tax revenue: Before facing the set of research questions outlined in this paper, it is important to have an understanding of CIT's relevance in Portugal and other EU countries. Its contribution to total revenue in the face of recent trends of rate reduction and the shrinking of tax bases resulting from the economic and financial crisis are important issues to be addressed.\n5. The autonomous taxation in Portuguese tax system: legislative developments, quantitative analysis and legal discussion: 5.1 Legislative developments: a synthesis\n6. Taxation of expenses: a brief international perspective: As briefly stated at the outset of this paper, Portugal is an outlier when it comes to ATE. No other OECD country has a similar source of revenue. In many countries, as already mentioned, the usual penalizing policy is to define a set of non-deductible accounting expenses. However, in some Portuguese-speaking countries, ATE has recently been introduced. Also, France and the UK have an approach similar to the ATE to target some corporate expenses.\n7. Concluding remarks: The autonomous taxation of certain corporate expenses is a very special feature of the Portuguese CIT Code. Its reach has been growing since 1990, when ATE was introduced. Tax rates have also exhibit an upward trend.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the following research questions: Is the Portuguese corporate income tax (CIT) losing its internal consistency by extending the autonomous taxation of expenses (ATE)? Are receipts derived from autonomous taxes so relevant that what began as an exception is gradually becoming a permanent feature of the income tax? Given the constitutional principle that corporate taxation should be fundamentally based on income, is the taxation of expenses unconstitutional? Is Portugal an international outlier, in applying this type of taxation to corporate expenses?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology used in the paper is a blend of legal research method and case study analysis. The interpretation of legal texts and the ratio legis discussion (hermeneutical side), the evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of autonomous taxes (argumentative approach) and the use of aggregate data to gauge an impression of autonomous taxes' impact on global tax receipts (empirical side) will, jointly, be used to analyse the topic. Autonomous taxation is a case study on how a (albeit distortive) solution is being applied in an European Union (EU) country to significantly enhance corporate-related tax revenue.\nFindings: The authors conclude that autonomous taxation is a relevant source of revenue and its elimination is not foreseeable, at least in the medium term. Moreover, the extension of the tax base is gradually transforming CIT in a kind of dual tax, by charging profits and some expenses. The Constitutional Court, stressing the equity principle, has not ruled autonomous taxation unconstitutional, invoking usefulness against tax evasion. Finally, with the exception of some Portuguese-speaking countries, no other comparable international experience is observed.\nPractical implications: The autonomous taxes (ATE) and its progressive enlargement imply, on the one hand, that the CIT has been slowly, but inexorably, losing its sole purpose of taxing profits, and imposing a tax penalty on an increasing set of accounting expenses. On the other hand, the growing number of expenses subjected to taxation leads some authors to ponder if the Portuguese tax regime is losing attractiveness. By increasing ATE's scope, the effective rate tends to move upwards, countering reductions in the statutory rate. Finally, tax law will increasingly influence managers' daily decisions, given the set of expenses targeted by autonomous taxes.\nOriginality/value: Taking into account the aim of this study, the discussion of a Portuguese particular feature of corporate taxation can highlight useful policy points to a broader audience. Many Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries face a dire situation in public finances. Therefore, given the pressure to increase tax receipts, the ATE can be a case study on how a (albeit distortive) solution is being applied in an EU country to significantly enhance corporate-related tax revenue.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How healthcare states matter: Comparing the introduction of clinical standards in Britain and Germany
|
[
"Health services",
"Germany",
"United Kingdom",
"Public sector reform"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the context of New Public Management, the micro-level of governing health service delivery has become a central area of reform and with this doctors, both individually and as a group, have come more sharply into focus. More specifically, the emergence of new governing instruments, including clinical standards and evidence-based medicine, shift underlying logics of governing (see, for example, Dent, 2003; Dubois et al., 2005; Gray and Harrison, 2004). Traditionally, the governance of medical practice has been characterised by professional self-regulation, allowing doctors considerable autonomy over their work. In contrast, the new, micro level instruments of governing strengthen public accountability and are based on the logic of hierarchy.Against this background, we present a cross-country comparative analysis to identify variation in the pathways toward change and more specifically to explore how the introduction of clinical standards is shaped by country-specific contexts of health care states. To do so, we present two country case studies of selected reforms and associated processes of negotiations from Britain and Germany, which are characterised by different institutional contexts, and analyse how the negotiating interplay among actors is enabled or constrained by institutions across these countries. The contribution of the present analysis to the special issue is two-fold: first, with its cross-country comparative focus the analysis is able to identify systematic variations across healthcare states and the specific ways in which they filter the introduction of tools of a generic managerialism; and second, with its focus on clinical standards the analysis deals with the governance of medical practice as one of the central areas of healthcare states.\nThe study: We need to better understand the sector specific institutions of healthcare in order to systematically analyse what happens when a generic managerialism, and specifically clinical standards, meet healthcare states; this is because healthcare states tend to be embedded in country specific contexts. We define the healthcare state to consist of three sets of institutions:1. The regulative institutions of governing the consumption and the provision of health care.2. The relative decentralisation of governing arrangements.3. The normative institutions of medical authority.Thereby we take Moran's (1999) formulation of the welfare state as our starting point but consider two additional sets of institutions. The first set of institutions is key to Moran's approach. Institutions related to the consumption of healthcare are concerned with the mechanisms for deciding on the total volume of resources allocated to the financing of healthcare and with the mechanisms allowing individual patients access to services. In contrast, the institutions concerned with the provision of healthcare include instruments for governing provider organisations both in hospitals and primary care settings.Second, the relative decentralisation of governance in healthcare states is another regulative institution. The state often is not a unitary organisational entity; this reflects the features of the broader polity healthcare states are part of as well as recent reforms that have decentralised different aspects of health governance. The relative degree of (de)centralisation is therefore an important characteristic of healthcare states.Third, we consider normative institutions related to perceptions of professional authority. Governing medical practice involves more than the relationship among different institutions of health governance. Governing medical practice is also concerned with norms and values about desirable goals and legitimate means to achieve these goals (Scott, 1995; for an application, see Burau and Vrangbaek, n.d.).The subsequent cross-country comparative analysis focuses on Britain and Germany as two countries which, as discussed in more detail below, show interesting differences in relation to the institutional set up of their respective healthcare states; and as such they present ideal cases to explore the specific ways of how healthcare states filter clinical standards as tools of a generic managerialism.So, how are these different healthcare states likely to affect the choice of policy makers in the two countries in relation to the introduction of clinical standards? The characteristics of the regulative components of the healthcare state in Britain make for strong state capacity for reform and pathways of governing where hierarchy, including in a hybrid with the market such as in relation to managed competition dominate. This gives favourable conditions for the introduction of clinical standards, although there has traditionally been a parallel and potentially countervailing pathway of governing based on strong professional self-regulation. The situation looks very different in Germany, where the regulative components of the healthcare state make for weak state capacity for reform and where a hybrid of network and hierarchy based governing is the predominant pathway of governing. Taken together this in principle mitigates against the introduction of clinical standards, although in contrast to Britain the normative institutions of medical authority do not make for a separate pathway of governing.The study of how institutions shape policy change and its substance is, in essence, a study of path dependence (see, Wilsford, 1994) and how institutions sustain and reproduce themselves and make for developmental paths. Following the literature on historical institutionalism (for an overview, see, Mahoney, 2000; Thelen, 1999) we see feedback mechanisms as central to understanding such processes. In our study, we look at how feedback mechanisms shape policy change by examining the process of negotiating the introduction of clinical standards in each country. More specifically, we begin by mapping the content of the reforms, using existing policies as a baseline for assessing the nature and extent of policy change. We next identify the various policy problems that the reforms were intended to address. How problems are framed reflects both institutional tensions and more specific contextual factors. Finally, we consider the politics of introducing clinical standards and identify particular (institutionally embedded) arenas of decision-making and capacities used to reform the state as a payer and doctors as providers.The two case studies are based on analyses of two types of primary sources. First, each case study uses written material, including legislative texts and press releases and reports issued by relevant actors, to map out the interests and strategies of key actors as well as to identify the central arenas and phases of the introduction of clinical standards. The analysis also uses articles and commentaries from professional journals. Second, each case study uses a range of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key informants to gain a more finely-tuned picture of the specific interplay among actors and their strategies and the ways in which this interplay shaped the negotiations.\nHealthcare states and pathways of governing medical practice compared: We define Britain as an \"entrenched command-and-control health care state\" where the (central) state dominates the governance of provision and consumption through its control of revenue from general taxation and the allocation of funds using a public management hierarchy. State power is also highly centralised with key bodies, principally the Department of Health (DH), taking policy decisions and issuing orders down the management structures of the National Health Service (NHS). This co-exists with normative institutions that define medical authority as a classical, pure professional autonomy in relation to both individual professionals and to the profession collectively. The governance of medical performance presents itself as a combination of hierarchy and professional self-regulation.In terms of the governance of medical practice more specifically, the public nature of hospital and primary care trusts permits governing through performance management. Hierarchy-based forms of governance co-exist with strong professional self-regulation. Medical societies in particular emerge as strong private interest organisations with a wide scope for professional self-regulation. In Britain, the 13 Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties and their associated specialist societies play a significant role in the field of post-graduate education for which they have a formal responsibility (Salter, 2001). The Royal Colleges can also play a significant role in other areas with varying degrees of acceptance of the leadership of the General Medical Council (GMC) (1995), the profession's regulatory body (Irvine, 2003; Salter, 2004). Thus, while Britain fits the definition of an entrenched command-and-control healthcare state, the medical profession has traditionally exercised considerable influence in shaping health policy. Indeed, in the past when the profession has not supported a policy, such as the internal market policy of the Thatcher government, the state faced considerable difficulty in implementing the policy. The model of centralised decision making with implementation via a lengthy chain of command is particularly vulnerable in the face of professional resistance (Salter, 2004).In contrast with Britain, the state plays a less influential role in the governance of consumption and provision in Germany. Here, the (federal) state has only a regulatory role and it is the statutory organisations of insurance funds and doctors instead which dominate (for an overview, see, Busse and Riesberg, 2004; Rosenbrock and Gerlinger, 2004). Overall, therefore, Germany is characterised as a \"corporatist health care state\". Formal negotiations - at federal and state level - in the form of joint self-administration are a central feature of the healthcare state, and crucially this directly involves doctors (in addition to insurance funds as purchasers) who thereby also decide on the allocation of funding. This comes with a closer integration in healthcare governance and corresponding constraints. The involvement of doctors, in health governance, is underpinned by normative institutions that define medical authority as highly institutionalised authority, but there are also strong elements of private practice.What is important is that the governance of medical practice has normally been an exception to the rule and consists of strong elements of professional self-regulation in form of voluntary clinical guidelines by specialist medical societies, but that increasingly have been part of a hybrid of networks and hierarchy in the form of joint self-administration and hierarchy in form of framework legislation (Burau, 2007; Igl, 2002).\nCompetition and compromise: the British case study: In Britain, the introduction of clinical standards consisted of two policy streams, one led by government and one initially dominated by the medical profession: clinical governance and revalidation. The government introduced programmes for clinical governance in the late 1990s that were mainly directed at provider organisations but that did necessarily take some account of the performance of individual providers (Department of Health, 1998a, b; National Health Service Executive, 1999a, b). The latter were targeted by the newly created National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), which approves and disseminates evidence-based clinical standards, for diagnosis and treatment in medical practice, appraises new technologies, and develops clinical auditing. NICE is one of a number of organisations created within the past decade responsible for setting and monitoring standards for the delivery of health services. Another key player is the Healthcare Commission, which is charged with evaluating the performance of healthcare organisations. It is set to merge with social care and mental health inspectorates in the near future to become the Care Quality Commission. Taken as a whole, the clinical governance policy constitutes significant institutional and policy change and considerably strengthens hierarchy-based forms of governing. However, sanctions for poor performance are often ambiguous (Fenton and Salter, 2009).Clinical governance exists side-by-side with the revalidation policy introduced by the GMC. As we will see shortly, until very recently the profession continued to play a pivotal role in controlling the policy agenda around revalidation. The revalidation policy focuses on the performance of individual practitioners and standards are set indirectly by defining the requisite levels of skill and performance necessary for renewal of the license to practice. Revalidation procedures, unlike clinical governance measures, envisage the ultimate sanction of being stricken from the medical register and as such mark an important re-definition of professional self-regulation.Re-securing public trust\nThe dynamics of corporatism: the German case study: In Germany, the introduction of clinical standards occurred as part of so-called Disease Management Programmes. The programmes set standards for diagnosis and treatment for selected chronic illnesses which, importantly, are the basis for the reallocation of financial resources among the insurance funds to compensate for the unequal distribution of poor risks (Bundesministerium fur Gesundheit, 2001; Muller de Cornejo, 2005). The Programmes introduce a statutory governing regime, which operates in parallel with existing voluntary initiatives of the specialist medical societies. The notion of clinical standards itself has also changed: standards are now evidence-based and formalised, contain procedures for monitoring and serve as the basis for determining patterns of financial transfers. A hybrid form of governing is emerging which combines elements of network and hierarchy (the joint self-administration) and operates alongside traditional forms of governance based on professional self-regulation. This coincides with a reinforcement of hierarchical forms of governance, in the sense that the federal government is re-defining and restricting the room for manoeuvre enjoyed by the joint self-administrating bodies. More specifically, the substantive remit of the subsequent corporatist negotiations is unusually specific, and the outcome of the negotiations has the status of recommendations to the Federal Ministry. Taken together the introduction of clinical standards therefore echoes the thrust of earlier reforms and the developmental trajectory of \"corparatisation\" (Dohler and Manow, 1997), whereby the joint self-administration both extends its scope vis-a-vis doctors and includes stronger elements of hierarchy.Addressing problems of expenditure and quality control\nComparing and contrasting health care states as filters for managerialism: Both Britain and Germany have introduced clinical standards. This is despite the fact that the two countries exhibit very different initial conditions in terms of the state capacity for reforms and in terms of the predisposition of existing pathways of governing to clinical standard as hierarchy-based forms of governing. Importantly, however, the clinical standards differ in substantive terms (see Table I). This confirms the initial expectations about the choice of policy makers; the differences in policy output reflect differences in initial conditions and thereby powerfully demonstrate the role of healthcare states as filters for tools of a generic managerialism. More specifically, in Britain the introduction of clinical standards has taken the form of two parallel policies, which strengthen hierarchy based governing and redefine professional self-regulation. In Germany by contrast, the introduction of clinical standards occurs in the form of a single policy that strengthens the hybrid of network and hierarchy based governing and to some extent also pure hierarchy based forms of governing.The differences in the substance of reforms make the introduction of clinical standards an example of more or less incremental change that more or less strongly follows established pathways of governing medical practice. In relation to the two countries the respective healthcare states and associated pathways of governing as the initial conditions for the introduction of clinical standards are reproduced by feedback mechanisms and this process of reproduction can be seen especially in two ways (for an overview, see Table I).First, the feedback mechanisms shape the framing of the initial policy problem. In Britain, this was about re-establishing public trust, while in Germany this was about controlling quality through funding. Second, rooted in different arenas for decision-making the feedback mechanisms also affect the dynamics of decision making itself. In Britain, the co-existence of strong state capacity for reform and strong internal medical capacity made for two parallel arenas, the government and the professional bodies of the medical profession. In the former the politics followed a top-down pattern dominated by government, whereas in the latter politics was marred by internal conflicts making for a more lengthy process of decision-making. In Germany, by contrast, the fact that state capacity for reforms is dependent on private, statutory actors meant that the joint self-administration of insurance funds and doctors became the main arena for decision making. The process of decision making occurred in the shadow of hierarchy and different strategies of containing conflict and securing legitimacy ensure the successful completion of the negotiations.In sum, based on a case study of governing medical practice - through clinical standards - as one of the central areas of governance of healthcare states, the comparative analysis identifies systematic variations in the ways healthcare states filter the introduction of tools of a generic managerialism. As such, the analysis shows not only that healthcare states matter but also the specific ways in which they matter.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to identify variation in the introduction of New Public Management reforms in healthcare and how this variation is related to country-specific healthcare states.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The analysis uses the introduction of clinical standards in Britain and Germany as cases. The two countries are characterised by interesting differences in relation to the institutional set-up of healthcare states and as such present ideal cases to explore the specific ways of how healthcare states filter clinical standards as tools of a generic managerialism.\nFindings: - Both countries have introduced clinical standards but, importantly, the substantive nature of clinical standards differs, reflecting differences in initial institutional conditions. More specifically, in Britain clinical standards have taken the form of two parallel policies, which strengthen hierarchy-based governing and redefine professional self-regulation. In Germany, by contrast, clinical standards come in one single policy, which strengthens the hybrid of network- and hierarchy-based governing and to some extent also pure hierarchy-based forms of governing.\nOriginality/value: - First, with its cross-country comparative focus, the analysis is able to identify systematic variations across healthcare states and the specific ways in which they impact on the introduction of New Public Management. Second, with its focus on clinical standards, the analysis deals with the governance of medical practice as one of the central areas of healthcare states.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Top managers and the gendered interplay of organizations and family life: the case of Iceland
|
[
"Gender",
"Leadership",
"CEO",
"Executives",
"Organizational practices",
"Power relations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Women are in the minority when it comes to business leadership worldwide (Catalyst, 2017a) and progress in eliminating gender segregation in positions of power is slow (Catalyst, 2017b). However, countries have tried to improve gender equality in business leadership, for instance, by imposing laws on boards of corporations (Doldor and Vinnicombe, 2015; Teigen, 2012; Terjesen et al., 2015). Nevertheless, these affirmative actions have not lead to more women holding leadership positions, or spill over effect, as was hoped for. Therefore, it is important to know what keeps the gender disparity in leadership positions in place. According to Hovden et al. (2011, p. 408), key factors in understanding the lack of women in business leadership are in the \"processes and practices that (re)produce power differences between women and men in the organizations in which they take place\". Aiming to analyse the practices that (re)produce power imbalances between women and men in business leadership the paper reflects this idea both on the macro and the micro levels. Our case example is Iceland, one of the countries that have introduced gender corporate quotas [Amendment to Act on Public Limited Companies, No. 13 (2010)]. The focus is on the organizational practices as well as on the everyday life within the family. By focussing on the family life, we broaden Hovden's et al. (2011) analysis mentioned above. Thus, our theoretical framework is based on two overlapping perspectives: organizational practices and organizational culture (Acker, 1990, 2006, 2009; Blair-Loy, 2003; Broadbridge, 2008, 2010) and the interplay of organizations and family life (Blair-Loy, 2003; Bryson, 2007, 2011, 2013; Eagly et al., 2000). Most importantly, our framework implies a holistic approach attempting to unravel the mutually reinforcing interplay between organizations and family life.\nWork and family: Organizational barriers women face in the workplace and masculine work culture are well documented (Acker, 1990, 2006, 2009; Holton and Dent, 2016; Nagy and Vicsek, 2014: Rafnsdottir and Juliusdottir, 2018; Weyer, 2007). According to Menendez et al. (2012), institutions can be seen as gendered rather than gender neutral when job design, career ladders, work practises, recruitment and selection methods and the organizational culture is invested with assumptions and expectations about gender appropriate roles (p. 4). Organizational culture consists of several practices, e.g. visibility, long working hours and networking resulting in gender privileges, that can exclude women from powerful job positions (Acker, 2006; Blair-Loy, 2003; Benschop, 2009; Broadbridge, 2010; Holgersson, 2013; Ragins et al., 1998; Singh et al., 2006). It has been noted that the general requirements of work are shaped by the image of white men, with total dedication to work and who can withdraw themselves from family responsibility for being the bread winner (Acker, 2006). Furthermore, as women tend to have more obligations in the domestic sphere than men, this gendered organization of paid and unpaid work is crucial in sustaining gender inequality in organizations (Acker, 2006; Bryson, 2007, 2011, 2013; Blair-Loy, 2003). This is what Bryson refers to as \"time is money logic of the workplace\" (Bryson, 2013, p. 120). By overlooking the private activities, e.g. the caring responsibility, the male breadwinner model and the gender division of labour is consistently maintained. Accordingly, the gender inequality in organizations is also intertwined with the social construction of women and men, masculinities and femininities (Acker, 2006; Bryson, 2007). Therefore, it is important to draw attention to the power relations, not only in organizations but also in families, when addressing the lack of women in leadership positions.\nTheoretical framework: We use two theoretical approaches to analyse our data: gendered organizational practices and the interplay of organizations and family life. These two explanations are interconnected and in our holistic approach they complement each other.\nData and methodology: Mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative, are applied in this study when analysing what (re)produces power imbalances between females and males in leadership positions. The philosophical foundation of this research paradigm lies in pragmatism, suggesting that research designs should be mixed in ways that offer the most useful answers for the research questions and are likely to give complementary results (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The study is situated within a sequential exploratory and explanatory design. The sequential exploratory design suggests that the quantitative data be gathered first, and then, once analysed, the information is used to build a second qualitative study (Creswell, 2013). Similarly, the explanatory sequential starts with a qualitative study. This study is based on three interconnected, independent data sets collected over a seven-year period. Their purpose was to investigate the lack of women in leadership positions. Thus, Qualitative - Quantitative - Qualitative.\nFindings: Aiming to develop an understanding of what (re)produces power imbalance in business leadership in Iceland, we collected data which refer to the organizational practices and gender relations in family life. The findings for these explanations are presented separately. Nevertheless, the findings are interconnected and mutually reinforcing in real life and can only be analytically distinguished.\nDiscussion: This paper sought to examine the persistent gender disparity among business leaders in Iceland by exploring the interplay of organizations and family life. The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data with CEOs and executives, highlighted that organizational practices and gendered power relations in families produce patterns of complex mutually reinforcing inequalities among Icelandic business leaders. Despite affirmative action aiming to increase gender equality in the business life [Amendment to Act on Public Limited Companies, No. 13 (2010)] and the act on promoting gender equality (No. 10/2008), our data show that organizational practices (Acker, 2006; Blair-Loy, 2003; Broadbridge, 2010) in Iceland are similar to other western countries where national welfare policies are not promoting gender equality to the same extent as the Nordic countries (Saxonberg, 2013).\nConcluding remarks and further research suggestions: The impact of this study is both theoretical and practical and the two are intertwined. Practically it addresses the world-wide public policy debate on gender disparity among business leaders. It sheds a light on what remains to change, to be able to strengthen the situation of women in business leadership. By building on two sets of theoretical perspectives, namely, Acker's (1990, 2006, 2009), Blair-Loy's, (2003) and Broadbridge (2008, 2010) discussion about organizational practices and Bryson's (2007, 2011, 2013), Blair-Loy's (2003) and Eagly et al. (2000) analysis on the interplay of organizations and family life, we shed a light on important mechanisms that perpetuate status quo. By connecting these two perspectives together we show that they are mutually reinforcing and how both the male dominated working culture and the traditional gender roles within the business leader's families need to be challenged for change to take place.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: Iceland, along with the other Nordic countries, is seen as an international frontrunner in gender equality and equal sharing of responsibility for paid and unpaid work is part of the official ideology. Nevertheless, the number of women in leadership positions remains low. The purpose of this study is to analyse the practices that (re)produce power imbalances between women and men in business leadership both at the macro and the micro levels. This is done by using two theoretical explanations: gendered organizational practices and the interplay of organizations and family life.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The mixed methods are applied by analysing 51, semi-structured interviews with female and male business leaders and survey data from CEOs and executives from the 250 largest companies in Iceland.\nFindings: The analyses reveal gender differences and asymmetries in work life as well as within the family. Men have longer working hours than women, higher salaries and more job-related travelling. Women carry the dual burden of work and family to a higher degree than do men. By questioning and attempting to resist the organizational culture women risk further disadvantage. The situation of male and female leaders is therefore incomparable. This is a paradox and does not fit with the idea of the Nordic gender equality of a dual breadwinner society.\nOriginality/value: It is shown that lack of gender diversity in business leadership is based on gendered organizational practices as well as on power relations within families. These two aspects are mutually reinforcing and the originality of the study is to explore the interplay between them. The authors conclude that despite being the country at the forefront of gender equality in the world, neither organizational practices nor family relations recognize the different life experiences of women and men in Iceland. This is expressed in organizational practices and different access to time and support, which may hinder gaining gender equality in top leadership.\n",
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How to influence hospitality employee perceptions on hotel brand performance?
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Human resource management",
"Brand management",
"Hotel management",
"Internal branding",
"Organizational career management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hotel employees are vital to a hotel's brand development because they can form a solid and close connection between the hotel's brand and its customers. A hotel brand is unique, unlike products, which can be imitated by competitors. Successfully branded hotels use their brand as a strategic weapon and apply their resources to reinforce their brand advantages over their competitors (Damonte et al., 1997).\nLiterature review: Customers' experiences with a hotel brand are very much dependent upon employees' service performance (Tsang et al., 2011). As employees can bridge a solid and close connection between a hotel brand and its customers, Harris and de Chernatony (2001) assert the importance of internal branding management or brand internalization, with employees portrayed at the center of brand development.\nResearch methodology: Research design\nResults: Demographic profile of the respondents\nDiscussion and implications: This study explored the influence of hotel career management and internal branding on employees' job satisfaction and brand performance. The findings may provide both theoretical and practical implications.\nLimitations and directions for future research: There are two limitations of this study, one is related to the use of a convenience sampling method. As the participants were selected according to their accessibility, they may not reflect a reasonably broad sample of hotel employees. Future studies are encouraged to explore internal branding and hotel career management using a probability sampling method. Another limitation is related to the testing for mediation; this study uses only the full mediation testing; future research in determining the best model should use quasi mediation model to compare with full mediation model.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to understand employees' perceptions of human resources management functions and how these affect brand performance, and the indirect influence of human resources management functions when mediated by job satisfaction in branded hotels in China. Hotel human resources functions, specifically organizational career management, and internal branding in hotels in mainland China were examined. The mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between organizational career management and internal branding on brand performance was also examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of hotel supervisors and middle managers in mainland China yielded 510 valid questionnaires for data analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to empirically test the relationships between human resources management functions (organizational career management, internal branding and job satisfaction) and brand performance in four- and five-star hotels in China.\nFindings: The structural equation modeling results showed strong support for the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational career management, internal branding and brand performance. Interestingly, although internal branding significantly affected brand performance, organizational career management alone did not.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation was the use of a convenience sampling method, which means respondents may not represent a sufficiently broad sample of hotel employees. Future studies are encouraged to explore internal branding and hotel career management using a probability sampling method.\nPractical implications: The findings offer new insights and directions for hotel human resources managers to improve brand performance, either through promoting internal branding itself, or by enhancing organizational career management, internal branding and employees' job satisfaction to achieve brand performance.\nOriginality/value: This is the first empirical study to analyze hotel management employees' perceptions of the relationships between hotel human resources management, employees' job satisfaction and hotel brand performance in China. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of applying human resources management functions to hotel branding.\n",
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(Dis)identification as resilience in dirty volunteer work
|
[
"Resilience",
"Identification",
"Volunteer",
"Dirty work",
"Disidentification",
"Resilience labour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The nature of research on resilience and resilience labor (Agarwal and Buzzanell, 2015) primarily positions resilience as a process that occurs following a natural disaster (Doerfel et al., 2010; Runyan, 2006), national crisis (Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003), economic downturn (Lucas and Buzzanell, 2012), or social crisis (Luthar and Cicchetti, 2000). More specifically, research on resilience has been studied in the context of responses to \"catastrophic circumstances\" (Doerfel et al., 2013, p. 533), \"times of corporate or national crises\" (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 5), and \"disasters\" (Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003, p. 39). However, these contexts are not the only events where individuals demonstrate resilience.\nResilience as a theoretical construct: Resilience describes a process of enduring, dealing with, or bouncing back from a disruption in life or work (Buzzanell, 2010). The range as to what \"qualifies\" as a disruption creates a broad landscape for potential contexts to study resilience. Although most scholars identify the instigator of resilience as a \"disruption\" (Buzzanell, 2010; Richardson, 2002), others refer to the trigger event of resilience as \"adversity\" (Curtis and Cicchetti, 2003, p. 773), \"hardship\" (Lucas and Buzzanell, 2012, p. 201), \"disaster\" (Doerfel et al., 2013, p. 533), and even, \"stress\" (Maddi and Khoshaba, 2005). Disruptions come in many forms and what constitutes a disruption is important in identifying resilience processes.\nDirty work as resilience labor: Dirty work has consistently been characterized by tasks that are associated with a \"physical, social, or moral\" stigma (Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999, p. 414). Dirty work does not merely describe the existence of these types of stigma, but the dirtiness of the work is \"pervasive - that is, broadly covering many aspects of the work and deeply connected to the work\" (Ashforth and Kreiner, 2014, p. 82). The pervasiveness of the dirty work is experienced by the workers and known by society as something dirty (Kreiner et al., 2006). Scholarship has investigated how individuals \"deal\" with the negative perceptions of dirty work and dirty workers. For some dirty workers, a cognitive reframing is needed to overcome the stigmatized work (Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999). Other workers, such as police officers, manage perceptions by performing different identities based upon the context of interaction (Dick, 2005). Using a communicative approach, scholars have shown how dirty workers frame their work so that they would have \"this positive framing spill over into the rest of their nonpreferred work\" (Tracy and Scott, 2006, p. 29).\nIdentification and dirty volunteer work: Past research argues that employees in dirty work jobs attempt to negate the effects of stigmatized work on one's identity. Ashforth and Kreiner (2014) demonstrated that employees engaging in dirty work alter their ideologies about their work through reframing and creating strong workplace cultures. Research suggests that there may be ways to negotiate positive identity construction in stigmatized professional work (Ashforth et al., 2007; Dick, 2005; Tracy and Scott, 2006). Dirty workers may be actively identifying with some aspects of their work and not others.\nMethod for studying identification and dirty work: To answer the research questions concerning resilience, identification, and dirty work, the present study analyzed data from volunteers who worked at an animal shelter, People Saving Pets (PSP; PSP and all subsequent proper nouns are pseudonyms), in a large city in the Southern USA. PSP relies on volunteers for approximately 50 percent of its \"staffed\" positions and has more than 800 volunteers currently on record as volunteers at the shelter. The active work environment provided an ideal setting to study communication and volunteer identification and disidentification by investigating the communication and work practices of the volunteers.\nTypes of dirty work and (dis)identification: The first set of research questions (RQ1a and RQ1b) sought to understand how dirty work might influence the (dis)identification processes of volunteer workers at PSP. The second set of research questions (RQ2a and RQ2b) focused on the relationship between the (dis)identification processes and resilience in dirty work. The analysis in this section yielded three types of volunteers who performed different types of dirty work at PSP: smudged volunteers, filthy volunteers, and devoted volunteers. These classifications emerged through open and selective coding process of identifying the roles of all the volunteers, the amount of time they spend volunteering, and the specific actions found in the observational data. The data show instances of physically disgusting occurrences (e.g. \"poo just got on my hand\") and stories of dirty experiences (e.g. \"rats fell from the ceiling\"). See Table II for a description of the classification of the three types of dirty work at PSP and the relationship between dirty work and (dis)identifications. The final column of Table II shows the ways in which volunteers in each type of dirty work utilized identification to construct resilience in dirty work and answers RQ2a and RQ2b. Before providing evidence of the relationship between dirty work and identification, it is important to show that the volunteers perceived their own work as dirty. The ability of volunteers to cope with varying levels of dirtiness may be related to their identification and resilience processes.\nDiscussion: In this study, (dis)identification enabled volunteers to construct resilience toward challenges of working in a difficult, dirty, and sometimes dangerous, work environment. Volunteers used identification, and disidentification, to persevere through the dog bites, mouthings, cleaning up feces, and the overall stigma of working with shelter animals. The findings show that the volunteers faced a variety of different types of dirty work. The various dirty work roles required different (dis)identification tactics. (Dis)identification, in this way, might be useful for volunteers or workers in challenging, dirty work.\nConclusion: The present study provides evidence that organizational members construct (dis)identifications to enact the resilience necessary for enduring dirty work. Volunteers switched between different (dis)identifications and communicatively reinforced (dis)identifications to overcome the physical and social stigma associated with their work. These findings problematize the way disruption is operationalized in the resilience literature and challenge the assumption germane to the identification literature: disidentified employees are detrimental to the organization. In fact, disidentification may be a positive coping strategy used by the savviest of workers to endure dirty work.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of identification and disidentification processes of individuals who perform dirty work. Specifically, this study seeks to understand how identification creates resilience for volunteer workers to endure dirty work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study examines the resilience of volunteers in dirty work roles by interviewing 37 volunteers at an animal shelter and observing volunteers for 72 hours. The transcripts and field notes were analyzed using a grounded theory analysis.\nFindings: Volunteers construct multiple identifications and disidentifications as part of the resilience process to engage dirty and dangerous work. Volunteers switched between different (dis)identifications and communicatively reinforced (dis)identifications to overcome the physical and social stigma associated with their work.\nOriginality/value: The present study extends research on resilience into a new context: dirty work. The findings bring into question assumptions regarding resilience and how a disruption is defined in the resilience literature. Disruptions are communicatively constructed and future studies should continue to research alternative contexts to study resilience labor.\n",
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] |
Constructing English: pre-service ELA teachers navigating an unwieldy discipline
|
[
"English language arts",
"English teaching",
"Constructions of English",
"New literacies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As many in the field of English education have noted, since its conception just over 100 years ago, the scope and breadth of the school subject English Language Arts (ELA) have resulted in what some might call many \"Englishes\". In other words, the answers to the question, \"What is the school subject English?\" are many, varied and sometimes even in conflict with one another (Luke, 2004). Scholars have evoked the plurality of the subject in a variety of ways, some declaring that it suffers from an \"identity crisis\" (Brauer and Clark, 2008, p. 294), some identifying it as \"ill-defined\" (Applebee, 1974) and others calling its disciplinary conversations \"rambunctious\" (Meyer and Sawyer, 2006). Histories of the school subject English in the USA posit a range of traditions (Applebee, 1974), purposes (Gere, 1992) and curricular frameworks (Beach et al., 2012).\nEnglish Language Arts as a discursive construction: In her own theorizing about how best to prepare beginning teachers to cope with what can seem an unwieldy discipline, Kelly (2004, p. 64) argues that teacher education programs must foster the skills necessary for teachers to recognize and negotiate what might seem a \"contradictory\" field. For Kelly, autobiographical reflection seems an ideal means by which to foster such skills, because PTs of English, having themselves lived and studied the school subject English, literally embody the multiple discourses of ELA. Like Kelly, our own work designed to help PTs navigate an unwieldy discipline is animated by our belief that the academic subject English is a discursive construction. In other words, we conceive of the discipline's plurality as a symptom of the following point that English, rather than a monolithic given, is always in the process of being discursively shaped.\nPre-service teachers mapping the paradigms of English language arts: This study investigates pre-service English teachers' engagement with an introductory unit of instruction in a year-long middle and high school ELA methods course at a large Midwestern university in the USA. This methods course took place in year four of a five-year teacher education program and was the first ELA-specific methods course our PTs had encountered in their program of study. As methods instructors, we were charged with the task of helping our PTs develop their subject-specific pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987). As such, we organized our course around three of the primary domains of the ELA: reading, writing and speaking, conceiving of language as woven throughout these domains. While exploring what it means to enact lessons and courses of study around these curricular domains of ELA, we made a deliberate effort to help our PTs unpack the complex networks of why, what, who, where and how at the heart of teaching English. As we noted in our course syllabus:\nDiscourses in the paradigms: After reading and discussing the articles and chapters previously mentioned, each of the two sections of our methods course created its own matrix. Although these matrices differed in the number and naming of the paradigms, the students identified similar discourses prevalent in the current ELA education. We begin with a description of the ways students made sense of these varied discourses in one section's matrix and then move to a discussion of how the students made use of these paradigms in subsequent course assignments.\nTracing the discourses and paradigms through assignments: Artifact analysis assignment\nBeyond the methods course: making use of the matrix in the internship year: Although the previous section illustrates the ways PTs made sense and use of the multiple, oftentimes competing discourses of ELA throughout the methods course, we close by offering and reflecting on three portraits of how engagement with the discursively shaped paradigms might be taken up by intern teachers. In offering these portraits, we do not aim to provide a study of the effects of the paradigm work that students engaged in during their methods class, and we do not seek to offer a comprehensive overview of the possible ways the paradigm work might be taken up by intern teachers; instead, we hope that by offering these portraits we can effectively gesture toward the possibilities and challenges engendered by explicit talk about the paradigms of ELA.\nConclusion: Looking across the discursively constructed paradigms of our PTs' matrix furthers the claims of scholars who have noted the discipline's multiple and competing answers to the question, \"What is English?\" With its dedication to what may seem like antithetical purposes such as sustain multiple cultures and promote a shared cultural heritage, ELA is a manifestation of unresolved possibilities and contradictions that might seem unwieldy to the beginning teacher. In order that beginning teachers not be stymied as they stand in the crosscurrents of multiple discourses and that they not lose sight of ELA's plurality of possibility amidst the discourses of standardization, teacher educators, it seems, must help them simultaneously navigate and embrace the messiness.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a pedagogical innovation - a matrix construction exercise - intended to help pre-service teachers (PTs) navigate the multiple and oftentimes competing discourses that shape the school subject English Language Arts (ELA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: To explore the various ways the PTs drew on the discursively constructed paradigms of ELA throughout their teacher preparation program, researchers (themselves teacher educators) conducted an intertextual analysis (Prior, 1995) of PTs' classroom texts and interview transcripts.\nFindings: The intertextual analysis suggested that PTs possessed knowledge of and investment in a range of discourses, which they used to anchor their own pedagogical and curricular decision-making and to anticipate the leanings and ideologies of other stakeholders in ELA. Although the organizational schema of the matrix proved helpful from an orientation standpoint, it also may have disguised the productive tensions between particular discourses for some PTs.\nOriginality/value: Although scholars have long noted the plurality of the school subject English and some studies on innovations in teacher education allude to the difficulties that teachers encounter as they navigate the multiple purposes of ELA, there is little scholarship that considers how pre-service and beginning teachers might best navigate that incoherence and unwieldiness. This study, which contextualizes and explores a pedagogical innovation in an English methods class designed to help PTs navigate the many \"Englishes\", attempts to fill this gap. The findings suggest that teacher preparation in ELA would do well to conceive of pedagogical innovations in teacher education that allow teachers to grapple with, rather than solve, the uncertainty and unfinalizability of the discipline.\n",
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Cues on apparel web sites that trigger impulse purchases
|
[
"Buying behaviour",
"Marketing",
"Internet",
"Shopping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research has found an upward trend in impulse buying in general, and impulse buying is frequently foreseen among mall shoppers. Impulse purchases account for over $4 billion in annual sales in the US (Mogelonsky, 1998). Retailers have found that over 50 percent of mall shoppers purchase on impulse (Nichols et al., 2001). More than one third of all department store purchases were bought on impulse (Bellenger et al., 1978) which makes impulse purchases very important to a retailer's profits.\nReview of literature: Impulse buying\nMethodology: This study focused on apparel web sites because apparel is a common impulse purchase item and apparel also consistently ranks among the most popular product categories sold over the internet (DesMarteau, 2004). According to a study conducted by Forrester Research, online shoppers purchased $9.6 billion worth of apparel online in 2006 (Tedeshci, 2007).This study consisted of two phases. In phase 1, focus group interviews were conducted to determine what external cues currently exist on apparel web sites that lead consumers to make impulse purchases. Very little is known about external cues of web sites that trigger impulse buying from previous literature. Thus, focus groups helped generate useful information to identify potential impulse trigger cues on apparel web sites. The findings from focus group interviews were used to develop a coding guide for a content analysis in phase 2.In phase 2, a content analysis of 60 online apparel web sites was conducted to assess the amount of external impulse trigger cues available on each retailer's web site. A content analysis is the \"the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication\" (Berelson, 1952, p. 18). As a non-reactive research strategy, a content analysis reflects ideas thought to be important by the creators of the media. Therefore, a content analysis of apparel web sites will provide information about the current use of marketing strategies deemed important by online retailers to promote consumer purchases online.Sample selection\nResults: Phase 1: focus group interviews\nImplications and conclusions: This study examined the external factors of impulse buying in online retailing; externally looking at what trigger cues the online retailer can include on their web site to encourage impulse buying. Focus group interviews were first conducted that identified possible external trigger cues of impulse buying on apparel web sites. Two main categories emerged as important indicators of impulse buying online and were the promotions and ideas categories. According to online shoppers, it is these two categories of external impulse buying cues present on apparel web sites that entice people to impulsively buy. Such cues include various sales promotions, gift with purchase, free shipping, contests or sweepstakes, easy return policies, or idea cues including new styles, featured items, top picks, and gift ideas to name a few. The findings of the study suggest that online shoppers may value different types of external cues on a web site more than others. Promotional offers and purchase ideas were desired the most.The findings from the focus group interviews were then used to create an appropriate coding guide consisting of external trigger cues of impulse buying that could be found on apparel web sites. A content analysis showed that the ideas category was most commonly available on apparel web sites to encourage impulse buying followed by the sales category. Comparison of frequencies of external impulse trigger cues between the focus group interviews and the content analysis also provide useful insights for retailers. While the promotions and ideas categories were most frequently mentioned from the focus group interviews, the ideas and sales categories were most frequently observed. Online retailers perhaps have paid more attention to sales (e.g. on sale, bold sale price on product) in particular, while other types of promotions (e.g. free shipping, return purchase in store) may be more effective in encourgaing impulse purchases. Specificically, while free shipping has been frequently noted by focus group participants as an impulse trigger cue when shopping online, it was not frequenlty implemented by online retailers analyzed for the study. According to the Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index survey conducted by ForeSee Results in 2008, free shipping was found to be a major selling point for e-tailers. Three out of five online customers reported that their choice of whether to shop at one store or another was influenced by whether or not the retailer offered free shipping (Internet Retailer, 2009). The finding of the study and the industry's anecdotal evidence together suggest that online retailers may want to consider free shipping as a promotional tool to increase impulse sales. The decision to implement free shipping is expected to be a complicated one considering financial ramifications, but seems worthwhile exploring.The findings from this study suggest that the amount of external trigger cues of impulse buying may be a factor that affects a retailer's success in encouraging online impulse purchases, thus driving sales. Results of the study showed a positive relationship between retailers' web sales and the amount of external cues present on their web sites. As the amount of external impulse trigger cues increased on a retailer's web site, so too did their financial sales. The top 30 apparel web sites also provided significantly more external impulse trigger cues than the bottom 30 web sites. Because of the positive relationship between retailers' profits and the amount of cues available on a web site, it is reasonable to suggest that the web sites' marketing tactics contributed to their success, among other factors. Several online retailers have indeed experienced increased impulse sales by implementing such marketing tactics on their web sites (Internet Retailer, 2003). Not as successful online retailers therefore should consider offering more external impulse trigger cues (e.g. sales, promotions, purchase ideas, and suggested items) on their web sites to increase potential impulse purchases, thus increasing online sales.Another interesting finding from the study is that the ideas category showed the biggest differences than other external trigger cues between the top and bottom 30 companies analyzed. The top 30 online apparel retailers consistently provided more external trigger cues related to the ideas such as shop outfit, new styles/fashions, featured items, gift ideas, and price point items (items under $30). This finding suggests that online retailers need to provide external cues offering shopping ideas for their customers. Given low financial commitment to provide the ideas cues on a web site, this will be a fairly easy one for online retailers to adopt.A growing trend for brick and mortar stores is offering the option of returning an online purchase to a physical store. Returning online merchandise has been a major concern for customers and a realized factor for retailers in whether a customer is \"wooed\" in to making an impulse purchase, according to Bratton, vice president of marketing development for Envilen, an online advertising and marketing firm (Brohan, 1999). The option of returning an online purchase in the stores creates an advantage for the online customer by providing more return options and locations. This return option can make it that much easier for an online shopper to make an impulse purchase. This is one example of how a customer can benefit from shopping with a multi-channel retailer. Because these marketing tactics are advantageous to retailers' online channel, retailers should recogonize the opportunity of synchronizing these marketing tactics in all channels. For example, Wagner (2008) pointed out that in addition to offering customer reviews on the site's product pages, retailers can also offer these customer reviews in customer email, in the retailer's catalogs, on promotional circulars and on in-store signage. Multi-channel retailers can take advantage of implementing these marketing tactics in not just their online channel, but their brick and mortar store and catalog channel.This study provided insight into what external trigger cues of impulse buying exist on apparel web sites, which research there of is lacking. More specifically, this study identified what types of external impulse trigger cues were commonly being used on apparel web sites. This study is also useful for marketers in understanding the importance of online marketing strategies used on their web sites and how these factors could affect impulsive behavior online. Online retailers can use this information to assess their own marketing strategies on web sites, and determine what external impulse trigger cues might be useful to employ on their web sites to entice more impulse buying behavior.\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: Several limitations were present for this study. The first limitation is related to the sample web sites used for the content analysis. Although Internet Retailer's top online apparel retailers provided a reliable sample based on web only sales as well as insight into what the top successful retailers were providing on their web site, this sample cannot be generalized to all apparel web sites. Thus, a further study should analyze a larger sample size of apparel web sites and other web sites selling different types of products to affirm the results of this study. Skewed gender distribution in focus group interviews is another limitation. Far more women were represented in the focus groups interviews. Thus the coding guide developed from the focus group interviews may have overlooked the potential external impulse trigger cues appealing to men and not necessarily to women. Future research should incorporate men's perception of external impulse trigger cues on apparel web sites to complement the findings of the study. Another limitation is that the study only focused on functional qualities, and not psychological attributes such as the customer's perceptions or feelings about web site attributes. This study also only focused on external marketing cues offered across different apparel web sites, while other factors may exist that affect an online retailer's success. Thus, a further study should analyze these additional factors identified by focus group participants to affect an online retailer's success, such as web site design and web service quality.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate the external cues on apparel web sites that encourage impulse buying.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Focus group interviews were first conducted to identify potential external cues on apparel web sites. The findings from the focus group interviews were then used to create an appropriate coding guide. A content analysis of 60 apparel web sites was then conducted to assess the extent to which external trigger cues of impulse buying are available on apparel web sites.\nFindings: - From the focus group interviews, four mutually exclusive thematic categories, consisting of 20 external trigger cues of impulse buying, were identified; sales, promotions, ideas, and suggestions. A content analysis of these external impulse buying cues was presented. A correlation analysis indicated a positive relationship between retailers' web sales and the amount of external cues present on their web sites.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings from the study suggest that the amount of external trigger cues of impulse buying may be a factor that affects a retailer's profitable success by encouraging online impulse purchases. Not so successful online retailers therefore should consider offering more external impulse trigger cues (e.g. sales, promotions, purchase ideas, and suggested items) on their web sites to increase potential impulse purchases.\nOriginality/value: - A coding guide developed in the study can be used by online apparel retailers to assess their marketing strategies. For consumers, the findings of the study inform consumers of factors that may encourage impulse purchases.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Socialization resources theory and newcomers' work engagement: A new pathway to newcomer socialization
|
[
"Adjustment",
"Work engagement",
"Newcomers",
"Organizational socialization",
"Socialization resources theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Organizational socialization is a critical human resource (HR) function that has implications for individuals, groups, and organizations. It is the primary means through which individuals become adjusted and assimilated into organizations, and it also has implications for the career success of individuals and the effectiveness of organizations (Ashforth, Sluss, and Harrison, 2007; Saks and Gruman, 2014).\nOrganizational socialization and newcomers' work engagement: Organizational socialization refers to the \"introductory events and activities by which individuals come to know and make sense out of their newfound work experiences\" (Katz, 1980, p. 88). It is considered to be primarily a learning process in which newcomers must learn new attitudes, behaviors, and ways of thinking (Klein and Weaver, 2000). Models of organizational socialization generally show that organizational socialization first leads to newcomer adjustment or proximal outcomes such as task mastery and social integration which then lead to traditional or distal socialization outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Saks et al., 2007). However, much less is known about how socialization influences newcomers' work engagement.\nThe uncertainty reduction pathway to newcomer socialization: The research and literature on organizational socialization has been primarily based on uncertainty reduction theory as the main pathway to newcomer socialization. This perspective was made explicit 20 years ago by Saks and Ashforth (1997) who stated:Perhaps the most common theoretical framework driving socialization research has been uncertainty reduction theory (URT). Following URT, newcomers experience high levels of uncertainty during the organizational entry process. Newcomers, like any organizational members, are motivated to reduce their uncertainty such that the work environment becomes more predictable, understandable, and ultimately controllable. Uncertainty is reduced through the information provided via various communication channels, notably through social interactions with superiors and peers. As uncertainty decreases, newcomers become more adept at performing their tasks, more satisfied with their job, and more likely to remain in their organization. Socialization programs influence newcomers' adjustment in this regard by reducing their high levels of uncertainty and anxiety [...]. URT has been the tacit basis for research on socialization tactics, training, and information seeking(p. 236).\nLimitations of the uncertainty reduction pathway for newcomer engagement: Research on the uncertainty reduction pathway has found that socialization tactics and information-seeking are associated with newcomer adjustment (e.g. role clarity, self-efficacy, fit perceptions) and socialization outcomes (e.g. job satisfaction, job performance). However, uncertainty reduction theory is limited when it comes to newcomers' work engagement. First, it is primarily aimed at lowering newcomers' uncertainty, anxiety, and stress. As such, it is focused on minimizing and reducing the job demands (e.g. role conflict, role ambiguity) that newcomers face during the organizational entry-socialization process.\nThe work engagement pathway to newcomer socialization: As indicated earlier, reducing uncertainty is considered to be the major goal of newcomers, and organizational socialization research has emphasized providing information to newcomers to minimize their job demands and reduce uncertainty. However, an alternative perspective that is more in line with the work engagement literature is to focus on providing newcomers with resources.\nSRT and newcomers' work engagement: The JD-R model suggests that adjusting to new situations and dealing with the demands they present can be facilitated by job resources and according to COR theory, people are motivated to protect and acquire resources partly because they facilitate adjustment. This suggests that there needs to be a greater emphasis on providing organizational newcomers with resources. The question then is what resources should newcomers be provided with and when should these resources be provided?\nImplications for research and practice: The use of newcomer work engagement maintenance curves and the work engagement pathway to newcomer socialization suggests many avenues for research. For starters, future research needs to begin to measure newcomers' work engagement at several times following organizational entry and during the first year of socialization. This is important for at least two reasons. First, it will indicate the level of newcomers' work engagement at various time periods during socialization as well as how and when it fluctuates and changes during the socialization process. Second, this will make it possible to determine the extent to which any of the five work engagement maintenance curves in Figure 1 are valid and to also identify other possible engagement maintenance curves. The study of newcomer engagement maintenance curves is consistent with calls to explore change and development in engagement trajectories longitudinally (Hakanen and Roodt, 2010) and for the use of experience-sampling methods to determine the extent to which engagement changes and fluctuates over time (Christian et al., 2011). Therefore, future research should measure newcomers' work engagement at several times during the socialization process, preferably at least three times (e.g. at entry, at three months, and at six months) and even four if possible (after one year).\nConclusion: Work engagement has become an important concern in the workplace today with implications for individual and organizational outcomes. However, even though newcomers to organizations are especially susceptible to changes in their work engagement during their first year of organizational entry, very little attention has been given to the development and maintenance of newcomers' work engagement. Furthermore, the socialization literature has been primarily focused on uncertainty reduction theory and socialization practices that provide newcomers with information to reduce their uncertainty and lower job demands.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although work engagement has become an important topic in management, relatively little attention has been given to newcomers' work engagement in the socialization literature. The purpose of this paper is to explain how newcomers' work engagement can fluctuate during the first year of organizational entry and the role of organizational socialization in developing and maintaining high levels of newcomers' work engagement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of the socialization literature indicates that uncertainty reduction theory has been the basis of research on socialization tactics and newcomer information-seeking both of which function by providing newcomers with information to reduce uncertainty. Socialization resources theory is used to develop a new pathway to newcomer socialization which focuses on providing newcomers with resources during the first year of organizational entry and socialization.\nFindings: The uncertainty reduction pathway to newcomer socialization is narrow and limited because it primarily focuses on minimizing and reducing the negative effects of job demands rather than on providing newcomers with resources that are necessary to facilitate work engagement and socialization.\nPractical implications: Organizations can use newcomers' work engagement maintenance curves to map and track fluctuations in newcomers' work engagement during the first year of organizational entry and they can conduct an audit of socialization resources to determine what resources are required to develop and maintain high levels of newcomers' work engagement.\nOriginality/value: This paper describes newcomer work engagement maintenance curves and explains how socialization resources can be used to develop and maintain high levels of newcomers' work engagement. A model of a new pathway to newcomer socialization is developed in which socialization resources, personal resources, and job demands influence newcomers' work engagement and socialization outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Beyond statistics: a new rhetoric for investment theory
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"Statistics",
"Predictability",
"Virtue ethics",
"Investment theory",
"Rhetoric"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Modern investment theory is founded on the portfolio theory of Harry Markowitz (1952, 1959). Markowitz constructs his theory on statistics. The metaphor that investing is statistics, modernizes investment theory. Portfolio theory aims to enable an investor to compose a statistically legitimate portfolio of individual securities, or an asset mix of, say, bonds, stocks, and real estate. Portfolio theory has practical relevance: it is constitutive for investment and risk management in the financial sector worldwide. So, investment theory is practice, and the rhetoric of the theory is the current rhetoric of the practice. Here investment theory is confined to portfolio theory: in the current paper investment and portfolio theory are used interchangeably.\n2. Investment theory and its origins in personal probability theory: Modern investment theory starts, to repeat, with the portfolio theory of Markowitz. His portfolio theory treats the behaviour of an optimizing investor. Whereas investing in one security seems a bad idea because of uncertainty, diversification between investments is beneficial while it leads to risk reduction. Diversification is synonymous with a portfolio approach of investing in a range of assets. But how would a rational investor compose an investment portfolio? First, uncertainty will have to be quantified by applying statistics, the method by which he brings investment theory to maturity:\n3. The metaphors in the current rhetoric of investment theory: My view is that the main metaphor in Markowitz's investment theory is the claim that investment management is statistics. The appliance of statistics assumes calculability and distracts the attention from uncertainty. The metaphor of statistics makes us see only through the perspective of calculability: it makes us think in terms of probability distributions, correlations, criteria for efficiency, and algorithms as the necessary elements. Markowitz's metaphor of statistics persuades that applying statistics is a sensible and sophisticated thing to do: statistics allow you to engineer your investment decisions, like an actuary manages an insurance portfolio. It seems superior to a less sophisticated quantitative or qualitative approach.\n4. The case for unpredictability: Let us contrast the case for predictability with that for unpredictability. The argument for unpredictability is grounded in the instability of the probability distribution of investment returns. The cause of instability is the unpredictable nature of the changes in the substrate which \"produces\" investment returns. Unpredictable changes happen in, for example, the structure of the economy, society, environment, investor attitudes, or in expectations about them. Of course, the historical investment returns add up to some probability distribution: but the distribution should be qualitatively judged as representative or non-representative for the future. Future stability or instability of a probability distribution is a matter of belief, which is to be justified by arguments. The argument about future instability or stability of investment returns cannot be settled by the statistical method: the argument lies outside the scope of statistics. Prediction in statistics, and in science in general, is grounded on stability, not on instability.\n5. Towards a new rhetoric: the consequences of unpredictability: My view is that deciding whether personal probabilities enable to predict, is crucial because it changes what can be legitimately expected of decision making. If statistical predictability is a valid assumption, then investment theory is to be ruled by statistics. In what follows I will couple \"personal probability\" to Knightian \"uncertainty\", and \"objective probability\" to \"risk\". It appears that Markowitz has put investment theory in the \"risk\" category, but the believers in non-predictability place the theory in the \"uncertainty\" category. What does Knightian uncertainty mean for decision making? It means that statistics are not reliable: an investor cannot claim that stocks on average will perform, say, 3 per cent more per year than bonds in the future. We could of course choose a more cautious estimate to compensate for the uncertainty. But even so, the correction could be too small: one seldom notices expected stock returns below those of bonds, otherwise no one would continue to buy stocks. The estimation of risk cannot be sure either, though one could prefer a more cautious estimate of that as well. But how can one judge what is the right amount of caution? The point of the examples is that the gap between the personal and the \"real\" probabilities cannot be bridged; if it could, then just making larger allowances for risk would be enough - and would result in predictability. Using personal beliefs in practicing investment theory gives us no clue to the probability that the probability beliefs for the investment decision are correct.\n6. A new rhetoric for investment theory: Arguably investment theory requires a new rhetoric. McCloskey's (1996), discourse analysis of economics in The Vices of Economists; The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie will be used here as a frame of reference. I will first explicate her ideas about economics as a science. As well as being a historical science, economics is a theoretical one. The value of pure economic theory is that it gains insight into crucial assumptions about economic phenomena. The mathematics used in the models merely explicates relationships between economic variables, and clarifies the working of the economic phenomena. Portfolio theory should in essence be seen as a pure economic theory, which has appealed to practice as well. The Vices of Economists is a rhetorical criticism of the discourse of economics in general. After picturing three vices of current economics - statistical significance, blackboard economics, and social engineering - it suggests a future bourgeois morality for the field; that of virtue ethics. It considers prudence, the main virtue of current economics, not as the only virtue, but as one of the necessary virtues. McCloskey (2006) elaborated her ideas about virtue ethics in The Bourgeois Virtues, Ethics for an Age of Commerce. I will only cover here social engineering because of the scope of the paper. Social engineering is the belief that economics can be used for economic policy. It is a vice because social engineering just does not work. The reason for the failure of social engineering is not new:\n7. Conclusions: Following McCloskey's discourse analysis of economics, investment decisions require qualitative judgement based on intellectual honesty, insight in its rhetoric, and bourgeois ethics. In the current paper I hope to have given a fair view of the case for unpredictability, an analysis of the current rhetoric of investment theory, and some explication of the virtues necessary for using investment theory. The conclusion of the new rhetoric for investment theory is that investing takes place under Knightian uncertainty, which makes statistics supportive rather than dominant in decision making. So, investment theory should become more a moral science and less an engineering one: it is about judgements, combining virtues with historical and theoretical insights.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current rhetoric of predictability in investment theory. After making the case for unpredictability, a new rhetoric for investment theory is proposed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: McCloskey's project of the rhetoric of economics provides the background and approach for the author's investigation. In particular the author will use the notions of metaphor, prediction, discourse analysis, and virtue ethics.\nFindings: The current rhetoric equals the original rhetoric in the seminal work of Markowitz. The current rhetoric is based on predictability and rational behaviour. The proposed new rhetoric for investment theory denies predictability. The new rhetoric aims to cope with statistics by stressing that statistics is supportive but not decisive: handling investment theory is about judgements, combining virtues with historical and theoretical insights.\nPractical implications: The investigation of the rhetoric of investment theory has practical relevance because the theory constitutes investment practice, and can put financial wealth at risk. The new rhetoric for investment theory invites practitioners and researchers to reflect on the epistemology of investment theory, and its consequences for the field.\nOriginality/value: The rhetoric of investment theory is to the author's knowledge not yet analysed in the literature. The rhetorical analysis of the current rhetoric and the proposal of a new rhetoric aim to contribute to the literature on the rhetoric of investment theory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Forecasting in inefficient commodity markets
|
[
"Electricity industry",
"Commodity markets",
"Forecasting",
"Prices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently economists have been creating new models and tools that can capture important nonlinearities in economic and financial data. There have been, for example, exciting advances in dynamical systems theory, nonlinear time-series analysis, and stochastic volatility models. One reason for the interest in nonlinear methods is what one might call the \"forecasting paradox\" - the fact that linear models produce invariably good in-sample fits, but usually fail miserably at out-of-sample prediction. One is therefore tempted to explore means by which apparent dependencies in the residuals of linear models (that are inconsistent with a linear data generator) can be exploited to produce better forecasts.Recent leading-edge research has applied various innovative methods for modeling spot wholesale electricity prices - see, for example, Serletis (2007), Serletis and Andreadis (2004), Hinich and Serletis (2006), and Serletis and Shahmoradi (2006). Moreover, Serletis and Bianchi (2007) and Uritskaya and Serletis (2008) investigate the efficiency of power markets and argue that these markets are highly inefficient. Given the inefficiency of electricity markets, in this paper we use an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH)-type model (see Engle, 1982) to capture the time-varying conditional variance of Alberta power prices and develop a forecasting model of these prices. Several recent studies have applied ARCH-type models to estimate changing volatility in stock prices and foreign exchange rates (see, for example, Aguirre and Saidi, 1998; Apergis and Miller, 2005; Sjolander, 2007), but little has been done in the context of electricity markets. This is of major importance in forecasting, since these models allow the conditional variance to depend on elements of the information set.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the data and examines the univariate time series properties of the Alberta electricity price series, using the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and the Phillips-Peron (PP) unit root testing procedures. Section 3 models the changing volatility of Alberta electricity prices, by specifying a parametric ARCH-type model for volatility and section 4 uses the model to perform static and dynamic forecasts, over different forecast horizons, and to compare the forecasting performance of the model to that of a random walk and a moving average model. The final section summarizes the paper.\n2. The data and stochastic trends: The data used in this paper consist of daily power prices for the Alberta market. The sample period is from January 1, 2001 to August 27, 2007, for a total of 58,300 observations. Prices in the Alberta centralized power market, run by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), are hourly. In fact, we use the hourly real time pool price posted by the AESO. This price is the average of 60 minute-by-minute system marginal prices that are based on the price of the highest bid that must be dispatched to meet pool demand in Alberta - see Serletis and Bianchi (2007) for more details regarding the structure of the Alberta power market.Next we test for stochastic trends in the autoregressive representation of the logged electricity price series, using two alternative unit root testing procedures, in an attempt to deal with the fact that the series may not be very informative about the existence or not of a unit root. In particular, we use the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test (see Dickey and Fuller (1981) for more details) and the nonparametric Z(ta^) test of Phillips and Perron (1988).The ADF test is conducted using the following regression equation: Equation 1 where zt is the series under consideration and l is selected large enough such that [?]t is white noise. The alternative nonparaxnetric Z(ta^) test involves estimating (1) with l=0 and then transforming the test statistic to correct for serial correlation in its asymptotic distribution. As discussed in Pantula et al. (1994), the Z(ta^) test is robust to a wide variety of serial correlation and time-dependent heteroskedasticity.The selection of the optimal lag length in the ADF test is done using the Swartz information criterion (SIC), considering values of l from 1 to 400. The p-values, reported in Table I, show that the null hypothesis of a unit root is rejected with probability p<=0.001 for both tests using both an intercept in the estimated function or an intercept and a trend. Thus, we conclude that the series is stationary, or integrated of order zero in the terminology of Engle and Granger (1987).\n3. The GARCH model specification: In conventional econometric models, stochastic variables are assumed to have a constant variance (and are called homoscedastic, as opposed to heteroscedastic). Many macroeconomic and financial variables, however, exhibit clusters of volatility and tranquillity (i.e. serial dependence in the higher conditional moments). In such circumstances, the homoscedasticity assumption is inappropriate.Having concluded that the logged Alberta electricity price series is stationary, we use the following model for purposes of forecasting electricity prices: Equation 2 In equation (2), Hjt are time of day dummy variables, Djt are day of the week dummy variables, and are month of the year dummy variables. r is the order of the autoregression, (ph, h, d, m) are unknown parameters to be estimated.The optimal lag length of the autoregression, r, was selected using the SIC and was set equal to 200 - that is, r=200 in equation (2). In fact, we used both the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the SIC to optimally determine the value of r in equation (2) - see Table II. The AIC selected 350 lags and the SIC selected 200 lags as the appropriate lag length. Since, however, the AIC tends to over-parameterize the model while the SIC tends to select the true model as the sample size increases, we employ the AR(200) specification, as selected by the SIC.Both visual inspection and the use of the Q(36) statistic for residual serial correlation suggest that the autoregressive model with 200 lags is not serially correlated. However, the Q2(36) statistic, which represents the Q-statistic for the squared residuals and is designed to pick nonlinearities and the presence of heteroscedasticity, is highly significant providing evidence for the presence of conditional heteroscedasticity in the error term. For this reason in order to capture the heteroscedasticity in the error term we estimate the autoregressive AR(200) model (2) assuming that et is IN(0,st2) with st2 following a GARCH(1,1) process as follows: Equation 3 See, for example, Bollerslev (1986) for more details.In estimating the model (2)-(3), we also explore different error densities in an attempt to improve the fit of the model. In particular, in addition to the normal distribution we use Student's-t distribution and the generalized error distribution (GED). Table III provides a summary of goodness of fit for the three distributions. It shows that the normal is the only distribution accepted by a range of goodness of fit statistics.\n4. Forecasting and model comparison: Next, we use the model (2)-(3) to produce in-sample static and dynamic forecasts of logged electricity prices at forecast horizons of one, two, and three weeks. Since we use hourly data, the one week ahead forecast involves using observations 1 to 58,132 from our sample in order to forecast the next 168 observations, for the two weeks ahead forecast we use observations 1 to 57,964 to forecast the next 336 observations, and finally for the three weeks ahead forecast we use observations 1 to 57,796 to forecast the next 504 observations in sample.To assess the quality of the static and dynamic forecasts based on model (2)-(3), we compare these forecasts to those from a random walk model: Equation 4 and also to the forecasts from a moving average model: Equation 5 using a moving average of 168, 336, and 504 observations which corresponds to one, two, and three weeks of observations.To formally compare the quality of the in-sample static and dynamic forecasts of the AR(200) GARCH(1,1) model, equations (2)-(3), and the random walk and moving average models, equations (4) and (5), we report the mean error (ME), mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean squared error (RMSE) statistics in Table IV. These statistics are calculated using the following formulas: Equation 6 Equation 7 Equation 8 where et+f=log zt+f-log zt+f*, with log zt+f being the actual value of the series at period t+f and log zt+f* the forecast for log zt+f. F is the forecast window, in our case for one, two, and three weeks ahead forecasts, F = [168, 336, 504].As can be seen in Table IV, the GARCH(1,1) static forecasts outperforms all other forecasts at all three forecast horizons - in Figures 1-3, we present these static forecasts for one, two, and three weeks ahead along with the +-2 standard deviations 95 percent confidence bands of these forecasts. Moreover, the GARCH(1,1) dynamic forecasts outperform the forecasts based on the random walk and moving average models at all three forecast windows and for all forecast error statistics, except for the simple mean error (ME) when the forecast window is one and two weeks ahead. It should be noted, however, that the simple mean error statistic is not very informative about forecasting precision as large positive and large negative errors cancel each other out, affecting the overall performance of this measure.\n5. Conclusion: This paper provides a study of hourly electricity prices using recent advances in the financial econometrics literature. The contribution of the paper is its use of models of changing volatility to properly identify the type of heteroscedasticity in the data-generation processes. This is of major importance in forecasting. Instead of using volatility measures that are based on the assumption of constant volatility, one can use these models to extract volatility estimates form the data. As Diebold and Watson (1996, p. 453) put it:Forecasting is re-emerging as an exciting and vital research area, fuelled not only by its tremendous practical importance, as always, but also by recent advances in both analytic methods and computational methods. The new methods and models, however, are very different from those of 25 years ago.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper set out to use an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH)-type model to capture the time-varying conditional variance of Alberta electricity prices. This is of major importance in forecasting, since ARCH-type models allow the conditional variance to depend on elements of the information set.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper uses the model to perform static and dynamic forecasts over different horizons and to compare its forecasting performance with a random walk and a moving average model.\nFindings: - The paper provides a study of hourly electricity prices using recent advances in the financial econometrics literature.\nOriginality/value: - The contribution of the paper is its use of models of changing volatility to properly identify the type of heteroscedasticity in the data-generation processes. This is of major importance in forecasting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Disentangling the facets of sharing: A categorization of what we know and don't know about the Sharing Economy
|
[
"Categorization",
"Sharing Economy",
"Collaborative consumption",
"Access-based consumption"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: \"The $99 billion dollar idea\" was the headline of an article on Bloomberg Businessweek in 2017. The accommodation marketplace Airbnb[1] with a valuation of $30bn and the on-demand ridesharing service Uber[2] with a valuation of $69bn (Stone, 2017) are prime examples of a development often referred to as Sharing Economy. The Sharing Economy is a rapidly growing economic-technological phenomenon (e.g. Heo, 2016; Mohlmann, 2015) that postulates access over ownership (e.g. Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012). It may have the potential to become as important as the industrial revolution in terms of the way we think about ownership (Botsman and Rogers, 2010) and shape the next stage in the evolution of economies (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014). The increasing amount of sharing services (Chasin et al., 2015) has already led to severe consequences for society and firms. For instance, the raising popularity of Airbnb in Berlin leads to housing shortage in some districts, with more accommodations being offered for short-term than for traditional renting (Lomas, 2017). Sharing has turned from a private and local behavior into a transformational movement (Sundararajan, 2016). There are manifold examples of traditional industries potentially being disrupted by Sharing Economy startups, ranging from the tourism industry through peer-to-peer accommodation platforms like Airbnb or wimdu[3] (e.g. Zervas et al., 2017) to mobility and transportation through on-demand ridesharing services like Uber or Lyft[4] (e.g. Pfeffer-Gillett, 2016).\n2. Conceptualizations of sharing practices: To derive different facets that can be used to structure different perspectives on the Sharing Economy, we reviewed prior theoretical studies in the broader topic area. In order to increase the readability of this paper, we use the term \"sharing practices\" for referring to every practice which is potentially covered by the Sharing Economy or related phenomena. As illustrated in Table I, four core dimensions can serve as structuring elements of sharing practices: involved actors, compensation schemes, participation motives and ownership transfer. Those dimensions were identified using different approaches in prior studies providing evidence of the prevalence of each individual dimension. However, they were not combined into a holistic categorization of sharing practices.\n3. Methodology: We conducted an interdisciplinary and structured literature review in order to gain an overview of existing knowledge on the Sharing Economy. We selected a structured review approach to make sure to systematically cover the variety of practices in the Sharing Economy as well as the variety of partly incompatible definitions and classifications of this phenomenon in the public and academic discourse (e.g. Belk, 2014a; Chasin and Scholta, 2015; Hamari et al., 2015; McArthur, 2015; Richardson, 2015) into account. An interdisciplinary approach seems appropriate since relatively little IS research has addressed the topic of the Sharing Economy (Andersson et al., 2013; Trang et al., 2015) whereas the topic itself is of interest to researchers from a broad number of areas including information systems, consumer research, tourism, economics, marketing, law and others.\n4. Results: This section illustrates the results of the conducted literature review. We first present an overview on general Sharing Economy research themes before highlighting insights on the different manifestations of the four core dimensions of sharing practices identified above (cp. Section 2).\n5. Discussion: In this section, we derive a categorization of sharing services by exploiting the manifestations of the dimensions of sharing practices identified in our literature review. We then exemplify the applicability of this conceptualization in two ways. First, we show how the categorization visualizes concepts of sharing practices and, simultaneously, helps to differentiate the Sharing Economy from related phenomena. Second, we apply our categorization to structure existing research and thereby enable the comparison of prior findings and the identification areas for future research.\n6. Conclusion: We conducted an interdisciplinary literature review on the Sharing Economy and related phenomena. Based on the examined literature we derive four core elements of sharing transactions and developed a categorization of sharing services. By applying our categorization, we are able to distinguish and visualize Sharing Economy practices from other closely related phenomena like collaborative consumption or access-based consumption. Furthermore, we apply our categorization to systematically structure existing research. Thereby, we are able to explain contradictory research findings and identify avenues for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a categorization of sharing practices from a structured interdisciplinary literature review on the Sharing Economy. Instead of striving for a new definition, the authors distinguish nine types of sharing practices and provide an overview of prior investigations on sharing practices across three levels of analysis and 15 research areas. The structured analysis is translated into opportunities for future research on the Sharing Economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study follows a structured literature review approach to uncover practices related to the Sharing Economy and similar phenomena. The authors analyze 210 articles from a broad number of disciplines, and develop a categorizing framework for Sharing Economy practices.\nFindings: The paper identifies nine different types of sharing practices and provides a structured way for analyzing, comparing and positioning research on the Sharing Economy and related phenomena.\nResearch limitations/implications: The categorization of sharing practices and the embedded interdisciplinary overview of studies on the Sharing Economy help to explain potentially contradictory research results and uncovers opportunities for future research in the topic area.\nOriginality/value: Given the variety of disciplines dealing with the Sharing Economy and the plenitude of definitions and related concepts, the categorization and research overview provides a consolidated view of the knowledge in the topic area and an effective tool for identifying paths for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance improvement of manufacturing supply chain using back-up supply strategy
|
[
"Performance",
"Operations management",
"Supply chain management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, the issues related to different entities of a supply chain such as supplier, manufacturer, distributor and retailer are focussed in an integrated manner rather than individual entity level for enhancing system effectiveness (Beamon, 1998). As the entities interact in a complex manner, coordination among various entities through an effective mechanism of information/product sharing is essentially required for order fulfilment (Chopra et al., 2006; Amin and Razmi, 2009). Since the real systems operate in a dynamic uncertain environment, controlling and coordinating various activities becomes difficult. The uncertainties existing along the supply chain due to demand and production and delivery generally adversely affect the performance of suppliers, reliability of manufacturing system, transportation process and customer order fulfilment process (Petrovic et al., 1998\n2. Literature review: Simulation modelling approaches have been found to be convenient tool for analysing the behaviour of supply chain under uncertain environment. It has been extensively used to focus on inventory decisions and policy formulation, demand amplification, and supply chain design. System dynamics, initially termed as Industrial Dynamics, is a computer-aided approach for analysing and solving complex problem with a focus on policy analysis and design (Forrester, 1961; Sterman, 2000). De Souza et al. (2000) have modified the standard beer distribution game to examine the supply chain dynamics under different causes such as shortage, capacity constraint, information delay, coordination, and material delay, demand signalling and ordering batching. Owens and Levary (2002) have analysed the benefits of implementation electronic data interchange (EDI) in a US food processing company through system dynamics approach. Ge et al. (2004) have employed system dynamics approach to analyse the dynamic nature of supermarket supply chain in UK under the influence of factors like information delay, demand forecasting and information sharing in a multi-echelon system. Shukla and Naim (2009) have investigated the impact of capacity constraint on a four stage supply chain using beer distribution game. Hwarng and Xie (2008) have studied the degree of system chaos observed under the influence of dynamic factors such as demand pattern, ordering policy, lead time and information sharing through beer distribution game. Helo (2000) has tested the agility of supply chain in terms of demand magnification, capacity surge and trade-off between capacity utilization and lead time. Georgiadis et al. (2005) have proposed a system dynamics based approach for analysing a multi-echelon food chain. The impact of backup strategy in case of supply disruption for a two level supply chain is studied by Huang et al. (2012). To quantify and reduce the bullwhip effect in a multi-product, multi-stage supply chain, an integrated approach of system dynamics modelling and an adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system has been proposed by Wangphanich et al. (2010). Hussain and Drake (2011) have examined the influence of order batching on bullwhip effect for a multi-echelon supply chain. Campuzano et al. (2010) have used system dynamics modelling approach for a two stage supply chain with single item, multi-period supply and the demand and order are represented with fuzzy possibility theory for the production planning decision purpose. Kumar and Nigmatullin (2011) have modelled a food supply chain for a non-perishable product to study the behaviour under demand and lead time variability. Lee and Chung (2012) have analysed the effectiveness of inventory policies for deteriorating items using system dynamics approach.\n3. Model description: In MTS manufacturing system, a finished product stock is maintained in anticipation to meet the fluctuations in customer requirements. The schematic block diagram of a serial manufacturing supply chain confined to a single product is depicted in Figure 1. For the analysis purpose, a gear manufacturing process has been considered in this work. Lots of gears are manufactured through hobbing process. The production system consists of two processes - hobbing and finishing. Two machines are involved in production process having equal and limited capacity. The production system is a continuous process (24x7 hr). Three types of inventories such as RM (blanks), WIP and finished goods inventory are found in the production process. The demand for gears is probabilistic in nature and satisfied from finished goods inventory. The RM is supplied from a single external supplier. The RM inventory is replenished through reorder-point, order-up-to-level inventory control policy i.e. (s, S) inventory control policy. The replenishment quantity Q\n4. Results and discussions: To analyse the performance of MTS manufacturing supply chain under the influence of uncertainty different cases are considered here.\n5. Conclusions: A simulation modelling framework using system dynamics approach is proposed to examine the performance of the MTS manufacturing system under the influence of different uncertainties such as processing time, machine failure, supplier's acquisition rate, demand and RM supply lead time. The performance of the manufacturing system is analysed through estimating various performance measures such as WIP inventory, RM shortage and backlog. The effect of each kind of uncertainty on performance measures has been studied. From the analysis, it is found that increase in demand uncertainty affects the performance of measures like finished goods inventory, WIP level and RM inventory. Uncertainty in RM supply lead time leads to stock-out at manufacturer's end and all interrelated measures like RM input, production rate and finished goods inventory are affected. This ultimately results in increase of backlog. Processing time variability, one of the other issues, causes adverse effect on WIP level and the finished goods inventory and ultimately on service level. Due to random occurrence of machine failure, uncertain amount of time is required to repair the machine. Machine failures cause adverse effect on WIP and finished goods inventory. It has been found from the study that uncertainty in supplier's RM acquisition rate has strong impact on the performance measures because uncertainty at higher level propagates to lower end. Variations in acquisition rate of the supplier causes stock-out at supplier's RM inventory and manufacturer's RM inventory gets reduced. As the RM input to production process gets affected, there is a decrease in the WIP level and production rate. Decrease in production rate causes depletion in finished goods inventory leading to decrease in service level. In this way, the adverse effect of uncertainty at single entity propagates to other interrelated entities existing within the manufacturing supply chain. Uncertainty in demand, processing time, repair time and supply lead time are difficult to control but effective management and engineering practices can reduce the variations. However, supplier capacity is a convenient controllable parameter to improve the performance of MTS manufacturing system under uncertain situation. From the study, it is found that uncertainty in supplier's capacity causes high degradation in supplier's service level ultimately reflecting on degradation of service level at customer's. However, it has been demonstrated that service level at customer's end can be improved through a strategic backup plan for RM supply. The study proposes a system dynamic approach which can be modified by the managers to generate if-then scenarios to get insight into the operational behaviour of supply chains. Many policies and strategies can be tested to improve the service level at customer's end. However, a simple two machine serial manufacturing system dealing with only one kind of product is simulated in this work. The work can be extended to deal with a complex manufacturing system with multiple machines and dealing with variety of products. The model can be further improved by incorporating products requiring more than one RM and seeking multiple sourcing options.\nGlossary: SAR Supplier's acquisition rate\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a simulation modelling framework to examine the behaviour of a serial make-to-stock (MTS) manufacturing system under the influence of various uncertainties. Further, the study analyses effect of propagation uncertainties from lower to upper stream of supply chain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: System dynamics modelling approach has been adopted for modelling and analysing the behaviour of a serial MTS manufacturing system under the influence of different uncertainties such as demand, supplier acquisition rate, raw material (RM) supply lead time, processing time and delay due to machine failure. The backup supply strategy has been proposed to mitigate the adverse effect of the RM supply uncertainty.\nFindings: The effect of variations of various factors on the performance of a MTS manufacturing supply chain in measured through various performance measures like work-in-progress (WIP) inventory, backlog and RM shortage at both manufacturer's and supplier's end. The benefit of adopting backup supply strategy under RM supply uncertainty is demonstrated.\nResearch limitations/implications: This work is limited to analysis of a serial MTS manufacturing system dealing with a single product having two machines only. The study can be easily extended to a more complex system with multiple machines, lines and products.\nPractical implications: A simple simulation framework has been proposed to analyse the effect of various uncertainties on the performance of a MTS manufacturing system. The managers can simulate complex systems using simulation approaches to generate if-then scenarios to gain insight into practical problems and formulate strategies to mitigate adverse effect of uncertainties at various level of supply chain.\nOriginality/value: The study analyses behaviour of MTS manufacturing system under the effect of various uncertainties operating simultaneously in the system. A backup supplier strategy is proposed to improve the service level at the customer's end through improving service level at the supplier's end. Similarly, effective strategies can be tested with the proposed simple model to reduce the effect of uncertainty at different levels of the supply chain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Supply chain innovations for additive manufacturing
|
[
"Radical innovation",
"Additive manufacturing",
"Manufacturing technology",
"Supply chain innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Additive manufacturing (AM) implies the use of digital product designs and a process of joining and adding layers of material (ASTM Standard, 2012) to produce goods. It can challenge traditional removal and molding-centric manufacturing and either revolutionize entire processes (D'Aveni, 2015; Weller et al., 2015) or complement traditional manufacturing (Holmstrom et al., 2016; Rylands et al., 2016; Sasson and Johnson, 2016). Earlier conceptual studies showed that AM has great potential to enhance operations. For example, with AM, almost any shape can be manufactured without tooling, which allows parts to be made independently at no extra cost. This can potentially simplify supply chains, shorten lead times and reduce inventories, consequently enhancing flexibility and improving customer satisfaction (e.g. Holmstrom et al., 2010; Weller et al., 2015). The majority of previous research has focused on AM in single large early adopter firms in consumer goods industries, whereas less is known about the possibilities of AM more broadly in supply chains in business-to-business industries and the involvement of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).\nLiterature review: Additive manufacturing as an innovation in manufacturing firms\nResearch methods: Research design\nFindings: Overview of contextual changes in AM supply chains\nDiscussion: This paper inspected AM in industrial goods manufacturing and its inter-organizational supply chains holistically, and supply chain innovations when firms are implementing AM into their processes. This innovation process should not be seen as only a linear process where one aspect of AM has a direct effect on the supply chain, creating opportunities for supply chain innovations. Innovation can also happen the other way around, where supply chain innovations have an effect on the adoption, implementation or utilization of AM.\nConclusion: Contributions\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: Additive manufacturing (AM) involves the renewal of production systems and also has implications for firms' supply chains. Innovations related to AM supply chains are, so far, insufficiently understood, but their success will require firms' awareness of their systemic nature and their firm-specific implications. The purpose of this paper is to explore the supply chain innovations dealing with AM in business-to-business supply chains.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An exploratory qualitative research design is used. Interviews were conducted in 20 firms, workshops were organized to map AM-related processes and activities, and supply chain innovations were analyzed.\nFindings: This study reveals practical changes in supply chains and requirements for AM-related supply chain innovations. While earlier research has centered on technology or firm-specific AM implementations, this study shows that fully leveraging AM will require innovations at the level of the supply chain, including innovations in business processes, technology and structure, as well as supportive changes in the business environment. These innovations occur in different parts of the AM supply chain and are emphasized differently within different firm types.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research was conducted in one country in the context of the machine building and process industry with a limited data set, which limits the generalizability of the results. The results offer an analytical framework and identify new research avenues for exploring the innovations in partial or complete AM supply chains.\nPractical implications: The results offer a framework to assess the current state and future needs in AM-related supply chain innovations. Practical ideas are proposed to enhance AM adoption throughout firms' supply chains. These results are important to managers because they can help them position their firms and guide the activities and collaborations with other firms in the AM supply chain.\nOriginality/value: This study draws attention to the supply chain innovations required when firms adopt AM in their processes. The generic supply chain innovation framework is enhanced by adding the business context as a necessary component. Implementation of AM is shown to depend on the context both at the level of the supply chain and the firm's unique role in the supply chain. The holistic view taken reveals that successful AM technology adoption requires broad involvement from different firms across the supply chain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Using member checking in interpretive research practice: A hermeneutic analysis of informants' interpretation of their organizational realities
|
[
"Hermeneutics",
"Usability",
"Organizational culture",
"Interpretivist research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over time qualitative research has legitimized its position in information systems (IS) research. Qualitative research has been characterized as:[...] a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural setting, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them(Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, p. 3).\nRelated research: member checking in light of hermeneutics: Member checking is a widely used technique in qualitative research. Informants are invited to check or approve the researchers' data or interpretations (i.e. whether they are correct or meaningful from the viewpoint of the informants). Overall, member checking as a technique aims to increase the trustworthiness and, more specifically, the credibility of research (e.g. Lincoln and Guba, 1985), and it can also be used to give informants increased opportunities to participate in the research process (e.g. Doyle, 2007) and to increase the fidelity of the research (Moss, 2004), which refers to the faithfulness and integrity of the researcher in maintaining the informant's worth and integrity. Through member checking, researchers can ensure that their reconstructions are recognizable to the informants as adequate representations of their realities (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Researchers can examine the intentions of the informants, errors can be corrected, additional information can be provided, respondents' reactions can be captured on record, and data analysis can be initiated in the form of summarizing (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). How raw data are provided to informants varies, ranging from interview transcripts to researchers' interpretations and research reports. The informants can perform the member checking as individuals or in a group (e.g. during a focus group session). Member checking can also be done iteratively during several cycles. (Carlson, 2010; Creswell and Miller, 2000; Doyle, 2007; Lincoln and Guba, 1985.) In comprehensive member checking, as outlined by Lincoln and Guba (1985), the reviewers are expected to provide feedback about the overall credibility of the data as well as to point out major concerns and factual or interpretative errors. The process must conclude in either a complete consensus, a split consensus, or a majority consensus with a minority dissent (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).\nResearch design: Two software development companies were involved in this study. Case A is a large global corporation, while case B is a small- to medium-sized enterprise. In both cases, personnel from product development and customer support were involved, including software developers, managers, and usability specialists. Both companies have placed an emphasis on usability work for years, and several usability specialists are on staff of each company. Access to the cases was gained through a research project the companies were already involved in to improve the position of usability work in their organizations. The author of this paper was an \"outside observer\" rather than an \"involved researcher\" (Walsham, 1995) in the project (i.e. she did not have \"a direct personal stake\" in its outcomes and interpretations; Walsham, 1995, p. 77). The research project included other researchers who adopted a more interventionist approach for their research. The current data came from a qualitative inquiry into the position of usability work in the cultural contexts of the case organizations.\nEmpirical findings: The culture members, after encountering the researcher-crafted texts, individually or collaboratively reproduced the texts, individually or collaboratively challenged the texts, or individually or collaboratively cultivated the texts further. These encounters with the texts are described in more detail in the following section.\nConcluding discussion: This study was concerned with enabling more in-depth involvement of informants in the interpretive research process. Member checking was proposed as one means for inviting informants more thoroughly into the research process. This study examined this technique in-depth through a hermeneutic lens. The data originated from an inquiry into the position of usability work in the cultural context of software development organizations. The empirical study utilized member checking on several occasions within the research process and noted a lot of versatility in the ways the informants contributed to the research process and its outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In recent years, there has been a growing desire to more fully integrate informants into the overall research process. In response to this trend, the purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the usage and outcomes of the member checking technique for enabling more participatory interpretive research practices. Information systems (IS) research has utilized this technique, but it has not yet undergone a thorough analysis in this context. Additionally, interpretive IS research is in need of means and tools for engaging with informants during the data analysis and interpretation process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data for this study originated from an inquiry into the position of usability work within its cultural context, and this study has adopted a hermeneutic lens to make sense of the member checking technique, which positions informants as co-analysts and co-interpreters to make sense of both their organizational realities and researchers' interpretations of those realities.\nFindings: The analysis shows that during the research process, the informants reproduced, questioned, and cultivated the researcher-crafted texts that they were given to interpret, both individually and collaboratively. The study shows that member checking contributes to fulfilling the criteria set for interpretive IS research in a variety of ways.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study contributes to interpretive IS research method practice by offering IS researchers insights into and guidelines on the usage and potential outcomes of the member checking technique.\nOriginality/value: The examination of the member checking technique through a hermeneutic lens is a novel approach. For IS research, the study explicates the usages and outcomes of member checking in more participatory interpretive research practice. Also novel in this study is that member checking is examined as a collective endeavor.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Customer perceptions of quality - a study in the SPA industry
|
[
"Service quality",
"Grounded theory",
"Quality dimensions",
"SPA hotels",
"SPA industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and purpose: A study in the Swedish SPA industry has been carried out. This is an industry that is expanding in most parts of the world. Still, not much research has been carried out in this sector, even though it is an important industry for the well-being of many people. SPA hotels aim to promote overall well-being through different kinds of health- or wellness-related professional services. Thus, they may contribute to the general health status in society. SPA hotels constitute rather interesting combinations of health and hospitality organisations. The SPA segment is a highly significant part of the hospitality industry, but in the hospitality literature, its uniqueness is rather overlooked and there are very few benchmark studies (Koh et al., 2010). On the other hand, although quality in health organisations is widely studied, SPA hotels are largely absent also from the health literature, although SPA visits have been shown to have the possibility to improve several health conditions such as fibromyalgia syndrome (Zijlstra et al., 2005), osteoarthritis (Guillemin et al., 2001) and chronic back pain (Constant et al., 1998). Thus, quality in this sector should merit further scientific study.\nMethodology: This study adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to provide valid and representative assessments. First, focus-group interviews with guests at each of the seven hotels were conducted to explore the possible quality factors for a SPA visit.\nFindings and analysis: The results from the focus-group interviews were that the customers' perception of quality during a SPA visit can be expressed in four dimensions: physical effects, mental effects, pleasure and flexibility. Many parts of the SPA hotels offerings are included in several or all the dimensions (e.g. the treatments). The dimensions concern the different ways that these offerings contribute to the perceived quality of the customers. The meanings of the dimensions are further elaborated below:\nDiscussion and conclusion: The descriptive data identified which items are important in the quality expectations during a SPA visit. A calm atmosphere had the highest mean score of the items. This is in accordance with the findings of Mak et al. (2009) that relaxation and relief are considered to be most important factors for a SPA visit, although they studied a specific type of SPA visitors. The factors friendly staff and well-cleaned facilities in the SPA hotels were also considered crucial. This is in line with the findings of Giritlioglu et al. (2014) that well-qualified and kind employees play a major role regarding especially food service quality in SPA hotels. This finding also resembles the findings of Chen et al. (2013) in which cleanliness and safety were found to be crucial service factors, especially for older customers. The respondents also rated delicious food and possibilities for own relaxation as very important. On the other hand, some factors are not considered important for many of the customers but very important for some. Examples are most of the \"health factors\" such as gym, healthy food and variety of training classes. Further, regarding some factors the benefits need to be weighed against the costs. For instance, luxury and freedom to choose treatments during the visit is expensive for the companies to provide.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore dimensions of customer perceptions of factors important for a quality experience in the SPA industry and to assess service quality implications for these dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical study involved seven Swedish SPA hotels. The first part was qualitative, consisting of seven focus-group interviews with hotel guests. In addition, service providers' perceptions of customer quality were collected through seven quality cafes. The qualitative parts were analysed with the constant comparative technique from the grounded theory approach. Based on the findings from the interviews, a questionnaire was delivered to 400 randomly accessed women. The responses were analysed with exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis.\nFindings: The focus-group interviews showed that the customers' perception of quality could be expressed in the following dimensions: physical effects, mental effects, pleasure and flexibility. The dimensions for customer quality seen from the staff's perspective were treatments, climate and the SPA facility itself. The exploratory factor analysis defined the following underlying factors: enjoyment, treatments, practicality, fitness, cost and calm. The cluster analysis resulted in four groups of customer profiles: the more of everything group, the enjoyers, the savers and the fitness freaks.\nResearch limitations/implications: A limitation is that the study has only been carried out in one country. The main implication for research is a better understanding of quality dimensions and perceptions of service quality in the SPA industry.\nPractical implications: The study provides a comprehensive insight into the dimensions of quality for SPA visitors. Moreover, four distinct groups of customers have been identified. This knowledge should be useful for SPA managers.\nOriginality/value: Only limited amounts of research have previously been carried out in the SPA industry. The paper provides a framework depicting perceptions of quality dimensions in SPA hotels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The development history and philosophical sources of Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior
|
[
"Philosophy",
"Business administration",
"Management technique",
"History"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nHerbert Simon and the \"science of organizations\": Herbert Simon's book, Administrative Behavior, has proved both highly influential and extremely controversial since the publication of its first edition in 1947. Unusual for much of the research prominent in the history of management thought, Simon took considerable care in outlining the sources of his proposed science of organizations. Yet, a surprising fact about Administrative Behavior is that, despite being widely read and the subject of much critical commentary, no systematic analysis has been made of its philosophical underpinnings. Simon acknowledged four philosophers - William James, John Dewey, A.J. Ayer and Rudolph Carnap - as profoundly shaping the enquiry and conclusions found in Administrative Behavior. Therefore, considerable value exists in research into the nature and exact effects of the book's philosophical sources. The efforts allow a much deeper understanding of the reasons for the historical development and enormous influence of Administrative Behavior, as well as providing a context for the often bitter criticism and debate that have surrounded the book for more than 50 years.The assaults on the book have come from many directions. For instance, much active criticism appeared in the Public Administration literature and a number of lively debates (Perry, 1950; Simon, 1950, 1952, 1958; Waldo, 1952a, b; Banfield, 1957) ensued. Two issues appeared and reappeared during the period. First, many commentators took exception to Simon's ideas about the science of administrative study (see, Storing, 1962; Chisholm, 1989 for commentary). Second, many questioned the practicality, need, and even the possibility of separating \"fact\" from \"value,\" and \"policy\" from \"administration\" (Harmon, 1959). The political theorists felt that Simon was uncoupling administration from political theory and, in the process, taking the field down an \"inordinately narrow path\" (Waldo, 1952a, b, pp. 502-3). At the same time, many saw a deep conservatism in Administrative Behavior, with imprudent support for management power over weaker organizational members being a primary concern (Argyris, 1973a, b). The economists, in comparison, resisted Simon's notions of bounded rationality. The economists contended that bounded rationality and satisficing were unnecessary complications of the classical assumptions of rationality. Some went so far as to say that Simon really did not understand the classical maximisation assumption in the first place (Waring, 1991).An examination of the philosophical sources of Administrative Behavior will help put the comments into perspective. In the following pages, the relevant work of William James, John Dewey, A.J. Ayer and Rudolph Carnap will be outlined and linkages established between their thought and the form of the book. The authors will be taken up in turn, with close connections drawn between their positions and the tenets proposed by Simon. The paper then moves to a conclusion by describing the ultimate effects of the philosophical bases of Administrative Behavior, on both the book and on the debates that surrounded it. But, before the topic can turn to the philosophers, brief mention must be made of the four editions of the book and how these differed. Please note that, unless otherwise stated, all references will be made to the book's most recent edition (Simon, 1997).\nThe four editions of Administrative Behavior: Understanding the developmental history of Administrative Behavior also offers insight into both the contentions made in the volume and the critical commentary associated with it. Four editions of Administrative Behavior have appeared, in 1947, 1957, 1976, and 1997. The four editions do not differ by a single word over their original 11 chapters and in the short appendix, \"What is an administrative science?\" (Simon, 1997, p. viii). However, the third and fourth editions are marked by prominent augmentations. Five additional chapters were added to the end of the third edition. The chapters are essentially reprints of what were, at the time, recent articles, each of which: \"either elucidates an issue treated more briefly in the earlier chapters or applies the analytical scheme of those chapters to concrete organizational problems\" (Simon, 1976, pp. ix-x). Two chapters outlining information technology and some of its effects on organizational activities are of special interest, given that the relationship of technology, information and decision-making became Simon's primary research interest, especially after the mid-1950s (Waring, 1991). The fourth edition, by comparison, eliminates the five additional chapters. In their place, commentaries are appended to the original text, appearing directly after each of the 11 chapters forming the base of the book, to develop and illustrate some of its important themes and to introduce issues of more current interest and concern (Simon, 1997, p. viii).Additional chapters were not the only differences among the editions. Each version of the book also carries a different introduction. This fact has resulted in a fair amount of comment on its own. Banfield (1957) and Wilson (1973) are only two of the authors who seized upon the changes that Simon made to Administrative Behavior, seemingly \"through the back door.\" The introduction to the second edition is actually the place where \"satisficing\" and \"bounded rationality\" are inaugurated as terms. Moreover, Simon appears to shift the unit of analysis from the \"decision\" to the \"premises of decision\" without exploring, or even acknowledging, the effects of such a change. For his part, Simon (1958) responded directly to Banfield, contending that the substance of \"bounded rationality\" and \"satisficing\" were always present in the body of text. As well, Simon claims that the \"premises of decision-making\" is consistently the basic unit of analysis. The author states that \"[i]n a casual search, I found 42 occurrences of the term 'premises' in the text, together with many synonyms, like 'elements'\" (Simon, 1958, p. 62).The results are far from satisfying, however. Later editions bear the curious aspect of an index that points to terms not specifically utilised in the body of the text, but whose meanings are largely present. A portion of the confusion and controversy surrounding concepts like \"satisficing\" and \"bounded rationality\" must be attributed to the author's reluctance to clarify the body of the text at the same time he makes adjustments through his introductions.The reluctance to alter the main text comes to a head in the fourth edition. On its face, the final edition seems to respond to the critics' concerns more fully, through the use of the chapter-by-chapter commentaries. However, the end product is disjointed at times, and even contradictory, again provoking questions as to why direct editorial changes were not made to the original text. The issue is especially prominent in Simon's commentary on Chapter III, titled \"Fact and value in decision-making,\" a portion of the book that makes primary use of the tenets of a school of philosophy called \"logical positivism\" (Simon, 1997, p. 68):My reference in the second paragraph of Chapter III to logical positivism as providing the philosophical foundation for a treatment of \"is\" and \"ought\" has proved to be a red herring that has confused some commentators. Logical positivism is today widely thought to be a discredited philosophical position, and its name is now more often applied as a disparaging epithet than as a term of description. I have no desire to defend logical positivism, but would simply observe that the chapter's entire argument goes forward just as well if we replace \"logical positivism\" by \"empiricism,\" or if we simply refrain from labelling the argument as belonging to any particular philosophical school.The statement above is simply impossible to reconcile with the original manuscript. In one brief passage, Simon undercuts the careful referencing that marks the original text of the book. Indeed, at the same time, distance is trying to be established between some of the key sources and Simon's own statements. The contradictions that are introduced into the text undermine its narrative power and severely reduce its cogency as a study of organizations that reflects empirical research within a deliberately developed epistemological framework.\nThe philosophers: And, despite Simon's previous statement, logical positivism is clearly a central guiding force for the book. The author makes a number of references in Administrative Behavior to the seminal works themselves. The first footnote in Chapter III of Administrative Behavior declares the importance of logical positivism as the \"starting point\" for building Simon's (1997, p. 55) theory of decisions. This fact is incontrovertible. Moreover, in his memoirs, Simon (1991, p. 75) also plainly describes the enormous effect the philosophy played during the formative years of his career:More or less weekly, those friends who were especially interested in philosophy of science gathered in our apartment ... Logical positivism was the dominant, perhaps exclusive, religion in this group, and we took turns talking about our special interests or projects.The importance of the philosophy to Simon's arguments is not the subject of his disputes with others, nor does it appear to be a contentious issue among those commenting on Simon's work. Disagreements arose over the effects of logical positivism, not over its presence in the book. A clear need exists to examine the philosophy providing the platform for Administrative Behavior.As previously stated, four philosophers are especially formative in Simon's science of behavior in organizations. Two of them, William James and John Dewey, are not logical positivists but can be viewed, by Simon's use of their work, as important precursors to the movement. Simon melds declarations on the nature of human cognition and habit, in the case of James, and on the transformation of individual cognition in organizational settings, by Dewey, with the logical positivists.Rudolph Carnap and A.J. Ayer are the two logical positivists examined in this discussion. Undoubtedly, Simon read and was influenced by other logical positivists, but Carnap and Ayer are cited in Administrative Behavior. As well, Simon (1991), in his autobiography, singles out the two authors by name when describing the crucial philosophical reading undertaken in his early career. The salient precepts of the four philosophers will now be briefly presented.William James\nThe logical positivists - A.J. Ayer: The logical positivists were used to extend the influence of James and Dewey, while adding still other important dimensions to Administrative Behavior. Simon (1997, p. 55) makes direct reference to A.J. Ayer's book Language, Truth and Logic in a footnote, mentioning it as one of the important texts informing his book. Ayer's (1959) effort was especially important as the first presentation in English of the Viennese School of Logical Positivists, whose membership included Rudolph Carnap and Otto Neurath. Language, Truth and Logic provides a solid, accessible introduction to the philosophy and can be easily identified as a worthy source for a research work like Simon's that was aimed at building on positivist theory.Four main precepts of logical positivism contribute to Simon's book. First, logical positivism is a philosophy intended to find a meaning in verifiable fact and to express it through clear communication. Logical positivism is as much about the analysis of language as it is about the world apprehensible by the senses. For logical positivists, meaning resides only in statements that are analytic or are empirically verifiable. The two terms are defined as follows: \"a proposition is analytic when its validity depends solely on the definitions of the symbols it contains, and synthetic when its validity is determined by the facts of experience\" (Ayer, 1959, p. 78). At first blush, analytic statements seem unconnected to the sensible world. But, analytic statements avoid being nonsense when they are directed to clarifying issues of syntax, and thus, meaning.Second, logical positivism is concerned with joining together (or rejoining) the world of mathematics and the empirical sciences. Logical positivists claim that the separation of mathematics and the sciences by philosophers is traceable to faulty logic. The primary problem was the failure to note carefully the levels of abstraction implied in the theory of numbers. For example, the number \"3\" may refer to a trio of oranges, an individual class of numbers, or the class of all threesomes, with great differences apparent in the different uses of the symbol (Russell, 1945, p. 830).Third, similar to Dewey's contentions, the function of philosophy for logical positivists is inseparable from scientific inquiry (Ayer, 1959) and the analysis of its products. These products, of course, are statements made in the form of sentences. Logical positivists introduced the principle of verification as the criterion by which sentences can be judged literally meaningful. Ayer (1952, p. 8) is also careful to note the differences between statements (\"any form of words that is grammatically significant\") and propositions (\"sentences which are literally meaningful\"). Logical positivists claim that the analysis of a grammatically significant group of words, using the techniques of logic, allow the proper placement of the group into the category of nonsense or statement, ultimately allowing knowledge to be derived (Russell, 1945).Finally, the error identified by logical positivists that separated the empirical sciences from philosophy centuries ago also opened enquiry to metaphysics. This, for Logical Positivists, is a dead end for the pursuit of knowledge. Logical positivists claim that metaphysics, the branch of philosophy dealing with fundamental truths and the ideal state of knowledge, is based wholly on unverifiable statements. Philosophy cannot offer insight into transcendent reality because of the verifiably limited nature of humanity's sense-gathering means and its intellectual capabilities. Metaphysics ignores the limits of human understanding, and in do doing also contravenes the rules that underlie the significant use of language (Ayer, 1959, p. 34).\nThe logical positivists - Rudolph Carnap: The contribution of Rudolph Carnap to Administrative Behavior concerns mainly the importance of studying syntax when deriving meaning (Russell, 1945). With Carnap (1959a, b, c), the most optimistic of the logical positivists, bold claims are made about the usefulness of isolating word order, avoiding errors, and thereby making the final assessment of the solubility of particular problems. For Carnap, all philosophical problems are essentially the domain of syntactical inquiry, the meaning of which resides in the logic of science.Two essential processes work hand-in-glove. The focus on syntax uncovers the nature of a statement. The logic of science, with is reliance on the verifiability of statements, then allows the analyst to make the final assessment of either solubility or insolubility (Carnap, 1964, p. 8). Thus, to Carnap, all problems are open to categorization through the use of syntactical analysis.\nLogical positivism and Administrative Behavior: The importance of language\nThe philosophers and Administrative Behavior: The critics\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To examine the impact of the philosophical sources on Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior, a central work in the management canon.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper uses a conceptual approach, tracing the influence of the major philosophers - William James, John Dewey and the logical positivists (A.J. Ayer and Rudolph Carnap) - cited in the book.\nFindings: - An understanding of the philosophical platform supporting Administrative Behavior is crucial to a more complete reading of the book and to furthering research in the area.\nPractical implications: - Future research focused either on extending Herbert Simon's work or, more generally, on advancing the study of management, will benefit from deeper consideration of the implications of the chosen philosophical platform supporting the endeavour.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides the reader a means for better understanding the contributions of a key work in management, with implications that extend to its overall study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effect of social contexts and formation of individualism-collectivism orientation on knowledge sharing intention: the case of workers in Korea
|
[
"Collectivism",
"Social context",
"Individualism",
"Knowledge sharing intention",
"Coworker support",
"Perceived relationship conflict"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Among various types of knowledge-centered activities, knowledge sharing is considered fundamental because it helps individuals acquire knowledge, be more innovative and ultimately contribute to enhancing competitiveness of the organization (Jackson et al., 2006; Wang and Noe, 2010). Being placed in the middle of the whole process of knowledge management, knowledge sharing is a key step through which individuals disseminate high-quality knowledge broadly and expeditiously, thereby improving the organization's core capabilities such as problem-solving and competitiveness (Park et al., 2013). In light of knowledge management processes, knowledge sharing contributes to the organization's performance because individuals are able to exploit knowledge by sharing and exchanging what they know. That is why it has been considered necessary to examine what factors influence knowledge sharing, a key component of knowledge management (Osterloh and Frey, 2000). Organizations have also tried to further facilitate knowledge sharing among their members and many prior studies have focused on identifying major influencers (Bock et al., 2005; Bordia et al., 2006; Chiu et al., 2006; Hau et al., 2013; Lin, 2007; Reagans and McEvily, 2003; Wasko and Faraj, 2005).\n2. Literature review and theoretical development: 2.1 Individualism-collectivism orientation\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Instrument development\n4. Data analysis and results: Response data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 and smartPLS3 to conduct path model analysis (Ringle et al., 2015). SmartPLS 3 is a PLS-based structural equation modeling package which is designed to analyze measurement and structural models. A PLS method is useful in both predicting test results and examining the relationship among variables. As PLS is applicable independent of sample sizes, normal distribution of variables or residuals (Fornell and Cha, 1994). This is why it has been often used to predict causal relationship among variables in a body of literature (Chin et al., 2003).\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Summary of findings\n6. Conclusion: This paper aims to explore the effect of social contexts on the intention to share knowledge through the formation of personal cultural orientation (i.e. individualism and collectivism). This study presents the research model and hypotheses for an empirical verification of its claims, and the empirical data were gathered by conducting a survey of workers in Korea and went through path model analysis. The findings revealed that both perceived relationship conflict and coworker support positively influence knowledge sharing intention by facilitating formation of individualism and collectivism orientation. This study contributes to explaining how knowledge sharing is encouraged by individualism-collectivism orientation by using social contexts as potential antecedents. Especially, along with perceived co-worker support, perceived relationship conflict was also found to have a positive impact on knowledge sharing intention through individualism orientation, which is a significant contribution to the field of knowledge management. Future research is needed to further develop the findings of this study by considering other cultural factors, investigating how cultural values work with knowledge sharing and strengthening its theoretical foundations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to pay attention to the role of social contexts, including perceived relationship conflict and coworker support in creating an individualistic or collectivistic disposition, and how organization members differently behave to share knowledge depending on their personal dispositions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research model was set and PLS-SEM was used to validate the proposed eight hypotheses. A total of 462 survey data were collected from workers in Korea to test the model.\nFindings: The findings revealed that both perceived relationship conflict and coworker support positively influence knowledge sharing intention by facilitating formation of individualism and collectivism orientation. In other words, individualism and collectivism are motivated by different factors, which applies equally to knowledge sharing.\nOriginality/value: This study makes an initial step to explain the relationship between knowledge sharing behavior and individualism-collectivism orientation by using social contexts as a potential antecedent. Especially, along with perceived co-worker support, perceived relationship conflict was also found to have a positive impact on knowledge sharing intention through individualism orientation, which is a significant contribution to the field of knowledge management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of remittances on Sudan's economic growth: does the exchange rate matter?
|
[
"Migration",
"International trade",
"Economic growth",
"Economic reform",
"F4",
"E0",
"O4"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The exploitation of oil in Sudan by the middle of the 1990s led to significant changes in the structure of the economy over time, from being predominantly reliant on agriculture for growth and exports to its current reliance on the oil sector (World Bank, 2008). According to the World Bank (2008), Sudan is one of the newest significant oil producing countries in the world and the third-largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa behind Nigeria and Angola. Consequently, Sudan's real economic growth averaged around 9 per cent during 2005-2006, putting Sudan among the fastest-growing economies in Africa (World Bank, 2008). The situation changed dramatically after 2011 and the secession of South Sudan, where the bulk of the oil fields lie, which exerted huge pressure on the economy. The economic deterioration which had already started, prior to the separation, due to the global financial crisis, further aggravated the economic situation. Official estimates of the cost of the secession of South Sudan were 75 per cent of the oil production, 50 per cent of budget revenues, more than 65 per cent of foreign exchange revenues and 80 per cent of total exports. And as a result, the annual growth rate declined from more than 5 per cent in 2010 to about 2.5 per cent in 2011, and the economic growth rate was negative in 2012. Inflation which fell to single digits during the high growth period has started to climb at unprecedented rates. It reached about 42 per cent in 2013 compared to 13 and 15 per cent in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Likewise, the deficit in the balance of payments continued to widen from -1.73 billion in 2010 to -6.23 billion in 2012[1]. However, the depreciation of the local currency remains one of the key consequences of the separation of the Southern part of the country. The gap between the official rate and the parallel exchange rate has widened by almost 100 per cent (International Monetary Fund, 2013). This is because the economy suffers from sharp shortages in foreign reserves that have made the parallel exchange rate market the main provider of foreign exchange, and as a result, the country has witnessed a severe increase in price levels.\n2. Theoretical framework and literature review: It is well recognised that remittances have an effect on both welfare and growth rate effects. They directly alleviate poverty levels by reducing income inequality, increasing the recipient family's income and living standards, (Taylor, 1999; Adams and Page, 2005; Siddiqui and Kemal, 2006; Insights, 2006; Gupta et al., 2009). In addition, remittances have substantial indirect and direct macroeconomic effects. For instance, since the negative association between the growth of output and its volatility is well confirmed (Ramey and Ramey, 1995; Hnatkovska and Loayza, 2003), this new evidence shows that remittances, by reducing such volatility, indirectly increase the growth rate (International Monetary Fund, 2005; World Bank, 2006; Chami et al., 2008). Likewise, there is evidence that an improvement in the financial sector increases the growth rate and remittances indirectly increase the growth rate by accelerating the development of the financial sector (Rao and Cooray, 2008; Ang, 2008 Mundaca, 2009; Fayissa and Nsiah, 2010; Bettin et al., 2012; Nyamongoa et al., 2012; Ramirez, 2013). A third indirect growth effect of remittances, which is the focus of this paper, is through its effect on the real exchange rate. Remittances may have led to what is called the \"Dutch disease\" via the appreciation of the exchange rate in countries with large remittances, which, in turn, has a negative effect on the growth rate (Amuedo-Dorantes and Pozo, 2004; Lopez et al., 2007; Lartey et al., 2008). In addition, human capital formation and the investment ratio are the other two indirect effects of remittances on growth that, so far, have received inadequate attention (Chimhowu et al., 2005; Gupta et al., 2009; Lartey, 2013). Based on the fact that remittances are similar to foreign direct investment and private capital inflows in their effects on growth, some scholars estimate their direct growth effects by regressing the growth rate on remittances and a set of control variables. However, recently Barajas et al. (2009) found that these direct growth effects are insignificant or even negative. They suggested that other policies can be used to increase and enhance the long-run growth rate instead of depending on increasing the receipts of remittances alone[2]. In this respect, Bhaskara Rao and Mainul Hassan (2011) recommended further studies based on different data sets, alternative specifications and estimation methods to examine if remittances have any substantial growth effects. As we mentioned previously, our general objective is to examine the impact of remittances on growth. Nonetheless, our specific objective is to examine the role of the exchange rate in this relationship. This is because the exchange rate could facilitate or undermine economic growth directly, to the extent that it curtails or precipitates the Dutch disease's effects of remittances respectively, through their impact on resource reallocation, which, in turn, has implications for economic growth.\n3. Methodology and data: 3.1 Model specifications\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 The unit root test\n5. Conclusion: Since the secession of South Sudan in 2011, the Sudanese economy started facing several problems as reflected in various macroeconomic indicators. However, the sharp decline in the foreign reserves remains one of the key consequences. The lack of an insufficient amount of foreign reserves, that was previously achieved through oil exports, led to a huge gap equal to 150 per cent between the official rate and the parallel exchange rate in the market of the exchange rate. Theoretically and because of the interrelationship between the macroeconomic indicators, any change in the exchange rate will affect other indicators including the growth rate in GDP. Consequently, the focus of policymakers in the country shifted to cover the gap in the exchange rate market and bring stability to the currency. More specifically, the focus was shifted to the remittances of expatriates and several policies have been implemented to encourage expatriates to send their money through official channels. However, empirical evidence suggests that the impact of remittances on growth is mixed. Our concern in this study is to examine one of the possible negative impacts of remittances on growth through the appreciation of the currency which is generally known as the Dutch disease. Therefore, in this study, we seek to examine empirically, first, the impact of remittances on growth and second, whether the Dutch disease exists in the context of Sudan.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the presence of the Dutch disease hypothesis through examining the remittance-growth nexus using annual data for Sudan covering the period 1977-2015. The paper seeks to answer the following critical questions: what is the impact of remittance on Sudanese economy? How exchange rate influences the impact of remittance on growth? To what extent the impact of remittance on growth differs between the short and long run.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) technique because of its several advantages.\nFindings: The ARDL results show evidence against the existence of such a hypothesis. More specifically, the results show that over time, due to the structured nature of the economy, remittances may affect economic growth negatively through several mechanisms including the depreciation rather than the appreciation of the exchange rate.\nOriginality/value: After 2011 and the secession of South Sudan, Sudan lost more than 80 per cent of foreign exchange revenues which reflected in the sharp gap between the official rate and the parallel exchange rate equal to 150 per cent. To lessening this gap, the attention was given to expatriates to encourage them to transfer their remittances through official channels. Since remittance and exchange rate mechanism may affect growth positively or negatively, no study addressed this possibility. This is the first empirical study in this matter that considers both the temporary and the permanent impacts.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A revisit to stock market contagion and portfolio hedging strategies: BRIC equity markets and financial crisis
|
[
"BRIC",
"US",
"Contagion",
"Portfolio management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With globalization and liberalization, countries have become more sensitive toward cross country market uncertainties. This is quite apparent from the behavior of the equity markets during the global financial crisis period. The crisis that started in the housing sector of the US economy spilled over to the other financial sectors late summer 2008, thereby having an impact on the other economies as well. The emerging markets were not an exception to this financial contagion. Over a period, the international portfolio managers have started considering latter markets as a pivotal part of their portfolio due to the availability of diverse opportunities and favorable macroeconomic environment prevailing in the emerging markets, such as the BRIC nations. However, with the increase in financial integration among the BRIC economies (BRICS bank) and with the developed markets, the portfolio managers are required to comprehend the co-movement among these diverse economies while taking portfolio allocation decisions. The present study is an attempt to re-capture the stock market contagion effect from the US to the BRIC[1] equity markets during the recent global financial crisis by using dynamic conditional correlation-asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic model [DCC-AGARCH (1,1) model] in a multivariate framework and further by taking vector autoregressive model as the \"Mean\" equation model. A heat map relating to the co-movement between the US and the BRIC equity markets during the period 2007-2009 has also been created. Reading in these terms, the time-varying covariances and variances derived from the DCC model can be used to construct the optimal two asset portfolios. The stock market dynamics (both short-term as well as long-term) have critical implications for the asset valuations, portfolio allocation, diversification, hedging and risk control (Syriopoulos et al., 2015). So portfolio managers are required to adjust their portfolios while considering the contagion impact of a crisis event as well.\n2. Literature review: As per the adage \"economy derives the market\", the equity market prices reflect adverse events surmounting in an economy. So analysis of the cross country equity markets and their interaction during an adverse event becomes an imperative task for the portfolio managers. A significant increase in equity market returns correlation during a crisis period relative to a tranquil period is generally referred as contagion (otherwise interdependence) - the spread of financial shocks (crisis) from one country to another (King and Wadhwani, 1990; Forbes and Rigobon, 2002) in a restrictive sense. Kaminsky et al. (2003) highlighted trade linkages, financial linkages and the herding behavior as the major drivers of the contagion effect. The term contagion is under scanner, but the literature has identified three major and possible contagion mechanisms (Kenourgios and Padhi, 2012):\n3. Empirical framework: In practice, the global portfolio investors take into consideration correlation coefficients across different stock markets to construct diversified portfolios. On the methodological front, in their effort to capture the co-movement or contagion impact, researchers have used a wide variety of models, like ARCH models, dynamic conditional correlations, Markov switching model, copula approach, etc. Kotkatvuori-Ornberg et al. (2013) supported the portfolio variance constructed by the DCC approach as the best fitting model. Moreover, DCC-GARCH model accounts for dynamic conditional correlation coefficients considering heteroskedasticity in the error terms. At the same time, the DCC-GARCH model ensures implied adjustments with respect to time gaps between the markets because the conditional correlations are modelled under dynamic framework wherein lagged values are used for the purpose of computation. Taking the US market as the source of contagion, the study uses DCC-AGARCH (1,1) model in a multivariate framework to account for the co-movement between the US and BRIC markets from the period 2004 to 2014. Owing to non-convergence issues in a multivariate framework, the study has used a simpler version of the DCC model. The daily closing local values of the respective benchmark indices are taken from the Bloomberg terminal and the Yahoo finance database as per availability, ranging from 01/01/2004 to 30/11/2014, a relatively longer period to comprehend contagion or interdependence. The benchmark indices used in the study are S&P 500 (US), IBOVESPA (Brazil), RTS (Russia), NIFTY (India) and Shanghai composite index SSE (China). The daily continuously compounded returns [Rt = Log (Pt/Pt-1) x 100] are used in the analysis, without adjusting for a risk-free rate of return. Only common trading days among all the markets are considered for index returns.\n4. Results and discussion: Figure 1 is the graphical presentation of the stock market indices at price level and at returns level. All countries witnessed a downfall in their stock markets during the year 2008. A general view of the graphs depicts the contagion impact of the US subprime crisis on the other economies.\n5. Concluding remarks: The study attempts to re-capture the contagion impact of the US subprime crisis on the stock markets of the BRIC countries in a multivariate framework coupled with optimal portfolio design and hedging strategies for the period 2004 to 2014. A rich literature supports the contagion impact of the US financial crisis on the other economies; yet, the number of studies capturing the impact of a mature market like the US on a developing one are quite limited and that too in a multivariate framework. To account for the dynamics, the study uses VAR (p) DCC-AGARCH (1,1) model, heat map and Markov regime switching model at the intercept level only. The DCC model helps us in analyzing the correlation behavior when there are multiple regime shifts in response to shocks and crises (Chiang et al., 2007). The study shows that the co-movement of the US market is higher with the Brazilian and Russian markets, which are highly dependent on commodity prices (expressed in US dollar terms apparently sharing direct relationship with equity markets) than with the Chinese and Indian markets (consistent with Aloui et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2013). Going with the definition of Forbes and Rigobon (2002), the results report a contagion impact of the US crisis on the Indian and Russian stock markets only. On the other hand, there seems to be only interdependence between the US and Brazilian and the Chinese markets. Even though there was a significant increase in the co-movement between the US-Brazil markets after the emergence of the Lehman Brothers crisis, that positive co-movement was not that excessive what other BRIC economies witnessed. It may be due to strong real linkages already prevailing among the markets. However, the US and Chinese markets indicate a relatively lower level of interdependence (associationship) among themselves. A similar (comparatively even higher in case of the Chinese market) level of high co-movement was also observed between the US-Brazil and US-China markets before the Lehman Brothers crisis. During the last four months of the year 2008, the markets fell by 36, 25, 98, 41 and 23 per cent for the US, Brazil, Russia, India and China, respectively, on a compounding basis, further validating our results. Furthermore, the conditional volatility in the US market has a positive but a lesser magnitude impact on the co-movement between the US-Brazil and US-China equity markets, thereby indicating somewhat persistent level of high as well as low co-movement, respectively.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to attempt to re-capture the stock market contagion effect from the US to the BRIC equity markets during the recent global financial crisis in a multivariate framework. Apart from this, the study also identifies optimal portfolio hedging strategies to minimize the underlying portfolio risk during the period undertaken for the purpose of study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To account for the dynamic interactions, the study uses vector autoregression (p) dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (1,1) model in a multivariate framework, coupled with a monthly heat map relating to the co-movement between the US and the BRIC equity markets during the period 2007-2009. Finally, by following the studies, Hammoudeh et al. (2010) and Syriopoulos et al. (2015), the time-varying optimal portfolio hedge ratios and weights are computed.\nFindings: The results report a contagion impact of the US subprime crisis (following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers) on the Indian and Russian stock markets only. On the other hand, a higher degree of interdependence between the US and Brazilian market has been observed. The US and Chinese equity markets indicate a relatively lower level of interdependence among themselves. The optimal hedge ratios are found to be most effective for a portfolio comprising the US and Chinese stocks even during the crisis period. A US investor should invest approximately 30 cents in the Indian market and rest of the 70 cents in the US market in a US$1 portfolio to minimize the portfolio risk without lowering the expected returns. During the crisis period (2007-2009), the optimal portfolio weights indicate a higher weightage to the BRIC stocks.\nPractical implications: The results support the construction of optimal US-BRIC stock portfolios and provide an insight to the investors and policy makers both domestic as well as international, with regard to the contagion impact and interdependence, especially during a crisis period.\nOriginality/value: The study uses a DCC model in a multivariate framework instead of bivariate, wherein all the markets are factored into a single interaction framework across a very long period (2004-2014). Second, a heat map of monthly correlation combinations has been created for the period 2007-2009, to comprehend the contagion impact or interdependence among the markets. Finally, the study ascertains time-varying optimal hedge ratios and portfolio weights for a two asset portfolio, from a US investor viewpoint, making the study first of its kind in all the perspectives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigating the relationship between service quality dimensions, customer satisfaction and loyalty in Turkish banking sector: An application of structural equation model
|
[
"SERVQUAL",
"Banking industry",
"Service quality",
"Customer loyalty",
"Structural equation model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic growth and rapid developments in commerce are obliging financial institutions in the service sector to intensify their efforts toward gaining competitive advantage. The survival and very existence of banks - which represent the largest examples of financial institutions - in this competitive environment, depends on their ability to establish long-lasting relations with clients and to ensure customer satisfaction. The quality of services rendered by the banks plays an important role in achieving this (Ari and Yilmaz, 2015).\n2. Literature review: Cronin and Taylor (1992) previously examined the relationship between SERVQUAL and customer satisfaction in the banking sector, and demonstrated that the relationship between the two is significant. Angur et al. (1999) examined the applicability of alternative SERVQUAL in the developing economy of India, and evaluated various related subjects in this context. The study was based on the data collected from the clients of two major banks, and the results of the study supported a multi-dimensional SERVQUAL and suggested that the SERVQUAL scale provided more diagnostic information than the SERPERF scale.\n3. Methods: 3.1 Theoretical framework\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Discussions and conclusion: Banking is a rapidly growing sector that operates in an environment of ever-increasing competition. In this highly competitive environment, banks hoping to gain an advantage over their competitors need to continuously improve the quality of the services they provide for their customers by taking their expectations into account. In this context, it is necessary for banks to determine the students' level of satisfaction with their services, and to resolve any problems and shortfalls they identify in this regard. However, resolving such problems is dependent on it being possible to accurately measure them. The objective of the present study was to determine the service dimensions of SERVQUAL, as well as the relationship between the satisfaction and loyalty of customers to the bank. In the present study, which aimed to provide a model through the SEM, it was demonstrated that the level of confidence inspired by a bank, the responsiveness of the bank staff to their customers, the physical appearance of the bank, as well as ease of accessibility to the bank all have the effect of increasing students' satisfaction with their banks. It was also determined that an increase in the level of satisfaction with the banks increased the students' loyalty toward their banks. The other dimensions of SERVQUAL were excluded from the model, as they lacked statistical significance. On the other hand, it was determined that the service dimensions directly affected the satisfaction of the students, and indirectly affected their loyalty.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using the attitudes of students toward ideal banking services, the purpose of this paper is to examine the structure of banking-related SERVQUAL service dimensions with first-order and second-order confirmatory factors analysis. Following this, a study model was suggested to describe the relationship between the perceptions of students regarding the services provided by their banks and their overall level of satisfaction with the bank.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample group for the study comprised students from the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences of Eskisehir Osmangazi University. The sample included 441 students, and was designed according to a stratified and proportional distribution. The first-order and second order confirmatory factor model used to confirm the structure of the SERVQUAL service dimensions presented in the study was found to be suitable and compatible. The relationship of the SERVQUAL service dimensions based on the actual perception of banking services by the students with the students' satisfaction and loyalty to their banks was investigated using a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis.\nFindings: Based on the study results, it was concluded that the confidence inspired by the banks, the reliability of their services, and the physical appearance and accessibility of the bank all have an effect in increasing customer satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: Conducting this study using university students, who represent a specific group, will help in determining whether the quality of banking services provided to students is, in itself, sufficient to make them prefer these banks. Furthermore, the study will also shed light on various other aspects, such as the banks' efforts at reviewing and developing the services they provide to students.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Board demographic diversity, independence, and corporate social performance
|
[
"Boards of directors",
"Demographic diversity",
"Outsider representation on boards",
"Chief executive officer duality",
"Corporate social performance",
"Gender",
"Company performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research in the area of board diversity has grown exponentially in the last two decades as companies have been pressured to increase diversity on their boards of directors along gender and race/ethnicity lines to reflect external environment and represent the interests of different stakeholders. A plethora of studies have explored the impact of board diversity on firm financial performance (e.g. Campbell and Minguez-Vera, 2008; Erhardt et al., 2003; Zahra and Pearce, 1989) and strategic change (Goodstein et al., 1994). Proponents of bringing diversity to the boardroom argue that board diversity enhances the firm's strategic decision making process through offering a broader range of perspectives and ideas and facilitates the acquisition of critical resources for the organization with wider social networks (Campbell and Minguez-Vera, 2008; Goodstein et al., 1994; Kosnik, 1990). It is also argued that demographically diverse directors are more independent, as they are less likely to be part of an \"old boys' network\" (Carter et al., 2003). However, in spite of the general belief that board diversity may also enhance corporate social performance (CSP), few empirical studies have examined such relationships (with a few exceptions, see below). Therefore, drawing on the agency theory and resource dependence theory, this paper aims to examine the relationship between board gender and race/ethnicity diversity and CSP.\nTheoretical background: Corporate social performance\nMethod: Sample and data\nResults: Table I presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations among items. Among the four composite indicators of CSP, I found that institutional strength was not correlated with institutional weakness, corroborating Mattingly and Berman's (2006) claim that social weakness is not simply the converse of social strength and vice versa. All control variables except ROE were significantly correlated with some of the CSP criteria, supporting their inclusion as control variables. For example, company size was significantly correlated with institutional strength and technical weakness. ROA was also positively correlated with institutional weakness and technical strength.Among the hypothesized relationships, I found board gender and race diversity were positively correlated with institutional strength and technical strength. Board race diversity was also positively correlated to technical weakness. Proportion of outside directors was negatively correlated with all four CSP ratings. CEO duality had positive correlations with CSP criteria except technical weakness. That the correlations between board attributes and CSP strength were in the same direction as those with CSP weakness further justifies my treatment of CSP strength and weakness as distinct constructs.The variance inflation factors (VIF) were used in regression analysis to detect the presence of multicollinearity. This measure indicates the degree to which each independent variable is linearly related to one another. Large VIF values denote high multicollinearity (Hair et al., 1995). A common cutoff threshold for VIF is 10. In the present study, the VIF values associated with the predictors ranged between 1.02 and 1.23, indicating that multicollinearity was not a cause for concern.H1, which predicted that board gender diversity would be positively related to CSP strength ratings and negatively related to CSP weakness ratings, was partially supported. As shown in Table II, there was a significant, positive relationship between board gender diversity and institutional strength (b=0.33, p<0.01) and technical strength (b=0.14, p<0.05). However, board gender diversity was not significantly related to either weakness ratings.H2 predicted that board racial diversity would be positively related to CSP strength ratings and negatively related to CSP weakness ratings. This hypothesis received mixed support. As predicted, board racial diversity was positively related to institutional strength (b=0.26, p<0.01). However, contrary to my expectations, board racial diversity was positively related to technical weakness (b=0.13, p<0.01).H3 stated that proportion of outside board directors would be positively related to CSP strength ratings and negatively related to CSP weakness ratings. Consistent with my hypothesis, the proportion of outside directors was marginally negatively related to institutional weakness (b=-0.09, p<0.10) and technical weakness (b=-0.09, p<0.10). Therefore, this hypothesis received partial support.H4 predicted that CEO duality would be negatively related to CSP strength ratings and positively related to CSP weakness ratings. This hypothesis received partial support as CEO duality was positively related to institutional weakness (b=0.16, p<0.01) and marginally positively related to technical weakness (b=0.08, p<0.10). Contrary to expectations, however, CEO duality was positively related to technical strength (b=0.13, p<0.05).\nDiscussion: This study advances our understanding of the relationship between board demographic diversity and board independence and CSP. In general, the results show support for some of my proposed relationships. I found that board gender diversity was positively related to institutional and technical strength ratings while board racial diversity was positively related to institutional strength rating only. Both the proportion of outside directors and CEO non-duality were negatively associated with institutional and technical weakness ratings. However, there were some unexpected findings. For example, board racial diversity was positively related to technical weakness. Also there was a positive relationship between CEO duality and technical strength rating. I elaborate on these findings below.Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Drawing on agency theory and resource dependence theory, the study aims to link board demographic diversity and independence to corporate social performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from various sources for a sample of 475 publicly traded Fortune 500 companies between the years 2007 and 2008.\nFindings: - It is found that board gender diversity is positively related to institutional and technical strength ratings, while board racial diversity is positively related to institutional strength rating only. Both the proportion of outside directors and CEO non-duality were negatively associated with institutional and technical weakness ratings.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample was predominantly large, publicly traded national and international corporations, which might limit the generalizability of the findings.\nPractical implications: - Management personnel should be cognizant of how board configurations and leadership structure may influence their corporate reputation for social responsibility. Efforts should be made to foster a group dynamic that is conducive to effective board functioning.\nOriginality/value: - Few empirical studies have examined the relationship between board characteristics and corporate social performance. This study contributes to the literature by examining such associations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
On the metaphorical nature of intellectual capital: a textual analysis
|
[
"Intellectual capital",
"Metaphors",
"Knowledge management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) we use metaphor to conceptualise phenomena, structure our thinking, and create abstract concepts. They state that a metaphor is not simply a matter of words that describe similarities, but metaphors are at the basis of most of our concepts and that abstract reasoning would be quite impossible without them. In this paper Lakoff and Johnson's framework is used to analyse the abstract concept of intellectual capital (IC) and to show that the IC concept is metaphorical.First, a brief summary of Lakoff and Johnson's theory on metaphorical thought is given. Their framework is then utilised to analyse metaphors used to conceptualise knowledge. This is based on a textual analysis of the work of four leading authors: Davenport and Prusak (2000) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). This shows that over 95 per cent of their conceptualisations of knowledge is metaphorical. Having thus shown the importance of metaphor for our thinking about knowledge, the underlying metaphors of IC are analysed and tested, based on further textual analysis of the seminal article \"Brainpower\" by Thomas Stewart (1991). The identification of the metaphorical nature of the IC concept leads to a number of implications and points for further discussion.The conclusion that the IC concept is metaphorical is not judgemental. Metaphorical reasoning allows us to make sense of phenomena on an abstract level (the target domain) by using characteristics from a basic level (the source domain) and is, therefore, inescapable. Metaphorical reasoning is invaluable in creating new understanding and meaning; this analysis of IC as a metaphor, therefore, is not meant to be in any way derogatory.\nHow metaphor works: The unconscious at work\nThe use of metaphors in thinking about knowledge: Metaphors to conceptualise knowledge\nFindings: Six types of metaphor\nThe metaphorical nature of IC: The two or three metaphors of IC\nConclusions, implications and discussion: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To analyse common metaphors used in the intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge management literatures to conceptualise knowledge, in order to study the nature of the intellectual capital concept.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A textual analysis methodology is used to analyse texts from The Knowledge-Creating Company by Nonaka and Takeuchi, Working Knowledge by Davenport and Prusak and \"Brainpower\" by Stewart, in order to identify underlying metaphors.\nFindings: - Over 95 per cent of the statements about knowledge identified are based on some kind of metaphor. The two dominant metaphors that form the basis for the concept of intellectual capital are \"knowledge as a resource\" and \"knowledge as capital\".\nResearch limitations/implications: - Metaphors highlight certain characteristics and ignore others, so the IC community should ask itself what characteristics of knowledge the \"knowledge as a resource\" and \"knowledge as capital\" metaphors ignore.\nPractical implications: - Knowledge has no referent in the real world and requires metaphor to be defined, conceptualised, and acted upon. When using such metaphors we should become aware of their limitations as they steer us in certain directions and this may happen unconsciously. The paper concludes by asking whether we need new metaphors to better understand the mechanisms of the knowledge economy, hence allowing us to potentially change some of the more negative structural features of contemporary society.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is the first to highlight that intellectual capital is a metaphor and that the metaphorical nature of the concept has far reaching consequences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Principal support of student psychological needs and a functional instructional core
|
[
"Leadership conversation",
"Principal support",
"Conversation theory",
"Teacher trust in students",
"Collective teacher efficacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Relationships have always been fundamental to principal work and a focal element of effective leadership. As school leadership moves toward distributed and collaborative practices (Hallinger, 2011; Harris, 2011; Spillane, 2012), messages transmitted through relationships seemingly take on greater significance for research and practice. Research, though, has not adequately peeled back the relational layers involved in social exchanges to explain how messages embedded within interactions shape teaching and learning environments.\nPrincipal support of student psychological needs: Principal support of student psychological needs derives from self-determination theory and its explanation for how factors in the social environment at times contribute to, or at other times inhibit, human motivation, flourishing and adaptive functioning (Ryan and Deci, 2002). As explained, our innate, basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness fuel autonomous motivation, healthy adaptation, optimal development and overall wellbeing (Deci and Ryan, 2016). Activation of these needs in students is linked to better achievement, interest in academic work, meaningful engagement and academic accomplishments (Neimic and Ryan, 2009a, b; Reeve, 2002).\nRationale and hypotheses: Not covered in the above definition and description of principal support of student psychological needs was reasoning for its relationship with characteristics of a high functioning instructional core. For this study, we define a functional instructional core as one with strong faculty trust in students, collective teacher efficacy and need-supportive instructional styles. These three social conditions are generally associated with higher performing schools that have achieved equitable achievement distributions (Deci and Ryan, 2016; Forsyth et al., 2011; Goddard et al., 2001).\nMethods: Hypotheses were tested using a non-experimental, correlational research design based on ex-post facto data collected from teachers and students in 93 schools in a metropolitan city of the USA. Schools in this sample served approximately 56,200 students with 38.5 percent identifying as white, 31 percent as Hispanic, 21 percent as African-American, 4.5 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander and 5.5 percent Native American. Additionally, 77 percent of the students qualified for the federal lunch subsidy, 18 percent were English language learners, and 14 percent had individualized education plans.\nFindings: Descriptive statistics are presented in Tables I and II. Table I reports means and standard deviations for teacher data and the student measured need-support variable. As reported, nearly 83 percent of the teachers identified as female, 8 percent were NBC, the average time in their current schools was about 6 years and average teaching experience was about 12 years. Teacher level means were 4.57 for collective efficacy and 4.05 for faculty trust in student. Average need-support as reported by students was 2.90. Skewness and kurtosis estimates for individual level outcome data fall within the acceptable ranges to satisfy the normality assumption (Warner, 2008).\nDiscussion: In a given school day, principals are likely to engage in hundreds of conversations with teachers. Some exchanges are short and merely congenial, others longer and professionally substantive. No matter the duration, conversation theory implies that each interaction transmits messages that have potential to reinforce or alter mental representations behind teacher thoughts, beliefs and practices (Scott, 2001). By framing messages around student learning needs, it seems likely that principals can use regular and intentional conversation as a strategy to develop a functional instructional core. We tested this idea with principal support of student psychological needs.\nImplications for practice and research: Beyond evidence addressing the hypotheses, data patterns in the correlation results and findings in the combined HLM models present intriguing implications for leadership practice and research. Practice implications address the use of principal support of student psychological needs with formal structures coordinating professional learning and instructional program coherence. Professional learning opportunities and instructional coherence were associated with school differences in faculty trust in students, collective efficacy and need-supportive instruction prior to the inclusion of principal support. In all cases, explained variance increased when principal support of student psychological needs was added to the models and the unique effects of professional learning and instructional coherence decreased. The consistent pattern suggests a synchronous relationship between formal structures supportive of professional learning and instructional coherence and principal-teacher interactions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Limited attention to messages transmitted between principals and teachers led to the general question for this study: is principal support of student psychological needs related to functional social conditions within the instructional core? Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to define principal support of student psychological needs and explain its leadership function through the lens of conversation theory. Without much empirical evidence to draw from, a theoretical argument for how principal support of student psychological needs might influence the features of the teaching and learning environment is advanced then tested empirically.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses were tested using a non-experimental, correlational research design based on ex-post facto data collected from teachers and students in 93 schools in a metropolitan city of the USA. Data were collected in the spring of 2017 from randomly sampled teachers and students in the 93 schools. Usable responses were received from 1,168 teachers, yielding a response rate of 66 percent. A total of 4,523 students received surveys and usable responses were received from 3,301, yielding a response rate of 73 percent. Multi-level modeling was used to analyze the data.\nFindings: Principal support of student psychological needs was related to school-level differences in faculty trust in students, collective teacher efficacy and student perceived autonomy support. Leadership practices surrounding professional development and instructional coherence had moderately strong, positive relationships with the outcome variables; however, the strength of these relationships diminished when principal support was included in the analysis.\nOriginality/value: The argument in this study proposes that principal-teacher conversations enhance leadership practices and support a vibrant and engaging instructional core when intentional messages build mental representations that enable teachers to understand sources of optimal student growth. Such use of conversation extends the functionality of principal-teacher interactions beyond that of teacher control and toward an ongoing sense-making and learning process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The state's role in promoting Nigerian financial development and economic growth
|
[
"Development",
"Institutions and institutional analysis",
"Social policy",
"Political economics",
"History of political economic thought",
"Interest and pressure groups"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the most important problems in the field of Finance, if not the single most important one, almost everyone would agree, is the effect that financial structure and development have on economic growth Goldsmith (1969, p. 390).\n2. Theoretical and empirical framework: 2.1 Theoretical framework\n3. Empirical methodology: 3.1 Research framework\n4. Empirical results: 4.1 Stationarity tests - the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test\n5. Analysis and interpretation of results: This section is divided into two parts; the first part discusses the results of the empirical analysis and interprets the findings while the second part discusses the relevance of these results explaining the linkages between financial development and economic growth in Nigeria.\n6. Conclusion and policy implications: The borderline between economics and politics has been an area many researchers in political economics have frequently shied away from, most preferring to concentrate on economics and others on politics (Collier, 2008). This study, however, has explored the borderline drawing inferences from both fields to analyse contemporary issues unique to both fields using the Nigerian economic and political platform as an empirical example. This study therefore compliments the vast body of literature in the field of financial development and economic growth by drawing inferences that may be useful for understanding the growth trajectory of developing economies and particularly why western-oriented development policies often led by the World Bank and IMF typically failed to liberate these economies (Brown, 1995).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to propose a framework for conceptualizing the finance-growth theory in developing economies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a cointegration and error correction model to investigate the possible influence of key socio-political characters of a state on the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth. A developing economy (Nigeria) which had experienced decades of autocratic military governance was studied. Three characters of the state (ethnicity, civil war and military governance) were derived from a historical review and were introduced into the cointegration analysis as dummy variables.\nFindings: Evidence of a causal relationship was found to exist from financial development to economic growth and the characters of the state were found to have no significant impact on this relationship.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research limitations were based on the reliability of data recorded between 1960 and 2007.\nPractical implications: This study is practical from the point of view of the integration of qualitative social disturbances into a quantitative model targeted at exploring the practical developmental impact these disturbances may have had and continue to have on economic growth.\nSocial implications: The social implication of this study stems from the impact that adverse socio-political influences may have on financial development and economic growth.\nOriginality/value: This is an original piece of research focused at understanding the unique social, political and macroeconomic circumstance of a strategically relevant developing economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The cycle of business education in Malaysia: Institutional development and marketing strategies
|
[
"Business studies",
"Higher education",
"Marketing strategy",
"International business",
"Malaysia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Malaysia has made dramatic economic progress since the 1970s, thanks to a carefully articulated government policy of encouraging foreign direct investment and aided by a climate of relative political and economic stability. Accompanying this growth has been the growing professionalization of Malaysian industry, which increasingly requires skilled business talent to manage and participate in the development of the country (Muk-Ngiik Wong and Hamali, 2006; McIntyre and Alon, 2005; Thompson, 2000; Han-Sui Chow, 1995, Tay, 2001). Consequently, there is a greater emphasis on and demand for business education. In the 1970s, only limited business educational programs were available at four public universities. Today, a majority of the 16 public universities, eight of which have been established since 1996 (UNESCO, 2006), offer business degrees. In addition, by December 2006 there were 12 Malaysian private universities, 11 private colleges with university college status (allowed to confer their own degrees), 532 private colleges and four major branch campuses of foreign universities. Most of these institutions offer business programs (Education Guide Malaysia, 2006).\nThe cycle of business education (CBE) in Malaysia: The Malaysian case is interesting in part because it demonstrates how the country has taken an international approach to secure needed educational skills in business (see Figure 1), The Malaysian CBE has five stages or phases:1. In the first phase (the 1970s) the country \"exported\" students to gain business knowledge.2. In the second phase (the mid-1980s), \"import-substitution\", the country encouraged strategic alliances between local private institutions and their foreign counterparts. These \"split degree\" programs included credit transfer arrangements and formal twinning programs with designated foreign institutions where part of the degree requirements were fulfilled in Malaysia and the rest overseas.3. The third phase (the mid-1990s) went beyond twinning programs as foreign institutions established \"management contracts\" and \"licensing\" relationships with local colleges that delivered complete rather than partial undergraduate business programs in Malaysia.4. During the fourth phase (the late 1990s) Malaysia invited \"foreign direct investment\" from abroad, encouraging foreign universities to set up branch campuses in Malaysia and allowing approved private colleges to grant their own degrees through giving these colleges \"university college\" status.5. In the fifth phase (mid-2000 to the present) government and private initiatives aim not only to increase onshore alternatives for Malaysian students, but also to eventually \"import\" more students from overseas, particularly those in neighboring countries, to study in Malaysia in the local colleges and branch universities offering complete degree programs.\"Exporting\" students: phase 1\nInstitutional development: managerial shifts: Malaysia, as shown in the developmental stages of the CBE, has seen a fundamental shift away from public sector dominance in providing business education. This transition is not unlike privatization in many developing countries, where public sector firms are morphing into private ones in such service industries as electrical utilities, telecommunications, transportation, banking and retailing. Such privatization, which can increase efficiency and improve services to customers (Brune, 2004), can be attributed to a fundamental change in managerial philosophy, orientation, and ownership. The progression of the CBE in Malaysia seems to reflect this phenomenon, as shown in Table I.The institutional mission of many Malaysian colleges and universities is shifting from a constituency-based philosophy (such as from influential political groups) to a customer- and demand-driven focus. The latter, by its very nature, is guided by profits moderating political or public service motives in delivering business education. While this has strengths, there are also limitations because many business education offerings from private institutions reflect a \"cash cow\" orientation. Government resource support is likely to get more stringent as private sector educational alternatives open up. Existing public universities, in a positive development, are adopting the managerial practices and programs that have been successful in private institutions, including the addition or expansion of existing business programs and hiring more professional faculty and staff. This has also resulted in greater faculty participation, flexibility in teaching schedules, course content, research initiatives, and a greater faculty voice in influencing academic direction. Competition from the private sector has also resulted in public educational institutions becoming less bound by bureaucratic policies and more likely to adopt up-to-date initiatives. For example, compensation systems in public institutions are now taking into account faculty incentives linked to workloads and productivity rather than primarily to years of service. Government oversight is being replaced by greater participation of other stakeholders such as potential employers and private donors in suggesting initiatives and changes. The progression of the CBE to the current stage has also led to more joint ventures and partnerships with local as well as foreign institutions and investors. Consequently, the delivery systems of business programs and accessibility by targeted student groups have increased dramatically. Clearly, the globalization of business education is in evidence as experienced foreign faculty, staff, and administrators flow to the region. Private educational institutions are becoming more diversified in the range of business program offerings. With sensitivity to managing risks, these private institutions are using managerial tools such as competitive SWOT analyses for institutional planning, and public educational institutions are not far behind in doing the same.At the start of the CBE, the Malaysian government regulated the legitimacy and acceptance of local college degrees and only public educational institutions could award degrees. The only alternative to obtaining a degree was to graduate from a foreign institution. As the CBE has progressed, many local institutions have been granted a charter by the government to award college degrees, facilitating the employment of their graduates. With increased competition, many educational institutions have become more interested in building institutional image and quality. The first-mover advantage of private colleges such as Sunway and others that teamed up with well-known foreign universities early has led to good ratings. It should be noted that the progression of the CBE does not imply that emerging private institutions will provide better quality education than public sector ones. The better public institutions will continue to provide high quality education at low cost (with subsidies from the government). However, middling public institutions of higher learning, faced with competition from well-managed private institutions, may well benefit from the pressure to reform their managerial practices and orientation to achieve more efficiency and effectiveness in providing business education. The availability and quality of business education is likely to improve the quality and management of all education as public institutions learn from their private counterparts (and vice versa) and adapt to global pressures.\nMarketing business education during the CBE: Marketing strategy includes identifying target markets (with benefits sought by these groups) and developing a marketing mix - the 4Ps of product, promotion, price and place (distribution) - to reach them. The marketing strategies of institutions delivering business education during the different stages of the CBE targeted different segments and \"buying centers\": users (students), influencers (e.g. peers, parents) and gatekeepers (e.g. government), as shown in Table II. The marketing mix, discussed next, reflects various strengths and weaknesses, providing valuable lessons for Malaysia as well as other countries.Product strategies\nMarketing implications: future directions: Based on their experiences so far, Malaysian and foreign institutions will have to rethink and reformulate their marketing strategies directed towards potential target markets. Here are some suggestions.Target markets\nConclusions: The \"cycles of business education\" in Malaysia reflect shifts in how institutions market and deliver business education. Other emerging countries can learn from the Malaysian experience, especially countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that are in the earlier phases of the cycle of business education. They can gain a better understanding of how government, public and private institutions should frame policies to make business education widely available in their countries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The growing professionalization of Malaysian industry over the past three decades, and the need for skilled business talent, have led to an increased demand for business education. This paper aims to examine how institutions in Malaysia have responded to this need.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a case study that synthesizes and organizes institutional experiences in delivering business education in Malaysia.\nFindings: - Malaysian academic institutions have responded to the demand for business education through a process modeled by the authors as a \"cycle of business education\" (CBE). The authors discuss institutional developments and competitive marketing strategies directed toward target markets during the five stages of the CBE.\nPractical implications: - The Malaysian experience in meeting business education needs can provide valuable guidance to educators and policy makers, among others, in developing countries engaged in similar initiatives. These countries can benefit from understanding more about institutional practices as well as from the problems that surfaced during the Malaysian CBE.\nOriginality/value: - The paper makes an original contribution first by delineating and discussing the five stages of the cycle of business education (CBE), including institutional developments. Next it systematically articulates various components of the marketing strategies institutions use to deliver business education. Finally, recommendations are offered to improve the institutional provision and marketing of business education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Constructing and using scenarios to forecast demand for future mobile communications services
|
[
"Demand forecasting",
"Mobile communication systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper examines one exercise in scenario building, drawing on a study for the European Commission to analyze future demand for mobile communications services (Forge et al., 2005). The focus of this article is on the methodology used to construct the scenarios but equally important was how the study went on to use them. After setting out the purposes and context of the study, this paper describes how the scenarios were constructed and then provides a brief description of them. The paper concludes with an indication of how the scenarios were used to meet the overall objectives of the study.There were two aspects to the study:1. To carry out a foresight study to address future wireless electronic communication services that will be used in the EU, highlighting potential user patterns, service characteristics, supporting technologies and traffic volume.2. To build consensus for a consolidated European input into the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) process leading to the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2007, which will determine radio spectrum requirements to 2015 and beyond[1].The telecommunications sector has too often been guilty of technological determinism and has a tendency to \"decide\" in advance which applications users should have. Typically its forecasts consist of simple extrapolation. As a consequence, past predictions for new services such as ISDN, WAP and Iridium/LEOs have been wildly over optimistic, while potential demand for others has been overlooked, e.g. the internet, digital mobile (GSM), and texting (SMS). Therefore it was decided at the outset of this study that the basis for forecasting would be an analysis of possible future needs using a socio-economic approach. This, combined with the need to build a European-wide consensus among the various stakeholders (policy makers, regulators, operators and equipment manufacturers), meant that large-scale scenario analysis was required. Many of the results of the study were subsequently included in a revised methodology for forecasting demand for wireless services within the ITU.Providing a socio-economic approach to demand was one key objective, but a second was to build a European consensus. Our objective in doing this was to underline the significance of our approach, which could then be introduced to enhance the ITU's process for forecasting demand, within ITU Working Party 8F on future demand for spectrum, through the intervention of the CEPT[2].\nContext of the problem: Wireless services, driven by cellular mobile, have advanced faster in the last decade than the whole of telecommunications technology over the past century. Globally, the number of mobile users in late-2005 exceeded 1.8 billion - having surpassed the number of fixed line subscribers in 2001. Annual revenues of the suppliers of equipment and handsets for the mobile industry globally have passed EUR100 billion mark.However, the wireless industry is now coming to a crossroads. Rapid expansion and technology advance means that key decisions made over the next few years will set the scene in wireless for the twenty-first century. For instance, the issue of how the radio spectrum should be managed and awarded will affect the capability for further services expansion and technology advance and the use of new mobile technologies, such as the spread of the ambient intelligence model of interactivity with ubiquitous computing devices. Consequently it is becoming evident that future mobile technologies, and their novel services, will demand a change in the current allocations of spectrum. Possible avenues for advance may include widening the license-free bands, and/or finding new usages for existing allocations.Critical to these decisions of course is the question of demand. Which services will be required, how much traffic will be generated, and at what bandwidth? Thus the basis for estimating the European Union's spectrum requirements out to 2020 needed a sound demand-side analysis.In the light of this, a study looking at the scenarios, then at forecasts of possible traffic and business models, was performed in 2004-2005. The scenarios formed the basis for a detailed foresight exercise, for which we took the timeframes (or \"epochs\") of 2010, 2015 and 2020 to gauge potential:* usage patterns of future wireless electronic communications services that will be demanded in the European Union;* service characteristics;* supporting technologies; and* traffic volumes of such services in the EU.Our scope for services included 3G mobile technology[3] but also drew on development of emerging radio technologies beyond the third generation (B3G) - alternative wireless technologies such as WiFi, Flash OFDM, WiMax, ZigBee, RFID, etc.\nScenario construction for forecasting - methodology: Objectives and method\nThe basic premises of the scenarios: The basic premise put forward by the EC's DG Information Society, and from an initial survey of other studies, is that the market development in wireless services depends on a range of different classes of factor, with microeconomics at a consumer level being dominant. For instance, the Iridium project for a low earth orbit mobile satellite service (LEO MSS) offered global mobile communication coverage. However this was not at a price that world-traveling business users, let alone consumer markets, were prepared to pay. Moreover, the target market of global business travelers and remotely located businesses may not be that large, as a separable segment. While the concept was excellent, perhaps what was needed was a later generation of the technology to bring prices down for a call from several US dollars per minute to a fraction of a cent. Until that occurs, terrestrial mobile communications offerings are likely to dominate because of their affordability.So the scenarios in this study started from a socio-economic perspective - typically setting the scene in the European market, taking into account economic/financial/geopolitical factors, combined with a strong basis in the reality of social and cultural factors - to understand demand and the premises of a realistic business case.Common initial conditions\nFive scenarios and their comparison: The five contrasting socio-economic scenarios[5] constructed for the period 2005-2020, as three main scenarios and two \"discontinuity\" or wild card scenarios:1. Smooth development (main). EU economies unite to provide growth and positive progress in development, but in a fair and managed way that brings prosperity across all 25 members.2. Economic stagnation (main). The EU continues peacefully, following a slow but general decline, rather like the Japanese economy between 1988 and 2003, with gradually shrinking output and unsuccessful, or frozen, government policy reactions to strong deflation; EU left behind in growth by Asia.3. Constant change (main). Up and down, but overall moderately positive trend, through ad hoc growth and recession, often in parallel in different areas or countries - a strong flux of stop-go progressions and regressions in specific areas of the EU. Slowly prosperity does increase for many in the EU.4. Financial crash in EU (discontinuity). An economic disaster within the EU and spreading beyond, comparable to the 1929 crash, but with affects for over five years.5. Disaster (discontinuity). Natural disaster, major war or nuclear/chemical/biological accident or terrorist attack - seriously impacts EU economy long-term, to 2020 and beyond, possibly making a small part of the EU uninhabitable temporarily. Other regions (ASEAN, NAFTA) affected but not so seriously.Mapping the scenarios against economic and social conditions positions and differentiates them, as shown in Figure 4.A further way of describing and differentiating the scenarios is to plot EU economic growth, as relative economic output and the social/cultural conditions in terms of affordability, with disposable income, as shown in Figure 5.\nAn outline description of the five scenarios: A summary of each of the five scenarios is presented below.Scenario 1 - smooth development\nUsing needs analysis to forecast demand for services: At this point we come to the almost harder task of interpreting the scenarios into the form of parameters required by our final goal - the demand for mobile services. This derivation of demand for services from the scenarios is based on needs analysis. It follows the path shown in Figure 6, with the economic scenario dictating the microeconomics of disposable income and consumer confidence, as well as the macroeconomic growth and employment levels.The central premise of this needs analysis is that it should identify those needs that are the key drivers of consumption of goods and services. From the scenarios, the needs identified for mobile and wireless services in the EU may include up to nine key groups of drivers, at least, with varied levels of applicability:* social relations, including family;* social welfare and inclusion, including government/administration access amid cultural diversity and multiple communities;* working efficiently and conveniently for all sizes of firm;* self-assertion, including reskilling and education (from self-improvement motivations) and personalization;* aging population support, in living and working;* health and disability support;* transport and mobility;* stress relief, leisure, relaxation and escapism; and* security, at several granularities - individual, group, nation - and at several levels - personal physical survival/protection, data protection, financial protection.User segmentation\nConclusion: Obviously detailed forecasts of the types of services people will use and the amount they will use them 15 years ahead have to be treated carefully. Almost certainly the forecasts will be wrong. All we can do is to propose paths that seem possible, realistic and consistent with known facts and trends. Then, based on what we know about drivers of change we can ask - \"what if this happened\" - what would follow on from that? In so doing, we can incorporate extreme conditions, or median conditions, and thus arrive at a palette of forecasts that may be used to discern possible outcomes. Our aim here has been to show one approach to a formalized method of doing this.However this \"palette of possibilities\" may be extremely useful. It enables us to look at the extremes and to get a feel for the range of consequences if not the actual path that reality will take. Moreover we can attack quite complex problems, involving human motivation, economic conditions and social trends, together with the impacts of political regimes and policies. The examples shown here have been endorsed by the European Commission and the CEPT and have been used successfully within the ITU[6], after being reworked by member countries, to form the basis of a methodology for assessing mobile demand. This outcome was significant, representing a planning process not founded on a technocentric wish list for new technology take-up but instead on the reverse - the apathy or enthusiasm of consumers, both business and individuals, to absorb new mobile services in the communications, business applications, lifestyle and entertainment domains as driven by their needs and ability to pay for services.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Aims to present a pragmatic method for long-term forecasting and to illustrate its usage with the results of a recent case study to forecast future demand for mobile communications services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A scenario construction methodology is explained in detail. The case material presented here is drawn from a forecasting exercise for the European Commission between September 2004 and April 2005 examining potential demand for mobile communications services up to 2020.\nFindings: - The formalized method and a synopsis of the actual scenarios generated in the case study are given here in outline. The paper also indicates how needs analysis was used in conjunction with the scenarios to generate a list of potential services and their use, which formed the basis of detailed traffic estimates. Certain aspects of the method and its results have been incorporated by the ITU working committees into their detailed preparations for the World Radiocommunication Conference's negotiations in 2007.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper can only give a brief description of the scenarios and provides only limited detail on how the scenarios were subsequently used to generate forecasts of demand for mobile communication services.\nOriginality/value: - The paper demonstrates a socio-economic forecasting method based on scenarios and their use in forecasting demand within the telecommunications sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sounds of music: exploring consumers' musical engagement
|
[
"Consumer behavior",
"Structural equation model",
"Musical engagement (ME)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The global entertainment industry, which includes consumer magazines, newspapers, radio, television, music, filmed entertainment, video games, social media, mobile apps, etc., has been subject to steady growth since the post-Second World War era. The industry has gained high economic importance, with global entertainment industry revenues exceeding US$1.7 trillion in 2012, which are forecast to grow to over US$1.8 trillion by 2016 (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011). The entertainment industry, as a whole, reflects three key characteristics. First, a focus on creativity, including radical and incremental innovations by artists and across the broader sector. Second, entertainment reflects a highly experiential nature of its offerings. Third, the paradoxical role of marketing management in entertainment research and practice, which, while becoming increasingly pivotal is also potentially controversial (Koku, 1995).\n2. Literature review: consumer engagement: Although \"engagement\" has received considerable attention across several academic fields (e.g. psychology and organizational behavior), the concept emerged in the marketing literature only recently. In this literature, engagement is viewed as a promising concept that is expected to provide enhanced predictive and explanatory power of focal consumer behavior outcomes, relative to traditional concepts (e.g. consumer involvement/loyalty; Hollebeek, 2011a, 2011b). Scrutiny of the literature reveals the following observations.\n3. Hypothesis development: We now develop a set of ME-based hypotheses that address ME's association with ME antecedents/consequences. We predict three drivers of ME. First, an individual's musical behavior (music choice) at age 14 represents a significant predictor of one's musical choices later in life (Levitin, 2006, pp. 226-227). We measure consumers' musical behavior at age 14 by the amount of time spent listening to music at that age (Levitin, 2006). We, thus, hypothesize (Figure 1):\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Questionnaire development\n5. Results: 5.1 Exploratory factor analysis\n6. Conclusions, limitations and implications: 6.1 Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although \"engagement\" is receiving increasing attention in the marketing literature, the characteristics and dynamics characterizing this concept in specific contextual conditions, including consumers' selection of particular music and ensuing music-related behaviors, remain nebulous to date. This study aims to develop the concept of consumers' musical engagement (ME) and explore it within a broader nomological network of conceptual relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To investigate the research gap, the authors deploy a survey sampling 2,498 US-based adults to develop and confirm a 25-item ME scale. The authors also test their scale in a broader nomological network of specific theoretical relationships using regression and mediation modeling.\nFindings: The authors identify three ME factors, namely, social identity, transportive and affect-inducing engagements. The authors find ME to exhibit a nonlinear effect on music consumption with increasing returns. Although both social identity and transportive experiences represent significant predictors of music consumption, the effect of affect-inducing experience is non-significant. Further, the social identity experience has a significantly greater association with music consumption than the transportive experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper provides a conceptualization and an associated diagnostic tool for ME, in addition to initial insight into the role of ME in a broader nomological network of conceptual relationships. Based on the identified research limitations, the authors also provide key future research directions for ME.\nPractical implications: The insight attained into ME may be used to underpin the design, implementation and evaluation of managerial ME-based tactics and strategies in the music industry. In particular, the authors find that successful appeals to consumers' social identity engagement are a significant driver of increased future music consumption. The authors provide a number of managerial recommendations to develop this particular ME dimension.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an ME conceptualization and an associated scale and explores ME within a broader nomological network of theoretical relationships. The authors also draw key implications from these analyses.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Coopetition and institutions: a strategy for Brazilian wineries facing internationalization
|
[
"Case study",
"Content analysis",
"Coopetition",
"Brazilian wine industry",
"Formal and informal networks in emerging economies",
"Institutions of the home country",
"SMEs in emerging economies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a dynamic and complex business world, firms increasingly engage in a simultaneous pursuit of cooperation and competition - called coopetition - to deal with uncertainties driven by the rising levels of global competition, the emergence of new markets and the rapid technological changes (Bengtsson et al., 2010; Bengtsson and Kock, 2000; Park et al., 2014; Deitz et al., 2010)[1]. The duality of two contradicting interactions defines coopetition as a paradoxical relationship (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014) and it is an emerging and trending topic in the strategies of relationships between firms and institutions.\nTheoretical background: Until the mid-1980s, inter-organizational relations were mainly analyzed from the point of view of competition between companies, and research was influenced by economic theories. In the second half of the 1980s, some researchers began to study cooperation between firms, while the first attempts to focus on the interaction between cooperation and competition strategies that occurred in the 1990s. Cooperation and coopetition strategies complement the competitive paradigm, generating new forms of intra-organizational governance and expanding the alternatives for inter-organizational groupings (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1995; Padula and Dagnino, 2007).\nMethod: We conducted qualitative research using an exploratory case study approach (Flick, 2009). The case study is an appropriate method for the type of investigation proposed, as our objective is to understand whether and how a complex and little-explored phenomenon takes place (Yin, 2010) and, additionally, we are proposing an analysis using innovative theoretical relationships, by applying the institutional approach to study coopetition and internationalization.\nAnalysis of the data: Role of formal institutions in coopetition\nConclusions: Some authors have tried to understand internationalization of firms and industries by studying the role of the home-country institutions and in particular the role of governments (Ramamurti, 2008).\nPractical implications and recommendations for future research: This study helps to explain relationship strategies of firms in the wine industry of an emerging economy using the perspective of coopetition strategies and internationalization with the support of institutions. The relevance of institutions as drivers of firms' competitiveness through coopetition, as demonstrated in this study, can contribute to strategic decision-making, both for the management of formal institutions, whether governmental or industrial, and for firms. Equally, the results can contribute to avoidance of the possible pitfalls of coopetition and facilitate better management of problems such as asymmetry caused by a lack of uniformity between participants or by perceptions of unequal gains.\nResearch limitations: The study, even bringing relevant contributions, also presents limitations. The main one is the concentration in a particular industry, the Brazilian wine industry. Therefore, the results should be limited to this case. From the methodological approach, we adopt a cross-sectional data collection method, making it difficult or even impossible to make a historical analysis of the facts that are limited to the present perception of the interviewees. It should also be considered, from the institutional perspective, that we analyze only the formal institutions, leaving out of context other institutional dimensions such as political and cultural, for example.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the role institutions play in driving the internationalization of firms in an emerging country through promotion of coopetition. Investigating the relationships between coopetition, institutions and internationalization, especially among firms in emerging countries, is an important approach that has received little attention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study has used a single case study interviewing managers of Brazilian wineries and representatives of formal institutions in an emerging economy. A research framework taking an institutions-based view of strategy and applying it to study coopetition and internationalization is proposed.\nFindings: Formal institutions are the most important players in the promotion of coopetition between firms in the Brazilian wine industry. Coopetition enables firms to access new resources and capabilities, promoting and facilitating internationalization, while also increasing firms' competitiveness in the domestic market. The study also found evidence of certain limiting factors within these relationships, caused by the heterogeneous nature of the firms involved and by the asymmetries in their perceptions of the gains achieved.\nResearch limitations/implications: As a consequence of the methodology adopted, the results of this study are limited to the Brazilian wine industry. Future research should extend the approach to data collected in different countries and industries. Another promising avenue for research is to explore how decisions of a political nature influence the institutions that coordinate an industry, which would provide a new perspective on the internationalization of the firms involved.\nPractical implications: The results offer governments and institutions an opportunity to better understand, and therefore to better manage, their actions in relation to their role in the promotion of the competitiveness of firms and industries, both in international and domestic markets. For firms, the results offer insights into the possible gains and the limitations of coopetition strategies, contributing to their decision-making on involvement. The study also contributes to understanding the competitiveness of the industry investigated.\nOriginality/value: This study approaches coopetition from the institutional perspective. It also focuses on internationalization of firms from an emerging country, which is characterized by a lack of firm-specific resources. The proposed framework seems promising for future research investigating coopetition and institutions within an integrated analytical framework.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
NGOs helping migrants: an Israeli case study of counterculture
|
[
"Migrant workers",
"Cultural sociology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper examines the cultural features of three NGOs in the immigration field. The NGOs researched in this study are: A NGO, B NGO, C NGO[1]. These NGOs strive to promote social welfare for immigrants. The study focusses on the goals and political strategies of those NGOs: both collaborating with governmental agencies while also fighting against the government authorities, even while being funded by them. Short background on the researched NGOs:\nLiterature framework: dominant culture, subcultures, and countercultures: Culture expresses itself in various ways, creating bonds between people and instilling collective consciousness and specific understanding, as well as expressing common group identity and reality (Geertz, 1990). The neo-Marxist analysis sees culture as an arena of struggle and conflict. This paper used a neo-Marxist cultural model of analysis.\nNGOs and their relationship with civil society and governmental authorities: NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or CSOs (civil society organizations) have become important actors in public arena (Steinberg, 2011). Diplomats, journalists, academics, and other decision makers and opinion leaders routinely accept NGO claims, usually without independent verification. NGOs, both individually and through the wider networks framework, influence many fields, from environmental issues to human rights and humanitarian aid. Their moral claims are a major source of this influence, as reflected in Chandler's (2004) reference to NGOs as motivated by universal beliefs. Governments are violating human rights, leaving individuals or minorities without recourses or political power to fight for their rights. At this point the NGOs enter the arena, apply pressure on governments and are highly influential. The NGOs attempt to enhance a more justified ideology, which criticizes Western imperialism and capitalism. Their ideology is reflected in their publications and analyses, particularly regarding application of international law and human rights claims. NGOs exert much political power, particularly regarding moral and legal issues. They wish to monitor and report government behavior regarding human rights by creating public pressure. This influence is based on the application of \"soft power\" - achieving public goals by being appealing rather than through coercion or payments (Nye, 2004). NGOs promote their agenda using network organizations, internet, and advanced information technologies. NGOs networks with members and organizations attract media and government attention on their issues (Grant and Keohane, 2005). Although NGOs identified with left-wing ideology, they can defined as subcultures, most of them are working with network relations with the establishment (Steinberg, 2011).\nMethod: Three NGOs were examined: the A NGO (A), the B NGO (B), and the C NGO (C). Qualitative methodology of case study approach with document analysis and interviews were used. The data were dealt with on two levels: the first was analyzing the data gathered in the field and the second was its interpretation by the researchers. The final step involved relating the interpretations to existing theories, or modifying the theories (Yim, 2014).\nFindings: The cultural features of these NGOs can be defined by their public strategies. The NGOs studied utilize various strategies to accomplish its social goals: appealing to the Supreme Court, providing consultation and legal assistance to workers, pressuring governmental bodies, activating mass media, challenging exploitative employers, and collaborating with other NGOs and governmental authorities.\nDiscussion: The findings show that that the three NGOs exist and collaborate with other organizations, in order to promote a left-wing ideological agenda (Menuchin, 2010). In part, this can explain the conflict between these NGOs and the Israeli right-wing government (Moskovich, 2004; Moskovich and Achouch, 2013).\nConclusions: Left-wing ideology motivates these three NGOs with cultural egalitarian principles. This is in sharp contrast to the dominant Israeli right-wing culture, with its hierarchical, ethnocentric attitude toward the Jewish-Israeli in-group, and thus without an obligation to the well-being of outsiders. The cultural features of the three NGOs characterize a counterculture: clashing with governmental authorities and exploitive economic elites. Yet, at the same time, this particular counterculture organization collaborates with the establishment, even receiving partial funding from the government to achieve its goals, despite its underlying opposition to the dominant culture. Thus, this Israeli case study expands the definition of counterculture.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the NGOs in the immigration field as a counterculture working simultaneously with and against the establishment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Case study approach using interviews and documents analysis.\nFindings: This paper studies the cultural features of three civil associations, interested in promoting social welfare for immigrants. These NGOs challenge the Israeli government when it violates human rights. This conflict takes place in the courts, the Knesset (parliament), governmental agencies, the media, and sometimes in the streets. The three NGOs use a variety of political strategies: both collaborating with governmental agencies, while simultaneously fighting against the government authorities. The cultural features of the immigrant NGOs are primarily left-wing, with socialist principles. The organizational culture of this association can be identified as a counterculture, opposing the dominant Israeli right-wing capitalist culture.\nPractical implications: This research can demonstrate how NGOs can use tactics to achieve a high level of success for the underprivileged population.\nOriginality/value: This case study is unusual in that it suggests the NGOs are a sophisticated counterculture, with activists knowing how to operate concurrently with and against official authorities. The duality of the political cultural behavior of the NGOs' social movement is a notable phenomenon of counterculture in the political arena and expands the definition of counterculture.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The status of entrepreneurship education in Jordanian universities
|
[
"Entrepreneurship education",
"Entrepreneurship programs",
"Entrepreneurship courses",
"Entrepreneurship centers",
"Higher education",
"Jordanian universities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Entrepreneurship is crucial for socioeconomic development in terms of its potential role in enhancing the levels of employment creation (Haltiwanger et al., 2009), economic development (Akinbami, 2016; Rideout and Gray, 2013; Kabongo and Okpara, 2010) and society transformation (Sumedrea, 2017). This contribution is needed where the current level of unemployment rate is high; Jordan's unemployment rate reached about 18 percent during the second quarter of 2017 (JDS, 2017). The diminished role of traditional employment channels, including the government sector and large firms, in absorbing new workforce entrants, increases the significance of having new job prospects for entrepreneurs (Nurmi and Paasio, 2007). The changes in society and the employment market, also, have emphasized the urgent need to train young people in new ways of thinking (Nurmi and Paasio, 2007) and have increased the importance of education in the field of entrepreneurship (Co and Mitchell, 2006). In fact, recent studies have demonstrated the contribution of entrepreneurship education in enhancing graduates' employability (Bell, 2016) and shaping entrepreneurial citizens (Dahlstedt and Fejes, 2017).\nLiterature review: Entrepreneurship education\nResearch design: Sample\nResults: The universities studied included 10 public universities and 19 private universities. They vary in size, with the smallest enrollment size being 82 and the largest being 44,436 students.\nDiscussion: This study examines the context of entrepreneurship education in Jordanian universities in terms of its level of development. The results revealed that entrepreneurship education in Jordanian universities is still at a very early stage of development in the life-cycle state of entrepreneurship education. Reflecting on its growth and evolution, entrepreneurship education is new and has not yet developed deep roots; the first entrepreneurship courses were small business management courses; the first center was established in 2004; and programs did not take off till 2012. At the undergraduate level, introductory courses in entrepreneurship as a university elective course for all students in all disciplines are increasing with the first course offered to students in 2010.\nConclusion: This study has provided the first evaluation to the entrepreneurship education in Jordanian universities. Considering that the study covered all Jordanian private and public universities, the main conclusion to be drawn is that entrepreneurship education in Jordanian higher education is at an early stage of development. Educational opportunities are still limited on some courses and there is a lack of entrepreneurship departments and a scarcity of educational programs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the developmental level of entrepreneurship education within the context of Jordanian higher education. The level of development in such education is investigated based on two areas: the educational courses and programs themselves and the formal structures within which they are embedded.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The quantitative approach is based on a survey scan of all 29 Jordanian universities, including their course plans, educational programs, departments and centers. A list of entrepreneurship centers, programs and course subjects is provided and analyzed.\nFindings: The main findings of study are: in Jordan, entrepreneurship education is still at an early stage of development, and its offerings are limited to a few courses covering some introductory subjects in small business and entrepreneurship courses. Of the Jordanian universities, one university offers a major educational graduate program in entrepreneurship and 27.5 percent have centers for innovation and entrepreneurship, but lack any entrepreneurship departments. Entrepreneurship education is new in Jordan: the first provided course was a small business management; the first center was established in 2004 and later in 2012, it offered the first educational programs in entrepreneurship.\nResearch implications: This paper assists all stakeholders in higher education to build an understanding of the nature of entrepreneurship education in Jordan and supports the design of appropriate strategies for encouraging entrepreneurial subjects to be incorporated into the country's universities educational programs.\nOriginality/value: The value of this study stems from its aim to provide an overview of the status of entrepreneurship education in Jordanian universities. It also makes a contribution to knowledge as the first nationwide study in this context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Retail supply chain service levels: the role of inventory storage
|
[
"Thailand",
"Case study",
"Fast-moving-consumer goods",
"Inventory level",
"Retail supply chain",
"Service level"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In any highly competitive environment inventory and service levels are always a concern for any inventory management system and a major competitive factor. Poor service levels can result in the loss of customers and sales, whereas on the other hand excessive inventory results in unnecessary costs due to carrying large inventories (Hubner et al., 2013). To date, the importance of service level management has been widely studied in a number of different research areas, such as: multimedia service providers - Teixeira et al. (2012); service strategies in manufacturing - Lofberg et al. (2010) and service level agreements - Beaumont (2006). Hubner et al. (2013) studied the effect of competition on a retailing firm's incentive to provide quality. In the retailing industry, product availability is generally regarded as an important indicator of quality. Product availability (fill rate) has been identified as one of the most important factor when the retail chain deals with consumer products (Cardos and Garcia-Sabater, 2006). The problem of insufficient product availability in retail has also been identified as a typical example of low quality (Fleisch and Thiesse, 2007). To avoid such issues and in order to maintain desired service levels, firms have tended toward large stores of inventory which ultimately lead to extra cost. Although inventory service levels have been widely discussed in the extant literature, the relationship between inventory levels and service levels in a retail supply chain context is still under represented. In recent times, relatively few papers have studied the important relationship that exists between the inventory level and service level and the underlying challenges in addressing this trade-off (Sterman and Dogan, 2015; Wang et al., 2015; Eltantawy et al., 2015; Alftan et al., 2015; Chuang and Oliva, 2015; Gurgur, 2013; Cattani et al., 2011; Chou et al., 2003).\n2. Literature review: The role of inventory management is to ensure that stocks of raw material or other supplies; i.e., work-in-progress and finished goods, are kept at levels that provide maximum service levels at minimum costs (Sterman and Dogan, 2015; Wang et al., 2015). Sterman and Dogan (2015) further argued that once suppliers fail to fill orders, delivery delays get longer and customer service becomes poorer. A periodic review system is generally applied to understand and manage the retail replenishment system. Systems are designed to place orders of varying size at regular intervals so as to raise the stock level to a specified value (Waters, 1999). For example, supermarket shelves may be refilled periodically based on an inventory review every evening to replace whatever has been sold during the day. This kind of inventory management system is better suited to low value items of high and regular demand which contribute to low inventory management cost. However, Alftan et al. (2015) argue that despite advances in decision support systems in grocery supply chains, retail store replenishment management face many challenges. In particularly demand variations management tends to be a challenge right across the grocery industry.\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Industry background\n4. Research findings and discussions: The simulation analysis in this research case study involves a total 1,200 SKUs from 13 categories of products. Based on the analysis of existing data, the average of inventory level (number of days on hand) for each category is: A=4.876, B=4.246, C=5.685, D=4.639, E=7.025, F=7.572, G=5.166, H=6.514, I=4.406, J=5.856, K=6.704, L=6.055, M=5.941. It can be seen that the inventory level of each category in terms of number of days on hand varies from four to seven days. This suggests that the stock on hand at the DC is not stable. The volume of stock rapidly changes because the stores order a non-standard quantity of products every day. It means that the buffer stocks were dispatched to the stores to replenish the stock and the new stocks are delivered every day to support store's demand.\n5. Research implications: 5.1 Implications for theory\n6. Conclusion and future research direction: It is clear in this study that the use of simulation was able to provide better insights into resolving the conflict between inventory and service level. It led to reducing the inventory holding cost and making the managerial decision making process more efficient and effective. It aided in streamlining the transactions with the suppliers and customers and ultimately cut down the non-value adding inventory from the supply chain. Inventory is a problem that spans two functional areas: operations and marketing. Operation's goal is to minimize cost and maximize profit but marketing's goal is to enhance customer service. Hence, it requires integration of two functional decisions to serve the organizational objective. This research opens up insights on challenges in managing a retail supply chain in one of Asia's most dynamic markets, Thailand. Asia is a very attractive business market for companies from all over the world due to its large consumer base and significant tourist market. Doing business in Asia also has its own challenges. The Asian market is fragmented into many cultures and languages which present supply chain challenges such as the need to incorporate individualized product labeling, etc. Understanding these hidden challenges is a key to success in this fast growing continent.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In today's competitive retail industry the most critical success factor is customer service which is indicated by product availability. It is argued that in the retail industry, product availability is an important measure of quality. The single most vital decision that every retailer needs to make is, how to maximize service level while keeping minimum inventory level. The purpose of this paper is to explain and demonstrate the relationship between inventory level and customer service level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study examines an inventory system utilizing a simulation model based on company data obtained from a retail fast-moving-consumer goods chain operating in Thailand.\nFindings: The results suggest that the achievement of a responsive service level is dependent on managing an efficient supply chain in addition to logistics cost reductions. The findings also reveal the effect the inventory level has on the service level. From the findings of this study, demand variability and service level have been found to have the most significant influence on the inventory level. From the findings, it can also be shown that real and accurate information is very important for service supply chains.\nPractical implications: The paper promotes the importance of having an appropriate inventory management policy for a retail chain which should be driven by retail companies in order to better balance inventory and service levels.\nOriginality/value: The relationship between the inventory level and customer service level lead to different outcomes at different combinations of inventory and service levels. Significant relationships were found between inventory and service levels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Artworks at work: the impacts of workplace art
|
[
"Professional development",
"Workplace environment",
"Informal learning",
"Art exhibition",
"Art collection",
"Workplace relationships",
"Aesthetic environment",
"Corporate art"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The impact of various aspects of the workplace environment on worker learning and engagement has been studied previously, including the effect of spatial settings (Hua et al., 2011; Kaplan, 1995; Millward et al., 2007). One feature of workplace physical environments that has rarely been studied, however, is corporate art exhibitions. Thousands of organizations (International Art Alliance, 2005) in a wide variety of sectors display artworks on their walls (Kottasz et al., 2008), but these are rarely the focus of research.\nResearch methods: Organization and participants\nResults: The results of this study indicate that employees and board members feel there are five main ways in which interactions with the student art in their workplace impacts them: the art promotes social interactions, generally enhances the workplace environment, elicits emotional responses, facilitates personal connection-making and fosters learning. They believe that the salient features of the collection for them are its connection to the organization's mission and its diversity, quality, creativity and changing nature. The following sections discuss each of these areas in detail.\nDiscussion and conclusion: The main goal of this study was to explore the relationships between an organization's art collection and its employees and board members, through their own words. In answer to the research question, What impact do organization affiliates believe the art in their workplace has on their experience at work?, we found that respondents stated the art collection fostered discussions and socialization between colleagues as well as guests, stirred emotional responses, allowed for personal connection-making, generally enhanced their work environment, fostered learning opportunities and promoted cognitive engagement. The results also showed that the art's diversity, quality, creativity, changing nature and connection to the organization's mission were the features of the exhibited art that affiliates believed were salient in their experience of it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact that employees and board members of an organization believe the art in their workplace has on their experience at work and identify the exhibition's features salient to their experience of the art.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 affiliates of an Australian organization with an institutional art collection. The interview data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis by two researchers, with a final inter-rater reliability of 0.96.\nFindings: The results showed that respondents believe there are five main ways they are impacted by the art in their workplace: the art promotes social interactions, elicits emotional responses, facilitates personal connection-making, generally enhances the workplace environment and fosters learning. Participants indicated the salient features of the collection are its changing nature, creativity, diversity, quality and connection to the organization's mission.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest that there may be a number of positive impacts on employees and other affiliates when art is present in the workplace, including interpersonal learning and mission-related content learning. The findings suggest that art connected to the organization's mission, rotating exhibitions and diverse collections are valued by workplace viewers.\nOriginality/value: The study highlights the importance of the aesthetic environment in the workplace and is one of the first to examine artworks in the work setting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A semantic-based decision support platform to assist products' eco-labeling process
|
[
"Ontology engineering",
"OWL",
"Decision support",
"Eco-labeling",
"Knowledge base",
"SWRL"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since recent decades, there has been a growing demand from consumers, especially in developed economies, that products must be safe to use and are encouraged to do less harm to the environment. From a global point of view, promote of environment-friendly produce-consume-recycle progress will contribute not only to the life quality but also to the economy itself. The need of evaluating a product's safety, effectiveness and environmental performance has led to the establishment of eco-labels in order to certificate a product or service that meets certain environmental criteria.\n2. State of art: 2.1 Eco-label, EU Eco-label and eco-labeling process\n3. An decision support approach based on ontology knowledge base: 3.1 An overview of the decision support process\n4. Infrastructure implementation and case study: 4.1 Case study of EU Eco-labeling on laundry detergent\n5. Discussion, limitation and future work: This research is built upon the hypothesis that routine administrative communication and affairs that have few concerns to the decision making are trimmed off. Inspection and validation tasks which require much human expertise on site are also omitted. For example, the tourist accommodation or certain product's production workshop usually requires inspection on site. A textual description or even pictures are far from enough to tell if they are criteria compliant or not. Although people are pursuing for as much automatic technologies and tools as possible to accelerate the evaluation, during the general evaluation process in a broad sense, there is still some work in which human participation is essential.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we have proposed a decision support platform trying to improve and accelerate the evaluation process for eco-labeling to help stakeholders to make wiser decisions, as well as to share knowledge and experience. From the point of view of eco-label administration domain experts, this platform is a decision support tool for the evaluation process. On the other hand, this platform can also function as a simulation tool for the producer and service provider who wish their products or services to be eco-labeled. We have chosen EU Ecol-label as our application domain and notably the laundry detergent product group. Based on the criteria of this product group we build the knowledge base. A prototype decision support system based on modularized OWL ontology knowledge base is developed by OWL API and Jena framework. The mechanism of the decision support or simulation process is SWRL rule-based reasoning and explanation. A low-duty laundry detergent product study case is presented to show how this prototype decision support system gets the product profile as input, construct relevant ontology, apply reasoning upon the ontology and finally generate explanation and argumentation in accordance to the EU Eco-label criteria. The prototype system needs further development and improvement. In our future work, we will focus more on the generation of more powerful and user-friendly argumentation.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: With the rising concern of safety, health and environmental performance, eco-labeled product and service are becoming more and more popular. However, the long and complex process of eco-labeling sometimes demotivates manufacturers and service providers to be certificated. The purpose of this paper is to propose a decision support platform aiming at further improvement and acceleration of the eco-labeling process in order to democratize a broader application and certification of eco-labels, also to consolidate the credibility and validity of eco-labels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This decision support platform is based on a comprehensive knowledge base composed of various domain ontologies that are constructed according to an official eco-label criteria documentation.\nFindings: Through standard Resource Description Framework and Web Ontology Language ontology query interface, the assets of the decision support platform will stimulate domain knowledge sharing and can be applied into other applications. A case study of laundry detergent eco-labeling process is also presented in this paper.\nOriginality/value: The authors present a reasoning methodology based on inference with Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules which allows decision making with explanation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Examining quality and efficiency of the US healthcare system
|
[
"Primary care physicians",
"Doctors",
"Gross domestic product",
"Health care",
"Quality",
"Information technology",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The total expenditure of the US healthcare surpassed $2.26 trillion in 2007, as compared to $714 billion and $253 billion in 1990 and 1980 respectively. US healthcare spending was about $7,439 per person and accounted for 16.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 and will trend upward reaching 19.5 percent of GDP in 2017. As compared to other OECD countries, US healthcare spending per capita continuously leads by huge margins. In recent years, the sociopolitical culture of the US shifted from a welfare society to an ownership society resulting in significant increases in employee sponsored healthcare premium by 87 percent. Government assisted public healthcare insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid also increased by 18.7 percent accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total national health spending. Despite its top ranked emergency responsiveness, advanced medical care, new drugs and ultramodern medical devices, the US healthcare system ranked by the World Health Organization (WHO) 37th in overall performance and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study) (World Health Organization, 2007). Although Americans benefit from the investment cost in healthcare services, recent rapid cost growth coupled with an economic slowdown and growing federal fiscal deficit, will influence the financial well being of the US healthcare system significantly in coming years.Several questions have been researched through literature and answered in a simplified manner to address the contemporary issues with the US healthcare system. The questions researched are:1. How do stakeholders influence quality in healthcare services?2. Do quality considerations lead to the overuse or under-use of services by various healthcare system stakeholders?3. What factors impact the variation of services geographically?4. What factors contribute to the disparities in the quality service provided?5. What role does technology play in quality of healthcare?6. What tools or strategies can be used to promote increased quality in the healthcare system?7. What is the prevalence of medical errors in the healthcare system and what is its effect on costs?8. What lessons can be learned from the experience of healthcare systems of other countries about the role of quality?The quality and efficiency of the US healthcare system is studied by utilizing various operation management tools. The US healthcare system, role of government and finance of the overall healthcare system is studied via process maps. The contemporary issues of the healthcare system are studied in order to address the research questions. Literature overview, analytical framework, limitations, research findings, managerial implications and conclusions are presented in a chronological order throughout the paper.\nLiterature overview: Several papers, internet websites and congressional reports were reviewed to understand the current state of the US healthcare system and the present issues associated with it. Internet websites were found to be useful in data collection and information for the proposed study. The National Health Expenditure (2008) report was used to analyze the past and projected data to establish various trends associated with healthcare expenditure. Healthcare in US (National Health Expenditure, 2008) provided great insights on payment system, regulatory environment, role of government, healthcare efficiencies and inequities and costs drivers associated with the healthcare system. This report presented a very analytical and practical viewpoint of the present issues. \"The US healthcare spending in an international context\" (Reinhardt et al., 2004) and \"In critical condition: healthcare in America\" (Colliver, 2005) shed light on soaring healthcare costs and aligning it with the state of the fiscal and economical conditions. Inflation rate, GDP growth rate, wage increase rate and many others indicated that the state of the US healthcare is very gloomy and constructive actions are required otherwise the system could become bankrupt.Many articles discussed the various costs drivers. The US Healthcare System: Just Best in the World or Just the Most Expensive? (Hellander and Bailey, 2001) and \"Nothing Short of a Complete Overhaul will cure America's Healthcare System\" (City Mayors, 2007) argued that the US has the most expensive healthcare system in the world. It is the only developed country, besides South Africa, that does not provide healthcare for all its citizens. The article provided a glimpse of the US standing among other countries in terms of percent GDP spend, infant mortality rate, disability adjusted life expectancy, fairness of financial contribution, responsiveness of health system and overall system performance. It is understood from the article that people without insurance live sicker and die younger. This also causes expense to taxpayers and causes cost shifting considerations for hospital and other emergency care. Understanding Healthcare Cost Drivers (Moroney, 2003) explained a vast array of a complex healthcare cost problem and yet there is no common consensus to resolve this problem. The cursory review of this article also concludes the limitless horizon of the problem and other significant factors contributing to rising health care costs that should be addressed include: aging population, system delivery capacity, the rising cost and increasing use of medical devices and hospital operations and the overall system of health care delivery and the impact of prevention on costs.To define quality of healthcare, WHO provides a brief internet guideline. As per BMJ published WHO guidelines, WHO recommends the emphasis on primary healthcare and shift the focus from acute to chronic healthcare in all developed countries. Numerous articles touch on healthcare disparities, geographic variations and overall impact on healthcare quality. The social case for reducing health disparities should be treated just as the business case (Lurie et al., 2008).Few commercial websites were explored to research healthcare system of various developed nations and OECD countries. Advantages and disadvantages of single payer systems of UK, Canada and Germany compared with that of US. The debatable issue over healthcare is less a pure macroeconomic issue than an exercise in the political economy of sharing (Reinhardt et al., 2004; Peterson and Burton, 2007).\nAnalytical framework: This section is divided into the following three subsections - descriptive data analysis, process map analysis, and cause and effect diagrams.Descriptive data analysis\nReverting to research questions: Questions posed in the beginning of this paper are addressed next.How does quality impact the use of healthcare services for consumers, providers and other stakeholders?\nFindings: The analysis provides a macro model of the current US healthcare system and identifies major drivers of the country's escalating healthcare costs. Some of the identified cost drivers include healthcare service providers' costs, hospital costs, consumer behavior, new technologies, health insurance costs, and flawed management (e.g. medical errors, recording errors). Increasing healthcare costs in the US have made millions of citizens financially vulnerable, resulting in personal bankruptcies, a lack of healthcare delivery access, and an overall lack of consumer confidence in the US healthcare system. A number of solutions to improve the current system are then described, including universal health coverage, prudent health insurance plan purchase option for consumers, healthcare-IT promotion (such as, electronic medical records), federal government policy to support primary care as a foundation, aligned payment systems and the continued promotion of growth in medical technology and pharmaceutical research.\nLimitations of the study: The US healthcare system is very diverse and complex as compared to other nations. The quality and efficiency measures are also very diverse to achieve a universal healthcare policy. The entire healthcare model is institutionalized around the corporate culture such that there are many complex areas required to analyze. The healthcare reform proposals include restructuring the private health insurance market, employer \"pay or play\" requirements, premium subsidies to help individuals purchase health insurance, increased use of health information technology, research and incentives to improve medical decision-making, reduced high risk behavioral factors, reforming the payment of providers to encourage efficiency, limiting the federal tax exemption for health insurance premiums, and reforming several market changes such as resetting the benchmark rates for government sponsored plans and allowing the Federal agencies to negotiate drug prices.A fundamental problem in evaluating reform proposals is the difficulty in estimating their cost and potential impact. Proposals often differ in many important details, therefore, it is difficult to provide meaningful side-by-side cost comparisons. The empirical data and theory underlying cost estimates in this area are limited and subject to debate, increasing the variation between estimates and limiting their accuracy. Any healthcare reform solution that potentially impacts the healthcare model of the US needs to be aligned with the new healthcare practice. This subject is beyond the scope of this study, yet needs to be addressed and studied in subsequent research.\nManagerial implications: In order to curb rapidly rising US healthcare costs, decision makers in the US government, insurance companies, and hospitals should be proactive in implementing policies which could be effective in removing inefficiencies from the US healthcare delivery system. For instance, decision makers should insist on using acute care to prevent future chronic care, and the physician community should be given incentives to practice preventive medicine to avoid later consequences. Also, healthcare decision makers should promote the \"pay for performance model\" in order to support a culture that reduces defensive medical practices and litigations. To further reduce hospital costs, hospital management should take actions to increase staff efficiency and reduce hospital contributed medical errors. In addition, hospital management should increasingly utilize technologies such as Teleradiography in order to reduce diagnostic treatment costs, and central IT systems to enhance record keeping and billing practices. Lastly, management in private and government organizations should promote healthy lifestyles among US workers. In the past few years, US society has increasingly developed into an ownership society instead of a welfare society, and consumers should continue to make responsible lifestyle choices and educated healthcare decisions.\nConclusions: Healthcare expenses are one of the largest portions of annual consumer spending in the US. The US GDP is growing at a rate of 2 percent, whereas the healthcare spending in the US is increasing much faster than the GDP growth (Wikipedia, 2008). Therefore, close scrutiny of the US healthcare delivery system efficiency and effectiveness will be prudent. In our analysis, the state of US healthcare delivery system is examined by utilizing various operational management tools such as financial process maps and cause and effect diagrams. In the cause and effect diagrams, US healthcare cost drivers and the various elemental causes of the cost drivers are identified to explain the major sources contributing to US healthcare system expenditures.After pin-pointing the major cost drivers, we determined that the focus of decision and policy makers should be on various important measures of US healthcare system performance, such as treatment cost, access to healthcare, health and well being, responsiveness, fairness in financing, and consumer satisfaction (Hellander and Bailey, 2001). There are several steps that can be taken to reform the US healthcare system by reducing the costs and increasing the quality and efficiency. Computerized medical records, active promotion of primary care physician services, pay for performance paradigm shift, universal healthcare coverage and many other solutions can be applied to reform the US healthcare system. The US government policy makers, corporate strategists and public welfare committee representatives should work jointly to revitalize the US healthcare system (Hellander and Bailey, 2001).This study does not extensively examine the influence of the healthcare systems of other OECD countries and their impact on the social and cultural factors on the US. Since the US is such a diverse country in terms of race, geographic variation, genetic implications on hereditary diseases, taxation differences in the government system towards healthcare spending and many others - the lack of full-scale comparison is a limiting factor of this study. Other tools can be used to study the cost drivers, such as, regression analysis to incorporate unemployment rate, lifestyles in various age groups and economic standings, and so forth to further understand the effect of cost drivers on US healthcare system efficiency and effectiveness.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - The fundamental concern of this research study is to learn the quality and efficiency of US healthcare services. It seeks to examine the impact of quality and efficiency on various stakeholders to achieve the best value for each dollar spent for healthcare. The study aims to offer insights on quality reformation efforts, contemporary healthcare policy and a forthcoming change shaped by the Federal healthcare fiscal policy and to recommend the improvement objective by comparing the US healthcare system with those of other developed nations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The US healthcare system is examined utilizing various data on recent trends in: spending, budgetary implications, economic indicators, i.e. GDP, inflation, wage and population growth. Process maps, cause and effect diagrams and descriptive data statistics are utilized to understand the various drivers that influence the rising healthcare cost. A proposed cause and effect diagram is presented to offer potential solutions, for significant improvement in US healthcare.\nFindings: - At present, the US healthcare system is of vital interest to the nation's economy and government policy (spending). The US healthcare system is characterized as the world's most expensive yet least effective compared with other nations. Growing healthcare costs have made millions of citizens vulnerable. Major drivers of the healthcare costs are institutionalized medical practices and reimbursement policies, technology-induced costs and consumer behavior.\nPractical implications: - Reviewing many articles, congressional reports, internet websites and related material, a simplified process map of the US healthcare system is presented. The financial process map is also created to further understand the overall process that connects the stakeholders in the healthcare system. Factors impacting healthcare are presented by a cause and effect diagram to further simplify the complexities of healthcare. This tool can also be used as a guide to improve efficiency by removing the \"waste\" from the system. Trend analyses are presented that display the crucial relationship between economic growth and healthcare spending.\nOriginality/value: - There are many articles and reports published on the US healthcare system. However, very few articles have explored, in a comprehensive manner, the links between the economic indicators and measures of the healthcare system and how to reform this system. As a result of the US healthcare system's complex structure, process map and cause-effect diagrams are utilized to simplify, address and understand. This study linked top-level factors, i.e. the societal, government policies, healthcare system comparison, potential reformation solutions and the enormity of the recent trends by presenting serious issues associated with US healthcare.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leveraging professional development to build professional capital in international schools in Asia
|
[
"Professional capital",
"Professional development",
"International schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The term international school has been applied loosely to various communities over the past few decades (Bunnell et al., 2016; Cambridge and Thompson, 2004; Weston, 2014; Zilber, 2009). However, ISC Research (2019), a leading provider of data on international schools, defines an international school as an institution that \"delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country\" or \"if a school is in a country where English is one of the official languages, it offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country's national curriculum and the school is international in its orientation\" (para. 6). For the purpose of this study, the term will be limited to schools that are located outside of the United States, are recognized by the Office of Overseas Schools and use English language to deliver instruction.Market data from August 2019 show that there are 11,111 international schools worldwide that employ over 573,000 educators (ISC Research, 2019). Over half of these schools (n = 6,280) are in Asia. International school educators are highly mobile but highly committed to the international school community. In fact, research by Zilber (2009) highlighted that \"over 65% of international school educators remain on the 'circuit' and relocate many times during their career\" (p. Loc 4,149 of 4,987). A problem of practice facing international school leaders is how to foster the professional capital of the individual while also building the professional capital within the school building and the international school community writ large. In a review of the literature, no empirical, peer-reviewed studies were located that focused on the intersection of this community and this topic. The current study thus addresses how international school leaders in high performing schools in Asia are using professional development to foster professional capital of teachers within this unique community.Benefits of teaching in an international school includes high salaries, tuition waivers for teachers' children, housing subsidies, tax exemptions and an array of professional development opportunities (Gutwerk, 2013). Although professional development plays an integral part in forming the culture of an international school, it is also pivotal in the recruitment and retention of these highly mobile educators. Thus, it is incumbent on school leaders to understand how professional development impacts teaching and learning, creates a strong professional identity for their teachers and fosters the reputation of the school.\nLiterature review: In the 1960s, Bourdieu developed the concept of cultural capital to understand the way power was transferred and maintained in education. His work led to several theoretical models and frameworks to explore distinct branches of cultural capital (Davies and Rizk, 2017). One evolution of Bourdieu's work is the theory of professional capital. Professional capital refers to an investment in the development of educators to improve teacher quality and increase student achievement. According to Hargreaves and Fullan (2012), professional capital is composed of three constructs including \"human capital (the talent of individuals); social capital (the collaborative power of the group); and decisional capital (the wisdom and expertise to make sound judgments about learners that are cultivated over many years)\" (p. 37). Hargreaves and Fullan express their theory as PC = f (HC, SC, DC) where professional capital is a function of combining human, social and decisional capital. This theory is gaining traction around the globe. For example, to enable students to have quality experiences across the span of their schooling years, countries such as Finland, Canada and Singapore are focusing their efforts on attracting educators and developing their professional capital (Fullan and Hargreaves, 2016). From the literature, we know that leadership matters and that leaders can significantly impact student experiences (Leithwood et al., 2004). Thus, school leaders are instrumental in developing the professional capital of individuals, teams and the profession within their unique community.Human capital\nMethods: The relationship between professional development and professional capital in international schools was investigated in this study using a case study approach that focused on educators in large, high performing international schools. In this multiple-site, exploratory case study, the researchers obtained data using a sequential mixed-methods design (as defined by Ivankova et al., 2006) to gain a deeper understanding of this phenomena. This study was guided by two research questions:What does professional capital look like in high performing international schools?How do school leaders in high performing international schools use professional development to foster professional capital within their school?Study sites\nResults: For the first research question, the results focus on determining the level of professional capital at six high performing international schools, disaggregated by each construct. The first research question focused on understanding what professional capital looks like in high performing international schools. As such, the professional capital score calculations found in Table 3 are based on criteria established by Hargreaves and Fullan (2012). Professional capital responses were given a 1-5, Likert score based on the agreement with individual statements. To calculate a professional capital score for participants, responses to three human capital items, three social capital items and three decisional capital items were added together for a potential high score of 45. An individual score of 36 or higher was considered a high degree of professional capital, between 27-35 a medium degree and 26 or less a low degree.Table 4 presents a summary of the professional capital scores for all participants in the study. The results from the analysis of professional capital scores indicate that 93.3% of international school leaders reported high professional capital. It was found that 65.2% of international teachers were found to have high professional capital. Nearly three-quarters of middle school teachers (72.5%) were found to have high professional capital. Only 60.1% of high school teachers were found to have high professional capital.To address the second research question, the researchers calculated the professional capital scores (i.e. the sum of human, social and decisional capital scores) for each school leader who volunteered for the study and selected the three leaders with the highest scores. Table 5 shows that each school leader had a high professional capital based on the scoring guide presented in Table 3 above. Consistent with the general population at all six schools, these school leaders generally scored higher in professional capital than members of their own teaching faculty members.Human capital\nLimitations: A limitation of this study is its lack of generalizability. The design of the study was to explore a relatively new construct of professional capital in a niche community. As such, the findings may not apply to other international schools. Nevertheless, the findings from this research may still be germane to many international school educators. Future researchers might use the findings and lessons from this study to survey a broader swath of the international school community.This study is also limited by its response rate. Given the recruitment procedures, the researchers are uncertain how many teachers and leaders from each school had the opportunity to complete the survey. Thus, we are unclear if the response rate per school represents a low or high number of potential participants. As such, calculating the number of responses by the total number of educators in the school would be misleading. Further, this study is limited by potential response bias. It may be that those educators who participated were those who valued professional development whereas those who did not, self-selected out of the study. Future researchers might work closely with select schools to ensure that all educators within the building participate in the survey.Finally, this study is limited by self-responses of participants. No efforts were made to triangulate the findings with the day-to-day professional development realities in these schools. Further, interviews with the three leaders are limited being that these are self-reported data, as such, what was reported was not corroborated by teachers and staff members. Future researchers might go deep into a few international schools and extend interviews to teachers and leaders while also reviewing internal school documents germane to professional development.\nDiscussion: The results from this study indicate that the three constructs of professional capital work in unison with professional development in international schools. School leaders can foster the professional capital of individual teachers while building the professional capital of a school. This can be achieved by intertwining the theory of professional capital with the pedagogy of personalized learning. Kallick and Zmuda's (2017) progressively student driven model is designed as a continuum where students and teachers cocreate opportunities for personalized learning. This approach can be used by international schools and school leaders when it comes to utilizing professional development to foster professional capital within a school. In international schools, there needs to be a balance between the teacher and leader agency in choosing professional development. Upon reflecting on the findings of the current study, in Figure 1 we offer a conceptual model of the continuum of teacher and leader agency for professional capital development through professional development.As professional development builds the human and social capital of international school educators, a balanced approach by teachers and school leaders working together on professional development builds decisional capital. In high performing international schools, teachers bring with them a high level of human capital. This is a direct outcome of their education, personal experiences, diverse perspectives and life experiences. Leaders of high performing international schools build social capital indirectly and directly. Directly, these leaders maintain a highly attractive organization by offering competitive professional development packages that increase the social capital of teachers within the school. Indirectly, it is because leaders retain and recruit these teachers into these schools that the social capital of these teachers increases as well. It is by leveraging decisional capital (much like a dance) between leaders and teachers around professional development, that these two ends of the spectrum come together. As such, high performing international schools are ones where leaders foster social capital, teachers foster human capital and collectively both foster decisional capital where professional development is the key lever of bidirectional agency.Zilber (2009) noted how international school educators develop their personal and professional identity through their choices of professional development. A professional identity thus becomes the home for the international school educator. Professional identity within the international school community is not location dependent, but rather dependent on the professional choices made throughout their career. As such, a community of practice is not simply constrained to one building, but to one belonging to a loosely coupled social structure that includes the school, the city, professional organizations, peer contacts and continued learning: all aspects of professional development. Thus, attuning to one's professional capital in international schools cannot be decoupled from professional development.\nFuture research and implications: This study is the first to investigate the link between professional development and professional capital in the international school community. However, more work needs to be done. For example, future work might include a focus on the professional capital of international school leaders. School leaders indicated having the highest professional capital; yet, the field is unclear how they themselves foster professional capital outside of professional development. Additionally, a longitudinal study of international school teachers would help determine how professional development impacts the professional capital of teachers within international schools. Future research could also focus on specific school sites and offer a comparative analysis of levers and challenges of fostering professional capital in similar settings.The findings of this study have implications on practice. We found that professional development in these international schools was being used to improve practice of teachers, to develop the skills of teachers, to incentivize teachers to remain in the school, to attract new teachers into the school, to increase networking opportunities and to foster organizational capacity (and capital) within these schools. Thus, this study sheds light onto the importance of professional development to improve professional capital. However, given the independent nature as well as geographical diversity of international schools, more research studies need to be done to understand the challenges of fostering professional capital using professional development. For example, Hayden and Thompson (2017) noted how there are three different types of international schools where each cater to a unique audience and each hold unique missions. Researching this construct across different types of schools would be valuable to the field. Additionally, juxtaposing how professional capital is fostered through professional development in general education schools would elicit some rich insights.This study also has implications on theory. Although the refined survey (focused just on the professional development elements of professional capital) tested well as an aggregate with the nine items, the individual constructs, with just three items, could use more items to improve robustness and reliability. Some nuances were gleaned from the qualitative interviews with the school leaders and could inform survey development. Nevertheless, this study gives strength to the notion that professional capital and professional development are closely linked in international schools. Future research could test our assertion that, especially in international schools, there may be a relationship between teacher agency with human capital and leadership agency with social capital.\nConclusion: This research aimed to inform the existing limited body of knowledge on international schools, professional development and professional capital. The findings from this study provide support for the premise that professional development is being used to foster and strengthen the professional capital of teachers in high performing international schools in Asia. The diversity and transitory nature of international educators affords an opportunity for developing professional capital through professional development. By utilizing the differing perspectives and professional development experiences of this specific population, international school leaders can harness the human capital of educators, build upon the social capital of their individual schools and use the collective decisional capital to determine and plan future professional development. It was found that professional development within these international schools was a collective lever for the three constructs of professional capital.There needs to be a balance between teacher and leader autonomy and agency in choosing professional development within the international schools. Teachers need to maintain some autonomy of their professional development funds, with an expectation to share their knowledge to help build the collective social capital of their school. This includes supporting teachers in their development of human capital while the school leaders guide and develop the collective social capital of the school. Using decisional capital, teachers and school leaders can collectively determine professional development to increase professional capital within the international schools.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the connection between professional development and professional capital within international schools in Asia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was an exploratory multisite case study. Teachers and leaders in six high performing international schools in Asia were surveyed to measure their professional capital. Three leaders with the highest professional capital from different schools were interviewed to better understand how professional development fosters professional capital of their teachers.\nFindings: International school leaders tended to have high professional capital while teachers reported having less professional capital. Leaders fostered professional capital of their teachers through professional development by supporting the intellectual passions of individuals, fostering collaborative learning within and across international schools and creating a culture of safety and vulnerability for teachers to try new things.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study showed that a short version of the professional capital survey tested well in this context with items just focused on professional development. However, more work needs to be done to make the individual constructs more robust as it pertains to professional development. This research also highlighted the need to look at how international school teachers foster their own professional capital through professional development.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that focused on the intersection of professional capital and professional development. Additionally, this article serves as one of the few studies of professional capital in international schools.\n",
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Inter-generational family care for and by older people in Thailand
|
[
"Ageing",
"Carers",
"Elder care",
"Grandchild care",
"Thailand",
"Older persons",
"Elderly people",
"Child care"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The human life course is bounded at the beginning and the end by extended periods when individuals are heavily or totally dependent on others for personal care as infants and children or as elderly persons. Such care is provided within four main institutional arrangements referred to as the \"care diamond\": the family, state, market and voluntary sector (Razavi, 2007). The relative importance and the roles these arrangements play vary substantially between child and elderly care, over time and across cultural, social, economic and political settings (Abe, 2010). Much of the discussion concerning older persons in Asia and elsewhere focuses on the family and old-age support and care by adult children for their parents. Yet not only can older-age persons receive needed care and support from family members but they can and frequently do support themselves and contribute to intergenerational family care especially for young grandchildren including in cases where the parents are migrants and are absent for long periods.The present study focuses on Thailand and the inter-generational arrangements within the family for personal care provided to elderly members (defined as age 60 and above) and provided by them as grandparents to young children with absent parents. Based on the 2007 Survey of Older Persons in Thailand (SOPT), it addresses several related questions. To what extent is there a need for personal care among current older Thais and to what extent is it met by family members? Who are the primary caregivers for older Thais who receive personal care? To what extent do older Thais live with minor age grandchildren and to what extent are the parents of these grandchildren present. Finally, what is the role of the grandparents in the care and support of coresident grandchildren whose parents are absent?We begin by describing the background for the present analysis including a brief literature review drawing mainly but not exclusively on Thailand based research followed by a description of the data source for the present study and some of its limitations. We then present results related to family care and assistance for elderly and care by elderly for grandchildren especially those whose parents are absent. The final section provides discussion and conclusions.\nBackground: There is broad agreement that in Asia and much of the developing world that the main responsibility for care and support of the elderly rests predominantly with the family (National Research Council (US), 2011; World Economic Forum, 2012). Thailand is no exception. The roles of the state, market and voluntary sector with respect to personal care for older-age persons have all been secondary compared to the family, especially adult children. As elsewhere, however, the traditional role of the family of providing old-age care faces serious challenges posed by a rapidly shifting demographic context involving declining family size, increased migration and consequent dispersion of adult children, and extended longevity. Thus, while increasing shares of elderly will reach advanced ages, far fewer of their children will be living in close proximity, a necessary condition for filial personal care to occur (Knodel et al., 2011). In addition, social, economic and political changes can alter the normative context underlying filial obligations to older age parents (Hendricks and Yoon, 2006).In recognition of these challenges, the Thai government has become increasingly proactive in developing plans and programs to deal with health and material needs of older persons but under the assumption that primary responsibility for long-term care will remain within the family. Hence little expansion is planned for government sponsored institutional old age homes which currently house only a few thousand residents (Foundation of Thai Gerontology Research and Development Institute, 2010). Instead, the government actively promotes community based home care assistance through paid volunteers and a program of follow-up home visits by staff from state facilities to bed-ridden chronically ill elders who had been hospitalized. Far less is known about the role of the private sector but it is generally assumed that private institutions for rehabilitation and nursing care and paid home care are increasing in major urban areas (Kespichayawattana and Jitapunkul, 2009). Only a few non-governmental organizations maintain homes or rehabilitation centers for the aged.To receive personal care from family members depends on their availability. As of 2007, the vast majority of older Thais (95 per cent) had at least one living child and over 60 per cent had a spouse, although the latter declines rapidly with age (Knodel and Chayovan, 2008). Personal care provision typically requires proximity but living arrangements in relation to children among persons 60 and older are changing. Coresidence with children fell from 77 per cent in 1986 to 59 per cent by 2007. While still low, the percentage living alone almost doubled to 8 per cent by 2007. When those who live only with a spouse are included, the percentage that lives independently rose steadily from 11 per cent to almost one-fourth by 2007. Still 71 per cent of older Thais either lived with or very near a child in 2007. In contrast to declining coresidence with children, the percentage of persons 60 and older who are married and live with a spouse has remained relatively stable in recent years.Regarding grandparental care of young children, studies throughout Asia and elsewhere indicate that rural to urban internal migration and international labor migration often result in young children being left in care of grandparents (Asis, 2006; Cong and Silverstein, 2012; HelpAge International and UNICEF, 2010; Lee and Bauer, 2010). The extent and nature of the consequences for both grandparents and grandchildren when parents are absent remains an open question and is likely to vary with setting. According to the 1994 Survey of Older persons, over 90 per cent of Thais aged 60 and older had grandchildren (authors' tabulation). Although recent data is lacking, the percentage that have grandchildren is possibly lower currently given the sharp reduction in fertility among reproductive age persons. According to the Surveys of Older Persons conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the share of older persons who coresided with a grandchild declined from 55 per cent in 1994 to 48 per cent in 2007 (authors' tabulation). Although mass media typically portray the situation of older persons caring for grandchildren with absent parents as burdensome, the limited relevant research suggests a more nuanced and varied picture (Knodel and Saengtienchai, 2007; Knodel et al., 2007; Saengtienchai and Knodel, 2001).\nData: The following results are based on original analysis by the authors of the 2007 SOPT conducted by NSO (2008). The survey covered persons aged 50 and older. Our analysis is limited to the 30,467 aged 60 and older, among whom 43 per cent were men and 57 per cent women. Results are weighted to make them nationally representative. The survey included a question that asked who took care and helped the older person most in their daily activities, thus soliciting information on the core aspect of long term personal care. Although there was no prior question that directly asked if the older person needed assistance, the pre-coded possible responses included \"self\" as well as \"no one but requires care\". The vast majority (88 per cent) of respondents aged 60 and above responded that they took care of themselves and only 1 per cent responded that they needed care but no one provided it. The remainder cited someone as their main caregiver. We treat those who cited a caregiver plus those who said \"no one but required care\" as in need of personal assistance. The low percentage of older persons indicating a need for personal care is consistent with the low percentage of respondents (12 per cent) who reported they needed assistance with at least one of three tasks of daily living (eating, dressing, bathing and going to the toilet) or had a major problem with walking or climbing steps (Knodel and Chayovan, 2008).The survey also included questions about the number of grandchildren living in the house and the age of the youngest coresident grand child. Additional questions asked about the number of coresident grandchildren whose parents were absent and who were the major caregiver and the major financial supporter of the youngest of these. Note that in households that included both grandchildren with and without a coresident parent, it is unknown to which category the prior question about the age of the youngest grandchild refers to. To eliminate this ambiguity in our analysis of grandparental care and support which focuses on grandchildren under age 16 with absent parents, we omit the small minority of households in which grandchildren resided both with and without a coresident parent.\nResults: Family care and assistance for elderly\nDiscussion and conclusions: The findings presented above clearly document the primary role of the family, especially adult children and spouses, in providing personal care to elderly members who can no longer carry out their activities of daily living on their own. The state and private health sectors play important roles in the provision of care for acute health problems. However, given the paucity of institutional old age homes sponsored by the government and voluntary organizations and the only emergent state of private institutional care, the family clearly dominates over the other three points of the \"care diamond\" with respect to long term personal care in old age in Thailand. At the same time, older family members, as grandparents, make significant contributions to the care of young children, especially when the parents have migrated leaving their children behind with the grandparents. Still, the extent to which the relative contributions of the four points of the diamond may shift in the future remains an open question.Demographic trends pose important challenges for the future of inter-generational family care. Primary among these are smaller family sizes, increased migration of adult children to find employment, and longer survival into advanced ages. Moreover, the normative framework in which filial obligations are grounded is also subject to change although this is far less predictable. These factors have already contributed to a steady decline in coresidence with a child and increased proportions of older Thais living alone or only with a spouse. In terms of intra-generational family care of older Thais by spouses, the demographic underpinnings are less subject to change although the proportion of elderly in the future that have never married is likely to increase (Knodel et al., 2011).The future role of older persons in providing care to young dependent grandchildren is also subject to change due to demographic trends and perhaps changes in normative views of parenthood, although the latter is difficult to predict. The effects of demographic change could counteract each other. Not only is fertility falling among reproductive-age married couples who now exceed two children but proportions of adults who forgo marriage and childbearing altogether is increasing (Jones, 2008). This presumably will contribute to reducing the need for grandparental child care. Should parenthood outside the context of marriage increase, however, the need for greater involvement of grandparents in care of young children of single mothers may increase. Moreover, increased migration of adult children seeking employment especially in urban areas could help sustain a demand for grandparental care of young dependent children of the migrants. Thus, considerable uncertainty remains concerning the future trend of older persons caring for young children.There are also issues that contribute to uncertainty about the future of family care for older persons. The economic, social, political and technological environments are constantly changing, often in substantial ways. Future elderly will be better educated and likely to have better health. Moreover, as the world about them changes, parents and their adult children as well as those childless in old age are unlikely to passively stand by. Instead they will seek their own ways to adapt to the new circumstances in ways that minimize negative impacts and maximize potential benefits.With that said long term personal care virtually requires the physical presence of the caregiver and thus smaller family sizes and greater dispersion of adult children among future elderly will likely reduce the extent or at least modify the nature of filial care. As adult children become less available, among married elderly, spouses may need to play an even greater role. This might require modification of gender role norms to better balance contributions of husbands and wives in this respect. The Thai Government will likely increase its role through programs specifically designed to address the situation, some of which are already in pilot stages. Still how effective such efforts will be in filling gaps in the family care system remains an open question, especially given the current government strategy to play mainly a supporting role for family care rather than to provide significant alternatives to it.At the same time the private sector is presumably engaged in expansion of long term personal care services but is likely to focus on the minority that can afford them. The fact that such private sector services are largely unregulated deserves government attention. Hired help is not a practical solution for families with insufficient incomes. Moreover, attitudinal data suggest that many elders still feel at least one child should be present to provide personal care rather than just hiring someone else to do so (Knodel et al., 2007). Government promotion of \"elder care leave policies\" in employment contracts might provide a partial solution to this dilemma. Short term eldercare leave when needed for acute illness or other short term health problems should be institutionalized even if longer term leaves are impractical.Clearly monitoring the role of the four points in the care diamond both for eldercare and child care should be a research priority in relation to population aging in Thailand in the future. Especially important is to learn how the other three points of the care diamond interact with family care and how all four can be best integrated.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine inter-generational arrangements in Thailand for personal care provided to older members and provided by them as grandparents to young children.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Results are based on analysis of the 2007 Survey of Older Persons in Thailand. Consideration focuses on persons aged 60 and older.\nFindings: - The results document the primary role of the family, especially adult children and spouses, in providing personal care to older members. For those with only one or two adult children compared to those with four or more, spouses are considerably more likely and children less likely to be the main care provider. At the same time, older family members, as grandparents, make significant contributions to the care of young children, especially for those whose parents migrated. In most such situations, however, the grandchild's parents cover the main financial support.\nSocial implications: - Trends towards smaller family size and increased migration of adult children have already contributed to a steady decline in coresidence with adult children and increased proportions of older persons living alone or only with a spouse. How this will affect elder and grandchild care requires careful monitoring to guide social policy in relation to the roles of family, state, and voluntary sector.\nOriginality/value: - The availability of representative data on the older population in Thailand provides an unusual opportunity to highlight the challenges posed by the changing demographic context of inter-generational family care in a context of rapid population ageing in a developing country setting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The determinants of Greek bond yields: an empirical study before and during the crisis
|
[
"Eurozone debt crisis",
"Greek debt crisis",
"Macroeconomic fundamentals",
"Sovereign bonds",
"Unrestricted VAR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: After the tremendous housing crisis of the sub-primes, international capital markets have altered the risk perception of sovereign debt and Eurozone's periphery countries have exhibited an unprecedented hike of volatility. The first upward trend in Greek spreads began to appear in 2008 as international markets were in upheaval. Thus, from 35 basis points (bps) in that period, the Greek government spreads amounted to 230 bps in December 2008, while in March of 2009 ranged to 300 bps. When the Greek government met its borrowing needs for 2009 spreads decreased again to 130 bps in September 2009. The first signs of the crisis in the Greek bond's market are placed on 10 October 2009 following the announcement of the Greek Government for an upward revision of it's estimated budget deficit for the year 2009 initially from 7 to12 per cent, and finally at 15.6 per cent of GDP. Fitch rating agency in December of that year downgraded the Greek economy from the category A- to BBB+. It was the first time in a period of ten years that the Greek economy was downgraded. Overall, between October 2009 and July 2011, the creditworthiness of Greek economy downgraded six times by the S\n2. Literature review: During the last decade there were two important factors that geared the empirical research towards the examination of the determinants of sovereign bond yields. The first was the inception of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the second was the global financial crisis of 2008.\n3. The impact of Greek debt crisis to the global capital markets: A large part of the practitioners' have argued on the impact of the Greek debt crisis to the global capital markets. It is widespread the impression, that the elaboration of the Greek crisis has tremendous impact on the sentiment of the investors. Figure 1, shows the movement of the ten-year Greek bond yield and the movement of the implied volatility of the S\n4. The pattern of the risk premia since the inception of Euro to Greece: In this section, we are trying to shed light on the risk premia through the movement of the so call \"PIIGS\" ten-year sovereign bond yields including two vulnerable countries of the core of Eurozone (France-Belgium). To do so, we apply daily closing prices over the last decade 1 January 2001-31 December 2012. The explanatory power of this figure proves that the Greek crisis is a unique and isolated case since the Greek sovereign yields bounced in the extreme value of 36 per cent. In any case, the crisis of the periphery hit the reliability of the common currency, and despite the quantitative easing programmes that central banks support, Italy (ex G7 member) and Spain has to pay more than 4 per cent of yield to the investors. We should take under consideration that, the majority of the Italian sovereign debt held by local investors and residents, which is a supportive factor to the service of the debt. However, even in this case, investors found to be reluctant to hold bonds without a significant increase in risk premia.\n5. Data, empirical methodology: 5.1. Data\n6. Baseline results: Table III presents the relationship between the changes in the bond yields and their fundamental macro factors for the Euro era (Panel A) and for the isolated period of the crisis (Panel B). In line with the economic rationale the long-run coefficients of the unemployment and inflation found to be significant for both periods (Poghosyan, 2014), suggesting that crisis did not change the determinants of bond yields. The degree of influence for unemployment increase significantly from 1.39 to 10.24 during the crisis. The same behaviour, however, with lesser impact, is observed between the Greek bond yields and inflation. During the crisis, inflation turns to accelerate the speed of adjustment coefficient increases from 0.12 to 0.21.\n7. Conclusion: In this paper, we tried to uncover the determinants of the ten-years Greek bond yield before and during the crisis. The empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that Greek bond yield function was associated via different determinants. In particular, during the period of time before the memorandum both inflation and unemployment seem significant determinants. Immediately after the burst of the Greek crisis in addition to the aforementioned factors fiscal deficit found to be significant while growth rate has not any significant impact on the GGBs. This implies that the policy option of the fiscal consolidation is the appropriate road map for Greece to come back to the international capital markets. So, a positive growth rate without any decrease in unemployment rate cannot provide any access to the capital markets. A quite interesting result is that during the crisis Greek bond yields deviate more than their long-run equilibrium level. This increase, confirms the sell-off that took place in Greek fixed income market. Finally, during 2012 the actual yield was around 35 per cent and the forecasted around 20 per cent, accounting for the defaults probabilities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to uncover the determinants of the ten-year Greek bond yield in both pre- and post-crisis period that caused the unprecedented event, a country member of the Euro area, not to be able to tap the market. In doing so, following the recent literature, the authors employ two major set of variables, market driven and macroeconomic variables and the authors find two classes of results. Among others, debt to GDP ratio, deficit, inflation and unemployment, play a more significant role as determinants of the ten-years Greek bond yield during the crisis and second, the ten-years yield exceeds that fundamentals that price in. Moreover, the authors explicitly test for the impact of speculation on the yield. These results are in line with other empirical studies and shed line to the dramatic evolution of the bond yields in terms of fiscal consolidation era as it is in Greece. Since the Greek debt crisis is ongoing more than five years, policy makers should make substantial changes in their macro projections taking under consideration more the variables of inflation and unemployment, and release a viable concrete plan of debt relief, which among other, secures the success of the macro projections.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical study on Greek debt crisis applying both macroeconomics and market indicators in separated estimations.\nFindings: Debt to GDP ratio, deficit, inflation and unemployment among others, play a more significant role as determinants of the ten-years Greek bond yield during the crisis than had before and second, during the crisis ten-years yield is above the price that fundamentals would imply.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge it is the first time that the authors study the Greek debt crisis applying fundamental and market factors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The implementation of internet filtering in Scottish public libraries
|
[
"Internet filtering",
"Equity of access",
"Public libraries",
"Access policies",
"United Kingdom",
"Libraries",
"Internet"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The aim of the paper is to determine the extent to which filtering systems are used as a public access internet management tool in Scottish public libraries and to examine how the tool is being utilised and managed.Clearly access to information is a vital component of the public library mission; however the origins of the public library service also lie in a middle class Victorian proclivity to view access to education as a way of promoting the tenets of a larger moral, or perhaps \"civilising\", project to the predominantly urban British underclass. As McMenemy states, in reference to what has now evolved into the 'great fiction debate', although public libraries rested firmly on the principle of equity of access it was understood that the service would constitute a place to access \"high quality material and not low brow fiction\" (McMenemy, 2009, p. 62). In the context of what could therefore be similarly dubbed the \"great internet debate\" public libraries must now wrestle with the competing desires to provide equitable access to citizens and to prevent access to materials that could be deemed inappropriate. It is then a simple and prima facie rational line of reasoning that makes reference to the \"historical project\" of the public library sector, when discussing the intellectually related concepts of \"control\" and \"selection\". The tendency to conflate these two separate concepts, and to miss the distinction between \"selecting to censor\" and \"selecting to provide access to\", is especially evident when discussing the internet management issues connected to the installation of filtering software in a public library environment.Writing before the advent of the internet explosion, Hauptman summarised the tensions for the librarian in the following way:Much has been written concerning censorship...it is only necessary to insist that it is an ethical imperative to refuse to practice, condone, or abide any form of censorship. At the same time, censorship must never be confused with the refusal to provide socially detrimental information (in reference), the aiding and abetting of illegal acts, or the judicious selection of materials. (Hauptman, 1988, p.65)This dichotomy lies at the heart of the internet filtering question: on one hand providing access to the internet is clearly a must for any library, however with this must come cognisance of the potential damage erroneous, offensive or illegal information can cause.This paper then seeks to provide insight into how public libraries in one administrative geographic area, Scotland, are addressing the ethical and practical questions of managing public internet access. In doing so it seeks to shed light on how such provision may acerbate and expand historic tensions between equity of access and censorship and control that form the historical legacy of the public library service.\nLiterature review: The concepts of selection, control and access were at the heart of the \"historical project\" of the public library sector. This study, conducted within the Scottish public library sector, aims to examine the practical implications of these concepts with respect to public access internet filtering software.The people's network\nResearch aims and methodology: The aim of the paper is to determine the extent to which filtering systems are used as a public access internet management tool in Scottish public libraries and to examine the nature of this implementation. This will constitute an analysis of the actual policies and procedures in place within each library authority to manage public access to the internet. To this end the research questions are:* How many public library authorities in Scotland include rely on internet filtering software to manage access?* Where filtering software has been used as a management tool on public access terminals, what is the rationale behind this implementation?* If internet filtering is implemented what types of content is the filter designed to block?* From what organisational level have these filtering policies been implemented?* Are there procedures in place whereby these policies could be overridden by staff when requested by a user?* What is the extent and nature of staff training procedures in place relating public access internet filtering software?Freedom of information (FOI) requests\nResults and analysis: Results of the FOI responses are displayed below under each research question:RQ1. How many public library authorities in Scotland include rely on Internet filtering software to manage access?The FOI request revealed that 31 of the public library services operating within the 32 local authorities across Scotland utilise some form of internet filtering software as a method for controlling public access to the internet:RQ2. Where filtering software has been used as a management tool on public access terminals, what is the rationale behind this implementation?Figure 1 begins to reveal the official reasons why 31 Scottish local authorities have chosen to use filtering software as an internet management tool on their public access computers.Figure 1 offers instances of individual reasons given for why internet filtering software was installed, although each service provided a multi-faceted rationale lying behind their decision. Given the broad nature of this short study, it was thought that the general overview afforded by the analysis in Figure 1 would suffice. A more nuanced examination focused on each multi-faceted rationale could form the basis of a further study.The analysis above provides the following data: 24 local authorities cited \"preventing access to illegal and/or inappropriate content\" as a reason for using internet filtering software as a public access management tool. This was by far the most common reason afforded by the Scottish public library services.The second most common reason, cited by nine local authorities, stated that the filter was at least partly designed \"to protect children and vulnerable users from inappropriate material.\" The term \"vulnerable user\" was considered to constitute adults defined as vulnerable within the terms set out in the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007.Four local authorities considered the public access internet filter a means of \"ensuring compliance with the AUP\" and the same number again implemented a filtering system in line with \"duty of care and reputation considerations.\" three local authorities stated that the public access internet filter was in place to \"protect the security or integrity of the council computer network\" and one authority stated that is was implemented as a means of balancing the competing concerns of free access to information with a right to protection from harm.In two instances it was unclear from the information provided what the official rationale behind the implementation of public access internet filtering software may have been (this has been labelled \"unclear from information provided\"). A further two library authorities withheld this information (these responses have been labelled as \"undisclosed\"):RQ3. If internet filtering is implemented what types of content is the filter designed to block?Figure 2 represents the type of content filtered by each service, and the responses begin to reveal a broadly tripartite split in the type of content being filtered along the following lines: \"actual illegal content/activity\" (sexually explicit content/pornography/child abuse images; online illegal downloading, hacking, malware and phishing; illegal drugs); \"potentially illegal content/activity\" (web proxies and translators; drugs; weapons; intolerance, racism and hate; violence and extremism; weapons) and \"value judgement grounded\" (tasteless and offensive; chat and web-based social networking; alcohol and tobacco related content; gambling web sites; gaming web sites; sex education).Any of the above given content types is of course not necessarily fixed to one single category (for example \"illegal drugs\" could come under both actual and potentially illegal content', given the nature of the topic itself, or a value judgement, if the decision to block the content was based on an intention to filter out even legal and \"appropriate\" discussion surrounding the topic) within this tripartite split, and as an explanatory tool it is by no means a perfect fit for the data. However, it does help to reveal trends in the data and it provides a more than adequate platform from which the discussion of filtered content will follow:RQ4. From what organisational level have these filtering policies been implemented?Figure 3 details the source of the policy decision to implement or not to implement internet filtering on public access computers. The results were as following: 18 (56 per cent) local authorities stated that the decision was made by external senior management, out with the service itself; seven (22 per cent) local authorities stated that the decision was made by a management team within the library service; five (16 per cent) local authorities stated that the decision constituted a joint departmental decision between library service management and a management team out with the service, and one (3 per cent) local authority stated that they were unaware of the source of the policy decision to implement internet filtering on the public access computers (this response has again been labelled \"unknown\"). One (3 per cent) local authority declined to respond to this question (this response has been labelled \"undisclosed\").RQ5. Are there procedures in place whereby these policies could be overridden by staff when requested by a user?Figure 4 details whether or not there exists a procedure whereby content blocked by the filter that is, on inspection, deemed \"appropriate\" by the service, can then be unblocked. The results were as follows: one (3 per cent) local authority stated that frontline staff had the ability to immediately release content blocked by the filter, if deemed appropriate, at the point of use (\"immediate release procedure\"); 27 (88 per cent) local authorities stated that although there was a \"release procedure\" in place, the content could not be released at point of use. It would rather be considered \"appropriate\" retroactively and released at a later date (\"non-immediate release procedure\"); two (6 per cent) local authorities stated that no procedure existed whereby content blocked by the public access internet filtering software could be released (\"no release procedure\"). One (3 per cent) local authority responded by stating that a release procedure was in place, however it was unclear from the response whether this procedure was immediate or non-immediate and has been labelled accordingly in Figure 4.RQ6. What is the extent and nature of staff training procedures in place relating public access Internet filtering software?Figure 5 shows the prevalence of staff training, relating specifically to issues connected to Internet filtering, in Scottish public libraries. A total of 18 (59 per cent) local authorities stated that they did not offer any training to staff within the library service that concentrated on issues relating to internet filtering; six (19 per cent) local authorities stated that they offered library staff specific training on issues relating to public access internet filtering software; one (3 per cent) local authority stated that although they offered specific training covering issues relating to public access internet filtering software this was only administered to nominated staff members; five (16 per cent) local authorities stated that their general staff training covered issues relating to public access internet filtering software but that there was no specific training offered. One (3 per cent) local authority declined to respond to this question (this response has been labelled \"undisclosed\").Figure 6 provides an analysis of the content covered by the 12 local authorities that stated that they did offer some form of training that covered issues connected to public access internet filtering. The analytic breakdown was as following: ten local authorities stated that their staff training covered the \"referral procedure for blocking/unblocking web content\"; six local authorities stated that their training constituted a general overview of the software and its basic use; six local authorities stated that the relationship between internet filtering and the AUP was covered within the training offered; three local authorities stated that their training covered \"basic filtering terminology\" and one local authority stated that their staff training covered issues related to \"internet safety and child protection online\".\nDiscussion of results: The rationale, policy decision making procedures and purpose of public access internet filtering\nConclusions and recommendations: This study has examined the following areas related to the use of filtering software as an internet management tool:* The rationale and purpose of public access internet filtering grounding the use of filtering software as an internet management tool in Scottish public libraries.* The policy source responsible for installing filtering systems on public access internet computers.* The procedures in place to manage public access internet filters in Scottish public libraries.* The extent and nature of staff training procedures in place relating to public access internet filtering software.Gottschalk argues that internet filtering is not an appropriate solution or response to concerns relating to access of inappropriate material in a public library context. She proposes a tripartite approach grounded on \"the use of computer equipment with privacy screens or recessed monitors and the establishment of an internet use policy in combination with the education of library users to maintaining the libraries' role as valued centers for free self-education and learning\" (Gottschalk, 2006).However, this study recognises the practical reasons grounding the implementation of filtering software as a public access internet management tool and recognises that its use may sadly have become a pragmatic necessity. As such this study makes two primary recommendations: that a more systematic programme of training, which addresses the issues connected to internet filtering software, is further developed and integrated into the present staff training structure within the various library services across Scotland. And second, that there is further discussion at a national level which analyses the role internet filtering software is playing within library services throughout Scotland.The issue of \"inappropriate public use\" could be defined in line with the ethical guidance provided by the relevant professional body and any acts of legislation that apply to the jurisdiction within which the public library authority delivers it service. Used in conjunction with an AUP this would arguably constitute a more suitable response to Internet management in a public library setting than would a policy of using software to filter out inappropriate \"types\" of content.Implementing a firm AUP passes liability back onto the user and provides the librarian with an opportunity to avoid practices that constitute the direct censoring of information. Although issues concerning access remain (if a user refused to sign the agreement then access would be denied) it would be difficult for a user to legitimately argue against an AUP that restricts access on legal grounds alone, unless an argument was being made against the legal grounds themselves.However, as Sturges states, public access internet facilities should complement those used for private access. They are not simply a means of \"preventing social exclusion\" but rather offer \"the extra potential of access that is supported by professional guidance\" (Sturges, 2002, p. 11). Although stressing within an AUP that your authority cannot be held liable for the action of any given user may be legally sound, and in this litigious age most probably necessary, as an information provider it is not enough to pass on the legal buck and then rest easy.Limitations and recommendations for further research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the way that Scottish public library authorities are implementing filtering software as a public access internet management tool. The aim of the study is to determine the extent to which filtering systems are used as a public access internet management tool and to examine the nature of this implementation. This constitutes an analysis of the actual policies and procedures in place within each library authority to manage public access to the internet.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper utilizes a literature review and an analysis of data supplied by the public library services. The data required was gathered through Freedom of Information requests sent to all Scottish public library authorities.\nFindings: - A total of 31 of the 32 public library services operating within the 32 Scottish local authorities utilized some form of filtering software to control internet access. The main justifications cited for this were to prevent access to illegal or inappropriate materials; however it was found that in the majority of cases the decision to implement the software was not made by the management of the library but external IT staff. This raises major issues related to the historical role of the librarian as selector of content for their community.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper presents results from a subset of local authorities in the UK, thus cannot claim to be anything more than indicative of the geographic sample.\nPractical implications: - The findings can help inform the rationale utilized by public library services in implementing filtering policies.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is the only paper to directly address the issue of internet filtering in all public libraries in Scotland.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Scholarly communication in the digital environment: The 2005 survey of journal author behaviour and attitudes
|
[
"Communication",
"Journal publishers",
"Publishing",
"Surveys"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper constitutes the first findings[1] of an international survey of journal authors which was commissioned by the Publishers Association (PA) and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), with additional support from CIBER associates, early in 2005. This follows on the success of a previous study of author attitudes and opinions in regard to scholarly communication, which CIBER carried out in 2004 (Rowlands et al., 2004a, b; Nicholas et al., 2005a). As with our earlier study this survey was conducted independently and we had complete freedom as to the questions we asked and how we interpreted and reported the data.The specific objectives of this study were to:* accurately chart the growing awareness of open access concepts among the author community and to explore their attitudes to new publishing models, including open access and institutional repositories;* place this in the context of their use and perceptions of the traditional publishing system; and* determine how much had changed since early 2004.This was to be undertaken in a manner that would enable us to make valid statements about the position in regard to all subject fields and regions.\nMethods: The survey instrument, an online questionnaire and covering e-mail invitation to participate, were designed by CIBER and extensively piloted over three rounds using correspondents from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds from Australia, India, Mexico, France, Greece, the USA and the UK during May and June 2005. The research design was based on closed questions to facilitate its roll out on a very large scale using web technologies. The report does, however, make extensive use of some of the unprompted free text comments made by authors at the end of the questionnaire to underline the variety of opinions and the complexity of some of the issues raised (these unprompted comments will be the subject of a separate article).The survey was administered on CIBER's behalf by NOP World. Authors were sent an e-mail message inviting them to take part in the survey. The message contained a hyperlink to NOP's database, enabling them to link direct to the online questionnaire. The survey went live on 21 June 2005. Reminders were sent out on 1 July and the fieldwork concluded on 6 July when we had exceeded our target number of completed responses.Author mailing lists were commissioned from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to CIBER's specification: 100,000 randomly selected authors who had published in an ISI-indexed journal during 2004. The lists were supplied direct to NOP who subsequently removed any duplicate names. NOP has a number of clients in the publishing sector who also engage in web-based survey research. To avoid over-exposure of these methods, NOP removed from our original lists the names of any authors who had recently been invited to take part in such a survey. After the removal of duplicate names and the removal of authors who had recently been contacted by NOP for research purposes, 76,790 e-mail invitations were sent out and 5,513 were returned. The response rate (7.2 per cent) was high for a web-based industrial survey, most of which tend to cluster in the 4-6 per cent band. However, the response rate begs the question, common to all surveys, of whether there are any systematic differences between the invited and responding populations?The completed questionnaires were generally representative of the broad regional categories that ISI uses (Rowlands and Nicholas, 2005). In terms of regional response, Asian authors were under-represented, by 9 percentage points, possibly due to the fact that, for reasons of cost, the survey was administered in the English language. It may well be that the Asian response rate was affected both by language and character set issues. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that the absolute response rate still reflects the views of 1,280 individual Asian authors. The final sample ordered a very accurate reflection of authors' subject interests (Rowlands and Nicholas, 2005). We conclude that the final survey sample is highly representative by subject discipline but that there is a small but significant shortfall in Asian authors. For this reason, we are conservatively basing our estimate of the power of the survey on the actual response rate obtained for Asian authors. On that basis, we estimate that the findings reported in this report should be interpreted within the context of a 95 per cent confidence limit and within a confidence interval of +-2.7 per cent.\nResults: Authors were first asked some broad and contextual questions to determine their views and behaviour in regard to journal scholarly communication; specifically:* what factors were involved in choosing where they published;* what they thought of the peer review process;* their views on the key topics of information overload, journal pricing, journal specialisation, journal metrics; and* how they found journal articles of interest.This was done in order that open access and institutional repositories, topics too often treated in isolation, could be seen and evaluated in the light of the much bigger picture of journal publishing. We then move in on to a detailed consideration of issues and attitudes to do with open access publishing and institutional repositories.Deciding where to publish\nConclusions: We know a good deal about the views of publishers and librarians in regard to the workings of the scholarly communication system, although a good deal of it is skewed by territorial ambitions. However, as far as we are aware this is the largest, most representative and statistically robust study undertaken into the views of authors on the workings of the scholarly publishing system. It is also a study conducted in a totally unbiased fashion; the research team (CIBER) have no allegiances other than to the data. Taken together with the 2004 study, this study provides policy makers with an enormous data resource upon which they can build sound policies: policies which have an enormous impact on the whole research community, not to mention a nationally important industry (publishing). To date they have largely had to rely on small, unrepresentative studies bereft of statistical robustness. In this vacuum dangerous policies have been developed and are being implemented with gusto (this happens in a data vacuum). Now surely is the time to take stock on the back of the copious evidence that the author community (nearly 10,000 of them) has only too happily shared with us over a period of two years.The key evidence to note is:* In determining where to publish, the author population as a whole did not attach much importance to the issues of being able to retain their copyright in the article, nor to gaining permission to place a pre- or post-print on the web or in some kind of repository.* The crucial importance of peer review to the health and welfare of scholarly publishing.* Most authors felt insecure in the face of the rapid growth of the literature yet, as, by definition, successful authors in highly filtered \"top\" quality journals, they felt that they were not personally to blame for the information explosion.* The \"Jekyll and Hyde\" nature of academics as authors and academics as readers emerged in many of their responses but no more strongly than when comparing authors' responses to the statements: \"High journal prices make it difficult to access the literature\" and \"As an author, I deliberately publish in journals that are affordable to readers\". There was a strange split of opinion here, with only 20.7 per cent of respondents agreeing with both propositions.* Significantly, senior authors and researchers found (reader) downloads credible in terms of determining the usefulness of research.* Chasing up references in papers still remained the most popular method for discovering journal articles of interest. The convenience and speed of electronic tools was highly appreciated but the role and importance of the physical library merits serious reflection - libraries were ranked in 11th position out of 12 methods. Clearly, libraries need to consider their position/visibility in a digital world where their users are removed from them and not even conscious they are the ones who pay the access bills. We have found in our log studies that usage depends highly on visibility and libraries are facing real problems maintaining their visibility in an increasingly digital information world (Nicholas et al., 2005a).* In regard to open access two significant shifts appear to have occurred since the last survey. Firstly, the research community is now much more aware of the open access issue. There has been a large rise in authors knowing quite a lot about open access (up 10 percentage points from the 2004 figure) and a big fall in authors knowing nothing at all about open access (down 25 points). Secondly, the proportion of authors publishing in an open access journal has grown considerably from 11 per cent (2004) to 29 per cent; This figure is possibly an overestimate as Elsevier researchers (Amin, 2005) have discovered that 65 per cent of authors who claimed to have published in an open access journal had in fact published in a \"traditional\" journal. They determined this by asking respondents who said they had published in an OA journal to list the last OA journal they published in. Examining the list revealed that in 65 per cent of cases these titles were not in fact OA journals. The explanation for this is thought to be because most authors' access to journals is free (or open).* Authors strongly believed that, as a result of open access, articles will become more accessible and, somewhat less strongly, that libraries would have more to spend. They do not really believe, however, that quality will improve.* There was a clear majority of authors believing that open access would prove undermining for scholarly publishing. Of those who expressed an opinion, half believed this was likely; however, a good proportion of these people thought this would probably be a good thing.* There was little enthusiasm for author-or reader facing charges, and a feeling that libraries should not have to make such a large contribution to journal costs as they do at the moment. The favoured option was that a greater burden should be borne (in this order) on research funders, commercial sponsors and central government. There were, however, dangers here because we found that almost a third of authors had published most of their work without external funding (i.e. with 50 per cent or fewer, or none, of their papers having been funded).* Authors were not very knowledgeable about institutional repositories - less than 10 per cent declared that they had \"a little\" or \"a lot\" of knowledge and there was a significant dragging of feet with a significant percentage (38 per cent) of those expressing an opinion, declaring their unwillingness to depositing articles in an institutional repository.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to make a substantial contribution to the ongoing debate about the potential of open access publishing and institutional repositories to reform the scholarly communication system. It presents the views of senior authors on these issues and contextualises them within the broader framework of their journal publishing behaviour and preferences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A highly representative online opinion survey of more than five and half thousand journals authors, building on an earlier (January 2004) benchmarking study carried out by CIBER.\nFindings: - Senior researchers are rapidly becoming more informed about open access publishing and institutional repositories but are still a long way off reaching a consensus on the likelihood that these new models will challenge the existing order, nor are they in agreement whether this would be a positive or a negative development. Disciplinary culture and, to a less extent, regional location are key determinants of author attitudes and any policy response should avoid \"one-size-fits-all\" solutions.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This survey reflects the opinions of senior corresponding authors who have recently published in a \"top\" (i.e. ISI-indexed journal) with 95 per cent confidence. The findings should not be generalised to represent the views of all authors in all journals, open access or otherwise.\nOriginality/value: - The journal publishing sector is facing enormous challenges and opportunities as content increasingly migrates to the web. The value of this research is that it provides an objective, non-partisan, assessment of the attitudes and opinions of more than 5,000 senior researchers, a key stakeholder group, and thus contributes both to the development of public policy as well as more realistic commercial strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Successful joint venture partnerships: public-private partnerships
|
[
"Partnership",
"Joint ventures",
"Public sector organizations",
"Private sector organizations",
"Communication",
"Project planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Collaboration between different organisations enables them to compensate for gaps in their knowledge and capacity to provide goods or services (Walker and Johannes, 2003). These collaborative efforts can take the form of partnerships, alliances and joint ventures. In a public service context, a partnership is \"a relationship involving the sharing of power, work, support and/or information with others for the achievement of joint goals and/or mutual benefits\" (Kernaghan, 1993). Partnership requires a degree of sharing of key aspects of work activity with others and emphasises joint goals and/or mutual benefits. Moreover, organisations, either individually or as partners, may become part of networks of organisations working together to promote the interests of all members of the collaborative effort.Not long ago it was usual for public services to be delivered with bureaucratic co-ordination. While seemingly efficient, the organisations delivering the services often possessed poor communication and co-ordination, and this in turn produced compartmentalised approaches to dealing with problems. In recent years, recognition of the limitations of bureaucracy has resulted in an emphasis on markets and competition in the delivery of public services. Large bureaucracies have fragmented into networks of specialised agencies contracting for services with a variety of public, private and voluntary providers. Partnership arrangements between the public and private sectors illustrate how the traditional role of the government as an employer and service provider is being transformed (Cm 4310, 1999; Institute for Public Policy Research, 2001; Lowndes and Skelcher, 1998; Kelly, 2000; Robinson et al., 2000). The idea is that \"boundary-less\", or \"network\" organisations strengthen opportunities for innovation through closer collaboration and also reduce costs through the mutual achievement of business objectives based on cooperation around respective competitive strengths.Unfortunately, the shift away from bureaucracy and the creation of numerous providers has itself produced problems for collaboration and co-ordination as well as making it harder to provide a unified approach to service delivery. To be effective, clarity about the role and purpose of a network is required. Without this, the participation of its individual members is constrained by the hierarchical organisation to which they belong, and issues relating to accountability and autonomy may come into conflict. Networks inevitably have to compromise and bridge the gap between action and discussion (Huxham, 1996b). Strategically, networks are more difficult to steer in any coherent direction. Indeed, it might be argued that competition and the \"contract culture\" have promoted self-interested behaviour rather than the public interest, and produced low trust relationships.The concept of networks and collective strategies has laid the foundation for an outbreak of writing and research on strategic alliances. Indeed, there is a vast literature on the subject. During the 1990s there was significant research conducted relating to the management of public private partnerships commenting on such matters as their governance (Huxham and Vangen, 1996; Kickert, 1997; Martin, 1998), the structure of such partnerships and why they succeed or fail (Osborne, 1998; Scott, 1998), and the potential of partnerships to promote inclusion in local communities (Geddes, 1998). In addition, there is a substantial literature on various forms of inter-organisational partnerships, both public and private (see, for example, Osborne, 2000, for a substantial review of the literature on public-private partnerships).Alongside the development of partnerships and networks, a new type of organisation to emerge has been the virtual organisation. Davidow and Malone (1992) defined the \"virtual organisation\" as a co-operation between several independent partners (companies or individuals) who share their resources, skills and knowledge in order to produce a \"best\" customer solution. Such cooperation can provide a basis with which to gain access to vital resources and knowledge beyond one organisation's boundaries (see Miles et al., 2000). Without geographical or physical constraints, networked organisations can add value through superior core competences.\nSignificance for public-private partnerships: Tony Blair (1998) argues that the days of the all-purpose authority that plans and delivers everything are gone (see also Ridley, 1988). It is in partnership with others - public agencies, private companies, community groups and voluntary organisations - that local government's future lies. Partnership plays a key role in the government's Modernising Government agenda. It recognises that one has to approach a bewildering number of agencies simply to deal with the challenges of everyday life. Modernising Government aims to:* ensure that policy making is coordinated and strategic in nature;* ensure that public service users, not providers, are the focus of attention, by matching services closely to people's lives; and* deliver high-quality, efficient public services.\nThe research question and its justification: Many studies have focused on joint venture partnerships, but little empirical research has been conducted into what makes an alliance successful. Previous research has articulated a linkage between inter-partner \"fit\" and venture performance. It has been suggested that the main barriers to the development of these kinds of structures are not so much technological ones as cultural ones (Manchester, 1997). However, \"fit\" has been postulated using different notions such as strategic symmetry (Harrigan, 1985), inter-firm diversity (Parkhe, 1991), match of partner characteristics (Geringer, 1988), and inter-partner compatibility/complementary (Beamish, 1988; Hill and Hellriegel, 1994). The result of this operational confusion has led to a lack of consistency in empirical findings.Perhaps quite significantly, however, as Huxham and Vangen (1996) have shown, action by the more powerful participant in a relationship is at the core of successful partnership.There seems little doubt that in the future public sector management will need to be able to possess the skills, processes, structures, technology and tools required for working across organisational boundaries (Huxham and Vangen, 2000). Partnerships create a new form of accountability between their members which rests primarily on trust. Where there is mistrust or hostility between some or all of the partners, then the effective operation of their partnership may be difficult to achieve (Bennett et al., 2004). Huxham (1995, 1996a), in discussions on collaborative activities within and between organisations, points to the potential problems and pitfalls associated with collaboration and, by association, with partnership. These are:* loss of control - the inability to take action if things seem to be going wrong or differently from expectations: shared decision-making may be problematic;* multiple goals - stakeholders are likely to want to achieve their own particular goals which may not relate to the stated purpose of the partnership; and* tension between autonomy and accountability - members may be accountable to their stakeholder groups, which may mean checking back before committing to a decision.This then leads us on to question what characterises successful or less successful joint venture partnerships.\nThe partnership and the views of its members: In the illustration we are using here, the City Council agreed to seek a joint venture partner to help develop ICT and other service areas such as payroll, revenues and benefits, a contact centre and human resource management. The aim was to achieve a level of service with a technical vision built around intelligence-led local government. This vision, it was thought, would help to achieve high service standards and help deliver enhanced levels of value for money. The focus on customer service and quality of service were the critical drivers, and staff from the City Council and the private sector organisation were seconded into the new joint venture company.Those contacted in the research were asked for their personal views, attitudes, values, beliefs, experiences and motivations in relationship to the partnership. Subsequent research revealed five significant problem areas of concern or interest. These were:1. communication;2. openness;3. planning;4. ethos; and5. direction.\nThe study: An initial pool of 30 subjects was identified for the study. Subjects chosen for the case study were senior managers, middle managers, and operational staff employed by the City Council, the private sector organisation and the joint venture company. Subjects were identified as being part of the initial task teams who were instrumental in the formulisation of the joint venture and those senior managers and operational staff who were employed in managing the day-to-day operation of the partnerships. In total, consultation in the form of interviews or discussions was held with 13 senior managers, nine middle managers and the remainder with operational staff. There were 14 in-depth interviews lasting 90 minutes and three group discussion sessions (16 staff in total participated in the group discussions). Five senior managers were employed by the partnership organisation; four senior managers, three middle managers and three operational staff had been seconded to the partnership organisation; and the remaining staff were employed by the Council.In-depth interviews were conducted during which subjects were given an overview of the background of the joint venture partnership in preparation for discussion. The interview discussions were guided by the use of a question pool. These questions were organised across relevant areas of inquiry and focused on developing an understanding of how the joint venture partnership was progressing, what issues there were, if any, and what components they felt were necessary to contribute to the success and maintenance of the partnership arrangement. This, it was felt, would give both an introduction and an initial focus for discussion and was based on the common-sense reasoning of a need to explain the background and purpose of the research.The data generated from interviews and group discussions was explored without a predetermined theoretical or descriptive framework. This strategy reflected a grounded theory approach. This process was based on analysis and theoretical understanding of the substance of what was said in discussions and interviews. The rationale behind the reduction of the data collected was based on the commonality of the words, themes and concepts being produced by the respondents through the written and oral research data. From this analysis the five concepts discussed below emerged as critical themes relating to the topic of the research. In our discussions below we examine pertinent literature relating to the five concepts that emerged from the research.\nDiscussion of the findings: Communication\nConclusion: Results from the research indicate the existence of five helpful characteristics identified under the heading of Communication, Openness, Planning, Ethos and Direction, which may be present in a successful partnership venture. It proposes a theoretical framework model, the \"COPED\" model, for building more comprehensive and productive relationships between public sector organisations and private sector companies.The elements of the COPED model emerged from the analysis of data and lent support for the various pointers for successful partnerships and networks. The elements, in fact, could be identified as ways in which the older bureaucratic sector organisations failed to accomplish their mission to serve their stakeholders. It is contended that the elements of the COPED model are required to ensure some degree of success, and in the organisation studied here they were often found often to be lacking in many respects.Further research might be conducted into other examples of public-private partnership initiatives, since the research reported here comprises only a single case study. Such ventures are becoming an important way of financing and managing both existing and new ventures originating in the public sector.The major limitation of this research is that it considers only a single case study between one city council and a private sector partner. More case studies are required to give additional support for the findings we have made here. Such case studies could involve a whole spectrum of different public-private initiatives.Utilising the findings of this research should improve the chances of a successful venture, but of course they cannot of their own accord guarantee success in this respect, since many other factors are at play other than those relating to good managerial practice. Nevertheless, this paper does offer both academics and practitioners alike some insights into the kinds of managerial concerns that can are pertinent to the issues in hand.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Seeks to examine important characteristics that go hand-in-hand with successful public-private partnerships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A grounded theory approach is adopted involving interviews and group discussions with executives of the organisations involved. The rationale behind the reduction of the data collected was based on the commonalty of the words, themes and concepts being produced by the respondents through the written and oral research data.\nFindings: - A descriptive model is presented which identifies five key characteristics: good communication, openness, effective planning, ethos and direction. It is argued that all contribute to the success of a joint venture.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further research might examine other examples of public-private partnerships since the research reported here comprises only a single case study - the major limitation of this research. While utilising the findings of this research may improve the chances of a successful venture, they cannot of their own accord guarantee success since other factors are at play.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents a valuable insight for both academics and practitioners who are keen to appreciate executives' concerns that can arise in evolving a joint venture between a public and a private sector organisation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The governance of spectrum: a possible venue of accountability for global telecommunication
|
[
"Digital divide",
"Accountability as a virtue and as a mechanism",
"Broadband development",
"Public accountability of telecommunication",
"Spectrum governance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: On the evening of 14 September 2016, TeliaSonera - one of the major European telecoms operating in 16 countries from Norway to Uzbekistan - received an offer from US and Dutch authorities for a settlement amount of US$1.4bn, one of the highest fine in the history of telecoms, for its wrongful actions in Uzbekistan. Corruption-related investigations into historical transactions of the Swedish telecoms operator's market entry in Uzbekistan in 2007 led to the resignation of its chief executive and chairman and to prospectively ceasing operations in central Asia, including Azerbaijan, GA, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.\nDiscussion: Considering that corruption is not an exception but rather a strategic action for market dominance, and that European telecoms play a significant role in expanding online access and the perpetuation of the digital divide - depending on their degree of ethical performance in the management of what many consider public goods - their accountability is of global concern. Against this backdrop, corruption in telecoms in general and specifically in spectrum governance (Sutherland, 2012a, 2012b, 2015, 2016a) deserves a high level of public scrutiny and policy attention.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to explore accountability as a virtue and as a mechanism (Bovens, 2010) of global telecommunication operators in the process of governing spectrum and of broadband development. The two concepts of accountability are juxtaposed with operators' corporate reporting practices and spectrum licensing procedures of European national regulatory authorities (NRAs) and are analysed accordingly. The paper argues that spectrum licensing within the European Union regulatory context offers possible venues for policy intervention, rendering telecom providers to take an account on their global operations. Corruption is the case study to draw connections to public accountability, with a focus on the information and communication technology global market activity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Spectrum bidding processes of European NRAs were analysed according to published documentation of auctions and to answers of NRAs on specific aspects of their licensing practices. Auctioning cases on 800 MHz band frequencies (790-862 MHz, or the \"digital dividend\") were selected in countries where telecoms involved in corruption cases were based or where corrupt practices were revealed. Furthermore, a survey was carried out between 08 March and 03 June 2017 - coordinated by the Radio Spectrum Policy Group among its 28 members - on inquiring about licensing practices of NRAs during spectrum trading with respect to identifying beneficial ownership of bidders to spectrum.\nFindings: Findings show that European NRAs are in possession of regulatory tools that could enforce telecoms' public accountability; there are strong arguments on the need for European and national-level policy interventions. Spectrum licensing procedures are offering possible and potential venues of accountability. Further legislative action is necessary to adopt a minimum set of criteria applicable in the licensing process. Harmonised implementation by NRAs should further develop new standards fostering transparency.\nOriginality/value: Information about the ethical behaviour and corruption of European telecom operators is surprisingly scarce and unsystematic, particularly considering the centrality of those actors in advancing a number of the aims of the historical Millennium Development Goals and the new Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Research into the governance of spectrum as a possible venue of accountability, and the findings shed new light on regulatory aspects of telecommunication in a global perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mining the treasure of palm leaf manuscripts through information retrieval techniques
|
[
"Palm leaf manuscript",
"Information retrieval",
"Ancient Indian science",
"Algorithm",
"Computer intelligence",
"Historical documents"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: India is known as one of the home of world's ancient knowledge. Many of the modern day discoveries can be linked to the foundation which our ancestral scholars have laid in past. The transmission of knowledge from ancient historical time was initially through oral mode and much later the writing system was developed. History of writing in India can be dated back to 3rd millennium BCE in the form of Indus Script by Harappa people (non-deciphered till today), and Ashokan edict in the form of Brahmi script. However, they all are on stone as carvings.\nCollection of Palm Leaf Manuscripts (PLM) in India: Orissa state museum\nTreasures still in dark: As per Prof David Pingree, there is estimate of about three million manuscripts still existing. Regrettably, only few of them have been subjected to modern analysis and gradually the whole ensemble is decaying. In addition, since there are only few scholars trained to read and understand these texts, it is of utmost risk that most of these manuscripts may disappear before anyone is able to analyze and describe their content correctly.\nProminent IR techniques based proposed solutions: Document categorization with clustering algorithm\nConclusion: Working towards, mining the treasure of knowledge from the palm leaf manuscripts, hordes of challenges have been outlined. Over and above the problem of preventing decay to palm leaf manuscripts, is the challenge of deciphering text, image analysis, information retrieval and search. Search is further associated with issues of meaningful and useful extraction through semantic analysis. This paper advocates the dire need for systematic research to be undertaken in this field opening up avenues for past knowledge to guide future prospects in several domains. A brief introduction about the current available techniques for retrieving the information out of the digital collection of the PLMs is also presented at the end.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to popularize information retrieval from palm leaf manuscripts among computer scientists to make available the guidance of the age-old heritage in shaping the future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With computer technology penetrating every aspect of life, information retrieval algorithms can be exploited to help build a system which can dig into the ocean of knowledge from these manuscripts.\nFindings: The knowledge in them covers all aspects of life. Be it religious beliefs, literature, science, mathematics, or any other. However, due to discontinuation of practice of copying their content on fresh leaves, they now possess a fragile life which needs to be preserved at the earliest. The modern means of digitization can help in their preservation.\nResearch limitations: The Government of India and other organizations are doing commendable job of preserving and safeguarding country's heritage and age-old knowledge system through the movement of digitization. In the years to come, the agonizing problem of manuscripts degradation will be eradicated completely. However, next when it will come to mining the knowledge treasure out of these manuscripts, we would be confronted with another helpless situation.\nPractical implications: The digitization process would capture the manuscripts from present physical palm leaf to digital image form by clicking high-quality pictures. All the text in a palm leaf will be available in the form of images, but on these images, a simple search for any word would not be possible.\nOriginality/value: Working towards mining the treasure of knowledge from the palm leaf manuscripts, hordes of challenges have been outlined. Over and above the problem of preventing decay to palm leaf manuscripts is the challenge of deciphering text, image analysis, information retrieval and search. Search is further associated with issues of meaningful and useful extraction through semantic analysis. This paper advocates the dire need for systematic research to be undertaken in this field opening up avenues for past knowledge to guide future prospects in several domains.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Trust building in wine blogs: a content analysis
|
[
"Wines",
"Blogs",
"Trust",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Blogging",
"Online information sources",
"Trustworthiness",
"Content analysis",
"Measure development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Consumers seek product information from sources they believe they can trust for accuracy and relevancy to avoid making poor product choices with resulting negative financial, social, and psychological outcomes (Schlosser et al., 2006). However, its experiential nature makes information assessment difficult, especially when the products themselves are of a high experiential consumption nature. Therefore, source trustworthiness becomes an alternate basis for assessment. Determining how consumers assess source trustworthiness and use such assessments as the basis for acceptance of marketplace assertions is important for information providers (Lee et al., 2005; Pollach, 2008).Consumers can access product information through more channels and from more sources than ever before. Blogs are a growing channel through which both commercial and non-commercial product experts, \"enthusiasts,\" and other \"infomediaries\" communicate unfiltered pre-purchase or post-purchase product information to information-seeking consumers (Pollach, 2008). While the interests and involvement of commercial communicators online is reflective of their financial gain, the increasing reach of non-commercial communicators is particularly noteworthy (Habel et al., 2010). van Heerden et al. (2009, p. 124) has recently noted that \"little research has thus far emerged as to the extent to which audiences believe what they read in blogs\".It has long been recognized that \"an individual's acceptance of information and ideas is based in part on 'who said it'\" (Berlo et al., 1969, p. 563). Both commercial (marketer-dominated) and non-commercial blog creators must gain the trust of information-seeking consumers in order to secure them as readers and influence consumption decisions (Moorman et al., 1993). Consumers may be comfortable with the general character of non-commercial information sources but have concerns regarding their ability to make accurate assertions. Consumers have different concerns regarding the self-interest bias of commercial information sources. Indeed, consumers differentially associate commercial and non-commercial information sources with knowledge and reporting biases (Flanagin and Metzger, 2007; Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998; Pollach, 2008). Knowledge bias implies an ability deficiency, whereas reporting bias suggests inadequate motivation to make accurate claims. Both compromise information accuracy and reliability assessments (Folkes, 1988). Thus, both commercial and non-commercial bloggers face obstacles in consumer trustworthiness assessments. This study examines the explicit trust-related arguments or cues that commercial and non-commercial product information bloggers use to attempt to overcome these obstacles.In the sections that follow, the objectives of this study and the rationale for the choice of wine as the blog content area of focus are described. Then, a multi-level conceptualization of trustworthiness and trustworthiness signaling behaviours is presented along with a discussion of online trust assessments and theoretical arguments for expecting trustworthiness signaling behaviours to vary between commercial and non-commercial bloggers. Hypotheses are presented within a theoretical framework that conceptualizes trustworthiness signaling in relation to consumer understandings of the strengths and weaknesses of commercial and non-commercial communicators of product information. The research methodology is then outlined, including sampling from the blogosphere, distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial blogs, and developing a typology of trustworthiness signals for the blogosphere. Results of two studies are then presented and discussed with implications for commercial and non-commercial practitioners and ideas for future research.Trustworthiness is particularly critical in complex and ambiguous information situations and for information seekers unable to evaluate information accuracy. Wine is the specific topic-based blog area for this study. For typical information-seeking consumers, wine is a diverse, dynamic, and complex product category with high information needs and perceived riskiness of financial and social loss (Thach, 2010). Social loss may depend on the extent to which wine constitutes part of or relates to a consumer identity (Mittal, 2006). Though wine is amenable to objective technical specification, the language used to describe wine performance characteristics is complex and directly interpretable only to consumers with wine expertise, which most do not have (Durrieu, 2005; Herdenstam et al., 2009). Recent research shows that consumers engage in considerable search for trustworthy information in making wine choices (Barber et al., 2006), and consumers and markets are influenced by knowledgeable infomediaries (Bentzen and Smith, 2008; Dewald, 2008). Commercial (e.g. wineries) and non-commercial wine information sources are active online, with wine-review blogs more prevalent than any other type of wine blog (Thach, 2010).The objectives of this study are to determine through a content analysis methodology how commercial (C) and non-commercial (NC) wine bloggers signal their trustworthiness to readers; whether commercial orientation can account for differences in signaling approach; and to what extent balance or imbalance in trustworthiness dimension signaling by wine bloggers reflects theories regarding trust, communication, and attitude formation.\n2 Research background and hypotheses: 2.1 Trust and trustworthiness\n3 Methodology: To assess trustworthiness signals in wine blogs, a content analysis of wine blogs was carried out. Content analysis is a well-established technique for objectively, systematically, and quantitatively studying communications content (Kolbe and Burnett, 1991; Neuendorf, 2002; Pavlou and Dimoka, 2006). In total, 175 wine blogs were analyzed over two stages using methodological practices for drawing inferences from unstructured data.The first stage was designed to initially profile the communication of trustworthiness signals in a sample of 50 wine blogs in order to confirm the workability of the trust cue signaling measurement methodology and to provide an initial test of the dimension-level hypotheses. Stage 2 involved analysis of 125 additional wine blogs to build upon Stage 1 results and test all hypotheses.3.1 Blog selection and categorization\n4 Results: 4.1 Stage 1 - pilot study of wine blog trustworthiness signaling\n5 Discussion: This research breaks new ground in exploring the establishment of online trustworthiness and, in particular, emphasizes wine blogs as a relevant product-topic blog for online trustworthiness study. Hypotheses were tested regarding differences in use of cues signaling different dimensions and sub-dimensions of trustworthiness by C and NC bloggers. Two theoretical bases, RBV and compensatory signaling approaches, provide bases for explaining different signaling patterns of C and NC bloggers. A key finding of this two-stage study is that both C and NC bloggers preferentially signal ability at the dimension level, confirming the usefulness of the distinction between blogger type and also between resource-based and compensatory signaling approaches. This finding is consistent with research that shows that ability is highly predictive in purchase decision contexts involving trustworthiness assessments and reliance on trustees (Schlosser et al., 2006) and suggests that both C and NC bloggers view themselves as participants in such contexts. However, ability sub-dimension differences were found related to sources of presumed ability strengths of each blogger type. Effective persuasion demands more than just ability, however. C and NC wine bloggers signal the character dimension at comparable frequencies overall but, as found with ability signaling, do so in different ways, as will be discussed further below.Commercial bloggers evidenced a consistent RBV approach across all cue signals types and forms. Their perceived area of strength can be presumed to be their authority-based ability, which is what they signal most at the general and sub-dimension levels. Since C bloggers have a relatively weak basis for making character claims, RBV would suggest they would signal character traits less often. The study findings supported this expectation as C bloggers put less stress on character cues in the absolute and in comparison to ability claims. At the character sub-dimension level, C bloggers particularly stress their general honesty, sincerity, and commitment to moral conduct with less reliance on claims of freedom-from-bias, a relative area of weakness for them and a questionable basis for claims of trustworthiness. Unverifiable value-based character claims may hold the least weight in consumers' judgments about trustworthiness, however. Overall, the findings for C bloggers is best explained using RBV theory as dominating their approach to communication and image management.For NC bloggers, the findings point to their use of a more balanced approach to signaling desirable trustworthiness cues. Like C bloggers, NC bloggers signal ability first even though this would not be expected to be their strongest basis for claims of trustworthiness. By emphasizing ability cues, NC bloggers reflect a compensatory-based approach to image management, focusing on the recipient's information needs, rather than on the communicator's strongest resources. To allay skepticism about ability claims, the NC bloggers use differential cue signaling at the ability sub-dimensional level. At this level and compared to C bloggers, NC bloggers take a RBV approach, putting more emphasis on product-related consumption experience over product-related authority as a believable ability claim. With regards to character signaling, RBV theories are supportive of the findings regarding NC bloggers' approach of stressing what consumers are likely to judge to be their best traits, their freedom-from-bias and blogger-specific benevolence. It appears that NC bloggers' behaviour can be best explained by their focus on their audience's needs and their own strengths using a combination of compensatory and RBV approaches.\n6 Implications and conclusions: While direct inference as to the motivations of trustworthiness-signaling wine bloggers is not possible from content analysis only, this study still yields significant actionable insight for all marketplace communicators. This study sheds light on the overt ways by which wine bloggers are attempting to build trust with their readers and lay a foundation for influence over readers' wine attitudes and choices.As consumer use of blogs for products increases, marketers need greater insight into the blogosphere than ever before. Wine marketers must recognize that their products and services may be the subject of blogosphere discourse between blog readers and both NC wine bloggers and competing C wine bloggers. As a starting point, ongoing monitoring of relevant discourse on wine blogs is essential, e.g. through blog tracking services, as well as of blog-related competitive developments. Since readership (i.e. audience size) varies widely throughout the blogosphere, with only a small number of blogs achieving very high readership (Du and Wagner, 2006), it is important to assess the influence of particular blogs, through determining frequency of appearance of specific blog on \"blog rolls,\" their \"authority\" score, and/or the number and nature of readers' comments posted on it and award-winning status. When analysis reveals an influential relevant wine blog, wine marketers should then make a special effort to monitor it using syndication feeds and news aggregators. Through the use of online reputation monitoring services, they can be alerted to potentially damaging negative online commentary and take appropriate marketing and reputation management actions when blog postings about their products or services are not positive or consistent with marketer-communicated product information.Wine marketers should also ensure they are at the forefront among competitors in consumer-centric blogging. Blog reading is a purposeful consumer-initiated activity that likely reflects a level of consumption motivation and/or brand affinity that may not be common among consumers generally. An important implication of this is that a product-related wine blog message could garner more attention than similar content communicated across other channels by virtue of targeting and reaching a more interested audience without necessarily activating persuasion knowledge filters (Friestad and Wright, 1994). Blogs with high-quality content and features can create value for consumers, enhancing customer relationships, brand loyalty and trust. Wine marketers who use their blog to provide useful non-commercial messaging and information to aid target customers to enhance their wine experience will enhance consumer perceptions of their benevolence. Blog writing tone should suit desired target markets. Consistent with best marketing practice, wine marketers should also strive for consistency in all their online \"touch points\" and between their overall online personality and competitive positioning strategy.Readers and writers of wine blogs are a valuable consumer audience. Marketing research can help understand the importance of these target consumers to specific wine producers. Additionally, wine marketers can benefit from direct interaction with creators of blog-based product information in several ways. One way is to engage NC bloggers as writers and contributors to the marketer's own blog. More specific insight can come from engaging NC wine bloggers with high consumption experience to review their wines from a perspective that \"average\" consumers can identify with. However, they should not expect any product review to necessarily be positive or that NC wine bloggers would conceal the source of product samples. Another way is to participate in and support wine blogger events to gain a general appreciation of topical issues and to network with wine bloggers. In all cases, wine marketers can only benefit if they are prepared to act on the knowledge gained from blog and blogger engagement.The implications of the study for C bloggers are many. Future research can be directed to blog user-based assessments of the role of different trustworthiness signals, through surveys and experiments using the dimensions and sub-dimensions developed for the present study. An aid to this research is a blog/blogger skepticism scale recently developed by van Heerden et al. (2009) and tested in the business-to-business environment. With confirmation of its workability with consumers, a tool is available for research on the effects of different approaches to trustworthiness signaling on overall blog reader trusting of this source of product information. Given the risks associated with information overload (Jones et al., 2004), it would also be appropriate to determine whether trustworthiness signaling by C and NC bloggers is necessarily beneficial under all circumstances. RBV trustworthiness signaling approaches seem to presume that \"more is better,\" but it remains to be seen whether limits exist to the effectiveness of such approaches, given that these approaches typically focus on confirming prior beliefs. Compensatory trustworthiness signaling approaches may be more useful to consumers and effective for producing belief change.Additional opportunity is available for research into the relationship between the trustworthiness signaling behaviours of C and NC wine bloggers and the content of the wine reviews posted on their blogs. Given the prevalence of trustworthiness signals in wine blogs that was observed in this study, signaling at the level of an individual wine review would suggest that wine bloggers desire not only a readership base but also influence over consumer attitudes toward specific products. While this research provides a starting point for more in-depth studies of consumers, bloggers, and wine blogs, there is much more that needs to and can be learned to improve the functioning of this and other forms of online product information in this product area and more broadly.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify trust-building signals and signaling patterns of commercial and non-commercial wine bloggers within a trustworthiness framework and assess prominence of balanced versus unbalanced resource-based or compensatory approaches for the management of consumer trust beliefs and the facilitation of positive trust intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Development and validation of theory-based signal-classification scheme and two-stage content analysis of trust-building signals embedded in wine blogs.\nFindings: - It is found that wine bloggers manage consumer trust beliefs using an unbalanced signaling approach emphasizing ability over character. Ability sub-dimension signals vary by commercial orientation. Also, character signaling varies with commercial orientation.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Only English-language wine blogs were studied. Limitations of content analysis procedures preclude direct evaluation of signal efficacy in absolute or contextualized terms.\nPractical implications: - Bloggers must secure reader trustworthiness to be effective communicators. Readers are likely to possess latent concerns about the bias of commercial bloggers and abilities of non-commercial ones. Bloggers recognize the importance of ability signaling but may not be fully exploiting their positions of perceived advantage nor fully compensating for their distinctive inherent perceived weaknesses.\nSocial implications: - Trustworthiness signaling in wine blogs has implications for bloggers in other contexts, including consumer and non-consumer information environments and not-for-profit and governmental communicators. Blog and blogger trustworthiness must be addressed by these communicators to effect audience persuasion.\nOriginality/value: - The paper discusses deductive development and validation of a novel signal classification scheme applied to trust building by bloggers that, through analysis of signal content, sheds light on behavior of commercial and non-commercial information sources in emerging product information environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Women's career advancement in hotels: the mediating role of organizational commitment
|
[
"Career expectation",
"Life balance",
"Organizational commitment",
"Career women",
"Career development",
"Organizational psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As valuable human resource assets, employees have been crucial to the organizational success in the hospitality industry. Evidence suggests that over a half of employees are women in the hospitality and tourism industry (Fan, 2011) and it continues to increase. According to China Labor Statistical Yearbook (2018), 55.54% of hotel employees are women; yet, fewer are senior managers (only 17.1% in 2014; Wang et al., 2020). It might be because women have to play their traditional family role and accompanied, persisting expectations, which are women being responsible for family care and well-being (Costa et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2019). Meanwhile, given the emphasis of gender equality in China, Chinese women managers rarely blame their work domain or reduce their time investment in jobs (Zhao et al., 2019). However, the fact is that many women are working in the lower level of hospitality jobs and they struggle to be promoted to higher management positions (Catalyst, 2015). This unfair situation called for further research to study the influences of gender on career development in the hospitality industry (Kauser and Tlaiss, 2011).\nLiterature review: Gender stereotypes in the hospitality organizations\nResearch methods: Data collection\nResults: Participants' profile\nDiscussions: Research findings support all hypotheses explicitly. This study proposed a conceptual framework to uncover women's CA in the hospitality industry, by examining the influence of women's CE and WFB. It also investigated the extent to which OC mediates the relationships among women's CE, WFB and CA. Seven hypotheses were tested and results were statistically significant. These causal relationships were as follows: CE and WFB had a positive and direct effect on OC and CA, while OC had a positive and direct effect on CA. OC also acts as an intermediary between CE, WFB and CA. The general internal consistency and construct validity of each potential variable indicated a reliable and effective measurement scale.\nConclusions: Theoretical and practical implications\nLimitations and directions for future research: The first limitation relates to the sampling population of this study. Although data was collected from over 10 provinces and cities of China, they were primarily from the east coastal area, and there was limited evidence from other regions of China, which may lead to the sampling bias. Considering that hotels across different regions of China are at different development stages with various cultures and values, it is important to catch different perspectives of female employees in different regions of China. Despite that our participants varied in age, education, job status, working year and hotel star rating, female CA and position levels (from attendant to general manager), future studies should consider collecting data at different types of hotels in other regions of China and even other countries with a larger sample size. It is also encouraged to account for more variables in future research, such as motivations and incomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to uncover women's career advancement (CA) in the hospitality industry, by examining the influence of female employees' career expectation (CE) and work-family balance (WFB). It also investigated the extent to which organizational commitment (OC) mediates the relationships among women's CE, WFB and CA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was used to collect data. The data were collected from 525 hotel female employees in China. A structural equation model was conducted with all of the data to test the relationships between the constructs. The individual measurement model was tested using the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. A structural model was estimated using analysis of moment structures to test all the hypotheses.\nFindings: The results showed that women's CE and WFB positively influenced their OC and CA. Women's organizational commitment also positively influenced their CA. The results also confirmed that the indirect effect of CE and WFB on CA was mediated by OC.\nOriginality/value: This study examines how the CE and work-family relationships of female employees in the hospitality industry affect their OC and their CA. The results help female employees to overcome the glass ceiling effect and achieve greater career success. This study seeks to expand the research on the CA of female hotel employees by identifying the factors that influence their CA.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Manufacturing strategies for time based competitive advantages
|
[
"Manufacturing strategy",
"Competitive capability",
"Time‐based competition",
"Mass customization",
"China",
"Strategic manufacturing",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Buses"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The practice of mass production is proving to have more disadvantages in today's fierce competition environment, particularly in that it cannot quickly respond to customers' individual demands. Fortunately, the concept of time-based competition and mass customization has emerged and become an ever more popular manufacturing paradigm, which can help companies to gain greater time-based competitive advantages through manufacturing flexibility and quick responsiveness (Holweg and Pil, 2004).Several automakers have already started ambitious projects in order to gain more time-based competitive advantages (Miemczyk and Howard, 2008). Renault set a target of producing a customized vehicle in 14 days in the \"New Distribution Project\" started from 1991 (de Saint-Seine, 2002). Subsequently, in the early 1990s, Volvo launched a plan to reduce customer order response time from six weeks to 28 days, and then cut it further to 14 days in 1995 (Hertz et al., 2001). Volkswagen and Ford both had similar 14- or 15-day car programs (Holweg et al., 2005). BMW allowed customers to make changes to their vehicle within six days of final assembly (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2005). However, most vehicle manufacturers continue to struggle to achieve a quicker response, in particular in the turbulent competition environment with high-level order vitality (Childerhouse et al., 2008; Christopher and Holweg, 2011). As a result, the pursuit of time-based competitive advantages has become a major issue for practitioners and researchers.As sub-sector of the automotive industry, the bus demand in the global market has rapidly increased due to the rising fuel prices and congestion fees, concerns with air pollution (bus is more fuel-efficient), and government facilitations on public transport. In particular in the emerging economies like China and India, the bus demand is even bigger because of their large population. The rapid growth of the Indian bus market is powered by the fast expansion of the highway network and increasingly mobile workforce (Sachitanand, 2010). While China dominants both bus demand and production in Asia/Pacific area (Ealey and Gross, 2008). With strong policy support from the Chinese government, the bus manufacturing industry has continued its fast growth rate even during the period of recent economic downturn. According to this study, cost and quality are not the first strategic priorities for Chinese manufacturers as they are in Japan's automobile industry; time is the key to gain competitive advantage. One reason for this is that following the industrial restructuring strategy, manufacturers in China are encouraged to be innovative and responsive to develop self-owned brands serving the market. Consequently, one emergent challenge for manufacturers is how to quickly design, produce and deliver customized products for end customers. For bus and coach manufacturers, the fulfillment of individual needs and fluctuation of order volume over a short period of time have a substantial impact on capacity optimization and production planning. How to successfully make the transition from mass production to mass customization and, at the same time, gain time-based competitive advantages are critical obstacles to further sustainable growth for bus manufacturers in China, which is common in many emerging countries (Ealey and Gross, 2008).The aim of this paper is to gain an insight into the current production practices of China's bus manufacturing industry. The next section reviews the body of literature available on the subject in order to build the conceptual research framework for this study. Then research methodologies are laid out and discussed in detail. A summary of findings is then presented followed by a discussion on the resultant framework of manufacturing strategy for time-based competition advantages. Finally, conclusions are drawn and future research directions are proposed.\nLiterature review: Production system: mass production and mass customization\nMethodology: This research aims to gain a broader perspective on the manufacturing strategies and practices of Chinese bus manufacturers during the emerging shift from mass production to mass customization. The case studies are used to explore these contemporary research questions (Yin, 2009).To address the nature of the research questions and enhance the validity of the research results, two individual cases were selected for this study following the conceptual research framework. Following an empirical investigation into the Chinese automobile industry, it was found that the bus industry has a larger product variety and greater pressures on total time in satisfying individual requirements than the passenger car industry. This is the reason why this research is mainly focused on the bus manufacturing industry. The two companies selected rank in the top six for their brand and sales in China. Hence the chosen cases are reasonably representative of the general practices of bus manufacturers (Eisenhardt, 1989).Data was collected from several sources (including semi-structured interviews, secondary documentation, archival records, and field visits) to meet the quality criteria of construct validity (Yin, 2009). The semi-structured interviews were the key method for data collection in this research, and were conducted using guided questions (the Appendix), which were prepared and pre-tested by interviewing two senior managers in another top three bus manufacturers. The interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers from both top and mid-level management in the two companies (Table I). The interviews were also recorded and transcribed for further data analysis.Pattern-matching is the major technique of data analysis applied in this research (Trochim, 1989; Yin, 2009). The empirical pattern derived from the case study was compared with the predicted conceptual pattern that resulted from the literature review. Also the internal validity of case study could be enhanced through the points of pattern overlap (Yin, 2009).\nFindings: Findings are derived from analyzing the data collected from the two case companies.Case 1: company A\nDiscussions: A framework has been developed to summarize and highlight the manufacturing strategies for time-based competitive advantages (Figure 2).Manufacturing strategies: competitive capability\nConclusion: This research aims to gain an insight into the manufacturing strategy of bus manufactures in the process of evolving from mass production to mass customization. To this end, the current body of relevant literature was reviewed in order to build the conceptual research framework, and then semi-structured interviews were conducted following a pre-defined framework and pre-designed questions.The results show that, in the bus manufacturing industry with over-capacity in China, success is no longer determined by high productivity or low price; a quick response to the customers' tailored demands is essential in a climate of fierce competition. This is the reason why China's bus manufacturers regarded time as their first choice of strategic manufacturing capabilities, rather than cost or quality. In order to achieve time-based competitive advantages following the strategic capabilities of time, several best practices are given, based on the case study results of two Chinese bus manufacturers. These include building technical centers and post-doctoral research stations, the use of modular design and RFID, and the involvement of customers throughout the process.The research findings have both theoretical and practical implications. First, this study investigated manufacturing strategies in the Chinese bus manufacturing industry. Second, this study constructed a manufacturing strategy framework linking competitive capabilities with best practices. These best practices are gleaned from the emerging market, whereas most previous best practices were taken from developed countries. Third, the results have shown that time outweighs cost and quality in the bus manufacturing industry in China due to the government's strong support of innovation and R&D.The practical implications are mainly benefiting the managers in helping them identify strategic capabilities and build manufacturing strategies when they make strategic plan seeking time-based competitive advantages. Moreover, it offers the managers a direction of exploring time-based competitive advantages from the perspectives of design, produce, and deliver. Furthermore, the managers could use the proposed framework as a guidance to adapt appropriate techniques, methods, and processes to develop time-based manufacturing capabilities.One of the limitations of this research lies in the fact that the results are derived from this particular industry sector. Hence the results need to be further verified by studying more case companies in the same context. Furthermore, an in-depth study comparing results from developed and developing countries is needed to enhance the research findings. Future investigations into these limitations could also be the basis for new studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the current manufacturing strategies and practices of bus manufacturers in China, and to propose a framework of manufacturing strategies for time-based competitive advantages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The conceptual research framework is devised from a review of the literature, and case studies are used to investigate the manufacturing strategies and practices in place in the case companies. Data are collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary documentation.\nFindings: - The results show that, with over-capacity in the Chinese bus manufacturing industry, success is no longer determined by high productivity or low price; a quick response to the customers' tailored demands is essential in a climate of fierce competition. The suggested best practices for time-based competitive advantages comprise building technical centers and post-doctoral research stations, applying modularity logic, adopting radio frequency identification (RFID), and optimizing processes by, for example, involving customers and integrating inbound and outbound logistics.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research results are limited within the context of the bus manufacturing industry in China.\nPractical implications: - The research results help both the practitioners and the researchers gain a better understanding of the practices of Chinese bus manufacturers from the perspective of time-based competitive advantage. The proposed strategies and best practices have the potential to improve the manufacturing performance of this type of manufacturer.\nOriginality/value: - This paper shows the big picture of manufacturing strategy and practice of bus manufacturers in the Chinese automobile industry. Furthermore, it presents a manufacturing strategy framework with best practice guidance to gain a time-based competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Collaboratives to improve industrial maintenance contract relationships
|
[
"Management",
"Risk",
"Maintenance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\nIntroduction: The loss of production due to the unavailability of a technical system can have serious economic consequences, particularly the loss of perishable commercial opportunities. Operators, organisations operating technical systems, therefore need to contract maintainers, maintenance organisations, that can provide effective maintenance services. Performance contracts whereby an agent receives a reward for a specified performance of a technical system (Smit, 2014) promote effective services. Unfortunately, these contracts encourage opportunistic behaviour and prevent the maintainer from investing in certain risk-mitigating measures. A better alternative is the collaborative contract, a contract type based on objective alignment, as doctoral research by De Jong (2010) demonstrates. To distinguish between the two contract types: under a performance contract the maintainer is rewarded for the performance of a technical system whereas under a collaborative contract the maintainer is rewarded for the operator's commercial success. This paper compares performance and collaborative contracts and demonstrates the benefits of the latter.\nObjective alignment: A performance contract for maintenance services allocates the maintenance costs to the agent and the costs of the loss of production to the principal. In some industries such as the aviation industry the costs of the loss of production, in other words the costs of lost perishable commercial opportunities (Ball et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2009), can be significantly higher than the costs of repairs. A performance contract gives an agent an incentive to reduce maintenance costs but lacks an incentive to reduce the loss of production. This means that the envisioned incentive of a performance contract is not as powerful as might be expected.\nProblem statement: The loss of production as a result of the unavailability of a technical system is expensive. At the same time, maintainers need to move up in the maintenance value chain to remain competitive. This leads to the problem statement: \"What are the strategic choices to optimise the maintenance operations of (flying) technical systems?\" The problem statement implies that the problem pertains to industrial maintenance and does not specify who should benefit from the optimisation, the principal or the agent. The loss of production and the competitive aspects mean that this is an economic optimisation problem.\nResearch design: The research design applies game theory to model the contract relationships using mechanism designs that are appropriate for problems with a moral hazard problem (Borgers, 2015). Mechanism designs assume that the principal is risk-neutral and the agent is risk-averse, and are constrained by the individual rationality constraint, the incentive compatibility constraint and the risk aversion constraint.\nContract mechanisms: Collaborative contracts offer three potential improvements, namely by transferring maintenance-related decision rights from the principal to the agent, sharing exogenous risks and sharing investments to mitigate exogenous risks. The next section discusses the respective mechanisms for these collaborative contracts, following a concise description of the performance contract mechanism.\nResults: The contract mechanisms are validated with case studies. The utility of the performance and collaborative contracts are then verified using the Monte Carlo simulations using the validated contract mechanisms. This section discusses the results of the case studies and the simulations.\nOperationalisation: Now that the results are favourable about collaborative contracts, the question arises if these contracts can be applied in a practice. There are three constraints. First of all, the parties under a collaborative contract are dependent on their ability to assess exogenous risks ex ante. By their nature, principals are most knowledgeable about market and macro-economic threats whereas agents are most knowledgeable about the threats affecting the technical system. This means that, ex ante, the parties may benefit from a joint risk assessment. However, there is no pertinent reason why the principal and the agent should agree on the expected exogenous risk exposure. Second, the actual consequences of exogenous risks ex post are dependent on the unfolding events and may vary depending on the value of specific perishable commercial opportunities of the principal. As a solution, the principal should declare the value of each perishable commercial opportunity in advance. If the principal declares the value in a timely manner, the agent can make its decisions based on the declared value of the perishable commercial opportunities. And if a perishable commercial opportunity is lost, the value is undisputed and can be allocated and settled. Third, collaborative contracts require a system to ex post allocate exogenous risks to the contract parties. The settlement of the agent's reward is based on the agent's contribution to the commercial success of the principal. The agent therefore receives a fixed-price reward that reflects the agent's exogenous risk exposure minus the agent's predetermined share of the costs of each lost perishable commercial opportunity contributable to an exogenous risk.\nConclusions: Exogenous risks may cause the loss of production, resulting in the expensive unavailability of a technical system. At the same time, maintainers in OECD economies need to create more added value to remain competitive. This study identified possibilities to optimise the economics of industrial maintenance contract relationships, based on the assumption that maintainers can increase their value for operators by accepting more maintenance-related risks. Assuming that maintainers are experts, this should result in a reduction in exogenous risk exposure for the operator and justify a higher reward for the maintainer. However, this requires that the maintainer is rewarded for the same objective as the operator; a principle referred to as objective alignment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how collaborative contracts can improve industrial maintenance contract relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research compares performance contracts with collaborative contracts, a new contract type whereby the contract parties align their objectives. The study uses game theory and describes the contract types as mechanism designs to compare the contract types. The mechanisms are validated with case studies. The utility of the contract types is verified with Monte Carlo simulations using expert opinions.\nFindings: The research demonstrates that, under certain conditions, collaborative contracts result in a higher utility than performance contracts for all contract parties.\nPractical implications: The use of collaborative contracts between an operator of a technical system and a maintenance organisation reduces maintenance costs and improves the availability of the technical system, increasing the utility for all contract parties.\nOriginality/value: The collaborative contract is a new contract type for maintenance services and the research method provides a new approach to optimise industrial maintenance contract relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effect of foreign management and board membership on the performance of foreign acquired Turkish banks
|
[
"Financial performance",
"Banking",
"Emerging market",
"Board composition",
"Foreign acquisition"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Turkey, with its rapid economic development in recent years, has become a target country by foreigners willing to invest in Turkish companies (Turkmen, 2007). Regardless of high losses incurred by famous international banks during the on-going global economic turmoil, the prosperity of the Turkish banking industry improved in 2007, and the return on assets and the return on equity of the industry increased. This success is linked to reforms taken by the Turkish banking regulatory agency after Turkey's financial crisis of 2000-2001. These measures have created banks with sound balance sheets, successful risk diversifications and prudent managers leading to Turkish banking sector being safe and sound, even during the financial turmoil period of the post 2007 period (Alps et al., 2010).\nBackground: In this section we provide a detailed review of developments in the Turkish banking system, Turkish corporate governance and an overview of literature on theoretical and practical papers discussing the relationship between a foreign acquired bank's performance and appointment of foreign directors to senior management positions and to the board of directors.\nHypotheses development: In this study, we examine the impact of appointed foreign CEOs, foreign chairmen and foreign board directors on the performances of foreign acquired banks in Turkey. Theoretical and empirical studies found in the literature report conflicting results on the effect on performance.\nMethodology: We use the DID model to investigate the effects of foreign CEO, foreign chairman and foreign board directors on an acquired bank's performance. The model is applied to a sample, which is composed of both foreign acquired banks and domestic banks (the controlling group) having similar characteristics.\nData, sample procedure and descriptive statistics: The sample for this study consists of Turkish deposit banks over the period 2002-2010. Development and investment banks and participation banks are excluded from this sample due to the differences in their purposes. The foreign acquisition and accounting information on Turkish banks are collected from The Banks Association of Turkey database. The information on banks' boards and managements is gathered from banks' annual reports filed in Thomson Research and Perfect Information databases, as well as banks' web sites. There are 12 foreign acquired banks that are matched with 12 private domestic banks throughout 2002-2010.\nDiscussion of empirical results: Table IV presents the results of the four DID performance models for foreign acquired banks, foreign acquired banks with foreign CEOs, foreign acquired banks with foreign Chairmen and foreign acquired banks that have more than one foreign director on their boards. The results display the difference in performance between foreign acquired banks and matching banks by taking the DID between the preceding year of the acquisition, the first, the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth year following the acquisition, as reported in the five panels: A, B, C, D and E, respectively.\nConclusion: Foreign investment in the Turkish banking sector has increased rapidly after the 2000-2001 banking crisis. In this paper, we examine the foreign effect on the performances of acquired Turkish banks. Specifically, we investigate the impacts of foreign CEO, foreign chairman and other foreign board members on acquired banks' performances. The study examines Turkish deposit banks during the period 2002-2010.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of appointing foreign directors on the foreign acquired Turkish banks. Based on the developments in the Turkish banking system and the distinctive features of the Turkish market, the authors examine the appointment of foreign directors in three different levels: as a CEO, chairman and board member. The authors analyse how the appointments of foreign directors in each of these three levels affects the profitability and strategies of foreign acquired banks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use the difference-in-difference (DID) model where the authors compare two groups: foreign acquired banks vs domestic banks for a five-year period. By applying the DID model, the authors aim to remove the time invariant individual characteristics of the banks that could be due to the permanent differences between the two groups, as well as biases from comparisons over time that could be due to trends.\nFindings: The authors find that the presence of the foreign chairman has a positive effect on the profitability of the foreign acquired bank and on the improvement of the income generated from interest activities, indicating that foreign chairman improves the monitoring of board of directors and brings new skills and experiences. Furthermore, foreign acquired banks are associated with an increase in the income generated from non-interest activities in the fifth year following their acquisitions, showing the introduction of new strategies. The change of the foreign acquired bank's strategies in the fifth year after acquisition also suggests that it takes time to implement new strategies in a new environment.\nOriginality/value: Though the effects of foreign board membership on bank's performance have been previously discussed in literature, this study differentiates in that it distinguishes among different positions, e.g. chairman or CEO when examining the effect of a foreign director on a foreign acquired bank's performance. In addition, the use of foreign acquired Turkish banks in the sample in this context adds to the general academic literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Working in social prescribing services: a qualitative study
|
[
"Primary care",
"Workforce",
"Career development",
"Social prescribing",
"Healthcare workforce",
"Social prescribers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social prescribing (SP) is a public health strategy that seeks to treat individuals with chronic illnesses, mild mental health issues or psychosocial problems in a holistic way (Baddeley et al., 2016). It often involves patient referral from primary care services to a link worker or \"navigator\" who helps empower them to make changes to their lives through accessing community support interventions (Dixon and Polley, 2016). It is currently of particular interest to health providers and commissioners as it appears to have the potential to treat patients whose persistent and long-term conditions are adding to an ever-increasing pressure on primary care (Bickerdike et al., 2017), and because it widens the offer of support that has been traditionally accessible through general practice (Skivington et al., 2018).Furthermore, SP is rapidly becoming recognised at a national strategic level as a way of diverting people with non-medical needs away from primary care services. The UK Government's recent publication \"A Connected Society\" refers to SP as a potential tool for combatting loneliness and social isolation, thus further validating it as an effective way of maintaining population health and well-being (HM Government, 2018). It is also a key part of the personalised care element of the recently published NHS Long Term Plan (2019), which clearly states that over a five-year period there will be 2.5m more beneficiaries of SP services, and that to achieve this the NHS intends to train more \"link workers\", totalling 1,000 individuals by the end of 2020/2021. This new focus and increased importance within the overall healthcare agenda is evidence that further exploration of SP services and the workforce who operate in them is increasingly pertinent to discussions regarding sustainable healthcare systems.What is meant by the term \"social prescribing\"?\nMethods: Sampling, access and recruitment\nResults: The findings of this study raise some interesting points of reflection about the experiences of the SP workforce, as well as highlighting some valid concerns and issues that the sector may wish to take into consideration when developing future SP services and recruiting staff. These findings have been grouped into key subheadings and are presented here.The SP's experience\nDiscussion: The findings of this study highlight some interesting details about working life in the SP sector and about who chooses to work in SP services. It is clear that those working in SP are more likely to come from caring or holistic professions that involve working closely with patients, students or vulnerable members of the public. Job satisfaction overall was reported to be high amongst social prescribers, a fact which is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that two respondents reported taking significant pay cuts in order to join the sector.However, in addition to the positive responses there were some obvious areas for development, particularly with regard to three major support needs.Better emotional support for staff dealing with complex and challenging situations\nConclusion: This study suggests that there is no obvious route into SP, and that the workforce can potentially be recruited from a range of professional backgrounds. Job satisfaction is high amongst the client-facing SP workforce and many people accept this in lieu of higher salaries that may be on offer elsewhere. However, some participants in this study felt they had reached the zenith of what they could do within their organisations, and if services want to retain ambitious staff then possibilities for career progression within the sector need to be addressed. This may be particularly challenging in smaller services that have a very small number of staff and no hierarchy, although could be mitigated to some extent through offering additional training opportunities or other skill-based incentives.One of the main findings of this study is the obvious disparity between how those working for smaller community-based providers experience the role in comparison to their colleagues in larger or statutory services, particularly for individuals with more managerial responsibilities. The study revealed a number of important points related to this: first, it is clear that a single individual often holds much of the knowledge, particularly in those smaller services, and contingencies therefore need to be considered in case those people decide to move on. Second, more could be done to support the emotional well-being of these staff, as some had limited outlets through which to debrief after difficult experiences in the workplace, or little time for reflective practice. Third, there was little in the way of cover for at least two participants, so better policies for staff absences need to be developed in some organisations.The findings of this study have clear implications for the future recruitment and retention of staff in SP services, and if the sector is to see the expansion that it is increasingly being promised, then those in charge of recruitment may need to make careful plans for supporting staff and enabling them to perform their role to the best of their abilities. Given the increasing interest in SP provision in the UK, funding and investment in the sector will need to meet the demands of staff who are working in a clearly rewarding yet challenging sector.\nLimitations of this study: Organisations in this study provide a range of levels of intervention, making them difficult to compare. Furthermore, some benefit from much better defined working policies and hierarchical structures, whilst others are small community-based projects that have been built up by only one or two individuals. These substantial variations in the SP offer have previously also been noted by both Hutt (2017) and Kimberlee (2015) as potential limitations to the study of SP services in general.\nFuture research: Participants in the study were not asked specifically about funding, although this is clearly a major issue for the workforce and the future capacity of SP services. This merits further exploration, particularly in light of the recent release of the UK government's loneliness strategy which allocates PS1.8m for the development of SP services (HM Government, 2018) and the promise that 900,000 individuals will aim to be referred to SP schemes by 2023/2024 (NHS Long Term Plan, 2019).Those wishing to study the SP workforce in future would benefit from doing so across contrasting geographical areas and comparing a wider range of providers from Kimberlee's different SP types outlined in Table I. Furthermore, studies that take a more in-depth look at the differences between statutory and community-based SP organisations and the experiences of more senior staff would be particularly relevant, as there are clear differences between organisations that have the infrastructure to take on some of the additional burdens, as opposed to those smaller community organisations that do not have the same support available to them.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Social prescribing (SP) is an emerging area of public health that has the potential to alleviate pressure on primary care by offering non-clinical solutions to health problems. Whilst there is an increasing body of literature exploring service design and impact, there is little research that focuses specifically on the SP workforce. The purpose of this paper is to explore routes into SP, worker's experiences of the sector and potential career progression.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight members of the SP workforce with varying levels of responsibility from within six different organisations in an urban/suburban area of South West England. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.\nFindings: Pathways into the sector were varied, and those without direct experience often brought transferable skills from other professions. Careers in SP were clearly rewarding, and some providers had established good support structures for staff. However, some participants were in need of additional training in areas such as collaborative working and staff management. Staff working at a more senior level - particularly in community-based organisations - seemed less well supported overall, with limited career progression. Staff in such organisations also reported working beyond contractual hours.\nOriginality/value: This study has revealed inconsistencies between the experiences of staff in some community organisations vs those associated with larger, more established services. It has also highlighted a need for further training and capacity building in some areas. These findings may be of interest to those commissioning or funding SP services in the future.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Self-gratification and self-discrepancy in purchase of digital items
|
[
"Social media"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Virtual communities (VCs) have become a prevalent and matured information system phenomenon today. People with common interests and goals interact with one another in these online spaces (Sproull and Arriaga, 2007; Faraj et al., 2011), which become an important part of life to many (Ridings and Gefen, 2004). As technology platforms for supporting VCs improve, in particular with the proliferated use of social software (Haefliger et al., 2011; Ngai et al., 2015), new opportunities arise for firms to leverage value from VCs (Barrett et al., 2016). One way to realize VC value is through the sales of digital items (Hamari and Keronen, 2017; Jung and Pawlowski, 2014; Kim et al., 2012). Indeed, sales of digital items have become a lucrative market, with an estimated value of $52bn (Vanzo, 2017) and is deemed \"The Next Big Gold Rush\" (Bonder, 2017).\nConceptual background: The purchase of digital items is considered a form of symbolic consumption (Animesh et al., 2011; Lehdonvirta et al., 2010; Martin, 2008), which refers to consumption situations in which consumers focus on meanings beyond the tangible, physical characteristics of the products (Levy, 1959). Products of symbolic consumption nature serve as \"a means of communication between the individual and his significant references\" (Grubb and Grathwohl, 1967, p. 24). Such consumptions help individuals construct and express their self-concepts as well as to identify their association with others (Dittmar, 1992; Wattanasuwan, 2005). Typical symbolic consumption products investigated in the literature include fashion, luxury and cultural goods.\nResearch model and hypotheses: We extend Kim et al.'s (2012) model (see Figure 1), which is developed and tested specifically to explain digital item purchase in VCs. In Kim et al.' (2012) model, individual purchase of digital items in VCs is posited to be driven primarily by their self-presentation desire, which is in turn influenced by three factors: online presentation self-efficacy, VC involvement and online self-presentation norm.\nResearch methodology: We employ the survey method in this study as we are interested in how the focal individuals' psychological states (self-self discrepancy, self-other discrepancy, self-esteem) and perceived motivational factor (in particular self-gratification) influence their intention to purchase digital items in a VC of interest. Survey method is suitable for investigating the effects of a number of psychological factors on an outcome variable, and is able to enhance generalizability of results (Dooley, 2001). We selected QZone as the focal VC, which is a major social media-enabled VC in China that allows users to write blogs, keep diaries, share photos, and social network with each other. It has more than 600m users as of January 28th, 2018, and on which users spend more than half of their online time on average[2].\nDiscussion and implications: Overall our findings may offer the following implications for research and practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While previous research underscored self-presentation desire as an important motivator of digital item purchase, user needs for digital items may become increasingly inner-focused with the maturation of virtual communities (VCs). The purpose of this paper is to posit that self-discrepancy and self-gratification are key to explaining user purchase of digital items.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of 310 users of a social media-based VC well supports the hypotheses.\nFindings: The tenet of this study is that individuals purchase digital items in VCs not only for self-presentation purpose per se, but more importantly for reasons of more inner-focused, such as due to their self-discrepancy that motivates them to purchase digital items to enhance self-esteem, and also for self-gratification. Furthermore, self-discrepancy arising from comparing ones' current self against how they perceive others expect them to ideally be (i.e. self-other discrepancy) increases their self-presentation desire.\nOriginality/value: Overall the findings enrich the current view that individuals purchase digital items mainly to present themselves to others (Kim et al., 2012), thus affording a more complete understanding of this behavior that has both important research and practical implications.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Knowledge generation in online forums: a case study in the German educational domain
|
[
"Forums",
"Educational domain",
"Online communities",
"Social information behaviour",
"Social media analysis",
"Social web"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social media adaption can be assessed as a paradigm change not only with regard to potentially unlimited communication but also with respect to knowledge generation (Shirky, 2008). The open social web has widely expanded the universe of available knowledge. Apart from the value of such knowledge as an information resource, active participation provides further benefits for the users involved. Asking questions in online forums or question and answering services offers the possibility to directly satisfy personal information needs. In addition, one may build up knowledge by engaging in ongoing conversations with peers. We will discuss the knowledge value of such social media for information seeking and for knowledge building purposes.\n2. Social media usage in education-related contexts: The social web has created new possibilities for personal, communal and public information sharing (Shirky, 2010). Nevertheless, social media usage still can be seen as a primarily leisure-based phenomenon. Whereas the adaptation of social media is advanced with regard to personal communication and self-expression in social networking sites (SNS) and product or service-related information behavior, the significance and role of social media in professional contexts is often unknown.\n3. Related literature: The information and knowledge value of social media is inevitably linked to the sequence of development and the specificities of the content created by the users. The concept of knowledge value is difficult to grasp. We will discuss and operationalize our specific perspective in Section 4. In order to classify our investigation into current research, we provide an exemplary overview of investigations and approaches concerned with the analysis of communication structures in social media and quality aspects of user-generated content, the role of forums in information seeking and online knowledge building and discourse.\n4. Theoretical considerations and conceptual framework: As mentioned in the introduction, we aim to estimate the knowledge value of online communities for information seeking as well as knowledge building for a wider audience. This double-sided perspective is intentionally chosen as discussions on information problems in many-to-many computer-mediated communication spaces may be of value on the individual level of the questioner, but also on higher social levels of the community. In the following, we relate basic concepts from diverse theories in the fields of Information Behavior, Social Learning and Knowledge Management to provide a conceptual framework for this research and categorize our understanding of social information behavior. Please keep in mind that we estimate the argumentation here are as a first plunge into discourse and not the end of the discussion.\n5. Research questions: The goal of this study is to get insights into the structure, pragmatics, and success of knowledge creating processes within online communities with a topical focus on the German educational domain. As lined out in Section 2, the perspective is on the self-determined usage of social media for information seeking and knowledge building purposes. If we take into account the pragmatics of both active (participative) and passive (receptive) social information behavior, success of the questioner with regard to the expressed information need and the knowledge building value for communicants and readers are of special interest (cf. Section 4).\n6. Approach and methods: To present our research design, we first describe our procedure of sample selection. Following that, we delineate our approach of content analysis and illustrate the development of the coding scheme and coding procedure.\n7. Analysis: We structure the analysis according to our research questions as laid out in Section 4. We start with a presentation of the data set. Table I gives an overview of the sample.\n8. Discussion: In the discussion, we first summarize the results of the investigation. Then, we reflect on our research approach, its limitations and its value for further research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to get a first approximation of the usefulness of online forums with regard to information seeking and knowledge generation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study captures the characteristics of knowledge generation by examining the pragmatics and types of information needs of posted questions and by investigating knowledge related characteristics of discussion posts as well as the success of communication. Three online forums were examined. The data set consists of 55 threads, containing 533 posts which were categorized manually by two researchers.\nFindings: Results show that questioners often ask for personal estimations. Information needs often aim for actionable insights or uncertainty reduction. With regard to answers, factual information is the dominant content type and has the highest knowledge value as it is the strongest predictor with regard to the generation of new knowledge. Opinions are also relevant, but in a rather subsequent and complementary way. Emotional aspects are scarcely observed. Overall, results indicate that knowledge creation predominantly follows a socio-cultural paradigm of knowledge exchange.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the investigation captures important aspects of knowledge building processes, the measurement of the forums' knowledge value is still rather limited. Success is only partly measurable with the current scheme. The central coding category \"new topical knowledge\" is only of nominal value and therefore not able to compare different kinds of knowledge gains in the course of discussion.\nOriginality/value: The investigation reaches out beyond studies that do not consider that the role and relevance of posts is dependent on the state of the discussion. Furthermore, the paper integrates two perspectives of knowledge value: the success of the questioner with regard to the expressed information need and the knowledge building value for communicants and readers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Dual relational embeddedness and knowledge transfer in European multinational corporations and subsidiaries
|
[
"Multinational companies",
"Knowledge transfer",
"Dual embeddedness",
"Dual embedded subsidiary"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The primary relevance of multinational companies has always been in creating a competitive advantage at an international level (Vernon, 1966; Dunning, 1981). Yet, those companies are currently accompanied and supported by their subsidiaries, generating this advantage through joint knowledge and innovation activities. Accordingly, companies tend to assume the form of an open system, leveraged by knowledge as a key asset (Riege, 2007; Amalia and Nugroho, 2011; Achcaoucaou et al., 2014; Ferraris, Santoro and Bresciani, 2017). Given this scenario, companies cannot operate in a holistic manner, but they need to develop an extensive network to satisfy a local demand. Therefore, subsidiaries work like satellites that connect and intertwine each headquarters with local demand (Kuemmerle, 1999; Birkinshaw et al., 2005; Forsgren et al., 2005; Bresciani and Ferraris, 2014), improving its multinational corporations' (MNCs) competitive advantage (Andersson, 2003; Meyer et al., 2011; Ferraris, 2014; Ferraris, Santoro and Dezi, 2017b). On this basis, the international business (IB) literature has provided research on how MNCs integrate knowledge from internal and external networks (Ordonez de Pablos, 2004; Giroud and Scott-Kennel, 2009; Blomkvist et al., 2010; Figueredo, 2011). Some scholars have introduced the concept of dual embeddedness to explain the process of knowledge transfer and sharing among MNCs and their subsidiaries (Figueredo, 2011). Given the increasing significance of international networks, the dual embeddedness of MNCs' subsidiaries has been studied from different points of view, such as knowledge management with a particular focus on knowledge creation, innovation process, financial performance and subsidiaries' roles (Achcaoucaou et al., 2014; Bresciani and Ferraris, 2016). From this, it has emerged that the dual embeddedness is formed by external and internal embeddedness. External embeddedness means that each subsidiary is part of a specific external business network (Andersson et al., 2002; Ciabuschi et al., 2014), whereas internal embeddedness refers to the situation where each subsidiary becomes ingrained in its corporate network - that is, its headquarters and sister subsidiaries (Yamin and Andersson, 2011).\n2. Literature review and development of hypotheses: 2.1 Relational embeddedness in multinational corporations\n3. Research design: This study focuses on European subsidiaries of MNCs with headquarters located in Europe that are active in both knowledge generation and transfer processes (\"integrated players\", as defined by Gupta and Govindarajan, 1991). Given the quantity of studies on this topic that requires more fine-grained methods, a quantitative methodology is considered the most appropriate empirical approach to investigate the knowledge transfer between subsidiaries and MNCs (Yamin and Andersson, 2011). The empirical research is therefore divided into two steps: first, a total of 152 MNCs were selected from the annual list of the largest 500 companies in the world published by Fortune magazine[1] (the list was published in 2014 but it refers to the data from the 2013 fiscal year). Second, the director of each MNC that responded was asked to nominate their European subsidiaries with the characteristics of integrated players, being those with strong behaviour in creating, transferring and sharing knowledge (high outflow and high inflow of knowledge) (Gupta and Govindarajan, 1991), from which were individuated a total of 495 subsidiaries. Third, a close-ended questionnaire was sent via email between September 2014 and August 2015 to each of those subsidiaries. The questions were structured, referring to:\n4. Analysis and results: The relationship between subsidiaries' embeddedness and knowledge transfer was tested using OLS regression analysis. Three models were implemented and are presented in Table II. Model 1 represents the effect of the control variables only on the degree of knowledge transfer. Model 2 is implemented to test the impact of the two independent variables (internal and external embeddedness) on the dependent variable (degree of knowledge transfer). Finally, in Model 3, the interaction term of internal and external embeddedness is proposed to test the interaction effect concerning dual embeddedness. Model 1 has an R2 of 0.17 (adjusted R2 is 0.11) and an F-value of 2.77 (p < 0.05). Model 2 has an R2 of 0.45 (adjusted R2 is 0.39) and an F-value of 8.32 (p < 0.001). Model 3 has an R2 of 0.53 (adjusted R2 is 0.43) and an F-value of 9.04 (p < 0.01).\n5. Discussion and conclusion: 5.1 Discussion of findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the level of subsidiaries' internal and external relational embeddedness and the degree of subsidiaries' knowledge transfer. More specifically, the aim is to explore dual embeddedness of subsidiaries involved in the knowledge transfer process within multinational corporations' (MNCs) network.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors empirically analyse 165 European subsidiaries to demonstrate the crucial role of dual relational embeddedness in the transfer of knowledge within MNCs. Data were collected via a close-ended questionnaire and processed through an ordinary least squares regression model.\nFindings: Results show that internal embeddedness directly and positively influences the degree of subsidiaries' knowledge transfer, whereas external embeddedness does not. Notwithstanding, a higher level of both types of embeddedness - known as dual embeddedness - generates multiplicative and positive effects on the degree of subsidiaries' knowledge transfer.\nPractical implications: Best practices and relevant knowledge follow a reverse transfer of knowledge from the subsidiaries to the internal MNC network that is facilitated by the relational embeddedness of subsidiaries. This has resulted in developing a dual embeddedness, which introduces new routines and scripts, as well as more relational links.\nOriginality/value: The research emphasises the relevance of the knowledge transfer process in multiple directions, evoking the central role of dual-embedded subsidiaries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effects of self-efficacy, process feedback, and task complexity on escalation of commitment in new product development
|
[
"Innovation",
"New product development",
"Business-to-business marketing",
"Industrial marketing",
"Escalation of commitment",
"Self-efficacy",
"Process feedback",
"Task complexity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: New product development (NPD) is key for the survival and success of firms (Bicen and Hunt, 2012; Elvers and Song, 2016; Hirunyawipada et al., 2015; Kandemir et al., 2006; Liang et al., 2014; Mu et al., 2017). Although new products launched in the preceding five years account for over half of sales and more than 40 per cent of profits (Barczak et al., 2009; Durmusoglu and Barczak, 2011; Hultink et al., 1997), NPD is one of the most risky endeavors undertaken by firms (Cooper, 2011), especially for business-to-business and industrial firms (Donthu and Unal, 2014). More than 40 per cent of new products have typically failed (Barczak et al., 2009; Meer et al., 2015; Srinivasan et al., 2009), and a great majority of new products developed are not even launched (Cooper, 2011). Marketing scholars have identified escalation of commitment (EOC) as a key factor in the failure of new products (Boulding et al., 1997; Biyalogorsky et al., 2006; Liang et al., 2014; Schmidt and Calantone, 1998, 2002). EOC is defined as persisting in a failing course of action (Staw, 1997; Staw and Ross, 1987). Decision-makers continue to invest time, money, self-identity and other resources into a failing course of action in the hope of turning the situation around (Boulding et al., 2016; Eliens et al., 2018; Feldman and Wong, 2018; Hafenbrack et al., 2014; Kwong and Wong, 2014; Schaumberg and Wiltermuth, 2014; Staw, 1997; Staw and Ross, 1987; Wong and Kwong, 2017). Although EOC has been studied extensively for the past five decades, only a few studies (Jani, 2011; Whyte and Saks, 2007; Whyte et al., 1997) have investigated the effect of self-efficacy on EOC although self-efficacy is one of the most influential concepts in contemporary psychology and has been studied in virtually every area of organizational research (Jordan et al., 2015; Judge et al., 2007). Researchers have found that decision-makers with high self-efficacy are more likely than those with low self-efficacy to continue a failing project because highly self-efficacious individuals have strong confidence in their ability, but those with low self-efficacy do not. However, scholars have not attempted to investigate which variables may moderate the effect of self-efficacy on EOC. Although negative outcome feedback is a prerequisite for EOC, scholars have paid no attention to process feedback, which is also a critical component of effective feedback (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). As process feedback provides a potentially effective way to turn a situation around (Earley et al., 1990; Mullet and Marsh, 2016; Oedzes et al., 2018), decision-makers with low self-efficacy may continue with a failing project. In contrast, decision-makers with high self-efficacy may not be influenced by process feedback because they have strong confidence in their ability. Therefore, process feedback may moderate the effect of self-efficacy on EOC.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Self-efficacy\n3. Hypothesis development: New products are the lifeblood of firms. NPD may be very costly and is very risky with a failure rate over 40 per cent (Barczak et al., 2009; Meer et al., 2015; Srinivasan et al., 2009). NPD is highly subject to the problem of EOC (Boulding et al., 1997; Biyalogorsky et al., 2006; Liang et al., 2014; Schmidt and Calantone, 1998, 2002). Decision-makers with high self-efficacy view difficult goals as challenges rather than as threats and are willing to take risks (Bandura, 1997). Moreover, they can handle discouragement, apprehension and setbacks in the face of negative feedback (McNatt and Judge, 2008), and they are confident in their ability (Bandura, 1997; Bandura and Cervone, 1986; Beck and Schmidt, 2018; Cetin and Askun, 2018). Therefore, they are more likely to persist with the new product when they need to make go or no-go decisions after receiving negative feedback. In contrast, individuals with low self-efficacy are more likely to recommend stopping the new product because they have less reassurance in their ability, tend to avoid difficult tasks and may experience depression or anxiety in the face of negative feedback (Bandura et al., 2001; Liu et al., 2017). Whyte and Saks (2007) and Whyte et al. (1997) found that decision-makers with high self-efficacy will persist with a failing project, whereas those with low efficacy are likely to desist in it. However, the effect of self-efficacy on EOC may be moderated by process feedback. When individuals receive negative outcome feedback, indicating that their performance does not meet particular goals, they become dissatisfied and may try to minimize the discrepancy between performance and goals (Locke and Latham, 2002). Negative outcome feedback is a prerequisite for EOC, but it does not provide specific information concerning how decision-makers should adjust their actions (Earley et al., 1990; Mullet and Marsh, 2016). After receiving negative outcome feedback alone, decision-makers with low self-efficacy may be frustrated and have less desire to continue the new product than those with high self-efficacy because they may have low confidence in their ability and have no strategies to which they can resort to turn the situation around. However, when process feedback identifying a potentially effective strategy to turn the situation around is provided, decision-makers with low self-efficacy may believe that they can turn the failing new product around. As a result, they will continue to move the new product forward. On the other hand, process feedback may have a weaker impact on those with high self-efficacy because they believe they have a strong ability to manage the new product whether process feedback is provided or not (see Figure 1 for the proposed model). Therefore, I expect:\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Overview\n5. General discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity on decisions by managers to continue or discontinue a new product after receiving negative performance feedback.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a classroom experiment design and uses logistic regression and a chi-square test to analyze the data.\nFindings: The findings of this paper show that self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity have not only main effects but also interactive effects on managers' go or no-go decisions; further, the main effects are mediated by interactions. The effect of self-efficacy is moderated by process feedback and task complexity. Process feedback and task complexity also have an interactive effect on decisions about new products by decision-makers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper extends the theory of escalation of commitment (EOC) by showing that self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity can influence decision-makers' go or no-go decisions after they have received negative performance feedback.\nPractical implications: This paper provides useful guidelines for managers on how to reduce the likelihood of EOC.\nOriginality/value: The originality and value of this paper lie in its being the first to examine the effects of process feedback and task complexity on the EOC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mixed two- and four-level experimental designs for interchangeable parts with different degrees of assembly difficulty
|
[
"Hard-to-change factor",
"Minimum setup",
"Prototype testing",
"Regular design",
"Restricted randomization",
"Split-plot fractional factorial design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Two-level factorial experiments have been the most widely employed type of design in industrial settings (Ilzarbe et al., 2008; Prvan and Street, 2002). However, in many practical situations we are faced with mixed-level or multi-level experiments (e.g. Bagheri, Sarajia and Naderia, 2000; Bagheri, Saraji, Chitsazan, Mousavi and Naderi, 2000; Chee et al., 1995; Chee et al., 1996; Hunter and Naylor, 1970). This is especially true when the experimental factors are naturally comprised of different number of levels, e.g., type of solvent (ethyl acetate, acetonitrile, methanol, hexane) in a chemical process. Taguchi matrices can be used to select designs with various combinations of factors and levels. These matrices represent orthogonal arrays based on the theory of factorial designs (Kacker et al., 1991). However, Taguchi matrices lack explicit account for hard-to-change factors (Simonovic and Kalin, 2016, p. 12, Section 2.2).\n2. Baja SAE racing experiment: Baja SAE racing is a competition promoted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in which teams of students from universities all over the world design and build small off-road vehicles. Besides the performance of the car, the evaluation process considers detailed reports and presentations of the engineering and design process used in developing each system of the team's vehicle, which should be supported with rigorous engineering principles.\n3. About the minimum setup minimum aberration (MSMA) criterion: To select a design, we should specify appropriate criteria. As pointed out in Ho et al. (2015), the MS criterion is driven by the restrictions present in real applications, especially due to hard-to-change factors. Thus, the MSMA criterion is chosen as the baseline to select designs in the Baja experiment. The authors have shown that the MS criterion not only can be used to differentiate designs with the same word length pattern (WLP), but also is independent from the MA criterion. To illustrate these aspects let us consider the designs, d1 and d2, both with six factors, three whole-plot factors (one four-level factor, namely, Factor A, and two two-level factors, Factors B and C) and three sub-plot factors with the same configuration (two two-level factors, namely, factors D and E and one four-level factor F). By the method of replacement, each four-level factor can be replaced by two two-level pseudo-factors. Consequently, two two-level pseudo-factors K1 and K2 are assigned for a generic four-level factor K. The generators of designs d1 and d2 are put in Table II.\n4. The executed and alternative designs for the Baja competition experiment: This section presents the executed design for the Baja experiment. Alternative plans are also discussed in this section. This car prototype study is a 32-run experiment with seven mixed two- and four-level factors. The approach considered is to exchange each four-level factor (e.g. factor B) by two two-level pseudo-factors (e.g. B1 and B2) and to use three columns labeled as (B1, B2, B1B2) to generate one four-level factor (Wu, 1989). This procedure is repeated four times to accommodate the four four-level factors in the Baja experiment. In terms of run size, the experiment would be equivalent to a 211-6 fractional factorial design. In the literature catalogs of MA designs up to three four-level factors and up to thirteen two-level factors are available (see Ankenman, 1999).\n5. A general framework: We now introduce the notation for mixed two-level and four-level split-plot type designs with minimum number of setups in each stratum. Suppose that there are a total of k+j factors; k four-level factors and j two-level factors. These factors can be divided into s groups according to the degree of difficulty in changing their levels. The groups of factors are arranged in decreasing order according to the degree of difficulty in such a way that the first group is the most difficult to change and the last group is the easiest to change.\n6. Conclusions: The planning stage of an experiment is the most critical phase. The choices made will have both theoretical and practical implications, since it will directly affect the properties of the design, the cost of the experiment, its analysis, and the quality of the results. Therefore, a proper design selection is extremely important in practice. A poor design selection may lead to a total waste of the data collected during the execution of the experiment. Consequently, it can jeopardize the whole effort for process or product improvement, resulting in a disbelief of the usefulness of DOE applicability to problem-solving.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how to properly use the method of replacement to construct mixed two- and four-level minimum setup split-plot type designs to accommodate the presence of hard-to-assemble parts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Split-plot type designs are economical approaches in industrial experimentation. These types of designs are particularly useful for situations involving interchangeable parts with different degrees of assembly difficulties. Methodologies for designing and analyzing such experiments have advanced lately, especially for two-level designs. Practical needs may require the inclusion of factors with more than two levels. Here, the authors consider an experiment to improve the performance of a Baja car including two- and four-level factors.\nFindings: The authors find that the direct use of the existing minimum setup maximum aberration (MSMA) catalogs for two-level split-plot type designs may lead to inappropriate designs (e.g. low resolution). The existing method of replacement for searching exclusive sets of the form (a, b, ab) available in the literature is suitable for completely randomized designs, but it may not provide efficient plans for designs with restricted randomization.\nOriginality/value: The authors provide a general framework for the practitioners and have extended the algorithm to find out the number of generators and the number of base factor at each stratum, which guide the selection of mixed two-level and four-level MSMA split-plot type designs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Unbundling dynamic capabilities for inter-organizational collaboration: The case of nanotechnology
|
[
"Dynamic capabilities",
"Strategic alliances",
"External networks",
"FSAs",
"Nanotechnology",
"Sensing and seizing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is hardly any sector of economic activity that has not embraced innovation through inter-organizational collaboration, whether through specific alliances or broader networks. Firm-level responses to a faster pace of competitive dynamics and the heightened importance of knowledge creation via technological change have fueled research on the role of and the value of strategic alliances (Gomes et al., 2016). Similarly, contemporary research from the network perspective suggests that a firm's strategy emerges as a pattern of behavior influenced by a variety of network relationships and constellations (Rowley and Baum, 2008).\nTheory development and hypotheses: To address the two research challenges identified above, we adopt a multi-theoretical approach, and conceptualize the complex system of linkages between capabilities deployed within alliances and networks, respectively. We integrate concepts from the two theoretical perspectives. First, we draw on the dynamic capabilities perspective, specifically on those two elements, that drive the firm's engagement with its external, cross-border environment, namely the sensing and seizing of new knowledge. Teece's (2007) framework deconstructs dynamic capabilities into three distinctive components, namely \"[...] the capacity: (1) to sense and shape opportunities and threats, (2) to seize opportunities, and (3) to maintain competitiveness through enhancing, combining, protecting, and, when necessary, reconfiguring the business enterprise's intangible and tangible assets\" (2007: 1319). The current paper addresses the first two of these dynamic capability dimensions, namely opportunity-sensing and opportunity-seizing. These two capability dimensions are particularly salient to understanding how firms become aware of - and act upon - opportunities arising in the firm's external environments. Capitalizing upon such opportunities increasingly requires engagement in cross-border activities (Teece, 2014). By highlighting the value of incorporating dynamic capabilities insight into the study of internationally operating firms, Matysiak et al. (2018, p. 244) argue that: \"the purpose of [multinational enterprises'] MNEs' sensing, seizing, and transforming is to achieve (ever new) resource-capability recombinations that confer competitive advantages in the form of non-location bound FSAs, CSAs, and location bound FSAs in dynamic industry and country environments.\"\nData and methods: Nanotechnology exemplifies the broad-based, inter-disciplinary and geographically dispersed nature of scientific advances that fuel research trajectories and developments of nanoscale structures and components. From this perspective, nanotechnology provides an ideal context for studying the type of innovation that fundamentally challenges the traditional approaches to development and application of de novo inventions in both traditional and nascent industries. Companies that have been awarded patents in nanotechnology represent the population that is especially suitable to answer the questions developed in this paper. These firms usually rely on interdisciplinary, inter-industry and international collaborations and affiliations in order to discover and share new scientific developments and emerging technological trends, and to create awareness of the sources of knowledge and access various flows of knowledge.\nVariables: Innovation outcomes (dependent variable)\nResults: As noted above, the data set consists of 76 companies. There is considerable variance on control variables: firm size, age, proportion of alliance partners being foreign firms and R&D size. The companies in the sample have, on average applied for about 8 nano-tech related patents (mean 7.5) over the observation period (1995-2005), with a minimum of 1 nanotechnology patent and a maximum number of applied nanotechnology patents applied for, reaching 65 during the observation period. The average age for the companies in the sample is 37 years and slightly more than one half of their alliance partners (57 percent) over the observation period were foreign firms.\nRobustness tests: We conducted several auxiliary analyses to assess the robustness of the findings.\nDiscussion and conclusion: We have suggested a novel, exploratory approach to studying linkages between firm-level dynamic capabilities and innovation outcomes. We have conceptualized, and then empirically tested, the direct effects of distinct capability subsets for opportunity sensing and opportunity seizing. Importantly, we have addressed the complex nature of the dynamic capability construct by examining two distinct, but interrelated, contexts, namely that of alliances and networks.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore two distinct subsets of dynamic capabilities that need to be deployed when pursuing innovation through inter-organizational activities, respectively, in the contexts of broad networks and specific alliances. The authors draw distinctions and explore potential interdependencies between these two dynamic capability reservoirs, by integrating concepts from the theoretical perspectives they are derived from, but which have until now largely ignored each other - the social network perspective and the dynamic capabilities view.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors investigate nanotechnology-driven R&D activities in the 1995-2005 period for 76 publicly traded firms in the electronics and electrical equipment industry and in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry, that applied for 580 nanotechnology-related patents and engaged in 2,459 alliances during the observation period. The authors used zero-truncated Poisson regression as the estimation method.\nFindings: The findings support conceptualizing dynamic capabilities as four distinct subsets, deployed for sensing or seizing purposes, and across the two different inter-organizational contexts. The findings also suggest potential synergies between these subsets of dynamic capabilities, with two subsets being more macro-oriented (i.e. sensing and seizing opportunities within networks) and the two other ones more micro-oriented (i.e. sensing and seizing opportunities within specific alliances).\nPractical implications: The authors show that firms differ in their subsets of dynamic capabilities for pursuing different types of inter-organizational, boundary-spanning relationships (such as alliances vs broader network relationships), which ultimately affects their innovation performance.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the growing body of work on dynamic capabilities and firm-specific advantages by unbundling the dynamic capability subsets, and investigating their complex interdependencies for managing different types of inter-organizational linkages. The main new insight is that the \"linear model\" of generating more innovations through higher inter-firm collaboration in an emerging field paints an erroneous picture of how high innovation performance is actually achieved.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does gender make a difference in business performance? Evidence from a large enterprise survey data of India
|
[
"Gender",
"India",
"Business performance",
"Small and medium enterprises",
"Business obstacles",
"Enterprise survey"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The importance of business development, particularly small and medium enterprises as an engine of economic growth, has been widely recognized across both developing and developed nations (Tanabe and Watanabe, 2005; Forsman and Temel, 2011). Dethier et al. (2011) highlighted various infrastructure, finance, security, competition and regulation factors that have a significant impact on enterprise performance. The antecedents to business performance can be categorized into human and non-human factors (Chittithaworn et al., 2011). The non-human factors include technology, finance, demand level, competition and organization structure, whereas business entities make appropriate investment to achieve business goals. The human factor is another important resource influencing the performance of business enterprises, which may vary in certain respects like motivation, education level, skill level and training of workforce, and is significantly correlated with gender in a given socio-cultural setting (Belfield, 2005; Fitzenberger and Muehler, 2015). It is also evident in literature that gender has been prominent among the demographic variables influencing the business performance and decision-making (Chirwa, 2008; Rodriguez-Dominguez et al., 2012; Khalife and Chalouhi, 2013; Lee and Marvel, 2014).\nConceptual framework and research hypotheses: Empirical evidences indicate that gender has been prominent among the demographic variables influencing the business performance and decision-making (Chaganti and Parasuraman, 1996; Chirwa, 2008; Fairlie and Robb, 2009; Davis et al., 2010; Rodriguez-Dominguez et al., 2012; Lee and Marvel, 2014). However, the relationship between gender and firm performance is a relatively less researched area (Bardasi et al., 2011; Khan and Vieito, 2013), and most studies on gender differences in business performance have been undertaken in developed countries (Boohene et al., 2008). There have been studies indicating gender gap in business performance, whereas there are researchers who have found mixed or no relationships between gender and business performance (Collins-Dodd et al., 2004; Johnsen and McMahon, 2005; Watson, 2012; Diaz-Garcia and Brush, 2012; Lee and Marvel, 2014). Majority of the literature indicates that men usually occupy dominant positions in the economy and labour force (Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991) and that, in general, female-owned firms underperform as compared to male-owned firms (Chell and Baines, 1998; Lee and Marvel, 2014).\nData and methods: Data source\nResults and discussion: Enterprise characteristics in India by gender\nConclusion and managerial implications: The participation of women in businesses has been increasing at a significant rate, which has attracted the attention of researchers, practitioners and policymakers for promoting business enterprises through gender diversity at workplaces and ensuring the representation of women director in the boards of the firms. The recent amendment in the Companies Act, 2013 has mandated the government to ensure gender diversity in boards of organizations for improving the corporate governance. In continuation to this, the SEBI has announced the implementation of gender diversity in boardrooms among all the public limited companies in a phased manner. An analysis of business performance across male-owned versus female-owned enterprises is critical to substantiate the ongoing agenda of the government in promoting gender diversity in the boards of business enterprises.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims toanalyse the difference in business performance and obstacles across male-owned versus female-owned enterprises in India.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a comprehensive enterprise survey of 9,281 Indian firms operating in different regions of the country, conducted under the World Bank's Enterprise Survey, 2014. The survey contains information on a variety of enterprise characteristics such as ownership, type of firms, size of firms, locations and age, performance indicators and information on 16 parameters of business obstacles. Business performance indicators have been derived from data in the form of growth in sales, employment, labour productivity and capability utilization by gender ownership of the firms. Simple statistical tools such as descriptive statistics, chi-square test and the independent-samples t-test have been used to analyse the data. Further, an ordered probit regression model has been estimated to identify the relative importance of parameters affecting female-owned enterprises.\nFindings: Of the total 9,281 firms surveyed under the World Bank's Enterprise Survey, about 8 per cent were being managed by a top female manager and about 15 per cent firms reported to have at least one female owner. Among the female owners, about 36 per cent were reported to own 50 per cent and above share of the firm. Chi-square statistics indicate that there is a significant difference in enterprise characteristics of male- versus female-owned firms in terms of location, size, type and age. Result of the independent-samples t-test indicates a significant difference in business performance across male- and female-owned businesses in terms of annual sales growth, labour productivity growth and capacity utilization of the firms. Similarly, the perception of male- and female-owned firms significantly vary on 10 obstacles out of total 16 business obstacle parameters. Overall, females perceive comparatively less business obstacles as compared to males. An ordered probit regression model has revealed the relative importance of enterprise characteristics, performance indicators and extent of business obstacles among female-owned enterprises.\nPractical implications: This study provides an insight on the differences in the firms' performance across gender ownership based on a large survey data. This study can be helpful in designing policies for promoting gender-based business enterprises in a focused manner.\nOriginality/value: There are limited empirical evidences on difference in organizational profile, business performance and understanding business obstacles across male- versus female-owned firms in India based on a large survey data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Facing knowledge evolution in space project: a multi-viewpoint approach
|
[
"Design",
"Project management",
"Knowledge management",
"Risk management",
"Space technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: When we have to manage knowledge about a long duration space project we probably have to face several impressive difficulties; nine years ago CNES started to deal with this issue. CNES is the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France's space policy in Europe. It conceives and executes space programmes with its partners in the scientific community and industry, and is closely involved in many international cooperation programmes.A first difficulty is the very huge amount of text directly involved in the description of the project. As an example, the texts that are saved at CNES for the Rosetta project is, today, equivalent to 24.000 pages of raw textual material. A second one results from evolution of technical context between the early stages of the project until the ultimate phase of it. As an example, more the 15 years will last between the beginning and the end of the Rosetta project.In a previous article (Rothenburger and Galarreta, 2001), we have theoretically grounded and technically described a knowledge management approach in order to track knowledge evolution as it appears in the technical documents of such a project.In a second previous article (Condamines et al., 2003), we have identified the notion of knowledge loss and the notion of risk. Then, we introduced the concept of system value in order to catch this risk. We have then precisely described how to implement these concepts, using tools from data mining and knowledge discovery from data technology. More precisely we have described how we associate statistical method, domain ontology, non-classical logic and computational linguistic.Using the results we have exhibited in these two articles, we discover that we have to confront a major difficulty. Since the initial textual material is very huge the number of statically significant evolutions may also be very important. Nevertheless a lot of these evolutions do not carry any risk for the achievement of the mission. They correspond to minor or to well-known evolutions for any stakeholder of the project. This situation constitutes a real bottleneck for our methodology. In order to tackle this problem we consider that it is advisable to identify textual components that imply a risky situation and then to locate significant evolutions only in these components.In the second section of this article we justify this approach with argument based on risk management. Since our approach should contribute to the success of the mission, we consider existing factors that contribute to it, such as dependability and safety.We will argue using a multi-viewpoint approach that risk analysis produces knowledge (not simply information or data). It turns out that our initial objective is to prevent the organisation from forgeting risks that were detected in the early phases of the mission.In the third section we describe how the filtering of risky components of a technical documentation is performed. It is based on the confrontation of the vocabulary of the different documents to an ontology of \"criticality\" we have constructed.In the fourth section we describe how the knowledge evolutions are extracted and how we carry out the interpretation of these evolutions.\n2. Risk management and knowledge evolution: In this chapter we will try to argue that what is defined as a risk, instead of being the sign of ignorance corresponding, on the contrary, to what is usually defined as a piece of knowledge. The impression of being in front of a paradox stems from the fact that knowledge is usually associated to a positive element although it often appears as a limit beyond which it is dangerous to venture.2.1 Relation between risk and ignorance concepts\n3. Filtering risky components: The aim of the filtering process we are now describing is to get a reasonably big set of textual material in order to identify knowledge evolutions in it. Simultaneously, we try to have the less loss of critical evolution.3.1 Ontology and KM\n4. Identifying and interpreting knowledge evolutions: 4.1 Principle of knowledge evolutions identification\n5 Conclusion: In this article we have presented new way of thinking about knowledge management in long duration space project.The basic idea of our approach is to focus on the early identification of critical documents. These documents are not necessarily explicitly identified as risk management documents but their vocabulary shows they have to deal with criticality.We first proposed a conceptual framework in order to justify this approach.The principle of our methodology and of technical tools we use was given and some results were presented.Since this approach deals with a long duration space project it is an ongoing task. The final goal is to allow, as the final stage of the mission will approach, the comparison the initial technical documentation with this that new participants of the project will currently use.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual and methodological framework in order to prevent knowledge loss in a long duration space project.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Starting from risk management, the paper considers existing factors that contribute to the success of the mission, such as dependability and safety, and then argues, using a multi-viewpoint approach, that risk analysis produces knowledge (not simply information or data). Then, the paper describes how the filtering of risky components of a technical documentation is performed. It is based on the confrontation of the vocabulary of the different documents to an ontology of \"criticality\" built by the authors. The paper also describes how the knowledge evolutions are detected and how the interpretation of these evolutions is carried out.\nFindings: - On a conceptual side, a general model of the design process is presented based on a multi-viewpoints approach and characterised by a value system. On the practical side, an ontology of risk, used as a reference system in order to compare knowledge at different stages of a project, is described.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Some difficulty arises when a very huge documentation is addressed. Among all evolution clues a lot of them could be well-known by everybody or could be of little importance.\nPractical implications: - The paper intends to have a preventive strategy for knowledge loss in a long duration project. Reaching the ultimate stage of a mission, project management should be able to identify the main knowledge differences between technical culture of new incomers and the one of the early designer that can be found in the project documents.\nOriginality/value: - The paper carries a multi-discipline approach, putting together different domains: space activity, statistic specialist, knowledge managements, and linguistics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Is too much inclusive leadership a good thing? An examination of curvilinear relationship between inclusive leadership and employees' task performance
|
[
"Inclusive leadership",
"Task performance",
"Curvilinear relationship",
"TMGT effect"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, diversity research has shifted from a focus on diversity management to inclusion (Nishii, 2013). Diversity management research was widely oriented to improve the employment outcomes of historically disadvantaged groups such as women and ethnic minorities, and to solve problems, such as discrimination, bias or conflicts (Shore et al., 2009; Nishii, 2013). Inclusion encompasses considerations of diversity related to historically underrepresented groups, while also focusing on individual level differences not traditionally captured by extant diversity conceptualizations. For example, Pelled, Ledford and Mohrman (1999, p. 1014) defined inclusion as \"the degree to which an employee is accepted and treated as an insider by others in a work system.\" Nishii (2013) found that in highly inclusive climate, gender diverse groups are likely to experience lower levels of relationship conflict and task conflict. It is also mentioned that inclusion fosters comprehensive thinking and consideration of larger issues based on broad participation and involvement of the employees of all backgrounds (Shore et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2014; Roberson, 2006; Pless and Maak, 2004). For example, Cottrill et al. (2014) found the inclusive perception of employees in various demographic and social backgrounds is positively related to self-rated OCB.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Inclusion and inclusive leadership\nMethod: Samples and procedures\nResults: We performed a few confirmatory factor analyses by applying procedures in LISREL 9.1 (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993) to get evidence of discriminant validity. Two-factor baseline model (M0) was specified where inclusive leadership and task performance were two independent factors. Then, we compared this base model (M0) with M1 in which inclusive leadership and task performance were considered to be just one factor. Results (see Table I) show that the base model (M0) had better match with the data than M1, kh2=62.09; df=34; CFI=0.98; NFI=0.96; NNFI=0.98; RMSEA=0.07, supporting the discriminant validity of our main study variables (Hu and Bentler, 1999).\nDiscussion: Understanding the utility of inclusive leadership on employees' task performance contributes to both theory and managerial practice in helpful ways. Our study sheds light on inclusive leadership, especially the inclusive leadership in Chinese context. Using 191 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 52 firms in several industries in east China, we found that there is an inverted U shape which characterizes the relationship between inclusive leadership and subordinate's task performance. Specifically, employee's task performance is low when supervisor's inclusive leadership is low; task performance increases when inclusive leadership is from low to moderate levels, and task performance decreases when inclusive leadership is from moderate to high levels. We could get the point of \"too much of inclusive leadership\" is 5.82 (mean -0.17).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the inclusive leadership's too-much-of-a-good-thing effect (TMGT effect) and illustrate the possibility of the potential drawbacks of inclusive leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 191 questionnaires were valid and used in the study. Employee participants were asked to report their direct supervisor's inclusive leadership. Employees' direct supervisors were asked to rate employees' task performance to minimize common method variance. The authors use regression analysis to test the hypothesis.\nFindings: An inverted U-shape characterizes the relationship between inclusive leadership and subordinates' task performance. Specifically, employees' task performance is low when the supervisor's inclusive leadership is low; task performance increases when inclusive leadership is from low to moderate levels, and task performance decreases when inclusive leadership is from moderate to high levels.\nOriginality/value: The study sheds light on inclusive leadership, especially the inclusive leadership in Chinese context. In addition, this finding is important as it investigates the inclusion's TMGT effect which is rare in organizational research, and the findings also provide additional evidence of TMGT effect in management fields.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Recognizing opportunities: initiating service innovation in PSFs
|
[
"Service innovation",
"Professional service firm",
"Knowledge management",
"Corporate entrepreneurship",
"Opportunity recognition",
"Entrepreneurialism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The term professional service firm (PSF) is often used interchangeably with knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms (Starbuck, 1992). However, von Nordenflycht (2010) argues that PSFs, such as accounting, law and consulting firms, form only a subgroup of KIBS, characterized by high knowledge-intensity, low capital-intensity, and a professionalized workforce. Studying innovation in PSFs is relevant for three main reasons:First, in the past few decades, knowledge in organizations and how it is handled has attracted increased research interest. Innovation in particular is considered a knowledge-intensive business activity (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Studying the innovation behavior of PSFs, as recognized examples of knowledge-intensive firms, may provide us with insights that can be applied to other sectors of the economy, i.e. the high-technology sector (Castellacci, 2008).Second, PSFs play an important role as innovation intermediaries in an economy (den Hertog, 2000; Muller and Zenker, 2001; Simmie and Strambach, 2006). PSFs enable tacit and explicit knowledge to be transferred from one firm to another. The transfer and conversion of knowledge is the basis for the creation of new knowledge (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2006). Hence, den Hertog (2000) argues that PSFs can act as \"co-creators\" of innovation. How PSFs create, obtain, and reproduce knowledge is therefore of interest for policy makers who are concerned with fostering the innovation performance of an economy to increase competitiveness.Third, PSFs contribute to macroeconomic growth via the growth of their sector, their internal innovation, and their highly challenging work environments (Muller and Zenker, 2001). Over time, many PSFs have changed from relatively loosely controlled consortiums of independent partners into more \"business-like\" organizations (Pinnington and Morris, 2003). This development is accompanied by practitioners' need and demand for either new management practices or a better understanding of organically grown practices. Understanding innovation in PSFs is in itself highly relevant.Although the relevance and importance of service innovation is recognized, a literature review reveals that there is no expedient theoretical framework to explain the crucial initiation of service innovation by individual professionals in PSFs. Because knowledge is a key resource for PSFs (Morris and Empson, 1998; von Nordenflycht, 2010; Werr and Stjernberg, 2003), a suitable theoretical framework should also enable us to identify implications for knowledge management to foster the initiation of service innovation in PSFs.In this article, the author argues that contemporary developments in the market for PSFs (Hitt et al., 2001; Pinnington and Morris, 2003; Stumpf et al., 2002) have led PSFs to become more entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial firms are characterized by their autonomous, risk-taking, innovative, and proactive behavior (Barringer and Bluedorn, 1999; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). This \"entrepreneurial spirit\" is primarily embodied by individual professionals in a PSF who act as entrepreneurs (Sundbo and Gallouj, 2000). Due to the \"autonomous strategic initiatives of individuals at the operational levels in the organization\", the author adapts the term \"corporate entrepreneurship\" (Burgelman, 1983, p. 241) to the PSF context. Consequently, corporate entrepreneurial activities performed by individual professionals are the basis and driving force for the initiation of service innovation in PSFs. To shed more light on corporate entrepreneurial activities the author uses \"opportunity recognition\" (Baron, 2006; Eckhardt and Shane, 2003; Gregoire et al., 2010) from the (corporate) entrepreneurship literature as a theoretical framework. Prior knowledge, alertness, and search were identified as bases for the recognition of opportunities and hence the initiation of service innovation in PSFs.The rest of this article is structured as follows. In the next section the existing literature on service innovation in PSFs is reviewed. Subsequently, the author elaborates on the role of corporate entrepreneurship and opportunity recognition in PSFs to develop a theoretical framework and deduct propositions. Then, the theoretical framework is presented with an explanatory case study. Finally, the author discusses his findings and concludes.\n2. Prior literature: Innovation in PSFs is approached from two major streams. The first is part of the wider literature on innovation in the service industry, where PSFs and KIBS are treated as a particular segment of the service sector. The second emerges from the literature on the management and organization of PSFs, where innovation is treated as a necessary activity for enabling growth and competitive advantage. In this section, a short overview of these two research streams is given and the research question is presented.In recent decades, research on innovation in the service industry has grown fast. The most prominent contributions were made in the Lille school (de Vries, 2006; Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997; Sundbo and Gallouj, 2000; Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009) and the more empirical and policy oriented Manchester school (den Hertog, 2000; Miles, 2005; Tether and Tajar, 2008). In their comprehensive literature review, Droege et al. (2009) identify five distinct research fields within service innovation research:1. taxonomies of service firms in an industry;2. innovation classification frameworks on an organizational level;3. organizational success factors for service innovation;4. organizational antecedents of different degrees of novelty; and5. similarities and differences between new service and product innovation.In other words, previous studies in this stream have already looked at forms of service innovation in distinct service firm types and how service innovation can be managed on an organizational and industry level. However, the study of innovation, particularly within the professional service industry, is still under-researched (Miles, 2005) and due to the focus on the organizational and industry level the crucial initiation phase of service innovation by individual professionals of a PSF has not yet been addressed in this literature stream.An exception is Sundbo and Gallouj (2000), who identify and describe typical patterns in service innovation. They suggest two distinct patterns to explain innovation in PSFs:1. the \"service professional\" pattern, applicable to medium-sized firms; and2. the \"organized strategic innovation\" pattern, applicable to larger, more mature firms.In general, both patterns consider individual professionals as \"corporate entrepreneurs\" (Burgelman, 1983; Guth and Ginsberg, 1990) who participate in a collective innovation process. Although Sundbo and Gallouj (2000) recognize the important role of individual professionals for service innovation and encourage taking an entrepreneurial perspective, analyzing how individual professionals initiate service innovation is not within their scope. In addition, even though the importance of knowledge for service innovation is mentioned in several articles of this literature stream, the role of knowledge management in the service innovation process is still under-researched (Droege et al., 2009).The second literature stream deals with an analysis of PSFs that aims for a better understanding of their organizational form and management. Although the research interest in PSFs is growing rapidly, previous research on their organization and innovation is still relatively scant (Leiponen, 2005). The strategic context of many PSFs has changed profoundly over the past few years. Competition between PSFs has intensified (Hitt et al., 2006; Stumpf et al., 2002) and client managers have become increasingly demanding about the quality and price of professional services (Leicht and Fennell, 2001). This has changed the conservative behavior of many PSFs and led them to be more entrepreneurial. Many PSFs have started to diversify into related professions and become \"multidisciplinary practices\" (Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006), have merged or acquired competitors in order to develop the PSF's capabilities and client base (Empson, 2001; Stumpf et al., 2002), have internationalized (Hitt et al., 2006; Segal-Horn and Dean, 2007; Stumpf et al., 2002) and have started strategizing (Lowendahl, 2005; Maister, 1993).Besides these organization-level responses to changes in strategic context, other factors that impact individual professionals in developing new practice areas have recently been investigated to explain the organic growth of PSFs (Anand et al., 2007; Gardner et al., 2008). While this research explains how organizational structures enable entrepreneurial professionals to replicate and commercialize new ideas in order to create innovation, it neglects the factors that impact professionals to identify ideas in the first place. Although acknowledging an \"idea stage,\" in which entrepreneurship should be encouraged, at the beginning of service innovation, Smedlund's (2008, p. 876) service innovation model, which builds on the premise that service innovation can be categorized according to client relationship strength and the incremental-radical nature of innovation, also fails to shed more light on this crucial stage. So, too, do earlier articles that address knowledge-systems in PSFs (Morris and Empson, 1998; Werr and Stjernberg, 2003), the creation of new knowledge and competences in the interaction with clients (Bettencourt et al., 2002; Fosstenlokken et al., 2003) and the internal management of knowledge (Hansen et al., 1999), which do not provide a comprehensive framework to explain the initiation of service innovation by individual professionals.Based on the identified research gap in the literature, this article addresses the following research question: how is service innovation in a PSF initiated by individual professionals and how can knowledge management support this process?\n3. The Initiation of service innovation as opportunity recognition: To address this research gap, four propositions are deducted by elaborating further on the idea that professionals in a PSF act as corporate entrepreneurs (Gardner et al., 2008; Sundbo and Gallouj, 2000). The author builds the argument that corporate entrepreneurial activities create the basis for service innovation in PSFs and that the initiation of service innovation can be explained by the recognition of opportunities, as an entrepreneurial activity. Hence a framework of opportunity recognition is presented to explain the initiation of service innovation in PSFs and deduce some implications for knowledge management.3.1 Corporate entrepreneurship in PSFs\n4. An illustrative case: 4.1 Methods\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The aim of this paper is to shed light on the initiation of service innovation in a PSF by individual professionals and to deduce implications for knowledge management. It is emphasized that contemporary developments in the market and industry drive PSFs to be entrepreneurial and that PSFs strongly support corporate entrepreneurship through their corporate governance and organizational structure. In order to explain the entrepreneurial behavior of individual professionals in the initiation of service innovation, the author introduces and applies an opportunity recognition framework consisting of prior knowledge, alertness, and search. Opportunity recognition attempts to explain how individuals can make sense of signals in the environment and the development of suitable measures to seize opportunities.Beside this theoretical contribution, there are three practical implications of using opportunity recognition to explain service innovation by individual professionals. First, if knowledge management in PSFs takes into account that professionals' prior knowledge influences the recognition of opportunities and hence innovation, it can actively manage the collection, storage, and processing of prior knowledge in order to direct the recognition process to the most valuable opportunities. Particular care has to be taken not to miss fruitful opportunities by simply exploiting close and existing knowledge. Second, by activating the alertness for opportunity recognition of its professionals, PSFs' leadership may foster the desired behavior. Third, innovation performance can also be influenced by engaging the professionals within a PSF in active search for new opportunities. It is important to overcome the billable-hours pressure present in most PSFs. This article explains the initiation of service innovation in PSFs for the first time using entrepreneurial opportunity recognition.Future research should discuss this argument further and develop additional implications for knowledge management. The interaction between professionals and clients in particular may provide fruitful avenues for more fine-grained insights on the recognition of opportunities in PSFs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the crucial initiation stage of service innovation in professional service firms (PSFs) by individual professionals and the implications for knowledge management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper builds theory, based on an in-depth review of the relevant literature. The developed theory is illustrated with a case study of PricewaterhouseCoopers AG (PwC), one of the Big Four accounting and consulting firms. Formal and informal interviews about innovation, learning in client interactions, and knowledge management were held with more than 70 employees of PwC over a three-year period.\nFindings: - The paper shows that entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is a suitable framework to explain the initiation of service innovation in PSFs. Prior knowledge, alertness and search are identified as bases for the recognition of opportunities and hence the initiation of service innovation in PSFs. Therefore, the author argues that knowledge management should raise the alertness of individual professionals to engage in opportunity recognition and also provide a fruitful environment to enable active search for opportunities on the basis of relevant prior knowledge at hand.\nPractical implications: - The findings aim to help managers in PSFs to understand better the initiation of innovation in their companies and enable fostering of innovation through the application of dedicated knowledge management initiatives.\nOriginality/value: - Previous research has not yet taken an in-depth look at the initiation stage of service innovation by individual professionals in PSFs. In this paper, entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is presented and applied for the first time as a framework to explain the activity of professionals in the initiation of service innovation in PSFs. In doing this, the paper also contributes to the understanding of the under-researched corporate entrepreneurial role of professionals in PSFs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Rebuilding Lisbon in the aftermath of the 1755 earthquake: Max Weber revisited
|
[
"Leadership",
"Corporate governance",
"Management history",
"Administration",
"Government and public administration",
"Management structure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This study analyzes the authority structure that successfully rebuilt the city of Lisbon after the major 1755 earthquake, using Max Weber's (1947) tripartite authority theory. The role of authority in social and organizational transformation is at the core of a tradition in literature in management and organization studies (Houghton, 2010; Nelson, 1993), particularly based on the work of Max Weber. However, there has so far been no critical analysis of an effective authority structure after a catastrophic event such as a destructive earthquake. This is a relevant task, given that leading authors have indicated the study of extreme cases as fundamental to theory building in management studies (Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007).\n2. The Lisbon earthquake as the first modern disaster[1]: The disaster that started at 9:40 a.m. on November 1, 1755, can be divided into three major and subsequent events. The first was an earthquake, followed by two others within the space of about 2 hours, when most of Lisbon's inhabitants were at mass in the city's churches, given that it was All Saints Day. The second was a tsunami with a tidal wave that raised the level of the River Tagus by about 20 feet and particularly hit the city center. Finally, there were fires caused mostly by the candles burning in churches and the strong winds at the time, in addition to looting and other forms of social disorder that resulted from the chaos (Mullin, 1992; Murteira, 2004). In the words of Boer and Sanders (2005, p. 88), \"to this day, that earthquake is considered the most catastrophic in European history\".\n3. Rebuilding Lisbon in the aftermath of the earthquake: Just after the earthquake, the king and his court met in Belem, about three miles away from the main disaster site in the city centre. It is said that King Jose asked his Minister, the Marquis of Pombal, \"What is to be done to deal with this infliction of Divine Justice?\" The minister promptly replied \"Bury the dead, and feed the living\" (Smith, 1845, p. 486). And so it was, with the King directly giving to Pombal the power to take all the necessary action to ensure security on the streets and start the reconstruction of the city.\n4. Charisma, tradition and rationality as conditions for the rebuilding of Lisbon: Having described the impacts of the 1755 earthquake and the main governance actors responsible for the rebuilding of Lisbon and other parts of the country, we will now turn to an integrated analysis of the governance structure and organization that was the basis for the action taken.\n5. Weberian archetypes revisited (and extended): Given the emergence of a triumvirate of authority figures in this case study, in line with Max Weber's theory of social organization, in this section, we discuss the main findings of this research and its implications for organization theory.\n6. Conclusion: In short, the aim of this study was to use an historical standpoint to analyze the authority structure that was set up for social transformation after a major destructive event. Research on the role of an authority structure has been profuse in recent decades, but little of it analyzed such a stressful and threatening event as that used in this case, normally accessible only on historical grounds. The social facts discussed in this paper can be interpreted in such a way as to conclude that an effective transformation can best be undertaken by combining the three different types of authority outlined by Max Weber, namely, tradition, charisma and rational-legal.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw on available data regarding the historical event of the major Lisbon earthquake of 1755 in order to understand the governance structure that was set to rebuild the city of Lisbon, as well as to elaborate on Max Weber's theory of authority.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study aims to extend our knowledge on the role of leadership in organizational transformation, by examining the authority structure of governance in the aftermath of a major catastrophic event, using the study of an extreme case to generate new management theory.\nFindings: The study founded evidence that the successful rebuilding of Lisbon after the earthquake was accompanied by a certain kind of governance structure that included an authority structure that simultaneously incorporated Weber's authority types of charisma, tradition and rationality; and there was a clear distinction between the roles of each kind of authority, as well as the inviolable respect and sacredness of each other's terrain that seems to lead to that effectiveness.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is possible that the historical conditions in which this social transformation took place might not be repeatable in today's context, but the analysis of such an extreme case of destruction and rebuilding evidences that the \"atomistic\" approach of Max Weber on authority can be enriched with a \"molecular\" approach that, at the same time, helps to further develop the concept of \"shared leadership\" by analyzing it from a Weberian point of view.\nPractical implications: Today's organizations should analyze their governance structure and management staff from a \"molecular\" Weberian perspective, if they want to achieve major transformations.\nOriginality/value: The study further develops Max Weber's theory of authority and discusses it regarding a \"shared leadership\" perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Revisiting strategy mapping for performance management: a realist synthesis
|
[
"Performance measurement",
"Balanced scorecard",
"Strategy map",
"Performance management systems",
"Realist synthesis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Only a few years after introducing strategy maps to performance management by incorporating them into the balanced scorecard, Kaplan and Norton (2004) remarked that these were \"as big an insight to executives as the balanced scorecard itself\" (p. 9). It was a significant observation, given that the balanced scorecard became one of the most widely used frameworks used in practice (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2015). The power of the map as first introduced stemmed from its purported ability to effectively describe strategy in a cohesive and straightforward way, thereby increasing the likelihood of successful strategy implementation (Kaplan and Norton, 2001). Strategy maps could also be used in aiding in formulating strategy, in structuring problems, in defining measures and objectives, and in decision making (Kaplan and Norton, 2004; Kaplan and Norton, 2006; Lueg and Julner, 2014).\n2. Methodology: Most interest around the strategy map within performance management has maintained Kaplan and Norton's focus on the technical aspects of strategy maps (see Islam, 2018, for a recent review of these) to the detriment of the sensemaking processes that take place around them. Underlying this focus is a common position within performance management studies that the interpretation of performance information is straightforward, linked to positivism (Micheli and Mari, 2014). These assumptions can be problematic when considering the social aspects of performance management (Beer and Micheli, 2018), a criticism that has been applied to strategy maps (Modell, 2012).\n3. A theory of maps for performance management: Performance management refers to a wide range of processes which center on setting goals, defining performance measures, reviewing and acting upon performance data, and the activities that surround these, with the ultimate goal to improve organizational performance (Bititci et al., 2018). Strategy maps have been implicated in any number of these activities, but broadly, their use can be seen as addressing three separate but interrelated performance management stages or processes. These stages can be to structure problems, generally in the form of strategy formation, to select, define, modify or develop an existing performance management component or system, or to communicate, analyze or evaluate performance, here referred to as use. It should be noted that studies within performance management rarely distinguish between these different purposes, which, as will be discussed, have complicated research into strategy maps.\n4. Evaluating the evidence: The previous section has outlined how strategy maps are meant to work within a performance management context. However, in explaining how a match produces flame, what is also needed is to understand key conditioning components that would explain whether a given attempt will produce a flame or not. Therefore, the following section evaluates both the strength of the evidence for the mechanisms presented in the previous section, along with the critical conditions, elements and components that determine whether the desired outcome is realized. In total, 12 propositions are inferred from these observations to help researchers and practitioners better fit existing theory on strategy maps and mapping to the needs performance management.\n5. Discussion: The results suggest that the process of creation is what lends the map its power, through its abilities as a tool for reflection, and the learning that can take place when they are created, discussed and revised. Performance management research generally maintains a restrictive view of the strategy maps that presents maps and mapping as a relatively uncomplicated way to achieve strategic alignment and organizational performance, without sufficient consideration of the sensemaking processes around their creation and evaluation. These take place within complex processes of performance management, where the chance of failure is high. Therefore, the following session will discuss the findings to consider how what we know about strategy maps could help reduce the likelihood of failure.\n6. Conclusions: Two decades after its introduction to the field, the strategy map has the potential to represent a major contribution to contemporary performance management. This review suggests that separating the strategy map from the balanced scorecard could help it realize its potential as a breakthrough theory within performance management. Doing so allows the identification of mechanisms that explain how strategy mapping can facilitate strategy formation, performance measurement system development, and strategy evaluation and communication, which can further lead to the development of more effective applications of the concept.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The strategy map represents a major contribution to the theory and practice of performance management. However, it has failed to realize its full potential due to a lack of theoretical and conceptual development. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to revisit the theories of strategy maps to better understand how and in what circumstances they benefit performance management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs realist synthesis, a method of systematic literature review. A theory on how strategy maps work is extracted from performance management literature, which are subsequently evaluated through a critical examination of empirical studies.\nFindings: A theory of how strategy maps are meant work is presented in relation to the generic performance management stages of problem structuring, development and use, where they can serve as a tool for discovery and by stimulating social interactions. Based on the findings, 12 propositions are offered related to the effective use of strategy maps within a performance management framework.\nResearch limitations/implications: The introduction of the strategy map to performance management represented a breakthrough in how organizational performance could be understood and communicated. This study goes a step further by considering how they work and in what circumstances. In so doing, the study aims to open the way for new and more effective applications of strategy maps within the changing performance management context.\nPractical implications: This study provides practitioners with actionable propositions which can help in effectively using strategy maps.\nOriginality/value: Distinguishing the aims and mechanisms of the strategy map along performance management systems has the potential to greatly increase their effectiveness in practice as a powerful, but underutilized tool. This paper also demonstrates how realist synthesis, currently an uncommon method in management studies, facilitated the creation of a new perspective of strategy maps to fit specifically within performance management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Causes of stress before, during and after organizational change: a qualitative study
|
[
"Public sector",
"Healthcare",
"Occupational stress",
"Organizational change",
"Qualitative research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In their introduction to a recent book Oreg et al. (2013) assert that too little literature on organizational change is devoted to individual psychological reactions. This is a cause for concern given that studies indicate that change is often stressful (e.g. Fugate et al., 2012; Lawrence and Callan, 2011). This is partly due to the anticipated or actual negative outcomes of the change, such as job losses or reduced autonomy, and partly due to the transition process which may create extra work and produce considerable uncertainty and anxiety. However, the assumption that change will be stressful, and this is not always accurate, tends to overlook two issues: first, some degree of stress is present in any job at any time and second, while some changes increase stress, others may reduce it (Karasek, 2004) or have little impact on it. Many previous studies have explored stress during and after change but there appear to be few that also include an analysis of the stress that predated the change (see Paulsen et al., 2005, for an exception).\nLiterature review: Causes of occupational stress\nMethod: The research site\nFindings and discussion: Before the change\nConclusions, limitations and implications for research and practice: For most respondents change proved to be stressful. This is unsurprising, given that volunteers were requested for a project explicitly titled \"Stress and Organizational Change\". For many it was a drawn out process, at times poorly managed, that was the prime source of stress while for others it was the negative outcomes, for themselves and others, particularly heavier workloads, redundancies or unwelcome working conditions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Since prior empirical research has seldom compared causes of stress before, during and after organizational change the purpose of this paper is to identify stressors as change unfolded over time and to identify what led to variations in stress levels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2012 with 31 staff in clinical and non-clinical positions in a New Zealand public health organization that had experienced considerable change.\nFindings: For most respondents the transition phase was the most stressful as it created job insecurity and was handled with insufficient information, consultation and support. For the balance stress increased after the change, which created additional demands that usually needed to be met with fewer resources. The stress of others emerged as a new category of stressor during the transition stage.\nResearch limitations/implications: Memories fade and the lines between stages of change are often blurred with one change sometimes occurring simultaneously with another or following it. Further studies could explore stressors at different points in time, in different national contexts and in private and public organizations.\nPractical implications: Leaders of public sector organizations need to be mindful of the deleterious effects of stress from organizational change and create cultures, strategies and practices that mitigate the stress.\nOriginality/value: This is apparently the first qualitative study that traces the causes of stress as organizational change moves through various phases.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Board diversity and self-regulation in Dutch pension funds
|
[
"Gender",
"Diversification",
"Women executives",
"Glass ceilings",
"Trade unions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The goal of this paper is to better understand the relationship between the introduction of self-regulation and the effect it has had on board diversity, as well as the characteristics of pension funds that are more likely to have improved their levels of board diversity. Mandatory participation in non-profit pension plans that redistribute retirement income requires trust in the board of trustees. Board diversity is important for trust, as participants need the feeling of having their voice heard in a pension system that does not allow for an exit (Hirschman, 1970).\n2. Related literature: 2.1 Voice and exit in the pension industry in the Netherlands\n3. Data description: Our data originate from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce[5]. We sort pension funds by total assets under management. We selected the largest 200 pension funds by total assets; the top 200 cover 99 percent of total pension assets in the Netherlands (approximately EUR1.1 trillion). For individual pension fund board members, information is available regarding age, gender, and years of tenure on current board. Because some individuals may sit on more than one pension fund board, their information will purposefully appear multiple times[6].\n4. Has diversity improved due to three years of self-regulation?: 4.1 Gender diversity\n5. Empirical analyses: 5.1 Which types of pension funds are more diverse?\n6. Concluding remarks: Besides the well-known arguments for increasing diversity in boards in general, pension funds have additional reasons to consider increasing board diversity. The management of pension plans brings along several instances of redistribution, which makes balanced decision making a necessity for board effectiveness. For younger people, intergenerational redistribution becomes relevant, given the demographic shift and the limited potential of pension contributions to cover funding shortages. For older people, inflation compensation and the protection of nominal pensions is at stake. These trends explain the increased pressure for age diversity on boards. Gender diversity is relevant because both plans and management may have gender biases. Therefore, both age and gender diversity deserve extra attention from pension funds, which could be ensured via self-regulation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the change in pension fund board diversity after self-regulation was introduced, and investigate which pension fund characteristics influence compliance with self-regulation. In addition, the authors analyze whether compliance might be achieved by tokenism.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors hand-collect pension fund and pension fund board data of the largest (by assets) 200 pension funds in the Netherlands. The authors compare descriptive statistics on board diversity, perform statistical tests on these, and perform non-linear regression techniques to investigate which pension fund characteristics influence compliance.\nFindings: The findings are fourfold. First, over the past three years, pension fund boards have only marginally improved on gender and age diversity. In April 2014, still more than 35 percent of the funds had no women on the board, and an overwhelming 60 percent had no members below 40 years of age. This indicates that self-regulation in the pension fund industry so far has not been effective for the industry as a whole. Second, the authors find that pension funds that have larger boards are more likely to have at least one woman on the board or at least one member below 40 years of age. Third, boards of pension funds with more assets are less likely to have young board members. Fourth, boards with at least one female have a higher probability of also having at least one member below 40 years, which is suggestive of tokenism.\nResearch limitations/implications: Based on Hirschman's (1970) theory of voice and exit, the authors expect that pension fund boards would be more diverse than corporate boards. However, the authors find that this is not the case. Second, given the importance of generational value transfers in pension fund policy decisions, the authors expect that age is a more important diversity characteristic than gender for pension fund boards in the Netherlands. Again, the data does not support this prediction.\nPractical implications: Consistent with the literature on diversity in corporate boards, the authors find that diverse boards are on average larger. This suggests that, all other things equal, small boards might want to reconsider whether increasing their size would lead to more diversity and hence to more voice for participants that cannot exit the pension scheme. If larger funds hesitate to include young members because of their lack of relevant skills, then the authors would recommend setting up a platform to educate young candidates and prepare them for board membership. Forced independent auditor verification, as in the UK, might be a fruitful action the regulator could enforce on pension funds going forward. However, if that also does not lead to a significant improvement, compulsory diversity quota might be the only option left for policy makers.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the literature in at least three ways. First, the authors analyze whether self-regulation on diversity in pension fund boards has been effective. Second, the authors determine which pension fund characteristics are associated with more board diversity. Third, the authors shed light on tokenism in pension fund board composition: Diversity might be obtained through installing diversity tokens, which are individuals who have multiple diversity characteristics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supply chain management and financial performance: literature review and future directions
|
[
"Performance measurement",
"Literature review",
"Supply chain management",
"Financial performance",
"Performance drivers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), supply chain management (SCM):\nResearch methodology: Literature search procedure\nSCM and financial performance: Theoretical background\nSC drivers for financial performance: The existing studies on the financial impacts of SCM have enabled us to formulate some empirical patterns, with which we identify a number of performance drivers attributing to firm financial performance. The performance drivers are inspired by previous empirical works (D'Avanzo et al., 2003; Li et al., 2006) and obtained from a thorough content analysis. In this paper, we present these results as empirical findings rather than generalized conclusions because most of studies reviewed here are recent and require further replication or verification under different research settings. In particular, we summarize pervious empirical studies and discuss the contributions of sourcing strategy, information technology (IT), system integration, and external relationship to financial performance. Table VII presents relevant articles in the corresponding four themes with research focus, data collection methods, performance measures, and major empirical findings.\nConclusion and future directions: There is a growing recognition among company executives that today's business competition is no longer between individual firms, but between SCs. If a SC is properly managed, its whole value can be greater than the sum of its parts. Not surprisingly, there is an increasing demand for both academic scholars and business practitioners to make SCM more financially accountable. Optimizing financial performance along the SCs should be the ultimate goal of any SCM strategy. The existing literature has shown SCM's great potential to enhance a firm's key financial outcomes. To demonstrate the financial accountability of SCM activities, this study provides a comprehensive literature review of empirical studies in the past two decades, and identifies a number of SCM drivers for firm-level financial performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review a sample of the literature relating to the financial impacts of supply chain management (SCM) and suggest future research directions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: 49 research articles between 1990 and 2011 are collected from various academic databases and online sources. By conducting content analysis, empirical findings on the relationship between SCM and firm-level financial performance are summarized and classified. Performance drivers are identified from the literature to guide future SC practices.\nFindings: Both accounting- and market-based financial performances are closely related to the effectiveness of SCM. As important performance drivers, sourcing strategy, information technology (IT), SC integration, and external relationships play critical roles to improve firm-level financial performance. In particular, optimal levels of outsourceability, SC alignment and integration with IT infrastructure, and SC relationship management are essential to realize full financial advantages of effective SCM.\nPractical implications: A better understanding and demonstration on how SCM makes positive contributions to financial performance help SCM managers to better communicate with top management and substantiate their roles in the organization.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' best knowledge, this paper is the first and the most comprehensive literature review in a much-needed research area. A number of performance drivers are identified to provide practical guidance. Some promising research areas are suggested for further investigation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The dialectics of authoring expansive learning: tracing the long tail of a Change Laboratory
|
[
"Activity theory",
"Expansive learning",
"Knotworking",
"Change Laboratory",
"Object of activity",
"Organizational authorship"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: authoring beyond words: Available conceptualizations of organizational authorship are centered on conversations as managerial resources for the development of workplaces and organizations. Managers are seen as practical authors (Shotter, 1993) whose job is reportedly to create a coherent text about what is going on in the organization in the course of everyday conversations (Duchan, 2004). Similarly for Cunliffe (2001), authorship entails \"a reflexive awareness of the constitutive nature of language and being responsive to other voices and the otherness of our landscape\" (p. 367). These views on authorship also inform studies of learning. For Pavlica et al. (1998), for instance, the manager is \"a practical author of learning\" (p. 300), and:\n2. Authoring expansive learning as a dialectical process of relating with the historically evolving object of activity: Human activity is a historically evolving systemic formation oriented at an object (Leont'ev, 1978). The object is both an entity that confronts and resists the actors' efforts and a projected perspective or purpose that drives and motivates the actors' transformative efforts. In a complex organization, individual actors are seldom fully aware of the object of their collective activity. Yet, the object keeps the activity together and gives it direction.\n3. Setting and data: In the beginning of 1990s, there were no less than 160 separate faculty and department libraries at the University of Helsinki, and until 2010, most departments and faculties of the University of Helsinki had their own libraries. Each library had developed its own practices and conventions over the years. Such libraries shared three important common features. First, they were based on a specific scientific discipline or a cluster of related disciplines. Second, they saw print-based and book- and article-related services for individual researchers as their primary object. Third, they operated within relatively small communities and often developed long-term personal relations with their clients. This craft-like activity has undergone radical transformation in the past few years. Major steps of this development are summarized in Table I.\n4. Method of analysis: We analyzed the thematic contents of the interview transcripts in two main steps. First, we identified segments that related to the three research questions. For example, when an interviewee assessed his/her own experiences of the CL process or the impact of the idea of knotworking in the library community, we categorized the answer as an item related to the first research question. Similarly, when an interviewee described or commented on the transformation of the larger library organization after the intervention, we categorized the answer as an item related to the second research question.\n5. To which extent can a Change Laboratory intervention help practitioners author their own learning?: The experience of reconceptualizing the object of the library activity in a CL intervention has reportedly influenced the practitioners throughout this period of transformation. Particularly, the notion of knotworking stemming from the CL intervention was taken up by the practitioners. This notion was described first as an idea that has influenced the interviewees' personal development and perspective on their community.\n6. Are the authored outcomes of a Change Laboratory intervention futile if a workplace subsequently undergoes large-scale organizational transformations?: The CL intervention in the city center campus's library produced two kinds of authored outcomes, namely, a new organization model and a model of services that opened up a perspective toward codesigning digital services for and with research groups. What happened to these? Did they evaporate as the entire library organization was changed?\n7. Does the expansive learning authored in a Change Laboratory intervention survive large-scale organizational transformations, and if so, why does it survive and how?: Expansive learning is manifested in collective efforts to redefine the object of the activity so as to open new and wider possibilities and responsibilities. Our interviewees saw the introduction of the new organization model of the entire library as a significant impetus and opportunity for such expansive steps.\n8. Conclusion: The RQ1 we posed in the Introduction was: To which extent can a Change Laboratory intervention help practitioners author their own learning? On the basis of our data, we argue that the idea of knotworking constructed in the CL process became a \"germ cell\" that generates novel solutions in the library activity. The concept of knotworking is intertwined with the new object of digital services for research groups. In generating such a germ cell, the CL intervention provided the practitioners with a powerful tool for authoring their own expansive learning in a long-term perspective.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to examine organizational authoring understood as a longitudinal, material and dialectical process of transformation efforts. The following questions are asked: To which extent can a Change Laboratory intervention help practitioners author their own learning? Are the authored outcomes of a Change Laboratory intervention futile if a workplace subsequently undergoes large-scale organizational transformations? Does the expansive learning authored in a Change Laboratory intervention survive large-scale organizational transformations, and if so, why does it survive and how?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper develops a conceptual argument based on cultural-historical activity theory. The conceptual argument is grounded in the examination of a case of eight years of change efforts in a university library, including a Change Laboratory (CL) intervention. Follow-up interview data are used to discuss and illuminate our argument in relation to the three research questions.\nFindings: The idea of knotworking constructed in the CL process became a \"germ cell\" that generates novel solutions in the library activity. A large-scale transformation from the local organization model developed in the CL process to the organization model of the entire university library was not experienced as a loss. The dialectical tension between the local and global models became a source of movement driven by the emerging expansive object. Practitioners are modeling their own collective future competences, expanding them both in socio-spatial scope and interactive depth.\nOriginality/value: The article offers an expanded view of authorship, calling attention to material changes and practical change actions. The dialectical tensions identified serve as heuristic guidelines for future studies and interventions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate brand management in higher education: the case of ERAU
|
[
"Corporate branding",
"Higher education",
"Brands",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: The higher education sector in the USA has become one of the fastest growing industries. According to the National Science Foundation, over the past two decades, the enrollment in US institutions of higher education (HE) rose steadily from 12.7 million students in 1986 to 16.9 million in 2004. Enrollment in higher education is projected to increase in the coming years because of a surge in the college-age population. Despite the vast number of potential students, universities are locked in a fierce competition to fill their seats. That was enhanced by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, which developed a classification system for all US-based colleges and universities in the 1970s, ratcheting up competition between institutions to attract the best students, faculty and staff (Melewar and Akel, 2005). Institutions can differentiate themselves on a number of attributes, including academic program offerings, financial aid, facilities, athletics and wellness centers, and others. The increase in competition places greater emphasis on the importance of corporate branding in HE.Today, HE parallels similar behavior in commercial business (Bunzel, 2007; Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007; Melewar and Akel, 2005). A university as a business entity offers a large range of educational products and services to a vast array of consumers through many outlets and service providers (McAlexander et al., 2006). However, opponents of HE marketing believe that the business world morally contradicts the values of education (Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007). Although many university administrators have avoided viewing themselves as marketers or brand managers, universities recognize opportunities that come from engaging in marketing activities, and take a more proactive approach to understanding and shaping the meaning of the university brand (McAlexander et al., 2006). A large number of institutions are turning to marketing, advertising and public relations (Blanton, 2007; Lang, 2005).Students will consider some institutions while ignoring others. Students will enroll at the institution if the investment seems attractive to them in terms of the economic return (Lang, 2005; Moogan et al., 2001). Institutions with well-known brands, a good reputation, and easily accessible comprehensive information will have better chances of recruiting students as well as faculty and staff (Moogan et al., 2001). According to Keller and Staelin (1987) potential students' decisions are affected by the quality and quantity of available information about the institution. Potential students and their parents compare the brands and features of alternative institutions, and assign a level of importance to each alternative. Examples of strong brands in HE include Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University and the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in England. Those institutions actively engage in promoting their reputations as brand names (Lang, 2005). Those brands provide clear positioning in consumer's minds (Lowrie, 2007). As the result, customers know exactly what those names stand for.Branding is considered to be one of the most important assets of any institution. Corporate brand management plays a critical role in forming positive attitudes towards the institution. The intangibility and inseparability of HE services makes branding even more important (Lowrie, 2007). The importance of the development and management of a distinctive brand helps to create and maintain a competitive advantage in the HE sector (Aaker, 2004; Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007). The management of the corporate brand, which consists of periodic audits, is one of the most important tasks (Bosch et al., 2006). Currently branding in HE has become an increasingly essential issue with substantial commitment of financial resources allocated to branding activities (Chapleo, 2007). However, the degree of importance of corporate branding varies between different institutions as well as countries (Balmer and Liao, 2007).There is evidence in the literature that suggests that organizations struggle to formulate and implement their corporate branding strategies. This might be due to its paradoxical complexity, the newness of the field, and its cross-disciplinary nature (Schultz et al., 2005). Keller (1999) maintains that many organizations are unsure of how to manage their corporate brands. Further, Knox and Bickerton (2003, p. 998) add that much of the work has been \"theoretical and there has been limited empirical investigation of the processes that enable an organization to engage successfully in corporate brand management\". Additionally, corporate brand management has received limited attention in academia (Chapleo, 2007). Empirical research papers on branding, identity and image in HE are relatively scarce, despite the growing importance of this subject (Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007).This study provides an overview of the corporate brand building process in HE. The case study of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USA focuses on corporate brand management, which includes three key areas: web administration, program marketing and corporate brand positioning. The corporate brand positioning is based on the principals of the grounded theory technique and consists of four phases: a brand audit (concepts generation), positioning options evaluation, the formal university positioning statement, and the marketing campaign with establishing a benchmark.Corporate branding\nConclusion: This article has demonstrated the importance of the corporate brand management in higher education, and specifically the process of the corporate brand management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. In order to compete in the marketplace for the best students, qualified faculty and staff, as well as donors, universities should have a strong corporate brand. The harmonized relationship between corporate identity and corporate image for the multiple stakeholders at the multiple-campus system can be a challenging task. The clear definition of the university brand combined with the strong leadership is one of the important aspects to be successful. Higher education provides many similar \"products.\" Universities with strong historical and cultural legacies have benefits in offering a clear foundation for their corporate branding efforts. The alignment between corporate branding, which consists of the corporate identity and perceived corporate image and reputation, and organizational culture contribute to awareness among all stakeholders about who the university is and what it stands for. The internal acceptance of the revised brand at all levels plays a critical role in promoting the corporate brand to external stakeholders and making the institution sustainable in the long run.\nImplications for management: It should be acknowledged that the results of a single case study cannot be generalized. However, we do believe that management can learn from the corporate brand building process at ERAU. This would apply to all organizations, not only those in the higher education sector.As we have stated previously, organizations struggle to manage and implement their corporate brand strategies. There are a number of implications we can draw from this study. First, an organization must have an organization structure that supports the task of managing the corporate brand. A department must be tasked with the overall goal of managing the brand and enhancing the organization's reputation. Second, an organization needs to decide what needs to be addressed in order to decide what it currently is and stands for. In the case of ERAU, they decided to address three key areas, web administration, program marketing and corporate brand positioning. The reasons for this choice was that their website was an important first visual for the university's stakeholders, program marketing addressed the university's \"products', and the corporate brand positioning is what sets it apart from its competition. The implication is that in order to establish an organizations brand positioning, a four phased process needs to be conducted. First, a brand audit has to be performed, second, the positioning options evaluation has to take place; third, a formal organization positioning statement must be developed and forth, a marketing communication campaign must be developed. When management follows this procedure, the process of managing and implementing the corporate brand becomes much easier.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - There is evidence in the literature that organizations struggle to formulate and implement their corporate branding strategies. This paper aims to provide an overview of the corporate brand building process in higher education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative methodology was used in this study. A single case study of a private American university was used to gather information about their corporate brand building process. University administrators and documents were used to gain insights into their brand building process.\nFindings: - The corporate brand building process addressed three key areas; web administration, program marketing and corporate brand positioning. The corporate brand building process was conducted in four phases and a description of these phases is provided.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As this is a single case study further research will be needed to test the validity of the research findings by using other higher education institutions as samples.\nOriginality/value: - The corporate brand building process has been described and will be of use to all higher education institutions as well as other organizations wishing to build their corporate brand.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Examination of satisfaction in cross-product group settings
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Expectation",
"Affective psychology",
"Product positioning",
"Repeat buying"
] |
[
{
"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: Consumer satisfaction is a topic with intrinsic scholarly and managerial relevance that has been a focus of interest for at least the past 40 years. Interestingly, while scholars such as Oliver (1980), Zeithaml et al. (1996), and McQuitty et al. (2000) have strengthened our understanding of this vital concept, there continues to be a lack of consensus as to what is meant by consumer satisfaction. This may stem from scholars typically assigning the definition that reflects their chosen point of view of consumer satisfaction (Clerfeuille and Poubanne, 2003).Two perspectives of consumer satisfaction that are typically discussed in literature include it, being described as:1. A cognitive-based phenomenon, referring to one's cognitive evaluation of whether their usage experiences with a product meet their expectations (meets expectations), which is termed as the expectations/disconfirmation paradigm (Olshavsky and Kumar, 2001; Martin-Consuegra et al., 2007).2. An individual's affective feeling state toward a product (Oliver, 1996, 1999). Others (e.g. Jun et al., 2001; Harrison and Shaw, 2004) suggest that consumer satisfaction reflects meets expectations and affective feeling state merging into a macro composite construct. Cadotte et al. (1987) indicate another perspective by suggesting that meets expectations and affective feeling state may be connected by a directional path, with meets expectations leading to affective feeling state.To gain insight into these perspectives, Ross et al. (2008) conducted an exploratory study which revealed findings that suggest one's evaluation of whether their product usage expectations are met and their affective feeling state toward the product are two distinct constructs. Further, they found that meets expectations and affective feeling state are related only by a certain degree of covariance.This paper discusses a study that was conducted to expand on past research (Orth and De Marchi, 2007), including the noted exploratory study. The study utilizes a cross-product group setting that entails products with dissimilar levels of consumer involvement in order to gain insight into whether the findings can be generalized to other product groups (Carter, 2008), and to provide a broader perspective of the consumer satisfaction phenomenon (Orth and De Marchi, 2007). To help achieve these goals, the following research questions guided the study:* Are \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" unique constructs across product groups that entail different levels of consumer involvement?* Is the comparative influence of \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" on future (re)purchase behavior (dis)similar across the noted product groups?The study utilized future (re)purchase behavior to examine these questions because such behavior is often discussed as being an outcome of consumer satisfaction.The paper begins by discussing the significance of consumer satisfaction for practitioners, consumers and scholars, after which it puts forth hypotheses that were tested in order to examine the noted research questions. Next, it discusses a study that was conducted with three well-known brands in different product groups that entail disparate levels of consumer involvement. It concludes by discussing the study's findings, implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and presenting a future research agenda to further strengthen our understanding of consumer satisfaction.\nConceptual development: The significance of consumer satisfaction\nStudy: Respondent and product selection\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study seeks to strengthen marketer's understanding of the consumer satisfaction phenomenon across different product groups, and with products that have disparate levels of consumer involvement. Support for consideration of the impact of different levels of involvement is found in Halstead et al.'s (2007) hypothesis of such a relationship. Further, the need for further empirical studies that examine satisfaction's (dis)similarities across product groups is reflected in Schuh (2007); and Pattikawa et al. (2006).One of the study's most significant findings relates to the research question regarding whether \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" are unique constructs, as opposed to being part of the same underlying construct. This study's findings indicate that \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" are two distinct constructs. The results of this study also suggest that this finding has external validity across product groups.One of the reasons that practitioners attach significance to the level of satisfaction that a consumer experiences with their product is the intuitive expectation that such satisfaction will lead to future (re)purchase behavior. This study (see Figure 1) revealed empirical evidence that \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" each have significant influence on future (re)purchase behavior for each brand used in the study. However, our findings indicate that it is questionable whether \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" have greater influence on (re) purchase behavior with product groups that entail higher consumer involvement, as compared to their influence in product groups that have lower levels of involvement.Based on discussions about the importance of consumers' future (re)purchase behavior in allowing a firm to achieve its performance goals (Abdelayem and Khanfar, 2007), the results of this research reinforce the importance for firms to develop marketing strategies that meet their consumers' product usage expectations, and that lead to consumers having positive feelings toward a firm's product(s).While an objective of this study was to question the relationship between consumer satisfaction and consumer (re)purchase behavior in cross product group settings, further studies are needed that examine products from a wider spectrum of product categories, and that are conducted with respondents from a wider range of geographical and socio-economic backgrounds and age groups. Such studies should also involve products that entail significantly greater consumer involvement, and that reflect a higher degree of conspicuousness in their consumption, in that they should be products that entail greater social and psychological ramifications for consumers.\nManagerial implications: In most product categories today, competition is intense, and customers are increasingly fickle. From a managerial perspective, most marketers are looking for strategies that will allow them to increase brand loyalty by enhancing customer satisfaction, and increasing the probability that customers will (re)purchase their brand at their next purchase opportunity. The results of this study indicate that \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" are distinct constructs that each have a significant influence on repurchase behavior. This finding suggests that marketers who want to build brand loyalty and increase the chances of consumers' (re)purchase behavior should take a dual perspective, focusing on the development of marketing strategies which assure that their product(s) \"meet consumers' expectations\", while at the same time \"generating positive feelings\" toward the product on the part of their customers.The study's findings also indicate that contrary to suggestions in literature, the strength of the influence of the two consumer satisfaction constructs may not differ notably across product groups that entail disparate levels of consumer involvement. This indicates that a product's level of consumer involvement should not impact the marketing manager's decision as to whether they should implement strategies that focus on meeting consumers' expectations or that lead to consumers having positive affective feelings toward their products. Instead, this study suggests, at least preliminarily, that marketing strategies, for all product groups should strive to fulfill each of these satisfaction constructs for their consumers.Based on the discussion by various scholars (e.g. Clark, 1990; McQuitty et al. 2000; Chandon et al. 2004) regarding the importance of firms having strong consumer (re)purchase behavior due to this behavior's association with increased sales, a key implication of the major finding of this study is that all marketers should pay attention to, and be concerned about whether their product(s) \"meet their consumers' expectations\", and whether they lead to consumers having \"positive affective feelings\" toward their product(s).\nLimitations: As with any study, the one discussed in this paper was subject to limitations. The age range of the respondents was narrow, in that they were students at a Midwestern US university. These individuals may not be representative of people in different geographic areas, or that are from different age or socio-economic groups. Also, while the new measures used in this study held up under rigorous examination, the qualitative data used to develop the measures was derived from university students (based on the authors' awareness that respondents used in the study would be from a similar group). These measures might not similarly hold up if used in a study with individuals from dissimilar geographic, age, or socio-economic groups.Also, while the Gap offers products that are more expensive than Coca-Cola or KFC, respondents indicated that they view clothing items from the Gap, as compared to clothing items from other clothing retail stores, as being relatively affordable. Thus, this study's findings may not be replicated in a study that entails product groups that are notably more expensive, and that entail greater exclusivity or conspicuousness (Bourne, 1957; Bearden and Etzel, 1982), such as vehicles and housing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to test a model that examines whether the \"meets expectations\" and \"affective feeling state\" perspectives of satisfaction are distinct constructs in a cross-product group setting with products that have disparate levels of consumer involvement, and to test whether the constructs' influence on (re)purchase behavior are (dis)similar across product groups.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - New measures were developed for a survey that was administered to mid-Western US respondents. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test hypotheses that were developed from extant literature.\nFindings: - The study's findings suggest there is external validity that meets expectations and affective feeling state are two distinct constructs, and that while each construct's influence on (re)purchase behavior varies across product groups, the comparative influence differs from what is suggested in extant literature.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Only three brands, each of which is relatively affordable were used in the study and the survey was completed with university students and with respondents from a broad range of age and socio-economic backgrounds.\nPracticable implications: - This study provides a foundation for future cross-product group research, and reveals marketers' need to develop strategies with dual goals of meeting consumers' expectations, and developing positive consumer affective feelings.\nOriginality/value: - This study is a benchmark comparative cross-product group consumer satisfaction study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The ten characteristics of world-class learning and development
|
[
"Learning and development",
"Value analysis",
"Organizational performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In times of economic pressure, learning and development comes under additional scrutiny to demonstrate its value.\n1 1. Align learning and development with strategic direction: The strategic objectives of an organization, coupled with its vision and values, provide the direction an organization seeks to travel, as well as the culture that it aspires to.The main components of a learning and development strategy need to be clearly linked with the organization's strategy and goals. Each point in the learning and development strategy should refer to a corresponding one in the organizational strategy.The organization's vision and values should also be reflected in all learning and development activity. This provides the opportunity to remind learners of how what they are undertaking is helping the organization to fulfil its strategic goals.\n2 2. Control learning and development activity: An effective learning and development function has a part to play in all organizational learning and development, whether provided directly by the learning and development team, others within the organization or external people.The development that line managers and others in the organization can provide should not be underestimated. If learning and development does not play a part in this by, for example, ensuring the credentials of those who deliver, or the quality and consistency of materials, there is the risk that it will be sidelined.Where internal expertise or capacity do not exist, learning and development has a role in searching for suitable providers and helping with the procurement process. This again provides quality control and safeguards against criticism should the external learning not be up to standard.Learning and development needs to be mindful of the cost of external provision, particularly if the development needs to be customized. It is too easy for the recipient organization to develop an expensive dependency. Therefore, learning and development will need to provide a business case for developing internal expertise.Control of learning and development activity also extends to quality control and the consistency of delivery, materials and messages. The organization should expect that learning provided anywhere in the business is consistent in message and learning outcomes.The provision of quality branded materials for learning-service recipients creates a standardized and professional image for the learning and development function. Delivery should also follow a regular and consistent format so that learners know what to expect; for example, a clear format to all workshops to identify a standard \"topping and tailing\" of each course.Finally, the quality-control mechanism should communicated with robust policies and procedures that allow all employees to understand how they gain access to training, what support they can expect and what their personal commitment needs to be. These should be regularly updated in line with other policies.\n3 3. Develop the learning and development team: The credibility of the learning and development function may rest partly with the achievement of professional qualifications. For example:*The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) provides a recognized suite of professional qualifications that, when combined with experience and continuing professional development, leads to a different level of membership.*The Institute for Learning (IfL) similarly has levels of professional membership. It allows those with teaching qualifications, through professional formation, to achieve qualified teacher learning and skills status. This is recognized in law as equivalent to qualified-teacher status.These qualifications help to provide a recognized professional status. The affiliation of learning-team members to a professional body helps to place them on a par with organizational functions such as finance, which have less difficulty demonstrating their professional credentials.\n4 4. Quantify learning and development: Businesses are run by figures - how much, how many, turnover, profit, absenteeism and so on. Learning and development needs to be able to show clearly and concisely what it is doing in numbers.Although of limited value, a good starting point would typically be data around evaluation - gathered at the end of learning interventions. The collection of data around the time spent identifying needs, designing courses, delivering them and evaluating is also useful.There is, in addition, value in collecting data regarding the cost of externally delivering any training provided in-house. It is one indicator of return on investment in learning and development.Any data gathered needs to be easily understood, so that people can see the contribution of learning and development at a glance. A common approach to presenting this data a \"dashboard\" that can be regularly updated.\n5 5. Seek external accreditation and recognition: The internal design and delivery of non-accredited learning and development has a clear place to play. However, seeking recognition for learning and development activity by seeking accreditation from bodies such as the Institute for Leadership and Management (ILM) for management workshops provides an opportunity for the learner to gain a recognized qualification. It also provides an opportunity for learning and development to show that it has the skills, knowledge and capacity to provide learning that is recognized outside the organization.A further opportunity to benchmark the learning and development function is through awards. Winning, being commended or shortlisted can boost learning and development's internal standing and provide valuable kudos. Awards also enable learning and development to develop its own best practice by learning from the activities of others.\n6 6. Involve senior leadership: Learning and development should be present at a senior level in the business and at operational business meetings. This helps to ensure that its activities synchronize with business challenges.Learning and development should involve managers in designing and delivering training. Engaging with managers provides a platform of collaborative working that ensures that learning and development is meeting organizational needs and providing development that is operationally valued.\n7 7. Establish a heightened profile: The business needs to know what learning and development is doing. Publicity falls into two areas. First, learning opportunities need to be advertised trough e-mail, newsletters and so on. Secondly, success should be celebrated through, for example, learners being photographed and named receiving certificates.\n8 8. Integrate technology in learning: People learn best in different ways. The advent of faster, more user-friendly technology has opened the door to a host of potential e-learning tools that can be used to provide blended-learning solutions, in a traditional workshop setting, in the office, at home or on a mobile phone.Learning technology also provides more flexibility in learning-management systems, enabling learner progress to be monitored and assessed and learning data to be collated across the organization.\n9 9. Model best practice: Learning and development must be an exemplar in the areas in which it seeks to teach others. For example, if it seeks to help learners to improve their customer-care skills, it must have excellent customer-care skills itself. The credibility of the function will suffer if it does not adhere to the rules and regulations that it seeks to endorse and promote.\n10 10. Move the function outside its comfort zone: Learning and development needs to get involved in ad hoc projects that are ideally both high profile and important to the business. An example might be helping with a management conference.Learning and development's involvement in larger projects and its association with broader business activities will help it to develop a more integral role in the business and heighten its profile, demonstrating the value that it is adding to the organization.In summary, a world-class learning and development function demonstrates the above 10 characteristics, and the path to achieving this status begins with firmly aligning its activities with organizational strategic direction.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to put forward ten ways in which learning and development can become more effective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - It explains how each of the ten characteristics - align learning and development with strategic direction, control learning and development activity, develop the learning and development team, quantify learning and development, seek external accreditation and recognition, involve senior leadership, establish a heightened profile, integrate technology in learning, model best practice and move the function outside its comfort zone - helps to ensure that learning and development will become more effective.\nFindings: - It reveals that showing how learning and development provides a return on investment is only part of demonstrating its success.\nPractical implications: - The paper emphasizes the importance of learning and development aligning its activities with organizational strategic direction.\nSocial implications: - It highlights the importance of an effective learning and development function to the success of individual organizations and, through that, to society as a whole.\nOriginality/value: - The paper gives easy-to-understand advice to learning and development specialists.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Envisioning reciprocal and sustainable HBCU-LIS pipeline partnerships: What HBCU librarians have to say
|
[
"Diversity",
"Inclusion",
"Pedagogy",
"Library and information science",
"Historically Black colleges and universities",
"Pipeline programs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Educational pipelines, which have become popular in the post-affirmative action higher education landscape, are designed to steer underrepresented students into undergraduate and graduate programs (Gasman and Nguyen, 2014). The pipeline model is often touted as a possible remedy to the lack of racial diversity in library and information science (LIS). Interest in these types of collaborations continues to grow among LIS stakeholders, with some stating that the absence of students of color is because of a pipeline problem (Bourg, 2014). Indeed, there have been a number of collaborations between historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs)[1] and LIS graduate programs. As it stands, however, there are no published guidelines on HBCU-LIS degree program partnerships. We address this knowledge gap in this research study.[AQ2]\nReview of relevant literature: The pipeline metaphor was coined by Astin and Astin (1992) who described the US higher education landscape as \"a leaking pipeline which loses disproportionately large numbers of African American students\" (Astin and Astin, 1992 as cited in Mazon and Ross, 1990, p. 159). Astin argued that a faulty pipeline represents when and where marginalized students enter and leave the sciences in particular, with factors such as role models, achievement levels, self-concept, classroom experiences and peer groups affecting the \"flow.\" The term \"pipeline\" has since taken a broad definition and is synonymous with methods for channeling students of color in specific directions - for example, the school-to-prison pipeline (Christle et al., 2005; Dancy, 2014a, 2014b) or the high-school-to-medical-school pipeline (Fincher et al., 2002). Thus, although the term \"pipeline\" commonly holds a positive connotation, there can exist deleterious pipelines. For instance, among the especially productive theoretical approaches are those envisioning pipelines as systems of dependence. In his work on Black male school-to-prison pipelines, Dancy (2014a) theorizes this phenomenon as an extension of Foucault's Panopticonist form of social control. Similarly, in Theorizing Black manhood: Black male construction in the educational pipeline, Dancy (2014b) parallels pipelines with the concept of perpetual Black boyhood or the infantilized Black male identity. Maladaptive educational settings funnel students into lifestyles geared toward perpetual surveillance and policing. Scholarship such as that of Dancy improves our understanding of the critical lack of Black males in librarianship; LIS researchers such as Davis-Kendrick (2009) have done important work in this area.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: After the closing of four of the five historically Black college and university (HBCU)-based library and information science (LIS) graduate programs (leaving only that of North Carolina Central University), there is a need to revitalize HBCU-LIS degree program pathways to increase racial diversity in LIS education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This mixed-methods study entails survey and interview research with HBCU librarians. The researchers explored participants' professional experiences and perspectives on creating partnerships between HBCU institutions and LIS graduate programs.\nFindings: Participants demonstrated substantial experience, expressed high levels of job satisfaction, viewed pipeline programs favorably and believed that LIS can be strengthened through the inclusion of HBCU educational practices and students.\nPractical implications: This study provides recommendations and a model for forging culturally competent and reciprocal HBCU-LIS degree program partnerships.\nSocial implications: Community-led knowledge of HBCUs can disrupt rescue and deficiency narratives of these institutions. Such prejudices are detrimental to HBCU-LIS degree program partnerships.\nOriginality/value: Past HBCU-LIS degree program pipeline partnerships did not culminate in research or published best practices. This paper presents literature-derived and community-sourced guidelines along with a model for future initiatives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Estimating cost-saving potential from international sourcing and other sourcing levers: Relative importance and trade-offs
|
[
"Globalization",
"Sourcing",
"Purchasing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: achieving cost savings through sourcing: Most companies today engage in international sourcing in some form and to some extent (Trent and Monczka, 2003a). The motivations for companies to source internationally vary but generally fall into one of the following categories:1. cost savings due to, e.g. lower factor costs or currency influences;2. the procurement of highly innovative products or technology that would be otherwise unavailable; and3. sales opportunities in the sourcing region (Bozarth et al., 1998; Smith, 1999; Trent and Monczka, 2003a; Steinle and Schiele, 2008).Although motives for international sourcing may differ according to the country in which a firm is based, cost motives often play the most prominent role (Trent and Monczka, 2003b; Nellore et al., 2001; Kaufmann and Carter, 2002; Frear et al., 1992). Also, a recent survey revealed a clear emphasis on cost savings, with 56 percent of all survey participants engaged in international sourcing for this reason only (Lionbridge, 2006). In accordance with this business focus, this paper highlights cost-saving aspects of international sourcing decisions of firms based in high-wage Western countries.Beyond the level of anecdotal evidence, only a few attempts have been made to empirically quantify the impact of international sourcing and its benefits, linking the level of international sourcing with firm performance (Akkermans et al., 1999). In past studies, the total cost advantages from international sourcing, particularly in terms of savings, ranged from negative or neutral effects (Kotabe and Omura, 1989; Murray et al., 1995) to 20 percent savings (Frear et al., 1992; Petersen et al., 2000; Trent and Monczka, 2003a). Some major consulting firms even claim potential savings of up to 60 percent for certain products (Boston-Consulting, 2007), although many skeptics question these savings calculations. The diverse results of these studies might not be truly comparable because they use different measurement criteria or do not explain whether they address savings associated with single projects, commodity groups or a firm's entire purchasing volume. Moreover, Kinkel and Maloca (2009) have shown that in Germany, for instance, every fourth offshoring activity among manufacturing companies was followed by a backshoring activity within the next four years, indicating dissatisfaction with the outcome.It is worth stressing that international sourcing is only one way of achieving cost savings, the ultimate objective. To operationalize and implement a cost-oriented sourcing strategy, several sourcing tactics can be employed (Stevens, 1989). International sourcing is one such tactic. Collaborative product improvement with a supplier could be another tactic used to achieve the strategic goal of supply cost reduction. Economies can be achieved using a series of tactical sourcing \"levers\" including not only international sourcing or collaborative product improvement but also other levers, such as the pooling of demand, price evaluation or process optimization (Semmler and Mahler, 2007; Schumacher et al., 2008; Schuh et al., 2009; Schuh and Bremicker, 2005; Schiele, 2007). Previous research has analyzed the effects of using each of these tactics separately. This research is the first to simultaneously ask firms to estimate the effects that they expect from several sourcing levers and not just from one tactic discussed in isolation. This more holistic approach allows to analyze potential trade-offs between the diverse levers.Thus, the main aim of this paper is to evaluate the expected cost-saving impact of international sourcing in comparison with other established sourcing approaches. In other words, how much savings do companies expect to achieve through international sourcing? Additionally, how much do they expect to save by applying other sourcing levers, such as collaborative product and process development? To address these questions, this paper uses data from a cooperative study run by the authors and h&z, a large procurement consultancy. We scrutinize a database detailing the results of 134 purchasing cost-reduction workshops that followed the \"lever-workshop\" method (Schuh and Bremicker, 2005; Schiele, 2007). This method essentially involves highly structured cross-functional firm workshops in which participants identify savings opportunities and jointly estimate their savings potential.A challenge that previous studies on the effects of international sourcing have faced was that they had to rely on ex post perceptual data. The reliability and validity of such survey results is difficult to assess because firms are quite heterogeneous: for instance, in terms of how to account for success and which cost elements should be considered a part of \"savings\" (Ketokivi and Schroeder, 2004; Nollet et al., 2008). To overcome the problem of unclear measurements of savings, we analyze savings potential as recorded in the sourcing strategy document issued after each lever workshop. Analyzing ex ante expectations developed following exactly the same principles and reporting requirements has the advantage of focusing on highly reliable and comparable data.In our sample, expected savings from international sourcing projects accounted for about one-fifth of total estimated savings. On average, other levers, such as product optimization and bundling, were expected to be equally important or even stronger cost-savings tactics. Moreover, our data indicate that there could be trade-offs, particularly between international sourcing and joint product optimization and relationship-based improvement efforts. This trade-off implies that firms may have to choose a set of internally consistent sourcing levers that, when aggregated, form a coherent sourcing strategy. For instance, trying to reduce costs by jointly optimizing the product with suppliers while selecting new international vendors may not be a self-reinforcing strategy.This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 defines international sourcing terminology and provides a structured literature review detailing the results related to international sourcing. In this review, we also present alternative sourcing approaches and discuss the need for a coherent sourcing strategy. Subsequently, the research methodology and results are presented. In the final section, we discuss findings, implications for different stakeholders, the limitations of the study and opportunities for future research.\n2 Literature review: international sourcing and other procurement levers in the context of a coherent sourcing strategy: 2.1 Differentiating between global-, international- and low-wage country sourcing\n3 Research approach: 3.1 Research questions\n4 Results: 4.1 Determination of the magnitude of potential savings from international sourcing\n5 Discussion and implications: a balanced sourcing approach in practice and as a research agenda: Based on the results of our analysis of the workshop participants' savings expectations, we conclude that international sourcing could indeed be an important sourcing tactics but that it is only one of several. The savings potential suggested to derive from international sourcing did not exceed 20 percent of the total savings potential. Moreover, no single predominant lever emerged. Thus, we suggest that a balanced sourcing approach is more effective than an emphasis on any single tactic. This recommendation contrasts with the conclusion asserted in the majority of studies, which do not consider international sourcing in relation to other sourcing levers (Table I).In our sample, the analysis of the workshops indicated product optimization as the lever with the largest individual impact in the eyes of the participants. Systematically trying to generate innovations, often in close collaboration with the supplier, might require long-term stable relationships that persist for ten or more years (Hakansson, 1989; Handfield et al., 1999; McCutcheon et al., 1997; Ragatz et al., 1997). The finding that innovation collaboration usually takes place between firms with decade-long relationships may offer some explanation for the expected trade-off between product improvement and international sourcing, the latter implying the selection of previously unknown remote suppliers. A similar trade-off has been found between low-cost and innovation-oriented outsourcing strategies (Bengtsson et al., 2009). In fact, facing the increasing importance of supplier contribution to innovation, the purchasing function is growing into a new \"dual\" role: contributing to new product development while managing the overall costs of a firm (Schiele, 2010). In order to comply to this new dual role, it might be advisable to consider possible trade-offs implied in sourcing decisions.In addition, some levers form more powerful combinations than others. Our data have revealed two possible sets of sourcing levers that, when combined, can form coherent sourcing strategies. One strategy entails the classic cost leadership focus, employing a mix of international sourcing, price evaluation and (possibly) pooling with other business units from the same group of firms. The second strategy is one of differentiation and would involve the product optimization and supplier integration levers, possibly supported by process improvement strategies. Mixing these strategies might, at worst, neutralize the effects of the selected cost-saving measures. At some firms, the top management imposes international sourcing quotas, \"which often means that the companies source to achieve budget goals\" (Fredriksson and Jonsson, 2009, p. 228). Our findings challenge the virtues of such quotas due to their potentially negative effect because of trade-offs.The moderate impact of international sourcing may also help to explain the inconsistent results of previous research attempting to link the level of international sourcing with performance outcomes (Kotabe and Omura, 1989; Murray et al., 1995; Bozarth et al., 1998). If international sourcing is responsible for no more than a fifth of the total potential savings as estimated in our workshops and if cost efficiency was only one factor contributing to the overall performance of a firm, it becomes clear how difficult it can be to establish a link between the level of international sourcing activities and a firm's success.This paper contributes to the extant body of research in several ways. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first empirical analysis that compares a wide range of sourcing levers. More specifically, it is the first paper that considers international sourcing in the wider context of the cost-saving initiatives of firms, supporting the argument with empirical findings based on a wide array of workshop participant opinions. In this way, this paper contributes to the design and validation of a holistic sourcing approach.There seems to have been little progress in the last decades in the development of cost-savings controlling (Nollet et al., 2008). Our findings also extend previous research on the effect of international sourcing by introducing a new measure, savings as a percentage of total purchasing volume in a commodity group. This measure allows both practitioners and scholars to compare the effects of international sourcing with those of other tactics. Moreover, the use of this measure prevents misconceptions from arising based on the generalization of results for single projects to the firm level.This paper also contributes to the strategy literature in general and to the sourcing strategy development in particular. The concept of \"levers\" as operationalized tactical building blocks of sourcing strategy can improve the strategy development progress and link strategy to implementation. The identification of trade-offs between the levers provides an empirical illustration of the importance of developing a coherent strategy involving several reinforcing measures.From a managerial perspective, a balanced sourcing approach constitutes a potentially viable substitute for beginning successive waves of international sourcing projects. Before deciding to \"go global\", with a balanced sourcing approach, firms should compare alternative cost-savings levers, thus avoiding trade-offs and eventually achieving higher savings than any single-sided traditional approach could yield. Our findings do not recommend international sourcing as \"[...] an automatic expectation to respond to competition\" (Carter et al., 2008, p. 225). International sourcing is not a natural outcome of globalization; rather, our findings indicate that it should be a deliberate choice of tactic considered on a case-by-case base. It is one thing to search for new suppliers on a global basis, but expecting international sourcing to be a purchasing panacea is likely to lead to disappointing results according to the estimates developed in the workshops. An innovation-oriented strategy focusing on joint product optimization and supplier integration, often in a domestic environment, can constitute an alternative to a strategy focused on international sourcing. Strategy choice depends on context factors, such as the nature of the product or the relationship types typically found in an industry (for a detailed view of influencing factors, see to Quintens et al., 2006a, b).\n6 Limitations: This research entails several limitations. First, our data come from subsidiaries of large or medium-sized groups of companies. For small companies, the \"pooling of demand\" lever is likely to be less important. Hence, transferring the results to such companies may require a particular cautious procedure. It should be emphasized that specific firm characteristics must be considered in developing a sourcing strategy (Akesson et al., 2007).Second, our analysis is based on the results of workshops that developed project ideas and assessed their potential in a cross-functional manner. Experience shows that this approach tends to result in realistic targets, but it would have been ideal to rely on objective and ex post nonetheless comparable data reflecting actual achievements.Third, the idea of balanced sourcing might be transferable to other materials and other types of firms. The exact size of the savings reported here, however, depends on each situation and point in time and might not be transferable.Fourth, our analysis focused on international sourcing as a tactic for achieving cost savings. Firms that opt for international sourcing as a way to achieve higher quality or acquire new technology may reach different conclusions.Future research should take these limitations into account and thereby contribute further to the development of an empirically tested holistic model for sourcing strategy development, which science not yet fully achieved. The exploration of the opportunity costs associated with individual sourcing levers might constitute a fruitful path for future research. Future research would profit from avoiding inquiries into any single lever, alone and without taking the other levers into consideration.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Research results concerning the cost-saving potential of international sourcing have been ambiguous and the topic has been covered in isolation without accounting for influences of alternative cost-saving approaches. This paper aims to analyze the expected financial impact of international sourcing in relation to savings potential attributed to other sourcing tactics, such as, e.g. collaborative product improvement. Furthermore, the paper tests for potential trade-offs between different levers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data stem from results of 134 cross-functional cost-saving workshops using an identical methodology. Workshop participants identified and estimated cost-saving projects considering seven sourcing levers. Results were recorded in a standardized way and analyzed scrutinizing secondary data.\nFindings: - Contrary to other studies, data revealed that international sourcing projects averaged 3.4 percent savings expectations. More than 80 percent of total savings potential was attributed to other sourcing levers, such as pooling of demand or process improvement. Results highlight possible trade-offs between international sourcing and, e.g. joint product optimization.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A rigorous and strict, highly standardized method was employed and data were validated via cross-functional team discussions, however, ex ante expectations instead of ex post realized savings are analyzed.\nPractical implications: - Findings give guidance on the importance of international sourcing compared to other levers and help to correct the misconception of international sourcing as a \"purchasing panacea.\" The findings highlight the need to develop a coherent sourcing strategy for specific commodity groups, including reinforcing tactics and avoiding trade-offs.\nOriginality/value: - For the first time, explicitly cost-savings expectations from international sourcing have been analyzed together with other cost-saving levers concerning relative importance and possible trade-offs among them.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Human development, public expenditure and economic growth: a system dynamics approach
|
[
"Population",
"Economic growth",
"Public finance",
"Income policy",
"Design and development",
"Pakistan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: It is now widely recognized that human development (HD) and economic growth (EG) are interdependent and intertwined in feedback processes which suggest that both are mutually reinforcing either leading to an upward spiral of development or a poverty trap. HD is not only a means to achieve higher productivity but also an end in itself (Romer, 1986; Streeten, 1994; Ranis et al., 2000). The concept of HD puts people at the centre stage of all aspects of the development planning process and demands high level of government's commitment to HD (Qureshi, 2008). Public expenditure on HD is the key policy tool for the government to pass on the benefits of EG to the economically deprived segments of the society and improve socioeconomic performance (Anand and Ravallion, 1993; Chakraborty, 2003). Such a commitment however necessitates a trade-off: increased allocation of public expenditure on HD may come at the cost public expenditure on EG or additional debts in a developing country like Pakistan which has inelastic revenue base. Consistently low public expenditure on HD in Pakistan indicates lack of confidence of policy makers in the positive economic consequences of this trade-off favouring HD. Moreover, impact assessment of macroeconomic policies is a difficult undertaking due to a complex network of feedbacks within and among different parts of an economy through a variety of channels (Rana, 2003; Kraev and Akolgo, 2005). We employ system dynamics approach to represent this complex network of feedbacks and model the system structure of HD and EG in Pakistan. The dynamic simulation model we develop for this study (hereinafter the model) provides a dynamic tool that can help in impact assessment and identify a robust public policy to achieve better HD standards without sacrificing economic development.Apart from the introduction presented in Section 1 rest of the paper is organized in the following manner: Section 2 discusses the model and its causal structure, Section 3 describes model validation and calibration, Section 4 portrays the policy design and paints various scenarios for analysis, Section 5 presents policy analysis, and finally Section 6 is about the conclusions drawn and policy implications.\n2 The model: The critical importance of population in a country's development planning makes it essential to keep it as a fundamental module of the model based development planning. Such an endogenous focus helps estimate the demand and supply side of human centred development of a country as well as to assess the productive capacity of her economy and its impact on the demographic development (Qureshi, 2008). Endogenous development of population and labour force over time and its dynamic impact assessment of different levels and composition of public expenditure on different HD indicators and EG grounded on their inter-linkages found in literature is a prominent feature of the model[1].The core assumption of the model, that investment in and accumulation of human and physical capital affects the growth rate and consequently government tax and expenditure play a role in the growth process, is commonly found in literature (Barro, 1990; Lucas, 1990; Jones et al., 1993). equation (1) illustrates the production function we assume for the total value added in the country (Y). The K represents the total physical capital - public as well as private, H is the average human capability index, and L is the labour force (Mankiw et al., 1995; Sacerdoti et al., 1998). Equation 1 The K increases by investment and depreciates over time. The H is based on average education index[2] and average access to basic healthcare. We follow (Jung and Thorbecke, 2003) approach but map public expenditure on education and health to creation of human capital. We assume exogenous tax-GDP ratio as a source of government revenue. On expenditure side there are two major types; non-discretionary and discretionary expenditures. The non-discretionary expenditure includes general administration, defence and interest expenditures; and discretionary expenditure includes expenditures on HD and EG. We extrapolate current average trend of non-discretionary expenditures but endogenously determine the interest expenditure based on endogenous accumulation of public debt which is incurred because of fiscal deficit. The decision regarding discretionary expenditure is the basis of policy design in Section 4. The model formulations represent the organic relationships found in literature of population, HD, production, income and public expenditure. The following paragraphs discuss only the main feedback loops[3] governing intertwined relationship of HD and EG.Based on the literature, Figure 1 presents two major balancing feedback loops \"B 1\" and \"B 2\" which depict that higher public expenditure on education and health will make more per capita of these services available resulting into improved education and health indicators after some delay that improves the level of HD. The consequent cognitive development will improve the reproductive behaviour of the couples. Moreover, literate people are observed to delay marriage. Loop \"B 2\" also incorporates the studies which suggest that higher infant and under-five mortality rates in Pakistan and other developing countries are one of the reasons of higher fertility rates. Couples are observed to have more children so that few may survive considering higher mortality rate. Moreover, green dotted links reflect the role of supply side factors that help create enabling environment and red dotted lines indicate role of demand side factors to improve HD and to control fertility and population (Behrman and Wolfe, 1984; Sathar, 1992; Aziz, 1994; Qureshi and Adamchak, 1996; Haupt and Thomas, 2004; Bryant, 2007).The level of HD helps improve total factor productivity, employment, GDP and equitable per capita income along with improving the future level of HD. Ranis et al. (2000) label it \"virtuous cycle\". Studies suggest that employment delays/reduces fertility and increase in EG coupled with its equitable distribution decreases fertility. The loops \"R 1\" to \"R 4\" in Figure 2 portray positive role of HD in EG in this \"virtuous cycle\" which suggest that improvement in the level of education and health will not only improve the level of HD, being an end itself, but will also improve the productivity, employment and EG improving access to education and health to help create capabilities. Moreover, loops \"B 3\" to \"B 5\" present balancing side of this \"virtuous cycle\" which acts through decline in fertility rate (Pathak and Murty, 1982; Aziz, 1994; Qureshi and Adamchak, 1996; Bryant, 2007).The loops \"R 5\" and \"R 8\"; thick links signify public resources flow and thin lines represent private resources flow; represent the studies that advocate two-way reinforcing relationship of EG with consumption and investment (Anderson et al., 2006). The balancing loops \"B 6\" and \"B 7\" depict that consumption reduces resources for investment negatively affecting investment, capital and long run EG (Le and Suruga, 2005). Moreover, \"B 8\" signifies the role of government revenues to control deficit and consequent public debt and its interest (Figure 3).\n3 Parameterization, validation and calibration: We use World Development Indicators and various issues of Pakistan Statistical Year Book to estimate model parameters and to initialize the model for this study. Owing to non availability of data we use optimization tool of the simulation software to estimate the capital stock, average age of capital and capital elasticity.The system dynamics models are causal models and should generate the right behaviour for right reasons. The structural validity of the model comes from the descriptive knowledge about the system structure and the comparison of the model behaviour with the real system behaviour establishes the behavioural validity (Barlas, 1996; Sterman, 2000; Qudrat-Ullah, 2005). The relevant theoretical and empirical literature described in Section 2 provides the structural validity of the model. The model has been calibrated to represent multi-layers of historical time series data of 1981-2005, with R-square of over 70 per cent for most of the data, which establishes its behavioural validity.\n4 Policy design: In terms of fiscal policy, government can affect in two dimensions: revenues and expenditures. On the revenue side the government can increase tax rate and/or tax base to increase its budgetary revenue or usable funds. But the focus of this study is optimal structuring of public expenditure for sustainable HD given current trend and composition of revenue generation. Moreover, studies indicate persistently low tax-GDP ratio in Pakistan despite measures taken by successive governments (Pasha and Iqbal, 1994; Pasha, 1995; Ahmed, 1998; Fasihuddin and Swati, 2006). Therefore, this study will not take tax rate and/or tax base as policy variable.The so-called \"Reference Mode\" (RM) depicts the dynamic behaviour pattern of variables of interest over time which illustrate how these have evolved and how these might develop given the continuity of current trends (Sterman, 2000). Over and above this status-quo, we assume that each year government wishes to increase its budget, hereinafter incremental budget, say by 2 per cent of GDP. It may allocate the incremental budget to either EG or to HD. Now the government has two options to finance this increment. It may finance by public debt or by swapping increase in one with decrease in the other expenditure. In this way we get the following four scenarios:1. The government allocates incremental budget to EG and finances this increase by public debt.2. The government allocates incremental budget to HD and finances it by public debt.3. It is a replica of scenario 1 except that the government compensates increase in public expenditure on EG with decrease in HD expenditure.4. It is similar to scenario 2 but the government swaps increase in public expenditure on HD with a decrease in expenditure on EG.\n5 Policy analysis: We simulate the model under the assumptions of above described four scenarios along with RM which reflects the status quo. The focus of these simulations is to analyze the impact of different public expenditure policies on different indicators of interest. The following sections present this analysis.5.1 Demographic indicators\n6 Conclusions and policy implications: This study develops a system dynamics based simulation model to understand dynamics of public expenditure, HD and EG in Pakistan. Its finding that higher public expenditure on EG may neither result into better HD indicators nor economic indicators challenges the very basis of fiscal policy in Pakistan which favours EG and constantly ignores HD and allocates sizeable budget to EG and meagre resources to HD. Moreover, these findings are also in conflict with the \"trickle-down\" theory which advocates the economically disadvantaged segments of the society ultimately reap the long-term benefits of EG. On the contrary, high expenditure on HD will improve not only HD indicators, being end in themselves, but will also improve economic indicators. Adding further to the conclusions of (Qureshi, 2008), we suggest that demographic, HD and economic indicators of Pakistan have strong linkages with the public expenditure on HD and weak linkages with public expenditure on EG. The policy implication of this conclusion is that there is a need for reorientation of fiscal policy in Pakistan from being pro-growth to pro-HD for sustainable development in Pakistan.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - It is now widely recognized that human development (HD) and economic growth (EG) are intertwined in two-way feedback processes either leading to an upward spiral of development or a poverty trap. This concept is used to overcome one of the limitations of a previous study by Qureshi which assumes exogenous gross domestic product (GDP). With endogenous GDP formulation, the impact of public expenditure on HD and EG in Pakistan is examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - System dynamics approach is used to model, identify and help manage the development path of HD and EG in Pakistan given alternative policies for public expenditure on HD and EG. For this purpose the model endogenously determines path of population cohorts, and education, health and economic indicators.\nFindings: - The simulation results suggest that the current level of public expenditure on HD is extremely low and any further decrease will have irreversible negative impact on HD and economic indicators, even if the resources so saved are effectively invested in EG. Further, higher public expenditure on EG may neither result into better HD indicators nor economic indicators. On the contrary, higher public expenditure on HD not only improves HD indicators but also supplements EG. The results of this study conform to the results of earlier research and challenge the very basis of fiscal policy in Pakistan which has continually ignored HD over decades.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The model boundary excludes possible causal links of public expenditure, HD and income distribution. Identification and inclusion of these causalities may improve understanding of perpetuating asymmetric income distribution in Pakistan its role in HD and EG trade-off.\nPractical implications: - This paper suggests reorientation of fiscal policy in Pakistan and to anchor it to HD by allocating more public funds.\nOriginality/value: - The unique characteristic of this model is explicit modelling of population cohorts in a two-way feedback relationship with economic development considering the delays and non-linearities involved in this process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Intellectual capital and university performance in emerging countries: Evidence from Colombian public universities
|
[
"Universities",
"Emerging countries",
"Intellectual capital",
"Education",
"Republic of Colombia",
"University performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of \"knowledge-based economy,\" knowledge-intensive subjects such as universities are central to the economic development (OECD, 1996). Several authors have reported the important contribution of universities to the innovation systems of countries (Sanchez and Elena, 2006; Bratianu, 2009; Lu, 2012; Dumay et al., 2015; Secundo et al., 2016), and to their economic development (Drucker, 1994; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000).\nLiterature review: IC and university performance\nMethodology: Drawing inspiration from the model approaches proposed by Campos (2003), Leitner (2004), and Silvestri and Veltri (2011), we have considered the university as a system (Figure 1) that reconfigures itself continuously, nourished by frequent inputs of knowledge (Bratianu, 2009; Ramirez Corcoles et al., 2011). In turn, the system gives back knowledge output under the form of scientific production, education, and scientific support to the economic and social environment (Leitner, 2004).\nResults and discussion: Table II shows the descriptive statistics of the variables of the study, while Table III displays the non-parametric Spearman correlation among the variables. A non-parametric correlation test is needed in our case, as we cannot hypothesize a linear relationship between the variables. The correlation coefficients show that most IC variables are strongly related one with another, pre-configuring multicollinearity issues that would strongly affect the results of a regression model. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the size of a university strongly affects most of its IC variables. Instead, the five normalized performance variables are rarely correlated one with another, emphasizing the fact that they take into account different aspects that are worth being investigated.\nConclusions: This paper explored the relationship between IC and university performance in emerging countries, studying the case of Colombian public universities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and performance of public universities in emerging countries in order to identify patterns and provide recommendations that may turn the universities' IC into development opportunities, in terms of research, innovation, and education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis targeted the whole population of the public universities in the Republic of Colombia. A cluster analysis, based on five performance variables, has been conducted. Then, the IC of the universities pertaining to the three resulting clusters has been compared. Subsequently, for each performance variable, the IC of above-average and below-average universities has been benchmarked.\nFindings: The results of this study show how different aspects of IC are associated with University performance. Among the many, the authors found that universities should achieve a critical mass to obtain outstanding research and innovation results. The findings also identify the particular importance of both students and scholars' international mobility programs for most of the performance variables.\nSocial implications: This study provides a baseline for the assessment of the impact on society of the IC available in the universities of emerging countries. The application may serve as a guide in the choice of public policies, dedicated to the strengthening of the universities' IC in order to improve their performance.\nOriginality/value: This paper proposes an innovative model to analyze the relationship between IC and university performance in emerging countries. The model identifies the association between the IC accrued in the universities and their capability of transferring it to the society under the form of science, innovation, and education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Broad span of supply chain integration: theory development
|
[
"Supply chain integration",
"Resource dependence theory",
"Resource-based view"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The core of supply chain management (SCM) is supply chain integration (SCI) which describes a multi-organizational network in collaboration with the management of the flow of products, information and finance from upstream to downstream (Ellram and Cooper, 2014). SCI is characterized by its suitability, connectedness, coordination of people, processes, information, knowledge and strategy, with all the members of the supply chain (SC) (Stevens and Johnson, 2016).\n2. Research design: This paper used a systematic literature review method from Tranfield et al. (2003). The stages of the literature review are presented systematically as follows.\n3. Theoretical finding gap on SCI: This section shows the findings of a systematic literature review. The results in Table I show that the theory can be used individually and also be integrated with other theories to determine the range of the SCI. The contingency theory, transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-based view (RBV) are theories that dominate the SCI literature, both individually and when integrated with other theories.\n4. The conceptual framework for the broader span of SCI: As discussed earlier in Section 3, we integrate RBV and RDT to understand the broader span of SCI. Accordingly, this section starts by presenting the assumption of both theories, and then formulates propositions and develops a conceptual framework.\n5. Conclusion and contributions: In this paper, we demonstrated a systematic literature review to address the lack of literature investigating the relationship between the theory and the span of SCI. Referring to the results of a systematic literature review, we provide two key findings. First, we found that RBV is the most dominant SCI theory, but RBV is still limited to internal, supplier and customer integration. Second, there is a lack of theories that accommodate LSP as an essential enabler of a fully integrated SC. Both of these results differ from the concept of SCI that covers supplier, internal, LSP and customer (Jayaram and Tan, 2010).\n6. Limitation and future research: This paper has several limitations, which open up opportunities for logistics and SC researchers in the future. First, this paper does not examine all the theories used in SCI. Hence, future research can explore other theories on the development of a framework for SCI. Second, we only conceptualize the framework of the SCI's span. Therefore, future research can test and validate the framework. Meanwhile, Wiengarten and Longoni (2015) suggest using a broader sample sector and a multi-country sample for a comprehensive understanding of SCI theory.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how theoretical lenses have been used to analyze the supply chain integration (SCI) theory. Furthermore, this paper elaborates theories derived from SCI research, in the form of propositions and a framework to explain the concept of the broader span of SCI.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a systematic review of 194 research articles from Q1 to Q4 international journals over the period 1980-2017. Issues are explored under the integration keywords: \"supply chain integration,\" \"internal integration,\" \"supplier integration,\" \"customer integration,\" \"third party logistics integration\" and \"logistics service provider integration.\"\nFindings: Conceptually, SCI can be interpreted as a span that illustrates the internal integration of the focal organization, and the integration of the focal organization with suppliers, logistics service providers (LSPs) and customers. However, the result from the systematic literature review shows the SCI's span still neglects LSPs. Based on that gap, a resource-based view (RBV) integrated with the resource dependence theory (RDT) is used to propose a broader SCI span that consists of internal, supplier, LSP and customer. Using both theories, this paper conceptualizes resources, dependence and uncertainty as the antecedents of the broader span of SCI.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a theoretical contribution that integrates the RBV and RDT as a basis for developing the broader span of SCI.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring the impact of brand image on customer loyalty and commitment in China
|
[
"China",
"Brand image",
"Quality",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer loyalty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nResearch background: This study is a follow up on a previous study that explored the impact of brand image on customer perceived quality and satisfaction in China. The study seeks to extend on existing researches examining brand image and its impact on customer behaviour like brand image impact on customer perceived quality and satisfaction among others. In specific terms, the need for this study arose as a result of the identified issues from studies on the impact of brand image on customer perceived quality and satisfaction. While evidences from similar studies show that brand image has strong impact on customer perceived quality and satisfaction, there are however lack of extensive empirical studies exploring the implication and outcomes of customer perceived quality and satisfaction. Although theoretically it can be argued that perceived quality and customer satisfaction will lead to customer loyalty as brand image is considered to represent the aspect of market offering that enables organisations create associations in the minds of the customers and add extra value in form of emotional benefits, which extend beyond product attributes and functional benefits (Martensen et al., 2004; Cronin and Taylor, 1992). This assumption is, however, yet to be substantially tested across Western and Non-western markets.It is, therefore, relevant that further study is carried out to explore the behavioural outcomes of customer perceived quality and satisfaction to conduct a study that explores the impact of brand image on other antecedents of consumer behaviours like commitment and loyalty. Whereas such a study will be significant in both Western and Non-western environment, its urgency seems greater within the Non-western environment due to the limited available empirical knowledge on the subject. For example, China being one of the fastest growing economies in the world requires focused study that will provide extra knowledge on such sensitive and useful issue as how brand image can influence customers' expression of loyalty and or commitment to a product (market offering or even organisation). Whereas it is possible to find such a study within Western environment where most of the knowledge on brand image originates, same may not be said of China, even though the Chinese economic impact affects every other developed, developing and under-developed economy.In line with the above, this study will focus on exploring the impact of brand image on customer loyalty and commitment within the Chinese Mobile phone sector. A brief analysis of the mobile phone sector in China, shows there were over 3,000 million mobile phone service subscribers in China in the year 2005, and has now increased to around 6,000 million (almost 50 percent of the population) (BBC, 2007; Sohu, 2007). Amongst these subscribers are customers loyal to well-known brands like Nokia, which controls about 40 percent with 48.1 percent market preference, followed by Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung with 15.90 percent, 10.20 percent, and 9.10 percent preference for Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung, respectively, (ZOL, 2007; Sohu, 2007).The purpose of this study is, therefore, to conceptualise and measure brand influence on consumers by examining the impact of brand image on customer loyalty and commitment in Chinese mobile phone market and to assess possible association between brand image and these variables using the most suitable research approach for a study of this kind.\nLiterature review: Brand image\nResearch methodology: Questionnaire design and demographic data\nDiscussions and summary: This research set out to explore the possible impact of brand image customer loyalty and commitment, and to evaluate these in the light of customer behaviour towards selected brands within the Chinese mobile phone market sector.Following outcomes from review of literatures and conceptual frameworks relating to brand image, customer loyalty and commitment, two hypotheses were generated and further assessed using previously developed and tested research instrument on brand image, customer commitment and loyalty. The outcome from the study suggests that effective study of the impact of brand image on customer loyalty and commitment in Non-western environment is possible, but should be approached as individual/independent variables in that each variable tends to show strong independent on each other and yet highly dependent upon brand image as a customer with low level loyalty may express high level commitment towards a brand or market offering.The outcome also supports the assumptions that brand image has positive impact on customer loyalty and commitment. The study and its finding was identified as indeed fundamental as previous researchers have conducted less research on the impact of brand image on the variables explored in this research and with evidence of lack of substantive empirical study on the subject within Non-western developing economy like China. The study was seen as urgent and relevant. To show evidence of dependability, the study not only measured item's suitability and usability, but also linked its findings with similar study on brand image and other components like customer perceived quality and satisfaction and draws an empirical conclusion that brand image has positive impact on customer perceived quality, satisfaction, loyalty and commitment (Andreassen and Lindestad, 1998; Bloemer et al., 1998; Oliver, 1999; Easingwood and Murphy, 2001; Fornell et al., 2006).This study is, therefore, a contribution to and an addition/consolidation of an existing knowledge. The study was advanced by exploring the impact of brand image on key customer behavioural variables. The approach employed in this study made the exploration of a study of this kind possible in that the study not only acknowledged the lack of available common definition of the concepts discussed, but also acknowledged the difficulties in its measurement and thereafter employed a quantitative approach that logically developed assumptions for the study of various issues within the study. Following the results from this study, therefore, one can conclude that brand image can positively influence customers' perceived quality on a market offering and also boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and commitment towards a market offering. It is also evident that these variables have strong association to and with brand image. This implies that a good brand image is that which impacts positively on this entire customer variable: customer satisfaction, loyalty, perceived quality and commitment to a market offering and not necessarily on one or few of the variables. This, therefore, represents the degree of the relevant of this study, that a good brand image must positively impact on customers' loyalty and perceived quality and should also influence to a greater degree the extent to which customers perceives a market offering and express satisfaction to such offering for long-term delight and sustainable profit.Limitations of the research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Whereas there is a growing recognition of the relevance of brand image to the success of market offering and organisation, as indications suggests that a good brand image can enhance customer experience and satisfaction for long-term commitment. Evidences suggest limited study on the impact of brand image on key marketing and organisational components, including the impact of brand image on customer loyalty and commitment. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to examine how brand image can influence customer loyalty as well as impact on customer commitment to market offering within Chinese mobile phone market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A quantitative approach was employed, using 26-item, 7-point Likert scaled questionnaire administered to 250 participants with 40 percent usable response rate. Data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach a internal consistency, ANOVA and correlation analysis for scale suitability, usability, reliability and test of association.\nFindings: - The outcome from the study was the reduction of 26-25 scale items and high reliability of scale items at 0.942as for further studies. Further behavioural analyses show that brand image have positive impact on customer expression of loyalty and commitment to market offering.\nOriginality/value: - The outcome from this study concludes that brand image can positively influence customers' loyalty to a market offering and possibly boost customer commitment. The study identifies the degree of the relevant of brand image and its impact on organisations and their market offerings. The study suggests that good brand image should positively impact on customers' loyalty, which at long run should also influence customer perceived quality, enables satisfaction and should also influence to a greater degree the extent to which customers are willing to express commitment to such offering for sustainable profit. The limitations of the study are also explored in terms of the generalisation of the study, with the implications of the study further identified.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Team political skill and team performance
|
[
"Team performance",
"Political skill",
"Team commitment",
"Professional background"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The notion that organizations are inherently political has triggered a surge of research on political skill (e.g. Ferris et al., 2007; Kimura, 2015; Munyon et al., 2015). Defining political skill as \"the ability to effectively understand others at work and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one's personal and/or organizational objectives\" (Ferris, 2005, p. 127), prior research has demonstrated that political skill benefits individuals in terms of career success and performance (Ferris et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2007). While prior political skill research has focused on individual-level outcomes (Kimura, 2015; Munyon et al., 2015), teams and team performance have become increasingly important in contemporary organizations (DeShon et al., 2004; Kimura, 2015). This raises the question of whether political skill also enhances team performance.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Political maneuvering and gaming are recognized as being at the core of any organization (Ferris, Treadway, Kolodinsky, Hochwarter, Kacmar, Douglas, and Frink, 2005). In line with this notion, previous research has found political skill to be highly conducive to individuals' career success and performance within organizations (Ferris et al., 2007, 2008; Shaughnessy et al., 2011). Political skill enables individuals to better understand and interpret others' behaviors, appear sincere, and have a subtle and convincing personal style (Brouer et al., 2011; Treadway et al., 2007). Consequently, politically skilled individuals are more likely to establish and use social relations to enhance their success within organizations (Ferris et al., 2007, 2008).\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Table I presents the descriptive statistics and correlations among the study variables.\nDiscussion: The present study expands theory and research on political skill to the team level by shedding light on the relation between team political skill and team performance. Theoretical arguments suggest that the link between team political skill and team performance is likely ambiguous and contingent upon factors that drive social identification with the team (Ashforth and Mael, 1989; Ellemers et al., 2004; Van Der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005). Specifically, the hypotheses stated that the degree to which team members have a common professional background and collective team commitment among team members positively moderate the link between team political skill and team performance and that these two moderators interact in a compensatory way. Study results provide evidence in support of the theoretical arguments presented.\nConclusion: Prior research has highlighted the consequences of political skill for individual success within organizations. The present study complements this work by examining the performance implications of team political skill. The results demonstrated that team political skill - contingent upon the prevalence of a common professional background and collective team commitment - can be positively or negatively related to team performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between team political skill, i.e., the mean level of political skill among team members, and team performance. Specifically, it proposes that the link between team political skill and team performance is ambiguous and contingent upon a common professional background as well as collective team commitment within the team.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 45 service teams with 295 team members and their supervisors were analyzed. Hypotheses were tested using OLS regression.\nFindings: The results show that a common professional background and collective team commitment serve as crucial contingencies for the relationship between team political skill and team performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study complements previous individual-level research demonstrating a positive relation between political skill and relevant outcomes by highlighting that the link between team political skill and team performance is ambiguous and contingent upon other team characteristics.\nPractical implications: To enhance team performance, managers should carefully consider the interplay between team political skill and other team characteristics when making staffing decisions.\nOriginality/value: The study highlights the relation of political skill with team performance and points to a potential downside of political skill in organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Boards of public sector organizations: a typology with Dutch illustrations
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Research methods",
"Public sector organizations",
"Boards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the past decades, the governance of numerous public sector organizations (PSOs) has changed; instead of direct hierarchical control by a government unit, boards have been installed to govern or oversee the organization. Wilks (2007) even refers to \"boardization\" as a trend in the aftermath of new public management. There are several reasons for this increase in the use of boards in the public sector (see review by Lafuente and Nguyne, 2011; Howard and Seth-Purdie, 2005; Cornforth, 2003a). First, it is part of the NPM tool box of management techniques that have been implemented in most countries from the 1980s onwards, aiming to imitate private sector organizations (OECD, 2002). Second, as more and more PSOs were hived off and put at arm's length, boards became an instrument for politicians to compensate their loss of direct, hierarchical control over these organizations. By appointing board members, politicians can reconnect and receive information first hand. Third, boards were also considered a way to improve the accountability of PSOs (Vibert, 2007). By including societal stakeholders or interest group representatives in the boards the legitimacy of PSOs was expected to increase. Moreover, it would also help to improve the organizations' performance fit with societal wishes and needs, and hence the organizations' performance and efficiency (Almquist et al., 2013). And finally, relevant stakeholders would be in a position to immediately intervene if the organization was not performing well. So, expectations of what boards could and would do were high.\nTypes of boards: When looking for patterns in the composition and function of boards in PSOs, two dimensions can be distinguished. The first dimension is whether there is a one-tier or two-tier board, or to put it more concretely: whether an organization is run by one or two boards. The predominant model in Anglo-Saxon countries is a one-tier model in which there exists only one board (Cornforth, 2011). However, in many continental European countries we find examples of two or even more boards in one PSO, as in the case of inter-municipal companies (see e.g. Citroni et al., 2013, on Italy) and the aforementioned EU agencies. Then the second dimension becomes relevant: do these boards all possess executive power? In some cases they do, in other cases not. Table I shows the different possibilities and offers some examples. However, the reader should be aware that different countries, different governments and even different PSOs can also use combination forms or pick and choose from the different possibilities (moreover, translations of board labels into English can be tricky). Therefore, it is necessary to always check how a specific board or boards of a specific PSO relate to these two dimensions.\nBoard membership: Membership of a board, either as an executive or non-executive, can have important implications both financially and legally. Executive board members are usually employed by the PSO and receive a salary (Flinders et al., 2011; Papenfuss and Schmidt, 2015), whereas non-executive board members will perform their function next to another job and receive a reimbursement for expenses and their time spent on meetings only. However, in those cases where board members are appointed as part of another function - for example municipal council members sitting on general or daily board - they will not receive a separate salary for their board membership, as this is part of their primary function. Further, executives will be held liable more often than non-executives although the latter cannot be ruled out completely given the large variation in forms and practices; it depends on the regulations that are in place for a specific organization. Board members can take a collective insurance against personal liability, although it is not always clear who will pay for the costs there of, the individuals or the organization.\nBoard functions and roles: Boards can have different functions or roles. Cornforth (2003b) has distinguished six functions or roles, all ideal types based on different theoretical models (see Table II). First, a board can focus on the compliance of the PSO with the owner's interest, i.e. the government that has established the organization. This is based on the principal-agent theory that was originally developed to model the relationship between shareholders (principal) and managers (agent). Boards are one of the instruments that principals can use to monitor the agent's performance (Besley, 2006). The second type of function that Cornforth describes shows that a board can also operate as a partner to or with the executives to help improve the organization's performance, for example by contributing specific knowledge. This is explained in stewardship theory, a variation on the principal-agent theory in which it is assumed that the principal and the agent share the same objectives regarding task execution (Davis et al., 1997). Therefore, a board does not have to strictly monitor the management so much, as they have to trust and help them to do a good job. Third, in the democracy perspective the board represents society and the general interest. PSOs often struggle with the balance between their own interest and that of the general public, mainly because their \"owner\",i.e. the government, also has to safeguard the general interest.\nSome Dutch illustrations: supervisory boards of ZBOs: To show how researchers can use the two typologies I will present some findings on boards in Dutch PSOs. Specifically, I will focus on the supervisory boards (overseers) of ZBOs, a type of statutory body (in Dutch: zelfstandige bestuursorganen). Data on these boards come from a variety of sources, mainly surveys (Van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2006; Van Thiel et al., 2004) and secondary data like official documents, web sites and legislation (Van Thiel and Verheij, in review; Van Thiel, 2009; Prinsen and Den Boer, 2008), but also from case studies (Overman et al., 2014; Van Ammers and Van Thiel, 2012; Huisman, 2006) and elite interviews (Van Thiel, 2012). Finally, some findings come from personal experience, as a board member of Legal Aid Council (2006-2010) and as a member of official committees (Evaluation of Culture Funds (2010), and Parliamentary Inquiry for Dutch Senate (2012)).\nDiscussion and conclusions: This paper aimed to offer two heuristics to help researchers to identify what type of board of a PSO they are studying, to enable comparing their results to findings on other organizations, in other policy sectors or countries. The first typology described four archetypes of boards, while the second model discerns six different roles that a board can take on (see Tables I and II). It was recommended to use the two heuristics in combination, as formal competencies and actual practices do not always coincide (Yesilkagit and Van Thiel, 2008): a case proven in point by the Dutch findings which showed that boards can either take on more active roles than their formal position prescribes (Huisman, 2006) or that boards can be overruled by politicians even when they have not exceeded their mandate like in the case of COA. By using the two heuristics in combination we can gain a more in-depth understanding what these boards are and do.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present two heuristics for researchers to identify different types of boards in public sector organziations, and thus enable exchange of research findings and comparative research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on existing knowledge, two typologies are presented. The first typology discerns four archetypes of boards, and the second typology distinguishes six board roles. The use of these typologies is briefly illustrated with findings on supervisory board in Dutch ZBOs.\nFindings: Application of the two heuristics is possible and should preferably been done in combination as formal competencies and actual practices of boards do not always coincide. In the Dutch case, boards take on more than one role often exceeding their formal position. On the other hand, examples can be found where boards are overruled and stripped from their formal powers. Combining the two heuristics renders more comprehensive insight into what boards are and do.\nOriginality/value: The two heuristics show that there are different types of boards. Researchers can use these to carry out comparative research. Practitioners and policy makers can use them, for example, when designing appropriate governance structures in public sector organizations or applying international guidelines to specific types of boards and organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cultural change through the implementation of an enterprise system: A UK university case study
|
[
"Enterprise systems",
"Higher education",
"Organizational culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The UK Higher Education (HE) sector is a global leader and it generates over PS30 billion of revenue for the UK economy (Delloite, 2015). As a result, HE institutions need to operate in an efficient and effective way as well as respond timely to a number of challenges. A major challenge for universities is to develop the ability to utilise technology in integrating and improving the administration of their operations; introducing enterprise wide information systems (enterprise systems (ES)) is seen as essential to the conduct of twenty-first century business. Although many organisations are now in the process of implementing these complex systems there are still challenges that have not been fully understood and addressed (Chofreh et al., 2014; Bryant et al., 2013; Shaul and Tauber, 2013; Brooks et al., 2012; Gajendran and Brewer, 2012).\nES and the HE sector: Enterprise wide systems are increasingly being deployed throughout business and industry with the promise of seamless information flows and ultimately competitive advantage for the implementing organisation. The premise behind the design and development of enterprise wide packages is that it is possible to define an industry \"best practice\" that can be applied across organisations within that industry, no matter where located in order to improve the efficiency of processes (Wagner and Newell, 2004; Tai et al., 2014). Nevertheless, ES have often failed to deliver the promised integration and for many organisations the difficulty in adjusting to the requirements of ES implementation has led to the technology being abandoned (Elbanna, 2007).\nCulture and ES: The incidence of culture as an organisational issue in information systems implementations initiatives is evidenced by the diversity of themes covered in major literature reviews (Gallivan and Srite, 2005; Leidner and Kayworth, 2006; Kappos and Rivard, 2008; Shaul and Tauber, 2013). From these literature reviews it appears that knowledge about culture within information systems research is fragmented and this is further amplified by the fact that conceptualisations of organisational culture also differ among the wider management research community (e.g. Knights and Willmott, 2007; Huczynski and Buchanan, 2007; Schein, 1985, 1996; Ouchi, 1981; Peters and Waterman, 1982; Deal and Kennedy, 1982). Nevertheless, what researchers generally do agree upon is that organisational culture consists of patterns of meaning underlying a variety of manifestations; some of these manifestations are visible and include artefacts such as physical arrangements, clothes, stories and rituals as well as practices such as structure, technology and procedures. Other manifestations are ideational and include values, beliefs and assumptions held by the members of an organisation (Martin, 1992, 2002; Pettigrew, 1979; Sackmann, 1997; Schein, 2010). However, it is not the manifestations themselves that are of interest within this paper but rather the interpretations that are made by the organisational actors of these manifestations and in the resulting meanings that they attribute to them. Nevertheless, there is still ambivalence about the extent to which most members of a particular organisation share the interpretations of the cultural manifestations.\nThree perspectives of organisational culture and ES: According to Meyerson and Martin (1987, pp. 623-647), there are three perspectives that dominate research on organisational culture: integration, differentiation and fragmentation. Culture from an \"integration\" perspective is an integrating mechanism, it is the shared patterns of meaning of a given group or organisation. The term \"shared\" helps identify relevant manifestations of a culture - a common language, shared values or an agreed set of appropriate behaviours.\nMethodology: The research described here is part of a three-year ethnographic study of a Strategic Information Technology Services (SITS) implementation in a UK university, EducationCom (pseudonym) which started in 2007. Ethnography can be defined as a \"style of social science writing which draws upon the writer's close observation of and involvement with people in a particular social setting and relates the words spoken and the practices observed to the overall cultural framework within which they occurred\" (Watson, 2010, p. 205). Schein (2010) argues that ethnography should involve participant observation, content analysis of documents, stories, myths, rituals, symbols and other artefacts. This may be supplemented and strengthened by interviews, statistical analysis and even small surveys (Watson, 2010). Regardless of how ethnographic research is defined it must have at its heart participant observation. The case study was chosen because many universities and Further Education colleges were beginning to use it and longitudinal access was key to the study in order to explore the cultural dimension of the implementation.\nSITS and the emergent culture change: a three perspective approach: This section provides insight into the case study and how culture changed over the three years. It begins with an overview of the information systems and organisational culture prior to the adoption of SITS. It then moves on to view the emergent cultural change through the lenses of integration, differentiation and fragmentation as the components of the ES are implemented, determine patterns of organisational behaviour and influence life in the university.\nResearch synthesis: The aim of this paper is to explore how culture changes during an ES implementation and how the ES is implicated in the changing culture of the organisation. Using the three perspectives framework of Meyerson and Martin (1987) and building upon the work of Dube and Robey (1999) and Jackson (2011) who used this framework to explore culture change within much smaller IS and IT implementations our intention is to add insight to ES implementations within the HE sector. By subjecting the data to multiple interpretations the tendency to privilege a single dominant explanation of the entangled nature of ES induced change is reduced. Through the use of Meyerson's and Martin's framework it is possible to gain a multifaceted view of EducationCom's culture and Table III shows the situation in the institution before and after the implementation of SITS.\nConclusion: This study building upon the previous work of Dube and Robey (1999) and Jackson (2011) illustrates the advantages of using multiple perspectives to understand organisational culture and practices. The integration, differentiation and fragmentation perspectives (Meyerson and Martin, 1987; Martin, 1992, 2002) each offers something additional and no single perspective enables a full interpretation of the culture change under study. While highlighting the new centralised approach to SITS and the shared values of the teams involved in the implementation and delivery of the SITS data and information, the integration perspective overlooks the organisational difficulties that have arisen through the implementation and have been divisive. In our study the differentiation perspective surfaces the lack of cohesion between groups and enables a deeper understanding of the problems of implementing a large ES such as SITS. The fragmentation perspective acknowledges that the study of culture is about paradoxes and ambiguity and enables the analysis of contradictory themes. Clearly EducationCom would not have anticipated the deterioration in the working relationships of many of its key staff and the change in the power relations between academic and administrative staff. Thus the fragmentation perspective adds such insights to the cultural analyst's other means of understanding organisations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Organisations spend a lot of money, time and resources on enterprise system (ES) implementation and often they do not realise the expected benefits from these complex systems. There is a gap in the literature in providing sufficient insight into the implementation process or how an ES might influence or contribute to a culture change. The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in the ES literature around culture by exploring the implementation that was undertaken within a large UK university.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper contributes to the higher education (HE) and ES literature through an in-depth study of an ES, Strategic Information Technology Services (SITS) implementation within a university in the UK. The study was undertaken over a three-year period where one of the authors was embedded within the organisation.\nFindings: Using a cultural analysis framework, the extensive rich data were analysed and the outcomes indicate that SITS has had a huge influence on the culture of the university; the technology's rigid structure has imposed many changes that had not been anticipated.\nOriginality/value: ES have recently emerged in the HE sector where they are intended to support the management of student data and provide strategic management information. Although there are many studies which have explored important aspects of the implementation of ES, one area that appears to have been under-researched is how these systems are implicated in culture change within organisations. The results of this study will enable managers as well as IT specialists to gain rich insights into an ES implementation in the HE sector and to use this knowledge for future implementations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance modeling and benchmarking of green supply chain management: An integrated fuzzy approach
|
[
"VIKOR",
"Green supply chain management (GSCM)",
"Multi-criteria decision making",
"Decision support system",
"Fuzzy sets theory",
"SAW"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Performance measurement has always been recognized as an important strategic consideration in order to achieve an efficient supply chain management (SCM). The task of estimating green supply chain performance extent is seemed as a complex problem (Dubey et al., 2017), as it is surrounded with multiple subjective performance measures in a decision-making environment. It also involves an inherent vagueness, inconsistency and incompleteness due to distinguish assessment by different decision makers (DMs). Multi-criterion decision making processes are considered by the numerous researchers in their work to select or rank the most appropriate choice amongst numerous choices available. Various techniques and approaches are developed by the existing researchers for optimizing and synchronizing the available choices.\n2. Green supply chain management (GSCM): The amplified attention is given by the researchers for augmenting the topic of GSCM. Seman et al. (2012) defined GSCM as an environmental innovation, which integrates environmental concerns into SCM. The idea of GSCM is to incorporate the environmental thinking and practices into SCM. Nowadays, GSCM is important for influencing the activities of the firms as it considers impact of the organizations into the environment due to their supply chain activities (Malviya and Kant, 2017). Supply chain represents a network of interconnected activities starting from raw material to the delivery of the finished product to the end user (Gunasekaran et al., 2001; Datta et al., 2017).\n3. Research gap: Decision advancement integrating small element of business firm is the serious concern of today's rapid production cum servicing environment in order to make business more successful, effective and sustainable. The advancement pertaining to supply chains of the firms can only be possible by the respective managers by involving decision support tools and decision-making approaches. GSCM requires the deployment of advance re-active and pro-active approaches, rules, regulations, etc., by practitioners and legislatures for the implementation of GSCM, but still green organizations and green industrial brands are unclear. No unique framework is so far developed by the researchers, which can exactly portray the execution of building green industrial brands and industrial corporate brands. The environmental criterions escorting economic measures are required to be planned by means of comprehensive GSCM framework to promote Green environmental issues. Many interesting literatures are found, which pledge an adequate strength amongst environmental drivers and GSCM strategies and approaches (Hervani et al., 2005; Ru et al., 2011; Ricky et al., 2012; Luthra et al., 2014; Masoumik et al., 2015; Sebastian and Stefan, 2014; Balasubramanian and Shukla, 2017). The research findings that could inspire managers and researchers for adopting and developing GSCM practices for sustainable performance are still unclear. The research needs to be concentrate and conceptualize in order to develop better channels for sustainable GSCM results. Numerous approaches and strategies are available in silent and scatter form, which need to be unified for framing decision support tool designing and evaluating green practices in SC (Vanalle et al., 2017; Matawale et al., 2016b; Geng, Mansouri, Aktas and Dorothy, 2017; Lee et al., 2012; Soni and Kodali, 2013; Hashemi et al., 2015). However, there are deficient decision support frameworks, which accompanied structural modeling equations and can craft SC network effectively encompassing environment thinking and practices. Consequently, in the presented work, the authors suggest general and momentous green attributes to be incorporated by the managers of the distinguish firms, while planning for the attainment of objective attributes, so as to integrate environment performance by their supply chain activities. GSCM is widely studied by numerous researchers, which briefly focused on highlighting the significance of green attributes meant for better environmental saving, societal performance and survival. However, less attention has been paid by them to develop a decision support system based on quantitative assessment considering green measures. Additionally, the authors found lack of rationale structure constructed by making an allowance for the green capabilities in order to describe the supply chain significance level in industrial perspectives. Nowadays, GSCM is necessary to the firms, as it considers impact onto the environment due to their supply chain activities. Thus, the authors feel essential to conceptualize and develop an efficient appraisement platform for the purpose of benchmarking the green alternative in SCM and consider it as a research gap in the presented work.\n4. Fuzzy sets theory: The fuzzy set theory was introduced by Zadeh (1965) to deal with the problems pertaining to vagueness and imprecise information. It has been considered as a modeling language by numerous researchers to approximate situations in which fuzzy phenomena and criterion exist. In a universe of discourse X, a fuzzy subset\n5. Simple additive weighting (SAW): This method is most widely used and well-known method for solving MCDM problem due to its simplicity and ease implementation. SAW technique is one of the most frequently used MCDM techniques. It is simple and is the basis of most MCDM techniques such as AHP and PROMETHEE and utilizes additive property for calculating final score of alternatives (Memariania et al., 2009). It is based on the aggregation of weighted criterions. The benefit of this method lies in a proportional linear transformation of the raw data, which means that the relative order of magnitude of the standardized scores remains equal (Afshari et al., 2010). The following steps should be followed for successful implementation of the said method:\n6. VIKOR: VIKOR considers DMs preference to judge the parameters in order to fit the product to a range of user (Mohanty and Mahapatra, 2014). The VIKOR method was developed for multi-criteria optimization of complex systems. It determines the compromise ranking list and the compromise solution obtained with the initial weights (Sayadi et al., 2009). This method can be utilize for ranking and selecting best alternative from a set of available alternatives in the presence of non-commensurable and conflicting criteria (Tavana et al., 2016). The VIKOR methodology deals with the formulation of the decision-making problem; normalization of decision-making information; construction of weighted decision-making matrix; and determination of the positive ideal solution and the negative ideal solution of the evaluated objects.\n7. Grey relational analysis (GRA): The process of GRA starts with the identification of the reference entity known as ideal target value. Grey relational coefficient is calculated in GRA by comparative analysis between the ideal target value and the available input criterions or parameters value. GRA is employed to tackle the vague, inexplicit, imprecise, non-exact information in experimental domain (Sahu et al., 2017b). Murat et al. (2013) found GRA as reliable approach and stated that the results obtained from GRA can help DMs in identifying and benchmarking the best alternative. It assists in balancing the inadequacy in statistical analysis. The conception of GRA grants capable solution and can fruitfully handle uncertainty, multi-response and discrete data dilemma. Duan et al. (2012) discussed about the basic steps and principle of GRA and used it to analyze the experiment medical data. GRA opts the following procedural steps.\n8. Discussions and computations: The presented work aims to develop the performance model in order to identify the comprehensive GSCM practices of the firms. The presented work incorporates green supply chain activities to support environmental sustainability throughout the supply chain. In the proposed work, a hypothetical case research is presented to justify the application testimonials and to highlight the environmental thinking and practices, which should be incorporate into the supply chain activities by the firms in order to make in green and sustainable. The work aids to identify the strong and ill-performing areas for the selected candidate industry. In this regard, a decision support system based on momentous supply chain attributes is constructed from the sources of existing literature survey (Huiyu and Weiwei, 2010; Min and Galle, 1997; Deshmukh and Vasudevan, 2014; Sahu et al., 2017a; Odeyale, 2014). The GSCM attributes, which are identified from the sources of literature survey, are depicted in Table II. The build GSCM decision support system incorporated several attributes, i.e. Green Packaging (x1), Green Hazardous Management (x2), Green Manufacturing (x3), Green Recycling (x4), Green Logistics (x5), Green Advertisement (x6), Green Design (x7), Green Technology (x8), Green Research Development (x9), Green Purchasing (x10) and Green Quality Level (x11), responsible for making the supply chain green and sustainable.\n9. Fuzzy performance index (FPI) and fuzzy performance importance index (FPII): The FPI is an index which represents the performance extent of the alternatives under consideration. The computed FPI of the selected alternative can be utilize by the management to compare it with the predefined set fuzzy GSCM assessment scale of the firm, to test out and to compare existing GSCM level, in order to identify strong and weak performing region of their GSCM elements, which will require improvement during planning for future. The fuzzy performance index (FPI) is computed by utilizing the following equation:(21)\n10. Managerial implications: The environmental regulation is fundamentally to be respected by every global firm for achieving not only reduction in ecological damage, but also overall economic profit Cosimato and Troisi (2015). The legislative pressures are highly imposed and are obligating the supply chains to follow GSCM practices (Vanalle et al., 2017). The threat imposed by the legislation are stimulating firms to develop sustainable green practices and to regulate their SC starting from accumulation of raw material to selling of finished goods as per environmental need. It is the duty of manager of the firm to curtail the adverse environmental impacts due to their SC activities. Thus, the present work reviews and offers general and momentum criterions principally found responsible for driving the GSCM network, to assist the managers of the global firm in framing effective decision policies considering green practices for future sustainability. The managers can fluently implement proposed GSCM modeling as it is furnished by structuring equations and is illustrated by empirical research to make easily understandable to them.\n11. Conclusions: The decision making under GSCM is discussed by modeling MCDM equations to support green attributes in the network of SC. The authors reported green indices that should be principally consider by the alternative firms simultaneously with the objective information to hold future sustainability. The green activities for selecting the most significant alternative under subjective GSCM module are evaluated by applying VIKOR and SAW methodology. Furthermore, the authors employed GRA technique for introducing robustness and ensuring the feasibility of the determined results. The said methodologies are exposed with the fuzzy sets theory to tackle inherent vagueness and inconsistency in the decision problem. The authors work to develop decision framework for protecting environmental issues by emphasizing on GSCM practices. The authors found first and fourth as worst and second and third as the most significant supplier arguing green practices. The concept of FPI is presented to rank strong and weak attributes of the selected green alternative firm. A multi-criterion decision support system is built and presented by an empirical research to judge the applicability of proposed GSCM modeling. The following are the concluding remark of the conducted research:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Based on the existing literature in the field of green supply chain management (GSCM), the purpose of this paper is to find essential to conceptualize and develop an efficient appraisement platform for the purpose of benchmarking green alternative in supply chain network.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors explored multiple approaches, i.e. Visekriterijumsko kompromisno rangiranje (VIKOR), simple additive weighting (SAW) and grey relational analysis (GRA) by amalgamating fuzzy sets theory to select the most appropriate alternative for GSCM. The work is supported by triangular fuzzy number sets to choose the green alternative industry among available industries, while dealing with the uncertainty and vagueness in GSCM. A case study is exposed to identify strong and weak indices and to exhibit the feasibility of the proposed work.\nFindings: It is requisite by the managers of many firms to identify the strong and weak indices relating their firms. Thus, the authors presented an approach for measuring and appraising the performance of the selected green alternative by determining the strong and weak indices. The presented work illustrates the performance measurement model that identifies comprehensive GSCM practices of the firms. The presented work incorporates green supply chain activities to support environmental sustainability throughout the supply chain.\nResearch limitations/implications: GSCM is necessary to the firms, as it considers impact onto the environment due to their supply chain activities. The authors build decision support system to facilitate the managers of various firms for modeling green practices in their decision making. The authors attempt to devise a conceptual framework linked with knowledge-based theory.\nOriginality/value: The authors conceptualized VIKOR, SAW and GRA methodology to rank and benchmark the green performance of distinguish alternative industries among available industries. Additionally, the performance measurement model for the selected significant green alternative is presented for determining the strong and weak indices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The interactive effects of perceived parental involvement and personality on teacher satisfaction
|
[
"Parental involvement",
"Teacher satisfaction",
"Personality",
"Extraversion",
"Agreeableness",
"Parents",
"Teachers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Parental involvement in children's education has been a topic of great interest for researchers and practitioners in the last several decades (Huntsinger and Jose, 2009; Kohl et al., 2000). There is an extensive theoretical and empirical literature indicating that parental involvement in children's education is associated positively with student academic achievement, social competency, and school success (Fan and Chen, 2001; Fantuzzo et al., 2000; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2002, 2005; Pena, 2000). However, current research on parental involvement has been focusing mostly on school children, parents, and parent-teacher levels (Chen and Gregory, 2010; Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1997; Hornby and Lafaele, 2011). How teachers perceive the influence of parental involvement on their work-related attitudes and behavior has received minimal attention to date. This is a serious gap because studies of parental involvement have reported the many benefits of parent's involvement for not only students and parents but potentially for teachers and schools also (Epstein, 1988; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2002).Teaching nowadays in Taiwan is acknowledged to be a stressful occupation, due to the trend towards having fewer children, resulting in higher expectations and aspirations from parents, and increased survival competition between schools (Ministry of Interior, 2011). Therefore research into teacher satisfaction is becoming more and more important given that not only do satisfied teachers have higher organizational commitment, task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, well-being, lower early retirement, and remain in the profession (Bowling and Hammond, 2008; Houtte, 2006) but also that dissatisfied teachers are associated with leaving the profession, decreased productivity, and lower quality relationship with students (Houtte, 2006; Zembylas and Papanastasiou, 2004). Thus, an understanding of the factors affecting teachers' satisfaction at the workplace is important for a successful education system. Previous research has revealed that the quality of the school environment is one of the most powerful predictors of teachers' overall satisfaction (Huang and Waxman, 2009), yet, little is known about the link between parental involvement and teacher satisfaction. Therefore in this study, we expand previous research by examining how teacher perceived parental involvement predicts teachers' satisfaction.Person-environment fit (PE fit) theory suggests that people perform better and are more satisfied in occupational environments that match their interests, skills and personality variables (Durr and Tracey, 2009). It recognizes that the teaching occupation differs in its demands and opportunities and that teachers differ in their abilities and needs, thus one teacher's mental stresses may be another teacher's welcome challenge (Jorde-Bloom, 1986). Based on this theory, teachers should be more satisfied with their work environment when their personalities match the characteristics of the environment. PE fit highlights the need to consider personality as a potential moderator of environmental forces. In this study we examine the interplay between interpersonal personality traits and teachers' perception of parental involvement in predicting teacher satisfaction. The relationships among the factors considered in our study are illustrated in Figure 1.\nConceptual framework: Perceived parental involvement\nMethodology: Participants\nResults: Descriptive and correlational analysis\nDiscussion: The current study set out to examine the association between perceived parental involvement and teacher satisfaction, and further investigated individual differences in reactions to parental involvement by testing whether the relationship between perceived parental involvement and teacher satisfaction is moderated by two interpersonal personality traits. The result provides some important implications for the formation of teacher satisfaction in the workplace.Influence of parental involvement on teacher satisfaction\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to examine the relations between teachers' perception of parental involvement and teacher satisfaction. It further aims to investigate how this relationship may be moderated by interpersonal personality traits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire was conducted; participants were 572 classroom teachers who teach at public elementary schools in Taiwan.\nFindings: - Hierarchical regression results indicated that parental involvement at home was considered the most effective factor influencing teachers' satisfaction, followed by teacher-parent contact. Parental involvement at school was less important. Furthermore, extraversion moderates the relationship partially; teachers low in extraversion perceived home-based involvement associated with teachers' satisfaction more strongly than those high in extraversion. In contrast, the study found no moderating effect for agreeable teachers.\nOriginality/value: - This article presents an original empirical study that expands the model of parental involvement in order to improve understanding of how teacher's perception of parent involvement is linked to teacher satisfaction.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Productivity strategy led power utilities
|
[
"Efficiency",
"Strategy",
"Productivity",
"Price recovery",
"Productivity Accounting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Efficiency driven models are abound and often are driven by the best of the lot based on benchmarking and group or industry analysis. But what if there are no existing operators to determine the better one? What if it is the better of the poor performers that make the universal set? We are then bound to perpetual mediocrity unless we take a different form of thinking to a new paradigm of performance improvement.\nThe productivity strategy for power utilities: Productivity Accounting is a shortened name version of resource allocation analysis and reporting, that evaluates contribution of each category of resource costs to changes in productivity and price recovery. It uses the financial reports that are produced by an organization, together with the relevant statistics on resources to determine any beneficial or detrimental impact on productivity. It works whether there is a productivity strategy led frame of running the business or not. It can thus be used to establish a productivity strategy-led business model implementation.\nThe plan for a productivity strategy-led power generation and supply: When the price of electricity is the variable toyed with to determine decisions for capacity building, the regulators on the other hand use it to suppress price increases when capacity exists. The regulators also use price of electricity in the face of much needed capacity building to approve spiked price increases; the result is consumers are not receiving the best service in all these circumstances. The result is that the simulated market is not natural and is inefficient and does not incentivise a productivity strategy-led power generation and supply. The market can be defined as opportunistic and totally dependent on the variables it should be managing being used to influence decisions, in a cart before the horses' perspective.\nVisionary approach and not input efficiency models for power utilities: Power utilities by their nature attain maturity quicker, and thus those bent on trying to extricate efficiency are using a tool intended for growing businesses inappropriately. Ishak Adizes (1988, pp. 120-132), makes this point very clearly about short-term efficiency pursuits. Short-term efficiency does not make new wealth or new money; it simply shifts money to be available for other expenditures or be delayed to be spent. It is not generative, it is an authority tool in the traditional financial stable, it gives an answer to complicated problems, but not complex ones as in the case of taking a productivity approach and evaluating financial performance from that long-term efficiency and effectiveness perspective.\nNature's economic model of continuous production and social view: Most of us would know of a tree in the wilderness that has been there since it was seen many years ago. If you do not, there are documented stories on the internet of baobab trees that are very old and have been kept alive by nature without human interference.\nConclusion: Every industry has its DNA of the best way it has to be run. Given that there are fundamentals of leadership and management one needs to first understand the business before applying basic management tools, in order to adapt them accordingly to the type of business. The nuances for a financial business, a retail business, a mining business, an airline, to mention a few may be crucial factor in making a success of a particular business. To all of them a productivity strategy will always provide the guide in ensuring that the potential for management to mutate to a different business type management is kept in check. A utility suddenly being run as a retail business is likely to show in a loss in productivity change expected.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to return to a long-term business focus that uses Productivity Accounting methodology as a strategy tool for business operation and for making investments to benefit all producers and consumers in the electricity markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research subjected the published annual financial reports data to an analysis using the Productivity Accounting methodology to fathom productivity and price recovery with a focus on productivity changes over the year. Assessment is made of any comments on productivity or efficiency by the utilities in relation to the computed productivity from the methodology of analysis.\nFindings: The financial data as well as the statistical data that went with it could be analysed independently and productivity and price recovery results obtained. It is possible use Productivity Accounting to measure productivity change and use it for influencing investment and operational productivity for each resource and the utility.\nResearch limitations/implications: The focus is on power utilities that are experiencing shifts in the way they do business in the environment. However, there is definitely value in using productivity as a strategy for sustainable utilities. It would seem the results may be applicable to other types of businesses.\nPractical implications: It is possible for any utility to use Productivity Accounting as a strategic tool to run the operations and support that with continuous investments as a basis of productivity driven sustainable and profitable businesses. It highlights the faults of the booms and bust of the California power industry against a productivity strategy-led utility.\nSocial implications: For both developing and developed countries it would mean that electricity is affordable in the long term as it is not a luxury good. Electricity can be used to leverage economies of countries for competitiveness.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a fresh look at productivity as a strategic focus of a sustained business performance, for all utilities based on their own unchanged data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of salt and sugar reformulation on processing parameters for orange juice and tomatoes using ohmic heating
|
[
"Food processing",
"Salt",
"Dehydration",
"Ohmic heating",
"Pasteurisation",
"Sugar"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The importance of developing new food products with reduced salt and sugar is growing due to the associated potential health benefits. There have been several calls for food reformulation toward reducing their salt and sugar contents (Reeve and Magnusson, 2015; Heredia-Blonval et al., 2014). Excessive salt intake has been proven to relate to high blood pressure, stroke and coronary heart disease; while excessive dietary sugar intake causes dental caries, overweight, heart disease and type-2 diabetes (The UK NHS Choice, 2015). The PS10m Innovate UK call from October 2015 to March 2016 titled \"Optimising food composition\" was specifically focussed on reducing the levels of salt, sugar, saturated fat and/or total fat, and increasing the levels of dietary fibre, further accentuating the ongoing sector and policy pressure for food reformulation with respect to reducing salt and sugar content. Also some European Union legislations have focussed on food reformulation by redefining maximum allowable levels for some food components (Belc et al., 2019).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Sample preparation\n3. Results and analysis: 3.1 Thermal and electrical conductivities\n4. Conclusions: As shown in this study, sugar and salt have opposite effects on the electrical conductivity. While the electrical conductivity increased with added salt, the property decreased with added sugar. Similarly, this study has also demonstrated that added salt and sugar responds differently to ohmic heat processing. With respect to the thermal conductivity of the foods tested, insignificant changes were observed for the range investigated for both added sugar and salt. This confirms findings from the literature that effectiveness of ohmic processing depends on the electrical conductivity of the foods being processed, and that thermal conductivity of food does not affect the effectiveness of ohmic heating (Darvishi et al., 2012; Cho et al., 2016).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it aims to investigate how salt and sugar reduction in foods due to the pressure from the emerging food regulations will affect the physico-electrical properties (PEPs) of orange juice and tomatoes during a selected PEP-dependent thermal processing. Second, the authors are keen to understand how variations in salt and sugar ingredients will affect the time-temperature processing requirements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: PEPs of the samples (orange juice and tomatoes) were measured using the KD2 thermal analyser and RS conductivity metre. Both samples with varying salt and sugar levels were subjected to ohmic heating processing using a 10 kW ohmic heater. Dehydration rates and processing times for pasteurisation were obtained.\nFindings: Electrical conductivity increases with added salt in tomato puree but decreases with added sugar in orange juice. Statistical evidence confirmed significant changes in heating rates and processing times of tomatoes and orange juice as their relevant salt and sugar levels change. Reduction in salt content in tomato puree led to increase in time and energy for the thermal processes. While reduction in added sugar in orange juice results led to reduction in processing time and energy requirement for the processing operation.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is limited to small change in salt and sugar variations in order to reflect recommended limits. There were therefore no significant changes in thermal conductivity for the range investigated. Also this study is focussed on two food products.\nPractical implications: Current pressure on the need to reduce salt and sugar in foods necessitates research to increase food processing industry insight into the process and product impacts of such recipe changes, with particular regard to processing efficiency and product safety and quality.\nOriginality/value: This study represents an attempt to understand the impact of salt and sugar variations on properties and processing requirements of tomato puree and orange juice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Psychometric evaluation of need-based quality of work life scale in an Indian sample
|
[
"India",
"Quality of work life",
"Exploratory factor analysis",
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Maslow’s hierarchy of needs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Twenty-first century has witnessed technical revolution with the advent of globalization which transformed the scattered planet into a fairly connected global village. This led to rise of volatile, uncertain, and fiercely competitive business environments continuously engaged in innovations and better performance to remain competitive. In this ever-changing business environment, whether it is service quality being offered to end customers or quality of work life (QWL) of internal customers (employees), \"Quality\" has remained the constant principle in helping organizations emerge as leaders for decades. While service quality ensures customer loyalty and brand image, the QWL among employees ensures well-being of the employees. Researchers have confirmed that QWL has a strong relation with employee performance and various organization and employee-related positive outcomes (Beeri et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2015). Thus, given the above background, QWL deems to be a significant construct to be studied in highly volatile market like India.\nQWL: the concept: The roots of QWL can be traced back to 1972, when the International Council on Quality of Working Life was established during an International Labour Relations Conference (Roan and Diamond, 2003). Despite the fact of being an old concept in human resource management discipline, QWL manages to hold an important place in the domain due to its unquestionable significant role. Perhaps this is one of the reason, many researchers have made a sincere effort to conceptualize QWL due to their unending interest in concept. For example, in the words of Robbins (1989), QWL is \"a process by which an organization responds to employee needs by developing mechanisms to allow them to share fully in making the decisions that design their lives at work,\" while some researchers (such as Carlson et al., 2003) conceptualized QWL as both a goal and an ongoing process for achieving that goal. As a goal, QWL is the commitment of any organization to improve work environment: the creation of more involving, satisfying, effective jobs and work environments for people at all levels of the organization. As a process, \"QWL calls for efforts to realize this goal through the active involvement of people throughout the organization.\" Some researchers have defined QWL as a way of thinking (Nadler and Lawler, 1983; Kerce and Booth-Kewley, 1993).\nRationale of the study: Although, very few studies have attempted to explore the psychometric properties of need-based QWL scale (e.g. Afsar and Burcu, 2014; Lee et al., 2007), yet, it is used across different cultures with different sample characteristics, such as university teachers in Bangladesh (Taher, 2013), Thailand and Malaysia (Mohan and Suppareakchaisakul, 2014), hospital nurses in Israel (Cohen and Liani, 2009) and Iran (Nayeri et al., 2011), front office employees in South Africa (Naude et al., 2013) and the USA (Lee et al., 2015), marketing domain employees in Vietnam (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2012), the USA and Thailand (Marta et al., 2013).\nResearch methodology: Language and coding\nResults: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)\nDiscussion: The concept of QWL is defined in many ways by different researchers. Though there are many definitions to define the concept, yet one thing which unites all the definitions or conceptualizations is that researchers strongly agree to the notion that QWL is a positive construct which deals with the well-being of the employees.\nPractical implications: Managers should realize the role of QWL in enhancing employees' performance at workplace so that they can also initiate the assessment of QWL across the organization. The effective use of need-based QWL scale would facilitate employee and organizational level effectiveness by encouraging the managers to review the work policies and job designs for enhanced levels of QWL. Using the QWL scale, employer can identify employees who are less likely to leave the organization in future and can propose some motivational interventions to boost the QWL of employees. Additionally, HR managers may consider the assessment of employees' QWL to ascertain which employees can succeed in challenging situations.\nConclusion: This study provides empirical evidence for using need-based seven factors, 16-items QWL instrument as a two-factor measurement in the Indian context. Considering obtained results, the instrument is recommended to be treated as a less complex two-factor construct. This study has its own unique significance as this easily understandable QWL instrument is believed to encourage the well-being research in India. We conclude that this study has made a significant contribution in the domain of positive psychology by providing a less complicated and easy a QWL measure exclusively for Indian settings that will facilitate HR practitioners and behavioral scientists in examining the QWL of their employees and formulating the various well-being-related policies resulting into employee and organization-related outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychometric properties of the need-based measure of quality of work life (QWL) in the Indian context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The need-based QWL instrument was validated using the 380 samples collected from public and private sector employees working in India. The data were obtained via self-administered structured questionnaires. The data were examined conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with the help of SPSS AMOS (version 21).\nFindings: The two-factor model confirmed the superiority over the seven-factor model in the Indian context. The results are strongly supported by the extant literature in organizational behavior domain.\nOriginality/value: Despite being the second highest populated country and one of the largest skill labor facilitator to the work economy, India lags behind in well-being-related studies as compared to its Western and Asian counterparts. This study has validated and simplified the complex need-based QWL measure in the Indian context. This is easily understandable that QWL instrument is believed to encourage the well-being research in India.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Actor engagement valence: Conceptual foundations, propositions and research directions
|
[
"Engagement",
"Valence",
"Actor networks",
"Dispositions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Within an interactive, dynamic and increasingly networked business environment, customers, as well as other actors - employees, suppliers, community members, firms or social groups - continually interact and engage with one another in the network. Accordingly, the concept of engagement has attracted wide interest from both business practitioners and academics in the past decade (Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al., 2011; Chandler and Lusch, 2015; Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014; van Doorn et al., 2010). While traditional engagement studies focus on the dyadic and customer-centric perspective, recent engagement studies extend to a system perspective, where the concept of actor engagement emerges (Brodie et al., 2016; Storbacka et al., 2016). Actor engagement is defined as \"both the actor's disposition to engage, and the activity of engaging in an interactive process of resource integration within a service ecosystem\" (Storbacka et al., 2016, p. 3009). It reflects the interconnections within service systems (Brodie et al., 2016), and provides a multi-actor perspective of the dynamic, iterative processes of engagement among diverse networks of actors (Li et al., 2017).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Evolving engagement theory: from customer to actor engagement\n3. Foundations of actor engagement valence: 3.1 Psychological foundations of valence\n4. Conceptual domain of actor engagement valence: 4.1 Introduction\n5. Summary and future research directions: 5.1 Overview\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Valence is one of the key dimensions underlying actor engagement, yet there is limited research to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise engagement valence in actor networks and develop an agenda for future research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The exploration of the psychological foundations of the concept of valence and a systematic literature review from a multiple database search contribute to four sets of propositions defining the domain of the concept of actor engagement valence.\nFindings: The propositions posit that valence resides in the engaging actor's past, current and future psychological dispositions, which can shift between positive, negative and ambivalence. Actor engagement valence is triggered by the engagement objects and value propositions of other actors in the network. The antecedents of actor engagement valence comprise individual factors such as cognitive evaluations and hedonic feelings, as well as network-related factors such as social norms and shared beliefs, and the network structure. The net balance of actor engagement valence determines the actor's engagement behaviours, and this relationship is moderated by individual and network factors.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to conceptualise actor engagement valence, which contributes to the refinement of the actor engagement concept. This research defines the conceptual domain, deepens the understanding and provides an agenda for future research into the valence of engagement among actors in networks. The study recognises the institutional influences on actor engagement valence, and contributes to an understanding of the nature of actors' psychological dispositions and how their valence determines the actors' behavioural engagement manifestations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A multilevel perspective to the study of export venture performance
|
[
"Multilevel analysis",
"Levels of analysis",
"Export function",
"Export marketing",
"Export venture",
"Export venture performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many researchers are interested in developing and testing models of the antecedents of export performance. Existing studies typically examine the predictors of export performance either from the export function level of analysis or from the export venture level of analysis (Oliveira et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2016). Investigations carried out at the export function level of analysis focus on the overall export performance attained by the entire exporting entity (e.g. Aulakh et al., 2000; Brouthers and Xu, 2002; Cadogan et al., 2009; Dhanaraj and Beamish, 2003; He et al., 2013; Dow, 2006; Papadopoulos and Martin Martin, 2010). For instance, these studies may seek to identify the causes of managers' satisfaction with the firm's export sales performance, or uncover the drivers of the firm's export profit growth.\nStructure of multilevel models: An export venture is a single product or product line exported by a company to a specific foreign market (Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Morgan et al., 2004). Exporting is, therefore, a multilevel phenomenon, where a firm's multiple export ventures are the lower level units nested within the firm's export function (the function that contains or manages all the firm's exporting activities), which is the higher level unit. To help demonstrate how multilevel models are typically structured, and to illustrate how they can be used to answer questions which may be important for export performance researchers, we first outline a set of hypothetical research questions and subsequently present a multilevel model that could be adopted to examine those questions (cf. Hofmann, 1997). Thus, for the purposes of illustration only, let us assume that a researcher postulates the following hypotheses:\nThe problem of sampling one venture per firm in export venture performance research: Many export performance researchers investigate variables that inherently exist at the level of the firm's export function (for instance, the firm's resources and the capabilities it brings to bear in its export markets), and seek to clarify the impact of these features of the firm on the performance outcomes of export ventures (Sousa et al., 2008; Zou and Stan, 1998). In so doing, researchers are engendering models that are implicitly of a multilevel kind, and as we show in the previous section, the causal forces implied in such a model can be explicitly coded in the regression equations to accommodate causes that occur at distinct levels in the exporting entity (the exporting firm). Critically, to test these models, one needs to sample across multiple ventures within the firm, and across multiple firms, in order to assess the causal hypotheses at the multiple levels at which they are specified.\nDeveloping and testing multilevel models of export venture performance: practical aspects: Researchers will need to make a number of practical decisions when conducting multilevel studies of export venture performance. Key aspects discussed in the following section concern sample size, centering of variables, and selection of statistical package.\nDiscussion: The examination of the antecedents of export venture performance has been the topic of many investigations over the past five decades. Despite this fact, there is a lack of multilevel research in the export venture performance literature, as existing investigations have been conducted from a single level perspective. This is contrast with other organizational research fields where researchers are increasingly adopting multilevel frameworks in their studies. Single level approaches do not account for the fact that exporting is a hierarchically ordered system where firms' ventures are lower level units which are nested within those firms' export functions (i.e. within higher level units). Accordingly, single level models are not appropriate for the investigation of the antecedents of export venture performance, and may lead to biased results. The current paper highlights some of the pitfalls that can emerge by failing to utilize multilevel models of export venture performance, and pinpoints some of the key issues and decisions that researchers wishing to take on the challenge of multilevel export venture performance research will face.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present several opportunities that can emerge from using a multilevel approach to study the antecedents of export venture performance, and provide scholars with the conceptual and practical tools for developing multilevel models of export venture success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Essay.\nFindings: The paper shows the problems which scholars face if they continue to engage in using single venture data to test models that are inherently multilevel in nature.\nResearch limitations/implications: There may be a need to revisit previous works that utilize samples of single ventures to assess models of export venture performance that are implicitly multilevel.\nPractical implications: This paper outlines the practical issues that researchers need to consider when conducting multilevel research in the export venture performance field.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to focus on the multilevel nature of the export venture performance construct.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
To the letter vs the spirit: A case analysis of contrasting environmental management responses
|
[
"Environmental accounting",
"Environmental management systems",
"Eco-controls",
"Environmental certification standards",
"Environmental responsibility",
"Environmental strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Environmental impact is a critical governance issue for business organisations (Parker, 2005; Pondeville et al., 2013). Numerous high-profile environmental disasters have heightened global outcry and environmental activism, resulting in increased scrutiny over organisational accountability for their environmental footprint (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1999; Norris and O'Dwyer, 2004; Rodrigue et al., 2013). In response, environmental management standards such as the ISO 14001 (which are in addition to the regulatory restrictions imposed on a given industry) were developed as an initiative of \"both governmental and other non-governmental actors to create patterns of voluntary environmental practices that can facilitate systematic environmental management\" (Aragon-Correa and Rubio-Lopez, 2007, p. 366). The underlying objective of environmental standards is that the certification status that is accorded to firms offer a sense of pride and motivation for the firms to strive for proactive quality management through embedded policies and practice guidelines, which are globally comparable (Aragon-Correa and Rubio-Lopez, 2007; Contrafatto, 2014).\n2. Theoretical background: While each firm can be seen to entail its own unique structure, culture and processes, there are also pressures for a firm to adopt homogeneous structures, particularly within a given context (e.g. Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Wiersema and Bird, 1993). The neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977) which gained popularity in the late 1970s as a conceptual lens for studying organisations as part of a complex social system proposes three major forces that lead to homogeneity in firm practices - coercive, mimetic and normative pressures. Coercive pressures on a firm arise with formal and informal forces exerted by the society upon which the firm is dependent. Manufacturers adopting new pollution control technologies to conform to the environmental regulations are an example of homogeneity under coercive pressure (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Mimetic pressures refer to the motivation to imitate, which derives from uncertainty in the society. Ambiguous goals or lack of clarity in the design of systems can instigate firms to model themselves on the apparent winners (March and Olsen, 1976). Finally, normative pressures arise with firms' need to subscribe to quality standards that are derived from the norms established by external professional bodies with which the firms' employees may be affiliated (Mezias, 1990). The homogeneity in firms' formal strategies, structures and procedures arise as a result of the need for firms to conform to institutional pressures not only for technical efficiency reasons, but also for increasing legitimacy through resource or survival capabilities (Covaleski and Dirsmith, 1988; Meyer and Rowan, 1977).\n3. Research setting and design: 3.1 Case analysis design\n4. Case study findings: 4.1 Business environment overview\n5. Discussion: In this section, the case observations are analysed with the aid of Arena et al.'s (2010) analytical schema, to examine the interconnections among organisational factors surrounding EMS that lead to divergent firm responses and build an institutional theory-based explanation for such heterogeneity. While similarities in the EMS exist between the two firms (i.e. both adhere to regulatory standards as specified by forestry Code of Practice, maintain certification to internationally recognised forest management standards, utilise online management systems and adopt basic eco-controls, namely, forest management plans and operational procedures), Softwood appears to take a more voluntary, proactive approach to environmental management standards when compared to Hardwood which adopts a commercially focussed, compliance orientation coupled with resource stringency. In terms of theory, the contrasting interpretations of certification standards can be thought of as ranging from embeddedness (Perez et al., 2007) to decoupling (Meyer and Rowan, 1977), corresponding to the varying degrees of assimilation of environmental concerns into firms' practices. The following sub-sections discuss how the interactions among the three dimensions of environmental strategic rationalities, environmental experts and champions, and eco-control technologies have led to the firms' divergent responses to the environmental standards within the forestry context. The key findings are summarised in Table II.\n6. Conclusion: Dwindling forestry stock around the world makes effective and efficient environmental management a critical function. Environmental standards are a way to facilitate organisations to engage in proactive involvement in environmental management (Aragon-Correa and Rubio-Lopez, 2007). However, the empirical reality is that firms exhibit diverse responses to the standards with some following it to the letter with others to the spirit, even though the firms exist within a homogeneous context.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine why firms governed by the same environmental management standards within an industry exhibit contrasting responses, with some adhering to the letter and others achieving the spirit behind the standards.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using Arena et al. (2010) as an analytical schema to examine the institutional dynamics behind such contrasting responses, the paper analyses archival and interview data relating to firm strategy, control technology and human expertise in two contrasting Australian forestry firms.\nFindings: The embedding and decoupling of environmental standards with a firm's environmental management practices is influenced, first, by the extent to which founder directors and senior management integrate environmental responsibility with the underlying business motives and, second, by the use of organisational beliefs and values systems to institutionalise the integrated strategic rationality throughout the firm. Finally, informed by the institutionalised strategic rationality, the participation and expertise of actors across the organisational hierarchy determine the level to which the design and execution of the eco-control technologies move beyond merely monitoring compliance, and act to facilitate continuous improvement, knowledge integration and organisational learning at the operational level.\nOriginality/value: This paper responds to institutional theorists' call for a holistic explanation that considers the interactions among several intra-organisational factors to explain the dynamics behind why some firms decouple while others do not, even though the firms exist in the same social and regulatory context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Dynamics of digital entrepreneurship and the innovation ecosystem: A multilevel perspective
|
[
"Digital entrepreneurship",
"Innovation ecosystem",
"Multilevel perspective",
"Social network analysis",
"SME"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The phenomenon of entrepreneurship has been studied under the most diversified types, exploring their influence factors, emergence, growth, maturity and decline (Ferreira, Fernandes and Kraus, 2019). Entrepreneurship involves recognizing and pursuing opportunities, creating new value, assuming risks and realizing rewards, and may occur in a variety of settings, such as by new venture creation or by reconfiguring established firms, in non-profit organizations, and in public sector. Entrepreneurship represents a significant factor of socio-economic development by solving unemployment problems, providing innovative products, creating competitive environment and increasing overall prosperity and well-being of regions and whole countries (Ferasso and Saldanha, 2011; Zhao and Collier, 2016). In a modern society, new technological developments expand a range of entrepreneurial opportunities as well as set challenges to business owners and their firms, such as those occurring with digitalization.\nResearch background: The rapid proliferation of digital technologies, related to information technologies and new media, has substantively changed competitive settings, business strategies, structures and processes (Bharadwaj et al., 2013; Steininger, 2019). Digitalization has reshaped the way business opportunities are discovered and exploited, and transformed the meaning and forms of entrepreneurship across the globe (Giones and Brem, 2017). Broad heterogeneity exists among digital businesses: many firms start incorporating and focusing on digitalization of certain business components such as digital marketing and sales, digital products and services, digital delivery and communications, or are born and exist entirely digital (Hull et al., 2007). New technologies bring in new opportunities with potential business value, low entry cost and greater flexibility, and they become sources of innovation and competitive upheaval, leading to creative destruction of long-standing practices, transformation of exiting industries and emergence of new ones (Davidson and Vaast, 2010; Leong et al., 2016; Zhao and Collier, 2016). Digital environment also poses certain challenges for firms (Ferreira, Fernandes and Ferreira, 2019). Those are related to more uncertain environment, rapid obsolescence of products and business models, high substitutability and short-lived competitiveness (Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2018; Leong et al., 2016). Business digitalization, provided by digital technologies, has attracted increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners. This attention is due to the fact that digital technologies offer new prisms of research and business, as they extend analytical perspectives toward considering digital forms of entrepreneurship.\nMethodology: Research design\nFindings: The first data analysis performed was the pattern-matching, where qualitative data were thoroughly analyzed according to the data analysis procedures. This resulted in 349 evidences that were categorized in more than 160 characteristics retrieved from the literature, and were related to four levels of analysis, which represented the innovation ecosystem's layers. After an in-depth analysis of these evidences, they were represented in the data exposure technique. The data allowed the representation of an analytical display of the case company, embedded in its innovation ecosystem. This technique allowed the identification of different actors with which the company has established relationships. The analytical display of the innovation ecosystem of GTI IT Solutions company, considered for two stages of the company's development, is presented in Figure 1.\nDiscussion and conclusions: An analytical framework, linking digital entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of digital entrepreneurship and the role of innovation ecosystem in its shaping by applying a multilevel perspective on the phenomenon.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An exploratory in-depth analysis of an IT company in Brazil is conducted using a quasi-mixed method design and three analytical techniques: pattern-matching, data exposure and social network analysis. The study is based on qualitative data, complemented by quantitative data. The case company is investigated within its time (historical development) and spatial (entire ecosystem) dimensions, providing an integrative approach to analysis.\nFindings: The results revealed significant differences in a set of supporting innovation ecosystem's actors and relationships throughout the development of the company from lower to higher levels of digitalization. The findings are discussed within a framework that links ecosystem's actors at different layers with different levels of business digitalization.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research brings implications to SMEs in high-tech industries that are aiming to transform their business toward greater digitalization, and stresses the importance of strategic partners in innovation ecosystem in this process.\nOriginality/value: The novelty of this research is related to how external actors contribute to a company to adapt and create value, and how companies may exploit opportunities by configuring internal resources and external assets from strategic relationships. The study considers digital entrepreneurship in dynamics, distinguishes between different levels of digitalization and prescribes them different enablers and sets of relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The Anthropocene: age of complexity, foresight and innovation?
|
[
"Complexity",
"Invention",
"Discovery",
"Anthropocene",
"Epoch"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nDiscovery and invention, an unlimited horizon: We consider here the sociocultural, political/moral, economic, technical and other processes contributing to human development. We comment on the growing capacities of Homo sapiens to be fully aware of his achievements and failures, perceive what remains wanting and how humans can respond usefully to the pressures of nature's forces and threats. All the while, humans look ahead to create novelty. The advance of the Anthropocene implies such reaction. Stated compactly, this is a cycle of hindsight, insight and foresight. Antithetically, can change meant for improvement transform life for the worse? Basing the reply to this question on the long experience of our species, we must respond, Yes, of course.\nPracticalities of algorithm analysis: Successful fiction can prove very close to futures analysis and strategic foresight, especially since science fiction is underpinned by reason and introduces elements which are realizable on the basis of known science or engineering. Spaceflight, for example, or aspects of future evolution, or teleportation are often featured in plausible fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, famed for his daring technical fiction, predicted two decades beforehand the orbiting of geostationary satellites. One should add that the long-running television production, \"Star Wars,\" created by George Lucas, marked worldwide its fortieth anniversary in 2017.\nForesight as life saver: In his autobiographical, Disturbing the Universe (1979), physicist Freeman Dyson tells of his wartime work in Britain as a statistician for the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command. As a young mathematician, his task was to find the causes of the loss of substantial numbers of trained flight crews during nightly raids over German-occupied Europe. Dyson and his colleagues practiced the applied mathematics of operational analysis, also called operations research. OR provides algorithms used to estimate, for example, the quantities required and the timing of deliveries of essential materials to build public works, skyscrapers and fleets of vehicles or aircraft (among other mass production).\nComplexity may help to develop insight: In the contemporary French school of la prospective, best translated as likely future changes, a goal is first declared, after which arguments' pro and con are advanced. The originator in the 1950s of this type of futures analysis, Bertrand de Jouvenel, favored advancing strong arguments to support the objective to be attained; the method resembles somewhat the best/worst scenario model. The Jouvenel argumentation uses well-quantified data tending to emphasize self-correction and sustainability. The principle is applied today by son Hugues de Jouvenel and his colleagues at Futuribles, a professional consultancy with clients in government, industry and academia. The company also publishes a lively monthly journal, titled identically Futuribles, a term derived from the words future and possible. The prospective model is also used by political scientists in geopolitical studies of emerging force or power, whether hard power or soft power (terms popularized by Graham Allison of the Harvard Kennedy Center).\nDisregard, or recklessness, in a major church: Pope Francis assumed his functions in 2013 at a moment when the Roman Catholic Church faced internal problems of corruption and turpitude requiring a reordering of priorities in the governance of its worldwide clergy. Marriages between members of the same sex, the possibility of remarriage by divorced heterosexuals of the broader faith, scandals of sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, homosexuality within the clergy, the reduced appeal of clerical life for aspiring young men and women. The list itself is a study in complexity in the moral ramifications of recruitment, professional training, ordination, deployment and ministration.\nVisioning technique: Futures analysts use alternative methods to try to understand how an issue of today might unfold tomorrow or next year. These techniques include framing (understanding attitudes about both present and future), leadership analysis (are the right people in charge?), decision-making impediments (functional obstacles), horizon scanning (whence the brightest ideas lying beyond the next hill?), rejecting the assumed and accepted and cultural clash existing among forecasters themselves.\nTransition from foresight to innovation: Tomorrow's innovation had its forerunners yesterday and today. The computer (originally a military-aided development) emerged in part through the two main analytical branches of radio-signal interception, i.e. traffic analysis and content analysis. The first is understanding how enciphered communications are sent by whom, to whom, how frequently, in what volume and how answered. The second, content analysis, requires the ability to decipher the messages sent or answered, often in a language not the same as the analyst's. More abstractly, patience, perseverance and an understanding of the transmitter's mentality are almost obligatory.\nGenerating innovation that transforms: Search and research are unceasing activities in humanity's quest for solutions to practical problems. North Korea decided, decades ago, that acquiring the nuclear bomb would settle the country's differences with some of the rest of the world, leading it to develop its own thermonuclear and missile-launching capabilities. And yet the world knows that it would be utter folly to exploit the absolute weapon. The ensuing chaos would allow few survivors. Since the Winter Olympics of 2018 and the Trump-Kim handshakes four months later, there could come Nobel Peace Prize for the two chiefs of state/chiefs of government to reward the political initiative of ending a war begun in the mid-twentieth century.\nInnovation vs Economic stagnation: Among the advanced societies practicing innovation is France, a country that has been anything but a laggard in scientific research and discovery or invention. We need to think only of the early understanding of complex optics, the first attempts at controlled flight and the findings of Louis Pasteur in microbiology. Yet France has found inordinate difficulty, especially during the twentieth century, in transforming new ideas into marketable products or services (the cause, in part, of its festering unemployment). French economic progress based on innovation is conspicuously behind the steady progress made by her immediate neighbor, Germany.\nSome runners-up: Russia, traditionally slow in most of the innovative pursuits beyond the extractive industries, space technology and military R&D, caught the attention in 2015 of Stratfor, a US publisher and global intelligence company. (Stratfor stands for Strategic Forecasting, Inc.) This group concluded that the Russian Federation was outstripping the USA in the production and sales of liquefied natural gas. Sales depend on price per cubic meter, of course, and despite a glut in fossil-fuel supply, per-barrel petroleum prices in New York rose remarkably in New York in 2018. The Russian lead could last until 2020, as projected by economic media during the mid-2010s.\nAnthropocene or no, the tense is future present: We have seen how the creative world is capable of productive innovation of many sorts, how much of its yield is tangible, functioning and of extensive service to humans. But invention, manufacture, distribution and putting new artifacts to best use need the thinking, eclecticism and synthesis resulting from sound teaching and life-long learning. Acquiring knowledge at the pre-school, primary and secondary levels is the sine qua non for the formation of a nation's curiosity, culture and practical achievements.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Specific examples or brief case-histories in different fields or disciplines illustrate the inventive process from conception to realization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors examine predictions made in 2007 by \"China experts\" about what the Chinese business environment would look like in 2017. Their predictions were accurate in respect of around two-thirds of the issues they were asked to consider. The authors focus on the one-third of issues about which they were wide of the mark and examine the likely reasons.\nFindings: The newly named Anthropocene is a time of increasing conception, research, design, development, evaluation and exploitation of new artifacts and services. Objectivity: careful problem-analysis assures the authors' understanding of innovating pathways.\nResearch limitations/implications: Trial-and-error methods may be disorderly, log-type research records are not kept, accidents not considered relevant.\nOriginality/value: Examples cited are transdisciplinary, often requiring inputs from other economic or cultural sectors. These complexities should be of incalculable value to innovators with single-field backgrounds.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Qualitative assessment of adolescents' views about improving exposure to internet-delivered interventions
|
[
"Internet",
"Adolescents"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Explosive growth of the internet has caused an increase in internet-delivered interventions, aimed at promoting behaviours related to the primary prevention of chronic diseases and thereby encouraging a healthy lifestyle with regard to health risk behaviours such as lack of physical activity, low consumption of fruit, cigarette-smoking, unprotected sex and excessive alcohol consumption (Bernhardt and Hubley, 2001; De Nooijer and De Vries, 2006; Perez-Rodrigo et al., 2005). From evidence of efficacy trials it appears that exposure rates to such interventions are quite low (De Nooijer et al., 2005) and in real life exposure rates may be even lower (Evers et al., 2005). Although it has been proven that internet-delivered interventions can be effective in changing behaviour (Jago et al., 2006; Mangunkusumo et al., 2007), there is a lack of evidence-based insight about how to reach optimal exposure rates for such interventions (De Nooijer et al., 2005). Exposure involves actual exposure of individuals to the intervention content, through use of the intervention, and is necessary since attention is a prerequisite to establish desired behaviour change (McGuire, 1985).In terms of internet-delivered interventions, there is a distinction between three different aspects of exposure:1. A first visit.2. Staying on the intervention long enough actually to use and process the information.3. Revisiting the intervention.The latter can be important, since there is a possible dose-response relationship between the number of visits and behaviour change outcomes (Lenert et al., 2003; Verheijden et al., 2007; Zebrack et al., 2005).There are two reasons to focus on adolescents. First, many health risk behaviours are acquired during adolescence and track into adulthood, thereby affecting health in later life (Kelder et al., 1994). Second, this age group also poses specific challenges to health promoters. In contrast to patients looking for treatment or medical information, adolescents without any chronic disease are not likely to be internally motivated to visit internet-delivered behaviour change interventions and to stay long enough to engage actively in and process the educational content provided in the intervention (De Nooijer et al., 2005).The potential reach of internet-delivered behaviour-change interventions aimed at adolescents is enormous, since 95 per cent of Dutch people between age 12 and 25 had access to the internet by 2006 (CBS, 2006). Internet penetration rates are also high in other countries in Western Europe, North America and Australia (Internet World Stats, 2007). According to the RE-AIM model, the public health impact of an intervention is a function of four other factors besides reach: efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance. The different aspects of exposure relate to implementation, the extent to which an intervention is delivered as intended (Glasgow et al., 1999). The aim of the present study was to gain first insight into factors, which might be associated with exposure to internet-delivered interventions. Explorative research questions were therefore:1. When do adolescents visit an internet-delivered behaviour change intervention for the first time?2. How can adolescents be kept long enough on such an intervention to engage actively in and process the educational content provided in the intervention?3. How can adolescents be motivated to revisit an internet-delivered behaviour change intervention?The answers to these research questions are used to suggest practical implications for improvement of exposure rates to internet-delivered behaviour change interventions.\nMethods: Design\nResults: Use of the internet in general\nDiscussion: The present study reports the results of focus group interviews aimed at gaining first insight into factors, which might be associated with exposure to internet-delivered interventions. These results will be discussed and suggestions for practical implications to improve exposure will be given.Implications for practice and research\nConcluding remarks: The results of this exploration serve as an important first step to get more insight into factors that improve exposure to such interventions. Factors like, for example, the use of WOM-marketing, avatars and reminders need to be thoroughly investigated. A next step would therefore be to conduct observational, experimental and longitudinal studies to test if and how these factors improve exposure to internet-delivered interventions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to gain first insight into factors which might be associated with exposure to internet-delivered interventions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with five groups of Dutch adolescents (n=54), aged 12-17 years. Several aspects of exposure: a first visit; staying long enough actually to use and process the information; and revisiting the intervention, were explored.\nFindings: - Several factors that are likely to improve exposure to internet-delivered interventions were identified, such as the use of \"word of mouth\" marketing, comparison of own behaviour with friends and the use of reminders.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Focus group interviews are only a first step in the generation of ideas and opinions. A next step would be to conduct observational, experimental and longitudinal studies to test if and how these factors improve exposure to internet-delivered interventions.\nPractical implications: - This paper is a useful source for those developing internet-delivered interventions who want to improve exposure rates to their interventions.\nOriginality/value: - The results of this exploration serve as an important first step to gain more insight into factors that improve exposure to internet-delivered interventions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Revisiting high-reliability organizing: obstacles to safety and resilience
|
[
"Resilience",
"Communication",
"Safety",
"High-reliability organization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Resurging interest in high-reliability organizations (HROs) calls for reconsidering the communicative enactment of HRO principles (Jahn, 2016; Jahn and Black, 2017). HROs, or high hazard organizations, operate in a complex and volatile environment with an elevated potential for catastrophic error (e.g. oil work, chemical plants, airlines, fire departments), yet they achieve fewer than expected safety accidents (Roberts, 1990). Because of their \"continual exposure to potential crises\" and their distinctive demands on awareness and cognition within a highly complex environment, HROs require specialized theories and recommendations for further improving organizational performance (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2006, p. 515):Unlike conventional organizations that focus on success, simplicity, strategy, planning, and hierarchical authority, HROs use a contradictory model. They pay more attention to failures than success, avoid simplicity rather than cultivate it, are just as sensitive to operations as they are to strategy, organize for resilience rather than anticipation, and allow decisions to migrate to experts wherever they are located(Weick, 2016, p. 338).\nFraming high-reliability organizing as mindfulness: Mindlessness is the enemy of high-reliability organizing; it neglects dangerous cues, ushers in mistakes, and leads ultimately to failure (Weick and Putnam, 2006). A mindful organizational culture, by contrast, has an acute awareness of warning signs, adapts behaviors based on changing contexts, and incorporates lessons from previous failures (Veil, 2010):Mindfulness, with its emphasis on context and detail, slows down the speed with which we call something \"the same.\" And when we sense more differences, we can develop a richer and more varied picture of potential consequences, which can then suggest a richer and more varied set of precautions and early warning signs(Weick and Sutcliffe, 2015, p. 65).\nObstructions to effective high-reliability organizing: A key facet of HROs is that these high-risk systems must actively \"suppress tendencies toward inertia\" by enacting mindfulness (Weick et al., 1999, p. 81). Efforts to maintain an error-free operation by suppressing inertia begin with this tacit assumption: to pursue unconstrained learning, question everything. In the same way and to a similar end, HRO scholarship itself must actively question whether there are unexpected obstructions to organizing that may not be immediately visible in the context of prior scholarship. To take one example, current communication scholarship often emphasizes cognition and interaction at the individual and team levels as the catalysts for change (e.g. Jahn and Black, 2017). The attention given to these two spheres of influence overlooks the role the organization plays in constituting and reconstituting certain (un)safe performances. Instead of viewing the organization as a backdrop for cognition and interaction, it is imperative to examine the organization's agency in limiting reliability and resilience in HROs. Focusing on aspects of organizational control and power that facilitate certain identity performances, for example, allows for a more complete understanding of cognition and interaction within HROs. With this added insight, scholars and practitioners can facilitate more meaningful interventions, training initiatives, and management practices to enhance reliability and resilience. The following section highlights the under-researched obstructions to effective HRO management.\nToward a new HRO research agenda: HRO research attends to the tightly coupled organizational systems that demand requisite variety - the assumption that managing a complex environment will require a variety of inputs (Weick, 1987). Accordingly, each of the five principles of high-reliability organizing attends to the ways requisite variety may be achieved. Nevertheless, as Jahn and Black (2017) note:Requisite variety is difficult to achieve because its sources often are the organization members who are easiest to dismiss, the scraps of information that are easier to ignore than deal with, and the actions that are easier to reproduce than to reinvent(p. 17).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to complicate and critique contemporary scholarship on high-reliability organizations (HROs). This paper argues that although HRO scholarship helps to identify communicative patterns that facilitate reliability and safety, it also simplifies processes that undermine the effectiveness of existing recommendations for HROs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper frames high-reliability organizing as the enactment of mindfulness, which is the theoretical mechanism behind each of the five principles of high-reliability organizing. Using this framework, this paper then elaborates on each of the HRO principles: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise.\nFindings: This paper details how research guided by HRO theory must address the following obstacles to safety and resilience: information accessibility limiting preoccupation with failure, identity constructions encouraging the simplification of interpretations, message fatigue repressing sensitivity to operations, the information environment within HROs weakening commitment to resilience, and generational differences impeding deference to expertise.\nOriginality/value: This paper highlights key issues obstructing safety and reliability in organizations that have been largely ignored by extant literature and encourages scholars to do more to acknowledge the role communication plays in constituting and reconstituting organizational reliability. Failing to fully address complex communicative interactions in HROs obstructs efforts to safeguard employee health and safety.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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