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Does foreign direct investment affect economic growth? The case of Turkey
|
[
"Development",
"Developing countries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic development can be achieved through increasing production capacity as a result of investments (particularly fixed capital investments). Having the necessary savings is an important indicator for the sustainable economic development of a country, because savings are used to finance investments. If a country has a savings gap, it can sustain its economic development by using its old savings or attracting foreign investments. Attracting foreign savings to the country can be possible through the external indebtedness of a country, or foreign capital inflows to the country. In the narrow sense, the foreign capital implies that the foreign countries possess the existing capital stock of a country rather than the host country (Karluk, 2001).\n2. The concept of FDI: With the aim of enhancing economic growth, various forms of policies are adopted from developing countries and emerging economies in order to attract more foreign investments. Investments among countries are divided into two categories in the international economics literature: portfolio investments and FDIs. Portfolio investments are the categories of international investment that cover investment in equity and debt securities by taking on additional risks, such as international political risks, exchange rate risks and knowledge acquisition risks (Istanbul Menkul Kiymetler Borsasi (IMKB), 1994; OECD, 2008a). FDI is the process whereby residents of one country (the source country) acquire ownership of assets for the purpose of controlling the production, distribution and other activities of a firm in another country (the host country) (Moosa, 2002). According to the OECD (2008a), FDI is defined as an investment made to acquire a lasting interest by an entity resident in one economy in an enterprise resident in another economy. The UNCTAD (2012) defines FDI as an investment made to acquire lasting interest in enterprises operating outside of the economy of the investor. The investor's aim through FDI is to gain an effective voice in the management of the enterprise. This implies that direct investors are able to influence the management of an enterprise, yet does not imply absolute control. The most important characteristic of FDI, which distinguishes it from the foreign portfolio investment, is that it is undertaken with the intention of exercising control over an enterprise OECD (2008b). The term \"long-term\" is used to distinguish FDI from portfolio investment. In other words, direct investment is referred to as a \"direct investment enterprise.\" According to the UNCTAD (2012), once a direct investment enterprise has been identified, it is necessary to define which capital flows between the enterprise and entities in other economies should be classified as FDI. Only the capital that is provided by the direct investor either directly or through other enterprises related to the investor should be classified as FDI. The forms of investment by the direct investor that are classified as FDI are equity capital, the reinvestment of earnings and the provision of long-term and short-term intra-company loans (between parent and affiliate enterprises) (UNCTAD, 2012).\n3. Inward and outward FDI: FDI can be categorized as \"inward FDI\" and \"outward FDI.\" Inward FDI is the investment of foreign investors for domestic resources. It is generally accepted that inward FDI increases capital accumulation. Its competitive effect leads to the positive distribution of resources and therefore, through increased productivity, inward FDI increases the standard of living in the host country. Outward FDI is the investment of domestic investors for foreign resources. However, outward FDI is not supported in developing countries due to the negative effects created by capital outflows from the economy. Moreover, FDIs are divided into four types: \"Greenfield FDI,\" \"Mergers and Acquisitions,\" \"Horizontal FDI\" and \"Vertical FDI.\" Among them, the most beneficial to the host country is the Greenfield FDI, which leads to the construction of additional production facilities and the enlargement of existing production facilities through transference of technology and know-how, increased employment capacity and research and development activities (Mucuk, 2011). The tendency of a FDI to a country depends upon the effectiveness of various economic factors. These include: market size, market growth, market structure, labor costs, labor productivity, wages, quality of human resources, cultural factors, trade barriers, tariffs, exchange rates, inflation, openness, growth rate, political stability, transport and communication costs, investment incentives, investment tax, domestic investments and infrastructure (UNCTAD, 2006; Kok and Ersoy, 2009). Moreover, what makes a country appear attractive includes the following factors: the country should have a large market (market size), a cheap labor force (labor costs), investment advantages provided by public authorities (such as tax reductions and land supports), absence of sharp fluctuations in exchange rates, low inflation rate (which reduces risks and economic uncertainty), a high degree of openness (which indicates the size of the restrictions for exports and imports), a skilled labor supply, protectionist measures of the host country, cheap energy and natural resources and geopolitical advantages. In this context, the positive effects of FDIs are as follows: economic growth, strong balance of payments, employment and wage growth, technological advancement, productivity growth and lower poverty. Conversely, the negative effects of FDIs are also as follows: intervention in national issues, cultural change, technological dependency, exclusion of the national capital, reduction of tax revenues, environmental pollution and balance of payments issues (Mucuk, 2011).\n4. Empirical analysis: 4.1 Method and data selection\n5. Summary and conclusion: Capital movements have been studied in many studies as a result of globalization. These studies have especially focussed on the importance of FDI, rather than on portfolio investments, on the economic development of developing countries. FDI and technology transfer to the host country, in addition to the effect of job creation, lead to productivity growth and then reduced poverty in the host country. In other words, inward FDI contributes to economic growth. In this context Turkey, which has adopted a free-market economy since the 24th of January Decisions, has made regulations for foreign investors that have led to the economy benefiting from the positive effects of FDI. As a result, FDI inflows to Turkey increased significantly between 1980 and 1984. Although Turkey adopted liberal legislations, after this period, foreign investor unease increased with economic fluctuations. With the arrangements made in 2003, foreign investors have been treated equally with domestic investors. Moreover, after the 1994, 2001 and 2002 crises, Turkish financial markets have been strengthened through the restructuring of the financial structure. As a result of these developments, from 2005 to the present, an upward trend has been observed in FDI inflows to Turkey. In this study the effect of inward FDI flows to Turkey and international trade on economic growth was examined for the post liberalization period (1980-2010) by employing a VAR model. As a result, a relationship was found between economic growth and inward FDI and exports. According to the variance decomposition results, the level of relationship increased as the number of periods increased. Finally, despite the positive developments, the reason for insufficient inward FDI flows to Turkey should be questioned separately one by one because as stated by Ercakar and Karagol (2011), Turkey, which has advantages in terms of its geostrategic position, population and economic size, has not received a proper share from the dispersion of FDI flows.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade on economic growth in Turkey for the post-liberalization period (1980-2010).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper employs the vector auto-regression model with four variables: real GDP growth, real inward FDI, the real import volume index and the real export volume index.\nFindings: Empirical results suggest a relationship between economic growth, inward FDI and exports.\nPractical implications: The results derived in this paper shed light on the relationship between FDI and international trade on economic growth for Turkey, which has been applying an export-led growth strategy since 1980, and has been implementing many regulations to attract foreign capital. It is evident that although Turkey's efforts and the importance of this issue, new policies and stabilization regulations must be established for the Turkish economy.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature in at least two aspects. First, a comparative analysis of Turkey's inward and outward FDI with respect to different country groups was analyzed. Second, apart from other studies, the effect of inward FDI and international trade on Turkey's economic growth was tested utilizing an econometric method from 1980 to 2010, which is a relatively long time period for Turkey.\n",
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Cross-listing of real estate investment trusts (REITs)
|
[
"Asia",
"REITs",
"Event study methodology",
"Cross-listing",
"International asset pricing model",
"USA and Europe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The real estate investment trust (REIT) sector has witnessed rapid growth and heightened interest in the developed and emerging countries. According to information at REIT.com (downloaded on 27 April 2016), the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index included 487 publicly listed real estate companies in 38 countries worldwide as of 30 September 2015. Equity REITs accounted for 79 per cent of the $1.2 trillion ($948 billion) Developed Markets Index equity market capitalisation as of 30 September 2015. This shows a 66.9 per cent growth in the market capitalisation of $568 billion reported by Ernst and Young (2010). Furthermore, rapid globalisation in the financial markets as a result of the deregulation of the markets fuelled cross-listing of securities (Gagnon and Karolyi, 2011). Proliferation of cross-listings has resulted in intense competition among the major securities markets to attract and retain listings to provide investors with a wider range of investment products. Although research findings are somewhat mixed, there appears to be a general consensus among most researchers that cross-listing enables companies and investors worldwide to connect seamlessly across geographical boundaries and time zones, and helps to raise capital at a relatively lower cost (Dodd, 2013) by breaching the barriers posed by market segmentation (Stapleton and Subrahmanyam, 1977) and providing diversification benefits.\nOverview of cross-listing: The cross-listing concept has been in existence for more than a century (Sarkissian and Schill, 2009) although its popularity increased exponentially only in recent decades. Cross-listing involves at least two markets, with a debut primary listing typically in the country of incorporation (often referred to as the home/local market). This type of cross-listing is often called DOL. An example of a DOL REIT is the Singapore listed Fortune REIT, which chose to dual list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Table I provides a list of REITs that were concurrently listed on two exchanges at the time of the research.\nThe related literature: According to conventional wisdom, cross-listings have many associated benefits (Karolyi, 2006). Stapleton and Subrahmanyam (1977) suggest that cross-listing can circumvent market segmentation which results from market barriers that are mainly due to exchange rate risks and restrictions on foreign direct investments (Jithendranathan et al., 2000). This hypothesis posits that overcoming market barriers results in reduced cost of capital and increased firm value. Alexander et al. (1987, 1988) postulate and evidence that lower expected returns are expected from cross-listing if markets were previously segmented. Based on a sample of Canadian and non-Canadian firms that cross-listed in the USA, the decline was less for the former firms. This led to the explanation that the magnitude of decline was associated with the degree of segmentation.\nData and methodology: Publicly listed REITs from several countries were obtained from Bloomberg online information system - Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK and USA. REITs concurrently listed on more than one securities exchange were identified (see Table I), and their cross-listing dates were double checked with annual reports.\nResults and findings - whether cross-listing has positive valuation effect: Table VI presents the mean daily total returns for all the cross-listed REITs relative to the listing day (day 0). Average daily returns for both the pre-cross-listing period (-250, -2) and the cross-listing period (-1, +1) are negative (-0.00002 and -0.00487, respectively) and statistically insignificant. The mean daily return for the post-cross-listing period (+2, +250) is positive (0.0062) but remains statistically insignificant. The same trend is observed for REITs with DRs but with a notable exception that the positive mean daily return (0.00129) for the post-cross-listing period is statistically significant at the 0.05 level of significance.\nResults of cross-sectional two-factor IAPM: Table X presents the a coefficients for the cross-sectional, two-factor IAPM analysis of the event window (-250, +250). a denotes the mean ARs and it is different from the event study's ARs as total returns are used for the IAPM. The extra factor of the dividends is to be considered herewith. This is relevant to the REITs because they are required to distribute almost all their earnings as dividends, depending on the domestic market regulations. The IAPM ARs are also based upon the dual market exposure, thereby reflective of REITs.\nConclusion: The results show that all the cross-listed REITs (ALL REITs) recorded positive post-cross-listing mean daily return that was statistically insignificant. However, DR had positive valuation effect by posting a statistically significant post-cross-listing mean daily return while DOL had negative valuation effect by recording a statistically insignificant post-cross-listing mean daily return.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the common stock price reaction and the changes to the risk exposure of the cross-listing for real estate investment trusts (REITs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopts the event study methodology to assess the abnormal returns (ARs). Pre- and post-cross-listing changes in the risk exposure for the domestic and foreign markets are examined, via a modified two-factor international asset pricing model. A comparison is made for two broad cross-listings, namely, the depositary receipts and the dual ordinary listings, to examine the impacts from institutional differences.\nFindings: Cross-listed REITs generally experience positive and significant ARs throughout the event window, implying significant superior returns associated with the cross-listing for REITs. On systematic risks, REITs exhibit significant decline in their domestic market b coefficients after the cross-listing. However, the foreign market b coefficients do not yield conclusive evidence when compared across the sample.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results are consistent with prudential asset allocation for potential diversification gains from the cross-listing, as the reduction from the domestic market beta is more significant than changes in the foreign market beta.\nPractical implications: The results and findings should incentivise REIT managers to explore viable cross-listing.\nSocial implications: Such cross-listing for REITs should enhance risk diversification.\nOriginality/value: This is a pioneer study on cross-listing of REITs. It provides a basis for investment decision making, and could provoke further research and discussion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Innovative management for organizational sustainability in higher education
|
[
"Higher education",
"Organizational sustainability",
"Advancement",
"Diversity",
"Strategic adaptation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background and introduction: As a part of the wholesale post-apartheid transformation of higher education in South Africa, three universities were amalgamated to form the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in 2005. The Soweto and East Rand campuses of Vista University were incorporated into the Rand Afrikaans University in 2004, and this incorporated entity merged with the Technikon Witwatersrand in 2005. All three institutions were creatures of the apartheid ideology and had very different institutional cultures and missions. The avowed purpose of the newly established UJ was to redress the educational inequalities inflicted by South Africa's previous apartheid regime (DOE, 2002, p. 1). Many were sceptical of the success of a forced marriage of three very diverse institutions.\n2. Innovation for a sustainable knowledge organization: Already in the 1970s, United Nations agencies began to concern themselves with global environmental sustainability issues. The Talloires Declaration of 1990 committed university leaders to the promotion of environmental sustainability in higher education and set a ten-point plan of action in support of this endeavour (Luzano et al., 2013). The first global summit on sustainable development took place in 1992 and was followed a decade later by another global summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since then, sustainability has been the subject of major global concern. The meaning of \"sustainability\" has also been broadened considerably in the early years of the twenty-first century (Wright, 2002). It now encompasses a holistic approach in which issues of social, financial, health-related and educational sustainability underpin the fundamental notion of environmental sustainability. The 2013 white paper on the post-school education in South Africa is premised on the desire to create a structure for the post-school education that is, both in form and in substance, sustainable within the South African economic and educational landscape.\n3. Challenges of the merger: Much has already been written on the mergers within higher education in South Africa. It is, however, necessary to provide a brief overview of the merger process in respect of the UJ. This is so because it creates the important strategic context within which strategic planning for a sustainable higher education environment at the UJ commenced in 2009/2010. Despite the historical deterrents, the tertiary education system in South Africa, which traditionally consisted of universities and \"technikons\" (polytechnics), had for years delivered a vast pool of human resources to feed the professional job market. Universities were perceived by the general public to have a scholarship-based, theoretical and research-oriented focus, providing undergraduate and postgraduate degree qualifications, whereas technikons were perceived to have a more practical and career-focused, vocational approach to higher education, providing diploma qualifications and some postgraduate degree qualifications (DOE, 2002, p. 3 and Van der Merwe, 2012, p. 215). In addition, the entrance requirements (e.g. school subjects required and \"scores\" awarded per subject) of universities have always been higher than those of technikons, resulting in the popular perception that university qualifications are more difficult to obtain, and therefore more highly valued, than technikon qualifications. It says much for pervasive social attitudes, and the degree of change that they must undergo, that the degree of value attached to a qualification is dependent more on the degree of difficulty involved in its attainment than on its usefulness.\n4. The strategic intent of the UJ: The strategic intent of the UJ formed the frame of reference from where its strategic plan and the tactical innovative actions enabled it to realize its objectives. In the years up to 2013, and in line with the state-sponsored transformational theme for its establishment in 2005, the UJ's professed mission was to position itself as a modern African city university. This encompassed a cosmopolitan character that asserts academic freedom in the liberal, progressive and transformative values it espouses (University of Johannesburg, 2013). The UJ's aim was to provide education that is affordable, accessible, challenging, imaginative and innovative. The university wanted to contribute to a just, responsible and sustainable society. To support the comprehensive nature of its existence, the university strove to offer a wide range of excellent programs at different academic levels. There was also a commitment made to cultivate well-balanced students with integrity, who are knowledgeable, ethical and confident global citizens.\n5. Areas of innovation: To achieve the listed strategic thrusts with their key indicators as described, the university had to innovate and reconsider its approaches. The implementation of an innovative strategy assisted the UJ to realize many of its set objectives in a much shorter period than planned. The upward mobility of the institution has been recognized internationally: At its first entry, the UJ was placed in the top 4 per cent of the world's tertiary institutions in the 2013 QS World University Rankings (it took 61st place among universities in the BRICS countries and is ranked 5th among participating South African universities) and the choice by President Barack Obama of the Soweto Campus of the UJ as the setting for his engagement with African youth in June 2013, followed by his acceptance of an UJ honorary doctorate. The UJ maintained its top 4 per cent ranking in 2014. The UJ has also been included - as the only African university - into the Universitas 21 Consortium, thus enabling the institution to learn from and share with other top international institutions of higher education. This, and much more, has confirmed the emerging eminence of this newcomer to the national and international higher education sector. Some of these innovations are described below.\n6. Conclusions and recommendations for further research: The UJ now offers a wide range of academic programs (from short courses, certificates, diplomas, junior degrees and postgraduate degrees) and has adopted a very specific modus operandi to realize its objectives and strategically position itself as a global establishment of relevant, quality research and higher education. Furthermore, because of its geographically significant location in the economically powerful Johannesburg, the UJ seeks to fulfil a key role in support of this function. The strategic planning that underpinned the strategic thrusts 2011-2020 and the implementation strategies for the achievement of the key indicators to the thrusts also provided a steep learning curve for strategic planners and implementers in the university. The result is that the Strategic Plan 2025 is in many respects a more sophisticated document than its planning predecessor. It contains more nuanced key indicators, a greater variety of indicators to measure key performance areas (such as teaching and learning, research and internationalization) and a better understanding of the approach to target setting. It would not have been the well-rounded document it is, had it not been for the innovative approach of its predecessor.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the innovative management strategies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) during volatile post-merger years, in its quest for a sustainable future. It illustrates how the institution went from a place of relative uncertainty and volatility to a place of progression and stability by adapting to its environment and challenging circumstances.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A holistic and inter-disciplinary approach is taken by the authors to demonstrate that organizational innovation and sustainability do not happen in isolation. The paper includes a literature review to contextualize the challenging environment in which the UJ was established and functions. A brief description of the strategic goals of the university is provided as a framework from within which the innovative management activities were launched. Data and information from the UJ's stakeholder reports were used as measurement tools to determine the progress in reaching strategic targets.\nFindings: Innovation in higher education reported on in this paper is a result of many planning sessions, policy and procedure formulations, brainstorming and benchmarking exercises, performance reviews, management interventions and statistical analyses. A set of necessary and sufficient conditions for innovation in sustainable development in higher education include decisive leadership on strategic direction; regular, flexible and inclusive planning; regular culture climate surveys; constant monitoring of progress; and strategic agility that is essential to promote innovation among the entire workforce.\nOriginality/value: The challenges, context and approaches provided in this paper serve as a frame of reference for other institutions of higher learning that face similar challenges in a dynamic, diverse and volatile environment.\n",
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Equal, but different? The impact of gender egalitarianism on the integration of female/male HR directors
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Gender",
"Women executives",
"Culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Human resource management as a profession has traditionally been a female domain (Legge, 1987). Recently there are an even greater number of women than men in the HR profession (Brandl et al., 2006; Roos and Manley, 1996; Wirth, 2001) and a considerable number of them also work in managerial positions (Brandl et al., 2007; Pichler et al., 2005). Despite these improvements, recent studies indicate the persistence of differences in responsibilities and status of men and women within the HR profession in non-managerial positions (Monks, 1993; Simpson and Lenoir, 2003) as well as at the managerial level (Brandl et al., 2007). Research from the UK and USA shows that compared to men, female HR professionals are employed in lower hierarchical positions (Canniffe, 1985; Long, 1984) and predominate HR jobs in the field of training and development, while they are less present in collective bargaining and industrial relations (Simpson and Lenoir, 2003).The present study builds on this work by describing how equality in HR functional responsibilities and the status of female and male HR directors varies cross-nationally and by analysing how cultural values affect apparent role differences between female and male HR directors. An empirical study at the country level is carried out to answer these questions.The study seeks to make three contributions to research on the role of women in the HR profession. First, it sets findings from previous research with a single country focus in a broader perspective by providing empirical evidence on national differences in sex-role differences. Second, it complements insights into individual and organizational determinants on the disproportionately high assignment of female HR professionals to female stereotyped responsibilities and lower status positions - known as \"ghettoization\" (Roos and Manley, 1996) - by examining the impact of cultural values on the division of work between male and female HR directors. Third, it provides a more fine-grained picture of the division of HR work that goes beyond specialization of female HR professionals in occupational fields by looking at the gendered profile of a particular type of HR position, namely the HR director of an organization. In particular, we describe the HR directors' positions by examining their responsibilities and status.\nConceptual backround: Gender egalitarian values\nMethod: Sample\nFindings: Table I provides the disaggregated sample description giving information on characteristics of HR directors and their HR departments in each of the 22 countries separately. It also includes the numbers of companies from which the mean and percentage values for the aggregated sample are calculated. The first column displays the mean percentage of female employees in an Australian, Austrian, etc. HR department. In all the countries more than half of the employees in HR departments are female. In most cases the proportion ranges from 60 to 80 per cent. In France, the number of women in HRM is especially high; on average 95 per cent of employees in HR departments are women. The second column shows the percentage of HR directors in each country who possess an academic degree. In almost all the countries (except The Netherlands) the majority of HR directors are university graduates. In Bulgaria, France, the Philippines, Spain and the USA more than 90 per cent of all HR directors have an academic degree. The mean experience of HR directors, depicted in column three, ranges between ten and 20 years in the majority of countries - only former communist countries Hungary and the Czech Republic show lower values. The fourth column gives the average size of an HR department relative to the whole company (both measured in number of employees) in a certain country. Switzerland shows the highest value; the average Swiss HR department employs more than 4 per cent of the company's staff. In the majority of countries the average size of an HR department is 1-2 per cent compared to the company as a whole.Table II provides descriptive statistics of the disaggregated sample. In order to give first insights on the difference or equality of female and male HR directors in the countries included, we differentiate between the two groups of female and male HR directors also showing the differences which serve as our dependent variables in the following regression models. Table II also includes gender egalitarian values in the 22 countries. In the first column we see Spain, the Nordic countries, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy scoring high on gender egalitarianism (up to 77.7) whereas former communist countries like Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Hungary score low (down to 28.9).In 19 of the 22 countries female HR directors are on average less strategically integrated than their male counterparts. With a scale for strategic integration that can range from 0 to 2 the differences go up to 0.55 in Cyprus, 0.42 in the Czech Republic and 0.29 in Australia. In Slovenia, Hungary and the Philippines female HR directors are (slightly) more integrated than male equivalents.The next three columns provide information on mean responsibilities for hard HR functions. Comparing the average degree of responsibilities of female and male in the different countries we find a rather diverse picture. In 12 of the 22 countries female HR directors are more involved in carrying out hard functions. The differences range from 0.04 in Germany and Switzerland to 0.91 in New Zealand. For the responsibility for soft functions (depicted in the last three columns) we find a different picture. Soft functions are rather female dominated. In 17 of the 22 countries mean involvement in soft functions is higher among female HR directors than among their male counterparts.For the main study on the aggregated level we are concerned with the mere difference between HR departments with female and male directors and not with the direction of differences. Table III provides means, standard deviations and correlations for the variables aggregated on the country level.The mean gender egalitarian value of the countries included is 54.74 (theoretical range 0 to 100). Difference in strategic integration can - like the scales the differences are calculated from - range from 0 to 2. The actual mean is 0.20. The mean values of difference in responsibility for hard/soft functions (possible range 0 to 6) are 0.33 and 0.41, respectively. On average the HR departments of a country have 72.78 per cent female employees and represent 1.82 per cent of their companies' sizes. The average HR director has 14.37 years experience in the field and on average 76.58 per cent of the directors held an academic degree. We find significant negative correlations of the main explanatory variable gender egalitarian values with difference in strategic integration and difference in responsibility for soft functions. This indicates that the countries displaying higher gender egalitarian values show less differences between female and male HR directors.Table IV summarizes the OLS regression results for the three dependent variables. H1 proposes that gender egalitarianism has a negative effect on the difference in strategic integration. Following this expectation the effect of gender egalitarianism is negative and significant (p(2sided)<0.05). None of the control variables shows significant association with difference in strategic integration. H3 is also supported. The difference in responsibility for soft functions is significantly negatively related with gender egalitarian values (p(2sided)<0.05).Difference in responsibility for hard HR functions seems to follow a pattern different to the one for soft functions. H2 is not supported. The difference in responsibility for hard HR functions is not significantly associated with gender egalitarian values but with the percentage of female employees in the HR department. However, since the whole model is not significant for hard functions, this result cannot be interpreted.The residuals of all three models are normally distributed and their levels of autocorrelations are not substantial (Durbin Watson between 1.81 and 2.22). Calculation of the variance inflation factors does not indicate multicollinearity. The distribution of the residuals does not raise suspicion of strong heteroskedasticity for the models with difference in strategic integration and responsibility for hard HR functions, respectively, as dependent variables. The visual inspection of the partial scatter plot of residuals from the soft-functions model, however, suggests rather serious violation of equal variances. Analysis with White heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors and covariance reveals a weaker (p(1sided)=0.07) influence of gender egalitarianism whereas the coefficient of relative size of HR department gained strength (p(2sided)=0.01).\nDiscussion and conclusions: While critical HR scholars acknowledge that the situation of female HR professionals needs to be discussed in relation to societal contexts (Legge, 1987, p. 33-34), the societal level has been rather neglected in empirical analyses of the sources for sex-role differences in the HR profession so far. In this paper, we have attempted to contribute to filling this gap by exploring how differences among female and male HR directors vary cross-nationally and how gender egalitarian values affect probable role differences between female and male HR directors.The descriptive findings of our study show that sex-role differences between female and male HR directors are subject to considerable cross-national variation. Particularly noteworthy, in some 22 of the countries we studied, female HR professionals are equally integrated in strategic decisions and hold similar functional HR responsibilities. These findings challenge existing work on female HR professionals from the Anglo-Saxon context which indicates considerable discrepancies in roles between female and male HR professionals.In order to understand the cross-national patterns, we consulted research on cultural values (Charles and Bradley, 2002; Omar and Davidson, 2001; Ramirez and Wotipka, 2001). This research suggests that sex-role differences in the HR profession lessen with the prevalence of gender egalitarian values. Overall, our study supports the argument that gender egalitarian values have integrative consequences, i.e. they reduce role differences in the status and functional responsibilities of HR professionals. However, the integrative effects are rather weak and the effects we measured for functional responsibilities are even weaker than the effects for hierarchical status. Prior research explains these weaker relationships with a higher taken-for-grantedness of sex-role differences in functional areas as compared to hierarchy levels (Charles and Bradley, 2002, p. 575). Differences in functional specialization are likely to be perceived as more natural, so the need to challenge them is not even recognized and efforts to change them end up facing strong resistance.Interestingly, our descriptive analysis shows that in 12 out of 22 countries, including low gender egalitarian countries (e.g. Austria, Italy), female HR directors have more (!) responsibility for HR functions such as labour relations and pay and benefits than their male counterparts. This is puzzling because previous research suggests that these HR functions are traditionally dominated by male HR professionals. Gooch (1994, p. 17) clearly asserts the low involvement of female HR professionals with these functions: \"By the 1970s, women's influence in the personnel function had declined with the growing emphasis on the need for personnel to handle industrial relations issues.\"One possible explanation for this counterintuitive finding could be that an HR director's responsibility for specific operative HR functions is not only a measure for gender stereotyped work, but also an indicator for the total work load of the HR director. Supporting this view, HRM research postulates that HR directors need to reduce their involvement with operative HR activities generally (e.g. devolve them to line managers) in order to have more resources for participating in strategic decision making (Larsen and Brewster, 2003). In this case, a higher responsibility of female HR directors for HR functions could be an indicator for the uneven distribution of workload among male and female HR directors and is thus more likely to occur in low gender egalitarian contexts.This suggests that understanding sex differences in the responsibility for operative HR functions of one particular position is more complex than the representation of women and men in specific HR fields at the occupational level. The study of sex differences within HR professional positions of the same category needs to take in account not only the gender-stereotype of HR activities but also how much these activities are valued in a particular context.Legge (1987) sees the HR profession as a very good example of the subordination of women in employment. This makes it an important field for studying cross-national patterns in role differences of female and male managers. Our study raises a number of follow-up research questions for understanding cross-national variation in sex-role differences among HR directors: Which factors other than culture contribute to understanding patterns of sex-role differences? What specific requirements do female HR directors need to fulfil to achieve equalization in low egalitarian contexts? How are the particular sex-roles of HR directors enacted and maintained within organisations? The last question also requires different research designs (e.g. ethnographic studies, conversation analyses) that could be useful to develop the micro-foundations to our macro-analysis.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the status and functional responsibilities of female human resource (HR) directors vary cross-nationally and how gender egalitarian cultural values affect role differences between female and male HR directors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A cross-country comparison of HR directors involving 22 countries based on the 2004 Cranet survey.\nFindings: - Consistent with the hypotheses, gender egalitarian values reduce sex-role differences for strategic integration and for traditionally female-stereotyped HR functions. However, there is no support for the notion that egalitarian values influence sex differences for male-stereotyped HR functions. Since, the data indicate higher levels of involvement of female HR directors in male-stereotyped HR functions in 12 out of 22 countries, unequal distribution of functional responsibility is interpreted as an indicator for sex differences in administrative workload.\nOriginality/value: - Macro cultural factors matter for sex-role differences in strategic integration and functional responsibilities of HR directors. The effects of gender egalitarian values have greater impact on reducing vertical differences than horizontal differences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Mind the gap: The mediating role of mindful marketing between market and quality orientations, their interaction, and consequences
|
[
"Marketing strategy",
"Market orientation",
"Quality orientation",
"Organizational mindfulness",
"Mindful consumption",
"Value co‐creation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Mindful marketing is an increasingly important notion that aligns marketers' and consumers' interests in the marketing process. Also known as exemplary marketing, mindful marketing carries an important mission to cultivate mindful consumption through effective, efficient, and ethical ways, while instantaneously considering the interests of both buyers and sellers (Sheth and Sisodia, 2006; Sheth et al., 2011). The fundamental objective is for the marketers to seek ways to create win-win strategies by thoughtfully aligning marketing functions with consumers' interests in mind, and avoid being involved in wasteful, unethical, and/or dumb marketing (Sheth and Sisodia, 2006). As today's consumers are facing with many choices when making a consumption decision, often times the overwhelming choices and marketing propaganda diminish their motivation and ability to choose, and their satisfaction with the chosen option (Malhotra, 1984; Scheibehenne et al., 2009). The consequent outcome is either under- or over-consumption (Sheth et al., 2011). Recognizing this inherent dilemma, marketers must seek ways to develop relational solutions where consumers' needs can be optimally fulfilled.Mindful marketing is a customer-centric approach that is inherently linked with the concepts of market and quality orientations (QO). Market orientation (MO) has been a cornerstone of marketing thought on the premise that its successful implementation will engender sustainable advantage, and satisfy customers more effectively than competitors (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). While MO has evolved as both a cultural and a behavioral philosophy that underpins the success of many organizations (Homburg and Pflesser, 2000), QO, on the other hand, is often adopted from an operation or service perspective. A concurrent focus on MO and QO is lacking in marketing literature even though they are both considered sources of superior business performance (Sittimalakorn and Hart, 2004), and product/service quality may be a part of the complex chain between MO, innovation, and organizational performance (Kirca et al., 2005). Some scholars noted the need to identify and study additional barriers when adopting a single orientation (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). Achieving an optimal or even an acceptable level of MO remains challenging especially when buyers and sellers disagree in their perceptions of it (Steinmann et al., 2000).This paper aims to fill this research gap by integrating three distinctive streams of research in MO, QO, and organizational mindfulness. It represents a first attempt to integrate marketing and organization research on mindfulness to date with market and QO perspectives. The proposed framework demonstrates how the two strategic orientations can be levered to facilitate the implementation of mindful marketing which in turn leads to desirable organizational and societal outcomes.The organization of the rest of the article is as follows: first, we provide a review of the emerging literature on organizational mindfulness. Second, we examine the similarity and differences between market and QO, and present a nomological network that links these key constructs to mindful marketing, mindful consumption, and value co-creation. We then develop 14 propositions to substantiate the presented framework. We conclude with managerial implications and research directions.\n2 A conceptual overview of mindfulness: Mindfulness shares conceptual ideas advanced by several philosophical and psychological traditions including ancient Greek philosophy, phenomenology, naturalism, existentialism, and transcendentalism. The term mindfulness originates from the Pali language word sati, meaning \"to remember\" as a mode of consciousness that commonly signifies presence of mind (Guranatana, 2009). This seemingly simple concept has been widely adopted by various academic disciplines and theorized to have widespread effects on human functioning and behavior, in particular, on mental health and well-being, physical health, self-regulation, and interpersonal behavior (Brown et al., 2007).Early mindfulness research focused on examining its basic characteristics with relevance to social issues related to health, business, and education. Studies of health ramifications were among the earliest topics of mindfulness research. These works examined issues such as aging and control. Due to its potential business outcomes, managers were also eager to utilize techniques that would increase mindfulness in the work environment. Studies of mindfulness in business contexts found that a higher level of mindfulness is associated with increased creativity, and decreased burnout. Education is also an area that often seems to be affiliated with this topic. A summary of important educational ramifications of mindfulness are succinctly covered in the book, The Power of Mindful Learning by Langer (1997). Table I provides a synopsis of mindfulness definitions.2.1 What is a mindful organization?\n3 Conceptual model and propositions: Drawing from three separate streams of literature in MO, QO, and organizational mindfulness, we present a proposed framework that considers the interaction between MO and QO, the mediating role of mindful marketing, and the corresponding link to two organizational outcomes: mindful consumption and value co-creation.3.1 Mindful marketing\n4 Conclusion and implications: Mindful marketing is an important emerging perspective for reaching overall strategic goals. In particular, it appears central to bridging market and QO and create successful organizational and societal outcomes. In this article, we presented the mediating role of mindful marketing as an important marketing mindset and intermediary objective to achieve value co-creation and ultimately mindful consumption. Emphasizing the appropriate orientation (i.e. MO; QO, or both) based on the contingency market state (i.e. buyer's, balanced, or seller's market) decreases the gap between actual and mindful marketing which in turn increases mindful consumption.The proposed framework allows managers to benefit from the synergistic effects of market and QO efforts and embrace a mindful marketing strategy that would consider the stakeholders' intrinsic welfare. In addition, our work also augments managerial thinking in terms of developing organizational commitment, system, and leadership. The implementation of mindful marketing requires not only attitude but also committed behavior. For a successful implementation, several considerations must be in place. First, all members of the organization must be committed willingly and exhibit a strong desire to accept their own critical role in the implementation process (Mowday et al., 1982). Managers must plan for and provide necessary education and continuous improvement training to ensure that the employees are receptive to organization's core values and strategic actions. Second, a decentralized system must be in place for effective interdepartmental coordination and collaboration. Such a system empowers employees to make decisions, encourages volunteering, innovative behavior, and redefines productivity. A decentralized system also allows communication with channel members directly, and thus strengthens partnership, making it easy to create recovery pathways for unexpected events (Kotler et al., 2010). Third, market and societal needs must be considered jointly for every product and service development in order to establish shared value co-creation. Businesses need to develop links to and cater to communities to market its products and services. In turn, communities need businesses to provide employment and wealth creation. Understanding the interdependence relationship would allow firms to have greater access to communities and provide critical assets and supportive environment (Porter and Kramer, 2011). Finally, organizations must strive to strengthen their own capacity and leadership position for mindful marketing. Firms need to leverage creative new technologies such as social media/networking sites to generate positive word-of-mouth. Some common approaches include setting up relationship marketing web sites with appealing context to interact with potential and existing customers, create pro-social activities targeted to market segments, and facilitate new member registration. Previous studies have found that these efforts play important roles in referral programs, influence the adoption rates for new products and services, and ultimately customer lifetime value (Trusov et al., 2009). When customers are convinced that organizations exert great efforts in service quality (Agarwal et al., 2010) and have their best interest in mind, they can be satisfied, loyal and willing to develop a relationship with the firm (Ndubisi et al., 2009). In a recent study of Malaysian healthcare service customers, Ndubisi (2011) found that mindfulness service procedures such as care and information reliability, along with proactive conflict handling can enhance customer orientation and satisfaction, and in turn influence their loyalty. Thus, mindful marketing can help firms to better understand the meaning and the process of value co-creation. This will enable managers to develop competitively compelling value propositions, and encourage mindful consumption.\n5 Directions for future research: Admittedly, it is not easy to measure and quantify constructs such as mindful marketing, mindful consumption, and value co-creation. However, the recent movement of linking marketing actions to financial and performance outcomes has led to significant progress in a relatively short period of time. Nevertheless, \"science is not and should not be synonymous with quantification\" (Malhotra and Uslay, 2009, p. 27, emphasis in original). Adopting mindful marketing requires top management to adhere and listen to the voice of the customers, which implies a more elevated status of the marketing research function in the organization (Malhotra et al., 2006). Overall, there is a need to advance the examination of these key constructs with both quantitative and qualitative techniques.Mindful marketing concerns consciousness, which remains a demanding area of study (Chalmers, 1995). Our proposed framework integrates orientation research and organizational mindfulness studies and is still at an embryonic stage that warrants future investigation. Both mindful marketing and mindful consumption are new concepts that deserve further theoretical refinement. Mindfulness domain is in need of new theories that embrace the broadened roles of buyers and sellers (Malhotra et al., 2008).Future research should address the extent to which the benefits of mindful marketing are specific to mindfulness practices or whether they are a result of a more general self-control mechanism as raised by some mindfulness researchers (Brown et al., 2007). Besides market structure, other moderating variables should be considered. Finally, mindful marketing researchers should also consider possible control variables such as firm size, strategy, and organizational structure (i.e. vertical versus horizontal hierarchy).In summary, we integrate the disparate streams of research in MO, QO, and mindfulness to develop an integrated theoretical framework with value co-creation and mindful consumption outcomes. This framework incorporates the interaction between MO and QO specifying the dimensions of each construct that are involved and how they interact. It also recognizes the moderating role of the market state (i.e. buyer's, balanced, or seller's market), and the mediating role of mindful marketing. The 14 propositions we have derived present a fertile area for future investigations. These propositions along with the other directions for future research we have identified, we hope, will inspire more research in this nascent field.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to integrate the distinctive streams of research on market orientation, quality orientation, and organizational mindfulness, and examine the mediating role of mindful marketing between market orientation and quality orientation, and their linkages to two emerging key outcomes: mindful consumption and value co-creation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on extant orientation and organizational mindfulness research, a conceptual framework is presented to characterize the nomological network among market and quality orientations, mindful marketing, mindful consumption and value co-creation. In total, 14 propositions are extracted.\nFindings: - The paper proposes that the synergistic interaction of market and quality orientation has a direct influence on mindful marketing, which in turn influences two outcomes: mindful consumption and value co-creation. The dual moderating role of market structure is also incorporated among the findings.\nPractical implications: - The proposed framework demonstrates how managers can emphasize market and/or quality orientation in order to develop an optimal mindful marketing strategy that would take the stakeholders' intrinsic benefits into account. It is suggested that this approach will lead to mindful consumption and increase the opportunities for value co-creation among the stakeholders, which will ultimately lead to better organizational performance.\nOriginality/value: - The paper represents a first attempt to integrate two strategic orientations, and the concept of mindfulness. It examines the intimate relationship between market and quality orientations and how they jointly lead to the development of mindful marketing. It also explores the role of two emerging constructs in marketing: mindful consumption and value co-creation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An intelligent approach to Big Data analytics for sustainable retail environment using Apriori-MapReduce framework
|
[
"Big data",
"IRM tool",
"MapReduce Apriori algorithm",
"Market basket analysis",
"Retail analytics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Retail industry has entered in the era of Big Data. Retail transactional databases are generating data with high emphasis on five V's i.e. variety, volume, veracity, velocity, and value. These databases are beyond the capabilities of traditional mining approaches to process and manage. Moreover, exponential growth in e-commerce industry has also been well evident. Most of e-commerce players like Amazon, Flip-kart, etc. are employing various strategies to attract customers away from retail outlets in shopping malls or market to their websites through lucrative offers such as cash back, cash on delivery, easy exchange, etc. (Malhotra and Rishi, 2016a, b). In such an intense competitive scenario, retailers need to be very careful to identify the various causes of problems faced by their customers and understand the value of solving them in order to survive in his/her business, for instance, a sports merchandise store may find that three out of five customers looking for a polo T-Shirt cannot find their appropriate size on the shelf, which results in reduction of sales followed by obvious profit loss, the retailer's goal could be to reduce such out of stock instances and thus increasing sales and profit. Retailers also need to understand the importance of regular analysis of various trends on social media. For example, a popular cricketer posted his photograph wearing a specific brand polo t-shirt on a social media platform. There is huge probability of such a post going viral followed by run on the specific brand polo t-shirts and ultimately lead to empty shelves on retail stores, which may require a long time to restock due to insufficient presence of required inventory in supply chain. This research work aims to focus on above mentioned frequently occurring issues faced by retail business owner. These issues will lead to not only challenges but also opportunities for retailers who want competitive advantage as retail industry has now access to more information that can be utilized for wonderful shopping experiences and can assist retailer to maximize his/her profit. Each and every transaction in a retail store is now stored for analysis of customer's purchase pattern and hence plays an important role in devising strategy for placement and promotion of products to better satisfy customer and hence to increase revenues of retailer (Verma et al., 2015). One of the popular strategies has been to use Apriori association mining algorithm to find frequent item sets in retail databases (Verma and Singh, 2015). However, traditional Apriori suffers from various limitations such as resource intensive nature as it requires multiple scans of database as well as it is not capable enough to extract unique buying patterns from Big databases (Malhotra and Rishi, 2016a, b). The proposed research work presents an intelligent HDFS, i.e. Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and MapReduce architecture based scalable, parallel next generation Apriori algorithm, i.e. MR-Apriori algorithm. The overall objective of this research work is to design a system that can assist the retail business owner to improve sales volume, reduce out of stock problem, increase profits, reduce spoilage and improve customer purchase confidence from his/her store.\n2. Literature review: To the best of our knowledge as procured from literature, this research work is the first formal attempt to design and develop an intelligent system for efficiently mining Big Data stored in retail transactional databases for carrying out market basket analysis. Conventional systems in literature may be easily discussed for better understanding sub-dividing them into various categories, i.e. systems based on sequential mining, systems based on distributed mining and systems based on Hadoop and MapReduce based frameworks. These systems with their relative merits and demerits are category wise discussed as follows.\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 System design\n4. Experimental analysis: Retail outlets offer many products. The useful association rules to interpret buying patterns could be obtained only if point of sale data are available for a reasonable time interval. The retail transactional data for a popular supermarket, e.g. Rohini Bazaar branch are used for this experimentation work. In this experiment, data sets provided by store are preprocessed into various groups by considering various promotional attractions offered by store time to time such as 40 percent off on purchase of any two or more products of a specific brand, buy one get one(BOGO), 20 percent flat discount, 10 percent cash back, etc. The infrastructure used for this experiment is based on Apache Hadoop platform. There is a cluster of eight computers, half of the computers have four 2.5 GHz cores and 8 GB primary memory and remaining half have two 2.25 GHz cores and 6 GB of primary memory to enable distributed processing of huge data sets of retail stores. The preprocessed data sets were stored in HDFS. Hadoop blob storage was used for periodic backups. Here Hadoop-based cloud infrastructure was chosen as it provide capabilities such as partial failure support, scaling, fault tolerance, real time processing, etc. as expected from modern Big Data analytics system.\n5. Conclusion and future work: This paper presents an innovative association between Hadoop based on intelligent cloud architecture and MapReduce based Apriori association mining in the form of IRM tool for market basket analysis to satisfy its one of the important objectives, i.e. to assist retail business owners to extract useful, previously unknown buying preferences of customers for market basket analysis to launch new schemes or offers, for instance, retailer may like to know which items should be clubbed together to be offered as discounted package or on which products BOGO offers should be given to maximize sales and profit, also IRM tool can be easily used to satisfy another objective, i.e. to determine sufficient inventory level of a specific product to avoid out of stock as well as to avoid spoilage of products due to excessive inventory. All these information are extremely important for retail business owners especially in today's era of Big Data for maximizing profit and to avoid diversion of customer to competitors as most of the customers are likely to switch to e-commerce websites for shopping rather to visit physical retailer store. In order to find suitable research gap, this study presents various popular conventional mining systems in the form of detailed category wise literature review covering conventional systems based on sequential mining, distributed mining, as well as systems based on MapReduce framework. This research paper introduces Hadoop-MapReduce based MR-Apriori mining algorithm to satisfy its another objective, i.e. to efficiently handle Big Data and to overcome various limitations of classical Apriori algorithms as discussed in literature from time to time. This paper presents two different approaches, i.e. conventional fixed mode and proposed intelligent mode for extracting useful patterns from customer's purchase history. In fixed mode, the number of AMR processing engines is manually selected by user while in intelligent mode; number of processing engines is automatically determined by the system after considering instantaneous load. In fixed mode, if number of AMR-engines initiated is low then it would lead to longer processing time and hence increased backlog. However if the number of AMR-engines are selected too high then memory and other resources requirement would be very high and hence may lead to inefficient resource management. The strength of proposed MR-Apriori lies in its capability to simulate conventional mining approach using fixed mode along with proposed intelligent approach. Moreover, unlike conventional approaches discussed in literature, the performance of proposed algorithm is not impacted by time spent in communication. The effectiveness of proposed approach is further experimentally verified by graphical comparison of various important performance criteria such as precision comparison of scalability, extensibility and promptness for fixed and intelligent mode. This study also measures various functional metrics with varying support percentage to avoid any possible experimental error and clearly shows significant impact on maximum processing time required for candidate item set generation by fixed and intelligent processing mode of proposed MR-Apriori algorithm.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore various limitations of conventional mining systems in extracting useful buying patterns from retail transactional databases flooded with Big Data. The key objective is to assist retail business owners to better understand the purchase needs of their customers and hence to attract customers to physical retail stores away from competitor e-commerce websites.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper employs a systematic and category-based review of relevant literature to explore the challenges possessed by Big Data for retail industry followed by discussion and implementation of association between MapReduce based Apriori association mining and Hadoop-based intelligent cloud architecture.\nFindings: The findings reveal that conventional mining algorithms have not evolved to support Big Data analysis as required by modern retail businesses. They require a lot of resources such as memory and computational engines. This study aims to develop MR-Apriori algorithm in the form of IRM tool to address all these issues in an efficient manner.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper suggests that a lot of research is yet to be done in market basket analysis, if full potential of cloud-based Big Data framework is required to be utilized.\nOriginality/value: This research arms the retail business owners with innovative IRM tool to easily extract comprehensive knowledge of useful buying patterns of customers to increase profits. This study experimentally verifies the effectiveness of proposed algorithm.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Career crescendo: An experimental analysis of a 6-week work-site intervention to determine the developmental capacity of psychological capital
|
[
"Organizational learning",
"Organizational behaviour",
"Organizational performance",
"Organizational development",
"Human resources development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Positive organizational behavior (POB) is gaining momentum and attracting the interest of scholars worldwide (Chen and Silverthorne, 2008; Karimi and Alipour, 2011; Luthans, 2002a, b; Nelson and Cooper, 2007; Wright, 2003). This promising discipline stands on the shoulders of the positive psychology movement (Lazarus, 2003) which argues that \"what is good about life is as genuine as what is bad and therefore deserves equal attention\" (Peterson, 2006, p. 4). POB extends this argument to the workplace studying, among other things, how various organizations and organizational leaders are able to create a positive environment leading to greater employee satisfaction, engagement and productivity (Clapp-Smith et al., 2009; Gardner et al., 2011; Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). POB has as its primary interest in the study of \"positively oriented human strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today's workplace\" (Luthans, 2002a, p. 59).\nLiterature review: Although some critics of positive psychology have asserted that it is nothing but a rehashing of some old school self-help books on the acclaimed power of a positive mental attitude (Miller, 2008), POB scholars have developed stringent criteria for inclusion in this discipline (Luthans, 2002b; Luthans and Avolio, 2009; Luthans and Youssef, 2007). Besides positivity, there are three requirements for a psychological resource capacity to fit within the defined POB framework. The following criteria distinguish POB from the less academically rigid self-help genre: \"1. Must be based on theory, research, and valid measurement; 2. Must be 'state-like' (as opposed to more fixed 'trait-like') and thus be open to development; 3. Must have performance impact\" (Luthans and Avolio, 2009, p. 299). These guidelines ensure that there is an appropriate measure of rigor, data and peer review in order to validate any findings that come from a study. Furthermore, rather than focusing on a trait in which one has very little control, these criteria ensure that the constructs chosen can be measured, validated and are also quantitatively generalizable.\nMethods: Study design\nResults: The data were initially assessed by comparing mean pretest scores between the comparison group and treatment group. The comparison group (M=5.07) scored higher than the treatment group (M=4.83) on the pretest PsyCap scores. A t-test was performed analyzing pretest scores between the two groups and showed no significance in the difference t(17, 32)=1.78, p=0.09. Mean differences were then compared looking at pretest and posttest scores for the comparison group and the treatment group independent of each other. Both tests showed significance in improvement from pre- to posttest with the treatment group outperforming the comparison group. The comparison group: pretest (M=5.07, SD=0.44); posttest (M=5.24, SD=0.37), t(16)=3.25, p<0.01, Cohen's d=0.42. The treatment group: pretest (M=4.83 SD=0.47); posttest (M=5.247, SD=0.393), t(31)=5.84, p<0.01, Cohen's d=0.97.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a work-site intervention on the participants' PsyCap in determining its developmental capacity. Previous studies have demonstrated strong correlations between PsyCap and many of the positive outcomes managers and supervisors desire for their employees - high productivity, low absenteeism, positive organizational citizenship, etc. (Luthans et al., 2013; Youseff and Luthans, 2007). With the results of the present study showing significantly greater improvement for the treatment group than their counterparts in the comparison group, it demonstrates that PsyCap can be developed and, consequently, these positive outcomes can accessed by a focused work-site intervention.\nImplications: There is a significant corpus of literature substantiating the framework and desirability of PsyCap for both organizations and individual employees. The present study shows the developmental capacity of PsyCap and demonstrates potential for professional growth. By developing a detailed work-site training and identifying specific principles, readings and interventions designed to raise the PsyCap of employees, organizations can reproduce this training and provide follow up and continued support. Consequently, as organizations and leaders focus on the improvement of PsyCap they can, as demonstrated in the literature review, influence employee's attitudes, job performance/productivity, safety, commitment to organizational missions, well-being, organizational identity and citizenship, perceived supervisor support, authentic leadership, work happiness and a decreased level of job stress.\nConclusion: The recent surge of research surrounding POB and PsyCap is both long overdue and very encouraging. PsyCap appears to be a construct with strong correlations to many desired organizational outcomes (Avey et al., 2011; Cheung et al., 2011; Luthans et al., 2013; Norman et al., 2010; Roberts et al., 2011; Wright and Cropanzano, 2004; Youseff and Luthans, 2007). While PsyCap remains in its relative infancy, its emergence and its scientific approach provide the encouragement that it has staying power. Furthermore, it has the potential to attract even greater attention from organizational leaders both in the academic as well as in the private sector. The most apparent gap in the literature has been the need for empirical evidence of the developmental capacities of PsyCap and how to help employees and leaders to improve in this area. This study has demonstrated the developmental capabilities of PsyCap and the need for work-site interventions designed to achieve such improvements. Additionally, it provides a window into future research which can help such interventions become more effective and also more accessible to larger populations.\nLimitations: The work-site intervention was facilitated at the request of a supervisor who was interested in motivating his teachers to see professional growth as an ongoing process and to find greater fulfillment in their work. Additionally, he desired this training to be used as a certification project, thus increasing the teacher's earning potential. The convenience, nonrandomized sampling approach led to the intervention being targeted toward a specific, self-selected group.\nFuture studies: An initial approach to future studies could simply focus addresses the limitations of already presented in this paper. A stratified random sampling design could be implemented which would ensure that the treatment group was randomized while still accounting for other factors that may skew the population sample (specifically gender). To test the generalizability of this intervention, it would be important to draw from larger sample sizes encompassing a more diverse population in future studies. To further test the longevity of the effectiveness of the intervention, future research should do a third follow-up survey of both the comparison group and the treatment group.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Research surrounding psychological capital (PsyCap) continues to expand as scholars and organizational leaders look to the strengths of positive organizational behavior (POB) and its effects in the workplace. Although previous research underscores connections between PsyCap and various organizational outcomes, there remains little research on its actual development. The purpose of this paper is to determine the efficacy of a six-week work-site intervention in improving PsyCap. The study included 49 individuals (n=32 assigned to the treatment group and n=17 to the comparison group). Using a pretest/posttest experimental design, the study showed that the intervention was efficacious in helping employees to develop greater PsyCap.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was part of a larger mixed methods design aimed at determining the efficacy of a work-site intervention in improving the PsyCap of employees. This design was chosen because it maximizes the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative methods while minimizing each of their weaknesses (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998). The specific mixed methods design implemented was the explanatory design using the participant selection model. This is a two-phase, sequential approach which began with a quantitative analysis and then drew upon those data to determine individuals who will be asked to participate in a follow-up study.\nFindings: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a work-site intervention on the participants' PsyCap in determining its developmental capacity. Previous studies have demonstrated strong correlations between PsyCap and many of the positive outcomes managers and supervisors desire for their employees -high productivity, low absenteeism, positive organizational citizenship, etc. (Luthans et al., 2013; Youseff and Luthans, 2007). With the results of the present study showing significantly greater improvement for the treatment group than their counterparts in the comparison group, it demonstrates that PsyCap can be developed and, consequently, these positive outcomes can accessed by a focused work-site intervention.\nOriginality/value: This paper builds on work already being done but focuses on the following significant gap in the literature: Can PsyCap be developed using work-site interventions? This study provides a compelling answer to that question and thus pushes the study of POB forward in its development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Is bank finance the Achilles' heel of Irish SMEs?
|
[
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"Ireland",
"Training",
"Financial analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The SME sector is the backbone of the European economy, accounting for over 66 percent of the exports, employing over 70 percent of the available workforce and generating 56.2 percent of its private sector turnover (Coelho-Rodriguez, 2001)[1]. The extent of this sector's economic consequence is highlighted by the fact that 99.8 percent of the 17.9 million enterprises in the European Union are SMEs (Euromoney, 2002). This sector is key to the Irish economy (National Competitiveness Council (NCC), 2003) with 98 percent of all businesses in Ireland classified as having a maximum of 50 employees (ForFas, 1998). Indeed, a recent study has found that Irish entrepreneurial activity is among the highest in the world and exceeds that of most other European countries (Fitzsimons et al., 2003).Research has shown that access to external finance is the most significant factor contributing to the growth of small firms (Brown et al., 2003). Furthermore, the majority of SMEs have been found to be heavily dependent on bank finance (Norton, 2003; Group of Ten, 2001) and Irish SMEs are not the exception. In comparison to 37 other countries, Ireland is highly ranked for availability to entrepreneurs of formal finance sources but scores weakly for informal, non-institutional forms of investment (NCC, 2003). Generally, Irish SMEs are heavily dependent on these formal sources, in particular bank finance.Currently, the rules governing how banks lend money are being rewritten, in the form of Basel II. In 1988, a committee made up of the central banks of many Western countries introduced a capital measurement system commonly referred to as the Basel Capital Accord (Basel I). This system provided for the implementation of a credit-risk measurement framework. The purpose of a risk-based regulatory framework for capital adequacy is to define a minimum cushion for banks to ensure their safety and soundness and to provide a benchmark by which the financial condition of banks can be measured. The risk-based ratios seek to compare available capital to a measure of the risks taken on. However, Basel I proved to be deficient for larger, more complex banks and this deficiency gave rise to new capital adequacy regime, Basel II.What are the possible consequences of Basel II for SMEs? Some commentators have predicted that credit terms from banks may become more expensive and/or the availability of finance for SMEs may become insufficient, leading to sectoral competitive disadvantages (Euromoney, 2002; Bartels, 2002). This concern has motivated an amendment to Basel II that apparently addresses this issue by allowing lower capital requirements for SMEs (BIS, 2003). Despite the serious implications of Basel II for SMEs, this sector is ill-prepared for the demands of this new capital adequacy regime (Bartels, 2002).Alternatives to bank finance\nThe financial regulatory environment: Basel I was revised because it proved inadequate for larger, complex banks (Goodhart et al., 1998; Stewart, 1996). Today, the largest banks operate their businesses and conduct risk management in a manner that is substantially different from the method by which they calculate regulatory capital. This difference reduces the usefulness and meaningfulness of regulatory capital ratios and places a burden on banks that must reconcile their risk-management and regulatory capital approaches. The main aim of Basel II is to align regulatory capital more closely with risk. The purpose of a risk-based regulatory regime for capital adequacy is to define a minimum cushion for banks to ensure their safety and soundness and to provide a benchmark by which the financial condition of banks can be measured. Indeed, most banks currently hold capital that is comfortably in excess of the Basel I minimum, since this would typically equate to a credit rating of BBB, which is untenable for most institutions.Basel II explicitly expects that most banks will continue to hold capital that is in excess of the regulatory minimum, and that the appropriate level of capitalization should be informed by a robust assessment of the risks faced. While the minimum capital requirement is a significant part of Basel II, it also addresses the supervisory review of capital adequacy and the internal assessment process, and the market discipline of effective disclosures. For this paper, the focus is the minimum capital requirements as the other aspects are not expected to impinge on the volume of credit or the cost of credit to SME companies.SME and Basel II\nMethod: Irish SMEs and their main lenders of finance are surveyed and interviewed (respectively) to gauge the specific implications of Basel II for the Irish SME sector and for Irish banks. In order to examine the implications of Basel II on bank finance for Irish SMEs, it was necessary to determine more accurately the extent to which Irish SMEs relied on banks as a source of funding. A total of 348 Irish SME companies were identified for this purpose and a survey was mailed to the owner of each organisation. While the main thrust of the questionnaire was to determine to the reliance of Irish SMEs on banks for funding, other issues such as SME loyalty to their bank and the extent of Basel II awareness were also addressed. In total 124 companies responded to the survey, giving an effective response rate of 36 percent.In order to contextualise the responses from the SME survey, Basel II implementation teams from the main financial institutions operating in Ireland were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in five banks selected on the basis of their SME loan market share in Ireland. Those five banks are Allied Irish Bank (AIB), Bank of Ireland (BOI), Bank of Scotland, Anglo-Irish Bank and Ulster Bank. According to one of the bank managers interviewed, percentage loan market share estimates are as follows: AIB 25 percent, BOI 19 percent, Bank of Scotland 18 percent, Anglo-Irish 16 percent, Ulster Bank 15 percent and other financial institutions 7 percent. Of these five, two are subsidiaries of large UK banks, with the remaining three being Irish - AIB, BOI and Anglo-Irish bank. The semi-structured interviews were conducted at the headquarters of each bank and a set of seven questions were posed to the Basel II implementation teams. The interview questions were used as a guide and the interviewee was encouraged to broaden the discussion. The next section discusses the key findings of the SME survey responses in light of the interviews with the financial institutions.\nResults: The responses of bank interviewees are discussed initially to provide valuable insights into the SME survey responses. The interview responses are also compared to QIS 3 to further illustrate Basel II implications for Irish lenders of finance to SMEs.Interviews with SME finance providers\nDiscussion and conclusion: SME skills gaps identified\nRecommendations for the future: Generally, the SME sector is confronted with a number of possible future scenarios. First, as a result of compliance with Basel II, the UK banks operating in Ireland may be able to offer more attractive interest terms. Our results indicate that Irish SMEs would not be aware of these lower rates offered by banks and there is a very low likelihood that Irish SMEs would switch banks to obtain more favourable credit terms. As disturbing as this scenario sounds, it has prompted a number of training recommendations.Training implications for the SME sector\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research paper is to examine the implications of new banking regulations (Basel II) for the Irish SME sector. Training gaps are identified and recommendations to advance social capital networks are provided.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The Irish SME dependence on external (bank) finance and their susceptibility to legislative changes in that sector is explored through a survey of Irish SMEs. Additionally, banks' preparedness is investigated through semi-structured interviews of five major banks, all serving the Irish SME sector.\nFindings: - The results show a high degree of Irish SME dependence on banks as a source of funding. Furthermore, there is evidence of increases in bank rates/charges over the past two years with limited switching between banks to avail of better rates. Moreover, the findings indicate that, while banks operating in the SME sector are on target for Basel II adoption, Irish SMEs remain unaware and unprepared for the possible implications of this change. The future competitive consequences for Irish banks that are slow to achieve sophisticated compliance with the new regulations are also discussed, in relation to their secondary effect on the SME sector.\nOriginality/value: - The key contribution of this paper is that it highlights the need for Irish SMEs to proactively manage their potential funding sources. As part of the development of the necessary management skills, various training recommendations are made for Irish SMEs facing a more sophisticated global financial regulatory environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Pricing in the modern world: the role of price-related and non-price related cues
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Retailing",
"Consumer psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: How much does it cost? That is one of the first questions that most customers ask themselves when seeing a product or considering a service. Price serves as a cue to the customer about both about the quality of the merchandise and the amount that it is going to cost them (Dodds et al., 1991; Grewal et al., 1998). Therefore, understanding how consumers evaluate the price cues is a central question of interest for both academicians and practitioners.\nPrice-related cues: Many retailers want customers to consider their price as lower to reduce the sacrifice the customer feels she may have to make to purchase the product and thus increase the perceived value of the offer. One way retailers convey that their price is lower is by offering a discount off the normal price.\nNon-price related cues: There are many cues contained in any environment which can influence how consumers respond to an offer. Past research has tended to take a multi-cue perspective (e.g. Dodds et al., 1991) and understand how multiple cues work in conjunction with each other (Miyazaki et al., 2005). Recent literature has focused on price-related signals, such as various types of guarantees (Dutta et al., 2011; Roggeveen et al., 2014); however, the role of non-price cues in such promotional contexts has not received as much attention. In this special issue, three papers have focused their attention on examining some of these non-pricing cues.\nConclusion: Pricing is critical for retailers to understand. However, it is not a simple area as there are so many cues which can impact how consumers behave. Somervuori, in \"Profiling Behavioral Pricing Research in Marketing\", has provided a comprehensive review of the research areas examined by past behavioral pricing researchers. Her work sheds light on a number of avenues that require additional research. In a similar vein, a number of recent review papers have highlighted numerous areas in pricing and promotions that would be productive areas to study (Grewal et al., 2010, 2011a, 2011b). Some of these issues have arisen as a result of the modern marketplace which makes retailers in presenting price offers and consumers in evaluating these offers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This editorial aims to discuss how the modern world is causing pricing practices of both retailers and consumers to evolve. The contributions of seven papers included in this special issue have been highlighted.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The purpose is to explore how different cues impact consumer reactions to prices.\nFindings: These cues include both cues regarding the price itself (e.g. the level of the discount, how the price is broken into component parts, the starting price in an auction), as well as non-price-related cues (e.g. private labels, brand familiarly, consumer ratings, creativity of an ad). In addition, this special issue includes a review article which provides a comprehensive review of behavioral pricing research.\nOriginality/value: The contributions of seven papers included in this special issue have been highlighted.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impacts of country images on luxury fashion brand: facilitating with the brand resonance model
|
[
"Brand loyalty",
"Country of origin"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The recent lawsuits between Apple and Samsung stand as evidence for not only the ongoing battles for brands' patents on design innovation and technical performance within the industry but also the effort to uphold reputation of each country's image (Cusumano, 2013). Come consumers applaud Apple for bringing the patent dispute to court because technology advancement is the representative innovation of US industry, while others advocate Samsung's leading to more consumer choices with higher quality and more reasonable prices (Guglielmo, 2012). With the increased complexity and competitiveness of the global luxury fashion industry, these developments on the legal side make scholars and practitioners ponder what the role of country image (CI) is in luxury branding and how to manage or develop equitable brands through the design of the totality of the components of the marketing mix.\nLiterature review: Luxury brands are visible icons and symbols representing a specific social group (Hennigs et al., 2012; Nia and Zaichkowsky, 2000). Thus, luxury brands strive for the arousing of exclusive identity, awareness, and quality from the consumer's perspective (Phau and Prendergast, 2000) and for securing their authentic position and profit from the business's perspective (Hameide, 2011). Thus, luxury brands reinforce the membership within the social group based on strong attachment and resonance with a specific CI. Upon a consideration of the multi-faceted cultural, social, and psychological nature of the luxury fashion brand, the research model is conceptualized as that luxury brand resonance is construed by synchronization of brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty in line with CI (i.e. cultural assets, fashion equity, and technology advancement). By focussing on the Korean and US fashion markets, this approach also permits brand research to better specify the specific cultural context.\nMethodology: Study 1: item generation and selection\nResults: Hypothesis testing\nDiscussion and limitations: By identifying the constructs and conceptualizing the luxury fashion-brand resonance model between two countries, this study demonstrates the pertinent CI impacts of cultural assets, fashion equity, and technology advancement on brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty in accordance with the brand resonance model. In addition, the findings expose the cultural discrepancies between the Korean and the USA samples, in which technology advancement is the determinant to increase luxury fashion brand awareness for the Korean group, while cultural asset and fashion equity are pertinent to enhance luxury fashion brand awareness for the US group.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to identify the dimensionality of country image (CI) for luxury fashion brand and examine the multi-faceted impacts of CI on brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty in accordance with the brand resonance model. By identifying the constructs and conceptualizing and comparing the luxury fashion-brand resonance model between countries, this study demonstrates the pertinent CI impacts on luxury fashion-brand resonance in addition to exposing the cultural discrepancies between the Korean and the US samples.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on three studies conducted in South Korea and the USA, the Luxury Fashion Brand Resonance scale was validated. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling revealed the 18 scales consisting of CI, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty dimensions. Additionally, the country effect was controlled by comparing the composition of structural models between the Korean and US samples.\nFindings: Analysis of online data (n=466) collected from the USA and Korea identifies the underlying dimensions of the CIs including cultural assets, fashion equity, and technology advancement. Findings also support all hypothesized relationships among CI, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Upon a comparison of the country disparities, it is evident that technology advancement is the determinant of the increase in luxury fashion brand awareness for the Korean group, while cultural asset and fashion equity are pertinent to the enhancement of luxury fashion brand awareness for the US group.\nResearch limitations/implications: The structural relationships among the six dimensions of brand resonance may vary when different countries and brands are compared. To improve the generalizability of empirical findings, varied consumer samples should be employed, and other control effects, such as price and product categories, should be considered.\nOriginality/value: To provide insight into the transition toward a global consumer market, this study provides a theoretical orientation to account for multi-dimensional CI effects on the luxury fashion-brand resonance model and an empirical validation of the theoretical orientation which is useful for developing competitive global luxury branding strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Opportunity exploitation and resource exploitation: An integrative growth model for entrepreneurship
|
[
"Entrepreneurship",
"Opportunity",
"Case study",
"Resources",
"Internet of Things",
"Leverage effect"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Conducting entrepreneurial activities is vital for firms seeking to achieve competitive advantages. But because the entrepreneurial environment is turbulent and there are often no established laws to follow, conducting entrepreneurial activities can be full of risks. For firms in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) industry, entrepreneurial opportunities fly by like lighting because technologies evolve quickly.\n2. Backgrounds: 2.1. Entrepreneurship research\n3. Research design: 3.1. Research method and research question\n4. A multiple case study: 4.1. Integrative entrepreneurial growth process based on identification type opportunity - AI electronic technology and HASEE computer\n5. Discussions and conclusions: 5.1. Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Guided by the proposed opportunity and resource integrative entrepreneurial growth model, the purpose of this paper is to explore how different opportunity type firms grow integrally and what the laws for different opportunity integration growth modes are.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multiple case study on six firms in information and communication technologies industry in China is conducted.\nFindings: Three types of entrepreneurial opportunities exist. These are identification type opportunity, discovery type opportunity, and creation type opportunity. Entrepreneurship among the three types of entrepreneurial opportunities operates under different laws. For each type of entrepreneurial opportunity, firms need to balance the two growth modes, namely, the opportunity identification and assessment/resource allocation mode and the opportunity utilization and resource identification/acquisition mode, in order to achieve a leveraging effect.\nResearch limitations/implications: Vertical comparison is missing.\nPractical implications: Firms need to balance the two growth modes, namely, opportunity identification and assessment and resource allocation mode and opportunity utilization and resource identification and acquisition mode, to achieve leverage effect.\nOriginality/value: This paper integrates system theory with entrepreneurship research and proposes the opportunity and resource integrative entrepreneurial growth model. This model is helpful, both in aiding firms to follow the laws for entrepreneurial opportunities and to identify entrepreneurial opportunities. The business model plays a vital role in entrepreneurship. Firms taking advantage of the Internet of Things are more likely to gain a competitive advantage and to achieve success in their entrepreneurial activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Leveraging marketer-generated appeals in online brand communities: An individual user-level analysis
|
[
"Consumer-based brand equity",
"User engagement",
"Social media marketing",
"Online brand communities",
"Communal service delivery",
"Marketer-generated appeals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Online brand communities are now hosted by 93 percent of Fortune 500 firms, underscoring their importance as a powerful management tool for product and service brands (Barnes et al., 2015). Online brand communities[1] have largely shifted control over brands from firms to consumers. They enable engaged customers to provide communal services in lieu of the firm by voicing their brand-related experiences and opinions (Dholakia et al., 2009; Mende and van Doorn, 2014). Thus, initiating a trend of \"brand democratization,\" online brand communities have significantly fueled the virtual co-creation of brands through user engagement - understood as user-determined activities such as creating, liking, or sharing of online content (e.g. Asmussen et al., 2013; van Doorn et al., 2010). While marketers initially feared such a loss of control, anecdotal evidence implies that they can actually strengthen brand equity by proactively sharing control over the brand (Hammedi et al., 2015). Consequently, marketers are increasingly using marketer-generated appeals to call upon users to engage (de Vries et al., 2012; Stephen et al., 2015).\nThe online brand community challenge: Online brand communities are defined as an \"aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact based on a shared interest, where the interaction is supported or mediated by technology\" (Porter and Donthu, 2008, p. 115). Firms run online brand communities on dedicated, firm-hosted websites (e.g. branded online discussion forums; Homburg et al., 2015) or on sites embedded in social media channels (e.g. Facebook brand pages; Goh et al., 2013). By offering opportunities to consume branded content and to engage in online activities related to the brand, online brand communities establish a major platform for influencing users' brand evaluations and set the stage for continuous user-firm co-creation of the brand (Wirtz et al., 2013).\nA model for building brand equity through marketer-generated appeals: The model considers the effects of normative and utilitarian marketer-generated appeals on engagement intensity and brand equity in turn. Further, this research accounts for moderator conditions that may determine when either appeal is more or less promising for driving engagement intensity and brand equity. Figure 1 summarizes the conceptual model.\nStudy 1: In this research, the authors make use of the strengths of a multi-method approach to test the hypotheses. Specifically, they conduct two studies. In Study 1, they build on matched field data on real marketer activities, real user behaviors, and user perceptions to test the main effect hypotheses (H1-H3). In Study 2, the authors make use of a large-scale experiment to replicate the findings in Study 1 and to provide additional knowledge on the hypothesized moderator effects (H4-H9).\nStudy 2: Study design and sample\nConclusion: Online brand communities increasingly emerge as firm employees share brand building responsibilities and hence brand management responsibilities with customers (Mende and van Doorn, 2014; Wirtz et al., 2013). Thus, there is a strong demand for empirical examination of tactics that help marketers to co-create brand value in online brand communities. This paper introduces a model which considers the effects of specific marketer-generated appeals on brand equity at the individualuser level. The results suggest that the intensity of users' engagement in such environments plays a vital role in explaining the brand-enhancing impact of appeals. This research further shows that entertainment value, content consumption asymmetry, and membership duration lead to variations in the brand impact of appeals. The findings provide meaningful implications for both marketing researchers and marketing managers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The proliferation of online brand communities has shifted control over brands from firms to consumers. Demonstrating how marketers can stimulate consumers to use these opportunities and engage with the brand in such communities, the purpose of this paper is to address the effectiveness of normative and utilitarian appeals commonly employed in practice for enhancing engagement intensity and brand equity in turn.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents two studies at an individual user level. The first study builds on matched data on marketing actions, user behavior, and user perceptions from a Facebook brand community. The second study uses an experiment with members of a firm-hosted online brand community. The authors employ seemingly unrelated regressions while controlling for self-selection.\nFindings: Marketer-generated appeals have a positive effect on brand equity that is mediated by engagement intensity. However, the strength of these effects depends highly on community, user, and relationship characteristics.\nPractical implications: Generally speaking, marketer-generated appeals are effective tools for marketers to build brand equity through enhanced user engagement. However, their effectiveness can be improved when managers use a targeted approach. To offer precise managerial guidance, this paper shows how entertainment value, content consumption asymmetry (e.g. whether a user prefers user-generated content over marketer-generated content), and membership duration increase or lower the impact of appeals in building the brand through engagement intensity.\nOriginality/value: The authors provide evidence that appeals designed to drive user engagement in online brand communities are effective tools for boosting brand equity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of core-product and service-encounter quality, attitude, image, trust and love on repurchase: Full-service vs low-cost carriers in South Korea
|
[
"Brand trust"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The growing importance of building strong brands has heightened interest in fostering the relationships between brand and consumers in the airline industry (Graham, 2013; Han and Hwang, 2015). It has been well-established that companies with high customer retention rates can take advantage of lower price elasticity, lower advertising-to-sales ratios, higher profit margins, charging premium prices, and brand extension opportunities (Han and Hwang, 2015; Keller, 1993). As Keller (1993) asserted, consumers react more (less) favorably to the product and service of a brand if they have positive (negative) brand attitude or image. Likewise, Hoeffler and Keller (2003) have observed that patrons' preference for a specific brand promotes customer retention. Undoubtedly, the airline sector comprising both full-service carriers (FSCs) and low-cost carriers (LCCs) has been an essential part of the global tourism industry. Yet, its rapid expansion for the past few decades has significantly increased the competition in the marketplace (Graham, 2013; Jiang and Zhang, 2016; Prentice and Loureiro, 2017). Accordingly, achieving repeat business is undeniably becoming a key for many airlines' survival and success under the highly competitive market situation (Jiang and Zhang, 2016; Prentice and Loureiro, 2017).\nLiterature review: In-flight product quality (core-product and service-encounter)\nMethods: Measurement items and questionnaire development\nResults: Measurement model assessment and validity testing\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine airline passengers' repurchase decision-making process by developing a sturdy theoretical framework comprising in-flight core-product and service-encounter quality, brand attitude, image, trust and love. The authors also attempted to examine if such decision formation differs across full-service and low-cost airlines in South Korea.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative method was used to achieve research objectives. For assessment of the conceptual framework and test of research hypotheses, a structural equation modeling and test for metric invariance were used.\nFindings: The results revealed that in-flight product and service-encounter quality significantly affected their subsequent variables, and their impact on intention was mediated by brand attitude, image, trust and love. In addition, brand image along with brand trust included the strongest influence on intention. Findings also indicated that the relationships among brand attitude, image, trust and love significantly differed between full-service and low-cost airlines.\nPractical implications: Increasing the customer retention rate is a key component of airline business success. This study made an important contribution to advancing the existing knowledge on what factors induce airline customers' decision to repurchase a particular airline product and how such factors are interrelated with each other within the proposed model.\nOriginality/value: This research was the first to explore that the relationship strength among brand image, brand attitude, brand trust and brand love are not equal between full-service and low-cost airline passenger groups.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Productivity losses in smoking breaks on construction sites: a case study
|
[
"Smoking",
"Construction",
"Productivity loss",
"Construction industry",
"Employees productivity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The adverse health effects of cigarette smoking have been studied extensively. There have been over 70,000 scientific papers that links smoking with a pervasive range of health problems (Guindon and Boisclair, 2003 citing US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), 1994). A number of studies investigated on smoking-attributable economic losses which include direct healthcare costs and indirect costs (Table I shows a list of 16 such papers). Indirect costs include losses of productive time due to premature death, retirement or disability, losses through absence from work, reduced productivity at work, smoking breaks, etc.A number of papers estimated smoking-attributable productivity losses through absences from work (Bertera, 1991; Bunn et al., 2006; Halpern et al., 2001; Lundborg, 2007; Van Tuinen and Land, 1986; Tsai et al., 2003). However, very few papers in the literature attempted to rigorously estimate productivity losses through smoking breaks, although Parrott et al. (2000) and Tsai et al. (2005) have tried with assumed data.This paper attempts to bridge such a gap by studying the number and length of smoking breaks on a construction site. Construction workers were selected because of the high smoking rates in this occupation. Economic losses in this occupation would be much higher than those in general population. Our empirical study found that productivity losses through smoking breaks far exceed those through excessive absences from work, indicating that this is an important area of study long neglected.The rest of paper is arranged as follows. The next section will review the literature on smoking-attributable economic losses, with a focus on indirect productivity losses. Then the method and data of the research will be explained, followed by the presentation and discussion of the results. The last section concludes.\nLiterature review: Smoking and economic losses\nResearch design: Quantitative method will be used in this study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of productivity losses through smoking breaks. Therefore, the best way is to answer the question with unbiased statistics.The research will be conducted in two steps. The first step is to measure and calculate the exact time losses through smoking breaks. A construction site will be identified and the smoking behaviours of the smokers on that site will be observed. The number of smoking breaks will be noted and the length of each smoking break will be timed with a stop watch. Smoking during the formal tea break and lunch break will not be included in this study. One can imagine that this is a difficult task, as workers do not stay in the same position. Therefore, an observer has to keep an eye on a particular worker for a whole day in order to get the data for one person for one day. The observer must be careful and shall not to disturb the smokers. If a smoker notices the presence of an observer with a stop watch, his behaviour could have changed. Typically this means the length of a smoking break could be shorter than it would otherwise be. This problem, however, is not serious in our research, as every worker was only examined for one or two days. If they realise they are examined, we will explain the purpose of examination and stress that there will be no impact whatsoever on them and we will not examine the same worker again soon. As a result, it took the second author four months on site to get 19 man-days of smoking data. A total of 106 smoking breaks were recorded, which represents a reasonable sample size.The second step is to evaluate the productivity losses through smoking breaks. Following the literature on indirect economic losses due to smoking, we will use the human capital approach, which assumes that the productivity of a worker is equal to his salary. Three measures of productivity losses will be estimated. First, the productivity losses through smoking breaks as a percentage of total productivity will be estimated. This will be compared with the wage penalty percentage found in the literature. Second, the total productivity losses as a percentage of the contract sum will be estimated. Third, annual loss of days through smoking breaks will also be estimated. This will be compared with the similar data in the literature.The site chosen was located in East Lothian, Scotland, UK. The project duration was 15 calendar months and the contract sum for the subcontract was PS147,908. The project was a renovation and rehabilitation of a listed building. The site was located in the town centre and was very restricted. The designated smoking area is outside the entrance gate. Smoking is only allowed at the designated smoking area according to health and safety legislations. The measurement of smoking breaks was conducted on site from February to May 2009.There might be variations on smoking behaviours throughout the year due to weather, etc. However, observing the workers for a whole year demands much more resources. Therefore, this will be one limitation. Furthermore, this is a renovation and rehabilitation project, the type of trades involved in this project is limited. There might be variations on the smoking behaviours of workers from other trades, such as civil engineering. Again, this will be another limitation.There were 28 staff on the site, comprising of nine labourers, seven skilled labourers, eight skilled workers, three trade foremen and one supervisor. Their ages range from 21 to 58 years and are all male. This confirms again the well-known fact that the construction industry is dominated by male gender. Out of the 28 staff, there are 27 active smokers (96 per cent) and there is only one non-smoker (4 per cent). This is consistent with the findings in the literature that smoking is more prevalent in construction industry than the general population.The next section will present and discuss the results.\nResults and discussion: Results\nConclusion: This paper is a contribution to the study of productive time losses through smoking breaks. A construction site was identified and the smoking behaviours of the staff on site were documented.It is found that on average a smoker smokes 5.58 number of cigarettes in an eight-hour shift. The average length of smoking actions is about 4.89 minutes. However, there are additional Add-on times which include the time taken for going to the designated smoking area, preparation of cigarettes, going back to workplace and preparing to start the work again. On average the Add-on times totalled 8.16 minutes. Therefore the length of a smoking break is 13.05 minutes which is much higher than the assumptions made in the literature. Hence, the total average time losses through smoking breaks in an eight-hour shift is 72.81 minutes, which is equivalent to 15.2 per cent of the total productivity for the work.Compared with 2-4 per cent wage penalties for smoking found in Britain in the literature, the productivity losses through smoking breaks are extremely high. Therefore the productivity of construction workers can be significantly improved if they quit smoking. It is suggested that monetary incentives such as non-smoking allowance should be implemented to help smokers quit. Further studies could be directed on this area.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine the extent of productivity losses in smoking breaks on construction sites.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The smoking behaviours of workers in a small/medium-sized construction company were examined for a period of four months. Construction workers were targeted due to their higher prevalence in smoking. The exact time losses through smoking breaks were measured and calculated. The productivity losses were then evaluated and compared with the estimates of productivity losses and wage penalties found in the literature.\nFindings: - It is found that a smoker on average smokes 5.6 cigarettes, which takes a total of 73 minutes, representing 15.2 per cent of productivity loss in an eight-hour shift. This productivity loss is much higher than productivity losses through increased sick leaves or the wage penalties for smokers found in the literature.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Variations of smoking behaviours throughout the year have not been considered. The study has focused on a renovation and rehabilitation project, it has not considered the workers from other trades who might have different smoking behaviours.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is a contribution to the limited literature on the productive time losses through smoking breaks. Most studies on productive time loss attributable to smoking focused on the additional sick leaves taken by the smokers, without realizing that productive time losses through smoking breaks far exceeds those additional sick leaves.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Review of test methods for zero PPM performance
|
[
"Yield",
"Measurement, testing and instruments",
"Cost effectiveness",
"Quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background\nConflicts that exist between cost, quality, and performance: Market demand is for increased product complexity and quality at reduced costs. This leads to a basic conflict in that testing for increased product complexity and quality leads to increased costs. These costs are attributed to:* cost of test time; and* cost of yield loss to aggressively guardbanded limits.These relationships are further explored in the following.Relationship between quality and test coverage\nTest process development flow chart: Figure 5 represents a high-level test process development flow chart. This serves to highlight the elements we are dealing with, and provides a framework for understanding how these work together to ensure quality to the end customer.The process starts with the definition of the test program requirements needed to match end customer demands. These requirements are broadly split into:* defect screening techniques required to eliminate defective outliers; and* performance related testing to guarantee specifications.The elements within these two branches are discussed in more detail in the following. Once the test flows for these are completed with the appropriate limit implemented, the overall effectiveness is evaluated. This evaluation should include both temperature testing and reliability type testing to verify that resulting outgoing quality levels are acceptable.\nDealing with defective outliers: Defects introduced during the fabrication process can cause physical faults on IC's. This presents the challenge of identifying and screening these defective die in production without excessive yield loss to the defect free population. To achieve this requires implementation of:* specific screening test methods that identify the defective parts; and* statistical post processing techniques to effectively weed out the defectives from the defect free population.These methods and techniques are discussed in this section.Defect screening test methods\nDealing with normal parametric behaviour: Historically the most commonly quoted quality system for semiconductor IC manufacturers has been the Motorola Six Sigma philosophy (Smith, 1993; Pyzdec, 1996). This models the parametric distributions as normal distributions and calculates PPM levels based on the probability density functions of these distributions. The PPM in this instance is guaranteed by the datasheet limit position alone and not by the production test limit.To gain market share suppliers will routinely specify products to tighter than six sigma specifications. To maintain quality levels in this instance, the product must be 100 per cent tested in production to screen out parts that are outside specification. The test limits used during this screen must be guardbanded tighter than the datasheet limit to ensure the shipped product meets the PPM requirement (Sweetman, 1991; Williams and Hawkins, 1993a, b; Comard et al., 1994). These guardbands protect the customer from receiving parts that are outside specification. These guardbands need to be optimised to balance the positive effect of maintaining customer PPM against the negative effects of reduced yield and its associated problems.This most common type of guardband is test measurement error guardband and is explained as follows. During the production test operation, the variance of the test measurement system is added as a pure error term into the variance of the tested product distribution (Knowles et al., 2003; Bordignon and Scagliarini, 2002). Because of this we cannot tell with certainty the true value of the product. To account for this test measurement error, it is necessary to test to limits that are inside the datasheet specifications. The distance from the test limit to the datasheet limit is referred to as the test measurement error guardband (Sweetman, 1991; Williams and Hawkins, 1993a, b; Comard et al., 1994; Mullenix, 1990).To reduce test costs, the supplier will routinely test the product at a single temperature only. In this instance the test limits are further tightened to account for observed temperature shifts in the product over the full specification range.Methods reported for both test and temperature guardbanding are reviewed in detail in the following. An overview of these methods highlighting their strengths and weakness is also presented.Methods for guardbanding test measurement error\nSummary and future work: Defects introduced during the fabrication process can cause physical faults on IC's. If the level of test coverage is not sufficient, the customer can receive parts that contain these faults and are therefore defective. There are various test coverage fault models in existence that recognise different fault modes that these defects can cause. At present no single model exists that accounts for all fault modes.Established yield models have been used to show high test coverage is needed for screening the defect portion of the population to achieve high quality levels - typically test coverage needs to be > 98 per cent. Investigation of the effect of yield loss to performance testing on gross margin shows a 1:1 correspondence - for every 1 per cent point of yield loss translates into 1 per cent point on gross margin. These costs must be absorbed by the supplier or passed on to the consumer as increased pricing.A high-level test process development flow chart has been presented. This shows test development broadly split into defect screening techniques, and performance related testing on the normal population. This flow chart in Figure 5 provides a framework for understanding how these work together to ensure quality to the end customer. To achieve low PPM, suppliers must optimise both sets of techniques and use them in a complementary manner.A review of test methods currently in use for screening defective outliers has been presented. These test methods include Lkg and Iddq testing, DC and AC scan testing, Functionality testing. No one method provides full coverage for all fault mechanisms, the method chosen needs to match the dominant defect mechanisms expected on the chosen technology.The effectiveness of these methods can be enhanced by using statistical post processing techniques on the resultant test data. SPP techniques act as variance reduction techniques that allow finely tuned limits to be set for defect outlier detection. Commonly used SPP techniques include part average testing on wafer level data, Delta Iddq on within wafer level data, and nearest neighbour exclusion on local areas of poor yield within a wafer.To gain market share on product performance, suppliers will routinely specify products performance to tighter than six sigma specifications. To maintain quality levels in this instance, the product must have the appropriate performance related test and be 100 per cent tested in production to screen out parts that are outside specification. The test limits used must be guardbanded tighter than the datasheet limit to ensure the shipped product meets the PPM requirement.The current guardbanding techniques are conservative to varying degrees. The resultant guardbands can lead to yield loss and its associated supply issues. Future work needs to develop a unified model that deals with both the measurement error and temperature drift performance to generate a single optimised guardband.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Market demands, especially within the automotive sector, are pushing towards increased product complexity and performance with zero ship parts per million (PPM) requirements. To achieve both quality and performance goals very stringent requirements are being placed on the test manufacturing solution. These requirements lead to conflicts between cost, performance and quality. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the conflicts that exist between quality, performance, and cost, and second, to review current practices and techniques being used in tests to minimise ship PPM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In the paper a test process development flow chart is presented, along with a review of current methods being used for both defect screening and performance testing. The relationship between test coverage and ship PPM is investigated using established yield models. The cost in terms of gross margin degradation of yield loss at final test to extensive screening and aggressive limits is modelled.\nFindings: - The paper finds that to maintain ship PPM very high levels of test coverage are required - typically test coverage needs to be > 98 per cent. The cost of yield loss to this testing typically matches on a percentage point basis gross margin degradation. Reviewing current test methods shows the need both for extensive defect-screening techniques for the defective portion of the population, and for optimised guardbanding techniques for performance testing. Weaknesses that exist are the absence of a model to predict outgoing PPM, and the conservative nature of existing guardband techniques for performance testing.\nOriginality/value: - This is a review paper and it serves to highlight both the weaknesses in current practices, and areas where improved models are required.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Re-reading the narrative of the informal economy in the context of economic development in sub-Saharan Africa
|
[
"Africa",
"Development",
"Capitalism",
"Industrialization",
"Free market",
"Informal economy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A regular meta-narrative that prevails not only amongst African business leaders, socio-economic policy makers and politicians, but also amongst many economic commentators, is that there is an unstoppable permeation of everyday life by the formal market economy (see e.g. Carruthers and Babb, 2000; Gudeman, 2001; Rifkin, 2000; Watts, 1999), resulting in the demise and annihilation of the informal economy. There is a widespread belief that capitalism through the disguise of free-market economy and neo-liberal economic methodology is becoming totalising and hegemonic, stretching its appendages ever wider and deeper into every outlet of everyday life across Africa. Indeed, even those opposed to the deeper penetration of free-market capitalism due to its deleterious socio-cultural consequences have begun to view the ongoing colonisation of capitalism as indisputable, irrefutable and irreversible (e.g. Comelieau, 2002; Rifkin, 1990; Slater and Tonkiss, 2001). Indeed, so commonly heard and widely held is this dominant discourse of an unavoidable shift towards capitalist hegemony that it is perhaps difficult to envisage or picture any other future. The widespread acceptance seems to be that there really is no alternative to free-market capitalism (e.g. Ciscel and Heath, 2001; Gough, 2000; Kovel, 2002). The outcome of this widely held believed has led to the total colonisation of the African economic mindset and imagination.\nReviewing the concept of the informal economy and free-market capitalism: In the mid-1950s, Arthur Lewis (1954) elaborated a theoretical model of economic development premised on the twin assumptions that there was an unlimited supply of labour in most developing countries and that, as the modern industrial sector in these countries grew, this vast pool of surplus labour would be absorbed. During the 1950s and into the 1960s, the Lewis model of economic development, reinforced by the successful rebuilding of Europe and Japan and the expansion of mass production in Europe and North America after the Second World War, dominated the economic discipline and development perspectives more broadly. It was widely assumed that with the right mix of economic policies and resources, poor traditional economies could be transformed into dynamic modern economies - that is, free-market economies. It was also widely assumed that, in this process, the informal sector would gradually be absorbed into the formal economy.\nConceiving the affiliation between the formal and informal economy: To begin to understand the competing voices and interpretations of the informal economy, four representations are here reviewed that currently have extensive consumption in the literature and cover the cosmic preponderance of views held.\nVoicing the informal economy as a residue: This residue perspective propels the premise that goods and services are increasingly produced and distributed via the formal economy or free-market capitalism and the informal economy as disappearing due to a natural, organic and inescapable economic formalisation. The informal economy is thus a residue, a leftover from an earlier mode of production and consumption, and a sign of \"primitiveness\", \"under-development\", \"traditionalism\" and \"backwardness\". The formal economy, meanwhile, is viewed as representing \"progress\", \"development\", \"modernity\" and \"advancement\" (Boeke, 1942; Geertz, 1963; Lewis, 1959). If the informal economy predominates more in rural than urban economies, this is viewed as gesticulating the lagged adaptation of rural areas. Put another way, spatial differences in economies are conflated into a temporally sequenced normative hierarchy that depicts the formal economy as progressive and the informal economy as regressive.\nThe by-product representation of the informal economy: One such perception drawing upon broader structuralist theorisations of economic reorganisation depicts the informal economy as growing rather than shrinking in late capitalism, and the formal and informal economy as intricately inter-twinned rather than separate. The informal economy is growing, it is asserted, due to the initiation of a de-regulated (neo-liberal) open world economy, which is encouraging a race-to-the-bottom in terms of labour standards (Amin et al., 2002; Castells and Portes, 1989; Gallin, 2001; Hudson, 2005; Portes, 1994; Sassen, 1997). On the one hand, the development of the informal economy, particularly paid informal economic activities, is viewed as a by-product of employers reducing costs by adopting informal work arrangements. This is exhibited in the growth of sub-contracting not only to those employing off-the-books workers under degrading, low-paid and exploitative \"sweatshop-like\" conditions, exemplified by the garment manufacturing sector (e.g. Bender, 2004; Espenshade, 2004; Ross, 2004) but also to the self-employed. As Davis (2006, p. 186) puts it, contemporary capitalism is resulting in the return of \"primitive forms of exploitation that have been given new life by postmodern globalization\".\nThe alternative perspective: To some, this jubilation of formalisation is rejected and substituted by a favouring of informalisation as the pathway to progress. Parallel to the residue portrayal, the informal and formal economy are here often seen as separate but unlike both the residue and by-product perspectives, the informal economy is read as having positive attributes and impacts, and conducted as a matter of choice rather than due to a lack of choice (Cross, 2000; Gerxhani, 2004; Maloney, 2004; Snyder, 2004). As Gerxhani (2004, p. 274) argues for example, workers \"choose to participate in the informal economy because they find more autonomy, flexibility and freedom in this sector than in the formal one\".\nReading the informal economy as a supplement: A final reading again represents the informal economy as possessing largely positive attributes and impacts, but reads the formal and informal economy as complexly inter-twinned rather than as separate. Indeed, the formal and informal economy are portrayed as complementary in that they grow or decline in tandem, rather than one declining when the other grows (Beck, 2000; Williams, 2004b; Williams and Windebank, 2002). This is argued not only at the global and national level where both are seen to grow or decline in tandem but also at the level of localities and households. Fairly affluent populations and households, who are the major recipients and participants of formal economic activities, are also seen as the major beneficiaries of informal activities, conducting not only more self-provisioning, unpaid community exchange and paid informal work than households excluded from the formal economy but also more rewarding forms of informal work (e.g. Fortin et al., 1996; Jensen et al., 1995; Nelson and Smith, 1999, 2009; Slack, 2007; Slack and Jensen, 2009; Williams, 2004b; Williams and Windebank, 2002).\nLocating the informal economy within African economic policy making: Due to the unprecedented pace, scope, and scale reached by economic globalisation and the new opportunities it has spawned, majority of African states, realising the prospects of a more beneficial integration\nConclusion: Ever since the introduction of the structural adjustment programmes and the economic recovery programmes by the IMF and World Bank in post-independent African economies, the widespread belief has been that African countries were transitioning into the global capitalist economy (through the framework of free-market neo-liberal policies) and as a result, economic policy has entirely concentrated on fostering capitalist endeavour in these societies. In a telling metaphor, Ake (1995) likens this mass intervention and investment (facilitate the advent of free-market capitalism in Africa) as a new form of imperialism that has activated the dynamics of underdevelopment, and brought about mass poverty and environmental degradation. Notwithstanding this considerable and ongoing effort to promote free-market economic policies, most African societies and communities remain steadfastly grounded in a form of work organisation based on economic pluralism - the vast majority depend on a plurality of economic practices (Sallah and Williams, 2011). This raises a number of crucial questions. Should African economic policy continue to focus on the development of formal and capitalist economic practices in these African societies? Or should an attempt be made to also facilitate the development of other spheres as either a complement or alternative to the formal and capitalist spheres so as to enhance the coping capacities of these populations as well as the aspiration for industrialisation?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the narrative that the informal economy in Africa has no place within the framework of economic development. Considered as a sign of \"backwardness\", \"traditionalism\" and \"underdevelopment\", the informal economy in Africa has persistently grown notwithstanding Africa's economic destabilisation through the adoption of neo-liberal economic interventions and free-market policies. This paper argues that the informal economy cannot be marginalised at the fringes of economic development, in the construction of a holistic development pathway.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodological basis is discourse analysis.\nFindings: The outcome is a call to re-think and open up the feasibility, and possibilities for, alternative economic futures beyond free-market capitalism.\nOriginality/value: This paper makes a critical consideration on one of the multiple narratives that continue to inform economic policy making in Africa, by contesting and deconstructing its basis in order to encourage a pluralistic approach and understanding.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Redefining the school nurse role: an organizational perspective
|
[
"School nurse",
"Role change",
"Organizational readiness for change",
"Health promoting school",
"School health services",
"Canada",
"Change management",
"Medical personnel",
"Social planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The quest for greater efficiency in health systems in industrialized countries encourages governments to review services organization. In the context of the recent health care reform in the Province of Quebec (Canada), new local health organizations were asked to review the roles of health professionals and their scope of practice in the most efficient manner (Ministere de la Sante et des Services sociaux, 2007). This reform followed the adoption of Bill 90, paving the way for the possible delegation of acts reserved for health professionals (Gouvernement du Quebec, 2002, c. 33). Meanwhile, in 2004, a health promoting school (HPS) approach was progressively implemented throughout the province (Ministere de la Sante et des Services sociaux, & Ministere de l'Education, 2003). The adoption was mandatory for local health organizations, the centres de sante et des services sociaux (CSSS), but voluntary for schools. However, the implementation of HPS has encountered difficulties, mainly because greater priority is placed on this approach by the health sector than by the educational sector (Deschesnes et al., 2008). Given this situation, regional and local health administrators question the actual role of elementary school nurses (ESNs). The redefinition of the role of the health professional is considered to be an organizational innovation (Tremblay, 2007). Because the organization is the primary context for innovation, innovation cannot be studied independently from the type of organization that adopts it (Damanpour and Wischnevsky, 2006). Given the dearth of information on ESN role and their organizational conditions in Quebec, the assessment of organizational readiness for change within these organizations has the potential to better inform local and regional health administrators who must deal with a scarcity of resources.\nTheoretical background: Change experts and healthcare practitioners contend that organizational readiness for change (ORC) is a critical precursor to the successful implementation of change (Fuller et al., 2007; Lehman et al., 2002; Simpson, 2002; Weiner, 2009; Weiner et al., 2008). It is estimated that half the failures to implement organizational change occur because organizational leaders failed to establish sufficient readiness (Weiner et al., 2008). When ORC is high, organizational members invest more in the change effort and exhibit greater persistence to overcome obstacles and setbacks (Armenakis and Harris, 2002). ORC is conceptualized in many ways in the literature. In the context of this study, ORC refers to organization members' beliefs regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organizational motivations and capacities to make the changes (Armenakis et al., 1993). The ORC conceptual framework (Simpson, 2002) was chosen for this study because it encompasses many variables shown to influence organizational readiness at the decision-making stage (Greenhalgh et al., 2004; Lehman et al., 2002). Moreover, in the absence of studies on the ESN organizational context in Quebec, this framework was seen as appropriate as it allows a comprehensive assessment of ORC through four dimensions: motivations to engage in change, actual resources, leaders' attributes and the organizational climate (see Table I).In this study, motivations refer to the forces influencing the adoption of a specific change. Resources such as information technology (IT) are known to have a positive influence on the adoption of an organizational innovation (Omachonu and Einspruch, 2010). Leaders' attributes influence workers' motivation and organizational climate (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006, 2009). Climate refers to members' shared perceptions (aggregated ratings) of the organizational environment (Lehman et al., 2002). Lehman et al. (2002) stipulate that other factors can influence the adoption of a specific innovation regardless of the overall ORC, but if the innovation is not relevant to a program, it is unlikely to be implemented successfully. In the present study, ORC is innovation specific. Thus, we have added the new proposed role of the health promoting school as a variable under the motivations dimension to evaluate the extent to which it could contribute to meet program needs (see the following list). This strategy helps estimate the respondent receptivity to this innovation, but not its feasibility, per se. Expectations from managers toward the ESN role were added as a variable following a recent study on community nurses health promotion practices in Quebec (Beaudet et al., 2008) showing that nurses envision themselves primarily in a support role within multidisciplinary teams, while their managers wish they were more influential, actively developing partnerships with a broader range of actors and planning and evaluating health promotion projects. The authors identified such a role as being a \"strategic role\" (Beaudet et al., 2008). Since the proposed role is defined in these terms, it is useful to identify the fit between this role and managers' expectations to identify potential discrepancies. Decentralization was also integrated into our framework, as the distribution of decision-making power is widely recognized as a significant factor by organizational academics in innovation studies (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Greenhalgh et al., 2004). The addition of this variable served to distinguish between the decision-making autonomy related to clinical tasks and decisions that indirectly affect professional roles and program functioning.\nA redefined health promotion role for elementary school nurses: 1. Planned change of life habits: evidence-based consultation, in-service and intervention on youth development, behavior and health issues, e.g. nutrition, physical activity, smoking, etc.2. Planned change of life conditions:* Health services (preventive and curative) for students and school staff1.* Involvement in the physical and social environment of the school:- School committees.- Local representation on the regional ESNs board.- Collaboration with stakeholders: educational, municipal, NGO, private sector.- Planning, coordination and participation in the evaluation of HPS projects.- Development of public policies favorable to the health of children aged five to 12 years.- Development of school nursing policies.- Development of research questions regarding youth health and school nurse practice.- Development of a school health promotion intervention registry.- Encouraging proactive involvement of students and their families in projects and interventions.- Evidence-based consultation, in-service and intervention on youth development, behavior and health issues.- Marketing of the school nurse role to students, families, school, community, etc.\nMethods: Study setting\nResults: Descriptive statistics of the participants and their CSSS are presented in Table III. Typical managers of this study were predominantly experienced and highly educated females in their fifties, with nurses as heads of nursing directorates and individuals from psychosocial disciplines as managers overseeing school health programs. Tenure in actual position was less than five years for the majority of respondents. Most CSSSs had more than 1,000 employees and were considered, therefore, as large local organizations merged primarily with hospital centers. About a third of the CSSSs were university-affiliated.ORC provincial profile\nDiscussion: The findings from the exploratory multivariate study did not provide support for the research hypotheses regarding the size of CSSSs, the merger with hospital administration, and tenure in management and position of the manager. Damanpour and Schneider (2009) found that managers' demographic characteristics did not play a crucial role in the adoption of organizational innovation.The managers rated the proposed role as very appropriate to bridge the gap between the current and the desired program needs. This finding is interesting as Deschesnes et al. (2008) highlighted the difficulty of integrating the services linked to HPS. Our results also illustrate the low profile position of ESNs in this approach with respect to their contribution in the decision process related to HPS, the development and the management of health promotion projects in general and the planning of interventions in particular. These observations are in agreement with the study of Beaudet et al. (2008) on the necessity to optimize community nurses' contribution to health promotion planning and evaluation. Such findings clearly show that the school health program is operating more in a reactive than a proactive mode. Thus, the program needs scores contribute to increase the motivation favourable to organizational readiness for this specific change, since HPS is based on actions integrating planned change of individual behaviours and their environmental conditions.The fit between innovation and stakeholder needs is a prerequisite to create the organizational readiness for a particular change (Walker et al., 2007; Weiner et al., 2009). In this regard, the low ORC scores for the directors of nursing on variables such as mission, growth, influence, pressures and communication indicate that school nursing practice is neither well known nor prioritized by nursing authorities. This interpretation is reinforced by the appreciation of the nursing professional order as a pressure group by the respondents. Therefore, nursing authorities, as a group, may not be the best allies for the evolution of ESN practice in this new role. In the organizational structure brought about by the reform, the directors of nursing act as consultants and have no formal authority over nurses. They act as clinical respondents for all nurses. As such, in spite of the nursing shortage, they have to deal with the pressure of the demands of services requiring an on-going nursing presence. Moreover, community health training and experience are no longer required for the director of nursing position. On the other hand, the director overseeing the school health program holds formal authority over ESNs. Top managers affect the adoption of innovation because they modulate the process of scanning the environment and formulating policy to respond to external change; they control resources and influence key decisions, especially strategic decisions (Dewar and Dutton, 1986). As such, top managers are a compelling force for or against innovation, and are largely responsible for the cultural values that prevail in support of innovation within a given organization (Elenkov et al., 2005). Managerial support is also recognized as one of the most significant factors for the adoption of organizational innovation (Damanpour and Schneider, 2009). Their appreciation of their efficacy and their capacity of adaptation are most predictive of employee acceptance of major organizational transition (Walker et al., 2007). Finally, the supervisors of the school health program would be crucial to an eventual adoption of the proposed role.Weiner (2009) argues that a receptive context is necessary but not sufficient to create readiness to implement an innovation. Our results show that the actual state of resources is clearly not favorable to the adoption of the broader scope of practice implied in this health promotion role for school nurses. The number of staff is insufficient and nurses' qualifications warrant further investigation. The study does not provide information about the nature of resources offered and required to adequately train nurses in HPS, but there is a consensus in the literature about the lack of appropriate training for school nurses to enable them to play a comprehensive role in health promotion (Kool et al., 2008; Morberg et al., 2009). A recent study in Australia revealed that information technology is a key driver for school nurses (Kool et al., 2008). In Sweden, a study also recommended the introduction of computerized journals and programs to support the development of school nurse practices (Morberg et al., 2009). Omachonu and Einspruch (2010)conclude that the paper system hinders the ability of caregivers to access information vital to the delivery of services and that important savings can be achieved through use of software and electronic recordkeeping.With respect to climate scores, previous studies have indicated that organizational complexities in health and social services agencies mitigate very high scores for this dimension (Lehman et al., 2002). Nurses' stress reduced the global climate scores. However, more studies are needed to identify whether sources of stress are linked to a lack of ORC or to other sources. Therefore, some implications for the adoption of such a role by ESNs may be drawn from this study.Implications for the adoption of a health promotion role by school nurses\nConclusion: In conclusion, in spite of its limitations, this study makes important contributions. First, it identifies two areas where school health programs needs are high, but more importantly, it shows that the proposed innovation, a redefined health promotion role for school nurses, could contribute significantly to meeting these needs. However, despite an organizational climate generally favorable, resource scarcity could limit the organizational capacity to implement such a role. Second, this study reveals that the program supervisors of the school health programs, although mostly from professions other than nursing, are influential and supportive of a health promotion role for school nurses. Contrary to what is generally admitted, nursing authorities, as a whole, may not be the best allies for the adoption of this health promotion role. Third, leaders' demographic characteristics and the structural characteristics of organizations do not appear to exert an impact on organizational readiness with respect to the proposed role. Nonetheless, resources, to lower the stress of ESNs and understanding of HPS objectives by school nurses are areas of concern that deserve to be investigated in future studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to identify organizational readiness for change towards adoption of a redefined role of the school nurse as a strategic option in the context of a health promoting school approach. This new role is consistent with planned change directed at life habits and life conditions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire based on a modified version of the organizational readiness for change (ORC) framework was e-mailed to 122 top and middle managers (response rate of 74 percent) in 42 local health organizations in the Province of Quebec, Canada, during the fall of 2009.\nFindings: - In total, 90 percent of participants perceived the proposed role as a solution to fulfil their school health program needs, especially to plan and integrate health promotion projects. The lack of resources and nursing support emerged as factors hampering the capacity of school nurses to play such a role.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Additional implications of the ORC framework are needed in order to better address organizational readiness for complex changes in specific health-related settings.\nPractical implications: - Access to information technology and the development of computer skills would help enhance this encompassing role in health promotion.\nOriginality/value: - Findings have the potential to better inform health authorities regarding the new role of the school nurse as a strategic option in health promotion. This study also provides an application of the theoretical framework showing the need for additional empirical tests.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Brand identity documentation: a cross-national examination of identity standards manuals
|
[
"Brands",
"International marketing",
"National cultures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Companies that focus on developing an effective image program have control over a key competitive weapon (Gray and Smeltzer, 1987), and managers mindful of their company's image cannot afford to ignore the corporate identity of the organization (van Rekom, 1997). One of the more readily identifiable features of corporate identity is the visual component that is specified in the \"identity standards manual\" (van den Bosch et al., 2004). This document is a guide to managing the application of the corporate identity visual system (Margulies, 1977) and is a fundamental tool for any company wishing to apply its brand in a consistent way (Margulies, 1977; Melewar et al., 2005; Olins, 1991; Regouby, 1989). Despite the importance of this document, few studies have examined its contents from a marketing point of view. Most of the information comes from the world of graphic design, and the studies are based more on the experience of professionals than on empirical research (Bos et al., 1991; Carter, 1998; Oejo, 1999; Whitbread, 2001). Furthermore, most of the studies comparing different countries, sectors or companies have concentrated mainly on the medium in which the brand is applied: advertising in general (Pratt, 1993; van Raaij, 1997), television, print media (Ahmed, 2000; Al-Olayan and Karande, 2000) and the internet (Okazaki, 2005; Vila, 2004). Corporate identity, visual identity and the ways to apply them consistently have been studied to a lesser extent (Jun and Lee, 2007; Madden et al., 2000; Melewar and Wooldridge, 2001; van den Bosch et al., 2006a, b).Against this background and in an attempt to add something new to the well-established debate on \"standardization/adaptation\" of international marketing (Ryans et al., 2003; Whitelock and Fastoso, 2007; Wong and Merrilees, 2007), this study analyses 341 identity standards manuals from all over the world and from different economic sectors, with four main aims to:1. identify the key features of an identity standards manual so as to better understand the rules for applying the brand;2. assess the differences in the rules used for applying the brand to both low- and high-context cultures;3. assess the differences in the rules for applying the brand to both companies selling consumer goods and those selling services; and4. assess the differences in the rules for applying the brand to both multinational and local companies.The analysis of these differences is based on three key features found in the manuals: contents of the manual, normative tone and development of the manual. The results will be a guide for any company interested in designing an identity standards manual and especially for those operating in different countries and cultures.We begin with an explanation of the theoretical framework of the rules for applying the brand and identity standards manuals and how they are related to different cultures, types of products and geographical expansion of the company. Then, we explain the research method, how the data were obtained and the variables used to measure the proposed concepts. We provide the results of the analysis and comment on them in the discussion section. Finally, we summarize the main conclusions, the managerial implications and the limitations of the research.\nTheoretical background: Corporate visual identity and international marketing\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: Content analysis of the identity standards manuals\nDiscussion: The results of this research show that minimum or basic contents exist in the majority of the identity standards manuals analysed. These are the \"core contents\" of the manual, which include \"introduction,\" \"basic elements of visual identity\" and \"rules for using the brand.\" The other two dimensions - \"applications of brand\" and \"technical complements\" - make up the \"peripheral contents\" of an identity standards manual because fewer than half the manuals studied include variables belonging to these dimensions. The distinction between core and peripheral contents becomes evident when the main function of a manual is considered, namely, to present the basic features that make up the visual identity of the company and to explain how to use them.Furthermore, the results confirm the traditional differentiation between high- and low-context cultures and suggest that the identity standards manuals reflect cultural characteristics. Indeed, of the three features studied herein, the difference between cultures seems to be what best distinguishes the contents, the normative tone and the development of the manual.The results for the contents coincide with the features most valued in each culture. In high-context cultures, these include non-verbal features (logo and symbol), traditions and customs (history/values), features defining the context of the communication (typography), accessories or decorative elements (corporate tiled pattern and supergraphic) and people (uniforms); in low-context cultures, these include textual features (name and publications) and direct messages (incorrect applications). The aspects that each culture values most seem to influence the rules made for applying the brand and the preparation of the identity standards manual. The differences in the normative tone can also be explained by the differences between cultures. The preference of low-context cultures for written rules results in more prescriptive manuals than those of high-context cultures. The different ways the manuals develop their contents can also be explained by the particular nature of each culture. The preference of low-context cultures for direct language and fast messages results in simpler manuals. The preference of high-context cultures for indirect language and slow messages produces more complex manuals with more sections.We also found differences in terms of contents and number of pages between manuals of companies with tangible products and those of companies providing services. As indicated in the literature, the differences found in contents refer only to applying the brand, not to the rules for use. The intangible or tangible nature of the product explains why some applications are more important than others: packaging in the case of products and stationery in the case of services. With regard to the development of the manual, that the manuals of service companies analysed have more pages and therefore are complex manuals may indicate that companies offering services pay more attention to their visual identity.Regarding the expansion of the company, the differences found between the manuals of local and multinational companies pertain to content only. Local companies place more emphasis on contents that refer to the basic elements of the brand. Conversely, multinational companies place more emphasis on contents that refer to applications of brand. This reflects how concerned multinational companies are about total control of how the brand is applied; they present their subsidiaries with the greatest possible amount of specific examples so that the subsidiaries merely copy them and create nothing themselves. Nevertheless, except for these differences, the research shows that the manuals of local and multinational companies are basically the same. This may indicate that when a company decides to expand to other markets, it uses the same manual as in the local market and only extends the dimension \"applications of brand\".\nConclusions, implications and limitations: The evolution in competition, the massive proliferation in media and advertising platforms and the increase in demand and in the level of information offered to the consumer all indicate that the quality of a company depends not only on its products but also on its services, actions and communications. In this context, the corporate visual identity enables the company to present its corporate identity to the public through a \"total visual image\" (Mut Camacho and Breva Franch, 2004).However, the brand in itself does not exist; rather, it is presented to the public through different vehicles (e.g. advertising, signage, and uniforms). Implementation of these applications means following a series of design rules (e.g. margins, colors, typefaces, and sizes), which must always be the same to convey a coherent, coordinated image that reinforces and enhances the company's communication with its public. These rules are contained in a company's identity standards manual, and according to the results of this research, the main contents of the manual are the basic elements of visual identity and the rules for using the brand.The results of this research also show that there are differences in the contents of the manuals depending on the culture (high- vs low-context) and that the rules governing the application of the brand differ according to the preferences of each culture. Similarly, differences also seem to exist in the tone in which the rules are written (rigidity vs flexibility) and in the type of manuals used (simple vs complex).Consequently, the frequent debate in the field of international marketing about standardization/adaptation of the visual identity should not be limited to verbal and graphic signs (e.g. name, logo, and color) but should also include the rules laid down for their use and the documents used to convey them (i.e. identity standards manual). The results we obtained in this area will be useful to all companies using a brand and identity standards manual and in cultures different from their own because knowing the most important rules for each culture will allow for more effective management of brand use.That the manuals of multinational and local companies only differ in the secondary dimension (applications of brand) may indicate that the companies have not implemented a process of adapting the manual to new cultures. Although some managers opt for standardizing the brand when developing a global marketing strategy, the results of this research indicate that in applying the brand at an international level, a strategy of adaptation should be followed, taking into account the particular nature of each culture and the characteristics of the people responsible for using the brand.With regard to future lines of research, this paper concentrated only on analysing the contents of a series of manuals from different countries, and as such, its results would be complemented with the use of another type of qualitative information. This could take the form of surveying directors involved in corporate identity or designers from different cultures commissioned to apply the rules for brand use. In this sense, of the different cultural dimensions proposed by the literature, this research focused only on the difference between high- and low-context cultures. The study could be repeated by applying the dimensions proposed by other authors, such as Schwartz (1999) and Hofstede (1980).Finally, we should highlight some limitations. First, Type I errors could have been introduced because of the number of tests we undertook and, therefore, we may have observed some statistical differences when there were none. Accordingly, our conclusions must be regarded as tentative. Second, we limited the study to a description of manuals and to collating opinions from experts in the sector. We made no attempt to measure how effective the manuals were in maintaining coherence in the use of the brand. It would be useful to measure coherence in use so as to define which factors that come into play in creating a manual contribute the most to improving and enhancing a consistent application of the brand.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify the key features of an identity standards manual and assess the differences in the rules used for applying the brand to both low- and high-context cultures, companies selling consumer goods and those selling services, and multinational and local companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology is based on the analysis of 341 identity standards manuals and on the analysis of three key features found in the manuals: contents, normative tone, and development.\nFindings: - The results divide the contents of the manual into two blocks: core and peripheral; and show that there are differences between the manuals of high- and low-context cultures, companies selling consumer goods and those selling services, and multinational and local companies.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Type I errors could have been introduced and the conclusions must be regarded as tentative.\nPractical implications: - The findings show that applying the brand at an international level requires a strategy of adaptation which takes into account the particular nature of each culture.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the debate on standardization/adaptation of the signs of visual identity (name, logo, and color) in global marketing, by studying the rules used in applying the brand and discussion of the documents which contain them.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Empirical study of interactions between knowledge management activities
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Tacit knowledge",
"Hong Kong"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge is a commodity. It is a by-product of learning that involves the creation, sharing, processing and possible use of information in an individual's mind (Debowski, 2006). Knowledge management (KM) is therefore concerned with both intensity and efficiency of implementing such activities within the organisation; it is simply the process of leveraging organisational knowledge to deliver a long-term competitive advantage. Given the limited number of empirical studies into KM in the context of construction (Egbu et al., 2003a, p. 54), a questionnaire survey was administered to elicit the opinions of Hong Kong construction professionals on the intensity (and not the efficiency) of KM activities currently being implemented by their organisations to facilitate knowledge capture, sharing and utilisation. The efficiency with which these activities are being implemented is outside the scope of this paper. A total of 149 usable responses were received from 99 organisations, representing about 38 per cent of the research population. This paper presents survey results focusing on the interactions between four and broad different KM activities, which are classified from a strategic perspective:* responsiveness to knowledge within the business environment;* knowledge acquisition;* knowledge dissemination; and* knowledge utilisation.The paper also reports on interviews conducted with staff from 12 different organisations to shed some light on KM activity interactions.\nPertinent research: Knowledge management\nInteractions between KM activities: From a strategic perspective, KM activities within business organisations interact with each other to form a process that receives input from its context (i.e. the external and internal business environments), and produces valid knowledge that can be justified by desired business performance (Diakoulakis et al., 2004; Kalling, 2003; Mouritsen, 2004). KM activities interact with each other in a cycle-like pattern to facilitates organisational knowledge flow (Dalkir, 2005, pp. 26-46). In the meantime, knowledge circulates in the course of these interactions and forms a knowledge lifecycle, whereby the body of knowledge enlarges through each round of KM process (Chang Lee et al., 2005; del-Rey-Chamorro et al., 2003). At the beginning of the KM process, the organisation needs to assess, and to value its own knowledge against these challenges through exploring the business environment and scanning its own internal environment in order to respond to the knowledge-related challenges posed by the external business environment (McCann and Buckner, 2004).In light of the above argument, strategies need to be formulated to create and extend organisational knowledge. The acquisition of an external knowledge base, the elaboration of the current knowledge pool, the benefit of organisational learning, and the creation of an empowering and motivating work environment thus constitute substantial parameters for accomplishing the objective of knowledge acquisition (Diakoulakis et al., 2004). The acquired knowledge is then disseminated through activities such as formalising, codifying, organising and storing, in order to increase the visibility of explicit knowledge in different media, and to facilitate sharing of tacit knowledge such as socialisation, mentorship and apprenticeship (Abou-Zeid, 2002).The ultimate goal of knowledge management is to effectively utilise the intellectual capital within the organisation, and to transform such knowledge assets into competitive advantage through enhanced organisational performance (Anantatmula and Kanungo, 2006). Through knowledge utilisation new knowledge is generated and the body of organisational knowledge assets is enlarged (Nonaka and Toyama, 2004), and interactions with clients and the market offer more information for the organisation to respond to (Rowley, 2004). Accordingly, a new cycle of the KM process is initiated, based on a much larger knowledge base.It appears that each type of activities plays a unique function in such a KM process. For example, knowledge acquiring and sharing activities receive input from, and are also affected by, the business environment (Moffett et al., 2003; Oliver and Kandadi, 2006); whilst only the actual utilisation of the acquired knowledge contribute to business performance (Kalling, 2003); and in the meantime, knowledge dissemination activities are a prerequisite for the effective and efficient implementation of all other KM activities (Gold et al., 2001). It is logical to assume that knowledge sharing will be more active through having a conducive business environment (Debowski, 2006, p. 20); this will in turn lead to higher intensity of knowledge utilisation and ultimately improve business performance (Chen and Mohamed, 2005a, b). However, the study into interactions between different categories of KM activities is limited in the literature, particularly in the construction context (Egbu et al., 2003a).Based on the above review, a strategic KM process model is proposed, and is illustrated in Figure 2. The model has three key components: input from both external and internal business environments; interactions of KM activities; and output of the KM process - enlarged organisational knowledge assets and improved business performance. This paper reports only on the central component of the model by providing empirical evidence and qualitative insight into the interactions between different categories of KM activities. This is to fill the gap in existing theoretical knowledge where previous studies often viewed KM activities as independent concepts, and the relationships between these activities were often disregarded (Chou et al., 2005).\nTheoretical framework and research hypotheses: Extending the previous discussion, the objective of this study is to identify relationships between KM activities. To achieve this, a theoretical framework is proposed in order to empirically investigate potential relationships between KM activities in the single business firm environment of construction organisations. To this end, KM activities were studied according to the ways in which knowledge is dealt with in organisational operations (Shankar et al., 2003). Given that knowledge is a type of strategic organisational resource, KM activities were classified into four strategic dimensions (Abou-Zeid, 2002; McCann and Buckner, 2004; Salisbury, 2003), and accordingly formed into the four key constructs in the theoretical framework:1. \"Responsiveness to knowledge\" (KR): responding to the various types of knowledge an organisation has access to, in its external as well as internal environments (Darroch, 2003).2. \"Knowledge acquisition\" (KA): seeking and acquiring knowledge from the external environment and creating new knowledge based on existing knowledge within the organisation (Darroch, 2003; Gold et al., 2001).3. \"Knowledge dissemination\" (KD): creating and maintaining structures, systems and processes for sharing knowledge, and for retaining knowledge within the organisation (McCann and Buckner, 2004).4. \"Knowledge utilisation\" (KU): utilising the intellectual capital within the organisation especially new tacit knowledge (Gold et al., 2001).Recent empirical studies (Darroch, 2003; Gold et al., 2001) provide basic measurable items for operationally defining the above four constructs. Whilst many of these items were adopted in this study, others had been modified in view of the findings of relevant construction-specific studies (Egbu et al., 2003b; Kululanga et al., 1999; Kululanga et al., 2002). The process of constructs operationalisation was completed through a pilot questionnaire survey administered to a sample of 43 managerial and professional staff members from contracting organisations operating within Hong Kong. Based on this pilot study, items with very low implementation levels were excluded leaving a total of 41 items to operationally define the above four constructs (Chen and Mohamed, 2005c; Chen et al., 2005). Naturally, the reliability and validity of these items need to be tested prior to revealing whether the four constructs are associated with each other; and if so, whether these associations are strong enough that the intensity of one or more constructs could be used to predict that of another. Accordingly, the following three hypotheses were proposed.H1. Developed constructs comprise reliable and valid items for operationally defining KM constructs.H2. Statistically significant positive relationships exist between the developed constructs.H3. The developed constructs have a varying degree of predictive power.\nResearch methodology: The research design mainly follows a deductive approach, which begins with an abstract, logical relationship between concepts, then moves toward concrete empirical evidence. Complementary to this approach, a qualitative approach was also used to provide more insight into identified relationships (Neuman, 2003). A cross-sectional study design was used herein to provide a \"snap-shot\" of the implementation of KM activities. Data were gathered over a period of several months via a mail questionnaire survey that has two major sections. Section 1 elicits respondents' opinions on the intensity of KM activities being executed by their organisations at the time of the survey, whereas section 2 gathers demographical information about the respondents and their organisations. In the questionnaire, five-point Likert scales (from 1 = \"strongly disagree\" to 5 = \"strongly agree\") were used to measure the operationally-defined items of the constructs within the proposed theoretical framework. The questionnaire was pre-tested with ten contractors in Hong Kong. Based on the pre-test feedback, the data collection process began after the questionnaire had been finalised.To select sample candidates, two trade directories were referred to the \"list of approved contractors for public works\" (ETWB, 2005); and the \"members list\" (HKCA, 2005) of the Hong Kong Construction Association, whose members represent local and overseas contractors operating within Hong Kong. Large- and medium-sized contracting organisations within Hong Kong represented the theoretical population because they provide a relatively better environment for KM compared with small contractors (Ng, 2003). The sample population (which was randomly drawn from the above two sources) comprised 260 contractors, including 109 group C contractors approved for public works with contract values exceeding HK$50 million (ETWB, 2005), and 125 group B contractors approved for public works with contract values of up to HK$50 million. A few group A contractors (approved for public works with contract values of up to HK$20 million) were also included. During the survey process, organisations were initially contacted via e-mail, telephone and/or networking (if possible) to confirm their contact details and to introduce the survey. The self-administered questionnaire was then mailed or delivered in person to the managerial and professional staff member(s) within these organisations. A cover letter was attached to the questionnaire to introduce the researcher, the objectives of the study, and the importance of the survey. A self-addressed, stamped return envelope was also included in the package. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were also undertaken, during the process of survey, to provide insight into the topic under investigation.\nData analysis and examination: Survey responses\nConcluding remarks: Both empirical and qualitative studies reported herein reveal that KM activities within the targeted organisations interacted in a cycle-like pattern, which is in line with the proposed strategic KM process based on the literature. The study found that the higher the level of responsiveness to knowledge, the higher the intensity of knowledge acquisition, which can explain the higher intensity of knowledge dissemination. The more active knowledge dissemination in turn predicts a higher intensity of knowledge utilisation. In view of the knowledge creation theory (Nonaka and Toyama, 2004), this finding suggests that knowledge acquisition and utilisation play paramount roles in the development of the organisational knowledge asset; the higher intensity of these two types of activities creates a larger knowledge pool that demands greater knowledge dissemination capacity, and also enables more active responses to market changes and clients' needs. This ability in turn facilitates and stimulates both acquisition and utilisation of knowledge. From a strategic perspective, this finding implies that if the intensity of knowledge acquisition and dissemination can be increased through manipulating the business environment factors such as organizational culture as recent KM studies suggest (Debowski, 2006, p. 20; Egbu, 2004; Moffett et al., 2003; Woo et al., 2004), then the intensity of knowledge utilisation will be increased, which theoretically leads to improved business performance (del-Rey-Chamorro et al., 2003; Kalling, 2003).Because of the orientation toward unique projects, much knowledge in the construction industry is experience-based and tacit (Woo et al., 2004). The important role of tacit knowledge management was also reflected by the cycle-like pattern of the KM process, as indicated by the interactions between the KM factors illustrated in Figure 3. Acquisition of business knowledge (e.g. clients' needs, competitors' strategies, market research, etc.) appears to affect the level of knowledge dissemination, particularly tacit knowledge dissemination. The tacit and context-specific nature of the project-related knowledge determines the essential roles of tacit knowledge dissemination procedures such as project review, mentoring and coaching, and analysis of - and discussion on - market information. The extent to which tacit knowledge is externalised and distributed within the organisation influences its approach(es) to applying the knowledge and reacting to market changes, whilst intense and systematic knowledge application leads to an active response to market changes and clients' needs, and consequently enables a higher level of acquisition of market and financial knowledge.Constrained by the available resources, this study was limited to only one type of construction organisations (i.e. contractors) in a specific geographical region (i.e. Hong Kong). To reach better generalisability, future research would benefit from a larger sample size, as well as greater sample diversity in terms of size and category of organisations, as well as and cultural context. Additionally, further qualitative studies such as in-depth case studies are considered necessary to examine the interactions between different types of KM activities in detail.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - Recent knowledge management (KM) literature suggests that KM activities are not independent of each other, rather they interact with each other to form a process which receives input from both external and internal business environments, and then produces new knowledge for future utilisation. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between KM activities within the construction business context in order to identify and map the pattern of their interactions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of contracting organisations operating in Hong Kong to elicit opinions of construction professionals on the intensity of KM activities currently being executed by their organisations in order to facilitate knowledge capture, sharing and utilisation. More than 150 respondents from 99 organisations responded to the survey. Additionally, a total of 15 semi-structured interviews were undertaken to provide a unique perspective on many of the challenges facing local construction organisations when dealing with KM activities.\nFindings: - Knowledge acquisition and utilisation play paramount roles in the development of the organisational knowledge asset. The higher the intensity of these two activities, the larger the organisational knowledge pool which, in turn, demands greater knowledge dissemination capacity. This dissemination capacity enables more active and intense responses to market changes and clients' needs, thus facilitating and stimulating acquisition and utilisation of new tacit knowledge, thus improving organisational business performance.\nOriginality/value: - Interactions between KM activities were empirically investigated, from a strategic perspective, in the construction business context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The explanatory foundations of relationship marketing theory
|
[
"Relationship marketing",
"Resources",
"Competences",
"Public policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nThe forms of relationship marketing: Understanding relationship marketing requires distinguishing between the discrete transaction, which has a \"distinct beginning, short duration, and sharp ending by performance,\" and relational exchange, which \"traces to previous agreements [and] ... is longer in duration, reflecting an ongoing process\" (Dwyer et al., 1987, p. 13). Categorized with reference to a focal firm and its relational exchanges in supplier, lateral, buyer, and internal partnerships, Figure 1 shows ten forms of relationship marketing:1. The partnering involved in relational exchanges between manufacturers and their goods' suppliers, as in \"just-in-time\" procurement and \"total quality management.\"2. The relational exchanges involving service providers, as between advertising or marketing research agencies and their respective clients.3. The strategic alliances between firms and their competitors, as in technology alliances, co-marketing alliances, and global strategic alliances.4. The alliances between a firm and nonprofit organizations, as in public purpose partnerships.5. The partnerships for joint research and development, as between firms and local, state, or national governments.6. The long-term exchanges between firms and ultimate customers, as implemented in \"customer relationship marketing\" programs, affinity programs, loyalty programs, and as particularly recommended in the services marketing area.7. The relational exchanges of working partnerships, as in channels of distribution.8. The relational exchanges involving functional departments.9. The relational exchanges between a firm and its employees, as in internal market orientation in particular and internal marketing in general.10. The within-firm relational exchanges, as those involving such business units as subsidiaries, divisions, or strategic business units (Morgan and Hunt, 1994).Should all the partnerships in Figure 1 be construed as forms of relationship marketing, or should only, for example, those involving ultimate customers? Consider the definitions of relationship marketing that have been offered. Berry (1983, p. 25) defines relationship marketing as:Attracting, maintaining, and - in multi-service organizations - enhancing customer relationships.Berry and Parasuraman (1991) propose that:Relationship marketing concerns attracting, developing, and retaining customer relationships.Gummesson (1994, p. 2) proposes that:Relationship marketing (RM) is marketing seen as relationships, networks, and interaction.Gronroos (1996, p. 11) states that:Relationship marketing is to identify and establish, maintain, and enhance relationships with customers and other stakeholders, at a profit, so that the objectives of all parties involved are met; and that this is done by a mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises.Sheth (1994) defines relationship marketing as:The understanding, explanation, and management of the ongoing collaborative business relationship between suppliers and customers.Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) view relationship marketing as:Attempts to involve and integrate customers, suppliers, and other infrastructural partners into a firm's developmental and marketing activities.Some of these conceptualizations of relationship marketing are broader than others.Because, they argue, all ten of the exchanges in Figure 1 are relational in nature, Morgan and Hunt (1994) propose that all ten are forms of relationship marketing. Therefore, they suggest, \"relationship marketing refers to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges\" (Morgan and Hunt, 1994, p. 22). It is this \"broadened\" view of relationship marketing that is adopted here. This broad view is consistent with the conclusion of Aijo (1996, p. 15):There is a growing consensus on the definition of RM as involving the following aspects: a close long-term relationship between various (network) participants involved in exchanging something of value (total market process).Note that his consensus definition does not restrict relationship marketing to customer relationships. With the preceding conceptualization of relationship marketing in mind, we address our first question.\nWhy prominent now?: If one should input \"relationship marketing\" into a search engine, one will record well over 200,000 \"hits.\" Why the enormous emphasis on a concept that was not even in the marketing vernacular until Berry (1983) first used it in the early 1980s? Mulki and Stock (2003) discuss several environmental factors that have contributed to the rise of relationship marketing. These include the trend for firms in advanced economies to be services oriented, adopt information technologies, be global in nature, be niche-oriented, and be information-oriented (see also Gronroos, 2000; Gummesson, 2002; Sheth, 1994; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995; Webster, 1992). A factor that has been underemphasized, we argue, is the trend toward strategic network competition. Consistent with Hunt and Morgan (1994), we argue that the rise of strategic network competition, as an alternative to traditional and hierarchical competition, has given a significant impetus to the rise of relationship marketing. To understand network competition, we first distinguish it from traditional and hierarchical competition.Traditional view of competition\nWhy enter relationships?: Why do firms and consumers enter into relationships with other firms and consumers? That is, what motivates the relational exchanges in relationship marketing? We begin by examining why consumers engage in relational exchanges with firms, before turning to the motivations for firms to engage in relational exchanges, both with other firms and with consumers.Why do consumers?\nWhy success?: Firms that implement relationship marketing-based (RM-based) strategies recognize the importance of developing and maintaining long-term cooperative relationships with other firms and/or consumers. Specifically, RM-based strategy emphasizes that to achieve competitive advantage and, thereby, superior financial performance, firms should identify, develop, and nurture an efficiency-enhancing, effectiveness-enhancing portfolio of relationships (Hunt, 1997). However, RM-based strategies require considerable time and effort to implement. In addition, to be successful at such strategies, firms must devote substantial amounts of resources (e.g. training and/or money). Moreover, as with all strategies, engaging in RM-based strategies makes sense only if the rewards outweigh the costs. Therefore, to make well-informed decisions regarding whether or not to engage in RM-based strategies and how to implement such strategies, an understanding of the benefits of well-executed RM-based strategies is necessary. That is, what are the indicators of relationship marketing success?Relationship marketing research identifies a number of outcomes, goals, or indicators of successfully designed and implemented RM-based strategies. In general, RM-based strategies are designed to allow firms to more easily share, develop, and leverage resources (e.g. information, processes, and/or competences) with other firms and/or consumers. The result is that, by cooperating, firms are able to compete more efficiently and/or effectively (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Specifically, as shown in Figure 5, successful RM-based strategies have been linked to:* improvements in competitive advantages in the marketplace (Barclay and Smith, 1997; Day, 2000; Hunt, 1997);* superior financial performance (Boles et al., 2000; Hunt, 2000; Kalwani and Narayandas, 1995; Walter and Gemunden, 2000; Weber, 2000);* increased levels of customer satisfaction (Abdul-Muhmin, 2002; Schellhase et al., 2000);* organizational learning (Selnes and Sallis, 2003);* partners' propensity to stay (Gruen et al., 2000; Jap, 2001; Verhoef, 2003);* acquiescence by partners (Kumar et al., 1992; Morgan and Hunt, 1994); and* decreases in uncertainty (Achrol and Stern, 1988; Morgan and Hunt, 1994).These indicators of success, it should be noted, are not considered independent. For example, competitive advantage is posited to promote superior financial performance (Hunt, 2000).Given that many firms adopt (or claim to adopt) RM-based strategies, why are some firms' efforts more successful than others? Research in the area of relationship marketing has identified a minimum of eight types of factors that influence RM-based strategy success:1. Relational factors.2. Resource factors.3. Competence factors.4. Internal marketing factors.5. Information technology factors.6. Market offering factors.7. Historical factors.8. Public policy factors.We discuss the theoretical reasoning underlying each.Relational factors\nConclusion: Although relationship marketing is a relatively young field of inquiry, relationship marketing theory is an extremely rich area of research. As Figure 1 shows, relationship marketing can take many forms and, as a result, relationship marketing theory has the potential to increase our understanding of many aspects of business strategy. To further the development of the explanatory foundations of relationship marketing theory, we provide answers to three \"why\" questions:1. Why is relationship marketing so prominent now?2. Why do firms and consumers enter into relationships with other firms and consumers?3. Why are some efforts at relationship marketing more successful than others?The answers to these questions, we argue, provide a broad base from which to view relationship marketing theory.First, we suggest that the prominence of relationship marketing is due not just to the rise of services, technology, and information-oriented firms, but also to the rise of strategic network competition. Strategic network competition, which involves independent owned and managed firms agreeing to become partners within a network, emphasizes the importance of inter-firm cooperation as a means to compete successfully with other networks. To be successful (both individually and as a network), the firms in a strategic network must become proficient at relationship marketing.Second, relationship marketing theory implies that consumers enter into relational exchanges with firms when they believe that the benefits derived from such relational exchanges exceed the costs. We identify the benefits to include:* the belief that a particular partner can be trusted to reliably, competently, and non-opportunistically provide quality market offerings;* the belief that the partnering firm shares values with the consumer;* the customer experiences decreases in search costs;* the customer perceives that the risk associated with the market offering is lessened;* the exchange is consistent with moral obligation; and* the exchange allows for customization that results in better satisfying the customer's needs, wants, tastes, and preferences.We identify the costs to include:* the premature exclusion of market offerings from other firms that might potentially be superior;* the monetary and time costs of co-production;* the decreased prices that might result from accepting standardized market offerings; and* the increased potential vulnerability of the consumer to the partner's opportunistic behavior.Third, using R-A theory, we argue that firms engage in relationship marketing because it increases their competitiveness. In other words, they do so when relationships contribute to the firm's ability to efficiently/effectively produce market offerings that have value for some market segment(s). That is, they do so when relationships become resources. Relational resources have the potential to improve a firm's marketplace position and, in turn, its financial performance.Fourth, based on relationship marketing theory and shown in Figure 5, we outline and discuss eight factors that influence RM-based strategy success:1. Relational factors (e.g. trust and commitment).2. Resource factors (e.g. complementary and idiosyncratic resources).3. Competence factors (e.g. alliance competences and market-relating capabilities).4. Internal marketing factors (e.g. internal market orientation and part-time marketers).5. Information technology factors (e.g. interorganizational information systems and CRM).6. Market offering factors (e.g. quality and innovativeness).7. Historical factors (e.g. opportunistic behavior and termination costs).8. Public policy factors (e.g. property rights and contract law).These factors, with each being important for relationship marketing theory, are drawn from diverse literature streams. Therefore, they are often examined independently of each other. For example, the competence-based factors explanation of RM-strategy success draws heavily on the strategic management literature, while the relational factors view draws on the relationship marketing literature, and the information technology factors approach stems from the information technology literature. Each approach constitutes (or should constitute) a component of relationship marketing theory. Together, they provide a strong foundation for developing relationship marketing theory.As relationship marketing theory and practice is developed further, we hope that our article will provide useful guidance to those involved. From a marketing theory standpoint, the eight kinds of factors in Figure 5 provide guidance to researchers exploring the many forms of relational marketing outlined in Figure 1. For practitioners, they provide a useful framework for evaluating extant relationship marketing strategies and for developing future strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Drawing on resource-advantage theory and a diverse literature base, this article seeks to further the development of the explanatory foundations of relationship marketing theory by proposing, and then providing, tentative answers to three \"why?\" questions in relationship marketing: why is relationship marketing so prominent now? Why do firms and consumers enter into relationships with other firms and consumers? Why are some efforts at relationship marketing more successful than others?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Before addressing the three questions, the paper begins by discussing the different forms of relationship marketing.\nFindings: - Although relationship marketing is a relatively young field of inquiry, relationship marketing theory is an extremely rich area of research. Relationship marketing can take many forms and, as a result, relationship marketing theory has the potential to increase one's understanding of many aspects of business strategy.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The answers to the three questions in this paper provide a strong foundation for the further development relationship marketing theory and are useful for both relationship marketing theorists and practitioners.\nOriginality/value: - As relationship marketing theory and practice are developed further, the authors hope that the article will provide useful guidance to those involved. From a marketing theory standpoint, the eight kinds of factors provide guidance to researchers exploring the many forms of relational marketing. For practitioners, they provide a useful framework for evaluating extant relationship marketing strategies and for developing future strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Psychological antecedents to customized apparel purchases
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Structural equation modelling",
"Purchase intention",
"Apparel customization",
"External-oriented psychological factors",
"Internal-oriented psychological factors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, consumers needs have been diversified and it has become harder and more complicated to predict their desires due to rapidly changing trends and fashion tastes (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2010). Today, consumers require less expensive products that fit their preferences for novelty and uniqueness. Fast fashion enables retailers to meet consumers' high-frequency demands for new fashion products that are barely-worn before being discarded, resulting in detrimental environmental concerns (Lang et al., 2013; Ertekin and Atik, 2015). As the concept of \"beyond the purchase\" has been increasing and expanding, companies have been identifying innovative ways to create and bolster interactive relationships with consumers by enhancing consumer's brand engagement and experience (Vivek et al., 2012).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses formation: 2.1 Customization in the fashion industry\n3. Research method: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Participants description\n5. Discussion and implications: The purpose of this study is to determine the influences of consumers' internal- and external-oriented psychological properties on the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self; further to identify whether the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self lead to purchase intention towards customized apparel products. Internal-oriented properties including need for uniqueness, self-promotion, self-expression and self-monitoring, as well as external-oriented factors containing social identity and other-directedness were examined. The study points out the positive influence of the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self on the purchase intention toward customized apparel products. The positive influences of need for uniqueness, self-promotion, self-monitoring and social identity on the perception of customization and/or the sense of extended-self were also confirmed.\n6. Conclusion and limitations: This research's aim was to determine how consumers' psychological properties influence purchase intention of customized apparel products. The study was conducted to achieve this goal using SEM to evaluate causal relationships between factors. This effort contributes to empirical consumers' behavior studies by researching apparel customization in light of a psychological point of view which has not yet been touched on in fashion literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the influences of consumers' internal-oriented psychological factors (i.e. self- promotion, need for uniqueness, self-expression and self-monitoring) and external-oriented psychological properties (i.e. social identity and other-directedness) on the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self; further to identify whether the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self lead to purchase intention toward customized apparel products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through an online survey among college students in the USA, generating a valid sample size of 338 participants. Factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were utilized to test proposed hypotheses.\nFindings: The results indicated that need for uniqueness and self-monitoring were significantly related to consumers' perception of customization and the sense of extended-self, whereas impacts of self-expression and other-directedness were not significant. Furthermore, the results also confirmed that consumers' perception of customization and the sense of extended-self were positively associated with purchase intention of customized apparel products.\nOriginality/value: This study investigates consumers' psychological features that influence consumers' buying intention of customized apparel products, which is the first attempt. The study results are insightful and beneficial for marketers to construct target consumer segmentation under different cultural and social settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Burnt-out but engaged: the co-existence of psychological burnout and engagement
|
[
"Burnout",
"Engagement",
"Areas of work‐life",
"Control",
"Reward",
"Workload",
"Fairness",
"Community",
"Values",
"Teachers",
"Employees involvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The incidence of psychological burnout within organisations has been the subject of research since the condition was first described by Freudenberger (1974). Burnout's signature symptoms of worker exhaustion and cynicism (Maslach et al., 2001) have repercussions in terms of workers' negative perceptions of their jobs and ensuing implications for their mental health including reductions in dedication and enthusiasm, symptoms which are reduced performance, reduced initiative and creativity, and increased turnover and absenteeism (Fink, 2003; Maslach and Leiter, 1997). This experience can be particularly devastating for teachers who often view career success in terms of personal fulfilment (Friedman, 2000). According to Friedman, the actual experience of teaching collided with novice teachers' expectations of a meaningful and fulfilling career. Friedman saw this as an existential crisis to which many people responded by becoming burned out. According to Friedman, this led people to either adapt and recuperate or relinquish the profession.\nThe research-practice gap: While academic debate continues in regard to the nature of burnout and engagement (Leiter and Maslach, 2004; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2003), administrative personnel in organisations have to make daily decisions that affect outcomes in the workplace and the well-being of individuals. Barlow and Nock (2009) noted that management personnel struggle with applicability of findings from academic research to particular situations and often promote unconstructive practices. An example of this was provided by Maslach and Goldberg (1998) who reported that many managers regard workers' burnout as a sign of individual weakness and hence unsuitability for the job. Heaney and van Ryn (1990, p. 418) observed that organisational stress intervention programs (often established for the best of intentions) \"fall prey to victim-blaming over-emphasis on individual control of the experience of stress\". This has resonance with Bakker and Demerouti's (2007) observation that theoretical understanding of how burnout develops has been obscured by an overabundance of clinically oriented but individually-focused organisational interventions. Regrettably, the mindset that blames the individual leads to exacerbation, rather than relief of burnout with dire consequences for organisations.Rynes et al. (2002, p. 164) found that \"the biggest gaps between research findings and practitioner beliefs concern some of the most central issues in HR: first, how to choose the best employees and, second, how to effectively motivate them through appropriate goal-setting and effective performance management\". Saari and Judge (2004) suggested this research-practice gap is attributable to a lack of accessibility of academic research to people unfamiliar with advanced statistical techniques. Saari and Judge's observation is pertinent in view of the fact that theoretical investigations invariably involve empirical studies that use large samples of respondents (nomothetic research). According to Lamiell (2007, p. 173) the problem with such studies is that \"variation and co-variation studies actually generate knowledge about attributes, with the individuals serving in such studies merely as \"place-holders\" along the scales of measurement used to define quantitatively the variable(s) of interest\". This is an interesting observation in view of the fact that research in organisational processes is essentially about people and its purpose is to improve organisational functioning. The onus then is placed on researchers to produce robust theoretical research illustrated by appropriate analyses which have both a direct practical application, and which are understood by a wide readership.\nThe current research: This research suggests that common work characteristics produce varying levels of engagement and burnout which are experienced simultaneously by individual workers (Schaufeli et al., 2008). The current research also aims to reduce the research-practice gap in this field by providing analyses that are recognised for their practical interpretation. Consequently, an important aim of the current research is to identify characteristic respondent profiles in regard to worker burnout and engagement. It is posited that this will provide a more efficacious base on which organisational psychologists and school administrations can target measurably effective interventions in the interest of improving employee mental health and improve educational outcomes. This is because the profiles so identified will be readily recognisable.The current study focuses on the experiences of members of the Queensland Independent Education Union (QIEU, 2005). The QIEU represents school employees in Independent schools (which constitute one-third of schools) in Queensland, Australia. The QIEU reported that members experienced \"increased content of jobs (often through understaffing), less time for rest breaks, balancing more simultaneous demands, deadline tightening and the concept of working until the job is done\" (QIEU, 2005, p. 1). Like teachers elsewhere (e.g. Fink, 2003) teachers in Queensland have experienced a mandatory increase in accountability measures that involve increasing amounts of paperwork (e.g. NAPLAN, 2011). Time that is necessary to complete requisite paperwork is never factored into the school day (Howe, 2005, Timms et al., 2007).Within this context the research specifically tests the following hypotheses:H1. Burnout and engagement co-exist at varying levels, as evidenced by the production of distinct groups (clusters) of responses to these variables.H2. The burnout and engagement clusters will demonstrate criterion-related validity with common measures of the school environment.In regard to H2, which will be tested using the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS), it is noted that Leiter and Maslach (2006) framed their measures in terms of respondents' \"match\" or \"mismatch\" with the work environment. Of the six areas of worklife (control, reward, community, fairness and values), five can be expected to have clear positive relationships with work engagement and negative relationships with work burnout (Laschinger and Finegan, 2005; Maslach and Leiter, 2008). Given that previous research (e.g. Brough and Williams, 2007; Laschinger and Finegan, 2005; Maslach and Leiter, 2008) has found that workplace fairness was a critical factor in the erosion of work engagement and in the development of burnout the following sub-hypotheses of H3 are advanced:H2.1 Fairness will demonstrate significant positive relationships with those groups that are high in work engagement and negative relationships with those groups that are high in work burnout.H2.1 It is hypothesised that control, reward, community and values will demonstrate significant positive relationships with those groups that are high in work engagement and negative relationships with those groups that are high in work burnout.H2.3 It is hypothesised that high workload and longer work hours reported by respondents will be consistent with increased exhaustion reported by groups that are high in burnout.Finally, it is noted that Friedman (2000) indicated that those teachers experiencing burnout tended to be new to the profession. As most novice teachers are invariably younger than their more experienced colleagues it is expected that younger school employees will be more highly represented in the groups that are high in burnout.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: The bivariate correlations and scale reliabilities are displayed on Table I. Significant negative correlations were produced between dedication and disengagement (r=-0.63, p <0.001) supporting H1 concerning a negative relationship between the burnout and engagement variables. Workload was significantly and positively associated with both exhaustion (r=0.63, p <0.001, thus generally supporting H2.3), and surprisingly with absorption (r=0.24, p <0.001). Similarly disengagement produced significant negative correlations with reward (r=-0.39, p <0.001) and values (r=-0.45, p <0.001), thus supporting expectations in H2.1. Table II provides the mean scores and standard deviations of the research variables.K-means cluster analyses\nDiscussion: Consistent with the research hypotheses, the cluster analyses identified groups of like-minded individuals in regard to engagement and burnout. In support of H1 the research demonstrated variations in correlations in regard to engagement and burnout variables ranging from -0.04 (between absorption and exhaustion), to -0.63 (between dedication and disengagement) with the majority of relationships between engagement (vigour, dedication and absorption) and burnout (disengagement and exhaustion) being of moderate strength. Likewise, the under-pressure group demonstrated that it is possible for aspects of work engagement (particularly absorption and dedication) to co-exist with exhaustion. These observations are consistent with Schaufeli and Bakkers' (2003) proposal that burnout and engagement are distinct constructs and also with Sonnentag's (2005) warning that long work hours that do not afford time for psychological detachment will lead inevitably to exhaustion in spite of people feeling dedicated to their work. It is noted that respondents from the Under-pressure group worked comparatively long hours.Assessments of the clusters' criterion-related validity (H2.1 to H2.3) provided further support for the clusters, with distinct associations produced between the burnout and engagement groups and the areas of work-life. The positively slanted variables of control, reward, community, values and the key variable of fairness demonstrated consistency, in regard to the empowered group and the two burnout groups. This partially supports H2.1 and H2.2. Likewise the prediction of H2.3 that higher scores on workload and longer work hours would occur with respondents' reporting of exhaustion was supported. What was surprising about H2.3 is that in addition to the two Burnout groups, this configuration was also apparent in the Under-pressure group who reported that they were engaged in their work. Further Chi-square analyses were conducted in order to ensure that personal variables unrelated to the work environment (such as age group and gender) did not influence cluster distribution. While these analyses did achieve significance, the actual strength of relationships were quite small, all age groups were represented all cluster groupings. Therefore, it is advanced that these other variables exerted minimal influence on cluster structure. It is however pertinent to the current findings that younger employees were more highly represented in the two Burnout groups. This was consistent with Friedman's (2000) observation of burnout among novice teachers. It is also interesting to note that the majority of members of the Empowered group were in fact older employees.The empowered group\nConclusions: The research overall demonstrated that the experience of both psychological burnout and engagement can occur simultaneously; supporting suggestions that the two constructs are independent and negatively correlated, rather than two extremes of one continuum. The research also demonstrated that the experiences of burnout and engagement are not uniform, but rather are characterised by varying levels of both constructs, which form distinctive groups. These groups in turn, are associated with specific characteristics of the work environment. Thus, this research offers an explanation for the mixed results reported in both the engagement and burnout literature (e.g. Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli et al., 2008); burnout and engagement do not exhibit linear relationships with work characteristics, but instead the associations vary according to the balance of burnout and engagement simultaneously being experienced.In spite of a wealth of research linking the burnout experience to work environments, it would appear that many administrations continue to operate within guidelines which view the burnout experiences of their workers as signs of their individual weakness or unsuitability for the job (Kim and Mauborgne, 1998; Maslach and Leiter, 1997; Maslach and Goldberg, 1998; Maslach and Leiter, 2008). This is unfortunate in terms of lost opportunity for employees and the inability of their organisations to achieve the best outcomes. It is clear that engaged school employees are empowered to exert initiative and creative solutions to problems. It is also apparent that burnt out employees are less productive and are more likely to seek alternative work. While previous research has acknowledged that many employees fall between these two extremes, few studies have investigated their experiences though a simultaneous burnout/engagement lens. The current study, through the identification of five specific engaged-burnout clusters of employees, has demonstrated how employees' needs differ. Thus, a \"one size fits all\" approach to organisational interventions is therefore not necessarily the most effective approach. Instead interventions that specifically target these individual groups of workers are strongly recommended and are considered likely to produce improved individual and organisational outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This research sought to identify groups of school employees who were more similar in their responses to burnout and engagement measures, for the purpose of exploring what was similar in their school experiences. The profiles created in the present research enable a clearer appreciation of what is common to groups of school employees who are experiencing empowerment, ambivalence or distress in their work environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The current research used K-means cluster analysis to identify school employees (n=953) who were most similar in regard to levels of burnout and engagement in order to achieve some sense of what was common at a group level.\nFindings: - This process identified five distinct respondent profiles using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Subsequent MANOVA analyses identified significant differences between cluster groups on the six areas of work-life (control, workload, reward, community, fairness and values) and hours of work.\nPractical implications: - One of the most pressing problems faced by school administrators is that of identifying the most appropriate and strategic interventions to use with teaching staff in order to maintain motivation in the face of work pressures. The current research provides some practical insights into the experiences of school employees that may provide direction for such administrators.\nOriginality/value: - By grouping respondents with similar attitudes towards their work this research has provided for more insight into the experiences to those respondents who do not fall at either end of the burnout-engagement continuum. As such it provides for more effective intervention strategies with employees who are at-risk.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
School-based staff development in two federal states in Germany
|
[
"Staff development",
"School autonomy",
"Professional development",
"Organizational management",
"Classroom observation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In Germany, staff development has gained a high significance since the introduction of enhanced school autonomy. Apart from greater opportunities for staff recruitment, the corresponding legal changes in education also imply structural changes with regard to the relationship between principals and their staff. Legally, principals are managers, thus creating a vertical hierarchy in schools, whereby principals have the managerial authority toward their teaching staff. One key area of principals' managerial duty is staff development (see Huber, 2013).\n2. Theoretical framework: In Germany, staff development is a relatively new task for schools, and its implementation so far has been rarely researched systematically. This is mostly due to the great heterogeneity and fuzziness in the concept of staff development itself (see Becker, 2009, p. 3). The literature features a variety of different definitions and taxonomies that often reflect quite diverse perspectives (see Becker, 2009, p. 5). There is some consensus that \"staff development involves planned measures to increase one's professional competence\" (Holling and Liepmann, 2007, p. 346, translated by the authors). Such measures can be implemented at different levels: they can be targeted at the development of individual competencies or at the development of the organization as a whole (Holling and Liepmann, 2007, p. 347). Professional development measures for teachers are at the core of school-based staff development (see Meetz, 2007, p. 94). However, coordination is necessary for a systematic staff development of teachers that takes individual as well as organizational development needs into account: \"Harsh lessons from the past have taught educators that fragmented, piecemeal approaches to professional development do not work\" (Guskey, 2000, p. 19). A coordinated approach can be realized in different ways: for instance by principals identifying and addressing the development needs of their teachers (e.g. through classroom observations, development discussions, and individual performance reviews), by teachers determining their development needs in a collaborative professional manner (e.g. through self-evaluation, peer classroom observation), or through school-wide staff development programs that are based on a systematic needs assessment (see Thillmann, 2012, for an overview of coordination in school organizations).\n3. Research questions and methods: Our research aims at addressing the above mentioned research gaps. Specifically, we address the following questions:\n4. Method: 4.1. Sample\n5. Results: Addressing our first research question about the degree to which different instruments are applied in German schools, we found that about half of the surveyed principals (51 percent) conducted regular classroom observations (at least once every one or two years) outside of the formal appraisal process. Nearly two-thirds of the surveyed principals (65 percent) indicated that they conducted regular development discussions with their teachers. A majority of principals used these development discussions to provoke teachers' self-reflection (M=4.68, SD=1.16)[10] or to agree on performance targets (M=4.07, SD=1.40)[11]. Also, according to the surveyed principals, systematic professional development planning took place in many schools: the majority tended to agree that they purposefully informed themselves about their teachers' classes in order to determine the teachers' individual development needs (M=3.98, SD=1.35), or that they deliberately aligned staff development plans with the school program (M=4.20, SD=1.40). Regarding different forms of collaborative professionalization, however, so far these have rarely been implemented systematically in practice. So, according to the surveyed principals, parallel tests and student feedback rounds were regularly conducted by the majority of teachers (over 80 percent) in only 11 percent of the schools. Paper-pencil student surveys and peer classroom observations were regularly conducted by teachers at only 4 percent of the surveyed schools.\n6. Discussion and future directions: The present study comprehensively assessed staff development in two German states and examined impacts of different staff development instruments and patterns on the professional development activities of teachers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In Germany up until now, there has been very little research on staff development in schools. The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively assess school-based staff development and to describe the interplay between different instruments of staff development (e.g. classroom observations, development discussions) at the school level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Considering that different constellations of organizational management tools may be differentially effective in different contexts (see Mintzberg, 1983/1992), an approach that takes a combination of different staff development instruments into account was chosen. Data were gathered from principals of primary and secondary schools in two federal states of Germany. Using regression, cluster analysis, and analysis of variance, the authors examined different instruments and patterns of staff development used in everyday school practice and determined how these affected the professional development of teachers.\nFindings: Five staff development patterns could be identified. With regard to the extent of professional development activities of teachers, these patterns have been proven to have a different impact. Furthermore, the use of the different staff development patterns seems to be heavily dependent on the type of school.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research would be needed that examines if the three most relevant staff development patterns identified in this study can also be proven to be effective with regard to somewhat \"harder\" criteria than the extent of professional development activities of teachers. Such criteria could be teachers' teaching skills or even student achievement.\nOriginality/value: The current study is the first to examine staff development in German schools systematically. The results provide some good leads for further studies in this area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Classifying information sender of web documents
|
[
"Information management",
"Project management",
"Worldwide web",
"Data analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: World wide web has enabled the general public to easily publish information to the world. In particular, recent years are witnessing the growing popularity of services such as weblogs or Social Network Services (SNS), which are even lowering the cost of information dissemination, leading to the rise of User Generated Content (UGC) or Consumer Generated Media (CGM), a type of information which was not available in mass before.As the variety and quality of information on the web diversify, support for judging credibility of such information is much needed. In this study, we consider credibility of information as \"the characteristics of information which are used by receivers of information to construct their beliefs about the believability of the information\". We are taking a stance of assessing credibility of information in terms of four aspects:1. sender;2. appearance;3. content; and4. reputation (Kato et al., 2006).There exist methods such as PageRank (Page et al., 1999), which computes importance of a page by treating the in-coming links as popularity votes. However, they only present certain aspects of the credibility of information, because when people create a link to a web page, even if it represents a kind of credibility vote, various aspects of credibility are collapsed into a single aspect represented by links. To properly judge the credibility of any information, we believe viewing information in a multifaceted way is required. In this paper, we report a method concerning the sender aspect of information credibility.When judging credibility of information, one of the important questions that should be asked is \"by whom the information was sent out?\", i.e. identification of information sender. This is true for information on the web (cyberspace) as well as information in the physical world[1]. However, it is much harder in general to know who actually sent out information on the web compared to the physical world, as the cues that can be used to identify the sender tend to be more subtle in the cyberspace, if there is any.In this paper, we report a method for classifying information sender of web documents as a first step toward assessing information credibility based on characteristics of the information sender. Opinion/sentiment analysis of UGC is now an active research topic (Nicolov et al., 2006). When combined with such techniques, information sender classification will provide a basis for more profound analysis revealing interactions between sender categories and opinions, which in a broader scope becomes a powerful tool of information credibility analysis.The rest of the paper is organised as follows. We first present the categories of information sender we have employed in this study as well as their rationale. Then we describe the classification method based on support vector machine. After showing the evaluation, we discuss the limitations and other issues of the present method, before concluding the paper.\n2. Identifying information sender class: Our goal is for a given web document to assign an information sender category. The list below shows the taxonomy of information sender we used in this study:1. Individual:* Key figure, expert, celebrity (a);* General public (b); and* Anonymous, screen name (c).2. Organisation:* Profit organisation:- Company (d); and- Industry group (e).* Non-profit organisation:- Government (f);- Public-service corporation, not-for-profit organisation (g);- University (h);- Academic society (i); and- Voluntary association (j).* Press:- Newspaper (k);- Magazine (l); and- Broadcasting station (m).3. Group of individuals:* Group of anonymous individuals (n); and* Group of anonymous individuals (o).4. Unknown (p).(Items with an alphabet are the classes used in the classification task described in Section 4).The purpose of classifying information sender of web documents is to use the information sender class as an aid for judging the credibility of information. One possible application of information sender identification technique is to organize information according to its information sender class. For example, we can combine such information with the results of opinion analysis to extract \"who is saying what\" from large set of web documents, which will give better indication for users to consider with than presenting only the results of opinion analysis.There are metadata standards that give specifications for recording attributes of resources. For example, Dublin Core (DMCI Usage Board, 2006) has several types of elements that are related to information sender: contributor, creator, publisher, provenance, and rightsHolder. Although identifying these elements gives links between information presented in a resource and its information sender, they do not provide information such as social status of the information sender that can be used to infer its credibility. Thus, we have defined a taxonomy of our own. In the rest of this section, we explain the rationale behind the taxonomy we defined. The main principle behind the taxonomy is that the categories should be informative in a way that users can infer the credibility of information from them.At first, we distinguish between individuals and organisations. We have categorised individuals into three sub-categories:1. people with expertise;2. general public; and3. anonymous sender.As for organisations, considering their motivation for information dissemination, we first distinguish between profit and non-profit organisations. Press could be classified under profit organisation, but we made a decision to treat it as a separate category because it has a special function in the social system in terms of information dissemination.University and academic society have independent category, where we could have placed them under public-service corporation or not-for-profit organisation. We have chosen this arrangement because universities and academic societies play a unique role in providing expert knowledge.Group of individuals is meant for web sites where the information on them is made up of contribution from the users rather than specific entities. Examples of such sites are Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/), an online dictionary where users can edit its entries, or forum sites such as Slashdot (http://slashdot.org), where users can have discussions on certain topics by posting messages. For these sites, it is difficult to name the sender of the information on a certain page, especially in the case of Wikipedia, because each entry is a result of the editing of multiple users[2]. The distinction between group of onymous individuals and group of anonymous individuals has been made to reflect the difference in the credibility of information from onymous and anonymous senders.\n3. Method: In this section, we describe a method to classify the information sender of a given web document.The proposed method applies machine learning technique to train a classifier, using features extracted from the URL and the title of a page. The intuition behind our approach is that the URL and title of web documents contain rich information which can be used to identify information sender class. A URL contains the domain name of the host that serves the web document. Since the assignment of domain names are controlled by regulatory institutions with certain rules, the sender class can be inferred from the domain name. For example, assignment of domain name with \".co.jp\", are limited to companies having an official corporate registration in Japan, and only one domain are permitted per registrant (Japan Registry Services, 2001). Thus, it is very likely that the sender class of web documents that are served by a host with \".co.jp\" domain is Company. However, domain name alone is not enough in order to identify the sender class of a web document, because there are domains where the control of assignment is not so strict, such as \".net\", \".com\", or \".jp\" domains. As the next step, we employ the title of a web document.Web documents are usually formatted with HTML, and its title can be obtained by looking at strings in the < title> tag. The title of a web document often contains information about the sender of the information, especially in case of the top page of the site. For example, the title of the top page of Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk) is \"Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs more.\" From this title, we can infer that Amazon.com is an online store, and that the information on this site is of commercial nature.Identifying the top page of the site of a given page is not trivial in general. Sites cannot be distinguished by merely looking at the host name of the URL, as many web hosting services provides a sub-directory for each user. If we would like to treat each user's site as an independent site, we also have to delve into the directory structure, which may be different from one service to the other. However, as a first-order approximation, we can assume that the root page is the top page of a web site. A root page is a page which can be accessed by a URL with its path being \"/\". For example, given a page with the URL, http://www.example.jp/dir/page.html, we can assume the top page of the site is \"http://www.example.jp/\".In the following sections, we describe a technique to classify the sender of the given page from its URL, title, and the title of its top page. We employed an inductive approach: prepared a dataset where the sender class are given manually by human, and applied a machine learning technique to train a classifier. Since our target data are web documents in Japanese, we assume the data is Japanese web documents.3.1 Support vector machines\n4. Evaluation: 4.1 Dataset\n5. Conclusion: In this paper, we presented a problem of classifying the information sender of web pages, as a first step towards assessing the credibility of information based on characteristics of information sender. We proposed a method of classifying information sender based on SVM technique, using the URL, title, and top page of a given page as features. By using relatively limited information, the proposed method achieved more than 50 classification accuracy. The results revealed the problems in preparation of the dataset. In particular, such categories as key figure, expert, celebrity (a) which require subjective judgment for classification need to be reconsidered. By using simplified taxonomy where such judgment is not required, the performance of the classification improved to over 60 percent, which indeed indicates the difficult nature of the task. The issue of reflecting the multiple information senders residing in a single document to the categories also remains.Besides the issues of the dataset, incorporating other information such as metadata other than < title> tag, the content of the page, or anchor texts for incoming links to the page should be considered. Incorporating these information forms part of our future work.The other issue remaining is the identification of the top page. The method reported in this paper naively assumes the root page as the top page. However, in general, there could be more than one information sender under single domain name. We could benefit from a method which identifies the subset of pages of all pages under single domain for which the information sender is single. This is the other part of our future work.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To develop a method for classifying information sender of web documents, which constitutes an important part of information credibility analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Machine learning approach was employed. About 2,000 human-annotated web documents were prepared for training and evaluation. The classification model was based on support vector machine, and the features used for the classification included the title and URL of documents, as well as information of the top page.\nFindings: - With relatively small set of features, the proposed method achieved over 50 per cent accuracy.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Some of the information sender categories were found to be more difficult to classify. This is due to the subjective nature of the categories, and further refinement of the categories is needed.\nPractical implications: - When combined with opinion/sentiment analysis techniques, information sender classification allows more profound analysis based on interactions between opinions and senders. Such analysis forms a basis of information credibility analysis.\nOriginality/value: - This study formulated the problem of information sender classification. It proposed a method which achieves moderate performance. It also identified some of the issues related to information sender classification.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Analysis of corporate governance disclosure: a study through BRICS countries
|
[
"Institutional theory",
"Corporate governance",
"Disclosure",
"Enforcement",
"BRICS",
"Legal system"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The impact of rules and norms on corporate governance practices is the focus of many studies because of benefits on firm value, minority shareholders protection and efficiency of codes (Dharmapala and Khanna, 2013; Hua, 2007; Zattoni and Cuomo, 2008). The conclusions found in the research of La Porta et al. published in 1998 pointed out that the laws for investors protection, ownership structure configuration and social welfare building, among others, \"may differ significantly across the countries, in part because of differences in legal origins\" (La Porta et al.,1998). But, along with these results, many other questions came on how much the law enforcement modifies or influences the corporate governance model and disclosure in each country (Dharmapala and Khanna, 2013; Hua, 2007; Zattoni and Cuomo, 2008).\n2. Overview of corporate governance practices and disclosure in BRICS' countries: 2.1 Overview of corporate governance practices and disclosure in Brazil\n3. Hypothesis related to corporate governance practices and disclosure under different law system: The corporate governance guidelines and codes of best practices differ among national frameworks of law, regulation and stock exchange listing rules and differing societal rules. Therefore, to understand one nation's corporate governance disclosure in relation to others, one must understand not only the \"best practice\" documents but also the underlying legal and enforcement framework (Gregory, 2001).\n4. Methodology: The study uses the qualitative technique of content analysis to get information on corporate governance disclosure from documents issued by 20 largest companies of each BRICS' country (according to the ranking Forbes 2000 Largest Listed Companies in the World) - documents published by 100 companies listed by the stock exchange of each country. This research uses the independent-samples median test to precede quantitative analysis to verify the relation between the numbers of companies disclosing corporate governance practices between BRICS countries.\n5. Findings: The Table III synthesizes the results of collected data as explained: the first row presents the median of the number of companies disclosing the practices recommended by UNCTAD/Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting; maximum of 20 by country); the other two rows present the number of the practices required by national laws and recommended by social norms on corporate governance of each of 52 practices.\n6. Discussion: Based on Tables III and IV, the study shows the hypothesis, the results and the statements, which are listed in Table V.\n7. Conclusion: For Berglof and Claessens (2006), it is really hard to trace strong conclusions in the comparison of law enforcement in corporate governance among emergent countries because there is a big cultural difference in each BRICS country, which leads to major changes in each legal framework.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The study aims to analyze the level of the disclosure of corporate governance practices by the companies that belong to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries according to normative recommendations and coercive requirements considering the enforcement of laws and norms in the different legal systems and to explain it in the light of the institutional theory approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The practices disclosed by a sample of the 20 largest companies listed on the stock exchanges of each of the BRICS countries were analysed, and the 52 practices recommended by UNCTAD (2009) were used as a parameter. The corporate governance practices of the companies were confronted with the laws, rules and norms that require or recommend their adoption and disclosure.\nFindings: China has 49 practices required by own national law in face of 52 recommended by UNCTAD/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) followed by South Africa with 44, Russia with 33, Brazil with 28 and India with 24. Brazil has 47 practices recommended by own national governance code in face of 52 recommended by UNCTAD/Intergovernmental Working group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), followed by Russia with 45, China with 44, South Africa with 41 and India with 22. It was found that Brazil has the higher median of number of companies disclosing corporate governance practices with 17, followed by India with 13, Russia with 11, South Africa and China with 7.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research shows that more studies are necessary using the institutional theory to investigate how the normative and coercive pressures influence the disclosure of corporate governance information considering the enforcement of laws and norms in the different legal systems.\nPractical implications: The differences observed in this study about normative and coercive forces are presented as an opportunity in the legal sphere of some countries to implement mechanisms to increase their level of enforcement.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to various audiences such as governmental institutions, professional associations, market institutions to better understand their role in the improvement of the adoption of corporate governance practices and disclosure of information related to it.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Promoting social and emotional well-being in schools
|
[
"Mental health",
"Schools",
"Learning",
"Young people",
"Children",
"Emotional well-being"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Promoting the social and emotional well-being of young people is an important determinant of their positive development, enabling them to achieve positive outcomes in school, work and in life more generally (Durlak et al., 2015; OECD, 2015). A substantive body of research indicates that young people can learn to develop social and emotional competencies and that skill-based programmes in schools can positively impact on their social, emotional, academic and behavioural development (Durlak et al., 2011; Weare and Nind, 2011). However, the translation of evidence-based interventions into the everyday practice of schools presents significant challenges and is poorly developed in many countries. The majority of evidence-based programmes have not been adopted or scaled up at a country level. There has been an emphasis to date on the development and adoption of discrete single programmes rather than more comprehensive system-wide approaches. If the full potential of school-based interventions is to be realised then there is a need for greater attention to how they are delivered, adopted and embedded within the diverse contexts of schools and educational systems across countries.\nBackground: The school is a unique setting within which young people's social and emotional well-being can be promoted and critical skills for school, work and life can be taught and learned. A broad range of skills, including cognitive, social and emotional skills, are needed by young people to develop positively and be successful in life. Educational curricula are increasingly incorporating a more holistic focus on young people's SEL alongside their cognitive development in the school curriculum (OECD, 2015). SEL is defined as the process of acquiring a set of skills or competencies to recognise and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspectives of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle interpersonal situations constructively (Elias et al., 1997). The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) (2003) in the USA, which has pioneered the development of research and policy in this area, has described the goal of SEL programmes as being to foster the development of five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective and behavioural competencies; self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. These core skills play a crucial role in empowering young people in realising their potential, maximising their participation in education, work and society and are key determinants of future mental health and well-being (Durlak et al., 2015; OECD, 2015; Viner et al., 2012).\nCurrent evidence on promoting social and emotional skills in schools: There is a substantive body of international evidence that school-based interventions that promote SEL lead to long-term benefits for young people, including improved mental health, social functioning, academic performance and positive health behaviours (Clarke et al., 2015; Barry et al., 2013; Weare and Nind, 2011; Durlak et al., 2011; Payton et al., 2008; Adi et al., 2007; Jane-Llopis et al., 2005; Zins et al., 2004; Wells et al., 2003; Greenberg et al., 2001). The evidence also indicates that the development of social and emotional skills provides the skill base for the prevention of a wider range of problem behaviours such as substance misuse, anti-social behaviour and risky health and sexual behaviours (Weare and Nind, 2011; Institute of Medicine Report (IOM), 2009). A review of reviews examines evidence from systematic reviews, and meta-analyses only. Barry and Dowling (2015) conducted a rapid review of the evidence on social and emotional skills based intervention identified a total of two review of reviews which were relevant to this field. Synopsising the findings from these reviews of the international evidence, the following key findings are highlighted:\nExploring the science-to-practice gap in implementing evidence-based approaches: While there is well-established and consistent evidence concerning the effectiveness of school-based SEL programmes from international studies, there is a science-to-practice gap in the translation of evidence-based interventions into mainstream educational practice. The adoption of evidence-based programmes as part of the core mission of schools presents significant challenges, especially in low-resource settings, as many interventions developed under well-resourced and highly controlled conditions are not easily implemented in settings where there is a lack of supportive structures and limited capacity (Jones and Bouffard, 2012). Schools may be presented with an array of different student issues and problems that need to be addressed such as bullying, substance misuse, anti-social behaviour, etc., making it difficult to make decisions concerning which interventions are likely to be most effective. In addition, there is often insufficient guidance and support provided for the effective implementation of interventions in school settings. Therefore, although these school-based programmes can achieve significant and sustained impacts on children and young people's lives, the majority of these programmes have not been adopted or scaled up at a country level.\nNeed for innovative strategies and approaches: Existing evidence reviews have usefully advanced the knowledge base concerning the type of SEL programmes that are effective in the school setting and lead to positive outcomes for young people. The majority of studies included in these reviews are based on randomised controlled trials of highly structured, manualised programmes and the findings tend to be presented on the basis of whether or not a particular whole programme is effective. However, as already outlined in this paper, there are several challenges to implementing and sustaining such comprehensive programmes in schools where time and resources for training and implementation may be very limited. This is especially the case in low-resource settings where challenging environments and a lack of resources limit the possibility of implementing programmes for young people who could benefit the most. As current evidence-based programmes tend to be designed to address specific health issues or problems (e.g. bullying, substance misuse, anxiety prevention, etc.), this can increase the complexity of selecting which programmes to choose and the cost of providing training for teachers across multiple programmes.\nCase study: This case study presents preliminary work on developing a common elements approach to SEL in Irish post-primary schools.\nMethod: The development of the revised programme was informed by feedback and information collected from three principal sources:\nDevelopment process: Drawing together the feedback from the three principal sources - review of evidence-based resources, consultations with young people and the Working Group - a revised structure for the new programme was drafted. The five core competencies for social and emotional skills development as identified by Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning were used as an overarching theoretical framework for the development of the revised programme and the common practice and instructional elements identified in the review process were mapped onto this framework. The feedback from the young people and the Working Group was then used to design and shape the content of the core practice and instructional elements and the inclusion of supporting materials.\nConclusions: Existing evidence-based school interventions can improve young people's social and emotional well-being if they can be effectively adopted and integrated into school practices and sustained over time. The effective implementation and scaling up of evidence-based approaches to SEL presents many challenges in the school setting and requires a focus on both simplification and customisation to local contexts in order to develop intervention methods that are feasible and usable and can be embedded in everyday practices. A common elements framework was explored in this paper as an innovative approach to developing evidence-based strategies that are easy to implement and can be tailored to suit the needs of specific student groups and school contexts. The findings from research on children's mental health treatment and youth prevention programmes indicates the potential of this approach in providing a set of core strategies that can be used in practice to address a range of youth behaviours.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical perspective on the international evidence on promoting young people's social and emotional well-being in schools. The challenges of integrating evidence-based interventions within schools are discussed and the need for innovative approaches to research and practice are considered in order to support more sustainable approaches that can be embedded into the everyday practice of school systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A common elements approach to intervention development and implementation is explored. A case study is presented on piloting this approach with post-primary students, based on consultations with students and teachers concerning their needs in supporting youth social and emotional well-being.\nFindings: The integration and sustainability of evidence-based social and emotional skills programmes within the context of whole school systems is far from clearly established. Research on the use of a common elements approach to evidence-based treatment and youth prevention programmes is presented and the application of this method to the development and implementation of social and emotional learning interventions is considered. Preliminary case study findings are presented exploring this approach in school-based intervention development for post-primary school students.\nResearch limitations/implications: The potential of adopting a common elements approach is considered; however, more rigorous research is needed to identify the most potent strategies for social and emotional skills development.\nOriginality/value: Identifying a common set of evidence-based strategies for enhancing adolescents' social and emotional skills could lead to innovative approaches to intervention delivery that would extend the impact and reach of evidence-based practice across diverse educational systems and school settings.\n",
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Public attitudes toward technological hazards after a technological disaster: Effects of the 2015 Tianjin Port explosion, Tianjin, China
|
[
"Perceived risk",
"Perceived benefit",
"2015 Tianjin Port explosion",
"Public acceptance",
"Trust heuristic",
"Technological disaster"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: On August 12, 2015, two massive explosions and fire occurred at hazardous good warehouses in the Tianjin Port, Tianjin, China. As one of the worst technological disasters in Chinese history, it resulted in 165 deaths and CNY6.87bn ($1.04bn) in direct economic losses (China's State Council, 2016). According to the official investigation (China's State Council, 2016), the double blasts were caused by the spontaneous combustion of nitro-cotton in overheated container owned by the Ruihai Company, due to the vaporization of the wetting agent in hot weather. The nitro-cotton had self-ignited and triggered by high temperature, causing large areas of combustion of nitro-cotton and other hazardous chemicals, which then caused the explosion of dangerous chemicals including the highly explosive and combustible ammonium nitrate stored in adjacent containers. The Tianjin Port explosion was concluded as an extraordinarily serious production safety accident. Its direct cause was ignition of hazardous materials which were improperly or illegally stored at the site. Its root causes were a series of safety violations and improper safety management by the owner and the malfeasance and lack of daily regulation by the local government organizations. Other information (e.g. post-disaster risk management) of this explosion can refer to Chan et al. (2015).\n2. Methodology: 2.1 Respondents and procedure\n3. Results: 3.1 Measurement model\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Effect of disaster experience\n5. Conclusions: We conclude with two contributions to theory. First, this paper is among the few that investigate psychological costs caused by technological disasters after a medium-term time. It demonstrated that the 2015 Tianjin Port explosion lowered public acceptance of its related technological hazards (i.e. HGWCPs) and trust in organizations responsible for HGWCPs, and increased perceived risk related to HGWCPs, eight months after the explosion. Second, this paper extends our understanding of how the direct experience of technological disasters affects people's decision about accepting the corresponding technologies. Drawing upon the trust heuristic in risk perception research, we reported that trust had a direct effect (affective pathway) on public acceptance only among the respondents with direct experience of the explosion, and it had an indirect effect on acceptance through the mediating effect of perceived benefit in both groups. Perceived benefit and risk was not the cause of the decrease in public acceptance of HGWCPs because perceived benefit was not affected by the explosion, and perceived risk increased after the explosion but failed to influence acceptance. The decrease in trust might partly account for the decrease in public acceptance of HGWCPs after the explosion.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how the 2015 Tianjin Port explosion - which resulted in more than 100 deaths - changed local residents' acceptance, perceived benefit and risk and trust related to hazardous goods warehouses and chemical plants (HGWCPs) and how it influenced local residents' decisions about accepting HGWCPs through the lens of the trust heuristic.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted eight months after the disaster. Respondents were classified into two groups: involved (with direct experience of the explosion) and uninvolved (without direct experience). Their trust in those responsible for HGWCPs, and perceived benefit, perceived risk and acceptance associated with HGWCPs were surveyed.\nFindings: The disaster reduced public acceptance of HGWCPs and trust and increased perceived risk. Trust retained an indirect effect on acceptance through perceived benefit in both groups and a direct effect on acceptance in the involved group. Trust partly accounted for the reduction in acceptance of HGWCPs.\nPractical implications: Results remind the local government of the medium-term psychological consequences of the Tianjin Port explosion (e.g. increased perceived risk and reduced trust) and suggest the importance of building trust in mitigating risk perceptions of relevant technological hazards.\nOriginality/value: It represents a valuable addition to the literature on the medium-term psychological consequences of technological disasters and on the public's decision making about hazardous technologies.\n",
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Benchmarking performance measures for extended enterprise in China
|
[
"Performance measures",
"Business enterprise",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Benchmarking"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Globalization drives a firm to coordinate with its supply chain in order to deliver competing products in the world. A firm will learn by creating a network enterprise as an extended enterprise (EE) that has a new infrastructure to support providing value to customers (Chung, 2000). EE is a network of partner organizations, which combine their individual capabilities and business processes, in order to perform a joint business process (Haake, 2001).The concept of EE arises from manufacturer to build formal partnerships with customers and suppliers in order to gain competitive advantages. Browne et al. (1996) defined EE as a kind of \"enterprise\" which is represented by all organizations or parts of organizations, customers, suppliers, and sub-contractors, engaged collaboratively in the design, development, production, and delivery of a product to the end-users. Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2004) defined EE as a network that arises when a single dominant firm extends its boundaries to all or some of its suppliers.The development of the EE concept from mid-1990s to now is more than ten years. There are many studies on the development of the EEs. However, a limited research has been conducted in the performance measures and benchmarking of a successful EE. The level of an EE success depends on the level of its network coordination. Therefore, we can measure the level of the network coordination of an EE in order to evaluate the performance of an EE.This study aims to develop a performance measure model for EE. In this paper, after reviewing the literature on EE, performance measures and benchmarking, a proposed research model is constructed. Then, a survey by questionnaire is conducted with manufacturing industries in China. China is the world factory. It is important for overseas supply chain partners to know the benchmarking performance measures of their Chinese manufacturers. The results of survey provide the level of importance among 16 performance measures in eight categories. Therefore, participants of EEs can used these performance measures to design their benchmarking and key performance indictors to pursue the continued success of their EEs.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Extended enterprise\n3 Research model: Based on Chung's (2000) generic model of an EE (Figure 1) and Digalware and Sangwan's (2007) performance measures, a proposed model for the performance measures of an EE is developed (Figure 2). This model measures the performance of the collaborative process among supplier, customer, management, and employee. It also measures the performance of the whole EE in terms of financial, technology, operation, and environmental aspects.3.1 Performance of the collaborative process\n4 Findings: 4.1 Data collection\n5 Discussion and future research: This study examines the level of importance of 16 performance measures in eight categories for EE. Results of survey indicate that performance measures in operation and customer categories are more important than others. The performance measure in environmental category is less important. Also, the performance measure in environmental category is less correlated with other categories.Recent research in supply chain performance concludes that organizations still focus too much on their inbound processes and performance (Baiman et al., 2001; Gunasekaran et al., 2004, 2005; Shepherd and Gunter, 2006). However, this study indicates that EEs concern more on outbound processes. Results of survey provide that the relative weight of the speed to market is 0.076. It is the top among 16 performance measures. Furthermore, results of survey indicate that EEs focus more on customer satisfaction (relative weight=0.0745), customer service (relative weight=0.0741), and customer involvement (relative weight=0.0617) rather than supplier management (relative weight=0.0581). Therefore, EEs are more concerned about the performance on upstream collaboration than downstream collaboration.Health and safety environment is very important in most industries. It affects workplace injury and illness rates. However, most past literature in performance measurement did not count this factor (Maskell, 1991; Kasul and Motwani, 1995; Utzig, 1988; Hausman, 2002). In recent years, some scholars categorized health and safety into their performance measures (Kodali et al., 2004; Digalwar and Metri, 2005; Wee and Quazi, 2005; Digalware and Sangwan, 2007). However, results of survey indicate that EEs in China are less concerned about health and safety environment (relative weight=0.0354).The relative weights of factor loadings in Table IV can be used to construct a performance measurement system for an EE. Benchmarking and key performance indictors of an EE can be established by measuring the performance of an EE multiplied by the relative weights of 16 measures in the performance measurement system for an EE.After more than 20 years of economic reform, China emerges as the largest manufacturing workshop of the world. The US, European, and Japanese companies extend their production to Mainland China in order to reduce their cost effectively. However, how to evaluate the performance of their supply chain partners in China remains a question. This study ranks the importance of different performance measures in Chinese manufacturing view. Evidence provides that Chinese manufacturers would like to improve operation efficiency and customer relationship rather than environmental issue. Results of the study help overseas supply chain partners to have more understanding on their Chinese partners' preference. Moreover, this study provides a model and shows how benchmarking performance measures can be built for manufacturing industries in China. Of course, different industries in different countries should have different relative weights. This study contributes knowledge that is transferable to different industries in different countries as a benchmark metric. Future research is suggested to construct different performance measurement systems with relative weights for different industries in different countries.This study has a limitation on the sample size. Owing to the limitation on time, only 53 sets of data were collected. The small sample size may no be enough for factor analysis within 16 measures and eight categories. Therefore, it is suggested to extend this research to increase the number of respondents to confirm the findings in this study.\n6 Conclusions: The development of the EE concept is more than ten years. However, a limited research has been conducted in the benchmarking performance measures of a successful EE. The purpose of this study is to present a model that consists of 16 performance measures in eight categories for an EE in China. With reliability established, results of survey have validated the importance of different performance measures of a successful EE. Results with relative weight on each measure can be used to formula a performance measurement system for manufacturing industries in China. Therefore, participants of EEs can used this research model and its performance measures to design their own benchmarking and key performance indictors to pursue the continued success of their EEs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to develop and examine benchmarking performance measures for the extended enterprise (EE).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A research model was constructed based on 16 performance measures in eight categories. An online survey by questionnaire is conducted with manufacturing industries in China. There is an evaluation of the level of importance among these performance measures. Results of the survey are subjected to appropriate statistical tests to establish reliability and validity.\nFindings: - Results of the empirical research provide the benchmarking performance measures of a successful EE. Results of the survey indicate that performance measures in operation and customer categories are more important than others.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper has a limitation on the sample size. Further, data collection would be beneficial.\nPractical implications: - Participants of EEs can use these performance measures to design their benchmarking and key performance indictors to pursue the continued success of their EEs.\nOriginality/value: - The paper builds on current literature and develops a conceptual model, which is then tested via a questionnaire survey. Only a limited literature has addressed the benchmarking performance measures for EE.\n",
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Collaboration between the library and Office of Student Disability Services: Document accessibility in higher education
|
[
"Collaboration",
"Accessibility",
"Higher education",
"Library",
"Student affairs",
"Students with disabilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Academic librarians and student affairs professionals support and contribute to the development of student learning in higher education. They each initiate collaborative relationships with academic faculty to support students. They are a natural fit as partners to bridge academic and social experiences for students. \"By their very nature, partnerships require educators from both inside and outside the classroom to collaborate to consider students' educational experiences\" (Whitt et al., 2008). On the 25th anniversary year of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2015, two successful collaborations were facilitated between the Leonard Lief Library and The Office of Student Disability Services at Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY). As educational stakeholders, the library and the Office of Student Disability Services partnered to find out about student accessibility, mobility and transition issues through a student assembly on apps and technology.\nGuiding principles for the collaboration: Collaborative efforts require time commitments from each member. Demands on each professional's time must be valued when there is value collaboration flows. Flexibility of meeting times is also important and supervisors must value work that is done. Both the Chief Librarian and Director of the Office of Student Disability Services and Veterans and Military Affairs value the relationships and students (Hinchliffe and Wong, 2012, p. 123).\nHow the collaboration began: The library and Office of Student Disability Services hosted a student assembly in the Access and Technology Center (ATC), located in the library, to discuss apps and technology that students use. The idea of a student assembly began with a conversation that the CUNY LEADS (Linking Employment, Academics and Disability Services) Counselor had with a librarian serving on the same search committee. The idea was to plan a workshop and connect with students who visit the ATC for accessibility and technical support. The librarian therefore asked if the library could be part of the student assembly as well, as they also come to the Reference Desk for assistance with research and citations. The event was held on February 25, 2015. \"Integration of academic and student services across campus is recognized as a critical approach to providing quality education and support to promote students completion\" (Ozaki and Hornak, 2014). The student assembly was facilitated by the Access and Technology Center Manager, CUNY LEADS Counselor and Government Documents-Collection Development Librarian.\nStudent assembly discussion: College students with disabilities use technology in clever ways to retrieve information for educational purposes. Students use mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops to access apps, software, websites and cloud storage to retrieve notes, assignments and lectures. Cloud storage like DropBox is used to download notes, documents and lectures when recording with their phone or digital smartpens like the LiveScribe Pen.\nStudents, technology and document inaccessibility: An essential discussion point raised by students at the assembly was document inaccessibility. Image PDFs (documents that have been photocopied, then scanned and uploaded) are inaccessible to students who use screen readers (JAWS - Job Access with Speech) and text-to-speech programs (Say Text, Voice Dream). Students recommend that faculty and staff use text documents instead of image documents or photocopies on Blackboard or when sending documents by e-mail. By creating a \"true text\" or \"plain text format\", PDF document characters are recognized by assistive technology software programs students use to read documents.\nAccessibility conference: The second collaboration between the library and the Office of Student Disability Services was held at the 6th Annual CUNY Accessibility Conference on May 1, 2015, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The conference theme Student Success in the Digital Age was intended for professionals of higher education and disability services. The library and the Office of Student Disability Services shared the experience of engaging with students in an assembly to find out how they access information and support their educational needs for successful academic careers.\nCreating awareness through collaborative efforts: Effective results of the collaboration were demonstrated between the library and the Office of Student Disability Services in that relationships and a new network were created. Educational conversations amongst staff and between staff and students occurred in a neutral setting. Accessibility issues were also better understood by both departments. The Office of Student Disability Services makes considerable strides toward solving technology and accessibility issues for students at Lehman College. The library benefitted from learning about technology, accessibility and time management issues as well as the expertise necessary to run a productive ATC for student productivity. \"Student affairs professionals can offer librarians more opportunities for contact with students in nontraditional ways\" (Forrest, 2005).\nNext steps: The next steps to increase accessibility efforts for students include engaging them in more assemblies, liaise with departments to discuss compliance; create a video for faculty with library technology accessibility features; use social media and email to communicate with students; and consult with university administration to create initiatives promoting universal learning and design. Accessibility training for library faculty and staff is also productive in focusing on technical issues and disabilities awareness (Seale, 2006.)\nNext steps that have occurred: Interdepartmental collaborative activities with the Office of Student Disability Services have increased discussions about student accessibility issues. Two plagiarism workshops were conducted with the ATC writing specialist. The workshop objectives included plagiarism prevention, academic integrity and demonstration of the EasyBib citation app. \"Both academic and student affairs benefit logistically from the efficiency of coordinated efforts to deliver student services\" (Hinchliffe and Wong, 2012, p. 84).\nLibrary accessibility and goals - lessons learned from collaboration: Interdepartmental collaborations build awareness of student needs. Figure 1 shows some of the initial collaborative stakeholders that can get involved with accessibility goals. Some students' disabilities are not visible and those that need accommodations may not reveal physical, visual, hearing or learning differences at the Reference Desk. Students sense when they are valued, which results in increased self-advocacy and confidence (Gomez, 2015). It would, therefore, behoove librarians to learn more about accessibility options in technology to assist all students during reference interactions.\nConclusions: The library, Office of Student Disability Services and students communicated needs and issues to one another that would otherwise not have been investigated, discovered or understood. Student perspectives on use of assistive technologies are not frequently revealed. It is evident that students can educate and provide helpful, practical suggestions to improve accessibility through assemblies, conferences, forums and other programs. According to Vanderheiden (2007):\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to discuss the relationship between interdepartmental stakeholders in higher education and the information identified as a result of collaborations. It proposes that collaborations can help clarify issues to then advocate for them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper opted for a naturalistic case study design, gathering direct and participant observation of interdepartmental collaborations including 1 Student Share, 12 one-hour collaborative sessions and 1 Accessibility Conference.\nFindings: The paper provides observed insight about student needs to have documents that are accessible for assistive technologies to recognize and read how change is brought about during internal brand building. It suggests that successful accessibility implementation in higher education calls for collaboration with stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This paper shows how a collaboration between the library and Student Disability Services can work to understand document accessibility issues. It also reveals that students with disabilities are adept with current mobile trends and technology, and need to be, for productivity in college. It will be valuable to librarians, faculty, staff and other technology stakeholders that work with students with disabilities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Stress and productivity in workers of textile companies
|
[
"Textile industry",
"Individual psychology",
"Workers",
"Productivity",
"Occupational stress"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Through globalization process, the arrival of rapid changes in organizations came, as well as marketing requirements. This forced companies to start demanding better results from their employees. Working environments stopped being just the origin of motivation, satisfaction of employees' professional fulfillment and started to become a source of concern, suffering and affliction to human being. Stress related with job is a variable that contributes to onset of pathologies on individuals; this matter has raised great interest in researchers and in general society, because of its impact in employees' well-being. Due to this consequences became lower productivity and lower organizational results are seen.\n2. Method: 2.1 Participants\n3. Results: 3.1 Material's validity\n4. Discussion: The present study's objective was to analyze the relationship among occupational stress and productivity in a worker's of textile production companies. As a hypothesis it was proposed that while there were worker's higher stress levels, worker's productivity levels would be lower.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between two psychological factors which are occupation stress and productivity, that influence workers immerse into textile production labor context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study has a quantitative methodology, is cross-sectional, nonexperimental and with an explicative scope.\nFindings: The results of this research allow to identify that occupational stress levels cause a negative impact on worker's productivity in the textile production area.\nResearch limitations/implications: There are two limitations in this study, first is the participant's subjectivity when filling the questionnaires because it was self-reported and the second limitation is that the sample is specifically from a city of a South American country.\nPractical implications: The results of this investigation show as an evidence the need for psychological intervention within companies for occupational stress, because it will impact in a negative way the textile production of a company, which will guide future research making possible to develop and apply psychological treatment programs pro employee's mental health.\nSocial implications: A textile company with low productivity will bring strong economic losses and even bankruptcy, although, thanks to this study it was possible to identify that occupational stress will have a negative impact in productivity, drawing an important based line to future research, looking to improve worker's performance and hence, companies' profits contributing to social economic processes.\nOriginality/value: In general, companies of textile industry (as many others from capitalist economic system), make substantial investments in technology instruments, specialized workers, machines' maintenance and reparation, marketing, etc. to improve their production standards, however, there is a low investment on worker's mental health, as it has been found in this study it generates a strong negative impact on its productivity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Executive coaching: Guidelines that work
|
[
"Conceptual model",
"Quantitative research",
"Coach and coachee characteristics",
"Coaching outcomes",
"Executive coaching effectiveness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Executive coaching as a management developmental intervention strategy seriously needs additional models and research. Unfortunately, there is a \"black box\" feeling about executive coaching, its activities, the competencies and responsibilities of coaches and the learning outcomes for coachees. This feeling has become a major issue for executive coaching because it is the systematic assessment of interventions that drives scientific and practical progress. It may very well be impossible to maximize the effectiveness of coaching until more stringent standards of practice are developed, based in theory, tested, agreed upon and continually developed (Lowman, 2007).\nDeveloping executive coaching effectiveness model: To complement the limited empirical research on executive coaching and to gain better insights on key coaching active ingredients, we have often relied on the more general, but well-established research field of training and development (e.g. Colquitt et al., 2000, Blume et al., 2010, Arthur et al., 2003) and feedback intervention theory (e.g. Albright and Levy, 1995; Ashford et al., 2003; Kluger and DeNisi, 1996). Consequently, we (see Bozer et al., 2008; 2013; Bozer and Sarros, 2012) have developed a theoretical foundation for a testable framework of executive coaching effectiveness. Our model aims to identify and test the characteristics, skills and approaches that, when present in a coach, coachee, coach-coachee match and organization, leads to a positive behavioral change and performance outcomes on the part of the coachee in an organizational setting (see Figure 1).\nThe Study: Sample and design\nConclusion: Given the increased popularity and large amount of funding, time and resources spent on executive coaching, there is an increased need for clear practice guidelines and the development and acceptance of professional standards to further validate the executive coaching field. We recommend that additional empirical studies on coaching effectiveness are a means of achieving these objectives. Finally, the findings of this study can assist organizations and individual consumers in navigating the diverse, immature and unregulated executive coaching industry by producing new insights and understandings that can lead to better executive coaching design, implementation, outcomes and ultimately, better returns on investment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to offer a theoretical foundation for a testable framework of executive coaching effectiveness and to share key findings from the research study in executive coaching effectiveness based on the theoretical framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This article draws on the results from a quasi-experimental field study of four firms whose primary professional services focused on executive coaching.\nFindings: Practical implications and learning lessons for the three constituents: the coachee, the coach and the organization.\nOriginality/value: The research can assist individuals and organizations in making informed decisions about designing, implementing and measuring executive coaching programs, thus building the profession of coaching.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Common myths of Six Sigma demystified
|
[
"Six sigma",
"Myths",
"Futures markets",
"Integration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the world of globalisation and growing cut-throat market environment, the quality, skills and knowledge give competitive advantage to any organization. The global market is very competitive, and to survive, organizations need to produce products and services of high quality to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty to stimulate top-line business growth. In an attempt to manage this change, industry leaders embraced Six Sigma business strategy as a framework and solution for pursuing continuous improvement in process, customer satisfaction and also organizational profit. This approach to reducing defects has made substantial impact on many organisations, resulting in enhancement of performance and a vast improvement in business profits, employee morale, quality of products and customer loyalty (Snee, 2004; Antony et al., 2005a,b; Kumar et al., 2006a,b; Antony, 2007).Six Sigma is a well-established approach that seeks to identify and eliminate defects, mistakes or failures in business processes or systems by focusing on those process performance characteristics that are of critical importance to customers (Snee, 2004). Ever since its conception at Motorola in mid 1980's, Six Sigma program has grown in leaps and bounds worldwide (Antony, 2007; Antony et al., 2005a,b). At the time of its conception, it was envisioned to be a quality improvement program that sought to deliver a near-perfect (3.4 defects per million opportunities) quality to Motorola through the use of the DMAIC (define-measure-analyse-improve-control) improvement strategy coupled with the deployment of a structured set of quality tools (Kumar et al., 2006a,b).With more than two decades of successful implementation of Six Sigma methodologies at major corporations, the success and benefits possible with Six Sigma are well documented. Although Six Sigma initiatives have grown in popularity due to its highly publicized reports of success, the strategy is not the panacea that some insist, i.e. Six Sigma still has its limitations. News keeps cropping up about the efficacy of the Six Sigma business strategy from its critics, as a management fad - a fashion that sweeps the world with great excitement for a brief period of time, usually less than a year, and then disappears (Swinney, 2005). A fad is often characterised as being an initiative that is adopted widely by companies and often falls from grace when the hope for benefits fail to materialize. Debates on its emergence as a strategic initiative have created critics who consider it as an old wine in a new bottle. In the last few decades, there existed many programs that have purported to be the answer to industry's process management problems. These include zero defects, management by objectives, quality circles, total quality management (TQM) and business process reengineering (BPR) (Marsh, 2000). While these initiatives enjoyed some success, in the long run most of them were considered as a passing fad by the management and staff of different corporations.Companies around the world are facing today the harsh realities of a competitive environment. Companies do not have time to wait and bring about evolutionary changes in their organisation. Instead, they are instituting revolutionary changes meant to have impact within a very short time frame (Henderson and Evans, 2000). Six Sigma can prove to be a powerful strategy for companies to compete globally on the basis of the quality of product and service rendered to its customers. On the other hand, there are companies that may put their Six Sigma initiatives to a halt if it takes a long time to realize tangible bottom-line benefits. Thus for them Six Sigma is not their business solution and is just a fad, like many other business improvement initiatives. This article presents some myths and realities of Six Sigma business strategy. Authors of the article present their viewpoints as why Six Sigma is not a management fad or fantasy and discuss some of the common realities of Six Sigma.\nSix Sigma: some myths and realities: Some common myths of Six Sigma\nSustainable merits of Six Sigma in the twenty-first century: About 20 years have passed since the birth of Six Sigma in Motorola. Now the important question is \"Is Six Sigma sustainable in the twenty-first century? How long?\". We believe that Six Sigma is quite sustainable, and will last quite for a long time. The reasons are already stated in explanation of \"myths demystified\" section. Besides the reasons mentioned, we want to add two more important aspects of Six Sigma as follows.Six Sigma provides bottom-line benefits and customer-oriented management\nAgenda for future research: Six Sigma, a systematic framework for quality improvement and business excellence, has been widely publicized in recent years as the most effective means to combat quality problems and win customer satisfaction (Goh, 2002). However, some researchers have argued that the focus of Six Sigma has been too narrow, the research not being well developed, and too much research has been focused on descriptions of practice rather than on theory development that is of use to managers and scholars.Here, academia can play a critical role in bridging the gap existing between the theory and practice of Six Sigma. It has been observed that very few universities in UK and rest of Europe are engaged in teaching and research on Six Sigma. This needs to be changed in the future so that collaborative Six Sigma projects between the academic and industrial world must be established in both engineering and business schools. Six Sigma has made a huge impact on the industrial world, but its impact on the academic community is limited. It will therefore be incumbent on academic fraternity to carry out well- grounded research to explain the phenomena of Six Sigma. The academic world has indeed a crucial role to play to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of Six Sigma and to improve the existing methodology of Six Sigma (Antony, 2008).The role of Six Sigma in promoting the concept of statistical thinking for both engineers and business leaders is imperative. Statistical thinking - consisting of core principles such as process, variation and data - may be used to create a culture that should be deeply embedded in every employee within any organisation embarking on Six Sigma programmes.Some of the emerging research trends of Six Sigma include: integration of Six Sigma with lean manufacturing, agile manufacturing, quick response manufacturing, and theory of constraints; development in new application areas such as healthcare, finance, sales, human resources, software engineering; integration of Six Sigma with other quality improvement initiatives such as ISO 9001:2000, and EFQM Excellence Model; selection of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) strategy over Six Sigma - based on a number of variables such as risk, technology, customer demands, time, cost and complexity; tailoring the existing Six Sigma DMAIC methodology for SMEs; the relationship between Six Sigma and organisational culture and learning; integration of eco-effective design into the DFSS processes to foster healthy and prosperous conditions for humans and ecological systems by reusing materials and components in natural biological or technical cycles; integration of DFSS with lean thinking, may be called as \"Design for lean Sigma\".There is a paucity of literature on Six Sigma Project Selection, a topic that goes unnoticed in most organisations, and different techniques or methodologies that can be used for project selection, e.g. analytical hierarchy process (AHP), pugh matrix, failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), quality function deployment (QFD), project prioritization matrix, fuzzy logic, etc. The results from the informal poll conducted by Pande et al. (2000) identified project selection as the most critical and most commonly mishandled activity in launching Six Sigma. The success or failure of Six Sigma deployment in a business process hinges on selecting projects that can be completed within reasonable time span (four to six months) and will deliver tangible (quantifiable) business benefit in financial terms or customer satisfaction (Antony, 2004a,b). Identification of high-impact project at the initial stage of programme will result in significant breakthrough in rapid timeframe. This is another area, which needs an immediate focus for continued development of Six Sigma.Six Sigma will keep on building its momentum in almost all type of industries, irrespective of the size and turnover, with no signs of giving up in the immediate future. The challenge for all organisations is to integrate Six Sigma into their core business processes and operations rather than managing it as a separate initiative. In our opinion, Six Sigma will continue to grow as a powerful management initiative for achieving and sustaining operational and service excellence. It might evolve into a \"new package\" when it fails to achieve significant returns to the bottom-line. However, the sound principles and key concepts of Six Sigma will stay with it for many years. In future, the Six Sigma toolkit will be enriched by the continuous emergence of new useful tools and techniques, especially in the software, finance and healthcare applications. Authors believe that organisations developing and implementing Six Sigma strategy should not view it as an advertising banner for promotional purposes.\nConcluding remarks: Organisations that implement Six Sigma have benefited from it in three major ways: reduced defect rate; reduced operational costs; and increased value for both customers and shareholders (Antony, 2008). Six Sigma has been part of our business lexicon and has maintained momentum for more than a decade (Snee, 2004; Noble, 2007). It is now more than hype; it is a recognized methodology for solving process and quality related problems in modern organizations (Antony, 2008). The interest in it is still very strong with lot of air left in its sail and no signs of letting off. This may be attributed to the fact that over the past decade Six Sigma has shown great flexibility and bottom-line benefits in its application beyond its root in manufacturing. Six Sigma like other business initiatives can become fad in the eyes of the management team if not implemented correctly. A review of literature on the critical success factors (CSFs) of Six Sigma explicitly states that commitment and support from top management is most important for its successful deployment as well as sustaining the improvement achieved from its implementation (Antony and Banuelas, 2002).The answer to the question \"Is Six Sigma a passing fad?\" is clearly no. Six Sigma is neither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It is a \"way of life\". It is a business strategy based on objective decision making and problem solving, relying on meaningful and real data to create actionable goals, analyzing root cause(s) of defects, and thus suggesting the ways to eliminate the gap between existing performance and the desired level of performance. Becoming a Six Sigma organization means embracing the fundamentals of statistical thinking (an area that need to be further explored):*All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes.*Variation exists in all processes.*Understanding and reducing variation are the keys to success.The right Six Sigma training and information will help people to understand that Six Sigma is significantly different from other quality improvement initiatives of the past. Six Sigma is about using common sense to make things easier rather than making things more difficult (Peterka, 2005). However, what will eventually determine whether Six Sigma is viewed by businesses as just a passing management fad or not, largely depends on the leadership and success of its execution. Management is responsible for the success of Six Sigma teams, they have to provide the environment that is conducive for the employee to succeed, i.e. make the time and resources available (Nest, 2003). Successful Six Sigma program are built on a solid organizational foundation. The organizational system and structure need to be clearly identified and communicated to the entire organization to successfully implement Six Sigma. Setting up a successful Six Sigma organization requires careful planning and training of employees. Employee roles and responsibilities must be established and clearly communicated to all.While Six Sigma methodology is experiencing widespread adoption among a variety of business and industry, there is an inherent drawback of its misapplication if adequately trained personnel, with the proper foundational background, are not available. Under this contextual setting, academia has a critical role to play. Six Sigma lacks theoretical under-pinning and hence academics need to take up the responsibility to bridge the gap in the theory and practice of Six Sigma. The article culminates with the following quotes from Walters (2005):Six Sigma has similarities to quality programs of the past because it contains many of the same ideas and philosophies that have been taught for years, but it is vastly different in scope and complexity because it teaches practical method of achieving these ideas and philosophies. Six Sigma not only tell us what to do, but more importantly how to do it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Six Sigma has been part of our business lexicon for more than a decade. Debates on its emergence as a strategic initiative have created critics who consider it as an old wine in a new bottle. Is Six Sigma a management fad? This article presents some common myths and realities of Six Sigma business strategy. The paper provides an excellent resource for those people who would like to know whether Six Sigma is just a management fad or fact.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper discusses some common myths and realities of Six Sigma by critically reviewing the existing literature on Six Sigma and also provides a greater insight into the viewpoints of leading academics and practitioners.\nFindings: - Six Sigma is neither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It relies on factual data coupled with hard work and is a disciplined and structured problem-solving methodology. The authors strongly argue its integration with other continuous/breakthrough improvement initiatives for sustaining the merits of Six Sigma in the twenty-first century. The paper also elucidates the role of academia in further developing and establishing the best practices of Six Sigma management strategy. Six Sigma will evolve over time like many other initiatives - however, the key concepts, the principles of statistical thinking, tools and techniques of Six Sigma, will stay for many years, irrespective of whatever the \"next big thing\" will be.\nPractical implications: - In the authors' opinion, Six Sigma will continue to grow as a powerful management initiative for achieving and sustaining operational and service excellence. However, what will eventually determine whether Six Sigma is viewed by businesses as just a passing management fad or not, largely depends on the leadership and success of its execution. The authors believe that organisations developing and implementing Six Sigma should not view it as an advertising banner for promotional purposes.\nOriginality/value: - The paper yields a great value to both researchers and practitioners of Six Sigma in dispelling the myths of Six Sigma, which have been quite prevalent in the business fraternity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Non-price cues utilization during social coupon purchasing-decision
|
[
"Consumer behavior",
"Social influence",
"Perceived risk",
"Promotions",
"Online buying behavior"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social coupons (SCs), sometimes called online daily deals (Dholakia, 2012, 2010) or online discount vouchers (Edelman et al., 2011), offer consumers a large discount (e.g. 50 per cent or more) with a long redemption period (e.g. three months up to one year) when consumers prepay for a retailer's products or services (Kumar and Rajan, 2012). SC websites such as Groupon or LivingSocial usually offer a discount price that is compared to a higher reference price to show the savings represented by the SC offer (e.g. \"$20 for $40 worth of food and drinks\"). From a firm's perspective, a minimum threshold size of purchase must be reached before the SC becomes profitable, considering such a large discount being offered (Kumar and Rajan, 2012). Accordingly, many SC websites (e.g. Groupon and LivingSocial) include features that allow consumers to share SC deals via social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) and email. Further, some SC providers such as Groupon also offer the option for their consumers to earn extra money when they refer a friend to Groupon and when that friend makes his/her first purchase. With consumers' tendency to share information via social networking sites (Jing and Xie, 2011) and the incentive to share deals with friends (Groupon, 2013), SC is able to take advantage of consumers' sharing behaviors and to obtain a greater sale due to the spread of word (Freedman, 2012). In recent years, SCs have become a new marketing tool to increase brand awareness and to reach potential customers (Dholakia, 2012). The popularity of SCs has grown rapidly especially among individually owned, local retailers. This is not only because SC offers the kind of reach that only big retailers can afford, but also because it provides incentives for consumers to try new services or products where such intention could be less likely without the presence of a substantive discount.\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: Perceived risk and variety-seeking orientations\nExperiment 1: variety-seeking orientation and SC purchase likelihood for SCs offered by unfamiliar brands: Subjects, design and procedure\nExperiment 2: utilizing the cue of consumer rating as a risk-reliever: Subject, design and procedure\nExperiment 3: utilizing an additional cue of SCP as a risk-reliever: In all, 751 participants recruited from MTurk online panels (MAge= 28.75, 34 per cent female) participated in a 2 (level of variety-seeking: high vs low) x 4 (consumer rating: positive vs negative vs moderate vs control) x 3 (SCP: large vs small vs control) between-subject design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the 24 conditions. The objective of Experiment 3 is to test our predictions that consumers tend to rely on the cue of consumer ratings and would only turn to the cue of SCP when the cue of consumer ratings becomes ambiguous.\nGeneral discussion: This paper extends SC literature by focusing on a relatively under-researched aspect of how consumers make their SC purchase decisions. Although SCs seem to provide potential benefits for individually owned, local retailers, a problem arises, as consumers may not respond positively to such retailers which they are usually unfamiliar with, despite the substantial discount that is offered. This is because brand unfamiliarity leads to greater risk perception and consumers do not generally embrace risks. However, despite the fact that consumers may tend to avoid risks, the substantial discounts of SCs at the same time motivate consumers to seek risk-relieving cues rather than entirely abort any decision-making process. This therefore highlights the importance of cue utilization in the SC context. This paper first shows that low variety-seekers (vs high variety-seekers) perceive greater risk when facing SCs offered by unfamiliar brands and thus become less likely to purchase such SCs. As such, we examine two non-price cues as risk-relievers that reduce consumers' risk perception for unfamiliar brands and hence subsequently increase purchase likelihood for SCs offered by unfamiliar brands. We identify a sequential cue utilization process where consumers tend to rely on the cue of consumer rating first before seeking additional cue of SCP. This is consistent with TTB (Gigerenzer and Goldstein, 1996) where individuals search through cues based on the order of their validity and stop searching when one cue is found to discriminate the choice options. As consumer rating reflects other consumers' actual experience after consumption, it is considered to be more valid or accurate compared to the cue of SCP, which reflects other consumers' preference prior to consumption. Accordingly, consumers would not utilize the cue of SCP if the cue of consumer rating provides them sufficient information to make purchase decision. In our studies, we examine the situation where consumer rating is unambiguous (positive or negative) and found that the presence of a positive rating increases purchase likelihood for low variety-seekers but makes no difference for high variety-seekers, who by nature seek unfamiliar or new experiences. When consumer rating is unambiguous, the cue of SCP has no impact on consumers' likelihood of purchasing SCs offered by unfamiliar brands. However, when consumer rating becomes ambiguous (moderate rating), the cue of SCP becomes influential in increasing purchase likelihood. This is because the ambiguity of consumer rating becomes insufficient for consumers to make purchase decisions and thus they seek additional cues to help them make decisions. However, the cue of SCP under the situation where consumer rating is ambiguous is influential only for low variety-seekers but not for high variety-seekers. This is consistent with Raju (1980)'s findings where those with low optimum stimulation level (e.g. low variety-seekers) tend to have lower tolerance for ambiguity and thus explains why low variety-seekers would turn to additional cues of SCP to make purchase decisions, whereas high variety-seekers remained uninfluenced.\nManagerial implications: Marketing managers of individually owned, local retailers can apply our findings as guidelines to effectively launch SCs to maximize the number of SCs being sold and to reach potential consumers. First, our paper suggests that SC consumers not only utilize price-related cues such as reference price and discount price, but also non-price cues such as consumer ratings and SCP. As SCs generally provide large discounts, retailers will not be able to stand out among competitors if they only demonstrate price information. Thus, it becomes significant for retailers to provide additional information that works toward their advantage. Second, this paper suggests that it is important for retailers to choose the right SC provider to promote their product or service. This is because different SC providers such as Groupon and Living Social feature different types of non-price cues and target different groups of consumers (e.g. local consumers vs travelers). Retailers should therefore choose the one that works toward their advantage. For example, if the retailer has a positive rating, it should choose an SC provider that explicitly shows the cue of consumer ratings, as it gives the retailer the advantage of reducing consumers' risk perceptions. In contrast, if the retailer has a negative rating, it should choose an SC provider that does not explicitly feature such cue. In addition, if the retailer has a moderate rating, it should choose an SC provider that features both cues of consumer rating and SCP rather than just the cue of consumer rating or SCP. This is because SCP has no impact on purchase likelihood by itself but could be influential when it is shown with a moderate consumer rating. Finally, given that the cue of SCP plays an important role in SC purchase-decision when retailers receive a moderate rating, SC providers should promote themselves effectively on social media and provide sufficient incentives for consumers to share the deal on Facebook and Twitter so as to increase SCP.\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: This paper demonstrates that high versus low variety-seekers tend to utilize non-price cues differently. This difference subsequently influences their SC purchase-decision. The differential response between high and low variety-seekers lies in their different risk perceptions toward SCs offered by unfamiliar brands. We examine risk perception by measuring perceived overall risk. However, there are different dimensions of risk perception (Jacoby and Kaplan, 1972; Kaplan et al., 1974) such as performance risk and financial risk that could play an important role in SC purchase decisions. Future research needs to further examine each dimension of risk perception to gain a more thorough understanding of consumers' decision-making process in the context of SC purchase.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine how two non-price cues - consumer rating and number of purchased social coupons (SCs) - serve as risk-relievers for high and low variety-seekers and subsequently impact their purchase decision for SCs offered by unfamiliar brands.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk online panels participated in three scenario-based experiments.\nFindings: Low (vs high) variety-seekers perceive greater risk and indicate lower likelihood of purchasing SCs offered by unfamiliar brands. Both high and low variety-seekers utilize the two non-priced cues - consumer rating and number of purchased SCs - as risk-relievers sequentially. That is, consumer rating constantly has a substantial impact on purchase likelihood for such SCs, whereas number of purchased SCs is influential only when consumer rating becomes ambiguous. Specifically, low (vs high) variety-seekers have a greater tendency to rely on number of purchased SCs in addition to consumer rating as a risk-reliever.\nOriginality/value: This paper examines cue utilization process in the SC context and suggests that high and low variety-seekers respond to the two non-price cues differently and sequentially. This provides theoretical insights on consumers' cue utilization process and managerial insights regarding how managers could strategically handle the cues on SC provider websites. Further, this paper identifies situations where high variety-seekers may not prefer unfamiliar experiences and low variety-seekers may become more likely to embrace unfamiliar experiences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management in Jordanian banking sector
|
[
"Research methods",
"Organizational performance",
"Financial performance",
"Banking",
"Knowledge management",
"Quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recently, many countries have activated and developed the concept of social sciences because of increasing works and new technologies, which lead to increase in demands and challenges of the external environment. Knowledge management (KM) has become a valuable asset to achieve sustainable competitive advantage which represents sharing, communicating, and creating knowledge and subsequently transferring it to the next members of the organization (Trivellas et al., 2015).\n2. Statement of the problem: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the organizational culture can improve job satisfaction for efficient work knowledge. The relationship between organizational culture and KM of organizational members is developed and analyzed herein by proposing a mediating role of job satisfaction. Few research papers have focused on job satisfaction and its mechanism contributing to individual effectiveness in the Jordanian market, and many papers ignored the benefit of KM and the value of culture in many sectors.\n3. Objectives: This study will achieve the following objectives:\n4. Literature review: This section summarizes some of the previous studies that have reviewed topics related to the subject of this study.\n5. Framework model: After reading and examining previous studies related to the study's subject, the most important characteristics that distinguish this study from the other previous studies were found and stated as follows.\n6. Operational definition and measurement: The area of research is based on employees in banking institutions at different ages and work levels; thus, determined variables placed in Table I shows variables, dimensions and their elements and how they are measured in this study.\n7. Research hypotheses: The following main hypotheses are formulated for testing:\n8. Data and methodology: It is important to choose the sample that represents the population under investigation to increase credibility. The population of the study represents all of the junior and senior customer service and administrative employees that are working in the Jordanian local banks (Housing Bank for Trade and Finance, Bank of Jordan, and Jordan Ahli Bank). After distributing 150 questionnaires of the study sample for the motioned banks, a total of 150 answered questionnaires were retrieved, of which five were invalid. Therefore, 145 answered questionnaires were considered valid for study.\n9. Analysis and results: 9.1 Descriptive statistics\n10. The readiness and validity of data for regression analyses: To answer the research questions and test the study hypotheses, regression analyses need to be run. However, there are three main prerequisites that should be satisfactorily met so as to ensure that the use of regression analyses is valid. Otherwise, non-parametric tests should be employed:\n11. Conclusions and recommendations: This research aimed to study the effect of organizational culture on KM by taking job satisfaction as a mediating factor. Nowadays, the culture has become the main issue for the success of the banks. This is because work environment and place can contribute by optimizing business processes, maximizing profits, and strength KM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the positive effect of organizational culture on knowledge management (KM) by clarifying the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the banking sector in Jordan. The study was conducted on Jordanian banks to develop the organizational culture concept to be reflected in the bank activities. The population of this study consists of junior and senior customer service and administrative employees working at Jordanian banks in Jordan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample of this research is purposive one because the research cannot get a list containing names of customer service employees for privacy reasons. Various statistical tests were employed to test the research hypotheses. The study utilized two statistical packages - Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SPSS-AMOS - for analyzing the data.\nFindings: The development of organizational culture at banks in Jordan is still not stable and efficient. This may be affected by the management style and teamwork spirit in Jordan and other factors related to bank culture and how it will be reflected in customer service. The creation and application of KM at banks in Jordan is still modest. Knowledge is mainly shared internally within the bank with little efforts dedicated to soliciting knowledge from the external environment including customers. The job satisfaction at banks in Jordan is still modest.\nOriginality/value: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the organizational culture can improve job satisfaction for efficient work knowledge. The relationship between organizational culture and KM of organizational members is developed and analyzed herein by proposing a mediating role of job satisfaction. Few research papers have focused on job satisfaction and its mechanism contributing to individual effectiveness in the Jordanian market, and many ignored the benefits of KM and value of culture in many sectors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Globalization and governance for sustainability
|
[
"Governance",
"Economic sustainability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent decades, we have witnessed an extraordinary economic globalization. Events such as the demise of central planning in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as economic liberalization in a number of developing countries in Asia represent a remarkable success for commercially driven competitive market economies.On the one hand, market-driven globalization has spurred exceptional growth and fostered the social modernization of several emerging economies. The high growth of global wealth has, for instance reduced poverty in large countries like China and India.On the other hand, it has also fostered new economic and social inequalities. Material consumption and environmental externalities that were manageable, when pursued by small elites, are now increasingly being replicated around the world on a mass-scale with disastrous consequences for human livelihood.The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that the one-sided globalization of the market economy without adequate financial and social governance is putting the world at risk. Speculative strategies pursued with new and unregulated financial vehicles have evaded ineffective national control and slack international financial regulation (Martinelli, 2004).Additionally, the climate challenge is showing us that there are ecological limits and that growth in the western economies, now followed on a larger scale in Asia, have put the world on a fast track towards ecological crises.This article takes stock of core arguments in some of the most central governance traditions and discusses their capacity to deliver solutions. Against this background, it also suggests supplementary governance approaches for sustainable development going forward.\nThree institutional anchors for governance: Today's discussion of global governance builds on a long debate about the relationship between the state, market and society. Following the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II, the post-war period saw an epoch of state building in most western economies with a belief in democratic leadership and active government.The 1980s and 1990s saw a return to belief in markets with deregulation and privatisation of the economy (Derthick and Quirk, 1985; O'Sullivan and Sheffrin, 2002; Midttun and Svindland, 2001). The arguments for the new market approach included fiscal crisis, as well as political overload on the nation state, but also challenges facing the nation, states under competitive internationalization of the economy.The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a return to stronger concern with societal governance. Following the wave of deregulated commercialisation, business was challenged by civil society to include social and environmental responsibility in their agenda in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).The present financial and economic crisis has again raised demand for a return of regulation and government intervention, although this crisis comes with the need for a re-conceptualization of the role of the state in the complex societies of a globalizing world.In analytical terms, much of the governance debate revolves around three institutional anchors: government, markets and civil society, or their combinations: a discussion about different modes of coordination and control. Governance, in this understanding, is about striking a balanced combination of authority, open exchange, and norms (Martinelli, 2003).Market-led globalization\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to take stock of core arguments in some of the most central governance traditions and to discuss their capacity to deliver solutions. It starts with an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas of market-, state- and civil-society-led governance, but also factors in the effect of media and communication as governance arenas in their own right. Then it aims to review core arguments put forward in broader approaches to governance where multiple governance mechanisms are combined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is a conceptual paper that reviews central approaches in the governance literature and their ability to further sustainable development. The review is taken as a basis for tentative formulations of new supplementary governance approaches.\nFindings: - Out of the critical analysis the paper distils is an approach to governance that combines three basic elements: First, a re-interpretation of Montesquieu's principle of checks and balances - applied not only to state institutions, but also to the interplay between the state, markets and civil society. Second, an argument for polyarchic, multilevel governance, where flexible institutional frameworks, at various levels of aggregation, allow actors to jointly engage in developing governance. Third, it argues that open communication may constitute an important governance element. It ends by recognising that global governance, going forward, will include a mix of parallel governance models, in some ways competing for hegemony, but supporting one another in other ways.\nOriginality/value: - The originality/value of the paper lies in its critical assessment of central current governance theories and in its launch of new supplementary governance approaches.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of identity on anxiety during wiki editing in higher education
|
[
"Higher education",
"Wiki",
"E-learning",
"Anxiety",
"Anonymity",
"User experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: IT now forms a crucial part of the higher education (HE) experience. Web 2.0 tools such as wikis have become important elements of the student IT mix. Although wikis are becoming more popular in HE there is a lack of knowledge about student's user experience and how wiki site characteristics affect this experience. In HE students edit wikis infrequently (Kickmeier-Rust et al., 2006) and negative emotions towards wiki editing are thought to impact on this (Cole, 2009). Striving to understand what impacts the wiki user experience is therefore of high importance as anxiety during editing may lead users to edit infrequently or not at all, significantly impacting the effectiveness of wikis as inclusive and collaborative HE tools. What's more in situations where wiki editing is a compulsory part of coursework users may edit in distress affecting students' HE experience. The research presented aims to offer insight in how the identity used when editing impacts upon users' anxiety during wiki contribution in HE.\nMethod: Participants\nExperiment results: Reliability of measures\nDiscussion: In summary the research found that participants scored less on the anxiety measure when editing the wiki anonymously in comparison to when they edited the wiki using a matriculation number or a full name identity. This supported our hypothesis that there would be a significant effect of identity conditions on wiki anxiety during editing. There was no significant difference in anxiety when editing using a matriculation number or full name identity. The type of edit behaviour also did not significantly affect wiki anxiety levels, disconfirming our hypothesis.\nConclusion: In sum, this work details results on the effect of editing identity on wiki anxiety during wiki editing and whether such variables are influenced by the type of edit made by users. The research found that:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although wikis are common in higher education, little is known about the wiki user experience in these contexts and how system characteristics impact such experiences. The purpose of this paper is to explore experimentally the hypothesis that changing the anonymity of identity when editing wikis will impact significantly on user editing anxiety and that this may be dependent on the type of edit being conducted.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This hypothesis was explored using a controlled experiment study whereby users were given excerpts to include in their own words on a wiki site used for a psychology course. Users edited the wiki anonymously, using a pseudonym relevant to the context (a matriculation number) and using a full named identity. Users were also either asked to add content to the wiki or to delete and replace content on the wiki site.\nFindings: The paper found that users experienced significantly less anxiety when editing anonymously compared to when editing with a pseudonym or full name and that the type of edit being conducted did not impact the anxiety felt.\nOriginality/value: The research highlights that the effects of anonymity discussed are also in operation in a wiki context, a more fundamentally anonymous context compared to blogs, bulletin boards or general computer-mediated communication tools.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Being a successful and valuable peer reviewer
|
[
"Sciences",
"Peer review",
"Experience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: It is with great pleasure that we begin the second volume of our Editorship of EJM. It is also somewhat shocking that the past year has passed us by so quickly. We have been delighted with, but also admittedly taken aback at, the sheer weight of submissions that we have received here at EJM. In servicing such a huge amount of submissions, we have relied on what seems like a small army of reviewers, many of who have reviewed for EJM for the first time this year. To each and every one of those reviewers, we extend our sincere thanks, for without them, we genuinely would not have been able to run EJM. In this issue, we provide a list of all of those reviewers, and everyone named on that list has played a significant part in the success of EJM. This list was compiled in September 2008, and in future the \"year\" will run from October 1 to September 30 for these purposes. In this case, it runs from January 1 2008, to September 30 2008.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this editorial is to announce the winners of the EJM Reviewer of the Year awards, and also to make some observations about successful and effective practice in reviewing scholarly work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors draw from their own experience as reviewers, authors, and editors to provide a set of considerations for those involved in the review process.\nFindings: - The authors propose a set of guidelines for reviewers who wish to make the most of their role in the scientific method.\nResearch limitations/implications: - These thoughts are preliminary, and are drawn from personal experiences rather than a wide-ranging survey of stakeholders.\nPractical implications: - Marketing researchers should ensure that they understand their role in the scholarly reviewing process, and that they provide timely and constructive comments on their areas of expertise.\nOriginality/value: - This piece should offer marketing researchers considerable value in the context of their own efforts, both as authors and reviewer.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Social constructionism and entrepreneurship: Basic assumptions and consequences for theory and research
|
[
"Entrepreneurialism",
"Qualitative methods",
"Philosophy",
"Epistemology",
"Social interaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The aim of this article is to develop a constructionist notion of entrepreneurship and to discuss its consequences for research. Concepts, methodologies and outcomes of entrepreneurship research are linked to hidden and taken-for-granted views of reality, knowledge and ideology that exclude and include different research questions and phenomena. Raising awareness about such basic assumptions of research, we will find insights that could benefit the development of entrepreneurship research significantly, not least in terms of reconsidering and refining methods in theorizing and empirical fieldwork.A social constructionist perspective is explicitly based on assumptions of ontology, epistemology and ideology. It also implies that entrepreneurship is constructed in social interaction between individuals and that it is the task of research to enhance our understanding of these interactions (Steyaert, 1997; Chell and Pittaway, 1998; Chell, 2000; Fletcher, 2003; Hosking and Hjorth, 2004; Downing, 2005; Fletcher, 2006; Drakopoulou Dodd and Anderson, 2007). It is not our intention to argue that contemporary entrepreneurship research is based on \"wrong\" or \"false\" basic assumptions on ontology, epistemology and ideology - on the contrary, a young and lively field as entrepreneurship should encourage pluralism in its development. A pluralistic stance should be equally important both for the establishment of new lines of inquiry and for the ongoing construction of cumulative knowledge. What seems to be the problem is that most entrepreneurship literature does not articulate and discuss any such assumptions, implying a tendency to take established concepts, methodologies and empirical operationalisations for granted - often (but not always) those connected to the traditions within psychology and micro-economics (Pittaway, 2005).The article starts with a brief overview of the ongoing scientific debate within the entrepreneurship field in which we criticize the lack of awareness of basic assumptions and suggest social constructionism as a complementary paradigm. We then describe social constructionism, in general terms and as applied to the field of entrepreneurship. The consequences for entrepreneurship research outlined above are discussed in detail. The article concludes with a summary of the new venues for entrepreneurship theory and empirical work implicated by a social constructionist perspective on entrepreneurship.\nSocial constructionism and the entrepreneurship debate: As an academic field, entrepreneurship contains several different basic perspectives and schools. One of the founders of the field, Schumpeter (1947) went into disciplines such as history, economic history and sociology in his life-long development of entrepreneurship theory. As of today, entrepreneurship is still studied within several disciplines such as economics, sociology and economic history (Thornton, 1999; Swedberg, 2000; Busenitz et al., 2003). Within business studies, entrepreneurship research is primarily inspired by approaches from sociology, psychology and micro-economics, resulting in a focus on identifying, predicting and stimulating entrepreneurship (Aldrich and Baker, 2000; Venkataraman, 1997; Busenitz et al., 2003).Absence of basic assumptions\nWhat is - and what is not - social constructionism?: The history of social constructionism can be traced back to nineteenth century reactions to the dominating Cartesian positivist view of science that was formulated in the wake of The Enlightenment. Ideologists of the emerging social sciences claimed that individual and social phenomena had to be studied through the subjective minds of individuals not only through observable behaviour. This view developed into what is usually referred to as social constructivism, is to be found in several leading social science disciplines. Examples related to business studies are cognitive research (Piaget, 1954; Weick, 1969) where the aim is to uncover the cognitive maps, categorizations and representations that guide human action (see also Gergen's (1999), distinction between constructivism and constructionism). Constructivism is still rooted in positivism in several ways. It presupposes a dualistic ontology separating man and reality (subjective and objective) implying that we can formulate objective truths about social phenomena beyond individuals' subjective interpretations of reality. Such reasoning often leads to cause-effect models implying that action can be explained and deducted from individual thoughts and intentions (Hosking and Hjorth, 2004). Individual thinking is transformed into scientific data through language, and language is thus seen as a true and objective mediator of intentions and interpretations.In relation to this, social constructionism is explicitly based in a hermeneutic tradition where there is no knowledge beyond individuals' subjective and inter-subjective interpretations of reality. This ontological position is based on a rejection of the idea that true, objective facts and laws on human behaviour can ever be formulated or that societal processes can only be interpreted on how people construct and understand their reality and actions (Cunliffe, 2008). Man and reality are thus seen as inseparable and ideas, thoughts and actions are thus the result of ongoing processes of interactions and interpretations between human beings. In these processes, language is also subjectively and inter-subjectively understood, negotiated and re-formulated. Different approaches of social constructionist views can be found in literature; except for explicit constructionists like Berger and Luckmann (1966), there are also other examples such as Garfinkel's (1967) ethnomethodology, Mead's (1934) symbolic interactionism and Derrida's (1998) poststructuralism. The differences between the approaches usually concern research interests and levels of analysis creating tensions such as subjectivism versus inter-subjectivism, positive versus critical views, and macro versus micro process analysis (Cunliffe, 2008). From our point-of-view, these differences does not make social constructionism less useful as a basic perspective in entrepreneurship research - rather they underline the importance of carefully formulating the basic assumptions behind any research endeavour. We will give further examples of theoretical perspectives and fieldwork approaches in the next section of this article.Ontological position\nApplying a social constructionist approach to research: After having discussed the scientific foundations of a social constructionist perspective on entrepreneurship, we will now turn to what the consequences may be for theory and the practice of research. In the following section, we discuss the implications of studying entrepreneurial processes, what possible new theoretical inspirations are needed, the identification and choice of subjects of study, and possible new ways of looking at approaches and methodologies in empirical fieldwork.Study focus: entrepreneurship constructed in interaction\nConclusion: Entrepreneurship research is a result of a long historical development of definitions, concepts and methods. While this development has been rather successful in academic terms there is always the risk of the field becoming less \"entrepreneurial\". Along with several other fields, entrepreneurship has adopted some taken-for-granted assumptions and views that could hamper further development. As a way of overcoming this we propose a social constructionist perspective on entrepreneurship. In this article, we have chosen to discuss three issues connected to the notion of \"social constructed entrepreneurship\": the basic assumptions of research (ontology, epistemology and ideology), the consequences for theory development and research design, and the process-oriented empirical inquiry on projects and other temporary enterprises intended to articulate, challenge and re-construct established action patterns and values in society.Basic assumptions such as ontology, epistemology and ideology are what research paradigms are built upon. Given that paradigmatic development is desirable such assumptions must be conscious and subjected to intellectual debate (Grant and Perren, 2002; Busenitz et al., 2003, Pittaway, 2005). We have proposed social constructionism as a source of challenges to traditional perspectives, theories and empirical work in entrepreneurship - and as an example of how a discussion on basic assumptions can inspire paradigmatic development. Articulating ontology, epistemology and ideology is necessary for the development of research practices and an enhanced awareness of potential problems concerning truth, validity, trustworthiness, empirical operationalisation and so forth.The theoretical consequences of viewing entrepreneurship from a social constructionist perspective imply using other forms of approaches and other forms of conceptual frameworks (Steyaert, 1997). Examples of this can be cultural theory, gender theory, critical management theory, theories about group dynamics, theories about social movements etc. There are also other possibilities in existing theories about entrepreneurship that can be developed in an ontological/epistemological way by emphasizing interaction at the expense of structural- and actor-oriented views (institutional theory and network theory).Empirically, research on business start-ups can be valuable from these perspectives but there are also other forms of interactions that could be studied as entrepreneurial. Non-profit start-ups, change-projects, cultural events and temporary political movements are all examples of alternative empirical bases that can be used in order to get an enhanced understanding of entrepreneurship (Lounsbury, 1998; Chell, 2007; Sundin and Tillmar, 2008; Sorensen, 2008). An important consequence is that people otherwise not considered as entrepreneurs can be included - empirically, practically and politically. This also calls for new methodological approaches that explicitly share the assumptions that social constructionist view are based on, such as in-depth narrative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork and action research.According to Gartner and Birley (2002), there has been a long process of normalization of the field of entrepreneurship that has made certain definitions, methodologies and research problems more legitimate than other ones (see also Dery and Toulouse, 1996; McKinley et al., 1999; Grant and Perren, 2002). Established principles of thought such as causality, generalization, prediction and statistical significance can be seen as ideologically based in an ideal where reality can be described in an objective and true manner. One example is the widespread search for statistically valid measures of characteristics of entrepreneurs and contextual factors yielding conclusions on what is \"true\" or \"false\" about entrepreneurship, what behaviour is successful and what is not, and what policies that are \"right\" or \"wrong\". This can be seen both in delimited fields such as venture capital and women's entrepreneurship (Gatewood et al., 2003) and across journals of entrepreneurship (Davidsson and Wiklund, 2001). When subjected to a closer analysis it appears that most of these perspectives share an implicit view of reality as existing objectively and thus entrepreneurship as a tangible phenomenon that can be measured, predicted and stimulated (Chell and Pittaway, 1998; Pittaway, 2005). These basic assumptions are almost never discussed despite their massive influence on current research. In line with Aldrich and Baker (1997), one could wish for a more convincing argumentation for these research practices including explicit statements on what kind of knowledge that is produced, how it can be used and for what purposes it is produced.While we agree with Shane and Venkataraman (2000), Davidsson and Wiklund (2001) and Busenitz et al. (2003) that the development towards a strengthened identity for entrepreneurship research bears much promise we also think that this identity should include a interest to discuss the basic assumptions on which scientific inquiry is built. In order to enhance awareness, we need to expose current concepts, theories and methods of entrepreneurship to discussion and critique. Otherwise, important appeals to develop entrepreneurship research through the inclusion of theories and methods used in other fields of social science (Gartner, 2001; Low, 2001) might not result in knowledge relevant or legitimate in those fields. It is time to reconsider entrepreneurship theory, to open up the academic discourse to different ways of building theories and conduct empirical fieldwork.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to develop a social constructionist approach to entrepreneurship and to discuss its consequences for entrepreneurship research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a review of current methodological debates in the entrepreneurship field concerning the need and implications of explicit references to basic scientific assumptions in research texts, a social constructionist perspective is outlined and its theoretical and methodological consequences are discussed.\nFindings: - A social constructionist perspective may contribute to the development of entrepreneurship research both through opening up possibilities for the inclusion of new theoretical fields, and through the demands on new methodological approaches following such theoretical inclusions.\nOriginality/value: - Based on an identified lack of research literature discussing underlying scientific assumptions within entrepreneurship, the paper provides a thorough discussion and summary of existing and future social constructionist developments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Situated and transformative learning: exploring the potential of critical reflection to enhance organizational knowledge
|
[
"Learning methods",
"Adult education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Transformative learning and situated learning are two contemporary theoretical approaches interpreting dimensions of learning from different viewpoints. They have each influenced many scholars in adult and professional education over the past two decades. In this paper we will introduce a proposal on how to combine elements of these two different approaches to facilitate an easeful entrance into a professional community and to enhance organizational learning.\nSituated learning: The term \"situated learning\" was coined by Lave and Wenger (1991) to describe how learning can occur in what they call \"communities of practice\". A community of practice is a group of people that shares a common interest within a domain of human endeavour. It is committed to a collective learning process that creates bonds between the members of this community. According to Wenger, not every human community is necessarily a community of practice. For example, a neighbourhood is often a community, but not usually a community of practice. The members of a community of practice develop a shared and long-term collective repository of resources (experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing problems, etc.). In other words they shape a common practice and indeed, in many cases, their members are not aware that this is happening. The learning that occurs during the process of one's gradual integration into a community of practice or a professional community is called situated learning. In most cases, it is the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes by the newcomers as directed mainly from the older members of the community. During this process of gradual entrance into a community of practice, newcomers are \"authorised\" in practice by the experienced professionals of the domain to carry out increasingly complex projects, based on the rate at which they accept and absorb the knowledge of the community of practice. This is what Lave and Wenger call \"legitimate peripheral participation\".In the years that followed, Wenger further elaborated on the concept of legitimate peripheral participation and gave us five different levels of participation in a community of practice that fully describe situated learning and the process of gradual integration into the community. The five levels that Wenger distinguishes are presented in Figure 1:1. a core group small group of people that includes the most experienced members of the community;2. full membership refers to recognized professionals of the community;3. peripheral membership represents people who belong to the community but with less participation or authority because they are newcomers or because they do not have a deep personal commitment;The other two levels of communication involve those that have a more incidental or external relationship with the community.\nTransformative learning: In the late 1970s, Jack Mezirow asserted that the developmental process of perspective transformation, experienced many times by mature adults, would affect adult education. Later (1981) he introduced the approach of transformative learning as a critical theory of adult education. Mezirow distinguishes between two kinds of learning: instrumental, pertains to learning involved in controlling or manipulating the environment, in improving performance or prediction. Communicative, pertains to understanding what someone means when he/she communicates with you. According to Mezirow both kinds of learning could evolve into transformative learning. The latter is defined as the process by which we transform problematic frames of reference (which consist of assumptions, points of view, habits of mind, patterns and values) into more open, reflective and, therefore, functional ones. A central concept in the work of Mezirow is critical reflection, which is related to the evaluation of experience and the transformation of perspective and frame of reference. This is an approach to learning that concerns adults who, by acquiring a critical awareness of their frame of reference, can bring about changes in the way in which they bestow meaning on the world and constitute their assumptions. It is not possible within the context of this paper to refer at length to the conceptual framework of this theoretical approach and the ways in which perspective transformation can be achieved (for an analytical presentation see the collective work by J. Mezirow and Associates, 2000). Suffice to say that the central role in the process of perspective transformation is held by rational discourse and critical reflection.\nEnhancing knowledge in organizations: Having examined both these innovative theoretical approaches, situated and transformative learning, we conclude that, by combining certain of their basic elements, we can answer questions that concern the improvement of an organization's capacity as a learning community. In particular, situated learning provides a clear perspective on how learning occurs in social conditions and interactions and how the workplace has a strong educational influence on newcomers. Transformative learning provides a very acute view on how reflection and critical reflection can work in this direction. Certain questions that occur if we view an organization or a group of organizations as communities of practice are the following:1. Is the knowledge provided by a community of practice always the knowledge we need, that is to say, does it correspond to the needs of the organization and the challenges of the environment?2. How does this accumulated knowledge change given that it may be dysfunctional?3. How can a community of practice more rapidly and effectively adopt elements of academic knowledge or social messages?These are questions that, in terms of management or organizational psychology, might be stated in the form of how the organization can best adapt to the ever-changing environmental conditions and challenges. To the extent that this concerns the accumulated knowledge of a community of practice and not other factors (such as structure, hierarchy or motivation), we propose that one must turn to the role that can be played by newcomers. They are the ones who can change and renew the entrenched knowledge of the community at a faster rate, provided that they are capable of taking on this task. It should be noted here that the extent to which practices and ideas of the newcomers are accepted depends on the organizational culture and the managerial schema of the organization. In order for newcomers to be in a position to influence the members of the community (core and full membership) they need certain abilities. This is particularly crucial during the peripheral phase of their participation. On the one hand they must not be passive recipients of the community's entrenched knowledge and practices, while on the other they must have the ability to critically analyse whatever is going on during their gradual entrance into the professional community. This can be achieved if they are capable of critical reflection and even more so if critical reflection has been a part of their previous education. It is to such types of methods that certain chapters of the collective work by Mezirow and Associates as well as the work of Cranton (2006) refer to. Since their previous education includes such elements, it would be more functional for them to transform attitudes and assumptions so as to respond to the needs of their environment, influencing at the same time their community of practice. We should note that regarding the case of teachers and the first stages of the integration of newcomers into a community of practice, Karalis et al. (2007) have proposed an approach that focuses on the practical training of prospective teachers in Departments of Education which takes place during their initial training.In conclusion, we believe that, since elements of the initial as well as the continuing education of future professionals are the theoretical starting points and the practical applications of transformative learning, (i.e. since professionals are capable of critically analysing the processes of legitimate peripheral participation and gradual entrance into the professional community), then the knowledge and practices that exist within the framework of an organization seen as a community of practice can be acquired more efficiently and renewed whenever necessary. The reflective practitioner and professional can cover the course set out in Figure 1 more safely and more efficiently, while at the same time influencing the community of practice with new viewpoints and the updated knowledge of the academic community. In particular, when we refer to organizations and companies, beyond the self-evident economy in time and resources, we can reflect on distorted practices and the swifter adoption of sounder practices. That is to say, an overall renewal of existing knowledge, practices and organizational culture.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss a combination of basic elements of two different and contemporary approaches to learning in enhancing knowledge in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based mainly on a literature review trying to combine elements of two different approaches of adult learning.\nFindings: - Although situated learning and transformative learning start from different viewpoints, they can be combined in the making of the reflective practitioner and professional\nOriginality/value: - The proposal presented here shows that critical reflection can assist in developing a more effective gradual entrance for newcomers in a professional environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Analyzing industry stakeholders using open-source competitive intelligence - a case study in the automotive supply industry
|
[
"Competitive intelligence",
"Process automation",
"Strategic analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Companies today are finding themselves in increasingly dynamic and cohesive market environments. In particular, the automotive supply industry is characterized by high interdependencies and will be affected by significant structural changes in the next years disrupting the entire value chain (Krune et al., 2018). According to a study by McKinsey & Company (2016), the industry will become more complex and diversified because of an expanded value chain through new mobility concepts, which contains significantly more functions than today's automotive value chain. These changes increase the competition with existing stakeholders, e.g. mobility providers or large technology enterprises as well as new types of stakeholders such as suppliers of electrical components for clean vehicle solutions and software suppliers to enable autonomous driving and even requires to cooperate and collaborate with competitors to consolidate ascending connectivity ecosystems (McKinsey & Company, 2016). This instability in the industry is primarily caused by structural change and discussions about emissions, which are intensified by the ongoing emissions scandal (Vitale and Schiller, 2017). Additionally, automotive suppliers, in particular, are economically very dependent on their customers, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), but also on other players such as competitors and suppliers (Holzhauser, 2016). To manage these changes and minimize the negative consequences of dependencies, it is crucial to maintain a holistic view of the strategic actions of relevant interest groups. This is supported by a study of Isik et al. (2011) identifying that the users of information systems demand improvements, especially in qualitative and external information.Competitive intelligence (CI) addresses the issue of limited visibility through extensive and continuous research. While CI is an established concept for the execution of competition analyses in research and industry (Du Toit, 2015; Calof et al., 2018), new means have arisen, which substantially challenge existing CI methods. In particular, information procurement has changed dramatically with the advent of digital media, which has greatly facilitated access to publicly accessible information and created new research directions, such as open-source intelligence (OSINT) (Glassman and Kang, 2012). Additionally, the development of information technologies and specific application systems allows to record, analyze and communicate information faster and more comprehensively (Isik et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2012). These improving technological possibilities and the desire for data-driven decisions contrast with their slow adaption in the field of CI (Comai, 2015; Brynjolfsson and McElheran, 2016). The effort of handling a large amount of data challenges not only researchers but also the employees and managers of enterprises. Especially, the enrichment of strategic stakeholder analyses with high-quality knowledge is often linked to high expenditures for companies. The causes are manifold, such as costs for knowledge acquisitions due to the use of obsolete techniques, uncertainty about the methodology or the content itself (Jarzabowski et al., 2007). Challenges occur along the entire lifecycle, from data collection to data interpretation (August, 2014).Given the changes in the industry, screening the behavior of other stakeholders is crucial to maintain a sustainable and profitable market position. This requires further development, as the process is highly cost-intensive and changes fundamentally due to technological possibilities. Therefore, this paper proposes a new method for the enrichment and automation of the entire CI cycle to provide a reasonable expense-performance ratio for industrial companies. Within this method, answers to the question of how relevant information about stakeholders in an industry can be efficiently captured, processed and visualized for strategic analysis are provided. In the following, the foundations of the underlying theories and the field of CI, as well as the current state of research and practice, are introduced. Based on this, a new method is derived, grounded on the design science research (DSR) by Hevner et al. (2004) and following the CI cycle by Bose (2008). This enables companies to continuously observe the developments and changes within their industries at lower costs.\n2. Theoretical foundation: The theoretical foundation of the paper is based on the theory of industrial organization (Porter, 1980). It examines the structure of markets as well as the behavior of market participants among each other, e.g. competitive processes (Bester, 2017). The central assumption of industrial economics is that companies are relatively homogeneous within their sector, and that competitive advantages result only from the positioning of the individual companies within this sector (Bester, 2017; Porter, 1980). Thus, according to Porter (1980), the success of a company and the underlying strategy is primarily dependent on the industry structure and the competitive environment. As the CI cycle refers exclusively to external stakeholders, and thus to the behavior of companies or markets, the theory fits well into the presented research area.Beyond that, the paper incorporates the knowledge-based view of a company, representing its internal perspective to create value through the application of CI. The theory belongs to the area of strategic management and forms the foundation for management information systems like business intelligence (BI) and CI (Grant, 1996). It represents a further development of the resource-based view, which justifies entrepreneurial success with the individual resources of the respective company (Barney, 1991). The knowledge-based view regards knowledge as the most central and strategically decisive resource of a company because it is of great value, can only be imitated to a limited extent, is immobile, heterogeneous and socially complex (Grant, 1996). One form of knowledge transfer, which can create value for a company, is the transfer of knowledge from external structures to internal structures (Sveiby, 2001).Although the resource-oriented approaches were designed in the 1950s as an alternative to the theory of industrial organization (Penrose, 2009), this paper confirms the position that the approaches do not contradict each other (Dobbs, 2014). By considering those as supplementary perspectives (Porter, 2008), strategic managers can create effective actions in response to the industry pressure to improve competitiveness and increase profits by using the understanding of the external environment to optimize their internal processes (Dobbs, 2014). While the procedure of using knowledge about external stakeholders for the own strategy is based on the market-oriented approach of industrial economics, gathering, analyzing and disseminating this knowledge to receive a significant competitive advantage is underpinned by the knowledge-based view.\n3. Competitive intelligence: 3.1 Foundations of CI\n4. Case-based development of the method: 4.1 Methodology\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The evaluation results show the universality of the developed approach under the assumption of information availability. While the evaluation proves that the systematic handling of unstructured, qualitative data can facilitate the daily work of both strategically and operationally acting employees, in literature, especially the strategic decision-making is highlighted (Calof and Wright, 2008). This shows that information that is captured in the course of CI should not only be available to top-level managers, but also a wider range of employees. This results not only in a higher effectiveness of the CI activities but also increases the acceptance of CI within the organization (Nasri, 2011).Even though a high degree of automatization was reached within each step of the CI cycle, the interviews with key users revealed that manual validation of the relevance filtering and classification of information is indispensable to guarantee a constant high quality of information processing. This is in line with the literature analyzing the current challenges of text analytics in the industry (Ittoo et al., 2016). In contrast to that, the step of visualizing the information in the strategic concepts can be fully automated because the ontology for the assignment to the concepts is stable. Beyond that, the successful deployment of initially inexperienced employees as key users demonstrates the easy applicability of the method. As one of the most common reasons for CI failure is a lack of resources, e.g. personnel or information management (Tsitoura and Stephens, 2012), the possibility of engaging inexperienced employees for CI in the company creates several advantages. These range from a greater number of potential users, lower personnel costs as well as a negligible loss of know-how when users change. Therefore, the research objective of this paper to efficiently capture, process and visualize unstructured, qualitative data for the strategic analysis to support the manager's decision-making was achieved by developing an artifact based on DSR. In addition, the interviews with 17 employees on all levels revealed the benefits for operational employees, even though this was not the initial target group. This was achieved by a comprehensive solution, which provides an analysis of the industry environment on multiple levels. The results range from insights regarding the holistic industry structure, e.g. through the influence diagram or the concept of Porter's Five Forces to the detailed level of specific organizations, e.g. through concepts like the value chain. This diversity of analysis levels allows the application at all levels of the organization by addressing the individual information needs of employees. By increasing efficiency along the entire CI cycle, not only the actual situation but also developments or changes within the industry can easily be revealed and tracked. Therefore, a continuous execution of the method is necessary. During the three-year case study, a monthly interval turned out to be optimal to get a sufficient amount of information on the one hand, and a manageable amount on the other hand. 5.1 Implications for research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Continually evolving market structures characterized by high competition and simultaneous coopetition raise the need for the awareness of strategic actions of industry stakeholders and therefore the field of competitive intelligence (CI). Hence, this paper aims to provide a case-based method to enrich and automate the entire CI cycle using open-source data to analyze the industry environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research method is based on design science research and accompanied by a three-year continuous in-depth case study in the automotive supply industry using unstructured, qualitative data to examine the activities of 25 industry stakeholders.\nFindings: This paper provides a new holistic method for gaining valuable insights for decision-makers presented through a multiple-layer perspective of the industry development including structural transformation and strategic alignments in functional and cross-sectional areas of the stakeholders.\nResearch limitations/implications: The development of a holistic approach using open-source data combines the knowledge-based view and industry economics and allows easy transferability to any other industry.\nPractical implications: The proposed method shows an increase in knowledge for managers to support daily work as well as strategic decision-making. Furthermore, it is proven that even unexperienced CI analysts are empowered to deliver high-quality results.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the literature and practice of CI by using an approach, which uses unstructured, qualitative data to enrich the entire CI cycle in a business-to-business environment. The case description confirms performance and time improvements of the method and shows the potential of the created insights.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mind-reading versus neuromarketing: how does a product make an impact on the consumer?
|
[
"Conceptual–sensory interaction",
"Individual acceptance",
"Neuromarketing",
"Peripheral and central processing",
"Personal norms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper illustrates how research into marketing can read the mind of each consumer while he/she makes choices in a particular situation of the purchase or use of a brand within a product range. The specific example here is the visually sensed and quantitatively labeled fat contents of samples of butter-free spread on bread. An innovative fundamental theory of how a mind works is applied to diagnose the cognitive-affective processes that drive each consumer's decisions.\nTheoretical foundations: Conceptual-sensory interactions in the market\nStudy plan: The experiment was run at an exhibition in the style of a hall/mall preference test, with supplementary quantitative descriptive analysis of each of the two manipulated variables. A succession of single samples was assigned to each participant for visual evaluation only. The appeal of each sample was assessed as the likelihood of choosing to eat the sample of spread on bread on an appropriate occasion. All participants were familiar with eating spread on bread. Each first stated the main consideration when buying spread. These data were used to segment the panel into those who had their spread bought for them, those who chose their spread for sensory reasons and those who selected the sub-brand out of concern for health. Half the panelists in each segment started by generating their own words to conceptualize the varied levels of the material feature (amount of spread) and of the symbolic attribute (labeled per cent fat). The other half were given consensus words derived from a pilot study of individually elicited descriptors. Each panelist rated test samples selected by the investigator to be within her or his range of tolerance in terms of the free choice or consensus vocabulary for each of the two features.\nHypotheses: The hypotheses about each consumer's cognitive processing of information were of two types, first about three elemental sorts of process and then about two ways in which each element interacted with another element. For the two sources of information, that generated 18 hypotheses (3 x 3 combinations, with two possible interactions of each of that nine).\nMethodology: Study design\nMaterials: Freshly bought, medium-sliced loaves of soft-grain bread were used without their crust. Each slice was cut into triangular quarters, each of which was covered evenly with a weighed amount of reduced-fat spread (40 per cent fat). The weights were 2.0, 3.5, 6.0, 10.4 or 18.0 g (ratios of a little over 1.7). Slices with each amount were placed on three small plates in a column, with each row labeled \"5 per cent FAT\", \"40 per cent FAT\" or \"80 per cent FAT\"; these were the three levels of fat most commonly available at the time.\nResults: Purchase habit panels\nDiscussion: Interpretation of the present findings\nManagerial guidance: Distributions of ideal points\nConclusion: In summary, the approach exemplified in this paper brings research much closer to the realities of consumers' decision-making. The key principle is to determine the input/output processing characteristics of each individual as he/she deals with personally tolerable versions of familiar product types, and grouping only those data to seek generalizations and segmentations. The focus in this instance is on only two potential drivers, and the deviations from a situation of use are not inherently invalid. Fat content of a spread and its thickness on a piece of bread might prove to be among the most salient factors in what the young people investigated regularly spread on their toast at breakfast. This approach measures what is actually going on in the individual's mind during the test session. How close that mental processing is to acceptance in life depends on how well the experimental situation stimulates the memory and imagination. That is a question that needs addressing by further scientific investigation, not merely by critique based on abstract presuppositions lacking in crucial evidence.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This research study aims to illustrate the mapping of each consumer's mental processes in a market-relevant context. This paper shows how such maps deliver operational insights that cannot be gained by physical methods such as brain imaging.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A marketed conceptual attribute and a sensed material characteristic of a popular product were varied across presentations in a common use. The relative acceptability of each proposition was rated together with analytical descriptors. The mental interaction that determined each consumer's preferences was calculated from the individual's performance at discriminating each viewed sample from a personal norm. These personal cognitive characteristics were aggregated into maps of demand in the market for subpanels who bought these for the senses or for the attribute.\nFindings: Each of 18 hypothesized mental processes dominated acceptance in at least a few individuals among both sensory and conceptual purchasers. Consumers using their own descriptive vocabulary processed the factors in appeal of the product more centrally. The sensory and conceptual factors tested were most often processed separately, but a minority of consumers treated them as identical. The personal ideal points used in the integration of information showed that consumers wished for extremes of the marketed concept that are technologically challenging or even impossible. None of this evidence could be obtained from brain imaging, casting in question its usefulness in marketing.\nResearch limitations/implications: Panel mapping of multiple discriminations from a personal norm fills three major gaps in consumer marketing research. First, preference scores are related to major influences on choices and their cognitive interactions in the mind. Second, the calculations are completed on the individual's data and the cognitive parameters of each consumer's behavior are aggregated - never the raw scores. Third, discrimination scaling puts marketed symbolic attributes and sensed material characteristics on the same footing, hence measuring their causal interactions for the first time.\nPractical implications: Neuromarketing is an unworkable proposition because brain imaging does not distinguish qualitative differences in behavior. Preference tests are operationally effective when designed and analyzed to relate behavioral scores to major influences from market concepts and sensory qualities in interaction. The particular interactions measured in the reported study relate to the major market for healthy eating.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to measure mental interactions among determinants of preference, as well as including both a marketed concept and a sensed characteristic. Such an approach could be of great value to consumer marketing, both defensively and creatively.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Understanding blog continuance: a model comparison approach
|
[
"Information technology continuance",
"Technology acceptance model",
"Expectation‐confirmation theory",
"Blogs",
"Continuing development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A weblog, or simply a blog, is a type of web page that has brief, chronologically arranged items of information. A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service, a series of book or journal reviews, or a listing of web pages linked to other web sites. Blogs originally offered an easy way for users to write and publish their material online. Due to the ease of blog operation, more and more internet users have turned to blog web sites to easily disseminate information and interact with other users (Hsu and Lin, 2008). Blogs have recently become an important tool or platform of sharing information in numerous fields, including management (Cox et al., 2008), communication (Lawson-Borders and Kirk, 2005), e-learning (Lu and Yeh, 2008), education (Song, 2008), public choice (Drezner and Farrell, 2008), and politics (Siapera, 2008). Blog web sites have become increasingly popular, with the number of blogs in the USA soaring from 22.6 million in 2007 to 27.9 million in 2009 (www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007027). In Taiwan, InsightXplorer, a marketing research company, investigated a blog usage in 2007 (www.insightxplorer.com/specialtopic/self_blog200710.html). There were 4,717 valid samples collected from online survey. The results showed nearly 70 percent internet users had personal blogs and 70.3 percent internet users are under age 29. There were 65.9 percent of blogers who updated their blogs every week. Bloggers use blog to document life, express their feeling and thinking, and chat with friends. The factors choosing blog service providers (BSPs) included friends' usage, free of charge, easy use of interface, more editing functions, space limitation, and system stability. Moreover, an online survey which was conducted by market intelligence center (MIC), a large marketing information center in Taiwan, analyzed Taiwanese blog user behaviors (Hsieh, 2009). The valid samples were 5,917 which were collected from several blog service providers. The results showed that 89.6 percent of internet users have their own blogs. There were over 60 percent of Taiwanese internet users took blogs as their social network tools. In these blogs, bloggers shared their inner feelings, thoughts, experiences, or information with others. The factors choosing BSP included brand popularity, friends' recommendation, free of charge, easy operation, and higher exposure rate. Moreover, comScore, a global leader in measuring the digital world, investigated top global markets for blog category usage (www.comscore.com/chi/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/8/Japan_Internet_Users_Spend_Most_Time_on_Blogs_Worldwide). The results showed that Japan ranked top of all markets in blog engagement (average minutes per visitor) with the average visitor in Japan spending 62.6 minutes visiting blogs at June, 2011. South Korea ranked second with an average of 49.6 minutes on blog sites. Poland ranked third with an average of 47.7 minutes. Taiwan ranked tenth with an average of 24.1 minutes. From the prospective of percent reach of unique visitors in June, 2011, Taiwan ranked highest globally with 85.5 percent of its online population visiting blogs, followed by Brazil at 85.2 percent, South Korea at 84.9 percent and Turkey 81.9 percent. People spend more and more time on blogs and are also highly engaged on blogs sites. Blogs play an important role in the internet world and blogging has been a popular internet activity.Blogging activities present new opportunities for firms, especially for those that operate online. For example, Marqui, marketing automation software provider, had 20 bloggers with three-month contracts to blog what they know and want about the company, its products, and/or the market. Bloggers were required to mention Marqui and link to its site four times a month and also disclose that Marqui compensates them. After three months, they were invited to sign up for another two months to continue their role. The results showed that there were more than 400,000 Google entries which resulted in a 43 percent growth in customer wins quarter over quarter (DeFelice, 2006). Moreover, companies such as Nike and Google also advertise through individual blog to reach potential customer. Blogs really provide added value beyond what is provided on a company's web site. After successfully attracting new customers, a more important thing is the continued usage (user retention) because acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing customers for online firms (Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee, 1998). Moreover, continuous users contribute more profit than new customers. For example, online firms, such as online banks and/or retails, may get profit once from new customers, but have profit many times from continuous customers due to continuous transactions. An empirical support for the impact of continued usage (user retention) showed that increasing customer retention rate by 5 percent could decrease cost and increase profits by 25-95 percent (Reichheld and Schefter, 2000). The continued usage (user retention) has become an important factor for online information technology (IT) service firms to survive in the marketplace (Bhattacherjee, 2001a). Blogs are online IT service. A successful blog not only needs a blogger to update the interesting content regularly, but also requires blog users to use frequently, continued usage. Thus, finding factors that affect blog continued usage (continuance) becomes critical.Based on the belief, attitude, intention, and behavior paradigm (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen, 1991), prior IT studies showed support that continuance intention significantly affects usage (Taylor and Todd, 1995b; Lee, 2009). Similarly, blog is a kind of information technology. The more blog continuance intention users have; the more continuous users the blog sites have. In this study we focus on blog continuance intention. Two well-known theories, the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) are relevant to IT continuance. The TAM, which originally concentrated on initial acceptance, now appears in research in both acceptance and continuance contexts. Many researchers have used TAM to examine post-adoption behavior (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, 2008; Rotchanakitumnuai and Speece, 2009; Aboelmaged, 2010). Though ECT appears in product and service continuance contexts (Oliver, 1980, 1993; Dabholkar et al., 2000; Hsu et al., 2004), several empirical studies apply it to information system (IS) issues (Thong et al., 2006; Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, 2008; Kim, 2010). Specially, Bhattacherjee (2001a) use ECT to propose an ECT-IS model to show the importance of continuous behavior on online bank users. Many researchers extend ECT-IS model to highlight IT continuance (Lin et al., 2005; Kang et al., 2009; Lee, 2010). Several prior studies have examined TAM and ECT independently within a model in explaining IT usage by cross-section data. Despite differences of theoretical approach, these researches have explained IT usage well. Some researches have raised the limitation of cross-sectional nature, temporal comparisons, such as post-adoption intention and/or behavior, to employ longitudinal method to overcome the restrictions (Karahanna et al., 1999; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh and Brown, 2001). Although these attempts have shed light on temporal comparisons, little or no studies investigate and compare the different perspectives in term of influence of variables and their relative utility. Moreover, there is no empirical effort to compare TAM and ECT for understanding continued blog usage behavior. Thus, the purpose of this research attempts to understand blog continuance intention by comparing two theoretical prospective. This paper addresses two research questions:RQ1. What are those individual cognitive factors that influence continuance intention?RQ2. Which theoretical model predicts continuance intention better than the other models in a blog context?To answer research questions, this study proposes models including a modified ECT model (ECT-IS), the TAM model, and an integrated model and empirically validates those models using data from an online survey of blog users. The primary contributions of this paper are its examination of influence change of variables, to assess theoretical differences between TAM and ECT-IS in explaining continued blog usage, to validate potential value of an integrated model combining these two theories, and to use the TAM and ECT-IS theoretical models to answer these questions and explain blog continuance behavior. Our findings therefore help bridge the extant gap between cross-sectional and longitudinal studies within a model by integrating and testing multiple models. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the ECT and the TAM theoretical backgrounds and their research models. The following section describes the research methodology used in this study, presents the results of data analysis, and discusses the key findings and limitations of the study. The final section provides a conclusion and discusses the implications of this study.\nTheory and research model: Expectation-confirmation theory\nAn integrated model (ECT-IS+TAM): The expectation-confirmation model of IS continuance (ECT-IS) and TAM have two areas with high similarities:1. they both employ individual cognitive factors of IS use; and2. they are both capable of predicting IS continuance.ECT originally examined both pre-consumption and post-consumption variables. Bhattacherjee (2001a) amended ECT to include post-expectation, represented by PU. Post-expectation is consistent with ECT's definition of individual beliefs and is similar to PU, which TAM defines as cognitive belief.User continuance in ECT-IS is similar to that in TAM because both intentions follow an initial acceptance, lead to usage experience, and may result in post-acceptance and an eventual decision. Bhattacherjee (2001a) proposed an expectation-confirmation model of IS continuance (ECT-IS) that focuses on post-acceptance and IS continuance variables. The TAM, which originally focused on initial acceptance, now appears in both acceptance and continuance contexts. Thus, both ECT-IS and TAM can predict continuance contexts. An integrated model can exploit these similarities and builds on previous studies of ECT-IS and TAM. This integrated model postulates that PEOU, PU, and satisfaction all affect intention. The original model of a parsimonious TAM and ECT-IS reveals other associations as well.Though the similarities described above lead to an integrated model, it is important to note two main differences between ECT-IS and TAM. First, the two models have varying degrees of generality. ECT-IS includes post-acceptance variables (confirmation, PU, and satisfaction), while TAM employs PEOU and PU as acceptance variables. In some situations, the phenomenon that applies to one theoretical model may not be suitable for other theoretical models. For instance, accessibility might be an important factor for users who choose an internet service provider. Though identifying ease of use (access) is a part of TAM, it is not an essential part of the ECT-IS model. Second, TAM explains acceptance behavior with only positive perceptions of acceptance variables and does not explain the acceptance-discontinuance anomaly. In contrast, ECT-IS explains this anomaly by positing that disconfirmation and dissatisfaction with IS usage may lead to IS discontinuance.To ensure a fair comparison, a study should not favor one model over another, and should possess both procedural and distributional equivalence (Cooper and Richardson, 1986). Procedural equivalence focuses on boundary conditions and measurement. Despite slightly varying dimensions, this study uses the same border to indicate user intention to continue using a blog. ECT-IS has more specific dimensions, including confirmation and satisfaction, while TAM has a PEOU dimension. Both models basically have the same definitions of PU and intention and the same measurement procedures.Distributional equivalence refers to population variances. The subjects in this study were sampled from the same population. Since both ECT-IS and TAM use same measures for two constructs (PU and intention), these variables should possess distributional equivalence. These variables show no difference in mean or standard deviation. In other words, both ECT-IS and TAM theoretical models were tested in the same context, using subjects sampled from the same population, making the same intention decision. Since the models used the same procedural equivalence and distributional equivalence, the differences between their results are likely due to the models themselves, rather than differences in the contexts. In summary, this paper compares ECT-IS, TAM, and an integrated model to identify which factors influence behavior intention and develop a better model to predict and explain continuance intention.\nMethod: Measures\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: This study compares ECT-IS, TAM, and integrated models based on their contribution to an understanding of blog continuance intention. Table VII shows that all three models provided a reasonable fit to the data (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003; Hair et al., 2006).Based on the results above, it is reasonable to examine the models in terms of path significance and explanatory power. The TAM employs PU and PEOU to explain continuance intention. The ECT-IS model, which includes confirmation, PU and satisfaction as key determinants of continuance intention, provides a better explanation of BI behavior than TAM. The integrated model which includes all TAM and ECT-IS variables provides a better overall understanding of blog continuance behavior. The following section presents these results in detail.Understanding continuance intention\nConclusions: This study compares two theoretical models, ECT-IS, TAM, and an integrated model in the specific context of blog usage. A preferable model should have a better explanatory power and be most parsimonious. The ECT-IS and the integrated model have a better explanatory power of blog continuance intention than TAM does. The explanatory power of the integration model is slightly better than that of ECT-IS, but ECT-IS is a more parsimonious model. Thus, considering the explanatory power and parsimony, ECT-IS is preferable. In addition, TAM has a significantly weaker effect of PU and PEOU on continuance intention, while the integrated model does not. Confirmation has a significant effect on continuance intention in both the ECT-IS and the integrated models. Satisfaction also has a significant total effect on continuance intention in the ECT-IS and the integrated models. Thus, both confirmation and satisfaction are salient factors influencing blog continuance intention. The results of this study help advance the understanding of blog usage intention and provide suggestions to managers and researchers interested in blogger's usage behavior.Implications for research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to understand blog continuance. Specifically, this paper aims to compare two theoretical models and an integrated model to identify which theoretical models best predicts blog continuance intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An empirical study was conducted through an online survey. Data collected from six famous blogs in Taiwan (n=361) were analyzed using structural equation modeling and pairwise nested F-tests.\nFindings: - Results show that the ECT-IS model and the integrated model have greater explanatory power of blog continuance intention than the technology acceptance model (TAM). The results of pairwise nested F-tests show that the ECT-IS model exhibits statistically significant R2 improvement compared to TAM. However, the R2 improvement in the integrated model is not statistically different from that in the ECT-IS model. The ECT-IS model is also more parsimonious than the integrated model. Thus, the ECT-IS is a preferable model. Confirmation and satisfaction are salient factors influencing this intention.\nPractical implications: - The results of this study provide useful information for blogging service providers (BSPs) to enhance and develop useful blog functions for user satisfaction. By revealing the differences and comparisons among these three models, this study can help BSPs promote the benefits of their blogs to strengthen the continuance intentions of their customers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is one of the first studies to examine of influence change of variables and compare the relative ability of two competing theories, ECT-IS and TAM, and an integrated model in explaining blog continuance intention. The results confirm that the ECT-IS is a better model than the other two for explaining blog continuance intention.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An international study of the response of corporate payout policy
|
[
"Investment",
"Debt",
"Payout policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In this paper, we investigate the response of payout to corporate financing decisions for firms in different geographic regions to ascertain whether there are variations in corporate payout behavior. This topic is of particular relevance because much of the academic literature related to the corporate decision to redistribute income to shareholders has examined corporate payout with little consideration of cross-country and regional differences. Rather than focus on a single country, we expand the current literature by considering the potential impact of culture and social institutions, which differ across countries and regions, on corporate payout policy.\n2. Related literature: The behavior of corporate payout policy has been studied extensively in the literature. Fama and Babiak (1968) and Brav et al. (2005) find evidence that firm manager's smooth corporate payout. Leary and Michaely (2011) and Lambrecht and Myers (2012, 2017) provide theoretical explanations to why managers smooth corporate payout. For example, Lambrecht and Myers (2012) argue that firm managers are motivated to smooth payout in order to smooth their own compensation. This finding complements Fudenberg and Tirole (1995), which shows that managers smooth corporate income for their own self-interest. Leary and Michaely (2011) find firm managers smooth dividends in the face of agency costs.\n3. Empirical analysis: The data that we use for our empirical analysis are collected from various sources. Firm-level data on net income, short-term and long-term debt, cash balances and dividends and net repurchases are taken from Compustat Global.\n4. Results: In this section, we examine the response of corporate payout policy to changes in investment policy, debt policy and net income while addressing the potential impact of culture and social institutions.\n5. Conclusion: Previous studies on corporate payout policy have overlooked the joint relationship of net income, debt, investment and payout. This paper contributes to the current literature by using an international sample of firms that operate in 94 countries to explore the response of corporate payout policy to changes in investment, debt and net income, with a special focus on cultural and social differences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the payout policy for public firms in different countries. The authors are interested to understand the similarities and differences in the behavior of firms across different countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use firm-level data collected from Compustat Global for public firms across the world. The sample consists of more than 23,000 firms for the period 1990-2015 in 94 countries. The authors estimate the corporate payout in an empirical model that incorporates other corporate financing decisions, such as investment and debt policies.\nFindings: The findings support recent corporate governance theory, which asserts that payout policy is influenced by investment and debt policies, and cannot be determined independently. Furthermore, the authors find that geographic/cultural/institutional variation influence the response of payout policy to other corporate financing decisions. Additional tests are presented to demonstrate the robustness of the main findings.\nResearch limitations/implications: The interpretation of the results for certain regions could be limited due to data availability. The authors believe the authors have a good coverage especially for countries in Asia, relative to the other regions.\nOriginality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first one to look at payout policy and its relationship with investment and debt policy in such a large scale of firms across the world with coverage of 94 countries and 16 years. The authors document differences in public firms' attitudes toward payout policy according to geographic/cultural/institutional reasons.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer responses to sex appeal advertising: a cross-cultural study
|
[
"Advertising",
"Cross‐cultural studies",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Brands",
"Sex"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the consumer behaviour context, standardisation and localisation are two conflicting forces most clearly manifested in the cross-cultural research on global branding and advertising. Globalisation of country markets implies a research focus on global or international brands spanning countries and cultures. Advertising is an important element in their global marketing strategy. Thus, it is important for managers to know whether they can use standard advertisements in each of the places where their brands are sold or whether they need to \"localise\" the advertisements by modifying them to reflect the local culture and language. In diverse cross-cultural contexts, advertisers usually encounter similar types of problems arising from cultural variations; for example, an advertising appeal may be interpreted differently by people with different cultural backgrounds (Sawyer and Howard, 1991; Belch and Belch, 2004).As a major technique in advertising, sex appeal has been widely used in mainstream consumer advertising in most countries. However, little is known about consumers' reactions to sex appeal advertising to different cultures (Ford et al., 2004). With the increasing degree of globalisation, brands are spanning across borders. On the one hand, international brand managers and advertisers are becoming more sensitive to cultural differences when designing advertising strategies in foreign countries; on the other hand, for cost concerns, they are also seeking techniques that can reach consumers across different cultures with minimum levels of localisation or adaptation (Kanso and Nelson, 2007). As a major advertising technique, sex appeal has often featured in a brand's international advertising campaign. However, several key questions regarding the use of sex appeal in international advertising remain unclear. For example, can sex appeal be adopted in different cultures? Does sex appeal affect different types of advertising measures (e.g. brand or ad attitude) to the same degree in different cultures? To answer these questions, it is of great necessity and significance to compare consumer responses to sex appeal advertising in a cross-cultural context.This study is intended to examine the differences between Chinese, Australian and US consumers on their responses to a number of carefully designed ads featuring different genders and different levels of sex appeal. This paper will focus on consumer attitudes towards the ad, the advertised brand and consumers' buying intentions towards the brand. This investigation will also explore whether gender or product involvement (PI) will have any significant relationship with consumers' attitudes regarding different sex appeal ads.\nLiterature review: Sex appeal advertising\nResearch design: Ad stimuli\nAnalyses and findings: Data collection\nConclusions and discussion: This study found that country had a significant effect on consumers' attitudes towards the ad and the brand regarding nearly all of the four types of sex appeal ads. This result supports the argument that in international advertising, localisation or standardisation should be carefully considered (Shimp, 2007). However, no significant differences were detected regarding buying intentions among these three countries. This may imply that at^ad and at^b are often correlated (Ko et al., 2005) but it is questionable whether at^ad or at^b can predict buying intentions (Gates et al., 2000; Blackwell et al., 2001).Despite the general assumption that Chinese consumers may react less favourably to sex appeal advertising than their Australian or US counterparts, this study found that Chinese consumers reacted as favourably as US consumers regarding most of the sex appeal ads. This finding challenges the results of some prior studies that consumers in eastern and western cultures would respond differently and in a significant way to the same advertisement due to cultural differences (Choi and Miracle, 2004). The similarity between the Chinese and US samples may imply that Chinese youth today is becoming more and more \"pro-Western\" - in particular, \"pro-US\" - culturally (Duan, 2003). Therefore, their responses to sex appeal ads may be similar to, if not more favourable than, those of their counterparts in the US. As China Daily (2005, p. 1), a national English-language newspaper in China, reported, \"Chinese youth seem to have unconditional acceptance of Western culture including sex liberation\". This suggests that international advertisers may be able to adopt sex appeal ads originally developed based on western cultures to a large degree in China if their target market consists mainly of young Chinese consumers.This study found that US consumers had significantly different attitudes towards different sex appeal ads. This finding is consistent with Reichert and Fosu's (2005) study that the degree of sex appeal affects US consumers' responses to sex appeal ads. In contrast, the Australian sample did not show any significant difference towards different sex appeal ads. This finding appears inconsistent with Pope et al.'s (2004) study that the degree of sex appeal influenced Australian consumers' responses to sex appeal ads. However, this inconsistency may be caused by the ad stimuli used in the two studies: this study used either a male or female model in each ad whilst Pope et al.'s study used both male and female models in each ad. Nonetheless, the differences between the Australian and US samples were consistent with Biswas et al.'s (1992) claim that even among similar cultures, consumers' reactions to sex appeal advertising could be different.The similarities between Chinese and US consumers, together with the differences between Australian and US consumers, imply that cultural dimensions based on national values cannot always serve as a measurement to predict advertising response in a cross-cultural context. Although there is no clear sign against adopting Hofstede's (2001) dimensions of national culture in comparative studies:[...] a growing body of criticism highlights the limitation of his paradigm which ranges from an identification of perceived anomalies in his data to the fundamental questioning of the model's explanatory usefulness and efficacy (French, 2007, p. 41).The empirical evidence of this study suggests that in some contexts of international advertising (e.g. the use of sex appeal), factors other than cultural dimensions (such as group values of a specific segment, personal values and personality traits) may be more useful for predicting consumer response. For example, Fisher (1986) suggested that besides socialisation, personality could be another important variable that gave rise to differences in reaction to sexual information. Hatfield and Rapson (1993) also claimed that cultural or gender differences might often be less powerful than individual personality differences in shaping sex-related attitudes and behaviour. Prior research (Hafstrom et al., 1992) indicated that personality traits had important effects on young consumers in particular. Therefore, future studies should examine the effect of sex-related personality factors such as sex guilt (Alden and Crowley, 1995) and sexual self-schema (Reichert and Fosu, 2005) in a cross-cultural context. Although empirical evidence is lacking to conclude that, in an advertising context, personality traits will affect consumer response to sex appeal ads to a larger degree than cultural values, future studies should certainly pay attention to the effects of other factors on consumer evaluation of sex appeal ads, or any other type of ads, rather than merely focusing on cultural dimensions.PI was a significant covariate. Irrespective of country, the higher the PI, the better the attitude towards the ad, the advertised brand and buying intention. This suggests that if sex appeal is used for advertising a product, the effect of sex appeal on a consumer who is highly involved with this product may not be as great as the effect of that on a consumer who is not highly involved. This also confirms that PI has a significant effect on evaluation of sex appeal advertising (Richmond and Hartman, 1982).This study found that gender was not a significant covariate in all the analyses except when the sample was exposed to the high-level sex appeal featured by the female model. It showed that irrespective of country, female subjects always had a less favourable attitude than their male counterparts towards the high-level sex appeal ad featuring the female model. This finding confirms that men and women are attracted to the opposite gender in response to sex appeal ads (Garrett, 1993); it also suggests that a sex appeal ad liked by one gender may be disliked by another (Reichert et al., 2001). As Taflinger (1996) pointed out, using a partially nude female model may attract the attention of a male audience but offend a female audience. Therefore, advertisers should pay attention to the gender of the target audience when designing a sex appeal ad.This study has a number of limitations. First, it used a convenience sample, which may not represent the entire population. For example, Duan (2003) noted that young people are usually more tolerant to sex appeal advertising than older generations in China. A similar situation may exist in Australia and the USA. Thus, future studies should employ a more representative sample to obtain a more thorough picture of the cross-cultural differences in consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising. The second limitation comes from the product. Although it is difficult to differentiate what products are suitable for using sex appeal and what are not (Reichert et al., 2001), bread may have less sexual relevance as compared to other products such as perfume or lingerie. Therefore, in future studies products with stronger sexual relevance or gender-preferred (rather than gender-free) products should be considered. Third, although not supported by any empirical data, the use of sex appeal may be more common in Australia and the USA where sex appeal may be used for almost every product category. However, in China, although sex appeal is increasingly adopted, its coverage may be less extensive than in Australia and the USA. Chinese consumers may see more sex appeal ads for products like shampoo than products like bread. Therefore, there may be a novelty effect among the Chinese consumers when they were exposed to ads for bread; this type of novelty effect should be less in the case of Australian and US consumers. Fourth, this study did not control for the ethnicity of the sample. Some studies (Martin et al., 2004) suggested that there might be interactions between the ethnicity of the model in the ads and that of the audience. This interaction may exist among the Australian and US samples.This study used print advertising as a medium to examine the cross-cultural differences on sex appeal advertising. Future studies may look at other types of media such as TV or the internet. Buchholz and Smith (1991) found that the subjects' elaboration and recognition could be significantly different under a different medium due to the significant differences in media involvement. Therefore, the cross-cultural differences shown from TV commercials may be different from those shown from print advertisements. Another need for future studies is to examine other types of measurements such as memory. Since one of the main purposes of using sex appeals is to attract and retain attention (Reid and Soley, 1983), it would be interesting to know whether there is any cross-cultural difference regarding memory. Furthermore, future studies can also look at different dimensions of sex appeal such as sexual suggestiveness rather than nudity and examine whether there will be any cross-cultural difference based on different dimensions. Last but not least, future studies can include specific measurements of the cultural dimensions to empirically test their effects on responses to sex appeals.Understanding how consumers in different cultures respond to different types of advertising appeals is important for international advertisers. This study has extended the previous cross-cultural research on sex appeal advertising by looking at consumers in Australia, China and the USA. Findings from this study add to our understanding of the standardisation-localisation debate as results from this study showed that consumers in these three countries had significantly different responses to the same sex appeal ads. Therefore, international advertisers need to be cautious about using the same sex appeal ads in different countries. However, this study also suggests that national cultures may not be the sole reason for cross-cultural differences in consumer responses to sex appeal in advertisements; using other factors such as personality traits, on top of cultural values, may help international advertisers develop a better position with regards to their standardisation-localisation decision.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Sex appeal has been widely used in most countries. However, little is known about consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising in different cultures. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of sex appeal on ad and brand evaluation among Australian, Chinese and US consumers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper adopted a three (Australia, China and the USA) x two (male or female model) x two (low or high level of sex appeal) between-group factorial design.\nFindings: - Australian, Chinese and US consumers have significantly different attitudes when exposed to the same ad. However, consumer buying intentions towards the advertised brand are not significantly different. Despite the general assumption that Chinese consumers might react least favourably to sex appeal ads, this paper finds that they hold similar attitudes towards sex appeal ads as US consumers and even more favourable attitudes than Australian consumers. Product involvement is found to be a significant covariate.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample includes young consumers, who may be more tolerant to sex appeal advertising than older generations in China. A similar situation may exist in Australia and the USA.\nPractical implications: - Understanding how consumers in different cultures respond to different advertising appeal strategies is important for international advertisers.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first reported empirical study that compares Chinese consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising with those in Western countries. Findings add to the understanding of the standardisation-localisation debate.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Exploiting formal, non-formal and informal learning when using business games in leadership education
|
[
"Leadership development",
"Engagement and learning",
"Business games",
"Formal and less formal learning processes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Learning games and simulations have long been used in management training and leadership development. The tradition of using business games dates back to eighteenth century business schools in France, and they were subsequently used for leadership training in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic during the 1930s. In the 1950s, gaming gained a foothold in universities and in industry. Developments have been swift since then, and information and communication technology has had a profound impact on making game-based processes available to leadership education (Henriksen and Lofvall, 2012).\nGames, adult learning, and didactic design: In a recent study, the use of the French business game (The EIS Simulation) that focuses on change management was explored with an emphasis on the various learning processes involved (Henriksen and Borgesen, 2016). The literature indicates that leadership can be learned from business gaming, but, when comparing different uses of the same game, previous studies concluded that little is learned from merely playing the game. However, people can learn from the various processes that emerge from a well-designed, didactic deployment that involves other kinds of didactic activities and leaves room for less formalized processes to emerge. The game-based learning process was studied in light of adult learning theory, didactic design, and a distinction between formal and less formal learning processes. Adult learning theory emphasizes increasing the participant's knowledge and enabling him to become critically aware of how existing understandings and habits lead to automated behavior. In terms of leadership development, this might imply becoming aware of the effects of one's leadership preference, thereby making the exploration of alternative approaches possible. Knowles et al. (1998) portray adult learners as motivated not only by exploration but also by discussion, self-directedness, and the opportunity to solve current or future challenges. Didactic design (Sorensen and Levinsen, 2014) refers to how a learning game and its processes are complemented by certain didactic activities to orchestrate effective learning. Business games provide a practical experience and are commonly used alongside theory presentations that describe or elaborate the model explored through the game. Group processes are also used for facilitating collaborative learning, whereas reflective processes are used to encourage participants to reconsider their personal understanding of leadership.\nFormal and less formal learning activities: Adult learning unfolds as an interplay between formal, non-formal, and informal learning processes. Formal learning refers to syllabus activities that concern course curriculum. In business gaming, playing the game, analyzing its content, making decisions, and assessing the game's feedback are formalized learning processes that are organized accordingly, as are the accompanying theory presentations.\nFormalized and emergent learning processes: The three processes play different roles when using business games for teaching leadership. In a traditional, teacher-oriented approach, the curriculum is embedded in the game, is explored in an interactive fashion, and elaborated through theory presentations. As this perspective emphasizes the formal part, the less formalized processes are easily seen as hindrances to the learning process. This approach to game-based learning was observed during the EIS study, as facilitators encouraged participants to have fewer group discussions and focus on playing the game. Similar focus on the formal processes is evident when playing the game is didactically designed not to be disturbed, compared to when it is facilitated as an interrupted process, for example, with theory and reflection breaks during the game. Both kinds of use were observed in the EIS study; one that had its presentations before and after playing the game and one that had sliced the same\nConclusions: When planning and using game-based learning processes, it is tempting to allow business games to take center stage and carry the process. As indicated, games cannot carry the process alone. The formal process should complement the game with other didactic activities, such as theory presentations and reflective processes. Room should also be made available for less formal processes to allow participants to relate new findings with existing understandings and to build bridges with relevant practices outside the learning situation. Leaving space open in the program for non-formal and informal processes to unfold facilitates participant understanding and also allows for collaborative processes and free-flowing group conversations. Business games offer a great opportunity to engage participants in interactive, collaborative exploration and to develop shared frames of reference. The game might take center stage in the process but should not be viewed as such in terms of learning. The game should be a considered platform for other, less formal processes to emerge.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to address the necessity of allowing non-formal and informal processes to unfold when using business games for leadership development. While games and simulations have long been used in management training and leadership development, emphasis has been placed on the formal parts of the process and especially on the gaming experience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a qualitative study of a French management game on change management, in which the game-based learning process is examined in light of adult learning.\nFindings: This paper concludes that less formal dialogues that stem from formal activities make important contributions to the learning process. Consequently, the use of business games in leadership development should be didactically designed to facilitate such dialogues. While playing the game takes center stage, activities such as theory presentations, reflective processes, and less formal discussions must be allowed a place in an otherwise crammed learning process and to take up that space at the cost of playing the game.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the study is based on a qualitative assessment, the impact of the different parts of the process is not assessed.\nPractical implications: This paper suggests that the use of business games in leadership development should focus more on the processes and activities surrounding the game rather than narrowly focusing on the game.\nOriginality/value: This paper suggests a novel approach to using business games that is not aligned with the current practice of emphasizing the game as the focal point of the process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Servitization as reinforcement, not transformation
|
[
"Case study",
"Servitization",
"Business model",
"Advanced services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The idea that manufacturing firms need to defend their competitive edge against the increasing commoditization of their underlying product businesses by making use of service-led growth is well-established (e.g. Wise and Baumgartner, 1999; Fang et al., 2008; Ostrom et al., 2010). Accordingly, manufacturers have introduced services of an increasingly advanced nature, for instance, in the form of integrated solutions (e.g. Brax and Jonsson, 2010).\n2. Conceptual background: This section provides an overview of the current understanding in the field regarding the nature of advanced services and their role in the manufacturer's servitization process. The section concludes with the analytical framework that is applied to better understand why advanced services appear to perform a reinforcing rather than a transformative role in servitization.\n3. Method and data: 3.1 Research approach\n4. Findings: This section presents findings from the case study. The section begins with a brief description of the nature and role of Retrofit within MachineCo. Building on this background, the findings are then presented as per the analytical lenses grounded in Schmidt and Keil's (2013) resource value framework.\n5. Discussion: The purpose of this study has been to develop a better understanding of servitization as a means of reinforcement rather than transformation. In doing so, the following questions have been posed: why do product-centric manufacturers frame advanced services as reinforcing rather than transformative of the product-centric logic and how do they seek to derive value from advanced services under this entrenched logic.\n6. Conclusion: While prior research suggests that product-centric manufacturers may utilize advanced services not as vehicles of transformation, but as of reinforcement, (Antioco et al., 2008; Salonen, 2011; Eggert et al., 2014; Kindstrom and Kowalkowski, 2014), the specific mechanisms that explain such outcomes of servitization are not well understood. To contribute to this gap in existing understanding, this study has sought to understand why product-centric manufacturers frame advanced services as reinforcing rather than transformative of the product-centric logic and how they seek to derive value from advanced services under this entrenched logic. In doing so, this study contributes to an emerging understanding of servitization as a process that is characterized by multiple possible transition paths and associated firm-level outcomes (e.g. Finne et al., 2013; Kowalkowski et al., 2015, 2017; Luoto et al., 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain why product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services not as vehicles of transformation, but of reinforcement, to strengthen their established business model logic based on selling products and basic product-related services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical basis of this study relies on an in-depth case study of a globally operating manufacturer of industrial pumps and related services. The data includes 31 interviews conducted over several years of in-depth collaboration with the studied firm.\nFindings: Product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services as engagement platforms to facilitate the external and internal engagement of the actors and the resources controlled by them. Externally, advanced services facilitate access to customer decision makers and insights into their latent needs. Internally, advanced services help the manufacturer to more effectively leverage resources that reside within its different organizational units. Ultimately, in leveraging advanced services as engagement platforms, the manufacturer seeks to boost activities with the greatest immediate impact on its market performance: the sale of products and basic product-related services.\nPractical implications: The study explains why managers should invest into development of advanced services even if such services contribute only marginally to the manufacturer's direct revenues and profits.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to development of an alternative explanation of servitization that departs from the current paradigmatic assumptions in the field.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Knowledge management as a critical success factor in developing international companies' organizational learning capability
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Organizational learning",
"Knowledge conversion process"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Facing a very dynamic and complex economic circumstances and by the necessity of becoming learning organizations, the importance of organizational learning (OL) has incredibly increased in multinational companies (MNCs) than those operating locally.\nTheoretical background: Organizational learning\nKnowledge management: Aggestam (2006) wrote about which of the two concepts of KM and LO came first. Aggestam developed a model aiming at mapping LO and KM. He said that LO can be regarded as the system which includes the subsystem KM, where this later becomes a prerequisite for a LO: changes in KM means changes in the organizations and vice versa. LO needs proper KM giving tools and methods to exploit knowledge, especially when putting more intention into its knowledge workers (Mladkova, 2007).\nMethodology: This deductive research has a descriptive intent, with hypotheses testing purpose, accomplished with a quantitative approach, testing the variance in and dependency of the development and sustainability of OLC on the KM processes of socialization, externalization, combination and internalization. Also, the research used the positivistic methodology, a noncausal correlational non-contrived field study research. The international hotels in Algeria represent the research unit of analysis.\nData analysis: Sample characteristics\nDiscussion: KM is one of the major products the international hotels are keen to realize as the extremely sensitive process in internationals projects. KM project is of central priority in MNCs activities, based on their global visions and highly supported by top management. In the international hotels, KM processes should aim at taking up the challenge of the OL process building in its different types and helping in knowledge- and activity-based competencies.\nConclusion: Nowadays, OLC is seen as being \"a distinctive competency,\" the fulcrum of the strategic management of MNCs and their growth and survival.\nImplications of the study: As theoretical implications, socialization and internalizations are important processes of tacit knowledge development and sophistication and, most importantly, in individual and team learning as the pillars of OL. The externalization process is of identical effect, especially in generating expertise and strategic knowledge. Additionally, managers have to put more intention on combination. A powerful KM system represents a platform before engaging in a learning organization strategy and building the organization's OLC. A KM comprehensive model for developing countries was proposed by Al-Ahbabi et al. (2017) to improve the public sector performance in UAE. Adopting this model and using OL as a moderating variable between KM practices and firm performance would provide significant insights and more validity to the model, either in private or public sector, in hospitality or other sectors in Algeria.The international hospitality businesses in Algeria are in their infancy or exploration stage. The Algerian context represents a new emergent promising market, offering interesting incentives. Therefore, applying the model in a more mature sector would be very useful and offer great insights.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: Organizational learning (OL) represents the real value and the heart of strategic management, the focal point to keep track of international development. This paper aims to investigate the effect of knowledge management (KM) on the development of OL capability (OLC) in international hotels installed in Algeria.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This deductive descriptive case study research examines the impact of KM, using knowledge conversion process (KCP) on the development of OLC. In all, 70 expatriates were targeted to respond to questionnaires, while only 47 were valid for analysis. Multiple regression analysis is used to analyze the influential processes on OLC.\nFindings: The socialization, externalization and internalization have a direct positive significant effect on the development of OLC. Socialization is the major influencing factor. However, the combination has no effect on OLC. In sum, KM has an impact on the development of OLC in international hotels in Algeria.\nPractical implications: Exhibiting the strong interdependency between KM and OL, expatriates emphasize on KM as the learning facilitator. The international hotels keen to realize KM as major process to build OLC. Socialization and internalization reinforce learning by providing primordial sophisticated tacit knowledge. Externalization generates expertise and strategic knowledge.\nOriginality/value: First, the research confirms the effect of KM process using KPC on OLC, stimulating learning at all levels; especially, in a developing Arab country, emphasizing the research's theoretical contribution. The research is of high contribution, first of a kind in exploring the development of OLC in international hotels in the Algerian context; it is a newly emergent market, in its infancy stage, and an alternative that Algeria tries to boost to steer away from petroleum dependency.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Institutional work in the birth of a carbon accounting profession
|
[
"Carbon accounting",
"Institutional work",
"Professionalization project",
"Bilan Carbone",
"Environmental accounting",
"Sabotage work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Note: Bilan Carbone is a trademark first registered in 2011. It refers to the carbon accounting tool and methodology initially developed by the French environmental protection agency, ADEME, and now owned by the ABC (Association Bilan Carbone). This research paper refers to the trademarked tool, therefore the (r) is taken as read.\nIntroduction: Research on how professions establish themselves as legitimate and build their occupational mandate remains scant (Carnegie and Edwards, 2001; Carter et al., 2015; Fayard et al., 2017; Howard-Grenville et al., 2017). The literature has only rarely considered professions in the early stages of institutionalization, before the main activities become concerned with solidification (Edwards et al., 2007). Professionalization stories usually begin when the occupation is in its adolescence (long after the process has actually begun), and consequently are usually \"left-censored\" (Nelsen and Barley, 1997). Moreover, professionalization projects are complex and contested in nature, and a central issue within the sociology of professions is to understand the process by which occupations transform themselves into nascent professions (Nelsen and Barley, 1997; McCann et al., 2013). It is important to develop the interactions between the different actors in a professionalization arena, to \"take measure of their power, describe their alliances and contests\" and document their effect on the professionalization project (Light, 2014, p. 325).In order to fill these gaps, our study answers the following research question: what strategies are deployed and mobilized by the different actors involved in the development of a nascent professional project? To address this question, we undertook a study of the birth of the carbon accounting profession in France, where we focus on the process of professionalization rather than on the outcome. To do so, we draw on the institutional work literature in order to gain a deeper understanding of the purposive actions that aim to develop a new profession (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006). We adopt a qualitative approach to study the professionalization project of carbon accountants in a French context, which combines interviews, participant observation and secondary data from the field.The original features of this case, along with the theoretical framework mobilized, contribute to efforts to enrich both the sociology of professions (Muzio et al., 2013; Suddaby and Viale, 2011) and our understanding of social and environmental accounting through the lens of \"professionalization\" (O'Dwyer et al., 2011; Renaud, 2014) in three ways. Firstly, our research highlights that the early steps of a professionalization project are a highly dynamic process in which actors mobilize two types of work: creative and sabotage. We contribute to the sociology of professions by developing three types of creative work involved in the process through which professions come to be born. Secondly, we contribute to the theorization of two types of sabotage work, refining our understanding of the complex and contested nature of professionalization projects (Nelsen and Barley, 1997). Thirdly, we enrich the expanding literature on environmental accounting professions through this rich empirical study of how carbon accounting professionalization took place in a French context.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section presents a literature review of the birth of professions. We then propose a theorization of the birth of professions through the lens of institutional work. The fourth section presents our research design. The fifth section develops our findings on the birth of the carbon accounting profession. Finally, we discuss our findings before presenting our concluding remarks.\nThe birth of professions: The analysis of the early days of professions often involves the adolescence of a profession (Nelsen and Barley, 1997; Fayard et al., 2017), when solidification takes place. These studies, often called \"closure studies\", focus on \"the demarcation of the privileged group\" and \"securing the sanction of the state for the monopolistic structures proposed\" (Walker and Shackleton, 1998). They often focus on the institutional level and the central role of the state in the political process of market closure (Ballas, 1998; De Beelde, 2002; Coronella et al., 2015). This literature does not provide useful insights on the early days of a nascent profession where practitioners may not always be very articulate or intent on constructing the new profession (Nelsen and Barley, 1997). In fact, these early days are difficult to capture in research on established professions.To capture the birth of the accounting profession in the United Kingdom, Edwards et al. (2007) went back to the professional directories of the nineteenth century and mapped the \"task area\" specified by the burgeoning accounting professional group to demarcate its jurisdiction. They also note that it was accompanied by increased teaching on the subject and describe how accountants modified their knowledge base to fulfil new requests, explaining their expanding jurisdiction in the nineteenth century (Edwards et al., 2007). This helps us to understand how the expertise of the future accounting profession was claimed even before any legal protection was enacted to provide closure around the profession (Edwards et al., 2007; Walker, 2004).Another professional project was identified through the way service designers claimed differentiated values, enacted through their work practices (Fayard et al., 2017). By distinguishing themselves through values and practices, they were able to carve out their own occupational mandate. Service designers used the word \"ethos\" to describe what made them different - the spirit of their community that infused their attitudes and aspirations (Fayard et al., 2017). Their ethos was composed of holism, empathy and co-creation and was crucial in differentiating them from traditional designers and other professions such as management consultants (Fayard et al., 2017). Similarly, Nelsen and Barley's work (1997) followed the professional rhetorical claims of emergency medical services (EMS) as they turned from proficiency and altruism to medical competence. The new paid-service EMS defined themselves as opposing the values and ethos embodied in the unpaid EMS (Nelsen and Barley, 1997) to attract customers' attention. In the very early stages of the birth of professions, members of a new community define their belonging to a particular group by identifying what makes them similar and by drawing distinctions with those they believe are different, or do not belong to the nascent profession (Van Maanen and Barley, 1984; Fayard et al., 2017).However, the presence of like-minded individuals with similar work interests and practices does not always immediately lead to a coalition capable of creating a new profession. For example, the nineteenth century UK accountants remained unorganized throughout much of the period (Edwards et al., 2007). Further investigation of how a group of like-minded individuals can form a profession is therefore required.It is necessary to gain a better understanding of this phase of professionalization. Abbott admitted to having \"largely ignored the issue of when groups can legitimately be said to have coalesced into professions\" (Abbott, 1988, p. 315; Fayard et al., 2017). Consequently, we will first contribute to enhancing our understanding of the birth of professions - in their very first steps and infancy. Moreover, the literature on the birth of professions is focused on the would-be-professional group alone. It does not address the dynamic of the early steps of the institutionalization process between the would-be professional group and the other actors present in the professionalization arena. Our study aims to fill these gaps by employing an institutional work lens. We seek to shed light on the process, its complexity and the different strategies of the various actors involved in the creation of a new \"carbon accounting profession\".\nInstitutional work and the birth of professions: Institutional theory is uniquely positioned to analyse and understand the profound changes that professions experience (Cooper and Robson, 2006; Kipping and Kirkpatrick, 2013). One important feature of institutional theory is that it highlights the relationship between professions and broader institutional projects (Muzio et al., 2013; Suddaby et al., 2015). Additionally, Ramirez (2013) and Muzio et al. (2013) argue that professions in modern society have assumed leading roles in the creation and maintenance of institutions. Institutions are understood as being infused with value, and as acting as vehicles of group integrity, producing a distinct identity for the group (Selznick, 1957). They have \"distinctive outlooks, habits and commitments\" that lend them the particularity of creating social integration (Selznick, 1957, p. 40).To highlight the multiple strategies deployed and mobilized by institutional agents in creating new professions (Lawrence et al., 2009), we analyse the birth of a new contemporary environmental accounting profession through the lens of institutional work, switching the focus onto actors and trying to determine what kind of actions affect institutions. As such, we investigate how actors do strategic purposive actions in order to creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006).Creative work in the birth of a profession\nResearch design: The aim of this research is to explore the birth of a new profession in the domain of environmental accounting, which is rarely empirically possible, and in a relatively unexplored setting when it comes to the sociology of professions. This research is a longitudinal case study from 1999 to 2015. We have chosen institutional theory to explore both the contextual conditions (the French cultural arena and the topic of carbon) and the actions taken, i.e. the work and process of creating a new profession (Kipping and Kirkpatrick, 2013). To this end, our paper combines institutional work with the literature on the sociology of professions. Making institutional work visible requires rich, detailed case studies (Lawrence et al., 2009). The institutional work perspective also \"attends more closely to practice and process than to outcome\" (Lawrence et al., 2011). We therefore collected data through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Secondary data were collected from the archives of the French environmental protection agency (EPA) and press articles among others. This combination of qualitative methods makes our analysis more robust (Kipping and Kirkpatrick, 2013) and has allowed us to depict the emerging professional field in detail, as well as the actors and the work they performed while trying to create this nascent profession.Data collection\nFindings: Based on our institutional framework we explore the nascent profession of carbon accounting in France (Figure 2). First, we will develop the three types of institutional work that can be grouped under the banner of creative work. Then we will demonstrate how counter-work and absence of work played a role in fragilizing the professionalization project (without sabotaging completely the burgeoning profession).Knowledge work\nDiscussion: The aim of our paper has been to explore our empirical and theoretical understanding of the birth of a profession in environmental accounting in France. Firstly, we contribute to further characterizing the creative institutional work of change agents in a contemporary professional project. We establish that professionalization projects are the interaction of three types of institutional work: the development of a new expertise as the foundation for new professions, the development of an identity and the development of soft boundaries that allow expertise and identity to crystallize into forms such as formal training or associations. Secondly, through our findings, we contribute to broadening our knowledge on counter-work and the absence of work, in other words the undermining of professional work by both insiders within the professional carbon accounting field and outsiders through what we name sabotage work.Creative work\nConclusion: This paper analyses the emergence of an environmental accounting profession built on carbon accounting expertise over the period from 1999 to 2015. Based on participant observation, interviews and the collection of a secondary dataset including archives, it seeks to broaden our understanding of the creative work and sabotage work involved in a professionalization project in a new contemporary empirical setting, namely carbon accounting. Through a rich empirical study of one of the first environmental accounting professions analysed, it highlights the complexity of a professionalization project anchored in a dynamic field where global and local forces collide and where accounting and engineering logics interact.Our research has certain limitations. First, the professionalization project under study is a relatively recent phenomenon. One must also acknowledge that the timeframe of the study (16 years), compared to other nascent professions' studies (Edwards et al., 2007, 80 years), makes it difficult to conclude on whether the nascent profession will develop, or disappear. Second, we were not able to attend insider meetings of the professional association, although one of the researchers approached regional representatives for access. This would have granted us an even closer look into the malaise and discussions around the professionalization of carbon consultancy in France.Finally, we contributed to the environmental accounting literature by adding to the very first accounts of how professional projects can emerge in this field (Power, 1997; O'Dwyer et al., 2011; Malsch, 2013; Renaud, 2014). Further research should be conducted to investigate the link between environmental accounting innovations and professions. Armstrong (1985), for example, first showed how accountants took over standard accounting from engineers. Accounting innovations can be at the centre of professional disputes, at the birth of new professions, or can be actors in the deinstitutionalization of professional projects. Moreover, the carbon accounting field can now be considered international with several hot spots in the USA and Australia, where other professionalization projects could be researched and compared. The role of the accounting profession in absorbing environmental accounting tools and practices could be further analysed through its rhetorical institutional work (Suddaby et al., 2015), such as writing reports, books and articles in professional journals, its boundary work, such as by integrating knowledge into examinations (e.g. ACCA with integrated reporting) and finally its counter-work (lobbying and \"non-aggression\" treaties, e.g. Humphrey et al., 2017). The difference in strategies in relation to environmental accounting by professional associations vs professional service firms (the Big Four) must be carefully analysed (Power, 1997; O'Dwyer et al., 2011; Malsch, 2013). The accounting profession's ambiguous relationship with environmental accounting in the last 40 years has had a considerable impact on the development of environmental accounting tools and practices by other groups, including engineering professions and global organizations such as the big accountancy firms that regularly absorb successful environmental accounting and reporting design offices (in France for example, the Ecobilan in 2000 and Bio Intelligence Services in 2013, or the Institut RSE in 2015). Finally, environmental accounting could be professionalized directly within organizations, as the exploratory research by Renaud (2014) investigates in a French organization. Environmental accounting jobs, such as \"sustainability CFOs\" or \"Chief Value Officers\" (King and Atkins, 2016), are mushrooming within multinationals and could drive the accounting profession to rethink its relationship with certain environmental accounting practices that have developed outside its own professional field.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Within the emergent professional field of carbon accounting, we analyse the institutional work that gives birth to a nascent profession in a multi-actor arena. We therefore contribute to enhancing our understanding of the birth of professions - in their very first steps and infancy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study employs a qualitative approach. We collected data from 1999 to 2015 and conducted 15 semi-structured interviews. One of the researchers was active in the field for two years and participated in carbon accounting events in France as a \"participant observer\".\nFindings: Our research contributes to an understanding of the dynamic professionalization process in which the different actors mobilize both creative work and sabotage work. We further theorize how nascent professions structure their project around knowledge, identity and boundary work. At the same time, we develop the notion of sabotage work, which is comprised of two sub-categories of institutional work: counter-work and the absence of work.\nOriginality/value: To our knowledge, this is one of the first attempts to analyse the birth of an environmental accounting profession. We emphasize both creative work and sabotage work in the professionalization project. We conclude on further research that could be performed on environmental accounting professions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An exploratory study of competitive strategies among hotels in a small developing Caribbean state
|
[
"Competitive strategy",
"Hotels",
"Barbados"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A key question in strategy research is why companies diverge in their conduct and profitability. Researchers have determined to view companies as autonomous entities, striving for competitive advantage from either external sources, or from internal resources and capabilities (Gulati et al., 2000). Surely, the objective of a company's strategy is to achieve competitive advantage, but additionally, the strategy itself is a source of competitive advantage (Luffman et al., 1996).The intensifying competition on the global tourism market is a great challenge for strategic management. Accelerating changes in industries and economies resulting in global competition have led to an increased popularity of strategic planning (Rigby, 2001). An understanding of how technology and globalization affects a company's competitive positioning and creating global competitive advantage are the most important determinants of strategic management today.Caribbean tourism is forced to respond to the pressure built by the globalisation of travel markets. Tourism destinations become more and more remote while travel times become ever shorter. Tourism-dependent countries like the Caribbean Islands are consequently faced with aggressive locational competition and forced to innovate and to lower prices. Simply selling landscape, nature or comfortable hotel beds is no longer sufficient, and it is vital for the accommodation sector in the region to increase competitiveness through competitive strategies.Strategy is about ensuring the survival and prosperity of a firm (Grant, 2005) by implementing strategies to fulfil stakeholder expectations in an uncertain future. Firms that engage in strategic planning and have appropriately designed and applied competitive strategies tend to have higher performance than those that do not. Competitive strategies can lead to high organisational performance, customer satisfaction, and increased competitiveness in the face of other rival businesses. However, achieving competitive advantage and increased market share in a competitive environment is rather complex in several aspects as businesses would need to operate with distinguished principles and characteristics in order to continually adapt to change.This study attempts to identify similarities and/or differences in competitive strategies pursued among hotels operating in Barbados, a small developing island state in the Caribbean. It examines differences in the extent to which various competitive strategies are applied across a variety of organisational demographics. This is examined by data collected through self-administered questionnaires from 51 per cent of the hotels in Barbados. Respondents were human resource managers, general managers and/or managing directors. The results of this study shows that the accommodation sector in Barbados recognises the importance of being different through providing above average service and quality, over the need to remain cost competitive. Our findings suggest that hoteliers focus on competition through innovation, supported by differentiation strategies, which is more important than price competition no matter what market is targeted. Given the current competitive climate and the mimetic behaviour in the accommodation sector, the intensifying rivalry, and the ever-changing customer requirements, strategies such as differentiating market offerings and building service delivery systems should only be viewed as starting points in the struggle for survival rather than bases for competitive advantage.\nThe research context: Barbados's tourism industry: Barbados is one of the Southern-most islands in the Eastern Caribbean. The country has a small, open economy driven by external forces and has a long-established tourism industry dating as far back as the 1940s. In the 1960s, international hotel chains and tour operators began to show interest in Barbados, and tourism was embraced as the engine for economic growth. Since then the number of arrivals has increased dramatically, and today tourism is the largest industry in Barbados's economy. In 2004, Barbados received 531,000 stay-over visitors, mainly from the UK, the USA and Canada (Barbados Ministry of Tourism, 2005). As shown in Figure 1, the main tourism market is the UK followed by the USA.Since Barbados has very few natural resources, tourism continues to receive increased attention as an important sector of the Barbados economy and has provided a much-needed boost to the country's economy. The Barbadian government has come to recognise tourism's actual and potential contribution to their economy and are giving the sector a higher political priority than before. As a result, economic policy objectives increasingly centre on tourism's ability to generate employment, earn foreign exchange and contribute significantly to government revenue. The GDP composition by sector in 2004 according to the Central Bank of Barbados (2005) is shown in Figure 2.Barbados reaps a distinct competitive advantage from its airport being the main air-transportation hub for the Eastern Caribbean region. Although Barbados has a fortunate record of tourism growth, the country is vulnerable to external shocks and loss of competitiveness in the tourism industry due to the high volatility of demand in the industry.The status of tourism in Barbados is suggestive of Butler's (1980) saturation stage and the country's tourism industry is mainly made up of all-inclusive resorts/hotels and \"4Ss\" (sun, sea, sand and sex) tourism. Barbados views itself as an upscale tourism destination. The island is positioned as an upmarket, quality destination that focuses on the brand elements of \"friendliness\", \"cleanliness\", \"the provision of a safe and secure environment\", and \"the offering of the highest possible value for money\" (Barbados National Tourism Development Plan, 2001).\nLiterature review: Chandler (1965, cited in Herman, 2005) was one of the first to define strategy, which according to him concerns \"planning and executing company growth\". Another pioneer within the field (Ansoff (1965, cited in Herman, 2005), suggests that the objective of a firm is to maximise economic return. Strategy is about ensuring the survival and prosperity of a firm (Grant, 2005); hence, strategy provides a guide for organisations in meeting their overall goals. MacMillan (1983) defines \"strategic initiative\" as the ability to capture control of strategic behaviour in the industries in which a firm competes. A competitive strategy is one that specifically directs an organisation in gaining a competitive advantage above its rivals (Porter, 1986).Competitive strategies have been classified into three types:1. cost reduction;2. innovation; and3. quality-enhancement (Schuler and Jackson, 1987).It has been argued that all three strategy types can be used simultaneously to gain domestic and international competitive advantage, regardless of industry. Others argue that there is only one essential factor in determining a competitive advantage - i.e. the ease with which competitors can enter or expand in a given market (Greenwald and Kahn, 2005). If a company can erect strong barriers to entry, through customer captivity, lower production costs, or economies of scale, it can manage these advantages, anticipate competitors' moves, or achieve stability through bargaining and cooperation. It is claimed that addressing barriers to entry is by far the most important activity in business strategy, and avoiding competition is the only way to escape an open playing field in which only the best survive and prosper.Environments that are characterised by rapid, systemic and radical change require more flexible, dynamic or emergent approaches to strategy formulation (Christensen, 1997). Sometimes it may be possible to create completely new markets instead of selecting from existing ones. One such environment is the tourism industry (a highly volatile industry characterised by rapid and radical change), which is an environment in which it is possible to create completely new markets, based on fashion and travel trends.Regardless of what strategy is implemented and used, the strategy has to be understood by employees at all levels of the company. This, in turn, leads to the customers understanding what the company stands for. Since strategy is about being different, the company's strategy must become a cause. While businesses think in terms of products and derived values, the customer is looking for satisfaction. The key question is whether the strategy, product features, add-ons, and value creation lead to ultimate customer satisfaction.Past studies have used different sets of criteria to investigate the various aspects of a firm's competitive strategy. One example is a study by Vandermerwe et al. (1994), in which several different aspects of strategy were designed to investigate the strategic use of firms' resources to meet changing customer expectations. The criteria used in their study were:* differentiation of market offerings;* mobilisation of people and partners;* leveraging information technology to deliver value;* minimising costs;* building of efficient service delivery systems;* defining service standards and performance;* reliance on local versus expatriate staff; and* delivering services across countries.Few studies have been undertaken to examine these forms of competitive strategies in the accommodation sector. One of these is the study by Wong and Kwan (2001), who analysed the competitive strategies of hotels and travel agents in Hong Kong and Singapore by using a set of criteria based on the approach used by Vandermerwe et al. (1994). Nine different areas were designed for their study, and their findings indicate that cost competitiveness, mobilising people and partners, and building robust service delivery systems were the top three competitive strategies that senior managers employed, while least confidence was shown in leveraging information technology and product differentiation as viable competitive strategies.The above approach to understanding and measuring strategy requires greater empirical attention given the limited research in the area. As a result, the present study will seek to address this concern by measuring competitive strategies across various organisational demographics among hotels, based on these criteria put forward by Vandermerwe et al. (1994). Organisational demographics have been argued to be important determinants in competitive strategy research. For example, Clarke et al. (2004) and Kean et al. (1996) found statistically significant differences in the use of competitive strategies across various organisational demographics such as size, ownership and store type. It is important to mention that there has been no empirical research that examined the relationship between various hotel demographics and the use of the above-mentioned competitive strategies advanced by Vandermerwe et al. (1994). Hence, the main research questions of the study are as follows:RQ1. Is there relationship between ownership type of a hotel (foreign versus locally owned) and the use of various competitive strategies?RQ2. Is there relationship between the size of hotel and the use of various competitive strategies?RQ3. Is there relationship between business structure of a hotel (private limited, public limited and sole trader, etc.) and the use of various competitive strategies?RQ4. Is there relationship between the ratings of a hotel (one-star, two-star, three-star, etc.) and the use of various competitive strategies?\nMethod: Survey instrument and measures\nResults: Descriptive statistics and reliabilities\nDiscussion: The study sought to determine whether the adoption of various competitive strategies was related to various hotel demographics such as ownership type, hotel size, hotel business structure, and hotel ratings. The study revealed, with the exception of hotel ratings, that hotel demographics were not significantly related to the type of competitive strategies adopted. Hotels in the five-star and higher category placed substantial strategic focus in the area of defining service standards and performance, compared with hotels in the one-star category. This finding is not surprising given the view that hotels with higher ratings rely upon their reputation for service and customer satisfaction to be profitable (Mullins, 1996) and are likely to demonstrate a stronger preference for providing and improving their standards and level of performance. Sandy Lane Hotel, a five-star property in Barbados, has been regarded as one of the leading resorts in the world. This hotel takes pride in offering an exceptional product and service to their guests. The general manager of the hotel states that continuously winning best hotel awards \"is testament to the quality and standards on which Sandy Lane has built its reputation\" (Barbados.org, 2008). Consistency in standards is essential of any highly rated hotel (Barsky and Nash, 2005; Nobles, 1999).However, the non-significant relationship between organisational (hotel) demographics and competitive strategies was not consistent with previous research on competitive strategies (Clarke et al., 2004; Kean et al., 1996). Small samples tend to limit statistical power for finding significant differences or relationships between variables (Field, 2005). The relatively small sample size may have been responsible for the several non-significant findings in the study. It is important to note here again that there has been no prior research that examined the relationship between various hotel demographics and the use of these forms of competitive strategies, advanced by Vandermerwe et al. (1994). Hence, no study exists with which comparisons can be drawn. Given the small sample size, the generalisability of the findings is restricted to the hotel population in Barbados. It also worth mentioning here that the study does not seek to establish causal relationships between variables since its design does not permit the ability to make causal statements.Secondly, descriptive statistics revealed that all competitive strategies were ranked moderately high in terms of importance, with \"leveraging information technology to deliver value\", \"differentiating market offerings\" and \"building service delivery systems\" being in the top three. This suggests that hotels in Barbados are more concerned with differentiation-oriented strategies that comprised a strong reliance on information technology and a need to improve organisational systems to deliver better and unique services. As Kean et al. (1996, p. 15) highlight:Firms using this [differentiation] strategy may engage in varying kinds of differentiation, including product design, brand image, technology, and customer orientation, to set itself apart from other firms offering similar products or services.This finding suggests that hotels operating in Barbados recognise the high importance of providing a strong hospitality service and quality, above the need to remain cost competitive. Future research should consider the existence of the strategies used in the present study across different industries such as the retailing, manufacturing and services industries. It is also important that future research adopt qualitative research methods (to supplement and enrich the quantitative methods and findings) to better explore the underlying reasons behind the adoption of particular strategies intended to promote competitive advantage in the hotel sector. It is also advised that future research seeks to test other contemporary models of competitive strategy that may be more relevant to the hotel sector in the Caribbean.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine a typology of competitive strategies, which has not been extensively researched in the context of the accommodation sector in Barbados, a small developing island state in the Caribbean.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data is collected through self-administered questionnaires from 51 per cent of the hotels in Barbados. Respondents are Human Resource Managers, General Managers or Managing Directors.\nFindings: - Hotels in the five-star and higher category place substantial strategic focus in the area of defining service standards and performance, as compared with hotels in the one-star category. This study suggests that hoteliers should focus on a combination of different strategies advanced by Vandermerwe et al. as a means of securing a competitive advantage. Changes in strategy should be accompanied by training employees as the service and the quality of hotels change. As their customers' demands change, and as the competition changes, the competitive strategies of hotels will change.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Due to cultural differences among the islands in the Caribbean, the findings in this study need to be confirmed by undertaking similar investigations in other islands. Future research should consider the use of a more qualitative approach to better understand the nature of these competitive strategies in the hotel sector. Future research should examine the link between these strategies and company performance in order to determine the best combination of competitive strategies needed for maximum organisational performance.\nPractical implications: - This study highlights many challenges to be met and opportunities to be seized by managers in Barbados's accommodation sector. Systematically linking different strategies highlighted by Vandermerwe et al. and proactively managing the hotel is one way to do both.\nOriginality/value: - Few studies in this area have been undertaken in small developing island states in the Caribbean. This study attempts to fill this gap by comparing and contrasting the competitive business strategies employed by hotels in Barbados.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Efficiency measurement of Indian retailers using Data Envelopment Analysis
|
[
"India",
"Efficiency",
"Retailer",
"Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)",
"Bootstrapped Tobit Regression model",
"Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organized retail has played a major role in driving the economy of developed nations and provides a lot of growth opportunities to developing nations. It also has its own unique and diversified needs. It faces high degree of complexity due to multiple outlets at different locations, variety of products and high frequency of reorder all of which makes retail operations a complex task. The Indian organized retail industry is becoming competitive day by day. There are several factors responsible for it. As more and more Indian and foreign players are entering in this market, competition is building up, which is good in some ways as it pushes the retailers toward better productivity. The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Indian retail is instrumental in bring the latest technologies and operational knowhow which is enabling them to become more efficient and responsive. Many Indians have travelled abroad and have experienced global brands and international shopping experience and they are looking forward to a similar experience in India which in turn is driving foreign investments in India (Anbanandam et al., 2009).\nThe Indian retailing industry: The retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India. The total retail sales in India are expected to grow from US$422.09 billion in 2011 to US$825.46 billion by 2015 (BMI India, 2012). Share of organized retail is expected to increase from USD 28 billion in 2010 to USD 75 billion in 2015 (BMI India, 2012). The report highlights strong underlying economic growth, population expansion, increasing disposable income and rapid emergence of organized retail infrastructure as major factors that support the forecasted growth. With growing market demand, the industry is expected to grow at a pace of 25-30 percent annually (KPMG, 2011).\nLiterature review: DEA has been widely used as an efficiency measurement tool in a variety of fields. Many studies have applied DEA and related methodologies to retail outlets. Since the DEA model is well established and extensively used in the literature on general economics, its discussion, in our paper, is limited to the use of the model in the retail sector. Table I summarizes the major studies conducted to measure retail outlets' efficiency all over the world. A few studies are described in this section which has used one or more tools for efficiency measurement.\nResearch objective and methodology: In this paper, three methodologies, namely, DEA, MPI and Bootstrapped Tobit Regression have been used to study the operational efficiencies of major retail companies in India. The conceptual framework is proposed in Figure 1. In the first stage of the study (Barros, 2006), DEA is used to calculate the technical and scale efficiencies. For calculating the efficiencies, the input and output parameters are selected based on literature review as mentioned in Table I. The selected input parameters are Cost of Labor and Capital Employed and the output parameters are Profit and Sales. The data has been captured from the CMIE database. Two models of DEA are selected. The first one is input-oriented CRS referred as CCR model. The second approach is input-oriented variable returns to scale referred to as BCC model. The reason for selecting input-oriented models is the assumption that a retailer has the capacity to change the inputs but has very limited scope to change the outputs as the outputs are depended on market related forces, which are hardly under the complete control of the retailer. Based on the scores of CCR and BCC efficiency, SE has been calculated, which is a ratio of CCR and BCC scores. The DEA scores are calculated for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. The scores for 2010 are only reported in this paper as the other scores would be on similar lines.\nDEA: DEA was suggested by Charnes et al. (1978), which was built on the idea of Farrell (1957). DEA is based on linear programming using non-parametric technique for measuring the relative performance of organizational units where the presence of multiple inputs and outputs makes comparisons difficult. The advantage of DEA is its ability to identify sources and amounts of inefficiency in each input and each output for each Decision Making Unit (DMU). It also identifies the most efficient set of DMUs and the inefficient ones.\nData: The model in this paper uses panel data for a period of three years i.e. 2008-2010. As organized retail is in its nascent stage in India, many retailers have made heavy investments in technology or systems which have given rise to excessive use of resources. These are intended to produce beneficial results in future periods. The data has been taken from CMIE database. To be included in the data set used in this study, companies had to meet the condition that their financial information is available. Secondly, DEA requires that the inputs and outputs should be non-negative figures. A linear scale transformation is performed on profit in order to eliminate a negative value that is the maximum loss value is added to all the data points (Dasgupta et al., 1999). This left 18 retailers in the final data set to be analyzed. Table II reports descriptive statistics of the variables used in the study.\nInputs and outputs: DEA model requires the identification of inputs and outputs. Based on literature survey and availability of published data, the input and the output variables have been selected. The output was measured in terms of Sales and Profit. The inputs were measured in terms of Cost of Labor and Capital employed. Therefore, through the DEA technique, how efficiently Cost of Labor and Capital Employed were used to generate higher Sales and Profits have been evaluated. The total numbers of input and output variables are kept to a minimum as per the DEA convention. The general rule of thumb is that the minimum number of DMU's should be greater than three times the number of inputs plus outputs. This rule has been adhered to in this paper. Since number of inputs plus outputs is 4 in our model, it's three times value is 12. As the number of DMU's used is more than twelve, we have adhered to the thumb rule.\nDEA results: The DEA results have been calculated by using the software \"DEA-Solver\" by Cooper et al. (2007). The DEA results can be calculated in several ways. In order to solve the CCR and BCC, DEA problem, three characteristics have to be specified: input-output orientation, returns to scale and weights to be assigned to the inputs and outputs. First, if the model is input oriented, it means that the inputs are in the control of the DMU and therefore the inefficient firms are suggested to reduce their inputs for the given outputs to become more efficient and in the case of output-oriented models, the inefficient firms are suggested to increase their outputs for the given set of inputs to become more efficient. Our research has used input-oriented models as we believe that in today's competitive markets, outputs may not be in the direct control of the retailer, though will aim to maximize the outputs, but may be able to influence the inputs to a larger extent. Second, returns to scale can be CRS (CCR model) and variable returns to scale (BCC model). The paper has used both the models. BCC models employ the variable returns to scale or VRS and can assess pure technical efficiency (PTE). CCR models use CRS and measure technical efficiency, which is the product of PTE and SE. Accordingly, TE (by a CCR model)=PTE (by a BCC model)xSE. Lastly, as far as the weights are concerned, they are endogenously defined by the algorithm for CCR and BCC model and measure the distance between the DMU and the frontier.\nSensitivity analysis: DEA analysis provides rich diagnostic information for sensitivity analysis. Table IV provides information about the percentage improvement each inefficient retailer can undertake in its inputs to move toward the efficient frontier. Negative figures indicate that the retailer should try to reduce that particular input by a given percentage keeping the outputs at the current level, to become efficient. The data is provided for the input-oriented CCR model. The data for BCC model has not been included to avoid redundancy as the way to interpret the improvements by different models is similar to what has been discussed earlier. It can be seen that the required percentage reduction is quite huge which depicts that the Indian retailers have made heavy investments in inputs but have not been able to achieve desirable results commensurate with the investments made.\nMPI: The concept was first introduced by Malmquist (1953). It is an index that represents total factor productivity (TFP) growth of DMU, in that it reflects progress or regress in efficiency along with progress or regress of the frontier technology between two periods of time under a multiple inputs and outputs framework. Malmquist index evaluates the productivity change of a DMU between two periods and therefore does a comparative analysis. It is defined as a product of Catch up and Frontier-shift. The Catch up or recovery term relates to the degree to which a DMU improves or worsens its efficiency. If the Catch up is >1 than it indicates progress in relative efficiency from Period 1 to 2, whereas if Catch up is equal to or less than 1 then it indicates that there is no change and regress in efficiency. The frontier-shift or innovation reflects the change in the efficient frontiers between the two time periods. If the frontier-shift up is >1 then it indicates progress in relative efficiency from Period 1 to 2, whereas if frontier-shift up is equal to or less than 1, than it indicates that there is no change and regress in efficiency:\nBootstrapped Tobit Regression model: To examine the determinants of efficiency, a Tobit Model has been used, regressing the CCR efficiency scores of the retail firms by different contextual variables. This method is used in the second stage of DEA analysis i.e., when the relationship between exogenous factors and DEA scores is assessed. The Tobit is chosen in view of the truncation of the efficiency scores between 0 and 1. However, it is recognized in the DEA literature that the efficient scores obtained in the first stage are correlated with the explanatory variables used in the second stage, so that the second stage estimates will be inconsistent and biased (Simar and Wilson (1999)). Therefore Simar and Wilson (1999), Yu and Ramanathan (2008), Barros (2006) and Perrigot and Barros (2008) suggested that a bootstrap procedure should be employed to overcome this problem. The bootstrap is a computer-based method for assigning measures of accuracy to statistical estimates. We report the results of Bootstrapped Tobit Regression in this paper. The R (open source) software was used to run the Bootstrapped Tobit Regression:\nConclusions and discussion: This paper has estimated DEA scores for Indian retailers with CCR and BCC models on a panel of data during the period 2008-2010. The results confirms the ground reality that the Indian retailers are relatively less efficient and that most of the firms have still not crossed their gestation period of reaping benefits out of the investments made. The mean efficiency levels of the Indian retailers for the year 2010, based on CCR model and BCC model is 57 and 67 percent, respectively. The efficiency level of some of the retailers is as low as approximately 12 percent, which depicts huge scope for improvement. The standard deviations are quite high approximately 32 percent, which depicts huge dispersion of the efficiency scores among the samples analyzed. Ascertaining the efficiency of retailers using DEA, promotes accountability and stimulate a search for improvement. Five firms are on the efficient frontier as per CCR model and seven firms are efficient as per BCC model. If we divide efficiency into two broad categories that is scale related efficiency and managerial skills related efficiency, then five firms are both scale as well as managerial skill wise efficient and two firms are efficient on the managerial skill level but are inefficient on the scale level.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance of Indian retailers in recent past and derive meaningful insight for practicing managers in this area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper analyses the economic efficiencies of select Indian retailers using three related methodologies: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) and Bootstrapped Tobit Regression.\nFindings: DEA analysis has shown that five retail firms out of selected 18 are found as efficient under the CCR model of DEA and seven out of 18 retail firms are efficient under the BCC model of DEA. MPI results indicate that 61 percent of the firms have progressed in terms of the MPI during the period under consideration. The Bootstrapped Tobit Regression shows that number of retail outlets and mergers and acquisitions can be considered as the driving forces influencing efficiency of retailers in India.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper has a limitation with reference to the availability of data for a few retail outlets, especially in the modeling through the Bootstrapped Tobit Regression.\nOriginality/value: This study seems to be the first in applying productivity analysis using DEA, MPI and Bootstrapped Tobit Regression for the Indian retail sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors influencing the effectiveness of performance measurement systems
|
[
"Australia",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Performance measures",
"Performance measurement system",
"Multidimensional performance measures",
"Top management support",
"Training",
"Employee participation",
"Link of performance to rewards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: To survive in today's rapidly changing environment, organizations must identify their existing positions, clarify their goals, and operate more effectively and efficiently. Performance measurement systems (PMSs) assist organizations in achieving such objectives. Neely et al. (1995, p. 81) defines a PMS as \"a set of metrics used to quantify both the efficiency and effectiveness of actions\". An effective PMS enables an organization to assess whether goals are being achieved, and facilitates the improvement of the organization as a whole (Lebas, 1995) by identifying their position, clarifying goals, highlighting areas requiring improvement, and facilitating reliable forecasts (Neely et al., 1996). Hence, an effective PMS enables an organization to measure and control its performance in line with the defined strategy.While the recent PMS literature has focused on the shift from traditional PMSs, which focus on financial measures, to multidimensional PMSs such as the performance pyramid (Lynch and Cross, 1991), the balanced scorecard (BSC) (Kaplan and Norton, 1992), and the performance prism system (Neely and Adams, 2000), there is limited empirical evidence examining the effectiveness of such PMSs. Furthermore, the majority of these studies assess PMS effectiveness in relation to overall organizational performance (Crabtree and DeBusk, 2008; Braam and Nijssen, 2004; Davis and Albright, 2004; Ittner et al., 2003; Hoque and James, 2000), thereby assuming a direct association between the PMS and performance. This approach is inconsistent with Hamilton and Chervany's (1981) claim that the impact of the PMS on performance is indirectly influenced by the effect on improvements in organizational processes. In other words, organizational objectives such as sales revenue, profit contribution and customer satisfaction will not be realized unless specific organizational objectives (e.g. motivating performance, developing individual's skills and knowledge, providing useful feedback to employees, and providing an accurate assessment of business unit performance) are achieved. Accordingly, the first objective of this study is to contribute to the limited empirical research (Malina and Selto, 2001; Whorter, 2003) examining the effectiveness of PMSs based on the extent to which organizational processes are achieved.The measurement of performance is an on-going task, hence, in order to achieve system effectiveness, organizations need to devote time and effort to managing the system (Neely et al., 2000). Hence, in an attempt to provide practitioners with an insight into how to achieve and maintain effectiveness, the second objective of the study is to contribute to the contingency literature by examining the factors associated with the effectiveness of PMSs. The first factor examined, the use of multidimensional performance measures, has been advocated by both academics and practitioners in order to complement the limitations of traditional financial PMSs and to increase the effectiveness of PMSs (Van der Stede et al., 2006; Kaplan and Norton, 2001, 1996, 1992). While many multidimensional frameworks have been advocated, and the benefits of using multidimensional performance measures have received wide publicity in the literature (Van der Stede et al., 2006; Bryant et al., 2004), there is considerable variation in the adoption rates reported for the most common multidimensional approach, the BSC (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2009 (53 percent); Chung et al., 2006 (31 percent); Ittner et al., 2003 (20 percent); Speckbacher et al., 2003 (26 percent)). The variation in the adoption of multidimensional performance measures raises concerns regarding the contribution of such measures towards the effectiveness of PMSs. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the literature by examining the association between the use of multidimensional performance measures and the effectiveness of PMSs.The study also aims to provide an empirical analysis of the association between specific organizational factors (top management support, training, employee participation and the link of performance to rewards) with the effectiveness of PMSs.While these organizational factors do not represent a comprehensive list of all relevant factors, they were chosen for two reasons. First, they have been widely cited as factors contributing to the success of various management accounting practices such as activity-based costing (ABC) (Baird et al., 2007; Shields, 1995), enterprise resource planning (Motwani et al., 2002; Rao, 2000), and management information system (MIS) (Raghunathan et al., 1999; Doll, 1985; Schultz and Ginzberg, 1984). Second, while they have been identified in previous studies as the main contingency factors associated with the effectiveness of PMSs (Burney et al., 2009; Hoque and Adams, 2008; Cheng et al., 2007; Kleingeld et al., 2004; Chan, 2004), this was in isolation, and no study has analysed all four factors together. Hence, this study is motivated to fill this gap in the literature by examining the link between all four organizational factors and the effectiveness of PMSs within Australian manufacturing organizations.In addition, given the majority of previous studies examining the influence of organizational factors on PMS effectiveness have used the case study approach (Kleingeld et al., 2004; Bourne et al., 2002; Emerson, 2002; Kennerley and Neely, 2002; Kaplan, 2001), there is a gap in the literature empirically examining this association. Hence, the current study is motivated to fill this gap by using the survey method in an attempt to enhance the generalizability of the findings.The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides the literature review and develops the relevant hypotheses. Sections 3 and 4 then discuss the method and results. Finally, Section 5 provides the conclusion, limitations, and future directions for research.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Performance measurement systems\n3 Method: A survey questionnaire was mailed to the senior financial officer of a random sample of 445[1] Australian manufacturing business units identified from the Kompass Australia (2009) directory[2]. The manufacturing industry was selected as a number of prior studies on PMSs suggest that manufacturing organizations are more likely to have a mature and comprehensive PMS in place (Malina and Selto, 2001; Simons, 2000; Kaplan and Norton, 1996, 1992). Business units were chosen as the unit of analysis because PMS characteristics may differ across business units within an organization. Senior financial officers were chosen as they were expected to have a sound understanding of their business unit's PMS. The Dillman (2007) tailored design method was employed to administer the survey[3]. In total, 141 responses were received for a response rate of 30.9 percent. In total, 23 of the questionnaires were incomplete, hence 118 questionnaires were used for the data analysis. As was the case in Robert (1999), non-response bias was assessed by comparing the independent and dependent variable values across early and late respondents. No significant differences were detected.3.1 Variable measurement\n4 Results: Table I shows summary statistics for the dependent and independent variables. For the multi-item scales, the actual range was comparable with the theoretical range, and the Cronbach's a coefficients met or exceeded the 0.70 threshold generally considered acceptable in regard to scale reliability (Nunnally, 1978, p. 245).The mean scores of the effectiveness of PMSs for both the performance-related outcomes (3.50) and the staff-related outcomes (3.26) are slightly higher than the mid-point of the range, indicating that on average the respondents assessed their PMS to be moderately effective. The performance-related outcomes were achieved to a greater extent, with the mean scores of all nine items equal to or greater than the seven staff-related outcomes. The performance-related outcomes that were achieved to the greatest extent included: assisting in achieving the goals (mean score of 3.68); providing useful performance feedback to employees (mean score of 3.64); developing a performance-oriented culture (mean score of 3.59); and providing an accurate assessment of business unit performance (mean score of 3.59). The staff-related outcomes that were achieved to the greatest extent included: developing individual's skill and knowledge (mean score of 3.38), identifying talented employees (mean score of 3.36), and rewarding talented employees (mean score of 3.31).In regard to the four organizational factors, while the mean score of most of the factors lie on the higher end of the scale, the mean value of the link of performance to non-financial rewards (2.93) was slightly below the mid-point of the range indicating a relative weak link between performance and non-financial rewards.As discussed in the method section, two approaches were used to assess the use of multidimensional performance measures. Table II reveals that 39 respondents (33.1 percent) indicated that they were using a BSC in their business unit. The more comprehensive approach to measuring the use of multidimensional performance measures focused on the extent to which business units were employing 26 performance measures covering the five perspectives of the BSC. Table I reveals that the mean score for the use of multidimensional performance measures (2.94) was slightly lower than the mid-point of the range, indicating a moderate use of multidimensional performance measures in Australian manufacturing organizations.Table III provides a more detailed analysis of the extent to which measures relating to each of the five perspectives were employed. The greatest emphasis was placed on the financial perspective (3.59) followed by the customer (3.43), learning and growth (3.11), and internal business process (3.06) perspectives. The mean score of the sustainability perspective (2.19) was below the mid-point of the range indicating a relatively low level of usage of this perspective.4.1 Analysis of the association between the use of multidimensional performance measures and organizational factors with the effectiveness of PMSs\n5 Conclusion: 5.1 Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between the use of multidimensional performance measures and four organizational factors with the effectiveness of performance measurement systems (PMSs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected by mail survey questionnaire from a random sample of 455 senior financial officers in Australian manufacturing organizations.\nFindings: - The results reveal that the use of multidimensional performance measures is associated with two dimensions of the effectiveness of PMSs (performance and staff related outcomes). The results also reveal that organizational factors were associated with the effectiveness of PMSs. Specifically, top management support was found to be associated with the effectiveness of PMSs in respect to the performance related outcomes, and training was associated with the staff related outcomes.\nPractical implications: - The findings provide managers with an insight into the desirable PMS characteristics and the specific organizational factors that they can focus on in order to enhance the effectiveness of their performance measurement system.\nOriginality/value: - This study contributes to the limited empirical research examining the effectiveness of PMSs regarding the extent to which organizational processes are achieved. In addition, the study provides an empirical analysis of the association between the five perspective (financial, customer, internal business process, learning and growth, and sustainability) BSC model and four organizational factors with the effectiveness of PMSs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
French consumer profiles' reactions to information on cod fillet products
|
[
"Expectations",
"Cod-fillets",
"Consumer-segments",
"Food-labelling",
"Fresh-fish",
"Thawed-fish"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Fish is a valuable source of nutrients beneficial to human health (Mozaffarian and Rimm, 2006) that can be part of a wide variety of tasty meals. However, despite its favourable properties and governmental recommendations (Advice on Fish Consumption: Benefits and Risks, 2004) the majority of consumers in Europe do not consume fish twice a week as recommended (FAO, 2009).\n2. Material and methods: 2.1 Pre-study\n3. Results: The socio-demographic characteristics of the participants in the questionnaire study are described in Table I. In total 485 participants ranging from 19 to 72 (Mean=44) years old took part in the study. Approximately two thirds of the participants were females and half of them were married. About two thirds of the participants were from the northern, inland regions of France. The majority of the participants had completed basic and degree level (BSc) education. The majority of the participants were in full time employment and had a household income of between 1,000 to 4,000 euros per month.\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Summary of the segments\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aims of this study were: to identify consumer segments in France, based on their use of and trust in information sources regarding the freshness of fish, to examine differences between the segments regarding use of and interest in information cues and objective and subjective knowledge, to compare the consumer segments regarding their fish consumption and fish storage behaviour and to discover how different consumer segments reacted to labels regarding the processing of cod fillet products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper describes how French consumers (n=485) of fish were clustered in three segments based on their use of and trust in information sources regarding the freshness of fish and then compared by means of use of and interest in various information cues, knowledge, fish consumption behaviour, age and parenthood.\nFindings: Information regarding thawed cod fillet products should be carefully communicated. Fresh fish remains at the top of consumers' aspirations, regarding fish. However, a short label indicating that fish was frozen directly after catch and thawed directly before they were put on the retailers' displays may lead to an improvement of the image of previously frozen cod fillet products.\nResearch limitations/implications: This survey based study could be confirmed in a real-life experimental setting.\nPractical implications: The results can be direct advice for the development of communication strategies for the successful launching of fresh and thawed cod fillet products in the market.\nOriginality/value: This manuscript expands the segmentation presented by Pieniak et al. to France. Using this segmentation as a starting point, this study demonstrates the benefits of its use in the development of directed communication strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does transactional leadership count for team innovativeness? The moderating role of emotional labor and the mediating role of team efficacy
|
[
"Team working",
"Innovation",
"Transactional leadership",
"Employee relations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the application of work teams in organizations (Devine et al., 1999). For teams to maintain and enhance effectiveness within this rapidly changing and challenging environment, innovation is critical (Lee, 2008; West and Anderson, 1996). Although teams often have leaders who play an important role in ensuring team effectiveness, only a handful of studies have examined the relationship between leadership and team innovation in work settings (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Jung, 2001; Paul et al., 2009; Sosik et al., 1998). Transformational leadership is a major theme in previous innovation research (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Garcia-Morales et al., 2008), yet the role of transactional leadership in team innovation is largely ignored. This ignorance is surprising because meta-analyses have provided strong evidence for the unique prediction power of transactional leadership on followers' motivation, satisfaction, and leader effectiveness (Judge and Piccolo, 2004; Lowe et al., 1996). In addition, Waldman et al. (2001) argued that transactional leadership represents an active form of strategic leadership that is an important ingredient for organizational effectiveness. In organizations, transactional leadership is more common than transformational leadership. The present study attempts to extend the existing literature of leadership and team by investigating the role of transactional leadership in team innovation.Moreover, prior studies have called for research to clarify how and why leadership influences followers' outcomes (Avolio and Yammarino, 2002; Hunt and Conger, 1999; Yukl, 1999). The contingency perspective of leadership suggests that leadership is a social construct that cannot be fully understood when examined in isolation from the context in which it occurs (Podsakoff et al., 1993; Yammarino et al., 1998). Bass (1985) also asserted that certain contextual factors might moderate the impact of leadership style on followers' performance. By integrating the contingency perspective in developing our model, we identify emotional labor - a job characteristic - as a critical boundary condition and examine its moderating effect on the relation between transactional leadership and team innovation. Although the essential role of emotion in team outcomes has recently been acknowledged (Elfenbein and Shirako, 2006), emotional labor as a contextual factor for leadership effectiveness remains neglected. Hence, it is important and timely to include emotional labor in our study.Furthermore, the leadership literature has long recognized that team efficacy is a critical mediator linking transactional leadership and team consequences. For instance, Bass et al. (2003) found that team efficacy fully mediated the relationship between sergeants' transactional leadership and platoon performance. By following the conventional approach to understand the effects of transactional leadership on team outcomes, we argue that the relationship between transactional leadership and team innovation should be examined in its entirety, including mediating effects, in order to unravel the complexities in the leadership-outcome process.This study offers three major contributions. First, we extend both the leadership and the innovation literature by empirically testing the model to connect transactional leadership and team innovativeness in a work setting. Second, we explore the moderating role of emotional labor to identify the boundary condition for the effects of transactional leadership. Finally, we consider team efficacy, investigating its mediating effects on the transactional leadership-team innovativeness relationship in an attempt to achieve a unified team innovativeness model by integrating transactional leadership, emotional labor, and team efficacy with both moderating and mediating processes. The theoretical model in our study is shown in Figure 1.\nLiterature and hypotheses: Transactional leadership, emotional labor, and team innovativeness\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Table I shows the descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and correlations among the variables in our study.To test our model involving both moderating and mediating effects, we adopted the moderated causal steps approach to regression analysis (Muller et al., 2005). We examined these effects hierarchically: direct effects (including controls) first, then moderating, and finally mediating effects. Multicollinearity problems were investigated in these tests; no threat was identified. The hierarchical regression results are presented in Table II. As shown in the table and consistent with H1, transactional leadership and emotional labor interacted to negatively influence workgroup innovativeness (model 9: ss=-0.25, p<0.05).H2 states that team efficacy mediates the relationship between the transactional leadership-emotional labor interaction and team innovativeness. According to Baron and Kenny's (1986) criteria (subsequently elaborated upon by Muller et al. (2005) in the moderated-mediation context), full mediation is supported if four conditions are met:1. the predicting variable (i.e. transactional leadershipxemotional labor) is significantly related to the dependent variable (DV) (i.e. team innovativeness);2. the predicting variable is significantly related to the mediator (i.e. team efficacy);3. the mediator is significantly related to the DV; and4. when both the predicting variable and mediator are entered into the model, the relationship between the predicting variable and the DV becomes insignificant (or diminishes).However, Mathieu and Taylor (2006) and other organizational behavior scholars (Kenny et al., 1998) suggested that the first condition is not strictly required to establish a mediation relationship. As shown in Table II, after team efficacy was added into the model, the effects of the transactional leadership-emotional labor interaction term on team innovativeness was reduced from -0.25 (model 3, p<0.05) to -0.21 (model 4, ns); in addition, team efficacy was positively related to workgroup innovativeness (model 4: ss=0.36, p<0.01). We further performed a Sobel (1982) test of indirect effect significance (MacKinnon et al., 2002) to examine whether the estimated relationship between the independent variable (IV) to the DV would become non-significant when the mediator (Me) was introduced. Results indicated that the mediation effect is partially supported by our data. The interactive effects of transactional leadership and emotional labor on workgroup performance were partially mediated by team efficacy. Thus, H2 was partially supported.To visually interpret the general pattern of the interactive influence (moderating effect), the procedure suggested by Cohen et al. (2003) was followed. For instance, we plotted transactional leadership-team innovativeness relationships according to two levels of emotional labor - namely, one standard deviation above the mean and one standard deviation below the mean. In addition, to illustrate how the moderating effect was mediated, we adopted Edwards and Lamber's (2007) approach to draw the \"total,\" \"direct,\" and \"indirect\" moderation figures (Figure 2). The \"total moderation\" (Figure 2 panel A) demonstrates how the relationship between transactional leadership and team innovativeness varies across levels of emotional labor without considering team efficacy; the \"indirect moderation\" (Figure 2 panel C) shows the moderation effect conveyed by the mediating variable, team efficacy; finally, the \"direct moderation\" (Figure 2 panel B) shows the \"net (or remained)\" magnitude of the moderation effect. The magnitude of a moderation effect could be evaluated by examining the intersection angle formed by high- and low-emotional labor lines: the greater the angle is, the stronger the moderation effect. As shown in Figure 2, the effect of transactional leadership on team innovativeness could be either positive (when the job requires a high level of emotional labor) or negative (when the job requires a low level of emotional involvement) (thus supporting H1). The \"total\" moderation effect was quite significant, and part of the effect was mediated by team efficacy (Figure 2 panel C).\nDiscussion: As innovation is an incredibly significant key factor in organizations' ability to create a sustainable competitive advantage (Kim et al., 1999) and organizations often rely on teamwork (Dumaine, 1994; Ilgen et al., 2005), it is important for management to know which kind of leadership should be adopted to facilitate team innovation. During the past two decades, a substantial body of research has accumulated on transformational-transactional leadership theory (Judge and Piccolo, 2004). Most of these studies exclusively investigate transformational leadership; meanwhile, the understanding of the effect of transactional leadership on team innovation remains extremely limited. Moreover, most studies are concerned with the explanation of leadership effectiveness while neglecting the requirements of emotional labor in the job and the role of team efficacy in these relationships. Our study seeks to address this gap by investigating the moderating role of emotional labor and the mediating role of team efficacy in the relationship between transactional leadership and team innovativeness. Our results further support both transactional leadership theory and the contingency perspective.The present study sheds new light on the effectiveness of transactional leadership in team innovation. By examining both the moderating and the mediating effects, our study contributes to uncovering the black box in which transactional leadership exerts an influence on team innovativeness. Our results indicate that transactional leadership does contribute to team innovativeness in jobs with low-emotional labor whereas transactional leadership depresses team innovativeness when emotional labor is high. Our study deepens the understanding of the effectiveness of transactional leadership by revealing a boundary condition. Generally speaking, transactional leadership is neither a destructive nor a fostering power for innovation; its effectiveness largely depends on the context in which it works. Indeed, transactional leaders can make active and intentional efforts to enhance followers' innovation through the contingent reward and management by exception, and such effect on innovation depends on the emotional labor required by the job. When emotional labor is low, transactional leaders can focus on the appropriate exchange of resources and give followers something they want in exchange for something the leader wants (Kuhnert and Lewis, 1987; Song et al., 2009). As a result, transactional leadership helps shape strategies and structures, reward subordinates' efforts and commitment, and take action to correct mistakes and deviations from expectations, thereby helping to foster better team innovativeness.In the literature, Hoyt and Blascovich (2003) examined the mediating role of team efficacy in the relationship between transformational or transactional leadership styles and team outcomes. However, they did not obtain statistical support regarding the mediating effect. Indeed, their results were consistent with ours as we did not find such a \"traditional\" mediating effect. However, by identifying emotional labor as a critical boundary condition and examining team efficacy's mediating role in the interactive relationships among transactional leadership, emotional labor, and team innovativeness (mediation to an interactive effect), our prediction was supported. These results attest to the fact that Hoyt and Blascovich's consideration of team efficacy as a mediating mechanism of transformational/transactional leadership effectiveness is theoretically critical, although their conceptualization failed to examine leadership effectiveness in specific contexts. Our study illustrates an optimal model of understanding how team efficacy could really serve as a mediating mechanism in leadership and its effectiveness.Our study contributes to leadership theories and the contingency perspective in two ways. First, our study helps in the \"search for a needle in a haystack\" as discussed by Podsakoff et al. (1995), who suggested that the basic emphasis of leadership research should be to identify and describe the moderating role of situational variables on the relationship between leadership and followers' outcomes. This study contributes to this call by identifying emotional labor as a significant situational factor and by uncovering the moderating role it plays in the effect of transactional leadership on team innovativeness. Second, our study combines the mediation effect of team efficacy and the moderation effect of emotional labor on informative ways to address how transactional leadership influences team innovativeness. Muller et al. (2005) suggested that the mediation question focuses on the intervening mechanism that produces the treatment effect whereas the moderation question focuses on factors that affect the magnitude of the treatment effect. In so doing, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of the black box between transactional leadership and team innovativeness. As both mediators and moderators play important but unique roles in leadership processes, our study demonstrates how a mediator as team efficacy may operate in conjunction with the moderator of emotional labor.Previous studies have indicated that the relationship between team efficacy and group outcomes is not as robust as the association between self-efficacy and individual consequences (Lee and Farh, 2004). However, our study supports the conclusion that team efficacy positively relates to team innovativeness. The interaction effect of transactional leadership and emotional labor on team innovativeness is partly mediated by team efficacy. These findings suggest that the contingent effect of transactional leadership on team innovativeness is an indirect one. Team efficacy helps groups become effective in their specific task. Transactional leadership working with a specific level of emotional labor as required by the job can hardly influence team innovativeness directly, but rather through team efficacy. These results are consistent with Gibson's (1999) argument that team efficacy is a meaningful construct in teams. Considering the social nature of groups, our study provides a full understanding of how transactional leadership influences collective action through team efficacy beliefs (Zaccaro et al., 1995).Limitations and future directions\nConclusion: The present study has addressed several important issues regarding transactional leadership and team innovativeness, asserting that team efficacy plays a key mediator role while emotional labor is an important moderator. By recognizing that transformation leadership can exert both positive and negative effects on team innovativeness, which depends on the job characteristic, team leaders should focus attention on the requirement of emotional labor and adjust their levels of transactional leadership as necessary.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Drawing on the contingency perspective of leadership, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between transactional leadership and team innovativeness by focusing on the moderating role of emotional labor and the mediating role of team efficacy. The authors propose and empirically test the hypothesis that the relation between transactional leadership and team innovativeness is negative when the level of emotional labor is high whereas the relation is positive when the level of emotional labor is low. The authors further examine the process mechanism of this interactive effect by testing the mediating role of team efficacy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, 90 Chinese work teams, comprising 462 members and 90 team leaders, were surveyed. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed and moderated causal steps approach applied to test the authors' mediated moderation model.\nFindings: - As predicted, transactional leadership was negatively associated with team innovativeness when emotional labor was high whereas the association was positive when emotional labor was low. Team efficacy mediated the interactive effects of transactional leadership and emotional labor on team innovativeness.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper contributes to the contingency perspective on transactional leadership and team innovativeness by identifying emotional labor as an important moderator and team efficacy as a critical mediator, yet methodological limitations do exist in the study. Although data were collected from multiple sources to avoid common method variance, the design was cross-sectional, which limits the authors' ability to make robust inferences of causality.\nOriginality/value: - By examining both the moderating and mediating effects, the paper contributes to uncovering the black box in which transactional leadership exerts an influence on team innovativeness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Institutional impacts on ownership decisions by emerging and advanced market MNCs
|
[
"Institutional theory",
"Emerging-market multinational companies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the 1990s, emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) have become important players in global business due to the rapid growth of emerging economies (Guillen and Garcia-Canal, 2009). In contrast with the slow economic growth in the developed markets, foreign direct investment (FDI) from emerging economies accounted for 39 percent of global FDI outflows in 2013, compared to 12 percent in the early 2000s (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 2014). Some of these emerging economies have become major investors. For instance, China, Hong Kong, the Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have become six of the top 20 home economies of the outflow FDI (UNCTAD, 2014). Traditionally, the majority of international research examining emerging economies has focused on FDI into those countries (e.g. Hoskisson et al., 2000; Peng et al., 2008). Given the rising trend of outbound FDI from emerging economies, research examining EMNCs is particularly timely, relevant, and important (Mathews, 2006; Wright et al., 2005).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Institutions and institutional distance\n3. The institutional distance and ownership strategy: Institutional distance constitutes a major source of liability of foreignness, which is defined as \"all additional costs a firm operating in a market overseas incurs that a local firm would not incur\" (Zaheer, 1995, p. 343). Liability of foreignness results in three major competitive disadvantages for foreign firms: unfamiliarity hazard, relational hazard, and discriminatory hazard (Eden and Miller, 2004). In the following subsection that presents H1 and H2, we review the three hazards of the liability of foreignness as they pertain to AMNCs and EMNCs' ownership strategies and to the cognitive and normative pillars of institutional pressures (i.e. informal institutional distance). While regulative distance also contributes to liability of foreignness, we contend that the regulative pillar of institutional pressure (i.e. formal institutional distance) is qualitatively different from the two other pillars of institutional pressure and will be examined in a separate subsection that will present H3.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sample and data sources\n5. Results: The correlation matrix between the main variables used in our analysis is reported in Table II. We see that institutional distances are negatively correlated with percentage acquired. Consistent with the academic literature, geographic distance is also negatively associated with percentage acquired. The high tech dummy variables are positively associated with ownership. We also notice that EMNCs (Home country status), in general, are more distant than AMNCs in terms of institutions and geography to the USA. We also notice that the EMNCs generally are associated with \"Positive regulative direction\" indicating that the US regulatory environment is better developed than their home country's regulatory environment.\n6. Discussion: Given the rising phenomenon of EMNCs, our study provides an in-depth examination of a practical strategic issue facing EMNCs. Developed markets are attractive locations of foreign entry for EMNCs to acquire strategic assets. This may compensate for their latecomer disadvantages in global competition. However, to fulfill their strategic goals, EMNCs need to make prudent decisions on their entry mode to address the challenges of entering into developed markets. Our study is one of the first to directly compare and contrast AMNCs' and EMNCs' entry strategies when faced with institutional differences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) to acquire strategic assets that compensate for their resource deficiencies. Therefore, developed markets have become important destinations for EMNCs. Institutional distance constitutes a major source of competitive disadvantage for foreign firms competing with indigenous firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ownership pattern of cross-border M&As in the USA, and determine if EMNCs respond to institutional distance differently than advanced-market multinational companies (AMNCs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the extant literature in institutional theory as well as internationalization strategy, a quantitative study was carried out. Hypotheses were proposed and tested using fixed effects panel regressions.\nFindings: This paper finds that both AMNCs and EMNCs take smaller ownership positions when there is greater cognitive and normative distance. The negative association is stronger for AMNCs than for EMNCs. Further, the larger the regulative distance in the positive direction, meaning a higher level of development in the host market than in the home market, the more AMNCs and EMNCs are led to opt for a higher ownership position, with EMNCs being less influenced by regulative distance.\nResearch limitations/implications: Though findings are robust and stable, this study is limited to observations that only have US target firms.\nOriginality/value: By integrating the literature from institutional theory and strategy, this paper offers a clearer understanding and distinction of the acquisition decisions made by EMNCs and AMNCs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Addressing free riders in collaborative group work: The use of mobile application in higher education
|
[
"Higher education",
"UAE",
"Group work",
"Mobile learning",
"Free riding",
"Finance students"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cooperative learning is widely recognised and acknowledged by educators in higher education around the world (Ravenscroft et al., 1999). However, employers maintain that graduate students lack a number of skills that are considered necessary to make the students \"work ready\" and hence adequately prepared for the working environment. These skills include communication, teamwork and leadership skills (Hall and Buzwell, 2012). This view has prompted educational institutions to amend their policies and assessments from an individual-centred to a multiple-components approach, where more emphasis is given to collaborative learning (Njie et al., 2013), thereby allowing students to work in groups to fulfil their employers' requirements. Likewise, active learning literature also supports the positive impact on student performance when social interactive techniques through collaborative learning approaches are employed (Akindayomi, 2015; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Free riding, social loafing (SL) and the sucker effect (SE)\n3. Methodology: The study focuses on the \"process guard\" role of the instructor, who coaches the learning process of each group of students, monitors the group process and work effort of each member and then makes an evaluation (Ruel and Bastiaans, 2003). Moreover, the researcher intervenes by using the mobile applications to warn FRs.\n4. Results and discussion: A total of 69 students completed the first questionnaire (SS1). This is a response rate of 92 per cent. The results indicate that the students expressed a high level of agreement with all ten statements presented in the questionnaire. The percentage of students who chose agree or strongly agree for the questions in the survey ranged from 78.3 up to 95.7 per cent, while SS1Q5 had a disagreement response from 63.7 per cent of students, as shown by Table AI. This implies that statements posed in the questionnaire elicited an affirmative response in a majority of cases.\n5. Conclusion: The current study has demonstrated that students at the university level find group work to be a good and fair assignment strategy. In fact, this provides them with necessary and desirable skills for their future careers. They acknowledge observing free-riding behaviour from their colleagues. This perception did not change upon completion of their group assignment. However, the experience dampened their preconceived convictions. The results indicate that students prefer smaller groups with a leader. They also appreciate frequent follow-ups by the instructor.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Free-riding behaviour may threaten the success of teamwork, when one or more group members receive the benefits of other members' achievements with little effort or cost of their own. The purpose of this paper is to investigate students' collaborative behaviour to address the problem of free riders (FRs) in university settings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is an 11-week field study of three senior finance classes and incorporates mobile learning employing Quip and Google Docs applications to facilitate group work. A comprehensive set of quantitative and qualitative methods analysing students' perceptions, instructors' reflections, peer reflections and mobile learning methods are used to answer questions pertaining to group work, the work experience, FRs and ways to minimise the last.\nFindings: In this paper, the author shows that students at the university level have positive views of group work despite the presence of FRs. Students like to form their own groups; consequently, peer evaluation appears to be unreliable. The study points to free riding as a serious threat to academic productivity and calls for actions and strategies from institutions and instructors to eradicate this behaviour. Mobile applications enable instructors to track FRs and to some extent discourage their behaviour.\nOriginality/value: There are limited studies that focus on FRs in higher education and, to the researcher's knowledge, no such investigation has been applied in the Middle East and North Africa. Likewise, there is little research available on incorporating mobile learning to assess group work in higher education. This study aims at exploring the existence and associated experiences of free riding, along with methods to curtail the problem. The findings of this study provide a good platform for inquiry into the FR phenomenon in higher education and its impact on student learning, as well as the possible roles of instructors and mobile applications. The findings of this study could be developed further through more research with a view to providing a broader perspective of the situation in Middle Eastern and North African cultures.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors affecting the unplanned use behavior of academic libraries users: Towards an axial coding pattern
|
[
"User studies",
"Academic libraries",
"Grounded theory",
"Information-seeking behaviour",
"Unplanned behaviour",
"Unplanned behaviour coding pattern"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The most important goal of collecting and organizing the resources and planning services at an academic library is to disseminate the resources and services. Thus, focusing merely on the collection and organization of resources and services, even based on the needs of the visitors, appears to be insufficient. Libraries require more accurate information about the behavior of clients and customers by understanding the attitudes of clients and realizing their ultimate goal of disseminating information to provide a more conducive context for service delivery and use of resources. Library use is the extent to which the resources and services of a library are utilized by its clientele (students and faculty in the case of academic libraries). Common measures include overall or per capita circulation, turnover of collection(s), gate count, program attendance, internet use within the building, interlibrary loan, reference transactions, etc. (Reitz, 2004, p. 417). Attention to the factors affecting the use of resources and services and the type of approach and attitude of clients toward resources and services are of great importance, and those information centers and libraries focusing on these factors will succeed in achieving their ultimate goal.\nLiterature review: Based on the above, the studies related to the clients' behavior in the area of library and information science have emphasized the information-seeking behavior or the planned behavior of users in using library resources and services. Therefore, the topic of unplanned behavior in the use of library resources and services seems to be a new area that has so far been overlooked by researchers. Although studies with topics such as accidental access to everyday information by the elderly (Williamson, 1998), the impact of psychological factors on access to accidental information by the students of library and information science (Heinstrom, 2006), the development of the conceptual atmosphere of the phenomenon of information seeking and the study of information acquisition methods, including the accidental access to information (Savolainen, 2016), encountering with the information (Erdelez, 2004), convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking behaviors (Connaway et al., 2011) and opportunistic acquisition of information (Rice, 1988; Liestman, 1992; Foster and Ford, 2003; Bjorneborn, 2008) have been performed, in all of them, some kind of serendipitous access to information is characterized. Hence, during consciously information-seeking process and with serendipity, the users encounter with their required information. However, the unplanned behaviors are performed instantaneously without the conscious search of information, and the users do not have any plans and prior intention to access such information.\nMethodology: The present study is an applied research with a qualitative approach that was carried out using the grounded theory methodology. The grounded theory appears to be a proper approach when the researcher considers examining the experiences and views of individuals to provide a theory (Corbin and Strauss, 2015, p. 10). The data were collected in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, during January-April 2018. The data collection tools were deep and semi-structured interviews. The analysis and coding of interviews data were done in three stages of open, axial and selective coding based on the grounded theory method by using MAXQDA 10 data qualitative analysis software.\nResearch results: The coding of the qualitative data from interviews was made in three steps of open, axial and selective coding. Concepts from the interviews were categorized as abstract categories after extraction. The results of the interviews categorization are given in Table I.\nConclusions and further research: There are a significant number of resources or services available in academic libraries and information centers. The ultimate goal of organizing them is their efficient use by the clients. Therefore, libraries and information centers need to have knowledge about the factors influencing the use of information resources and services by the clients.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and design the axial coding pattern of the factors affecting the unplanned use behavior of users of the academic libraries and information centers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study as an applied research with a qualitative approach employed the grounded theory. The data collection tool was a deep and semi-structured interview. The interviews data were analyzed and coded during three stages of open, axial and selective coding using the MAXQDA 10 qualitative analysis software. The research population consisted of faculty members and experts in three areas of library and information science, management and psychology. Using the combined targeted sampling method (targeted and then the snowball), 12 subjects were selected as the sample size.\nFindings: According to the research findings, the factors affecting the unplanned behavior of users in the use of academic libraries resources and services were identified as factors related to technology, environmental factors, information resources, information services, human resources, individual features, time position factor, cultural factors and social factors. Accordingly, the axial coding pattern of this type of behaviors was designed.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research limitations include the lack of theoretical basis related to the unplanned behavior issue in the field of library and information science and the lack of full familiarity of most of the experts in the field of library and information science with this topic. These factors lead to the necessity of explaining the subject under discussion.\nOriginality/value: The unplanned behavior of clients can be utilized to persuade users to use the information resources and library services so that the costs spent on their preparation and collection will be justifiable. The current research addressed this aspect of the unplanned information-seeking behavior.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The Southwest Academy of Management: in search of diversity research
|
[
"Equal opportunities",
"Gender",
"Globalization",
"Research work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This report will review the papers at the 2007 meeting of the Southwest Academy of Management (SWAM) that incorporated content related to gender and diversity. The SWAM is a regional affiliate of the Academy of Management. SWAM holds an annual meeting each spring somewhere in the southwestern region of the USA. The 2007 meeting was held in San Diego, California on March 13 through March 17. There were a total of 49 papers and 11 symposia presented at the conference, making this conference smaller than some of the other regional affiliates of the Academy of Management.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report on the 2007 meeting of the Southwest Academy of Management (SWAM) that incorporated content related to gender and diversity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - SWAM offers a track each year that includes gender and diversity research. For the 2007 meeting gender and diversity was combined with human resources, careers, and social issues in management.\nFindings: - One paper introduced a new form of surface-level (observable) diversity - military status. There were two diversity-related papers, one looking generally at the importance of cultural differences in global management systems and the other focusing on cultural differences between the USA and Mexico. The final paper incorporating diversity issues focused on the influence of cultural differences within student teams on individual learning.\nOriginality/value: - The diversity papers included in this conference showed a focus on diversity introduced through globalization, which is of value in highlighting the need for diversity scholars to develop expertise in international management or to develop collaborations with colleagues who pursue international management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Resistances to gender mainstreaming in organizations: toward a new approach
|
[
"Gender",
"Change management",
"Organization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For several decades, numerous legal, regulatory and social mechanisms have been adopted to accelerate the progression of women in decision-making levels of organizations worldwide. Many countries have adopted policies and practices promoted by the United Nations aiming at insuring women's rights and achieving gender equality (Beijing Platform for Action, The Millennium Development Goals, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women-CEDEF, etc.) (Langevin, 2009).\nTheoretical aspects: As mentioned in introduction, literature has shown that the gender mainstreaming within organizations in practice faces many important challenges, attains mostly symbolic results, and does not fundamentally modify established policies and practices (Gervais, 2008; Woodward, 2008). Despite international and national commitments of countries toward women's rights and gender equality, as well as the efforts of many committed NGOs, equality is a myth in many instances (Langevin, 2009; Benschop et al., 2012). Shattering the glass ceiling is still a major challenge. Although the most obvious gender discrimination practices have been neutralized (or eliminated), gender discrimination in more subtle forms is generally not detected, is naturalized[2] and often corresponds to unintentional elements of everyday life or is the unintended effect of usual/desirable practices in organizations (Ely and Meyerson, 2000; Benschop et al., 2012). Gender equality could be one of the \"less achieved promises of modernity\" (Hirata et al., 2004, p. 54) as is shown by recent statistics; for example in Canada in 2010, only 17 percent of firms among the Financial Post list of 500 largest companies have woman executives (Catalyst, 2011).\nMethodology: For this analysis, we used data collected as part of two independent studies conducted in two countries addressing gender equality issues within organizations and undertaken by the authors of the current article. Two of the authors conducted the Quebec case study in 2009 and one of the authors conducted the other one in Morocco in 2010. These studies were undertaken independently and research results led to independent publications. The context of the study in Morocco was program planning and monitoring, whereas the one in Quebec consisted in an independent study examining success factors for women who went beyond (overcame) the glass ceiling in three large organizations, as well as their perceptions about affirmative action programs (AAP) within their organization as an instrument to achieve gender equity. The idea to use these two case studies to further the analysis of the collected data proved to be very relevant given the searchers' questioning, including the differences observed between the experience of a developed country versus that of a developing country. We revisited the data collected to explore common trends and patterns, despite the differences in context. Our approach is therefore descriptive and exploratory, and we use an inductive process. The objective was a better understanding of the participants' points of view, and of their experience with gender mainstreaming within their organizations.\nResults: Gender mainstreaming programs in organizations: an emphasis on the technical dimension\nDiscussion: Despite the fact that the Quebec and Morocco experiences show real institutionalization efforts for gender equity, the analysis of the results in both datasets show that these experiences did not reach the expected results: the integration of gender equity preoccupations in their policies, programs structures, methods and systems. This observation concurs with previous observations in the literature, that gender equity initiatives do not go beyond symbolic results (Gervais, 2008; Woodward, 2008; Langevin, 2009; Benschop et al., 2012), nor is it possible to assess their impacts on actual (concrete or measurable) reductions of inequalities (Breitenbach, 2004). A likely explanation is that measures that are put into place mostly focus on the technical dimensions of institutionalization. As Mukhopadhyay et al. (2006) have proposed, focussing on that dimension present the advantage of showing some results quickly without generating real attitude and behavioural changes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: For decades, numerous mechanisms have been adopted to accelerate the progression of women in decision-making levels, and many organizations have developed programs to promote gender mainstreaming. In practice however, literature has shown that experience in gender mainstreaming faces many important challenges and under-representation persists at higher organizational levels. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research brings together the results of two case studies on gender equality in the higher echelons of public and private sector organisations in Canada (Quebec) and Morocco. Based on the analytical framework used as a theoretical basis for the analysis of change and resistance to gender mainstreaming, the data were revisited to explore common trends and patterns, despite the differences in context.\nFindings: The analysis shows that common factors support and limit women's progress in organizations. Equity initiatives are limited to the technical agenda and scant effort goes to managing political and cultural dimensions. The study shows that those dimensions play a central role in the production of gender inequality and that actions and measures targeting political and cultural dimensions must be prioritized.\nOriginality/value: An improved conceptual framework is proposed for practical interventions and theory building. The new matrix feeds into the reflection for a new learning approach for organizations who want to achieve gender mainstreaming, to better identify the dimensions that should be addressed or to assess the measures taken and their impact and also offers a basis for new studies and research to test the matrix, its usefulness for theory building for intervention.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Managing the customer experience: a beauty retailer deploys all tactics
|
[
"Retailing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An emphasis on creating a positive customer experience has become a top retail industry management objective according to a 2015 study by Accenture, and this has led companies such as Amazon, Tesco and Ikea to hire chief customer experience officers. Designing rich, integrated and relevant experiences for consumers is also one of the Marketing Science Institute's research priorities for the 2016-2018 period (Marketing Science Institute, 2016). However, despite increasing interest in this marketing area, there is no agreement about what exactly customer experience is and how it can be operationalized. This is because customer experience is a complex concept involving different dimensions and actors requiring dynamic management with continuous adaptation to new technologies, customer expectations and business practices.\n2. Managing customer experience: Customer experience is aligned with a new emphasis in marketing that emerged in the 1980's and focuses on the hedonic and emotional nature of consumption. Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) first introduced this perspective that contrasted with previous models exclusively based on rational aspects of consumer decisions. Later, Pine and Gilmore (1999) proposed the term \"experience economy\" to refer to the transition in economic value from a focus on products to services and eventually to experiences. More recently, customer experience is considered a way to manage all the interactions with customers to produce positive outcomes. From a retailing perspective, this means using a variety of marketing channels and technologies to design elements that delight and engage customers.\n3. Delighting and engaging customers: The interest in customer delight goes back to the 1990s when research started to cast doubts about the efficacy of customer satisfaction on behavioral outcomes, such as customer loyalty (Jones and Sasser, 1995). According to this thinking, satisfaction does not necessarily creates loyalty because even satisfied consumers can lose interest in a product and not purchase it again. A better alternative would be to create memorable consumption experiences to delight consumers and thus develop emotional connections with them. However, there is no linear relationship between consumer satisfaction and consumer delight. These concepts refer to different processes: satisfaction is based on exceeding consumer expectations, and delight means positively surprising consumers beyond their expectations. In the consumption context, this means designing something unexpected and pleasurable that creates a positive emotional arousal response in consumers.\n4. The Sephora customer experience: Sephora, a French beauty products retailer, operates more than 2,000 stores worldwide and has been growing at double-digit speed in terms of results and profits for several years. The company opened 100 new stores in 2016, including a flagship store in New York's World Trade Center. It reached the number one position in the perfumes and cosmetics market in the USA in both brick-and-mortar and online stores, surpassing traditional retailers such as Macy's. The company has also a strong online presence: 15.5 million Facebook fans, 2.2 million Twitter followers (Socialbakers, 2017), 485,000 Pinterest users and 860,000 Instagram subscribers.\n5. Conclusions: In an article entitled \"The Future of Retailing,\" Grewal et al. (2017) argue that consumption and engagement are the core essences of retailing. The authors suggest that, to create a superior customer experience and promote engagement, companies must deeply connect with consumers on different levels, align their own values and identities with their customers and create strong emotional ties. In the retailing industry, the process of designing valuable customer experiences is led by new technologies, and this requires the capacity to rapidly change and adjust to new consumer desires and market moves. Sephora has done this by demonstrating its ability to combine beauty products and digital technology to provide an amazing shopping experience. The company integrates in-store and digital shopping to create a fun, friendly and educational environment; they also emphasize the social dimension of shopping by stimulating consumers to connect to each other in several ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the concept of customer experience in the marketing literature, identify its dimensions and applications in retail companies and integrate it with the concepts of touchpoints and consumer journey; some correlated concepts, such as customer delight and engagement, are also clarified, and an example of best practice customer experience management, using the beauty product company Sephora as a reference is provided.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The case analysis was based on an examination of available public documents, such as press articles, case studies and the content of beauty blogs and social media (Facebook and YouTube) from 2014 to 2017; Sephora's social media communities (Beauty Talk, The Glossy and Sephora TV); the company's website and mobile application; and physical stores and Sephora Flash (a mix of a physical and digital store).\nFindings: Four categories emerged from the analysis, namely, to provide an enhanced omni-channel shopping experience, to reward loyalty and to bond with customers, to promote social shopping experiences and to delight customers.\nPractical implications: The study results provide retail managers important insights for maximizing customer experience across different touchpoints and throughout the whole journey to increase customer engagement and loyalty.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides clear theoretical and practical basis for customer experience management, based on an analysis of the concepts of customer experience, delight and engagement, as well as a case analysis of a company that excels in this area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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An integrated shipment planning and storage capacity decision under uncertainty: A simulation study
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"Indonesia",
"Transportation",
"Simulation",
"Efficient frontier",
"Shipment planning",
"Storage capacity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Reducing logistics costs has been a major issue in many industries, especially those dealing with relatively low-value commodities such as construction materials, cement, fertilizer, and oil, where the logistics costs could make up a substantial percentage of the total cost of goods sold. One way of reducing this cost is by improving the efficiency of the transportation and distribution processes that ultimately achieve better economies of scale. This is fulfilled, for instance, by moving them in bulks using large-scale transporters, often by the use of maritime line operations (Al-Khayyal and Hwang, 2007; Christiansen et al., 2011; Dauzere-Peres et al., 2007; Siswanto et al., 2011) and then stored them in large quantity (Christiansen et al., 2011; Pantuso et al., 2014) using large tanks or silos.\nSystem description: Indonesia is a very complex country in terms of logistics and transportation. With over 17,000 islands, total territorial area of about 5.19 millions square kilometers, and sea makes up about two-third of the territorial area, the maritime transports are obviously a vital mode for Indonesian logistics. There is a huge challenge in managing transportation and logistics in Indonesia not only because the country is complex geographically but also because of the poor logistical infrastructure (Russ et al., 2005; de Souza et al., 2007). Long delay in ports is one of the major components of the transportation costs. Our anecdotal observations in Indonesian context suggest that in maritime transport, the percentage of delay and waiting time could be somewhere between 40-60 percent of the ship cycle time.\nOutline of research methodology: We use simulation as research methodology. We adapted the standard simulation methodology in this study (see, e.g. Law and Kelton, 2000; for the suggested steps in a simulation study). Simulation has been considered as an appropriate research method for modeling and experimenting complex system, including logistics and supply chain problems, where \"what-if\" analysis is necessary (Terzi and Cavalieri, 2004). Furthermore, simulation models are often used when the characteristics of the supply chain are impractical and difficult to model with analytical approaches (Riddalls et al., 2000) or when the systems incorporates stochastic variables and uncertainty, for instance in the case of complex inventory problems (Fleisch and Tellkamp, 2005).\nModel development: The fundamental notion of the process model developed in this study is to attain the demand fulfillment and striking a balance between the demands at each packing plant and the products delivered from port of origin to the packing plant located at port of destination. While the products are flowing downstream, the ships move in both downstream and upstream directions, following a closed-loop path.\nVerification and validation: Verification and validation are the two critical steps in a simulation study (Kleijnen, 1995; Sargent, 2013). Verification ensures that the logic of the simulation model works as intended, while validation ensures that the model represents the real system. In this simulation study, model verification and validation were performed before running the experiments. Verification was performed by examining several simulation processes separately to check whether the model behaves according to its design or all variables were updated to their new values correctly. More specifically, we examined a number of procedures including: the procedure for ship assignment (checking that ship is assigned if the stock position is below the RSP); the calculation of service level (assuring that our manual calculation produced the same results as that of the software); cycle time calculation (ensuring that it has been computed correctly by the software). Validation was carried out by statistically comparing the cycle times and cost per ton of the output of scenario 0 (that represents the initial condition) and the corresponding data obtained from the company. Both verification and validation demonstrate that the simulation model was appropriately developed and reasonably credible.\nExperiments: In this study we attempted to find alternative ways to reduce the logistics costs while maintaining an acceptable service level. We believed that there is an interrelationship between the capacity of silo at the port of origin, the number (and hence the total capacity) of ships, and the capacity of silo at the port of destination. We may treat those three stages as interconnected activities that should have balanced capacity in order to improve the throughput, i.e. to fulfill the demand at the lowest possible cost. However, given the complexity of the problem, how those factors interact one another are not obvious and therefore simulation experiments would be required.\nAnalysis of results: ANOVA for significance tests\nDiscussion and conclusion: This paper presents a simulation study of bulk cement distribution in Indonesia via the maritime transport from one port of origin to two ports of destination. We investigated five factors that we suspected to have impact on total costs and service level. We demonstrated that all factors have significant effect on total costs as well as service level. Further observation showed that some interactions between factors also have significant impact on both performance measures. We plotted the trade-off between service level and costs. It is obvious that there is a correlation between cost and service level but some scenarios are obviously dominating others. The use of the efficient frontier of cost-service level has enabled us to obtain the candidates for our best scenario. Under an uncertain environment, obtaining a consistent supply chain performance is vital (van der Vorst and Beulens, 2002). The presence of uncertainty in the system forces decision makers to employ buffers (van der Vorst and Beulens, 2002). In a maritime transport, the variability in transit time at a port requires higher safety stock at the receiving end (Harrison and Fichtinger, 2013). Therefore, in order to provide a robust recommendation, the competing scenarios should be extensively compared based on various detailed performances, including the variability of each performance indicator. In this study we have been able to show variability in logistics performance (i.e. cost and service level) of four selected scenarios by the use of frequency distribution.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In transportation and distribution systems, the shipment decisions, fleet capacity, and storage capacity are interrelated in a complex way, especially when the authors take into account uncertainty of the demand rate and shipment lead time. While shipment planning is tactical or operational in nature, increasing storage capacity often requires top management's authority. The purpose of this paper is to present a new method to integrate both operational and strategic decision parameters, namely shipment planning and storage capacity decision under uncertainty. The ultimate goal is to provide a near optimal solution that leads to a striking balance between the total logistics costs and product availability, critical in maritime logistics of bulk shipment of commodity items.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use simulation as research method. The authors develop a simulation model to investigate the effects of various factors on costs and service levels of a distribution system. The model mimics the transportation and distribution problems of bulk cement in a major cement company in Indonesia consisting of a silo at the port of origin, two silos at two ports of destination, and a number of ships that transport the bulk cement. The authors develop a number of \"what-if\" scenarios by varying the storage capacity at the port of origin as well as at the ports of destinations, number of ships operated, operating hours of ports, and dispatching rules for the ships. Each scenario is evaluated in terms of costs and service level. A full factorial experiment has been conducted and analysis of variance has been used to analyze the results.\nFindings: The results suggest that the number of ships deployed, silo capacity, working hours of ports, and the dispatching rules of ships significantly affect both total costs and service level. Interestingly, operating fewer ships enables the company to achieve almost the same service level and gaining substantial cost savings if constraints in other part of the system are alleviated, i.e., storage capacities and working hours of ports are extended.\nPractical implications: Cost is a competitive factor for bulk items like cement, and thus the proposed scenarios could be implemented by the company to substantially reduce the transportation and distribution costs. Alleviating storage capacity constraint is obviously an idea that needs to be considered when optimizing shipment planning alone could not give significant improvements.\nOriginality/value: Existing research has so far focussed on the optimization of shipment planning/scheduling, and considers shipment planning/scheduling as the objective function while treating the storage capacity as constraints. The simulation model enables \"what-if\" analyses to be performed and has overcome the difficulties and impracticalities of analytical methods especially when the system incorporates stochastic variables exhibited in the case example. The use of efficient frontier analysis for analyzing the simulation results is a novel idea which has been proven to be effective in screening non-dominated solutions. This has provided the authors with near optimal solutions to trade-off logistics costs and service levels (availability), with minimal experimentation times.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Analyzing organization through disagreements: the concept of managerial controversy
|
[
"Change",
"Organization",
"Organizing",
"Disagreement",
"Managerial controversy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Conflicts, changes, projects, and innovations are all opportunities for analyzing the \"becoming\" of organization[1]. Scholars such as Garfinkel (1967), Latour (2005), and Venturini (2010a, b) have claimed that any breaking (Garfinkel, 1967) or disagreement (Venturini, 2010a, b) among actors can be opportunities for understanding practices, tools, methods, rules, and meaning. Because implicit practices, tacit rules, informal organization, acrimony between people, and feelings are often difficult to identify and transcribe, disagreements are opportunities for opening the \"black box\" of organization and for analyzing it as it develops over time.\nObserving and following organization from managerial controversies: The concept of controversy was developed chiefly by the authors of actor-network theory (Akrich et al., 2002a, b, 2006; Akrich and Latour, 1992; Callon, 1986, 2001; Latour, 1988, 2005, 2008; Law, 1992; Pinch and Leuenberger, 2006; Venturini, 2010a, b) in order to examine the translation and associations between heterogeneous elements and the production and reproduction of events, entities, and meanings[3]. Among the most famous fieldwork to influence the development of the controversy concept is the work done at the Salk Institute (Latour and Woolgar, 1979), the development of the electric car (Callon, 1980), the domestication of scallops at St-Brieuc Bay (Callon, 1986), the Aramis metro failure (Latour, 1996), and the creation of laws in France's State Council (Latour, 2002).\nContributions and implications: Thus far, I have presented managerial controversy as a concept that is useful for analyzing organization that stems from disagreements. Actually, many scholars have urged researchers to analyze organization as a process rather than as an entity (Hoskin and Fineman, 1990; Weick, 1969). Moreover, scholars have defined organization as a process of becoming (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002) or as an act of connecting (Hernes, 2008). The aim in these studies has been to understand how actors construct organizations, rather than how they formulate the principles surrounding them (Czarniawska, 2008). Organization has also been studied as a social and material construction, and is seen as an unstable and emergent phenomenon. Many scholars have also insisted on the importance of analyzing the texture of organizing (Cooper and Fox, 1990), improvisation and bricolage (Ciborra, 1996; Kamoche et al., 2003), practices (Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011; Gherardi, 2000, 2006; Schatzki, 2005), emerging organizational forms (Child and McGrath, 2001), inherent entanglements between the social and the material (Leonardi and Barley, 2008; Nyberg, 2009; Orlikowski, 2006, 2007, 2010; Orlikowski and Scott, 2008), or strategizing and organizing relations (Floyd et al., 2011) in order to understand how organization emerges.\nConclusion: In this paper, I have proposed the concept of managerial controversy as a starting point to study organization. This concept promotes an approach to studying organization that is primarily concerned with disagreements in the flow of everyday organizational experience. This concept implies a renewed approach to the study of organization: on the one hand, the concept of managerial controversy argues that organization is an ongoing process of becoming that is in part the result of controversies. On the other hand, this concept also argues that entities emerge from controversies when facts become indisputable (Callon, 1986). Furthermore, the concept of managerial controversy can give way to studies that unify these two aspects of organization in the same framework. I can only hope that this proposed concept is a step toward richer and more detailed accounts of organizational phenomena. Correspondingly, it is my view that further research is necessary to improve the scope of the managerial controversy concept. After defining the concept, empirical studies can then be conducted in various organizations and about various managerial controversies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop the concept of managerial controversy. This concept focusses on organizational disagreements in order to understand the emergence of organization, and also postulates that researchers can better understand organizational phenomena through the ruptures that occur in an organization's everyday activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: While the concept of controversy was initially developed to understand the emergence of outputs, this paper develops the concept of managerial controversy in order to understand the emergence of ways of working.\nFindings: The concept of managerial controversy demonstrates that the authors can improve the understanding of organization by focussing on the disagreements, the associations of heterogeneous elements, the mediators, and the traces left by actors, as well as by considering the viewpoints of these actors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The concept of managerial controversy can be used as a framework for describing the development of organization over time. This concept is suitable for management and organization scholars interested by issues related to organization and organizing.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers an analytical framework for analyzing the emergence of organizational features from ruptures. Furthermore, the concept of managerial controversy extends to not only the literature of actor-network theory, but also to the literature related to organizing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How perceived institutional pressures impact market orientation: An empirical study of Chinese manufacturing firms
|
[
"Institutional pressures",
"Market orientation",
"Institutional theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Strategic marketing literature indicates that market orientation is one of the vital factors for companies' competitiveness in the market because it enables the firms to understand and respond to market requirements effectively (Day, 1994; Hwang et al., 2013). Meta-analyses confirm the importance of market orientation in affecting a wide range of performance outcomes (e.g. Ellis, 2006; Kirca et al., 2005; Chang et al., 2014) and scholars strongly advocate that firms should adopt market orientation to achieve competitive advantage and enhanced performance (Zhou et al., 2008). As a matter of fact, many Chinese firms have made efforts to implement market orientation in the last two decades (Kshetri, 2009). It is argued that \"over the years the marketing concept has served as marketing's implicit theory of the firm by relating performance differentials between firms to their degree of market orientation\" (Van Raaij and Stoelhorst, 2008, p. 1266). Therefore, how to cultivate and improve market orientation becomes greatest challenge for managers, and also has increasingly attracted attention in marketing literature (Gebhardt et al., 2006). The extant research indicates that prevailing studies examining antecedents of market orientation primarily focus on organizational factors such as firm's structure, system and top management (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Pulendran et al., 2000; Cervera et al., 2001; van Raaij and Stoelhorst, 2008) and generally ignoring the impacts of environmental pressures.\n2. Literature review: 2.1. Market orientation\n3. Case study and conceptual framework: Yin (2003) believes that existing theories can provide fundamental framework for model construction and data analysis in case studies. Since the relevant literature has accumulated large quantities of conceptual models and empirical conclusions about market orientation, we follow several steps in the case research. First, a semi-structured conceptual framework is put forward based on market-orientation literature and institutional theory. Second, data about case firms are collected and analyzed. Third, the original framework is validated and further developed by extracting key theoretical constructs from the findings of case study. Finally, a structured conceptual framework and research hypotheses about institutional antecedents of market orientation are established.\n4. Questionnaire survey and research hypotheses test: 4.1. Research methodology\n5. Conclusions and discussions: 5.1. Conclusions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Literature has not paid enough attention to the antecedents of market orientation in the context of transitional economy and many authors focus on internal antecedent factors which could be controlled by the organizations. To address the research gaps, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of institutional pressures upon market orientation implementation in mainland China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on multiple case studies of four large B2B manufacturing firms, this paper presents a conceptual framework incorporating three kinds of institutional antecedents of market orientation. Then the developed framework is empirically tested and the impacts of antecedent factors are compared by a fully structured questionnaire survey of 235 Chinese manufacturing firms.\nFindings: The research findings indicate that during the market-oriented organizational change, normative and mimetic institutional pressures are important driving forces. In addition, the significant institutional antecedent factors are pressures arising from strategic partnership, system certification requirements, industry benchmarking, management consultation and intensive competition.\nOriginality/value: This research is first of its kind as it probes into institutional antecedents of market orientation among Chinese firms by combining cross-case study and large-scale survey. It contributes greatly to the literature of market orientation and institutional theory, and also provides relevant managerial implications for firms as to how to improve market-orientation degree.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cross-analysis of usability and aesthetic in smart devices: what influences users' preferences?
|
[
"Korea",
"United States of America",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Mobile technology",
"Product design",
"National cultures",
"Smartphones",
"Cross‐cultural comparison",
"Aesthetics",
"Usability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nCorrigendum: It has recently been brought to Emerald's attention by the author that the paper Dong-Hee Shin, (2012), \"Cross-analysis of usability and aesthetic in smart devices: what influences users' preferences?\", Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 563-587, includes minor errors in Tables III, IV and VII. It is the Editor's belief that this has no bearing on the discussion or conclusion of the paper. Any readers who wish to obtain the correct tables should contact the corresponding author.\n1 Introduction: A smart device is an electronic device that is cordless, mobile, always connected and is capable of voice and video communication, internet browsing, geo-location and that can operate to some extent autonomously. These types of devices will outnumber any other forms of smart computing and communication in a very short time. The most famous devices are the Apple iPhone and iPad, followed by devices such as the Samsung Galaxy tablet. Smart devices can be designed to support a variety of form factors, support a range of properties pertaining to ubiquitous computing be used in any combination of three main system environments: physical world, human-centered environments and distributed computing environments.Among various smart devices, smartphone popularity has been increasing dramatically with the advent of the 3G iPhone and the 4G iPhone. There has been a dramatic shift in mobile phone culture as smartphones continue to redefine traditional phone use. Indeed, the smartphone culture has radically changed the way people interact with content and media. Today's consumers view smartphones not just as a device for calling and texting, but as a multi-use device for gaming, socializing, and downloading apps, resulting in radical changes in behavior patterns. Sales of smartphones have increased annually since their market introduction in 2009. Verkasalo and his colleagues (2010) reported that of the 234 million mobile phone subscribers in the USA, over 45.5 million people are now smartphone owners, making it the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market. Smartphone popularity will continue to drive progressive advancement in technology.There is extensive literature on the adoption and use of smartphones, but few studies have explored the recent motivations for using smartphones as well as the perceived value of the technology from a cross-cultural perspective. The theoretical model in this study incorporates the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) as well as perceived values of aesthetics and usability. TRA was formulated in an attempt to provide consistency in studies of the relationship between behavior and attitudes (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is considered as an extension of TRA (Ajzen, 1991). TPB posits that individual behavior is driven by behavioral intentions, which are a function of an individual's attitude toward the behavior, the subjective norms surrounding the performance of the behavior, and the individual's perception of the ease with which the behavior can be performed (Hansen et al., 2004). Behavioral control is defined as one's perception of the difficulty of performing a behavior (Leonard et al., 2004). Overall, the TPB views the control that people have over their behavior as lying on a continuum, from behaviors that are easily performed to those requiring considerable effort, resources, etc. (Mykytyn and Harrison, 1993). The main assumption of TRA and TPB is that individuals are rational in considering their actions and the implications of their actions. According to the theories, a person's performance of a specified behavior is determined by his or her behavioral intention to perform the behavior, and behavioral intention is jointly determined by the person's attitudes and subjective norms (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1973). The best predictor of behavior is intention, which is the cognitive representation of a person's readiness to perform a given behavior and is considered to be the immediate antecedent of behavior.It has been argued whether TRA and TPB can be cross-culturally applicable. This argument has been more and more critical in emerging technologies as they are differently shown in different countries and different cultures. For example, Kitayama and Markus (1994) posited that individuals from Western cultures are characterized by an independent self-concept, which emphasizes personal goals and recognition of one's differences from other people. By contrast, individuals from Asian cultures are characterized by an interdependent self-concept (Kitayama and Markus, 1994), which emphasizes group goals and appreciation of commonalities with others. Triandis (1994) posited that attitudes versus norms is an important attribute distinguishing individualistic (independent-based) from collectivistic (interdependent-based) cultures. Similarly, studies found that the US users use mobile service to enhance individualism like enjoying games by themselves, whereas Korean users use it as an affinity with friends and peers interactive tool (Shin, 2008; Leung and Wei, 2000). The different uses and satisfactions may be attributed to the cultural and social fabric of technology uses (Grace-Farfaglia et al., 2006).The influence of attitudes and norms has a distinct impact on people's behaviors in different cultural contexts. Specifically, attitudes, personal needs, and perceived rights exert a strong influence on the behaviors of people from individualistic cultures. These individuals place considerable weight on their thoughts, needs, and rights when deciding how to react. However, social norms, duties, and obligations exert a strong influence on the behaviors of people from collectivistic cultures. These people place greater weight on what others think and do when planning how to react. Taking these two cultural perspectives into consideration, it is worthwhile to examine how TRA and TPB are differently applied in the smartphone use and adoption. Smartphones can be considered as cultural artifacts as they are closely used in cultural context and they are heavily influenced by contextual situation where the smartphones are placed. Thus, a question is what the impact of cultural context upon smartphone usage and what part do country-specific practices play in smartphone adoption.The present study was carried out to investigate user attitudes toward smartphone services in a two-country context in order to investigate value differences that may apply to smartphone services. Given the absence of universal measurements of user experience, motivations, and values that can be applied to different countries, a cross-cultural framework is useful to understand why certain smartphone services are popular in some countries and not in others. Shin (2009) and Kim et al. (2004) have urged researchers to conduct cross-country studies on mobile services in order to determine how cross-country factors influence the diffusion of mobile communications. The innovative and global nature of smartphones has fostered many visions of comparative understanding among countries, although research in this area is still in its infancy (Walsh et al., 2010). As smartphone services become increasingly global, a cross-national comparison of their perceived value would aid the industry in developing global markets. Customers universally expect technologies to offer experiences that fulfill both their hedonic and pragmatic needs within their own cultural contexts (Baron and Segerstad, 2010). Cross-cultural design ensures that technologies are easy to use and that they provide favorable user experiences across cultural boundaries. Such a comparative study may also be useful in academia since it would explore the theoretical implications of studying cross-cultural technology adoption and usage.The USA and South Korea were chosen for comparison mainly for cultural reason. The two countries belong to distinct Western and Asian civilizations, which have been historically shaped by different philosophies and values (Hofstede, 1993). For example, Korean culture has long been influenced by Confucianism, whereas individualism has largely shaped North American culture (Hofstede, 1980, 1991). Thus, there are substantial cultural differences that will affect the relationships of the model employed herein (Tractinsky, 1997). Accordingly, this study aims to compare the value structures of smartphone users between the two countries. Cultural differences may significantly contribute to differences in smartphone usage and adoption patterns between the two countries. For example, smartphones can be intrinsically or aesthetically characterized for a local market while also being extrinsically or functionally characterized for a global market (Hassenzahl, 2004).\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Aesthetics and usability\n3 Hypothesis development: This study proposes an adaptation of the TRA/TPB that consists of perceived aesthetic and perceived usability along with related factors. From the TPB, this study takes behavior, and behavioral control, whereas from the TRA, it takes behavioral intentions, attitude, and predictions of behavior. The modified TRA was considered due to the fact that smartphones are both technology-driven and user-oriented. The proposed model is well-suited to reflect the nature of smartphones, as it embodies the tendency of smartphones to become more intelligent, usable, interactive, and visual with time. All of the key model drivers are defined and explained, and their relationships with the acceptance of smartphones are examined. Given the wide applicability of the TRA in emerging technologies (Shih and Fang, 2004), it is expected that the general causalities found in the TRA would also be applicable to smartphones. In particular, the relationship between attitude and intention has been widely confirmed (Shin, 2009):H1. Attitudes toward smartphones positively influence intention to use.H2. Behavioral intentions positively influence actual use behavior.3.1 Usability vs aesthetic\n4 Study design: This study used two statistical methods - structural equation modeling (SEM) and simple group difference analysis. Ordinary least squares (OLS) or linear least squares is a method for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear regression model. This method minimizes the sum of squared vertical distances between the observed responses in the dataset, as well as the responses predicted by the linear approximation. However, OLS does not provide structural relations among the variables. This limitation often gives way to a SEM, which is a very powerful multivariate analysis method. A major benefit of using SEM analysis is that measurement error is estimated while parameter estimates are adjusted accordingly, as opposed to conventional regression, which assumes that variables are measured without error (Bollen, 1989). Studies using this approach provide valuable insights into cross-country comparative models involved in technology acceptance (Shin, 2009; Walsh et al., 2010).SEM was carried out to assess structural relationships among the factors and investigate their moderating effects, and it was conducted using AMOS, a maximum likelihood-based SEM software. Simple group difference analysis was used to categorize groups and to determine the statistical significance of the differences between them.4.1 Survey development\n5 Results: 5.1 Model fit\n6 Discussion: 6.1 Cultural moderating effects\n7 Implications for theory and practice: The results of this study highlight several implications for academic researchers, as well as for the smartphone industry. As to practical advancement, the findings of this study offer two major implications to smartphone service providers. First, the most apparent differences between users in Korea and the USA are in motivation type, specifically usability versus aesthetics. While both values are required for a full understanding of the role of smartphones in peoples' daily lives, aesthetic and usability influence the use and adoption of smartphones differently between the two countries. This study highlights the importance of aesthetic value, which represents a paradigm shift from usability to aesthetics, and this result should be carefully considered by the smartphone industry, especially in the Korean market, where aesthetic quality was shown to be most predictive. Globally, smartphone users expect and seek hedonic aesthetics in addition to utility and usability. In addition to the pragmatic dimension of usability that fulfills users' functional needs, aesthetics comprise the design and hedonic dimension that focuses on fulfilling users' artistic and visual needs.Second, Korean and US users have different value structures that affect overall attitudes, intentions, and satisfaction. The results suggest that the industry should identify the specific smartphone services desired by individual countries or at least by a regional culture. In order to increase the levels of smartphone user satisfaction in different countries, localized strategies must consider the cultural characteristics unique to each country. The two models show interesting and contrasting results: perceived aesthetic with perceived enjoyment in Korea vs perceived usability with perceived quality in the USA. This contrast implies that the smartphone users in the two countries have different experiences with and expectations of smartphone services. Derivative research questions may be more specific and practical for the industry, such as:RQ1. How to satisfy aesthetic enjoyment for Korean users? OrRQ2. How to provide quality services that are highly usable for US users?The different formations further suggest smartphone carriers should adopt localization strategies to optimally serve local markets. The unique characteristics of local smartphone markets coupled with the trend toward global markets strongly suggest a localized approach.In addition to the practical implications, the present study also contributes to the scholarly literature in a number of ways. First, this study clarifies that aesthetic value is associated with enjoyment. Although previous studies have extensively shown that users seek technologies to fulfill aesthetic and pragmatic needs, the factors related to aesthetics or usability as well as the manner in which they are related were previously unknown. This study shows that aesthetic value is related to enjoyment, whereas usability is associated with quality. However, our findings are limited in that path direction or causality was not examined.Second, this study supports an application of the TRA to smartphones. This opens a window of opportunity to apply the TRA to emerging smartphone technologies. Understanding the user behaviors of new technologies as well as their effects on the adoption process is a complex endeavor that requires careful attention to antecedent, mediating, and consequent conditions (Bobbitt and Dabholkar, 2001). The findings illuminate the positive potential of the model in evaluating emerging smartphone technologies and highlight the fact that smartphone services should be rooted in known user interfaces that consider cultural differences. Therefore, any attempt to speculate on the future directions of smartphone technology theory should employ the model. This could lead to a more comprehensive view of how people use smartphone media and, more importantly, how they perceive users of smartphone media.In conclusion, the findings presented in this study lend substantial support for correlating cultural variables with smartphone practices. This study elucidates motivations associated with smartphone acceptance as well as the implications for developing effective global smartphone services. As users accept smartphones as new tools to communicate, collaborate, and entertain, the relevant industries should provide usable tools and platforms for users. Smartphones must continue to evolve. The more we study the individual and collective evolvement of smartphone user behavior in diverse cultural settings, the better informed we will be for designing phones that fulfill the aesthetic and utilitarian needs of smartphone users.Future studies may proceed with a broader inquiry on cultural factors, such as cultural ethnocentrism. The emphasis on a cross-country approach in this study comes essentially from the intention to avoid cultural ethnocentrism in building the argument. A longitudinal study of the dimensions of this study can be undertaken, using a wider sample of cultures. Finally, future studies may investigate comparative data with other types of service usage can provide additional insights on the social and cultural impact of new technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between usability and aesthetic values to clarify what value users place on aesthetic design as compared to usability and how this is different across cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Smartphone service acceptance and uses were analyzed cross-nationally, in a comparative fashion, focusing on the differences in the composition of motives in the USA and Korea.\nFindings: - While the results illustrate the importance of both usability and aesthetic values, the two countries show different value preferences, as well as intention and adoption patterns.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In the context of the recent overwhelming move toward mobile technologies such as smart devices, there exists a potential trade-off between the aesthetic design and the usability in smartphones.\nOriginality/value: - The results of this research suggest practical implications for employing cross-cultural strategies in the global marketing of smartphones, as well as theoretical implications for cross-country studies, which are recommended accordingly.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What are the interpersonal antecedents of women's network satisfaction? A study conducted with French women entrepreneurs
|
[
"Networking",
"Social capital",
"Women entrepreneurs",
"Network satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Networks and networking are determinants of entrepreneurship performance (Ardagna and Lusardi, 2010; Hall, 2000; Hamouda et al., 2003; Hampton et al., 2009; Watson, 2012). Women entrepreneurs in particular use networks as a bypass strategy to compensate for a lack of resources (Miller et al., 2007; Hampton et al., 2011, Maden, 2015): advice and social support (Bruderl and Preisendorfer, 1998; Greve and Salaff, 2003), tacit knowledge (Linehan and Scullion, 2008) and business opportunities (Farr-Wharton and Brunetto, 2007). Networks can be studied through two frames: formal and informal networks. The informal network frame is concerned with interpersonal relationships and has been much studied in the literature (Granovetter, 1973; Burt, 1992). Formal networks[1] have been less thoroughly studied, but they are central for women entrepreneurs' business lives (Durbin, 2011). Moreover, the number of professional women's networks is increasing in France (Boni Le Goff, 2010; Constantinidis, 2010; Gagliardi and Michelon, 2013; Lebegue, 2011), and the issue of networking is salient for all women who must cope with discrimination (Maxwell and Broadbridge, 2014), especially women entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, there is a real gap between the importance of formal networks in business life and the interest researchers have shown for this topic.\nReview of the literature: Belonging to a network is important for entrepreneurs because it is often through networks that they obtain crucial resources for their firms (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). However, networks can also generate dissatisfaction, such as the feeling of wasting time and spending money with a low return on investment (Angel and Sexsmith, 2009). In the context of female entrepreneurship, we have little information about satisfaction with belonging to a women's network. We hypothesized that the network composition, particularly the presence of strong ties (Granovetter, 1973) and/or cliques (Burt, 1992) within the network, would be antecedents of satisfaction with networks for women entrepreneurs.\nMethodology: Context: specificities of French women entrepreneurs\nFindings: The average score for network satisfaction was 4 on a scale from 1 to 5. Overall, the women entrepreneurs were satisfied to be in a women's network. The standard deviation was 0.9; the minimum was 1.3 and the maximum was 5. Only 14.7 per cent of these French women entrepreneurs expressed no satisfaction or little satisfaction with the women's network to which they belonged.\nDiscussion: This research offers one main theoretical contribution to the existing literature: strong ties and few cliques are sources of women entrepreneurs' satisfaction with women's networks. It also offers managerial contributions:\nConclusion: This research aimed to better understand the interpersonal antecedents of women entrepreneurs' satisfaction with women's networks. The following points can be made. First, this study addressed the issue of network satisfaction, which has been understudied according to the literature. Running a women's network requires a real investment of money and energy from the network managers. Satisfying the members is an important issue, as the network will eventually lose its dissatisfied members. Moreover, network satisfaction is central to the members as they also invest time, energy and sometimes money inside these networks. One of the strengths of this study was the focus on women's networks, as they are on the increase with increasingly more women entrepreneurs using them. We have seen that women's networks are particularly important for French women entrepreneurs and bring them added value.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine whether women entrepreneurs are satisfied with belonging to a women's network, as this issue is crucial for network performance and legitimacy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors tested the hypotheses on a sample of 127 French women entrepreneurs who belonged to women's networks using multiple regression analysis.\nFindings: The authors showed that these women entrepreneurs were satisfied when they developed strong ties and when cliques in the network were limited. Education had a negative effect: the higher the educational level, the less satisfaction with their networks the women reported.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample was small and composed only of women entrepreneurs who were members of women's networks and not women who had left them.\nPractical implications: The survey findings suggest ways that managers can optimize network satisfaction to keep current members while continuing to add new ones: create an environment with no cliques where members can develop strong ties. This means connecting members with similar values or status and common interests, while making sure that cliques do not develop.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, satisfaction with professional women's networks has never been studied. The authors' highlight the role of strong ties in these networks and identify the contingent effect of cliques.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Curves in the high road: A historical analysis of the development of American business codes of ethics
|
[
"Business ethics",
"History",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There have been many attempts throughout history to balance the relationship of the economic interests of business with the changing expectations of society (Pusateri, 1988). One ongoing means of articulating this relationship has been through business codes of ethical conduct.These codes of conduct were first written in an institutional context by professional associations. One of the first was published in 1803 by the British medical profession to \"guide the conduct of the hospital.\" The first American code of ethics was developed in 1846 at the first meeting of the American Medical Association to enhance the declining status of the medical profession. The first Canon of Ethics for the American Bar Association was adopted in 1908 based largely on Judge George Sharwood's \"Legal Ethics\" written in 1854. The canon focused upon the duty of the lawyer to his client, fee schedules, and not allowing advertising or solicitation. The rules of professional conduct of the American Association of Professional Accountants adopted in 1917 included standards of professional responsibility (Backof and Martin, 1991).Similarly, businesses described their social obligations in ethical codes of conduct. Business ethical codes of conduct can be defined as \"formal statements of what an organization expects in the way of ethical behavior\" (Ferrell and Fraedrich, 1994, p. 170). Codes range from exhaustive lists of what is and what is not permissible behavior to basic statements that employees should use ethical judgment (Aguilar, 1994).In this paper, we observe that codes of ethics characteristic of the early twentieth century reflect the influence of religious faith. The social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged government regulation. Therefore, codes of ethics during this time were distinguished by largely legalistic documents about sanctions, due process, and prohibitions. Finally we discuss the evolution of codes of ethics in the context of an increasingly global economy. Each section of this paper provides a synopsis of ideas about corporate social responsibility that distinguished that period using Frederick's (2006) typology of corporate social responsibility (CSR1), corporate social responsiveness (CSR2) and corporate social rectitude (CSR3). We then analyze ethical codes from the period to identify emerging themes. Finally, we discuss a theoretical basis for understanding codes of ethics and describe implications.\nCorporate social responsibility (CSR1): industrialization and the waxing and waning of religious influence: Background\nThe Penney idea: This is:* to serve the public, as nearly as we can, to its complete satisfaction;* to expect for the services we render a fair remuneration and not all the profit the traffic will bear;* to do all in our power to pack the customer's dollar full of value, quality and satisfaction;* to continue to train ourselves and our associates so that the service we give will be more and more intelligently performed;* to improve constantly the human factor in our business;* to reward men and women in our organization through participation in what the business produces; and* to test our every policy, method and act in this wise: \"Does it square with what is right and just?\"Amidst the boom period of the 1920s, the purpose of business evolved from a strongly religious underpinning to a new concept of business as the \"force which provides for the wants of the public\" (Lord, 1926). Several core concepts of successful business arose. One was relations with nature - an appreciation of natural beauty and symmetrical completeness. Nature was a conceptual backdrop for thinking about business - \"contemplating nature keeps the mind fresh and keen, and may awaken ideas that apply to business\" (Lord, 1926, p. 63). Another was the inherent right of every American to work - \"Every adult person has a natural right to earn a living for himself and his dependents by means of his individual labor\" (Lord, 1926, p. 70). On the other hand, for those who will not work - \"Neither Christian charity, nor sound ethical sense, commands the prudent and industrious person to support the idle one\" (Lord, 1926, p. 77).Several standards were to be considered in developing codes of business ethics in the 1920s (Lord, 1926). The essence of ethics was seen to be balancing personal conduct with group morality in economic relationships. Business was based upon virtues - honesty, persistence, courage, thrift, courtesy, loyalty, and philanthropy. Moreover, not only was business built upon virtues, but also business built virtues. In addition, businessmen must consider the heroic in business - a mix of the romantic, an opportunity for service to society through good business principles, and self sacrifice. Businessmen were to be seen as comparable to other societal heroes in military, law, religion, and government (Lord, 1926).Several standards involved groups with which the business interacted. An ethical businessman paid \"fair recompense\" to his workers and provided quality goods at a good price to the customer. Moreover, an ethical businessman acted honorably toward competitors. He did not make false statements about competitors, did not use dishonorable methods, and eschewed unfair competitive practices - local price cutting, \"fighting brands\" (products designed only to disorganize the market), preferential contracts, espionage, and hiring employees away from competitors (Lord, 1926).Codes of conduct and the advent of the modern corporation\nCorporate social responsiveness (CSR2): the emergence of value-free practices: Background\nCorporate social rectitude (CSR3): the re-emergence of morals and values: Background\nThe constraint of cultural context: international challenges for the twenty-first century: Background\nDiscussion: Overview of the evolution of codes of ethics\nConclusion: We have examined how codes of ethics evolved through religious, legalistic, and international emphases paralleling the evolution of social responsibility. Into the twenty-first century, we are seeing an increasing emphasis on internalization in business that translates into an increased need for multinational codes of ethics reflecting universal values. Within this changing and expanding environment, we see important lessons that may be learned from examining the evolution of codes of ethics: attending to events that impact codes of ethics, focusing codes of ethics upon values rather than mere profitability, and developing expansive codes of ethics that address social, economic, environmental, and international issues facing businesses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to trace a history of American codes of business ethics as they evolved from religious bases to legalistic bases to an international emphasis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper describes the evolution of business codes of ethics over the twentieth century in relation to the development of social issues.\nFindings: - It is found that ethical codes are influenced by the prevailing ideology of the time regarding the social responsibility of business. The earlier part of the twentieth century emphasized religious values governing the treatment of customers and competitors and the responsibility of businesses for the well-being of their employees by directing their private as well as business conduct. The latter part of the twentieth century stressed legal compliance as government regulation sought to control business behaviors that were harmful to society and to the environment. Entering into the twenty-first century, we are seeing an increase in international emphases in codes of ethics. We discuss these trends in terms of evolving approaches to corporate social responsibility.\nPractical implications: - Organizations writing (and rewriting) codes of ethics should move beyond reactive legal compliance and proactively examine values associated with their stakeholder relationships as well as relationships to corporate social responsibility issues.\nOriginality/value: - While there have been histories of medical and legal codes of ethics, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first exploration of a history of American business codes of ethics. The paper examines the development of codes of ethics in the context of business needs and social values prominent during those times.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Nutritional quality, cost and availability of gluten-free food in England
|
[
"Nutrition",
"Coeliac disease",
"Availability",
"Cost",
"Gluten free"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Coeliac disease (CD) is a systemic immune-mediated disorder activated by gluten and related prolamines ingestion in genetically susceptible individuals. It is characterised by the presence of CD-specific antibodies and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8 (Husby et al., 2012; Nelsen, 2002). The prevalence of CD in the Western world is estimated at approximately 1-2 per cent of the population and is considered an autoimmune disease affecting both adults and children (Simon et al., 2017). In the UK, 0.24 per cent of the population (approximately 150,000 people) are clinically diagnosed with CD; however, seroprevalence is 1-1.6 per cent, and prevalence is increasing (Crooks, 2016). Gluten is an insoluble storage protein found in wheat, rye, barley and triticale, and is made up of peptidesgliadin and glutenin (Wieser, 2007). These peptides are used in many foods to give them structure and improve palatability (Gobbeti and Ganzle, 2013); however, when a patient with CD ingests gluten, an immune reaction promotes secretion of high volumes of proinflammatory cytokines and inflammatory mediators which attack the intestinal villi, causing it to become inflamed (Mazzarella, 2015). Inflammation reduces the surface area of the villi, making it difficult to effectively absorb nutrients (Buttriss, 2002). Left untreated, CD can result in villous atrophy, where the intestinal villi have completely eroded, causing malabsorption (Theethira et al., 2014). The study found that 43 per cent of CD patients exhibited persistent villous atrophy on a follow-up biopsy, which was caused by non-adherence to a gluten-free (GF) diet, thought to be a consequence of social differences due to access/or education (Lebwohl et al., 2014). The only treatment available for individuals suffering with CD or associated complications is to follow a strict, life-long GF diet. This consists of foods that are naturally GF, and manufactured foods such as bread and pasta where substitutes replace wheat (e.g. corn, rice or potato starch) (Ciacci et al., 2015). Products containing less than 20 ppm are considered GF by the Codex Alimentarius (FAO/WHO, 2015). Initiation of the GF diet has been found to restore integrity of the intestinal wall, and improve symptoms and deficiencies of CD; however, certain nutritional limitations exist (Barone et al., 2016; Theethira et al., 2014).\nMethodology: Store selection\nResults: A total of 27 stores were investigated, of which 19 were located around Greater Preston and 8 online stores that delivered within the Greater Preston area. Out of the 27 stores visited, 7 (25.9 per cent) stocked no GFF, with the remaining 20 (74.1 per cent) stocking at least four categories of GFF. Across the seven different store types, 2,780 GF foods were identified (crossovers occurred), 1,800 of which were available online, and 980 stocked in physical stores around Greater Preston). The number of GFFs available from each food category per store type are shown in Table I. A one-way ANOVA revealed food category had a significant effect on availability except for flour (p=0.156). Store types stocking one or more GFFs from every food category included online, regular, quality and health food shops (100 per cent), with convenience stores stocking, on average, 87.5 per cent. In general, budget stores and corner shops stocked no cereal-based GFFs, whilst online stores were found to stock the widest range. Of the physical stores, regular and quality stores had the highest availability and all stores stocked at least one GFF item from each food category with the exception of convenience stores, which carried no stock of GF ready meals.\nDiscussion: Availability of GF food\nLimitations: There were several limitations for the present study. First, nutritional composition of food was not obtained via direct chemical analysis. Instead, data were obtained from \"MyFitnessPal\", which is an application that obtains nutritional information from manufacturers' labels. Only selected GFF (n=190) and FCG (n=218) products were analysed. Second, a comparison of micronutrients in GF foods and FCGs could not be investigated using the method adopted due to micronutrient contents on labels not being a mandatory requirement under current (EU) legislation 1169/2011 (FSA, n.d.). Direct chemical analysis is the only viable way to acquire micronutrient composition of foods. Third, the price and nutritional content of all food analysed was based on g/100 g and serving sizes have not been factored in to the analysis. Fourth, surveillance of foods in physical stores was based on observations of items which were displayed on the shelves, and any foods which had not been replenished may have been missed. The authors also recommend that the full range of GF breads and the price difference between types of GF bread in comparison with regular equivalents should be further studied. Finally, the sample size of stores and surveyed GFFs were limited to 27 stores within the Greater Preston area.\nConclusion: The present study has shown wider availability of cereal-based GFF; however, access remains poor in budget stores and corner shops which are reported to be frequented by people on lower incomes. The price of GFF remains significantly high compared with FCG, which has been shown to affect some patients' adherence to a GF diet. Nutritional quality has improved based on previous research, and advantages were observed in fibre content; however, protein quality was significantly lower in 55 per cent of GFFs analysed, and a higher fat content was found in breads. With increasing prevalence of CD, a demand for more GFFs may see manufacturers reduce their prices further as the market becomes more competitive. This is quite promising; however, ingredients equal in quality to FCG may be compromised to keep production costs down which could result in larger disparities in nutritional quality. In view of restrictions to GFF prescriptions, further longitudinal studies are required to evaluate the true impact that limiting access to GFF will have on health and adherence across all population groups. Therefore, full prescriptions for GF food should still be available for primary care patients with CD and should remain until availability, accessibility, price and nutritional content of GF food is improved.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Coeliac disease (CD) is a life-long condition requiring strict adherence to a gluten-free (GF) diet. Due to wide claims of availability and lower costs of gluten-free food (GFF) and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England needing to save costs, access to prescriptions for patients with CD is being limited in England. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the availability and cost of GFF in an area where patients with CD have restricted access to prescriptions and to assess the nutritional composition of GFFs available in comparison with foods containing gluten (FCG).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Eight food categories that were representative of a range of commonly purchased GFFs were selected. Availability and cost of the cheapest and most expensive branded and non-branded GFFs and gluten containing equivalents were surveyed at physical stores (n=19) and online stores (n=8). The nutritional composition of some of the widely available GFFs identified (n=190) and comparable FCGs (n=218) were calculated using MyFitnessPal.\nFindings: None of the budget stores or corner shops surveyed stocked any of the surveyed cereal-based GFFs. Online stores had more availability than physical stores; however, there was no significant difference in cost. GFFs cost, on average, 2.18 times more than FCG. When making nutritional comparisons with gluten-containing food, protein content was lower across 55 per cent of GFF categories. There was significantly less sugar in GF brown bread, crackers, and wholegrain pasta compared with those containing gluten (CG). Another main finding was GF ready-meals contained significantly less salt than ready-meals CG.\nOriginality/value: Limited resources and perceived wide availability of GF products resulted in reduced GF prescriptions to patients in England. The findings in this study revealed that there is no availability of cereal-based GFFs in budget stores, high cost and limited access to prescriptions can influence adherence to a GF diet and is most likely to affect patients from deprived groups. This study recommends that the prescription of GFF to patients with CD should be continued.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The social, physical and temporal characteristics of primary school dining halls and their implications for children's eating behaviours
|
[
"Food",
"Primary schools",
"Children (age groups)",
"Nutrition",
"United Kingdom",
"Customer satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The school meal service is an integral part of health promoting schools which adopt a holistic approach to health by recognising the importance of the social environment of the school where learning is put into practice (Denman, 1999). A social environment can be described in terms of its physical (places, objects), temporal (time periods, events) and social (actors, activities, goals, feelings) dimensions (Spradley, 1980). These dimensions are inter-related and influence each other. For example, objects may be located in places, activities may be carried out by actors, events may elicit feelings and vice versa. Understanding the social, physical and temporal characteristics of school dining halls and their inter-relationships may, therefore, have implications for the eating behaviours of children eating school meals.Physical environments are known to influence eating behaviours (Stroebele and De Castro, 2004). Indeed, the UK's school meal transformation programmes recognise the importance of appropriate dining spaces and equipment (School Meals Review Panel, 2005; Scottish Executive, 2002; Welsh Assembly Government, 2008). However, these are often secondary objectives within strategic rebuilding programmes, particularly in primary schools (Department for Education and Skills, 2006; Scottish Executive, 2002; Welsh Assembly Government, 2002), so that in England for example, dining hall features include regimented tables and minimal open spaces (Pike, 2008).Temporal characteristics also play a part. Many of the environmental characteristics of dining halls address organisational issues, such as maximising throughput (School Food Trust, 2007) within a defined period of time. In the late 1990s, although the length of lunchtime varied between schools, most infants (ages four to six years) had more than 65 minutes for lunch (including playtime) and most juniors (ages seven to 11 years) had more than 60 minutes (Blatchford and Sumpner, 1998). By 2005, lunchtimes in primary schools in England ranged from 30-105 minutes, including playtime (median=60 minutes) (Nelson et al., 2006). By way of comparison, children in France are allocated two hours for lunch (Madison, 2007) and US children, take between 13-35 minutes, excluding playtime (Conklin and Lambert, 2001).Social factors are also a powerful force in the development of food choices and food likes (Rozin, 1989). Of the actors likely to be present within a dining hall, eating behaviours can be influenced through role modelling by peers (Hendy, 2002) and teachers (Hendy and Raudenbush, 2000) and through the feeding strategies (e.g. verbal encouragements and praise) adopted by catering staff and midday supervisors (Schwartz, 2007). In the UK, children place great importance on the school eating experience (Maxwell, 2000) and feel differently about it compared with eating at home as it affords them more freedom of choice (Warren et al., 2008). However, school meals in the UK have become synonymous with nutrition and its health consequences rather than being valued as a social experience (Pike, 2008).The school meal service has been the subject of numerous nutritional interventions (de Sa and Lock, 2008) and, in the UK, is being transformed by government programmes which aim to improve the nutritional content of the meals (Evans and Harper, 2009). However, the physical, temporal and social factors of the eating environment are as important as the food on offer in determining the effectiveness of nutritional policies and interventions (Glasgow et al., 2003) and the quality of the eating experience (Gustafsson et al., 2006). Although previous studies have assessed school dining hall context with respect to, for example, organisational effectiveness or staff attitudes as part of intervention evaluations (Colquhoun et al., 2008; Newman et al., 2006), little research has explored the relationship of dining hall environments to eating behaviours. Consequently, the objective of the current study was to investigate the social, physical and temporal characteristics of primary school dining halls and their implications for the eating behaviours of children receiving school meals.\n2. Method: A case study of one Local Education Authority (LEA) in Wales was undertaken to ensure uniformity of the policy context, in particular, the Appetite for Life (A4L) school meal transformation programme (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008). Primary schools were selected as food preferences tend to stabilise by around seven years of age (Kelder et al., 1994) and since early intervention is recommended for obesity prevention (Deshmukh-Taskar et al., 2006). As observational techniques are recommended when the topic of interest is associated with a physical location (Lofland and Lofland, 1995), observations were carried out in dining halls, supplemented by interviews with headteachers, catering staff and school meal supervisors. Ethical approval was obtained from Cardiff University School of Social Sciences ethical committee and informed consent was obtained from all adult participants. For child participants, consent was sought from headteachers acting in loco parentis, supplemented by parental \"opt-out\" consent whereby the child is included in the study unless their parents withdraw them (Severson and Biglan, 1989). Interview transcripts and observation fieldnotes were loaded into NVivo Version 2.0.163 and a thematic analysis was undertaken.2.1 Study sample\n3. Results: The school dining halls comprised of two distinct physical, temporal and social contexts that influenced different eating behaviours: the service area where children made their food choices; and, the dining area where children consumed their food. There was minimal overlap between these in terms of Spradley's (1980) dimensions of the social scene and their inter-relations. Consequently, each will be reported separately. A third context, the kitchen where catering staff prepared food and cleared up, falls outside the scope of this study as it had a less direct influence on the children's eating behaviours, and the activities largely took place outside the lunchtime period.3.1 The service area and food choices\n4. Discussion: The premise behind health promoting schools that utilise a whole school approach to educating children is that the child learns from their experiences throughout the school, including the dining hall (Parsons et al., 1996). A holistic approach to learning to eat involves food being made available, together with the acquisition of appropriate choice and consumption behaviours (Rozin, 1989). When examining eating behaviours, the school dining halls revealed three distinct contexts with associated physical, social and temporal characteristics - the service area, the dining area, and the kitchen. The kitchen was excluded from the study as it was primarily associated with food preparation and availability which has less of a direct impact on eating behaviours (Rozin, 1989). In contrast, national school meal policies predominantly focus on activities associated with kitchens and food availability, such as ensuring the nutritional content of food and its procurement, with little emphasis on the serving and dining areas (Evans and Harper, 2009). This suggests that such policies are at risk of only partially fulfilling their nutritional objectives and may only partially exploit the opportunities presented by the dining hall environment.Not all aspects of the children's dining hall experience were positive. The numbers of children taking school meals (i.e. school meal uptake) conflicted with space shortages in most dining halls giving rise to an eating experience characterised by overcrowding. Similarly, the need to free up dining halls for teaching purposes conflicted with the length of time allowed for lunch resulting in an eating experience characterised by time pressures. These space/time issues meant that most dining halls were mechanistic in that the end-goal was to get each child fed and moved into the playground so that their place could be re-used or cleared away. The environment was more akin to a re-fuelling station than one where a child could learn to enjoy nutritious meals, together with table and social skills. Indeed, it was uptake and the length of lunchtime that impacted on feeding outcomes more so than numbers on the school roll as is the case with mainstream educational outcomes (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2009). This is a concern since increasing school meal uptake features heavily in government policies (School Meals Review Panel, 2005; Scottish Executive, 2002; Welsh Assembly Government, 2008) and reducing the length of the school lunchtime is a longstanding trend which has received little attention in terms of its affects on eating behaviour (Blatchford and Sumpner, 1998; Nelson et al., 2006).Physical characteristics, such as decor or crockery, together with adequate staffing are crucial for successful communal eating environments (Gustafsson et al., 2006). However, in the dining halls, equipment such as tables, seats, plates and cutlery were selected for convenience rather than their positive contribution to the eating experience. A multi-component intervention conducted in primary schools in England which improved the physical dining environment as well as revising the menu found that the children's learning behaviours in the classroom improved (School Food Trust, 2009). With the current emphasis on the revision of nutritional standards for school meals (Evans and Harper, 2009), further research is recommended into the association between food availability, physical environment and eating outcomes.The potential importance of the social dimension of the school dining hall was illustrated by differences in dining hall culture between schools. The cultural difference between two schools using the same dining hall suggested that the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of individuals are independent from the physical eating space in their contribution to the eating experience. Within existing national school meal policies, the emphasis has been on training in cooking skills and food nutrition, primarily for catering staff (School Meals Review Panel, 2005; Scottish Executive, 2002; Welsh Assembly Government, 2008). Although training courses for midday supervisors which incorporate the encouragement of healthy eating are being developed (e.g. School FEAST, 2009), this study has identified a number of potential confounds to their success. Such training fell within the remit of school (rather than local/ national) policy and budgets, and attendance was often at the discretion of the individual. Furthermore, midday supervisors were hard to recruit and marginalised from the main body of the school. They worked under intense pressure with little time to encourage eating, particularly for junior children as playground duties took priority over the dining hall. This suggests that the role and responsibilities of the midday supervisor need to be addressed as well as the skill set.The dining hall context was specific to an individual school and often, a particular day. Furthermore, the eating area was volatile, dynamic and unpredictable. Contextual heterogeneity has previously been reported as an issue within school based interventions leading to recommendations for a thorough understanding of each environment, coupled with inbuilt flexibility that can be adapted for specific settings (Patton et al., 2000) as a \"one size fits all\" approach is unlikely to be effective. Developing and implementing such interventions will be challenging. Active engagement with stakeholders (Summerbell et al., 2005) and school staff (Cho and Nadow, 2004) has previously been recommended. However, this study further highlights the importance of strategic partnership working since two critical groups of individuals, catering staff and supervisory staff, fall under the jurisdiction of multiple employers - the LEAs and individual schools respectively.The study took place in a single LEA within Wales, which was a methodological decision to ensure that the policy context was uniform, and so the findings may not generalise to primary schools elsewhere. Even though the physical attributes of the dining halls studied were similar to those from a previous study undertaken in England (Pike, 2008), further research would be needed to establish whether the environmental features observed apply in other LEAs both in Wales and beyond.\n5. Conclusion: Government policy (Evans and Harper, 2009) has targeted the school meal service as a means of improving nutritional intake and children's eating behaviour. However, this study has highlighted a number of specific confounds to the success of such initiatives. Consequently, in order to fully exploit the potential of school dining halls to promote healthy eating, it is recommended that policy places a greater emphasis on factors such as the eating environment; the time available for eating; the role of the midday supervisor; and, training of all school meal staff in the promotion of choice and consumption behaviours.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Social, physical and temporal characteristics are known to influence the eating experience and the effectiveness of nutritional policies. As the school meal service features prominently in UK nutritional and health promotion policy, the paper's aim is to investigate the characteristics of the primary school dining context and their implications for eating behaviours.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case study of one local authority in Wales was conducted involving 11 primary schools stratified into socio-economic quartiles. Focussed observations were carried out over two to three lunchtimes per school to explore their social, physical and temporal characteristics. These were supplemented by semi-structured interviews with catering staff and midday supervisors.\nFindings: - The dining halls had numerous generic attributes (e.g. accommodation, equipment, length of lunchtime, social actors). These interacted to have a direct, but not necessarily positive, bearing on food choice and consumption. Overcrowded, multi-purpose dining halls coupled with time pressures and dynamic social situations detracted from the eating experience and the ability of staff to encourage children to eat.\nPractical implications: - Without addressing these underlying issues, school nutritional policy may only play a limited role in influencing what children eat. It is recommended that policy places a greater emphasis on factors such as the eating environment; the time available for eating; and the role of the midday supervisor.\nOriginality/value: - Previous studies of dining halls have generally been part of process evaluations of nutritional interventions. This study adds value by conducting a focussed investigation into the relationship between the dining hall environment and eating behaviours.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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"Outing" the supplier: implications for manufacturers and retailers
|
[
"Brand equity",
"Private label",
"Manufacturer brand",
"Product supplier",
"Generics"
] |
[
{
"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.Skip the name brand [milk] unless you have a coupon. The store brand is less expensive and may even come from the same dairy (MSN Money, 2008).Although manufacturers often promote their own brands as unique and superior to consumers, many such as Lexmark, Heinz, Hershey's, Kraft, Campbell's Soup, General Foods, and Pillsbury also quietly produce private label products as a means to take share from other manufacturer brands, utilize excess manufacturing capacity, and build closer relationships with major retailers (Dunne and Narasimhan, 1999; Steenkamp et al., 2010; Ward et al., 2002). While these motivations may yield short-term profits for manufacturer brands, literature on the topic is sparse with regards to its potential longer-term impact on brand perceptions and brand equity (Toporowski and Zielke, 2006; Verhoef et al., 2002). This is an important limitation of the literature, because even though they seldom publicize this aspect of their business to consumers, private label supplying manufacturer brands are creating de facto brand extensions and/or brand alliances with the potential to help or hurt consumer perceptions of all the linked brands.\nLiterature review: Since the 1960s a number of attempts have been made to identify the characteristics of private label buyers (Richardson et al., 1996a). Private label products in those earlier days were usually objectively and perceptually far inferior in quality to manufacturer brands, and purchased by people that were very price sensitive by temperament or need. In more recent times, however, objective private label quality has improved and become more important relative to price in private label trial and value for money perceptions (Hoch and Banerji, 1993; Richardson et al., 1994; Shannon and Mandhachitara, 2005; Sprott and Shimp, 2004). Despite the efforts of retailers to close the objective quality gap between their private labels an manufacturer brands, however, many consumers still subjectively rate private label products as inferior to manufacturer brands (DelVecchio, 2001; Shannon and Mandhachitara, 2005; Sprott and Shimp, 2004; Steenkamp et al., 2010).This gap between objective reality and subjective evaluations of private label quality has been a difficult communication problem for retailers, because effectively communicating higher private label quality to consumers can be cost prohibitive. While manufacturer brands have often made major investments in advertising and promotions over many decades to build strong brand equity, retailers typically cannot afford this type of expensive brand building support because it would jeopardize their ability to offer price advantages and achieve higher margins over leading manufacturer brands (Baltus, 1997; Sprott and Shimp, 2004). Since many market leading manufacturer brands also produce high quality private labels for retailers, \"outing\" or identifying the supplier brand is another possible, and as yet largely untested, tactic for improving perceptions of private label products. In one of the only studies that has looked at private label sourcing, Fugate (1986) found that providing information on the product label about a manufacturer brand as the source of a private label product enhanced perceptions of the private label on several attributes. This research, however, did not examine the potential impact this practice might have on the supplying manufacturer brand and retailer brand, or the impact of sourcing information on purchase intentions for any of the involved brands. These limitations are important, because favourable perceptions about the brands carried by the retailer can influence the overall reputation of the retailer and a consumer's willingness to shop there (Grewal et al., 1998).Signalling theory has been extensively applied as a framework in branding research, because consumers use well-known brands as a heuristic signal of product quality, particularly in cases where it may be difficult to evaluate quality before purchase (Erdem and Swait, 1998; Rao et al., 1999). This is one of the reasons manufacturer brands are frequently perceived to offer quality advantages that make them worth a higher price versus private labels (Richardson et al., 1994; Sethuraman, 2003; Sprott and Shimp, 2004). Evidence from the co-branding/brand alliance literature predicts that credible information about sourcing from well-respected manufacturer brands would create opportunities for favourable signals to be sent about the quality of the private labels (Olson, 2008; Simonin and Ruth, 1998; Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal, 2000). In this situation, the quality and status signalled by the higher-class manufacturer brand may become associated with its lower-class private label \"twin\" through the process of information integration (Simonin and Ruth, 1998). This signal of quality may not only improve consumer attitudes towards the private labels, but also increase purchase intentions/trial rates due to lower perceptions of risk (Batra and Sinha, 2000; Richardson et al., 1996b; Sethuraman and Cole, 1999).Conversely, information about a manufacturer brand supplier of private labels may signal that the brand is less unique and lower in quality and hence hurt its reputation (Olson, 2008). The possibility of this loss in brand meaning and value is reinforced by research that has found that manufacturer brands have been most susceptible to private label competitors in product categories where they have not maintained functional advantages (Hoch and Banerji, 1993; Hoch, 1996; Quelch and Harding, 1996; Verhoef et al., 2002). Although manufacturer brands that also produce private label products might include in their supply contracts prohibitions against the retailer promoting the supply source, other methods/and sources may result in this information becoming available to consumers. Csere (2006) notes that firms will often promote their brand to consumers as being unique and superior, while telling financial markets and media about the economies of scale and other cost savings that accrue to the firm by producing identical products under multiple brand names. Steenkamp et al. (2010) also report that highly credible sources such as Consumer Reports are now telling readers that many private labels are produced by leading manufacturer brands. We therefore expect credible media reports that directly tie an \"inferior\" private label product to a manufacturer brand supplier may create positive spillover towards the private label brand and negative spillover towards the manufacturer brand by activating diagnostic links between the brands (Lei et al., 2008; Roehm and Tybout, 2006):H1. Credible information about the leading manufacturer brand being the source of a private label product reduces the uniqueness gap between the private label and the manufacturer brand.H2. Credible information about the leading manufacturer brand being the source of a private label product reduces the attitude gap between the private label and the manufacturer brand.H3. Credible information about the leading manufacturer brand being the source of a private label product creates more favourable attitudes towards the retailer brand.\nMethod: The hypotheses were tested with three fast moving consumer goods carrying private labels described as being produced by market leading manufacturer brands (e.g. Coca-Cola, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and Pantene Shampoo). The food retailer selected was a leading full-service supermarket chain in the Scandinavian market (Meny), which had only recently begun introducing private label products at the time of the data collection. The experimental private label products were also given the Meny name to avoid the common, but legally questionable, copycat strategy of creating a retailer sub-brand that is similar to the targeted manufacturer brand (Rafiq and Collins, 1996).Subjects were 99 Norwegian second-year undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory marketing course who participated in the study for extra credit and were randomly assigned to either the control group or experimental group. Although 100 per cent of the subjects had previous experience with various private label products and with the tested manufacturer brands, none of the private-label test categories were available at the retailer prior to the data collection, so personal experience with the stimuli products could not provide an alternative explanation for the results. Using a methodology developed Olson (2008, 2009) for testing the impact of platform sharing on brand attitudes, product stimuli for all subjects was said to originate from a non-profit consumer testing organization review of new private label products. The article in both conditions gave positive reviews for all three products with favourable comparisons to leading manufacturer brand competitors (i.e. \"In blind tests, our panel had no clear favourite in any category and could not accurately identify whether the products were the store brand or the leading national brand based on their taste and/or performance\"). The experimental condition stimuli, however, added the following sentences:Further investigation, including chemical analysis by an independent laboratory, revealed that the three private label products were produced for Meny by Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, and Pantene respectively and share identical chemical specification with the supplier's flagship brand products. They can therefore be considered functionally perfect substitutes with a substantially lower price.After reading the product review stimuli, subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire with seven-point semantic scales adopted from Olson (2008, 2009) measuring brand uniqueness and attitude towards the three private label products, retailer brand (i.e. Meny), and manufacturer brands. Brand order was randomly rotated in both the stimuli and the questionnaires and no significant order-of-effects were found. To ensure that randomization created equality among the groups and that the stimuli had been seen as credible, subjects were also asked questions about their involvement and knowledge of the test product categories and about the credibility of the product review stimuli. No significant differences (p<0.05) were found between the groups on source credibility (average 6.04 out of 7), product category knowledge and involvement (all three products), age (average 20.8), and gender (44.5 per cent male). Cronbach's a for the all multi-item comparison constructs representing source credibility, category involvement, and brand attitude ranged from 0.71 to 0.95.\nResults: Table I reports the gap between private label and manufacturer brand perceptions calculated by subtracting the private label attitude and personality measures from their respective manufacturer brand equivalents.H1's prediction that news about common specification and sourcing would reduce the uniqueness gap was supported by the results for all three products (cola control uniqueness gap=2.88 versus 2.12, corn flakes control=2.76 versus 1.02, shampoo control=1.51 versus 0.68). Further comparisons between the control and experimental group ratings on each brand found the reason for the gap reduction was a significantly lower uniqueness rating for the manufacturer brand in all three product categories, and a significantly increased uniqueness rating for the private label corn flakes (p<0.05).As predicted by H2, information about the specification and sourcing significantly reduced all affective attitude gaps between the private label and manufacturer brands (cola control attitude gap=4.07 versus 3.05, corn flakes control=2.19 versus 1.49, shampoo control=3.18 versus 2.52). Comparisons between the control and experimental group ratings on each brand found the reason for the affective gap reduction was a significantly lower affect rating for the manufacturer brand and significantly higher affect rating for the private labels across all three product categories (p<0.05). On the conative measures of attitude, H2 was supported by the significantly reduced gap for the corn flakes and shampoo (corn flakes control=2.29 versus 1.33, shampoo control=3.73 versus 3.05), but the gap was not significantly reduced for cola (only directional). Post-experiment debriefing revealed the frequent consumption of soft drinks in public (social risk) and Coke's availability in virtually all vending machines and restaurants were the major reasons for the lack of a change in the cola behavioural measure. Comparisons between the control and experimental group ratings on the shampoo and corn flake brands found the reason for the conative gap reduction was a significantly lower conative rating for Pantene and Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and significantly higher conative rating for the private label shampoo (p<0.05).Although the information about the manufacturer brand origins of the private labels did not always result in significantly enhanced evaluations of the private label products themselves, this information did result in enhanced attitudes towards the retail brand (Meny control=3.31 versus 3.82), supporting H3. From the manufacturer brand's point of view, the reduced gap with the private labels comes most frequently from a drop in the ratings for the supplying brand, which is consistent with spillover research findings that the strongest effects are activated by negative information (Roehm and Tybout, 2006).\nDiscussion: The results indicate that when consumers receive exposure to credible information about a private label that is physically identical to its leading manufacturer brand supplier, the perceptual gap between the two brands is significantly reduced. The enduring strength of manufacturer brands is shown, however, by the continued attitude advantage they hold over the private labels products even after exposure to the media report.Retailer implications\nConclusion: Manufacturer brand managers also need to be aware that brand equity that is based primarily on intangibles such as image may be increasingly difficult to maintain in the internet age. They should therefore expect continued downward pressure on margins unless the product delivers the promised brand benefits through tangibly superior product quality and/or value.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the brand impact of consumer knowledge regarding a common supplier and shared product specifications between manufacturer and private label brands.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study uses three fast-moving consumer goods in an experimental setting.\nFindings: - The study finds that knowledge about common sourcing and shared specification decreases perceptual gaps between private labels and manufacturer brands and improves attitudes towards the retailer.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study uses a student sample, although all product categories and brands tested are popular with this demographic, and they are a key target market for the tested industries.\nPractical implications: - Manufacturer brands that supply private labels need to make sure that this information does not reach consumers and/or ensure their own brand version remains superior to the private label. Retailers that use well-known manufacturer brands as suppliers of their high-quality private labels might wish to share this information with customers as a means of improving attitudes towards the private label and retailer brands.\nOriginality/value: - This paper builds on earlier platform sharing research and shows the dangers and opportunities of sharing product specification across brands with differing reputations and prices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Political connections, ownership structure and quality of governance
|
[
"Ownership concentration",
"Political connections",
"Canadian firms",
"ISS governance indices",
"Political connections – board",
"Political connections – executive"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Although businesses are a key component of our modern economic system, they are also social institutions. As such, they are expected to conduct themselves with integrity by respecting governance regulations and strict rules of ethics. Despite these expectations, crises and financial scandals are proliferating in the business world. In the Canadian context, the most recent relevant case is the corruption and collusion in the Quebec construction industry which was exposed to the Charbonneau Commission. The testimonies and statements that were heard brought to light that the Quebec construction industry operates via a web of political connections.\n2. Theoretical foundations: The literature adopts two main approaches to study corporate governance, either a purely financial and economic perspective, or a sociological viewpoint. In the view of the former (which is primarily supported by agency theory), governance is a set of mechanisms designed to discipline the actions of managers so that they converge their interests with those of shareholders, thereby reducing agency costs (related to managing conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders) and ensuring returns on investment (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Fama and Jensen, 1983).\n3. Literature review and research hypotheses: The literature highlights the economic and institutional determinants that influence the nature and quality of corporate governance: the country's legal system (derived from common law or civil law); economic and financial development and level of law enforcement; protection of shareholders' rights; and institutional culture and politics (LaPorta et al., 1998; Claessens and Yurtoglu, 2013). Faccio (2006) and other authors establish a link between firm political connections and institutional factors such as corruption levels in the country and degree of law enforcement. Thus, as a link would logically exist between governance and level of corporate political connections, it is very important to empirically investigate this relationship.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Sample and analysis models\n5. Results of statistical analyses: 5.1 Descriptive statistics and student's t-test results\n6. Conclusion and research contributions: The aim of this study was to investigate whether ownership concentration plays a mediating or a moderating role in the relationship between political connections and the quality of governance in Canadian companies. After analyzing the 2015 data, I obtained mitigated statistical results. Neither the results of the descriptive nor of the bivariate analyses are consistent with those of the multivariate analyses (regression). The results of the student's t-test are the following:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ask the following question: is there a link between being politically connected, the quality of governance and the company's ownership structure?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author then examined Canadian companies from the S&P/TSX index for the year 2015.\nFindings: Political connectedness is significantly associated with lower quality of governance in relation to shareholders' rights; ownership concentration is associated with lower quality of governance in relation to the overall governance, board of directors, shareholders' rights and compensation structure indices; ownership structure does not mediate the relationship between political connections and quality of governance; and number of political connections through the executive is associated with less risky governance practices in relation to compensation structure; in other words, when members of the executive are politically connected, the firm adopts better compensation practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: The time limitation is the main weakness of this study and probably the cause of observed mitigated results.\nPractical implications: The author hope that the results will inform regulators on the need not only to further regulate the business-politics relationship, but also to consider the specific traits of concentrated ownership companies and the most critical aspects of corporate governance in politically connected firms, such as shareholders' rights, particularly those of minority shareholders. For example, an intriguing case to investigate in the Canadian context would be Pierre Karl Peladeau's foray into Quebec politics and the controversy ignited by his political bid in light of his position as majority shareholder (75 percent) in communications giant Quebecor Inc.\nSocial implications: In fact, the results shown that concentrated ownership firms have lower governance quality than non-concentrated ones. Furthermore, in a concentrated ownership context, the minority shareholders' rights could be threatened. In this sense, the results also shown that shareholders' rights seem to be the most critical governance issue for the politically connected Canadian firms. These results are therefore the indication that Canadian financial market regulators must take action about politically connected and concentrated ownership firms in order to further protect minority shareholders' rights.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a double theoretical contribution by enriching the literature on corporate governance and by providing one of the first investigations into the direct and comprehensive relationships between political connections, governance and ownership structure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Telefonica's bargain with the unions: Labor-mediated downsizing lessens conflict
|
[
"Industrial relations",
"Partnership",
"Organizational change",
"Restructuring",
"Collective bargaining",
"Downsizing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, in terms of market capitalization and number of customers, with a significant presence in 21 countries, Telefonica has been called a \"Spanish global champion\".\nNo union push for greater involvement in strategic issues: Telefonica was founded in 1924 as a private monopoly. It was nationalized in 1945, although it continued to have a mixed public-private ownership structure until privatization in 1998. This distinctive feature had important consequences for the corporate management style, which reflected conflicts of interest between private shareholders and public-service investments. During the time of the state monopoly, characterized by the absence of business-cycle fluctuations, the firm developed a strong bureaucratic culture in which all employees had a job guaranteed for life and above-average wages. The firm's historical role in the introduction of telephony to Spain and its contribution to technological development made it a national symbol and was deemed to have \"mother-like\" characteristics. Furthermore, benefits of collective bargaining were the result of a long tradition of union activity and worker organization.\nRedundancy program should not be supported with public money: The big unions, Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) and Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), were told of the downsizing intentions in June 2010. UGT supported the idea that an agreement should remain in force for several years to guarantee employment stability. Being more inflexible with a new job-cuts plan was apparently beneficial for the socialist-leaning union, given that it won the March 2011 elections (during a period of collective bargaining) in a company where the CCOO had been the main force for decades. After the elections, UGT and CCOO, the most representative unions, once again tried to link the workforce-reduction plan to a new collective agreement for the 2011-2015 period.\nUS market-driven restructuring approach was not followed: The agreement reached stipulated that jobs would be cut using a mixture of early retirement and outsourcing. Employees with at least 15 years service, aged between 53 and 60, were offered a monthly income equal to 68 per cent of the regular base salary up to the age of 61 and then 34 per cent until 65. The approval of the redundancy plan was appealed by one of the smaller unions. However, in 2012, 70 per cent of the eligible workers had signed up to it.\nComment: This review is based on \"Unions' response to corporate restructuring in Telefonica: locked into collective bargaining?\" by Rodriguez-Ruiz (2015). Rodriguez-Ruiz, Lecturer in human-resource management and organizational theory at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, studies the 2011 redundancy plan of the telecommunications company Telefonica in terms of management strategies and union responses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Analyzes the restructuring approach followed by the highly-profitable Telefonica in its 2011 redundancy plan. Explores unions' response to management strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Follows a case-study approach, constructing a dataset with information from company reports, committee records, union documents, press releases and other available sources, such as specialized journals and newspapers.\nFindings: Tries to show how massive job cuts have been implemented through a labor-mediated downsizing strategy that mitigates disagreement and industrial conflict.\nOriginality/value: Tackles the question of how unions respond to corporate restructuring (involving downsizing) in countries where industrial-relations institutions remain relatively strongly embedded.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The mediating role of employee commitment in the relationship between quality of work life and the intention to stay
|
[
"Employee commitment",
"Intention to stay",
"Mediating effect",
"Quality of work life",
"Structural equation modeling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Employees are the key assets and driving force in determining the success of an organization in a challenging environment and their commitment is very crucial to any organization. In the healthcare context, doctors and nurses are the leading workforces who spend most part of their time at the hospitals (Hosseini Zare et al., 2012). Several studies have shown that with regular overnight shifts and emergency situations, excessive workload and stress can be damaging to nurses' performance and quality of work life (QWL) due to sleep deficiency and tiredness, which could in turn have negative effects on their overall conduct at the workplace (Bagheri Hosseinabadi et al., 2019). If the care of employees is managed properly, employees will be more motivated and committed to their jobs. This will eventually bring about positive changes to employees in terms of their job satisfaction, engagement at work and agentic capacities, which could potentially help in reducing absenteeism and turnover rates (De Simone et al., 2018). Therefore, it is imperative for any hospital directors to explore and promote QWL of employees in the aspects of salary and benefits, amenities, health and safety, autonomy in decision-making, job diversity and flexibility (Beaudoin and Hassles, 2003).The nursing shortage is prevalent globally and the issue of nursing retention has impacted negatively on the healthcare organization's performance and profitability (Lo et al., 2018). The World Health Organization (WHO) specifies that the recommended nurse-to-population ratio for a country such as Malaysia is 1:200. As of December 31, 2016, the Health Facts 2017 by Ministry of Health Malaysia reports a nurse-to-population ratio as 1:309, which is still far from achieving the recommended nurse-to-population ratio by WHO (Ministry of Health Malaysia [MOH], 2017).The Annual Report of Malaysian Ministry of Health (2017) stipulates that the Ministry is committed to constantly upgrading nurses' work performance in public hospitals by offering many skills training programs for the improvement of nurses' clinical competency and career growth. Some studies have shown that insufficient staffing of experienced nurses and support staff has been recognized as a grave issue encountered by Malaysian private hospitals, which has compromised the quality of nursing care (Jarrar et al., 2019). The incompatibility of flow of patient to level of staffing ratio leads to increase in workload, which consecutively impedes on the productivity of nurses (Kunaviktikul et al., 2015). The factors that have attributed to poor quality of service and patient care are due to heavier workload, which is a direct result of short staffing. This is an indication to burnout and stress at work, which have also been associated to low job satisfaction, work performance and retention rate (Boamah et al., 2017). Furthermore, the nursing turnover entails recruitment costs and selection of new nurses and the cost of losing experienced and knowledgeable nurses (Hayward et al., 2016). Hence, with the current shortage of nurses in Malaysian private hospitals, there is a pressing need to understand the work environment of nurses so that hospitals can identify possible shortcomings and improve their QWL significantly to effectively retain their nursing workforce (Atefi et al., 2016).With a growing attention in nursing and QWL, it is interesting to note that only limited empirical studies have been conducted on nurses' QWL in Malaysia (Abdullah et al., 2018). In addition to that, studies have shown that the QWL of nurses in Malaysian private hospitals has not been extensively researched.In the context of our study, we examine how QWL impacts intention to stay by conceptualizing work life/home life, work design, work context and work world as dimensions of QWL. We explore for the first time the integrated association between QWL, employee commitment and the intention to stay. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate whether QWL does influence employee commitment and if employee commitment does have an impact on employees' intention to stay. We examine two facets of employee commitment compositions, that is, organization commitment and career commitment. Finally, we examine an unexplored idea that employee commitment acts as a mediator between QWL and intention to stay. We argue that QWL will be reflected in the intention to stay insofar as they are first reflected in the commitment of employee toward their organization. Therefore, it is envisaged that findings from this study will address the literature gap by examining the relationships between the research variables in the context of private hospitals in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.\nBackground of study and hypotheses development: The concept of quality of work life\nResearch design: Questionnaire design\nData analyses and results: The data collected was analyzed using SPSS for Windows, version 20 and AMOS. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and SEM were used to analyze the data. A structural model is an exercise whereby the relative strength of relationships between variables can be determined through simultaneous relationships. SEM was used to analyze and investigate the hypothesis that employee commitment mediates the relationship between QWL and intention to stay.Independent and dependent constructs' measurement: validity and reliability test\nConclusion: Employee retention is one of the key parameters to measure the stability of an organization (Ghosh et al., 2013). To meet the retention rate, the organization must strive in their efforts of QWL operations. Building and sustaining a healthy and balanced work life for nurses in the private hospitals is imperative for enhancing job satisfaction, improving performance and productivity in aspects of quality of patient care and safety and reducing turnover (Jarrar et al., 2015; AlMalki, 2012). This will, in turn, improve organizational performance and productivity (Mebarki et al., 2018). The relationships and effects of the four QWL constructs are also analyzed using Pearson's correlation, CFA and SEM. The strongest QWL construct that contributed significantly toward QWL implementation is \"work context and environment' followed by \"work world.\" \"Work design and workload\" and \"work and family life\" had significant effects on the overall QWL implementation toward intention to stay. The findings of the study assisted in the understanding of how the constructs have led to high QWL, increased retention rates and stabilization of the nursing workforce.Firstly, the outcome of this study suggests that QWL has a positive effect on employee commitment, which means employees who attain the values of QWL reciprocate by exhibiting an increased commitment toward their organization (Permarupan et al., 2013). The next finding suggests that employee commitment has a positive structural effect on intention to stay, which implies that an individual who is committed to an organization shows less intention to leave. Also, it is proven that QWL has a positive structural effect on intention to stay, which means employees with high QWL have the intention to stay with their organization. Lastly, another major finding is that employee commitment partially mediated the relationship between QWL and intention to stay. We found that QWL was associated with intention to stay. The effect of QWL was reduced once intervening employee commitment was accounted for but the direct effect of QWL and intention to stay remained significant after the inclusion of employee commitment (see Table 4). QWL affected employee commitment, which in turn affected intention to stay. This represents one of the inquiries to link all three constructs. As a result, we now have a better understanding of why different employees arrive at different decision: either to stay in or leave the organization. The reason being, they differ in how they notice and interpret the work conditions around them. The differences in employee commitment show up in attrition rates.Finally, it can be concluded that QWL results positively toward nurses' intention to stay, primarily in the private hospitals in Malaysia. The results further authenticate some of the key findings regarding the relationships between QWL, intention to stay and employee commitment.QWL is measured on the basis of STS theory, which maintains that fully engaging employees in work design promotes employee fulfillment while achieving the organization's goals. Two underlying tenets of STS are that there are social and technical subsystems that are interdependent and when these are optimized, productivity improves and humans are enriched in their work. Focusing efforts where the interests of nurses and the organization jointly coincide can highlight unrecognized opportunities to be optimized in order to improve the registered nurse's work life and their retention in the organization.\nImplications of study: It is noteworthy to mention that this study endeavors to enhance the knowledge and awareness by contributing significantly to the QWL-related studies. In some way, this study has helped in broadening the body of knowledge by embracing QWL, which in all likelihood increases job satisfaction, enhances stability and commitment of nurses, which in turn improves the working environment of the hospitals in terms of care and well-being of patients. The implementation of QWL will likely show a marked performance through employee commitment. This study will capture the interest of practicing nurse managers as it indicates the QWL factors that should be given focus and importance in order to reduce attrition rates in their organization. Moving the organization toward QWL initiatives requires the attention and commitment of the leadership of senior management, which will include assessing the work environment, identifying possible shortcomings and implementing QWL strategies in view of improving the quality of employees' working life (Hosseini Zare et al., 2012).\nLimitations of study: This empirical study uses a quantitative approach using a structured survey instrument. Caution has been incorporated in analyzing the data by addressing the validity and reliability issues of the measures. However, readers need to be careful in interpreting the results due to the limitations since the study uses the cross-sectional approach and a single informant. There are several limitations identified in this study. The sample size is considered small for this unit of analysis. However, the use of reliable and valid measures shows that there is scope for larger arrays of sample and detailed follow-up studies that would test the strength of these relationships. Future studies should look into strategies to increase the size of the sample and the response rate to reduce potential bias in the results. It is important to highlight that only nurses were selected as respondents in this study; hence, the findings may bias the measurement of QWL factors toward intention to stay due to the nature of working conditions of nurses in the hospitals. Nevertheless, we encourage future studies that intend to measure QWL factors and intention to stay in large or diversified companies to obtain responses from employees of different business units or establishments. Future studies may also undertake longitudinal studies and explore in-depth across time period the relationships between QWL, employee commitment and intention to stay.Selangor: KPJ Kajang, An-Nur Specialist Bangi and Pusat Rawatan Az Zahrah Bangi.Kuala Lumpur: National Health Institute (Institut Jantung Negara).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between quality of work life (QWL), employee commitment and the intention to stay of nurses in private hospitals in Malaysia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey design was used in this study. Primary data were collected through self-administered questionnaires with nurses as the respondents from four private hospitals in the states of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Out of 300 questionnaires distributed, 202 valid responses were received. Statistical analyses employed were descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM).\nFindings: The strongest QWL construct that contributed significantly to the intention to stay among respondents is work context, followed by work world, work design and work life/home life. The findings further indicate that employee commitment partially mediates the relationship between QWL and the intention to stay. In conclusion, if employees are contented with their QWL, the stronger will the employee commitment be in the organization and ultimately their intention to stay.\nOriginality/value: This study provides robust evidence for private hospital administrators to enhance their employees' QWL, especially if they are opting to ensure that the turnover of the staff is contained.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The formation of a cross-selling initiative climate and its interplay with service climate
|
[
"Felt accountability",
"Bottom-line mentality",
"Cross-selling initiative climate",
"Sales-service performance",
"Service climate"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As established in multi-climate literature, climate is a facet-specific construct that reflects a specific attribute of a general organisational environment. In this general environment, multiple attributes co-exist, which lead to various climates (Schneider et al., 1998; Zohar, 2008). Although multiple climates commonly exist in any organisation, the interplay among these multiple climates and their joint impact on performance has rarely been addressed in climate literature.\nConceptual background: Personal initiative in an organisational context implies employees' self-started, proactive, goal-oriented persistent role behaviours, which signal a longer-term focus (Rank et al., 2004). Initiative reflects employees' efforts to handle challenges that, at first glance, might not relate directly to their core tasks. When strategic imperatives expand, such as when cross-selling responsibilities are included with service delivery operations, individual employees must establish and pursue self-set goals instead of assigned ones (Frese et al., 1997). Cross-selling goals might not be specified clearly by supervisors, and frontline service employees frequently are unfamiliar with selling tactics. Therefore, employees need to define active goal attainment strategies; proactively anticipate problems, challenges and opportunities; and reflect on how to address any issues before they arise (de Jong and de Ruyter, 2004). For example, when a frontline service employee has an opportunity to sell multiple services, she or he might act proactively or decide not to pursue this opportunity, after noting the potential negative consequences (e.g. customer dissatisfaction due to interrupted service delivery). Finally, it is important that employees show persistence, because cross-selling goals and the effort it takes to attain them likely lead to unexpected setbacks (Fay and Frese, 2001). Cross-selling in particular requires sales skills and product knowledge, which service staff may lack. If a frontline service employee is accustomed to providing quality service, she or he likely confronts challenges when also required to conduct sales tasks, which cover a broader range of performance parameters.\nHypotheses development: Individual-level antecedents\nMethodology: Study context and sample\nDiscussion and implications: The push for cross-selling during service delivery has the potential to boost firm revenues. However, implementing such a strategic imperative is neither easy nor straightforward. This study examines whether a cross-selling initiative climate might contribute to a more effective alignment of sales and service objectives; in turn, it contributes to service-sales ambidexterity literature in several important ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the formation and consequences of a cross-selling initiative climate, as well as how a service climate, which provides an important boundary condition, affects both its formation and its ultimate impact on service-sales performance. This article identifies two important predictors of a cross-selling initiative climate: frontline employees' perceptions of supervisors' bottom-line mentality and their own sense of accountability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The multilevel data set includes 180 frontline staff and supervisors (team leaders) from 31 teams employed by a spa/beauty salon chain. Hierarchical linear modelling and partial least squares methods serve to analyse the data.\nFindings: Supervisors' bottom-line mentality disrupts a cross-selling initiative climate. A sense of accountability exerts a positive impact at both individual and team levels. A service climate at the team level weakens the impact of a sense of accountability on a cross-selling initiative climate. A cross-selling initiative climate has a positive effect on team-level service-sales performance, but this effect is weakened by the service climate.\nOriginality/value: This study conceptualises an important frontline work unit attribute as a climate. It offers an initial argument that a cross-selling initiative climate is a central factor driving a work unit's service-sales performance, which can increase firms' productivity and competitive advantages. With this initial attempt to explore the antecedents and consequences of a cross-selling initiative climate, the study also offers novel insights into the interplay between a service and a cross-selling initiative climate.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Consumer participation in online product recommendation services: augmenting the technology acceptance model
|
[
"Participation",
"Technology",
"Online",
"Recommendation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: Online product recommendation agents (hereafter RAs) have become increasingly available to consumers as an interactive decision aid, aiming to facilitate consumers' product search and evaluation process on the Internet (Wang and Benbasat, 2009). By definition, RAs are software-based technology designed to help consumers systematically and efficiently screen large sets of product alternatives and provide product recommendations based on consumer inputs generated from the preference elicitation process (Xiao and Benbasat, 2007). When eliciting consumer preferences, RAs utilize different computer algorithms such as collaborative filtering, content filtering and hybrid methods that combine the merits of collaborative and content filtering (Ansari et al., 2000; Ariely et al., 2004). Collaborative filtering methods predict an individual's preferences based on the preferences of other \"like-minded\" people, thus mimicking word-of-mouth recommendations. For example, we come across recommendations such as \"Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought [ ... ]\" when shopping on Amazon.com. Content filtering methods make recommendations on the basis of an individual's preferences for product attributes. For example, when searching for product information on Crutchfield.com, we are asked a set of questions regarding product attributes such as brand, price range and features specific to the product.\nResearch hypotheses: TAM and related research\nMethodology: Procedure\nAnalysis and results: Measure validity\nDiscussion: Online product RAs have become increasingly available on the Internet and are gaining greater importance as an interactive decision aid that aims to provide value-added services, and thus help consumers with their product information search and purchase decision-making by making product recommendations that match their preferences and interests. Recommendations made by an RA depend on not only the type of computer algorithms that the RA uses but also the information that consumers provide to the RA in response to its questions or inquiries during the preference elicitation process. Although previous studies have examined the effectiveness of the different types of computer algorithms that underlie recommendations (Ansari et al., 2000; Ariely et al., 2004), little effort has been made to explore the consumer role as an active participant in using RAs and in co-creating services with RAs. The current research fills this gap by empirically testing a theoretical model that integrates consumer participation into the TAM to shed further light on consumer beliefs and behavioral intentions with respect to RAs. This research shows that consumer participation in using an RA negatively affects perceived ease of use of the RA but positively affects enjoyment of using the RA. Furthermore, the negative impact of consumer participation on perceived ease of use was shown to become even stronger when the purchase decision involves a higher level of financial risk. Finally, this research provides further support for the multiple predictions of TAM regarding the relationships between intention to reuse an RA and perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and enjoyment of using the RA as well as those among perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and enjoyment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the complex role of consumer participation by empirically testing a theoretical model within the online context of consumer using product recommendation agents (RAs) that integrates consumer participation into the technology acceptance model (TAM). Recent research starts questioning whether consumer participation is a double-edged sword, although its positive effects have been widely documented in the services marketing literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 243 respondents comprising both genders with varied age groups, education levels, household income and ethnicities. Participants interacted with an existing RA, searching product information for a simulated purchase involving either high or low financial risk. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Structural equations modeling (SEM) were used for assessing construct validity and testing hypotheses, respectively.\nFindings: Consumer participation was found to positively affect enjoyment but negatively affect perceived ease of use of an RA, which was exacerbated when the purchase was of high financial risk. Predictions based on TAM were all supported in this study.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research evidenced consumer participation's dual-effect and identified financial risk as a moderator of consumer participation' negative effect. Future research could employ a different design such as using controlled lab settings and conducting longitudinal studies to replicate the study.\nPractical implications: Findings from this research provide guidance to RA design regarding the amount of consumer participation, consumer perceptions of RA use (ease of use, usefulness and enjoyment) and financial risk involved in the purchase.\nOriginality/value: This research sheds new light on the role of consumer participation through uncovering its dual-effect, thus complementing the services marketing and RA literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improvement of economic and sustainability performance of agribusiness management using ecological technologies in Indonesia
|
[
"Environmental protection",
"Efficiency of resource use",
"Environmentally friendly practices",
"Indonesian agriculture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Chilli is an essential commodity in the tropical agribusiness of Asia. It is a necessary component of food consumed daily in fresh and cooked forms. Based on crop acreage; it ranks as the first and third most important vegetables in Asia and the world, respectively (Ali, 2006). In Indonesia, chilli provides the highest share in terms of vegetable values. In 2015, chilli was cultivated in more than 190,000 ha in Indonesia with a production of about 1m ton, which accounts for about 3 per cent of the annual global supply of chilli (FAO, 2015). Central Java is one of the leading chilli-growing provinces in Indonesia. Chilli was cultivated on more than 18,225 ha in Central Java province, which was 20 per cent of the total national chilli acreage (BPS, 2015).\n2. Literature review: A serious need is identified for sustainable agricultural practices in modern agribusiness activities that can address environmental issues. In recent periods, there has been an increased focus on sustainable intensification in agribusiness development. Global concerns of environmental problems related to intensive agriculture have been raised since the published book entitled Silent Spring by Carson (1962). Since then, the book has dramatically changed public perceptions about the use of synthetic pesticides. A number of research publications concerning the sustainability of intensive agriculture as the primary resource of agribusiness continue to increase since the late 1970s (e.g. Barbier, 1989; Conway and Barbier, 1990). The need for sound environmental quality is greater today than it has ever been due to property rights of people to a better environment. The existence of organisations that negotiate for environmental regulations and policies is one of the expressions.\n3. Research methodology: A theory of optimisation underlines econometric analysis. The optimisation theory that fits this study is a concept of optimisation of production to achieve maximum profit. The grand theory is the theory of firm in microeconomics (Nicholson and Snyder, 2016; Pindyck and Rubinfeld, 2017). Optimisation is a process of finding the conditions that give the minimum or maximum value of a function, where the function represents the effort required or the desired benefit (Rao, 1984). The firms exist and make decisions to maximise profits generated from farming production. Firms allocate resources according to models that look to maximise net profit, by interacting with the market to determine pricing and demand. In this case, the firms (producers) will allocate productive inputs at which the marginal product of inputs is equal to the price ratio. Or, the additional costs related to technological packages at least must be less than the additional benefit. In this study, the producers are assumed to maximise profit by allocating rational amount of inputs as the components of technological packages. The rational allocation of inputs can increase the production using the same level of inputs, or reducing inputs keeping the output unchanged. This phenomenon is called improvement in technical efficiency (Kumbhakar and Lovell, 2000). In this analysis, if the efficiency increases because of such technological packages, then the additional benefits resulting from the adoption is greater than the costs.\n4. Results and discussion: The scale of socio-economic benefits of new technology as obtained by farmers, as well as selected sets of characteristics of the technology, will determine the relative advantage and acceptability of new technology versus the already practised technologies. In this study, we have analysed the selected characteristics of three technology packages, as noted earlier.\n5. Conclusion and policy implications: As chilli agribusiness can generate a higher household income than other cereal crops, an improvement of the business performance is expected to increase farmers' welfare. Three ecological packages of technology were introduced in three different sites, and every site has a location-specific problem. These technologies were introduced to agribusiness leaders through a concept of action research and supported by a team of project scientists and local extension staffs in each site. Factors analysed in this study include immediate impacts of the ecological technology packages on the technical practices and the performance of chilli farming as the main activities of agribusiness. Perceptions of farmers on the adaptation and verification of these technologies in each site were also analysed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the implications of and assess the economic and sustainable impact of environmentally friendly technological packages introduced into agribusiness players in the centre of chilli-producing regions of Indonesia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a theory of optimisation in production as a fundamental analysis. Producers are assumed to maximise profit by allocating rational amounts of inputs as the components of technological packages. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. The rate of technology adoption was evaluated, and agribusiness performance was measured using an economic advantage and technical efficiency. Data were compiled using group discussions and individual surveys.\nFindings: The packages of technologies improved economic and sustainability performance of agribusiness resulting from efficient use of agrochemicals and water resource, and increase the production. Socio-economic and technical factors influenced performance farmers, as agribusiness players responded positively towards the ecological technology packages.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sustainability of agribusiness was indicated by the reduction in agrochemical use and by the efficient use of water irrigation. There are other measures of sustainability, which are beyond this study. Additional studies are expected to fill the gap.\nPractical implications: Considerable potential exists for broad adoption of these technological packages in Indonesia if they are disseminated effectively and in a close partnership with local extension agencies, farmers' organisations, local non-governmental organisations and private sectors.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a realistic representation of a current condition because this is an empirical study conducted at the grass-root level. Sustainability of agribusiness practices was achieved with ecological technological packages.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Factors influencing sport tourists' revisit intentions: The role and effect of destination image, perceived quality, perceived value and satisfaction
|
[
"Perceived quality",
"Destination image",
"Perceived value",
"Satisfaction",
"Sport tourist"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today tourism comprises the main framework of economics in some countries and it is considered as an economic and employment generator. In addition, tourism industry is one of the international growing pioneers among service industries (Fourie and Santana-Gallego, 2011) and it is predicted that the demand for international tourism will reach one billion people per year till 2020 (Coshall and Charlesworth, 2011). Tourism is new experience different from usual experience the individuals face in their local environment (Li et al., 2008). Tourism is a section, which is turning into the first industry in the world due to positive social, cultural and economic effects in a way that many countries intend to benefit from this industry through providing proper backgrounds and infrastructures and attempting to satisfy tourists' demands (Amiri Aghdaie and Momeni, 2011). For many countries, tourism is an important source of commercial activities, income, employment and international exchanges (Haber and Lerner, 1998). Many countries receive huge annual revenues from this industry. There is an unlimited potential for tourism. In some research, this industry is called as \"clean industry\" due to lower pollution and negative consequences (Wang et al., 2010; Edelstein, 2007). Following those countries successful in tourism industry, other countries have paid attention to expanding this industry so that they can have the benefits. However, it is essential to develop proper infrastructures, to meet tourists' demands and to provide acceptable facilities for tourists in order to receive the relative benefits of this industry (Batra and Kaur, 1996). On the other hand, research shows that sport tourism is one of the tourism sectors with the highest growth in the world (Bull and Weed, 1999; Gratton and Taylor, 2000; Jago et al., 2003) and owns many economic capacities (Mester et al., 2008). Sport tourism, is one of the growing sectors of the global travel and tourism industry (Moon et al., 2011). Sport tourism is an economic, social, political and cultural phenomenon, which is a combination of sport and tourism (Weed and Bull, 2009). Sport tourism is a combined industry and it is so beneficial that all countries, regions, travel agencies, sport-oriented organizations and sport fields themselves can benefit from this industry, that is, a host country can earn 400 billion dollars every day when it holds competitions (Hamidi et al., 2010). One of the factors influencing sport tourists' revisit is tourists' inference from destination image, perceived quality and value which attracts sport tourists and it is necessary to develop it (Chen and Tsai, 2007; Quintal and Polczynski, 2010). Although tourism literature has paid attention to service quality, however, tourism researchers and practitioners have not paid equal attention to the customer's service experience (Lee et al., 2007; Dong and Siu, 2013). The experience of using the service is the personal and emotional reactions of the customer (consumer) during consuming or using that service (Chen and Chen, 2010). Otto and Ritchie (2000) believe that the experience of using the service significantly influences the perceived value and customers' satisfaction from that service. The complete perception of the concept of experience is of utmost importance to tourism industry and it makes this industry to outperform. Past research on various factors influencing the probability of revisiting of a tourism destination has pointed out perceived quality and customers' satisfaction (Baker and Crompton, 2000; Petrick, 2004; Petrick and Backman, 2002; Zabkar et al., 2010). It is generally believed that destination image, quality, perceived value of destination and high satisfaction lead to positive word of mouth (WOM) and customers' visit and revisit, which can finally influence hosts' financial performance in tourism industry (Chen, 2011). Mazanec et al. (2007) showed that while the competitiveness of a tourism destination is considered as the ability of that destination to provide services, memorable experience and customers' satisfaction and consequently to increase their revisit and more earning for that destination, this concept is only a definition. Tourists' revisit depends on their satisfaction from destination (Guntoro and Hui, 2013). A favorable revisit intention is one of the key components of loyalty (Marinkovic et al., 2014). Research on the factors influencing tourists' revisit of sport tourism destinations can provide strategies to increase the attraction of sport tourists and to improve the economic level of the destinations. Given the importance of what is mentioned, this research explores the relationships among destination image, perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction and revisit intention of sport tourism destinations. It should be taken in granted that these variables have not been studied as a comprehensive model in Iran as a tourism destination until now.\nTheoretical background: Revisit intention\nMethodology: A questionnaire survey was used to collect empirical data. The statistical population consisted of those tourists who travelled to Mazandaran province as a sport tourism destination in 2012. For this purpose, regarding sport tourism attractions (water sports such as swimming, boating, water skiing, jet skiing, etc.), this province was divided into seven regions, then, sport tourists were randomly selected in each region and finally 1,250 questionnaires were randomly distributed among the active tourists. Gibson (1998) defined active sport tourism as involving people who travel in order to participate in sporting events. Finally, a total sample of 932 questionnaires was gathered, of which 886 were used for analyzing data, which provided an acceptable retrieval rate. Most participants were male (88.03 percent) with average age of 21-30 and 31-40 years old (74.95 and 25.05 percent, respectively).\nFindings: To determine the accepted level of each index, three measurement models should be separately analyzed. Table II shows the overall fit indices for the measurement models.\nDiscussion: This research approved the relationships among destination image, perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction level and revisit intention of sport tourists in Mazandaran province. The results showed a distinct collection of assessment processes, affective reactions and comparative responses. Destination image, perceived quality and perceived value (services provided in the destination) are derived from the cognitive aspect of the behavior. The satisfaction level of tourists includes both cognitive and affective aspects while revisit shows the conative aspect of tourists' behavior. The findings showed the compatibility of relationships in the theoretical cognitive-affective-conative framework which tourists' satisfaction level to some extent (indirectly) influences their behavioral intention (revisit) through the quality effect. These findings are in line with Cronin et al. (2000) findings and show that the measurement of tourists' satisfaction level alone is not enough to predict their behavioral responses. Hypothesis testing results revealed that these findings in Iran as a developing country are consistent with the findings of the same studies in other developed countries. The findings of this research is in line with the results of other tourism researches (Baker and Crompton, 2000; Cole and Illum, 2006; Kazemi et al., 2011; Som et al., 2012; Guntoro and Hui, 2013; Jin et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2013). The model of this research included the variables of destination image, perceived quality, perceived value and tourists' satisfaction from visiting a sport tourism destination which could explain a great percentage of their intention to revisit and showed the compatibility of the model. Contrary to this research, Chen and Tsai (2007) showed that quality did not directly influence satisfaction level and behavioral intentions. This research determined and supported the hypothesis of the effect of perceived quality on revisit intention while some variables may independently influence the existing relationships (i.e. weather condition, natural attractions).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among destination image, perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction and revisit intention of sport tourism in Iran.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Statistical population of this research consisted of those tourists who traveled to Mazandaran province in Iran as a sport tourism destination in 2012. A random sample of 1,250 tourists was asked to respond to questionnaires from which 886 accurate questionnaires were used for analysing data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to explore the relationships among the research variables.\nFindings: The results showed that sport tourists' perception of destination image, perceived quality and perceived value influenced their satisfaction and revisit intention positively.\nOriginality/value: The results of this research help to better understand the behavioral intentions, which can be an acceptable basis to increase sport tourists' visit and revisit of a sport destination.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
TQM, SCM and operational performance: an empirical study of Indian pharmaceutical industry
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Supply chain management",
"Operational performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An industry-wide revolution is changing the pharmaceutical industry's ultimate focus in terms of operational effectiveness (Lee and Trimi, 2018; Yadav and Desai, 2016; Besseris, 2014). Demand for quality has never been as high as it is today (Emond and Taylor, 2018; Castelli and Sianesi, 2015; Fodness and Murray, 2007). Pharmaceutical companies must do away with challenges by providing quality products at the right time, right place and right price (Gollu, 2017; D'Amato and Papadimitriou, 2013; Dadfar and Brege, 2012). Quality requirement for pharmaceutical products has been emphasized by regulatory bodies from time to time (Sangshetti et al., 2017; Haleem et al., 2015). The pharmaceutical industry plays an important role in maintaining the health of individuals as well as of economy, and hence the industry needs to be competitive (Mehralian et al., 2015; Huang, 2012). Customer satisfaction is the ultimate aim of any firm/industry, with similar being the case for pharmaceutical industry. Customer satisfaction has two major components, namely customer focus (CF) and customer relationship. On the one hand, CF drives a firm to align the requirements and expectations of customer while performing the manufacturing and related operations (Talib and Rahman, 2010; Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009; Lakhal et al., 2006). On the other hand, customer relationship is about maintaining the relationships in supply chain and ensuring the availability of the products (medicines) of industry (Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2011; Koh et al., 2007; Li et al., 2006; Ulusoy, 2003). Customers (patient, hospitals, and pharmacies) require quality product (medicine), and simultaneously it should be available on time. Hence, total quality management (TQM) addresses the quality-related attributes and supply chain management (SCM) addresses the supply-related aspects. TQM and SCM are two main areas of operations, especially in the pharmaceutical industry (Haleem et al., 2015; Talib, Rahman and Quershi, 2011; Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2011, 2009).\n2. Literature review: Research articles available until 2018 were collected from different search engines and publishing platforms such as Emerald, Taylor and Francis, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect with the help of following keywords: TQM, SCM, quality management, supply management, in-house SCM, plant-level SCM, plant-level quality practices, organizational performance and operational performance. The use of these multiple keywords helped in the collection of relevant articles. Initial search resulted in a number of articles related to quality and supply chain, leading to operational performance. Many of these articles did not match to TQM practices, SCM practices and OP measures. Further, to constrain the articles appropriate to the scope of study, following inclusion measures were used:\n3. Theoretical background and development: TQM is a customer-based approach that continuously seeks to meet customer requirements through continuous improvement (Koval et al., 2018; Kristianto et al., 2012), whereas SCM is focused on the efficient flow of raw material to finished goods from suppliers to consumers (Oghazi et al., 2018; Cosimato and Troisi, 2015; Lummus et al., 2003). As management philosophies, both SCM and TQM emphasize customer satisfaction (Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2009).\n4. Research design: 4.1 Sample and data collection\n5. Measurement model: 5.1 Exploratory factor analysis\n6. Results and discussion: The conceptual framework of the research has been demonstrated in Figure 1, and it has been explained through three hypotheses for relationship between TQM practices, SCM practices and operational performance. From Figure 2, it is evident that measurements have reasonable loadings in the second-order construct. The overall model was a moderate fit, with SRMR=0.08, CFI=0.90 and RMSEA =0.10, which are just above the cut-off values (Hair et al., 2010). It can be observed from Model 2(a) that the t-value for the relationship between TQM and SCM is 7.24. The t-value for the relationship between TQM and operational performance is 1.54, whereas the value for the relationship SCM and operational performance is 1.88. It may be noted that the operational performance is greatly affected by SCM practices, in comparison with TQM practices; in turn, SCM practices are greatly affected by TQM practices. Among TQM practices, TMS plays a very important role, which is highlighted by its standardized regression weight (0.88). This indicates that top management should have clear and long-term focus on quality, which is further enforced by tight government regulations in the industries like pharmaceuticals. Further, during the personal visits, it was observed that the top management gives more importance to quality over cost, as it expects return on investment in the longer run. This is followed by PQ, R&D and TPM.\n7. Conclusion: The study provided the investigational proof on the interlinkage of TQM and SCM practices with OP. The structural model supports the direct and indirect effects of TQM on SCM, SCM on OP and the TQM on OP. This study adds to the body of knowledge of operations management literature in number of ways. First, the research provides a framework that synergizes the TQM practices with SCM practices to have maximum impact on operational performance. Therefore, it is recommended that TQM practices should be combined with SCM practices. Second, the study contributes to TQM literature by providing experimental proof of their roles in achieving operational performance. In TQM practices, the strong contributors are top management support, product quality, research and development. Third, SCM practices have a positive impact on operational performance. The strategic supplier partnership and purchasing management practices are the main contributors. Supply chain practices alone have a moderate effect on operational performance. Fourth, TQM practices alone have positive, but weak impact on operational performance. Fifth, TQM practices have a strong positive effect on SCM practices and SCM practices, in turn, impact the operational performance.\n8. Limitations and future scope: The present study was limited to 262 pharmaceutical manufacturing plants. The concepts and linkages of TQM and SCM may not be sufficient to gauge the entire operational performance of an organization. Concepts like information technology, information systems, role of culture and other constructs can be considered, which affect the overall operational performance. Additionally, the study was conducted on plant-level TQM and SCM practices only. However, the entire supply chain consists of various stakeholders at various levels, which creates the scope for future research. Future research can include dimensions like logistics, inter-entity co-ordination (e.g. manufacturer-wholesaler co-ordination and wholesaler-retailer co-ordination). Future research may also consider inter-entity contracts, that is revenue sharing contracts and cost sharing contracts, which can offer a new avenue for research. Quality practices in both the upstream and downstream supply chains are also potential areas for future research. The interdependencies of supply chain practices and quality management practices have not been checked and can be another area for future research. Cross-organizational supply chain practices can also be examined from a broad perspective, which will help to determine the optimal operational performance approach. As the present study includes a single respondent per plant, future research can include multiple respondents from each organization to address the common method bias. This will generate a balanced response and provide greater insights into how factors interact within a firm. Partnerships with suppliers were considered only up to first-tier suppliers, and future studies can extend to consider the next-level suppliers. Also, factors like size, firm position in supply chain, culture at supplier end and hierarchical structure were not considered in this study, thus offering areas for future research. Operational performance also consists of multiple constructs like competitive performance and business performance, which may include growth and market share of an organization as aspects to be considered in future studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of total quality management (TQM) and supply chain management (SCM) practices on operational performance, and their interlinkage between each other.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Constructs those are critical to pharmaceutical quality and supply chain have been identified with the help of literature and experts from industry. The impact of TQM practices on supply chain practices and on operational performance has been evaluated. Similarly, the impact of supply chain practices on operational performance has been evaluated. Further, alternate models are tested and evaluated through structural equation modeling.\nFindings: It was observed during testing of alternate models that TQM practices have a direct impact on operational performance. However, TQM practices also directly impact supply chain components, which, in turn, influence overall operational performance. In comparison of alternate models, the model in which TQM practices affect supply chain practices and supply chain practices further affect the operational performance is found most appropriate.\nPractical implications: This study provides some useful implications from industry point of view. TQM practices are critical to pharmaceutical industry. TQM practices are the core of attaining a smooth supply chain, which will have greater impact to achieve operational performance. Strategic supplier partnership, procurement management, information sharing, and quality and inventory management practices are driven by TQM practices. This tri-linkage helps to achieve the desired operational performance.\nOriginality/value: There are very limited studies that have considered both the areas together to achieve better operational performance. In pharmaceutical industry, both TQM and SCM are the critical areas for any organization to drive its growth.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Corporate risk management and investment decisions
|
[
"Corporate strategy",
"Risk management",
"Investment appraisal",
"Capital budgeting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In modern financial management, managers are required to allocate pre-determined capital among multiple projects to diversify corporate risk. In capital budgeting, therefore, corporate risk management becomes critical when managers make investment allocation decisions. While the mean-variance approach is considered a cornerstone of the modern investment theory, Markowitz (1959) points out the importance of the downside risk measure in his seminal work. For typical economic agents including managers, downside risk is also more accurate to measure the uncertainty with respect to projects' payoff distributions (Markowitz, 1959) since they are more concerned with the loss than with extra return. This is mainly due to their career concerns, reputation entrenchment, and incentive components in their compensation packages.Since, Merton's (1973) benchmark work in the literature on continuous-time modeling, dynamic risk measures have been extensively adopted by both academic researchers and practitioners. That dynamic risk measurement should be adopted for determining optimal investment strategies is affirmed by Lo (1999), and one of the most popular continuous-time downside risk measures is value-at-risk (VaR) (Duffie and Pan, 1997). Whereas, VaR is criticized due to various reasons, it is widely adopted by both financial institutions and non-financial corporations since it is much easier to imply operationally than most of other risk measures.This study considers dynamic downside risk measured by VaR in capital budgeting when decision makers, such as managers and firm owners, allocate capital among multiple projects. We derive, in closed form, an analytical solution to a dynamic VaR-based corporate investment problem. Following Li and Zhou (2006), we also present an explicit formula to calculate the probability at which an individual decision maker achieves a pre-determined objective of capital suppliers. The expected, earliest time to achieve it is also presented. Doing so provides decision makers with a clear idea regarding how successful they can be, and how long they should expect to wait before the success. Furthermore, this result is also sound for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. In new ventures, for instance, the entrepreneurs are the ones who make investment decisions, and they have to meet the required rate of return of venture capitalists, which is usually referred to the internal rate of return required by them. Therefore, being aware of the probability at which the venture capitalists' internal rate of return can be reached also helps entrepreneurs make their financing decisions properly. In the meantime, the expected earliest time of success provides the venture capitalists with the information about their optimal exit time for harvest.As a result, the study makes multiple contributions to the literature on capital budgeting and corporate risk management. First, as far as we are aware, this is one of the first studies investigating optimal investment decisions in continuous-time downside risk-based capital budgeting system. Therefore, it sheds light on incorporating continuous-time modeling into corporate investment decision making in capital budgeting. Second, the study provides risk-averse decision makers with a probability of beating a pre-determined target and an expected length of time period before beating it. Third, the study paves the road for further research on continuous-time downside risk in making investment decisions. As mentioned above, fourth, results presented in the current study are applicable in the field of new venture finance since it helps both entrepreneurs and venture capitalists make their investment and financing decisions.The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes an economic setting for a risk-averse economic agent's investment allocation problem under a continuous-time downside risk measure and provides an analytical solution. The probability of beating a pre-determined target is presented in Section 3, followed by Section 4 in which concluding remarks and recommendations for further research are made.\n2 Optimal investment allocation strategy in a dynamic VaR-based capital budgeting system: It is usual that a manager has to allocate available capital among multiple risky projects. Thus, an optimal investment allocation strategy among these projects is critical in a corporate investment decision-making process, and in the meantime, it is of importance to know the probability of beating a pre-determined target while investments are made. We assume that there are m risky projects among which a manager can allocate the capital, and she can also invest in treasury bills which can be considered risk-free. The investment horizon [0, T] is finite. The price of the treasury bills at time t is denoted by S0(t), and its dynamics is governed by the ordinary differential equation: Equation 1 where r(t)>0 is the risk-free return, and today's price is s0.Defining {W(t),t>0}, with W(t)=(W1(t), ... ,Wm(t))' and W(0)=0, as a standard Ft-adapted m-dimensional Brownian motion on a fixed filtered complete probability space (O,F,P,{Ft}t>=0), we model the present values of future cash flows of the m risky projects using the stochastic differential equations: Equation 2 where mi is the expected return of project i, sij is its volatility, and Si(0) is the initial investment in it[1]. Today's value of the ith project is si, and we assume that all risky projects have positive values today.In this problem setting, the manager has initial capital x0>0 to invest among the above m projects and the treasury bills. The total value of these investments at time t[?][0, T] is denoted by x(t), which satisfies: Equation 3 where pi, i=1, 2, ... , m, is the fraction of the capital invested in the ith project. The process p:=(p1, ... , pm)', 0<=t<=T is the manager's investment allocation strategy in this capital budgeting system. Defining the risk premium B:=(m1-r, ... ,mm-r) and the Sharpe ratio th[?](th1, ... ,thm):=B(s'-1), equation (3) can be rewritten as: Equation 4 At time 0, the manager makes the investment allocation decision. For analytical simplicity, however, she may exit from all the risky projects and invest all the money into treasury bills after beating the pre-determined target. Technically, the above model is consistent with Merton's (1973) seminal work in that the manager has a constant-absolute-risk-averse (CARA) utility function, and therefore, her capital allocation strategy does not vary with time when the values of risky projects follow geometric Brownian motion. This also explains the intuition of the similar assumption made in Browne (1999) alternatively.According to the definition of VaR, the manager's objective is to find an optimal corporate investment strategy p which maximizes: Equation 5 where the pre-determined target x_ satisfies[2] x_>=x0erT. In other words, an optimal corporate investment allocation strategy satisfies: Equation 6 Thus, we have the following theorem.\nTheorem 2.1: Given the assumptions made above and the problem setting described above, the optimal corporate investment allocation strategy is: Equation 7 where e*=[?]2(ln x_-ln x0-rT)/[?]||th||T.In the meantime, the corporate risk measured by VaR is: Equation 8 where N( * ) is the cumulative function of the standard normal distribution.ProofAccording to the definition of VaR, we have: Equation 9 and therefore, we can convert problem (6) to a static problem: Equation 10 which is equivalent to: Equation 11 Making use of the constrained fractional programming, we have: Equation 12 For a fixed positive e. Equivalently, we minimize a linear function Bp (in p) over the boundary ||p's||=e. Applying Lagrange multiplier method to the above problem provides an explicit candidate solution to equation (11): Equation 13 Substituting equation (12) into equation (11), yields the fractional programming: Equation 14 We employ an auxiliary function fg(e): Equation 15 related to an arbitrary real number g to help find the optimal value of equation (13), and a simple calculation based on equation (14) leads to: Equation 16 A feasible value e* attains g*, the minimal value of equation (14) if and only if: Equation 17 From equations (15) and (16), we have the optimal g* and e* which satisfy: Equation 18 i.e.: Equation 19 This implies the desired results (7) and (8).Given a pre-determined target, Theorem 2.1 provides both the closed-form optimal corporate investment strategy and its corresponding risk, measured by VaR, taken by capital suppliers. According to the results presented in Theorem 2.1, one realizes that the optimal investment strategy is determined by the variance-covariance matrix of multiple risky projects, the risk premium of each project, and a parameter e*[3]. As long as all the information is observable, therefore, the optimal corporate investment strategy can be derived, and calculating the probability of beating the pre-determined target is feasible.\n3 Probability and expected time of success: Given a pre-determined target, in the previous section, we provide an explicit optimal investment allocation strategy for the manager in a capital budgeting system under a dynamic risk measured by VaR. For the manager, beating the target is equivalent to success in the labor market. As the optimal strategy has a closed-form expression, we further address her probability of success and the expected length of time before that. Note that she can stop investing in risky projects and put all the money into treasury bills right after the discounted value of the target is reached[4].3.1 Probability of success\nTheorem 3.1: For any target x_>x0erT: Equation 21 ProofEquation (4) requires that x*( * ) satisfies: Equation 22 which has a unique solution: Equation 23 Hence, we have: Equation 24 As x_e-r(T-t)>0, we conclude that x*(t)-ze-r(T-t)=0 if and only if: Equation 25\nTheorem 3.2: The probability of successfully beating the target x*( * ) under the optimal investment allocation strategy specified in Theorem 2.1 on or before T is[5]: Equation 26 ProofThe proof is similar to that for Theorem 3.2 in Li and Zhou (2006). Theorem 3.1 gives: Equation 27 where: Equation 28 According to a time-change technique (Ikeda and Watanabe, 1989), a one-dimensional standard Brownian motion W[?](t) satisfies: Equation 29 where b(t):=e*||th||2t. Hence: Equation 30 Thus: Equation 31 Denote n=1-(e*/2||th||) and b=b(T). Then t* can be rewritten as: Equation 32 According to Lemma 3 (see Appendix), we have: Equation 33 which is identical to equation (22) as b(T)=e*||th||2T.3.2 Expected time of success\nTheorem 3.3: The expected, earliest time at which an efficient wealth process x*( * ) reaches the discounted value of the pre-determined target x_ on or before the terminal time T is: Equation 34 ProofSimilar to Theorem 3.2 and according to equation (23), employing Lemma 3 (see Appendix) yields: Equation 35 As b(T)=e*||th||2T, we get equation (24).3.3 Further discussion and applications\n4 Concluding remarks: As indicated in Li and Zhou (2006), while investment optimization models usually present results in the form of expectation, the current study considers the probability of success and the earliest time of beating a pre-determined target. In a dynamic VaR-based problem setting, we derive a closed-form optimal corporate investment strategy, and further address the probability and the expected, earliest time of beating a pre-determined target. Further discussions and applications in financial management are also provided.One realizes that our results are limited for the optimal investment decisions made by economic agents with CARA utility functions. Therefore, one of the directions in future studies along the lines suggested by the current one is to answer the above research questions for economic agents with other types of utility functions. Doing so helps us better understand the expected outcomes from investment strategies. Another significant extension is to consider the expected outcomes from optimal investment strategies based on other types of downside risk measures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Corporate risk management is one of the critical concerns of managers when they make investment allocation decisions among multiple projects. The purpose of this paper is to address corporate investment issues illustrated by target-beating in capital budgeting, and further discuss their applications in financial management, especially in venture capital finance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Value-at-risk, a typical down-side risk measure which is considered more appropriate for economic agents, is applied to the analysis. Probability theory and optimal control methodologies are used to derive analytical solutions.\nFindings: - By maximizing the probability of beating a pre-determined target, an analytical optimal corporate investment allocation strategy is presented, and the corresponding probability and expected earliest time of success derived.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Various types of utility functions of economic agents and other dynamic downside risk measures can be considered in future research along this line.\nPractical implications: - This paper paves the road for applications of continuous-time downside risk in making corporate investment decisions, especially in the field of new venture finance.\nOriginality/value: - As one of the early studies investigating optimal investment decisions in continuous-time downside risk-based capital budgeting system, this project sheds light on corporate risk management, and provides risk-averse decision makers with an effective tool.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Exploring work-family interface for Indian women entrepreneurs
|
[
"Women entrepreneurs (WEs)",
"Support",
"Family-to-work conflict (FWC)",
"Family-to-work enrichment (FWE)",
"Work-to-family conflict (WFC)",
"Work-to-family enrichment (WFE)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The upsurge in the numbers of women moving towards independent ventures, among other motives, echoes their need for autonomy to be able to better integrate work and family domains. International studies have identified work-family balance as an important motivator (Boden, 1999; Cromie, 1987) and success criterion for women entrepreneurs (WEs) (Buttner and Moore, 1997; Orser and Riding, 2004).\nWomen entrepreneurs and work-family conflict: Early academic work on entrepreneurship, presuming a masculine norm, long continued to overlook any interaction of business with home or family. While research noted the contribution of family connections in encouraging business creation and offering support and labour inputs (Dyer and Handler, 1994), there remained a glaring gap in examining the implications of running a small enterprise alongside rearing a family (Drew and Humbert, 2011). It was only by the 1990s that a body of research started concentrating on work-family conflict, debating whether entrepreneurship offered women a way of achieving balance. There is still relatively scant research on work-family issues among entrepreneurs (Jennings and McDougald, 2007), and the available research is largely concentrated in the US context. However, some studies have also been conducted in other countries (Lerner et al., 1997; Smith, 2000; Schindehutte et al., 2003).\nWomen entrepreneurs and work-family enrichment: Work-family enrichment has been conceptualized as \"the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role\" (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006, p. 73). Work-to-family enrichment (WFE) signifies how family roles benefit from the developmental resources, positive affect and psychosocial capital derived through one's involvement in work, while family-to-work enrichment (FWE) denotes how work roles benefit from developmental resources, positive affect and time or efficiency gains derived from one's involvement in family (Carlson et al., 2006).\nResearch method: Owing to a paucity of empirical research focusing on the work-family interface of WEs in India, an exploratory research approach was seen to be most suitable for this study. Further, a qualitative methodology was adopted. An in-depth interview, which is recognized as a useful method of gaining insight into individual perceptions, was conducted by the study to address the aforementioned research questions.\nResearch findings: Thematic findings have been discussed under two broad themes:\nDiscussion: Involvement of women in multiple roles and their resulting universe in multiple systems leads them to continuously consider the ensuing responsibilities while navigating their career as entrepreneurs (Kollan and Parikh, 2005). Hence, the WEs' family life-cycle stage, as well as psychological identification with each role, was seen to affect the extent of WFC and FWC experienced by them. Unmarried WEs exhibiting relatively higher work involvement reported experiencing greater WFC, while WEs who were parents, particularly those with greater psychological involvement in the family domain, were more susceptible to both FWC and WFC. This may especially be evident in a traditionally high context and collectivist culture like India (Lewis, 1999) where membership of a family or society gives rise to a number of obligations and duties, including personal responsibilities like caring for the elderly, or social obligations like participation in the various festivities and social occasions that take place round the year.\nConclusion: The thematic findings emerging from the qualitative analysis highlighted the pervasive factors impacting the work-family interface of WEs in the urban Indian context, such as family life-cycle stage and role involvement. Despite experiencing work-family conflict, WEs were seen to cope by setting priorities in their work and family lives, as well as utilizing various flexible work techniques. More importantly, they were seen to establish a \"buy-in\" for their work, thereby eliciting support in both work and home environments. Further, enrichment was seen to play a vital role for urban Indian WEs, in consonance with research in the Western context.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the nature of work-family interface for urban Indian women entrepreneurs (WEs), in terms of not only conflict but also enrichment. It also endeavours to examine the coping and support mechanisms that are used by the WEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper has adopted a qualitative design, employing in-depth interviews to gain an insight into the research questions.\nFindings: Though seen to experience work-family conflict extensively, WEs effectively utilized various flexible work and time management techniques as coping mechanisms. More importantly, they were seen to establish a \"buy-in\" for their work, thereby eliciting support from diverse sources in the home environment. Furthermore, work-to-family enrichment (WFE) was seen to facilitate a stronger bond with family members as well as increase the subjective well-being of the WE. Finally, family-to-work enrichment (FWE) enabled the WEs to obtain various kinds of resources from the family domain to benefit their businesses, thereby affecting venture-level outcomes positively.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the findings of the study map reasonably well to prior theoretical research, the present study serves as a starting point for future research examining the relevance of work-family dynamics for WEs across cultures.\nPractical implications: The results of the study positively contribute to the discussion on work-family interface for WEs in the cultural context of India.\nOriginality/value: The study offers qualitative insights into the work-family dynamics of Indian WEs, especially focusing on the key advantages that they derive by capitalizing on positive spill-over from one domain to the other.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Fast-growing firms in a transitional and extreme environment: are they different?
|
[
"Business development",
"Transition management",
"Companies business environment",
"Western Europe",
"Employment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development has been seen as a key to economic growth, innovation, and market competition in most advanced Western economies (Acs and Audretsch, 1990). Equally, SMEs are considered as a central source of job generation and wealth creation (Birch, 1979; Storey, 1994). In transition countries, the role of SMEs is even more emphasized. It is expected that they take the role of renewing economic state of the country. They contribute to regional development, and provide social wealth, through creating a substantial number of jobs and serving as an engine of growth. However, SMEs failed to take this role in most transition countries. Hostile and unfavorable environment for doing business, lack of startup capital and other firm-related barriers have substantially hindered SME growth and development in transition countries (Smallbone and Welter, 2001; Aidis, 2005; Barlett and Bukvic, 2001).While empirical research on the topic of SME growth is extensive (Davidsson et al., 2005; Gilbert et al., 2006), the phenomenon of fast-growing firms has not received sufficient attention from researchers. Several authors have claimed that there has been too few studies on rapidly growing firms as a distinct category (Fischer and Reuber, 2003) and that little research has been done explicitly on the needs of high-growth firms and their implications for policy (Autio et al., 2007). Likewise, in a recent contribution, Holzl (2009) points out that it is surprising that relatively little is known about this type of firms.Importantly, extant research on the topic of fast growth has focused on firms operating in developed countries; whereas, empirical evidence in transition countries is lacking. It has been often emphasized that countries undergoing transition processes show distinctive features of entrepreneurship (Smallbone and Welter, 2001; Aidis, 2005). These countries provide a series of societal quasi-experiments allowing researchers to identify hidden features and assumptions that are often unnoticed when conducting research in mature market economies (Meyer and Peng, 2005, p. 600). Hence, research on fast-growing firms that take into consideration the particularities of the transitional context may provide a better understanding of the phenomenon.In the present study, we examine this phenomenon in the case of Kosova, which can be considered a transitional and extreme environment for entrepreneurship development. The first objective of the paper is to investigate whether fast-growing firms in such context are similar or different than fast-growing firms in Western countries in terms of their contribution to employment. The second objective is to explore the determinants of fast-growing firms in this specific environment.Hence, the paper makes two main contributions. First, we provide the evidence on the contribution to employment that fast-growing firms make in a transitional and extreme context. To our knowledge, there are no studies with regard to the contribution to job creation that fast-growing firms make in transition countries. This is important since such firms might be heavily influenced by the hostile environment and might also be differently affected by the firm and entrepreneur characteristics. Therefore, their real contribution to employment could be different compared to that in developed countries.Second, the evidence on what determines the fast growth of the firm is short on supply and far from being conclusive, especially in transitional and extreme contexts. Our investigation adds to the limited body of knowledge in terms of the determinants of fast-growing firms in this particular context and can encourage further research on the topic.Overall, therefore, we seek to expand our knowledge on the topic of fast-growing firms by providing evidence from a transitional yet extreme context. This is in line with the claim made by Peng and Heath (1996), who point to the need for further research on firm growth in transition countries; thus, the theory of the growth of the firm to be more complete.The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, we review the literature that exclusively focuses on fast-growing firms. In Section 3, we describe the transitional and extreme context where the research took place, followed by specific explanations of the data and variables of the study. Next, in Section 4, we present empirical results. Finally, we end up in Section 5 with the discussion and implications.\n2 Fast-growing firms - a literature review: 2.1 Fast-growing firms - a distinctive group\n3 Methodology: 3.1 Context of the study\n4 Results: In this section, we present the results in the following way. First, we provide a brief overview of the sample characteristics and correlations of the variables employed in the multivariate analysis. Next, we turn to the contribution of fast-growing firms to employment. Finally, we present the determinants of fast growth.Table V shows that 90 percent of the respondents are male. Although few in numbers, female entrepreneurs in Kosovo represent a growing sector (Hoxha and Krasniqi, 2008). Entrepreneurs in Kosova have, on average, 39 years. A significant proportion of them have a university degree. However, when it comes to specific knowledge, less than 30 percent of respondents have previously followed relevant training in the field of business management. The descriptive data also prove what was underlined by several authors, such as Davidsson (1989) and Storey (1994), that not all entrepreneurs are willing to pursue growth. In our sample, only 30 percent of the respondents have expressed their intentions to growth.A typical firm operating in Kosova has, on average, six employees at startup while the current firm size is 14. It is worth noting that although startup size in our case might look large, 68 percent of the firms were created with one to three employees. A large number of firms (46 percent) were created in the trade sector most likely due to the small entry cost. In addition, most of the firms are located in urban areas, established by one founder and the majority of them do not have relations with foreign partners. In terms of institutional obstacles, the factor that shows the highest intensity is the one representing informal barriers (informal economy, fiscal evasion, corruption, and unfair competition).As shown in Table V, bivariate correlations analyses indicate some significant correlation between independent variables. In order to check for potential multicollinearity, the variance inflation (VIF) scores were calculated. In general, VIF scores are low, where the highest score is 1.4, which is below common thresholds. Therefore, in terms of our independent variables, multicollinearity are not a pronounced problem.As we had underlined above, there is no evidence, so far, on the contribution of fast-growing firms in transition countries. This section brings empirical evidence from transitional yet extreme environment, such as Kosova, on the contribution of fast-growing firms to employment.Importantly, the fast-growing firms in Kosova create 36.5 percent of jobs during the examination period. The contribution of 5 percent of fastest growing firms is 25.2 percent.As we can see from Table VI, the fast-growing firms (10 percent of the sample) in the initial period of starting up, contributed with 246 new jobs or almost 7 percent of the total employment. During the subsequent period, they substantially increased the size. This can be observed from the mean which increases from 4.24 percent in the startup to 52.6 in the time of interview. The drastic changes in size confirm that fast-growing firms experience tremendous organizational changes, furthering managerial complexity, and increasing internal turmoil, challenges that are not easy to cope with, especially in the short run. Thus, the growth of the firm might not be always desired by the entrepreneurs.We can clearly notice from the results, fast-growing firms operating in Kosova differ substantially from similar firms from Western developed economies in terms of contribution to the employment. While the contribution of fast-growing firms in Western world reaches nearly 80 percent, in the case of Kosova, we observe substantially lower contribution. This is an important findings because the current literature claims that fast-growing firms account for a disproportionately large amount of jobs created. This is not supported in the case of Kosova where these firms bring minor contribution to employment.The results gained from the ordinal logit regression (column two in Table VII) and especially the calculated marginal effect (columns three to six) show that influencing factors in terms of fast-growing firms can be found within human capital component, institutional as well as firm component. Importantly, one can clearly observe a general pattern derived from estimating the marginal effect, that is, a fundamental split between fast-growing firms and growing firms in one hand, and static and declining firms on the other hand. All signs of the significant variables, in terms of four types of firms, are the same for the first two groups, while opposite signs are observed in two remaining groups.Surprising effects are found in terms of human capital. Despite the extensive empirical evidence supporting the positive relation between formal education and firm fast growth, in our case, results indicate an opposite relation. Indeed entrepreneurs with lower level of formal education were more likely to run fast-growing firms.However, two other variables capturing the specific human capital (specific knowledge attained through focused training of employees and entrepreneurs), point to a positive relationship between specific human capital and growing firms. This indicates that a specific human capital attained after starting up the firm contributes more in terms of the firm fast growth compared to the formal education gained before starting up.The intentions to growth are a strong positive determinant of fast growth. It seems that intentions to grow are a substantial prerequisite for fast growth. Two other control variables, age and gender of the entrepreneur did not show any significant impact on growth.With regard to institutional barriers to doing business, only those barriers related to informal factors showed significant influence in the fast growth of the firm. Declining firms are the ones that suffer the most from informal barriers. The estimated marginal effects indicate that static firms and declining firms are most severally hit by these barriers. This might be one of the main reasons of a large group of static firms that due to hostile and extreme business environment are not able to grow.In terms of the firm-related component, the most robust predictor of firm fast growth is the startup size. Results show that smaller firms at startup tend to grow faster than the rest of firms. On the other hand, the age of the firm did not show any influence in the firm fast growth.The results also indicate that having a foreign partner and starting up the firm in teams increases the chances to become the fast-growing firm. There is a strong indication of increasing the competitive advantage of the firm through establishing a business relation with foreign partners, while entrepreneurs that start their firms individually are found more frequently in groups with negative or static growth.Surprisingly, the location where the firm operates does not play any significant role in fast growth of the firm, implying that firms located in rural and urban areas have equal chances in growing fast. In term of the operating sector, the results show that manufacturing firms are more likely to experience fast growth compared to firms operating in the service or trade sector. Regarding the firm legal status, we notice that firms with limited liability are more likely to be found among fast-growing firms.\n5 Discussion and implications: 5.1 Discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper is aims at investigating the contribution of fast-growing firms to employment and the determinants of fast growth in Kosova, which can be considered an environment characterized by a transitional period and extreme conditions for entrepreneurship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper was based on the data collected from face-to-face interviews with 585 firm founders. The contribution of firms to job creation was computed by using descriptive statistics and then an ordinal logit regression model was employed to explore the determinants of fast growth.\nFindings: - Results indicate that the contribution of fast-growing firms to employment in this environment is lower than that in Western and developed countries. Findings also suggest that fast growth is positively affected by specific human capital, intentions to grow and the ability to deal with external barriers, while having a university degree is found to be negatively related to fast growth.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper provides a better understanding of the phenomenon of fast-growing firms and has several theoretical and practical implications. Importantly, the research on fast-growing firm is still not mature and the overall picture on fast-growing firms have yet to be built.\nOriginality/value: - Most of the empirical evidence on fast-growing firms comes from developed countries. This paper provides the empirical evidence from a transitional yet extreme context to further our knowledge on the topic of firm's fast growth.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Learn from insurance: cyber bore
|
[
"Terrorism",
"Crimes",
"Insurance",
"Cyber‐crime",
"Cyber‐terrorism",
"Government reinsurance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The certainty and confidence that insurance provision brings to all our daily lives, whether business or personal, enables us to breathe more easily, to find the confidence to let innovation flourish and to engage with the present and the future, chastened by the past but not allowing the fear of the possible to paralyse us in the present (Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, remarks to the European Insurance Forum, RDS Concert Hall, Dublin, 30 March 2010).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to look at how cyber insurance markets might work with the backing of government reinsurance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based on interviews and workshops on cyber security, cyber terrorism and cyber crime.\nFindings: - The paper links a successful 1990s' approach to property terrorism risk to helping address cyber risk.\nOriginality/value: - Of note, the author suggests that cyber risk is under control when organisations at risk can purchase normal insurances.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modeling the implementation barriers of cloud computing adoption: An interpretive structural modeling
|
[
"Interpretive structural modelling (ISM)",
"Cloud adoption barriers",
"Cloud computing adoption",
"Indian industries",
"Small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The lack of a universal definition and various perceptions of cloud computing, including the related benefits and challenges, make it difficult for many companies to profit from the cloud concept. Barriers for cloud computing in VLBA systems are missing standards and relevant selection requirements (Leavitt, 2009; Marston et al., 2011; Wind et al., 2012). Armbrust et al. (2010) further discussed the economics of cloud providers related to flexibility and automation. Cloud providers can be found on a continuum from what is usually termed infrastructure as a service to the platform as a service. Armbrust et al. (2010) also explained that a significant factor of cloud computing is the transfer of data. Since the cost of hardware is falling faster than the cost of internet communications, data transfer can represent a significantly higher than expected cost, especially in cases of combined IT services (some internally hosted and some cloud-based services or even in case of hybrid cloud), or where there is a high degree of integration or constant transfer of data. In these cases, it might be more appropriate to move computing as close to the data as possible (Orazem, 2014). Data are moving from and to the cloud in large amounts, so the security control failures or impact of mistakes will affect the customers (Amma et al., 2012).\n2. Literature review: In order to ascertain the current state of knowledge and research, a brief review and synthesis of the literature in CCA had been undertaken. Also, the papers published using ISM methodology are discussed.\n3. Research methodology: The introduction to ISM methodology and steps included in the same are detailed in the subsequent section.\n4. ISM model development: In this paper, the critical barriers of CCA are identified and modeled. The ISM methodology is applied to the sector being studied. Various steps leading to the formulation of the ISM model are discussed below.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: An ISM model of 14 barriers developed from the inputs of industry and academic experts is shown in Figure 2 indicating their hierarchical levels. The top 2 barriers of the structural model in the first tier are a lack of IT supply source (B4) and lack of IT infrastructure (B7), these factors are driven by remaining 12 barriers. At the intermediate level (second and third level) there are six barriers, namely, lack of security and privacy (B1), lack of IT standards (B12), lack of global distribution (B13), lack of partnership (B14), lack of integrity (B9) and lack of technology readiness (B11).The barriers of second and third levels influence the barriers of the first tier. In the bottom segment (Levels 4-7), there are six barriers, namely, lack of compatibility (B5), lack of finance (B6), lack of operational and technical support (B10), lack of sharing and collaboration (B2), lack of top management support (B3) and lack of confidentiality (B8). The last three barriers (fifth level to the seventh level) of the ISM model are the most important in driving all other factors above this level and demand maximum attention. To improve the efficiency of the organization, the members of the organization need focus on the significant identified factors and chuck the same.\n6. Limitations, future scope and managerial implications: The study has certain limitations and clarifying these limitations will give a future direction for further research. The hierarchical model is developed by taking inputs from the experts, and these inputs could be biased influencing the accuracy and reliability of the model. The ISM methodology does not provide the ranking of the variables identified in the research. However, this ranking can be achieved through the analytical hierarchical process. An ISM model considers only the binary digits, 0 and 1, which are having a limited scope. Hence, this can be solved by considering five-point (very weak, weak, medium, strong or very strong) Likert scale-type measurement. This model can be further tested by factor analysis or hierarchical regression analysis to know more detail about each dimension. In future authors would like to validate the developed model by using structural equation modeling.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and model critical barriers to cloud computing adoption (CCA) in Indian MSMEs by the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, through a literature survey and expert opinions, 14 critical barriers were identified, and the ISM tool was used to establish interrelationship among the identified barriers and to determine the key barriers having high driving power.\nFindings: After analyzing the barriers, it was found that three barriers, namely, lack of confidentiality (B8), lack of top management support (B3) and lack of sharing and collaboration (B2) were most significant.\nResearch limitations/implications: The developed model is based on the expert opinions, which may be biased, influencing the final output of the structural model. The research implications of the developed model are to help managers of the organization in the understanding significance of the barriers and to prioritize or eliminate the same for the effective CCA.\nOriginality/value: This study is for the first time an attempt that has been made to apply the ISM methodology to explore the interdependencies among the critical barriers for Indian MSMEs. This paper will guide the managers at various levels of an organization for effective implementation of the cloud computing practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Secondary but significant: secondary customers' existence, vulnerability and needs in care services
|
[
"Care service",
"Family member",
"Secondary customer",
"Secondary vulnerability",
"Vulnerable customer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The physician-patient relationship is part of the patient's larger social system and is influenced by members of the patient's family. There are several relationship dynamics involved in this context, such as those between the physician and the patient, the patient and his or her family, the physician and the patient's family, and the patient and society. (Omole et al., 2011, p. 780)\n1. Introduction: Health-care and nursing services (hereafter, care services) have been studied in different fields of science and methods have been developed to measure the quality of care services, monitor the user experience and improve services (Alrubaiee and Alkaa'ida, 2011; Dean, 1999; Kilbourne et al., 2004; Peyrot et al., 1993). Many health-care customers belong to groups of \"vulnerable customers\" or \"vulnerable consumers\" that have been studied as special groups (Brennan and Coppack, 2008; Gentry et al., 1995; Griffiths and Harmon, 2011; Hare et al., 2013; Shultz and Holbrook, 2009). However, vulnerability and the needs of family members or other loved ones in relation to care services are still an understudied subject (Hudson et al., 2010; Wodskou et al., 2014).\n2. Extant research on secondary customers of care services: 2.1 Description of the literature review and methodology\n3. Conceptual discussion: The literature review illustrated the family members' multiple needs towards care services. This section discusses how their position can be acknowledged in service research and management.\n4. Conclusions and contributions: 4.1 Conclusions\n5. Limitations and suggestions for further research: This paper has some obvious limitations, as it bases its arguments on literature-based data. Although it builds the discussion on empirical scientific literature, the secondary data are insufficient for making detailed conclusions on secondary customers' vulnerabilities and needs. The literature review is also rather broad while encompassing several care service contexts. Moreover, some relevant search terms may have been excluded from the search due to the broadness of the topic (the \"family member\" concept has various synonyms). Additionally, the review is limited to English-language material. However, the goal of the paper is to use this literature primarily to provide examples of empirical findings which can build the basis for the conceptual development and future research directions concerning secondary customers. This section will concentrate on those future research needs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the status, vulnerability and needs of the health-care and nursing service customers' (hereafter, care service customers') loved ones.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The position and vulnerabilities of secondary customers of care services are studied and examples provided by reviewing empirical research reported in the care service literature. A conceptual discussion is developed on the \"customer\" concept in an extended sense, beyond the focal customers. The \"primary customer\" and \"secondary customer\" concepts are employed to supplement the extant discussion on customer units and ecosystems.\nFindings: Secondary customers are exposed to secondary vulnerability and their well-being is affected by the services provided primarily to their loved ones. The most recurring needs of secondary customers concern psychosocial support, communication and information and cultural sensitivity.\nPractical implications: New perspectives on understanding the \"customer\" concept in an extended sense. This assists in supporting the customers' dynamic activities and processes within the customer ecosystems. To address care service customers' loved ones' vulnerabilities and needs and to support their well-being, they should also be recognised as customers - \"secondary customers\" - with patients being the \"primary customers\".\nSocial implications: The results are especially relevant when considering services' influences on vulnerable customers' ecosystems and on individuals within them. It is important to recognise that beyond a vulnerable customer, several secondary customers may be exposed to secondary vulnerability, needing support.\nOriginality/value: The paper is apparently the first to connect the constructs \"primary\" and \"secondary customer\" and customer vulnerability to the customer ecosystem discussion. Also, essential future research questions are provided.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate governance model in Thai state-owned enterprises: structural equation modelling approach
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Structural equation model",
"State-owned enterprises"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are important mechanisms used by the government in socio-economic infrastructure and utility development (The World Bank, 2014). The strategic goals of SOEs typically focus on social return rather than on profit maximisation (Khongmalai et al., 2010). Most SOEs are financially constrained but are called upon to provide services to more and more people, often at cheaper prices. In return, governments protect SOEs through regulations that provide them with monopoly power in key public-service industries, such as energy, water and transportation. However, the culture of lifelong employment leads to lower productivity rates. At the same time, rising stakeholder expectations have forced governments to consider ways to improve the productivity and efficiency of SOEs.\n2. Corporate governance of Thai state-owned enterprises: To enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of Thai SOEs, a CG restructuring program was implemented by the Ministry of Finance in 2004. Of 58 Thai SOEs, 53 have restructured their CG systems. The Ministry of Finance established guidelines for SOE board members, including rules on the board member nomination process, roles and duties, responsibilities and other good-governance mechanisms. In general, SOE senior management reports directly to a line minister. SOE board seats are typically allocated to senior government officials and experts from the relevant industries (Khongmalai et al., 2010).\n3. Theoretical background and hypotheses: 3.1 Corporate governance theory\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Population and sampling method\n5. Research results: SEM was performed to assess the overall research model; this model is presented in Figure 3. The results of the research model suggest that the overall fit of the model with the data is good (CMIN (kh2) = 2,277.811, df = 1,445, CMIN/df = 1.576, GFI = 0.917, AGFI = 0.902, RMSEA = 0.026).\n6. Discussion and implications: The empirical results indicate that boards of directors have a significant and direct influence on the performance of Thai SOEs; however, this influence was found to be negative. Conversely, management systems play a vital role in mediating the relationship between boards of directors and the performance of Thai SOEs. The combination of the two manages to have a positive indirect influence on performance.\n7. Conclusions: The primary objective of this study was to examine the relationship between CG and the performance of Thai SOEs. A comprehensive literature review revealed two dimensions of CG practices: the board of directors and the management system, which consists of risk management, internal controls, internal audits, human resource management and IT. In this study, the board of directors was defined as the exogenous variable that influences the performance of Thai SOEs (the endogenous variable). The management system was identified as a mediator between the board of directors and the performance of Thai SOEs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Corporate governance (CG) is a mechanism for directing, administering and controlling organisations. CG has become a vital component in driving efficient operation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between CG practices and the performance of Thai SOEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research is quantitative in nature; data were collected through a questionnaire, which was distributed to a sample of 1,140 respondents from 38 Thai SOEs. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.\nFindings: The results indicate that the board of directors has a direct negative influence on the performance of Thai SOEs. However, management systems play a significant role in mediating the relationship between boards of directors and the performance of Thai SOEs. Additionally, corporate governance practices should be implemented not only at the board-of-director level but also at all levels of operation throughout the organisation.\nPractical implications: To develop effective boards of directors, SOEs should be pushed to develop the appropriate strategic management systems (i.e. risk management, internal controls, internal audits, human resource management and information technology). These systems allow boards of directors to access and use important information that will help guide the business process, which leads to performance improvement in SOEs.\nOriginality/value: This empirical study investigates the relationships between CG practices and the performance of SOEs in the context of developing countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The influence of culture and framing on investment decision-making: The case of Vietnam and Germany
|
[
"Framing",
"Escalation of commitment",
"Lab experiment",
"Investment decision-making"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In light of continuing globalization, multinational corporations play a major role in making foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions (Blonigen, 2006) and face the challenge of investing limited resources into the most rewarding markets. Cross-cultural business ventures do not come without tensions (Choi and Beamish, 2013; Pajunen and Fang, 2013). Importantly, cultural differences cannot be generalized from one situation to another. Thus, the literature calls for considering new cultural perspectives (Birnberg, 2011; Chenhall, 2003; House et al., 2014).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: National culture and escalating commitment\n3. Experimental design and sample: Consistent with previous research, we studied the tendency to escalate commitment in a controlled environment to complement empirical evidence generated by field studies (e.g. Arkes and Blumer, 1985; McNamara et al., 2002; Ryan, 1995; Schoorman, 1988; Staw and Hoang, 1995; Staw et al., 1997). In a laboratory setting, it is possible to precisely define the decision environment in which subjects can make their decisions. It is further possible to exclude the presence of other situational factors, such as management intervention.\n4. Measurements and data analysis method: Participants from both countries participated in the study on a voluntary basis. Questions were answered on an individual basis. By randomly distributing the experimental instructions, the participants were equally distributed between the framing conditions. The framing manipulation was recorded as a binary variable (FRAME), which was coded 0 for the negative framing condition and 1 for the positive framing condition.\n5. Results: Table II lists the descriptive statistics of our experiment. Because 11 students were removed from our sample, the proportion of positive framing was 54.7 percent in the German group and 42.5 percent in the Vietnamese group. The average age of the Vietnamese sample was 18.94 years (SD=0.42) and of the German sample 23.84 years (SD=3.07). The Vietnamese sample was younger also because German students finish high school later. However, a more important factor for our business decision seemed to be progress in student business studies. Thus, we collected information on student progress. The mean semester of the German students (6.452) was also higher than that of the Vietnamese students, who were all in their second semester. Because the wider range of the variable SEMESTER for Germany (Min. 2 and Max. 24) might have caused a problem with heteroscedasticity, we checked it by using the White test. The assumption of homoscedasticity was not rejected. We also checked for a semester effect in the escalation tendency using a comparison of means, which showed that there was no significant difference between German participants in different semesters (t(34)=0.617, p=0.541, d=0.363). We used the seventh semester as the grouping variable because it is the median (16 participants are in the eighth semester or higher, 20 participants are in the sixth semester or lower and participants in the seventh semester (median) are excluded). Furthermore, the proportion of female participants was 28.6 percent among the German students and 21.6 percent among the Vietnamese students. We observed no significant differences in the decision between the experimental groups with respect to gender (t(81)=0.292, p=0.711, d=0.180).\n6. Discussion and conclusion: Prior cross-cultural studies show that cultural differences have a strong impact on individuals' risk preferences, motivation and decision behavior (Schneider et al., 2017; Weber and Hsee, 1998). We study escalation in investment projects and show that Germans have less of a tendency than Vietnamese to escalate their commitment to an unprofitable project. Furthermore, we show a framing effect that functions similarly in both cultures. Like Sharp and Salter (1997), we hypothesize but do not evidence an interaction effect showing that our two cultures are susceptible to framing in different ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Cultural studies in business and economics research are still limited to particular cultures. Knowledge on cultural differences may help international corporations to adapt management practices according to the markets they are operating in. The purpose of this paper is to study the issue of escalation of commitment and framing in a new cultural setting involving Germany and Vietnam. This setting is unique and particularly interesting, for Germany being the biggest European market and Vietnam being one of the fastest growing emerging markets in Asia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use a lab experiment with student participants from Germany and Vietnam.\nFindings: In a 2x2 in between-experiment, the authors find strong support that Vietnamese participants have a stronger tendency to invest additional resources and evidence that negatively framed information leads to the higher escalation of commitment. Implications are discussed.\nOriginality/value: The unique empirical comparison is important because differences between other western and eastern countries do not necessarily generalize to the setting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Users' motivations and attitude towards the online press
|
[
"Internet",
"Newspapers",
"Motivation (psychology)",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Attitudes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.The growth of the internet over recent years means major changes in business relationships and the processes of communicating and transmitting information between organizations and their customers. The impact of the internet includes changing conventional logics of certain activities and businesses. Thus, newspaper publishing is one of the activities that is most affected by the development of the new medium. In fact, the appearance of the new digital media involves notable changes in this sector (Bush and Gilbert, 2002) and these changes will foresee ably increase in the future. Also, internet technology is rapidly changing the way and the aims with which readers consult newspapers. Definitely, the new medium involves enormous advantages for journalistic services in terms of both supply and demand. Due to these advantages, there is a proliferation of electronic newspapers and these are among the services most avidly sought by internet users (Levins, 1998; Newspaper Association of America, 2003; AIMC, 2006).Taking into account this evolution, this article focuses on analyzing and understanding users' behavior for reading the digital press. Despite the interest of this topic, there is a scarce of literature in this direction. In fact, there is currently no overall model to identify the main motivations that lead the readers' attitude to consult electronic newspapers, and to explain the phenomenon. So, the interest of this study lies in the analysis from the demand viewpoint, where specialized marketing literature is seriously lacking (Black et al., 2002). This approach enables us to fully exploit the enormous opportunities for analyzing and studying the readers' intentions and motivations to consult digital newspapers and, conclusively, a significant number of questions related to the behavior of readers of the press. More specifically, the paper has two basic goals:1. To identify the reading motivations that lead the consult of a newspapers.2. To analyze the possible influence of these motivations identified on the level of readers' attitude towards digital newspapers.Taking these objectives as a reference, the following section highlights the growing importance of the newspapers on the internet; and the third section explains the theoretical approach of the research. The authors formulate the different hypotheses and below present the procedure of sifting through and validating the scales, as well as contrast the proposed hypotheses. The study concludes by providing a number of useful conclusions and managerial implications.\nNewspaper business on the internet: The rapid development of online communication and the use of the new medium as a format for publishing digital versions of the majority of print newspapers involve substantial changes in this business, such as a transformation at the organizational level, the creation of a specific language and a new multimedia environment. Also, the internet means changes in access, production and circulation of the information. All these imply the arrival of new challenges and opportunities that they will have to face very soon (Flavian and Gurrea, 2006; Dans, 2000).The use of these new systems is distinguished by the speed with which news reach the reader, the low cost of distributing information and the opportunity to establish more direct contact and interact with users. Besides, the electronic channel allows updating the news immediately and showing links to other information sources. Moreover, the internet combines the three basic advantages of the radio, the press and the television. In fact, this new medium presents the immediacy of the radio, the wide and deep information offered by the press and the impact of the images in television. All these aspects allow configuring a complete journalistic offer.These advantages imply a growth in the supply of digital news. There are currently over 4,200 digital newspapers worldwide (Editor & Publisher, 2006). From the demand side, digital news and newspapers are among the services most avidly sought by internet users (Consoli, 1997; Levins, 1998; Newspaper Association of America, 2003). According to Nielsen (2003) and AIMC (2006) news sites and digital newspapers are among the most widely demanded and visited web sites among the internet users. Kaye and Johnson (2004) affirm that the main aim of users accessing the internet is to read breaking news and search for up-to-the minute information (83.7 per cent), only exceeded by the use of e-mail. Similarly, Media Contacts (2007) affirmed that 61 per cent of internet users read electronic newspapers.\nTheoretical approach: Attitude towards digital newspapers\nData collection: In order to develop scales to measure the variables, the authors undertake an exhaustive review of the literature, as well as a search for existing scales. Given the scarce of the existing literature, it is necessary to take the problem further by undertaking a series of preliminary qualitative studies.The next step is to carry out the survey itself. The research gets the collaboration of two Spanish online newspapers with a high impact: a regional and local daily, Heraldo de Aragon; and another national daily, ABC. They offer the survey to their readers.As a result of these processes, the study uses a sample of 239 readers of digital newspapers (April-July 2006 period). The sample profile achieved shows similarities to recent AECE (2005) and AIMC (2006) samples of internet users. In fact, like in previous studies, the most part of the interviewees is male, aged between 25 and 34, with a high level of education and over five years' experience with computers and internet use.\nProcess of scales refinement and validating: Exploratory analysis of reliability\nResults: Once the measurement scales have been refined, it is possible to test the different hypotheses proposed in the research, which constitute the structural model to be analyzed (see Figure 2). The finding results show the existence of significantly positive relationships between motivations \"Knowledge of current news\", \"Search for specific information\" and \"Search for updated news\", and the attitude of readers towards digital newspapers, so the study finds supports to H1, H2 and H3. The reading motivation based on \"Entertainment\" shows a clear negative and significant effect on the positive attitude. Consequently, H4 can not be rejected.However, the study finds evidences to support a positive effect of Habit on the attitude to digital dailies. This could be a sign of a fast evolution experimented by readers' behavior and attitudes in a short time. As readers have more experience on the internet, they know better the possibilities and advantages of the web. Also, some new online services offered by newspapers could justify this finding. More specifically, the most part of electronic newspapers offer successful services of news alerts daily. In this way, readers have access all days at the same time to the main headlines, summaries and links to the information resources. Thus, readers consider now that the new digital medium is a good channel to carry out the habit of reading the newspaper, although they used to do this with the conventional format. Nevertheless, H5 must be rejected.The results include a high R2 obtained (R2=0.70), as well as the good overall fit of the structural model, which exceeds the recommended limits on all the relevant indices in this type of model (e.g. RMSEA=0.06; RMSR=0.03; NFI=0.88; NNFI=0.92; CFI=0.90; Normal kh2=2.9)\nConclusions and managerial implications: This study underlines the growing importance of the electronic medium in the workplace, and particularly for the newspaper business. This study also aims to fill the gaps in the specialized literature with regard to analysing the users' behavior and attitude towards the digital press. On this point, this research highlights the process of identifying the key motivations which lead readers to consult newspapers. In this line, this research means a contribution to the theory of uses and gratifications because it presents a global analysis, including the main motivations that influence the attitude to the digital press.The research argues the possible relationships between the reading motivations on the levels of positive attitude to the digital newspapers. Specifically, empirical analysis confirms the existence of positive and significant influences of the motivations arising from the knowledge of current news, the search for specific information and for updated news, on the readers' attitude towards consulting digital newspapers. In addition, the motivation associated to the entertainment has a negative and significant effect on the attitude, because it is a motivation more related to the physical channel. However, it is not possible to find evidences to support a negative relationship between the reading as a habit and the favourable attitude to the digital dailies, as we proposed in the last hypothesis.In light of these results and the goodness of fit and explanatory power of the proposed model, the study may represent a step forward in the context of this analysis. Specifically, the research would allow ruling out some of the fears in the newspaper sector at a moment such as the present, characterized by high levels of uncertainty as regards the possibility of exploiting the virtual medium simultaneously with traditional channels.All the above would have significant managerial implications. In fact, the main aspects which justify digital newspaper reading should be considered by management personnel in this type of news medium, in order to increase its use. Indeed, journalistic firms could find a new source for its development by taking advantage of the internet possibilities. In this way, they could have undoubted future opportunities.Besides, journalistic firms should make efforts in the analysis and knowledge of readers' needs. This action could be easier through the electronic channel because it is possible to track users' behavior in a web site. Anyway, the knowledge of readers' needs and goals could be a starting point for developing marketing strategies. Thus, firms would offer to readers what they want at any given place and moment.Therefore, companies should bear in mind the new opportunities and possibilities which the internet offers for the newspaper business. Specifically, the differential advantages this medium presents with regard to convenience must be taken full advantage of, given the existing need for information: one can begin reading a newspaper at any moment and on any day of the year; content can be constantly updated; and there is an immediacy which is a key aspect of distributing up-to-the-minute information in the world of journalism. More specifically, it would be wise for newspaper publishers to develop the alert and RSS services offered on their web sites. These services should provide readers the main news daily with a fast and easy access. Moreover, the companies should offer the possibility of personalizing these alerts, their contents and the moments for receiving the breaking news.Owing to this research is one of the first studies that analyze online press reader behavior, there are some important future research lines associated to this investigation. Thus, it would be interesting to analyze some moderating effects in the model. Specifically, it could be convenient to include the moderating effect of internet user experience. Thus, readers with a higher level of internet experience show a greater knowledge of the digital channel. Consequently, they could be considered as individuals with higher propensity to use the electronic press when they can choose between both types of channels. This fact has been reflected on the results associated to the relationship between habit and the favorable attitude. The habit of reading is not associated exclusively to traditional newspapers now, because the digital media can plenty fulfill this need absolutely. Besides, it seems reasonable that the evolution will occur in a short time, according to the fast development of the sector.Finally, the newspaper's web site usability could be a moderating variable in the proposed relationships (Flavian et al., 2006). The higher the level of web site usability, the more easy is to use and surf on the internet, and consequently, individuals could show higher online newspapers preference. Following this argument, the qualitative research showed that the greater the usability and ease of use of newspaper's web sites, the more tendency to use them. As a result, the digital press could become the preferred option for reading news. Therefore, there could be differences between groups with high and low perceived usability.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is explain how the advent of the internet not only affects the way in which newspapers work, but also has an impact on readers' behavior. This research seeks to identify the readers' motivations as the key determinants of the attitude towards digital newspapers, and to analyse their impact on that attitude.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Qualitative studies are necessary to identify the motivations and establish the hypotheses, and a survey is applied to a representative sample of users. The scales are validated and refined, after which the hypotheses are tested by way of a structural equation model.\nFindings: - The results confirm the existence of positive significant relationships between motivations related to the knowledge of current news, search for specific information and search for updated news, with the favourable attitude to digital newspapers. However, entertainment as a motivation for reading impacts negatively on the readers' attitude. Also, habit as a motivation is more and more positively associated with the attitude towards the digital press.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main motivations that influence the attitude to the new electronic dailies should be considered by the management with the aim of differentiating the digital channel. Thus, it could be possible to calm some fears re the cannibalism between digital and traditional channels in the journalistic sector. Accordingly this research points out that the knowledge of readers' needs and motivations could be a starting-point for developing marketing strategies.\nOriginality/value: - The research is one of the first studies that analyses internet user behavior on the part of press readership and employs the uses and gratifications theory for the journalistic business.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A framework for e-government: privacy implications
|
[
"Electronics industry",
"Design",
"Privacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Worldwide, local and national government agencies are facing the challenging era of electronic government. Forrester Research predicts that more than $600 billion of government fees and taxes will be processed through the web by 2006 (James, 2000). United States Federal Government spending alone is predicted to reach $2.33 billion by 2005 (Gartner Group, 2000a, b, c). This is more than the expected spending by consumers from retail businesses ($ 2.24 billion). A survey of government finance officers reveals that e-government is one of their top concerns (Bornstein, 2000).While there seems to be substantial growth in the development of e-government initiatives (Bednarz, 2002; Friel, 2002), it is not clear that citizens will embrace the use of such services. Some key concerns can limit this growth, including privacy (Thibodeau, 2000). Citizens may be skeptical and mistrust e-government initiatives, believing that these initiatives result in invasion of citizen privacy by government (James, 2000). This paper proposes an e-government framework and discusses privacy and the complex social questions that it presents for the successful utilization of e-government. The framework can be utilized to process and analyse other complex issues. A total of 26 e-government categories are identified. The categories take into account the complexity of e-governments by recognizing the various constituents and the different stages of implementation of e-government, incorporating both electronic government and electronic governance relationships. The framework can be used to facilitate decision-making unique to each stage and constituency of e-government. Three global motivators and constraints complement the framework in identifying factors for successful e-government implementation. This process is useful because it operationalizes the inherent differences in the complex functions of government.\n2 E-government framework: Watson and Mundy (2001) propose a model for e-government comprising initiation, infusion, and customization. Symonds (2000) discusses four stages to e-government: one-way communications, two-way communications, exchanges, and portals. It could be thought of as a more granular approach to stages of e-government than Watson and Mundy's model. Both of these frameworks focus on the evolution of e-government systems through their respective stages. However, these models do not include the complex governmental relationships with a variety of constituents. Other models focus on the relationships rather than the stages. The US General Accounting Office categorizes e-government using the typology of government-to-citizen (G2C), government-to-employee (G2E), government-to-government (G2G), and government-to-business (G2B). The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) categorizes e-government as G2C, G2B, G2G, and internal efficiency and effectiveness (IEE). IEE initiatives \"bring commercial best practices to key government operations, particularly supply chain management, human capital management, financial management and document workflow\" (OMB, 2002). We propose an e-government framework that builds on Symonds' stages, adding a fifth stage to represent electronic political participation by citizens. Our framework also takes into account the complexities of government relationships by mapping the stages to varied constituent relationships both identified above as well as newly proposed ones. We also consider in the development of our model a set of additional constraints on governmental actions. This allows us to capture the different requirements and design elements that are necessary to initiate e-government with each of the constituents.In addition, we deviate from the traditional classification of the one-way inferred from the use of \"to\" in the categorization. For example, B2C generally means business to consumer, a connotation that businesses are marketing products, and creating demand for those products (e.g. B-C). Instead, we use the conjunction with that more accurately reflects the essence of the governmental relationship with its constituencies, and the fact that these relationships are fundamentally different than those of business (e.g. Government with Citizens=G-IC). This approach is supported by the findings of Steyaert (2000) in the study of government use of the internet in Flanders, Belgium. Electronic government will reach its full potential by focusing on the citizen not only as a consumer, but also as a participant in governance (Mintrom, 2003; Thomas and Streib, 2003).Our proposed categorization of e-government types includes:* Government with individuals - delivering services (GwIS). The government establishes or maintains a direct relationship with citizens to deliver a service or benefit. An example is the US' Social Security Administration in its delivery of benefits. This can involve two-way communications as individuals request information about benefits, and government may need information in order to process benefits.* Government with individuals - political process (GwIP). This is the relationship between the government and its citizens as part of the democratic process. It is perhaps the most essential relationship between a government and any entity. Examples include voting online, and participating in requests for comments online during the regulatory process.* Government with business as a citizen (GwBC). Although businesses will not vote, and thus the relationship between businesses and the government will not look exactly like the GwIP, there are still opportunities for business to relate to the government in a citizen-like capacity. Providing securities exchange commission filings online in the US, and paying taxes online in several countries worldwide would be examples of the relationship between government and businesses in this category.* Government with business in the marketplace (GwBMKT). While businesses can receive many online services from government, a major portion of online transactions between governments and businesses involve procurement, or the hiring of contractors or acquisition of goods and services by the government. E-procurement \"is one of the fastest growing areas of e-business because it can save time and money\" (Symonds, 2000). Some savings reported include 70 percent more efficiency at Australia's Department of Natural Resources and Environment's purchasing department by deploying a paperless system (Symonds, 2000).* Government with employees (GwE). Online relationships between government agencies and their employees face the same requirements as that of the relationships between businesses and their employees. For example, an intranet can be used to provide information to employees, or online transactions with their employees can be performed if agencies have the proper technological architectures. This relationship should be distinguished from the same individual's relationship under GwIP and GwIS.* Government with government (GwG). Government agencies must often collaborate and/or provide services to one another. There are substantial gains from conducting some of these transactions online, between federal, state and local agencies. An example of an inter-governmental level e-government application is the US National Science Foundation's online funding request system called FastLane (www.nsf.gov). The potential for GwG to benefit agencies involved is tremendous - there are over 20,000 web sites for the US Federal Government alone (Thibodeau, 2000).2.1 Stages of electronic government\n3 Global e-government constraints: Superimposed upon the framework are global constraints that apply in every decision-making and planning process, affecting how the government will accomplish its objectives. These include laws, regulations and policies; technical capabilities; and user feasibility. These are not proposed as the only items that would constrain the implementation of e-government, but are three that are supported in the literature, described briefly below and more fully in the sections following.The law and policy constraint asks whether the action comports with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, and whether it is within the power of government. Regulations may limit government powers to institute and complete e-government projects (Chen and Perry, 2003). For example, the US federal government is limited to interstate commerce or other powers granted in the US Constitution.Technical capability asks whether the hardware, software, and expertise exist to implement the project. E-government initiatives require appropriate investments in hardware, software, and expertise. Insufficient funds or a shortage of personnel may hinder e-government implementation. As initiatives move towards integration and political participation, they become increasingly more technologically complex. In a recent study of municipal e-government initiatives, Moon (2002) finds that few local governments conduct online transactions with citizens (stage three), and even fewer, if any, have integration. Municipalities perceive the lack of technical, personnel, and financial capabilities as major barriers to the development of e-government. His overall evaluation (from a survey of 1,471 municipalities) is that the state of e-government at the municipal level is primitive.The third constraint is the capability and willingness of the intended user to use the electronic government project (user feasibility). For example, the digital divide that has been described so capably by others has been found to affect user willingness to use e-government web sites (Thomas and Streib, 2003). Trust is also an important factor in determining in general whether an individual chooses to, or chooses not to, acquire goods or services via the web (Belanger et al., 2002; Doney and Cannon, 1997; Hoffman et al., 1999; Quelch and Klein, 1996). The information systems literature abounds with studies describing how the resistance of users to a new system because of trust or other factors invariably hinders its implementation. (Adams et al., 2004; Aladwani, 2001; Setzekorn et al., 2002). Citizens' willingness and capability to use the system will, therefore, affect the implementation of e-government.3.1 Privacy and laws, regulations, and policies\n4 Framework and privacy: an example: The policy of a consumer-centric e-government focuses on citizen opinion. Considering the general concerns of citizens with online privacy, then e-government initiatives must specifically analyse e-government decisions with regards to privacy of information. For example, consider the e-government question: should public records be posted online?When government web sites first began, hours of operation, phone numbers, and a listing of events highlighted their pages. Today, local governments are posting real estate records, property valuations, and court documents online. The technical ability to efficiently process and express the information (such as new and better techniques for mapping) increases the government's ability to put this information on the web. The increase in the availability of this information, however, has led one constituency, citizens, to complain that the information is readily available to anyone around the world, including those who would use social security numbers, addresses and maiden names to perpetrate identity theft. What has always been publicly available becomes publicly accessible once posted on the web, and citizen complaints have affected this effort of e-government. As a result of citizen outcry, several states have passed legislation that limits the posting of individually identifiable information on the internet by state or local governments. Virginia is the most recent state, in 2003, to limit the disclosure of personally identifiable records, the same ones that are available in person at the courthouse, on a government web site.The simplified example of how the framework will aid in the analysis of the complex issue of privacy and e-government begins with the first stage: the posting of information. It is not enough to ask what stage of government is involved, it is also necessary to identify the unique constituency interests within the global motivators and constraints. Businesses will not have the same interests in limiting the individual information available online at government web sites; in fact, they will likely support the posting of information in an electronic form that they can use to contact and court customers. However, business interests in proprietary information weigh against the posting of certain information relating to government contracts. And, in the effort to track and deter terrorism, government exhortations for businesses to share information through online reporting mechanisms create concerns about competitive disadvantages of doing so.Therefore, to use the framework for privacy decisions in e-government, the process would first identify the constituency affected, the stage of government, and then map the global constraints to each of these (Figure 2 shows privacy issues for GwIS). This process will ensure that the unique concerns of each of the constituencies are considered in the decision-making of instituting e-government at each step.As illustrated in the above example and discussion, privacy in e-government issues differ significantly when global motivators and constraints are viewed across the complex framework of government stages by constituency. The relationships and stages of e-government are complex. These relationships and the global motivators of policy/law, technical capability, and user feasibility, should be incorporated into the process of decision-making when government is considering the movement from one stage of e-government to another. The use of the framework also allows us to identify privacy issues that may not have been highlighted in a general discussion of e-government.\n5 Conclusion: Local and national governments worldwide are investigating and implementing e-government initiatives. In this paper we proposed a framework that explores the complexities of e-government by recognizing the various constituents and the different stages of implementation of e-government, incorporating both electronic government and electronic governance relationships. The framework highlights the complex relationships that exist in e-government between the constituents and the government as various stages of e-government are implemented. We illustrated the use of the framework to identify issues of privacy in e-government, analyse the effect of global motivators and constraints, and facilitate decision-making. This process is important to evaluate in depth complex issues, such as privacy, in electronic government.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper proposes a conceptual framework of the stages of electronic government that describes and integrates the unique relationship between the government and its varied constituents, and identifies and applies the global constraints that affect the implementation of e-government at each stage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Building on and expanding stages of e-government suggested in prior literature, a framework is designed to recognize that the five stages of e-government will have differing impacts when considering six different categories of constituents. In addition, the framework considers three global constraints superimposed on these stages and relationship; laws and regulations, technical feasibility, and user feasibility. The paper then provides an example of implementation of the framework by exploring the issue of privacy in electronic government.\nFindings: - The relationships mapped the stages of e-government, affected by global motivators and constraints, are unique and complex. Policy and implementation of e-government should take account of these complexities. Privacy in e-government issues differs significantly when global motivators and constraints are viewed across the complex framework of government stages by constituency.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The relationships between constituents and stages of e-government, together with the global constraints, should be incorporated into the process of decision-making when government is considering the movement from one stage of e-government to another. The framework provides new lenses through which e-government implementation can be studied by researchers.\nPractical implications: - The framework can be used to guide planning and decision-making for electronic government and aid in the identification of issues unique to each stage and constituency.\nOriginality/value: - The use of framework allows researchers and practitioners to identify issues that may not be highlighted in a general discussion of e-government that does not take into account the complexities of the e-government environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An interactive tool for citizens' involvement in the sustainable regeneration
|
[
"Facilities management",
"Urban areas",
"Communication",
"Citizens' involvement",
"Interactive tool",
"Sustainable regeneration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The expansion of cities has faced a variety of challenges, indicating a loss of basic functionalities to be a liveable place, such as human health and well-being concerns and inadequate, deteriorating and aging infrastructures (Nam and Pardo, 2011). The urbanization process and urban activities generate environmental impacts both within and beyond city boundaries. Smart City' is a new approach, which aims at operating cities in an innovative way to solve the tangled and wicked problems inherited in the rapid urbanization. To explore the effective implementation of the Smart City in response to the challenges of sustainable socio-economic and urban development, global competitiveness and improved quality of life, the literature has already spotlighted the technological aspects. However, the social and political aspects of sharing different resources, governing co-development processes and fostering knowledge flows within innovation projects are still limited. Bai et al. (2010) argue that urban policy can play an important role in shaping and changing the regional, national and global linkages of cities. Therefore, coordination of policies across spatial scales, organizational practices and multi-levels of governance can foster innovation in cities (Nam and Pardo, 2011). A poor coordination, fragmentation, overlap and/or conflict between policies can undermine sustainable development, rather than facilitating it. However, the integration and coordination between policies are not easy because temporal, spatial and institutional aspects of policies are mismatching (Gohari et al., 2020). The European Green Deal lays out the European Commission (2019) strategy to implement the United Nation's 2030 Agenda and sustainable development goals. Parts of this strategy include a \"renovation wave\" of public and private buildings and the enforcement of the legislation in relation to the energy performance of buildings, as well as examining initiatives that combine societal pull and technology push in local communities to work towards a sustainable future (Kristl et al., 2019). This paper argues that ambition of cities to prepare for the future by means of smart sustainable technology and efficient use of resources in the continued urbanization first and foremost requires enhanced citizen participation. However, how exactly the real citizen participation can be established and, more specifically, which types of citizen participation we should aim at are still under the question (Williems et al., 2017).\n2. Methodology and results: The methods used are survey, interviews, active participation and co-design. Figure 3 shows the interconnection between the methods and data sequentially.\n3. Conclusions: This paper aimed at testing possibilities of real participation in FM field in response to the energy sustainable demand in an evidence-based practice. This was shown by a mutual partnership of the university, the co-operative housing federation and FM to provide a platform for the co-design of virtual tool together with the residents in the future. We have shown that there is a possibility to reach the initial stages of the participation ladder: informing, consulting and involving people. But, to really \"collaborate\" and \"empower\" citizens, we need a stronger interactive tool, which can safeguard their long-term participation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test possibilities of real participation in FM field in response to the energy sustainable demand by using new technologies for better communication. It is acknowledged that the technological innovation is a necessary condition to make a city sustainable, though the challenge is not primarily on technology but on service transformation and improvement. Improving service quality requires the participatory and synergetic processes that attract an extra attention to the social and management aspects of urban planning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is an evidence-based research, which shows how FM can extent its impact on the build environment and society by bringing the socio-physiological aspect and the community in the central of the planning and design process.\nFindings: An \"urban\" facility manager, through integration of multiple disciplines in a human-centre approach, can become the enabler and implementer of sustainable urban ecosystem, i.e. balancing social, economic and environmental pillars. This requires central involvement of FM in the planning and decision-making processes; therefore, its role and impact should be enlarged and better communicated. The enlargement of the FM's role initially requires an effective communication with people, whose behavioural change are prerequisite for the sustainability transition. The communication between FM and people should be interactive and iterative, in which they both define problems/needs and co-create the relevant solutions.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper depicts an evidence-based FM practice, in which the website as an interactive tool is co-designed by the \"facility management\" students and the citizens to contribute to the real citizen participation in an effective communication process.\nOriginality/value: The high value for both, citizens and facility manager, is co-created information platform for upgrading the sustainability level and well-being in the communities. The tool is seen as an important starting contribution for the Paris climate agreement, and as a step toward human-centric-oriented urban sustainable regenerating project.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Why are the fat cats still purring? Difficulty in curbing excessive directors' pay
|
[
"Remuneration",
"Performance-related pay",
"Chief executives",
"Non-executive directors",
"Pay structure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The growth in the UK chief executive pay does not clearly correlate to personal performance or business outcomes and has a significant impact on the motivation levels of the wider workforce. Well, that is one way of putting it. That rather understated and diplomatic-sounding conclusion is from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).\nTrying to make directors' remuneration perception fair and transparent: In an effort to address eye-watering inequities in business and banking (or, some would say, in an effort to merely dampen down the criticism), in the UK, as elsewhere, laws have been passed, worthy and weighty reports have been written, politicians have made indignant noises and solemn promises. And still the inequity remains undefeated.\nNon-use of shareholders' voting rights to monitor director's pay: The Greenbury Report of 1995 went a step further by recommending that all remuneration committees be made up of wholly NEDs. As a means of aligning directors' interest with that of the company, the Greenbury Report recommended that executive pay structure should be made up of multiple elements which include base salary, benefits in kind, annual bonus, share options, other long-term incentive schemes and pension rights. Annual bonuses were to be rewarded based on some financial performance measures.\nComment: This review is based on \"Directors' pay regulation: 'one goal two approaches'\" by Ndzi (2016). Two different approaches adopted in the UK to regulate directors' remuneration are considered. The study finds that corporate governance adopts a better approach to regulating directors' pay than the Companies Act 2006 because it targets the pay-setting process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper examines two different approaches adopted in the UK to regulate directors' remuneration. The aim is to explore the approaches to understand which one better regulates directors' pay and why. It provides an account of the approaches' evolution, effectiveness and challenges toward the regulation of directors' remuneration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews various corporate governance codes, their recommendations on directors' remuneration, their effectiveness and the challenges of regulating directors' remuneration. The paper also reviews provisions of the Companies Act 2006.\nFindings: The paper finds that corporate governance adopts a better approach to regulating directors' pay than the Companies Act 2006, because it targets the pay-setting process. However, the existence of gray areas and lack of enforcement procedure poses a challenge to its effectiveness. The Companies Act 2006 is unable to regulate directors' pay adequately, because it adopts a corrective approach and it considers directors' remuneration as a management responsibility.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers an up-to-date assessment of the two approaches to regulating directors' pay in the UK. It highlights the challenges faced by both approaches and considers which approach could regulate directors pay better and its challenges.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Vulnerability and agency work: from the workers' perspectives
|
[
"Gender",
"Contingent workers",
"Labour market",
"Flexible labour",
"Disadvantaged groups",
"Temporary workers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The use of temporary staffing agencies and contracted work arrangements allows organisations to adapt to an increasingly competitive and dynamic environment. While such \"demand-driven\" practices may prove beneficial for employers and financially lucrative for agencies, there are potentially far-reaching consequences for individual workers. As reported by Kalleberg (2011), the growth and profile of precarious work internationally since the 1970s has crystallised concerns about the quality of employment that is unpredictable and involves risk shifting from employers to employees.\n2. Theoretical perspectives connecting nonstandard work and vulnerable workers: Worker vulnerability is a central feature in the literature examining nonstandard work. The British Trades Union Congress (2008, p. 3) captures the essence of the literature, defining vulnerable employment as \"precarious work that places people at risk of continuing poverty and injustice resulting from an imbalance of power in the employer-work relationship\". This power imbalance is evident in the theoretical discussions of organisational flexibility.\n3. The work experiences of nonstandard and agency workers: Nonstandard workers are not vulnerable simply due to the temporary nature of their work arrangement. Indeed, the simple dichotomy of nonstandard vs standard employment is part of a more complex worker-employer/organisation relationship. Psychological contract theory is a dominant framework used to examine the reciprocal exchange agreement in employee-employer relationships as well as an individual's subjective beliefs about the mutual obligations and promises that exist beyond the formal contract (Rousseau, 1995). Recent studies have demonstrated that aspects of the psychological contract are challenged and complex in agency work arrangements (Guest, 2004; Lapalme et al., 2011; McLean Parks et al., 1998). Thus, this study draws on work by McLean Parks et al. (1998) which refined and extended the theory on psychological contracts to accommodate more diverse types of work relationships. As shown in Table I, the authors presented eight core dimensions (stability, scope, tangibility, focus, time frame, particularism, multiple agency relationships and volition) to highlight the differences and similarities amongst work relationships.\n4. The Australian context of agency work: The literature examining agency work commonly finds that the extent of precariousness and worker vulnerability may be influenced by the degree of labour market protection in the national setting, the regulatory approach to the temporary staffing industry and occupational status. These findings are specifically relevant to Australia where the lightly regulated framework is cited by some as an explanation for the growth of agency work and concerns have been raised about agency worker vulnerability (Coe et al., 2009; Underhill and Quinlan, 2011). In Australia, the temporary staffing industry is growing and diversifying. Agencies vary in terms of service offerings and scope of operations, and the majority of agency workers are casual employees (Burgess and Connell, 2005; Coe et al., 2009). Casual employment is a practice firmly anchored in elements of the Australian labour regulation system (Burgess and Campbell, 1998).\n5. Research method: In Australia, there is no designated body representing agency workers nor is there a comprehensive national database. However, this is not uncommon as empirical research often involves non-random sampling approaches and relatively small sample sizes (Ashford et al., 2007). A purposive sampling approach was used to select eight agencies operating in Victoria, Australia that match workers with clerical assignments. Clerical occupations have retained a strong presence in the labour market and agency work, and clerical agency work has broad applicability to a range of individuals particularly females, in Australia and internationally (Knox, 2014; Rogers, 2000; Vosko, 2010).\n6. Findings: The findings from this study are presented and discussed in the context of respondent characteristics. Frequency counts and illustrative quotes are incorporated within the presentation of the findings.\n7. Discussion: Nonstandard work and vulnerable workers are a worldwide phenomenon which is not likely to reverse in the foreseeable future. Thus, investigating job quality and worker vulnerability in the context of agency work is important due to its potential consequences for individual, household, organisational and national well-being.\n8. Conclusion: Labour market theories and substantial empirical evidence support the contention that agency workers are subjected to inferior working conditions in comparison to standard workers. Although this study does not dispute this contention, we also sought to examine the complexity of agency worker vulnerability by exploring the good and bad aspects from the worker perspective. To this end, we explored the linkages between vulnerability and precariousness, revealed the notion of varying degrees of worker vulnerability and suggested interventions to reduce worker vulnerability.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The notion of worker vulnerability is often seen as synonymous with disadvantage in discussions of nonstandard work. The purpose of this paper is to separate and examine these two notions by considering economic, social and psychological perspectives and exploring the reality as experienced by agency workers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 178 Australian clerical agency workers employed by eight agencies completed a mail questionnaire. Personalised responses were subjected to computer-assisted template analysis.\nFindings: Sample characteristics revealed a gendered and heterogeneous workforce. Findings showed evidence of economic, psychological and social vulnerabilities although favourable features were also reported. This apparent contradiction suggests linkages between the features of nonstandard work, worker preferences, individual characteristics and the experience of worker vulnerability.\nResearch limitations/implications: The notion of varying degrees of worker vulnerability offers a new lens to investigate agency work. The relatively small sample size, focus on clerical work and features of the Australian context may limit generalisability.\nPractical implications: Findings demonstrate the nature and extent of agency worker vulnerability which allows us to offer policy interventions for governments, agencies and user organisations and insights for prospective agency workers.\nOriginality/value: The widespread use of agency workers provides an imperative for frameworks to assess the nuances of the agency work experience. This study presents the reality of agency work as experienced by the workers and reveals the good and bad aspects of agency work.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How vendor capabilities impact IT outsourcing performance: An investigation of moderated mediation model
|
[
"Project management",
"Dynamic capabilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information technology (IT) outsourcing is an activity of using external service providers (also known as vendors) to deliver IT services. It has long been used in practice as an important strategic alternative to specializing in core competencies, improving service quality and lowering IT costs (Rajaeian et al., 2017; Faisal and Raza, 2016; Patil and Wongsurawat, 2015). It is reported that the global market for IT outsourcing industry has reached nearly $1tn in 2015 (Ravindran et al., 2015), and Technavio's analysts forecast the global IT outsourcing market to grow at a CAGR of 5.84 percent over the period 2014-2019. Meanwhile, IT outsourcing has brought a lot of business opportunities for vendor firms. Numerous vendors have tapped into the outsourcing industry to gain benefits from good outsourcing performance. As the providers of outsourcing services, vendor capabilities have been highly valued by clients to successfully implement outsourcing projects (Ahimbisibwe et al., 2017; Levina and Ross, 2003; Feeny et al., 2005).\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: 2.1 Vendor capabilities in IT outsourcing\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Data analysis and results: This study uses a partial least square (PLS) method (Hanafizadeh and Ravasan, 2018) to validate the measures and test the hypotheses. This choice was based on the following considerations. First, PLS is a second-generation structural equation modeling (SEM) technique that can estimate relationships among latent variables by taking measurement errors into account and, thus, provide more accurate results than regressions (Gefen et al., 2000). Second, PLS employs a component-based approach for model estimation and is not highly demanding on residual distribution (Chin, 1998). After conducting the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Shapiro-Wilks test for our data, we found that all the indicators of our research variables are not normally distributed, suggesting the priority of PLS-SEM over CB-SEM (Hair et al., 2016). Third, PLS is designed to maximize the prediction of dependent variables rather than the goodness of fit (Gefen et al., 2011). In this study, our research goal is to examine how much variance in vendor outsourcing performance can be explained by the research model.\n5. Discussion and implication: This study develops a moderated mediation model to explain how the vendor's integration capability and learning capability jointly affect its outsourcing performance. Specifically, we suppose learning capability influences the pathway through which the two dimensions of integration capability (i.e. IIC and EIC) influence the vendor's IT outsourcing performance. Empirical analysis of 237 vendor firms shows that both internal and external integration capabilities have positive effects on vendor performance, and EIC can mediate the effect of IIC on vendor performance. EIC ensures a synchronized process with external partners that can smooth the pathway by which IIC exerts greater effect on vendor performance. Further, learning capability is found to have different roles in moderating the effects of internal and external integration capabilities on vendor performance. Learning capability positively moderates the relationship between EIC and vendor performance (b=0.290, p<0.05), while it imparts a negative moderating role on the relationship between IIC and vendor performance (b=-0.325, p<0.05). Finally, our results suggest that there is a moderated mediation effect in which there is a significant mediating effect of EIC when learning capability is high. While the mediating effect of EIC becomes insignificant under a low level of learning capability. In IT outsourcing industry, due to the different knowledge domains of vendors and clients and the high interdependencies of IT outsourcing projects, it is important for vendors to have the ability of identifying the embedded knowledge when conducting external integration activities with clients. A high level of learning capability can help vendors effectively capture the client's requirements and the embedded knowledge, thus reinforcing the effects of EIC. Within the organizational boundary, a high level of learning capability can also facilitate the knowledge transfer and mutual understanding between internal functions. However, due to the similar technology knowledge of internal functions, there would be a less perceived need for remedial effort from IIC. In this case, the direct effect of IIC will be reduced. As a whole, the mediating effect of EIC becomes stronger when learning capability is high. When learning capability is low, vendors are unable to effectively transfer knowledge between internal functions and between the clients. Without the swift response to the client's changing or uncertain requirements, the external integration activities will be frustrated leading to a reduced effect of EIC. In this case, it is important for vendors to structure their internal resources, functions and procedures into collaborative and synchronized processes to improve the performance.\n6. Conclusion: With the rapid development of IT outsourcing market and the increasingly turbulent business environment, it is becoming more important to understand the outsourcing performance. Considering the limited attention to vendor outsourcing performance, this study addresses the outsourcing performance from the vendor perspective. On basis of DCV, integration capability and learning capability are regarded as two important dynamic capabilities for vendor outsourcing performance, however, their underlying mechanisms remains unclear in extant literature. Correspondingly, this study explains how IIC, EIC and learning capability jointly affect vendor performance with a moderated mediation model. Using a sample of 237 vendor firms, we test the research model and hypotheses. Empirical results show that the effects of internal and EIC are contingent on learning capability. When learning capability is high, EIC has an increased effect on vendor performance, whereas the effect of IIC on vendor performance is reduced. We find learning capability have \"double-edged\" moderating effects. By testing the moderated mediation model, this study further indicates a conditional indirect effect of IIC. Under a high level of learning capability, there is a significant indirect effect of IIC on performance through EIC, whereas the indirect effect becomes non-significant when learning capability is low. These findings contribute to outsourcing research and practice in several ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying mechanisms through which integration capability and learning capability influence IT outsourcing performance from vendor's perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper develops a moderated mediation model to explain the underlying influence processes of integration capability and learning capability on vendor's performance. A sample of 237 vendor firms was obtained from China through two separated surveys. The hypotheses were tested with the partial least squares method and bias-corrected bootstrapping method.\nFindings: The empirical results indicate that external integration capability (EIC) mediates the effect of internal integration capability (IIC) on vendor outsourcing performance, and the relationship between EIC and vendor performance is positively moderated by learning capability, while learning capability has a negative moderating effect on the link between IIC and vendor performance. Further, the conditional indirect effect is suggested. The indirect effect of IIC on vendor performance through EIC becomes non-significant when learning capability is low.\nOriginality/value: This study highlights the counterintuitive notion that learning capability may not always have uniformly positive effects and figure out the mechanism through which integration capability and learning capability can effectively improve IT outsourcing performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Antecedents to participation in corporate social responsibility programs
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Status",
"Empathy",
"Cause proximity",
"Social responsibility",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's competitive marketplace, companies are devoting an increasing amount of time and money to establishing themselves as socially responsible, in an effort to appeal to the value system of their target customers (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) and accordingly, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become mainstream in today's corporate world (Vlachos et al., 2009). CSR programs can take many forms, such as diversity initiatives, recycling programs, the use of green materials, support of community events, and donations of money to charitable causes (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). In the current study, we focus on CSR appeals in which the company promises to donate a portion of the purchase price to a charitable cause and requests a matching donation from the customer. Such donation-based promotions can have a strong positive impact on the company's bottom-line (Krishna and Rajan, 2009; Henderson and Arora, 2010). Prior research has focused heavily on the business returns of donation-based CSR rather than understanding what factors influence consumers' donation behaviors. To bridge that gap, we are interested in examining the power of CSR in enhancing consumers' donation intentions. More specifically, we want to investigate the joint effects of status, proximity to CSR, and empathy towards the cause on consumers' willingness to donate money to a charity. Previous research has demonstrated that status activation predisposes people to engage in prosocial behaviors such as choosing green products (Griskevicius et al., 2010). Moreover, the proximity of the cause (i.e. whether the cause is in the consumer's local community, or outside of it) influences the customer's CSR behavior (Sen et al., 2009; Hoeffler and Keller, 2002; Shipley, 2008). For example, donations in the USA to Hurricane Katrina victims were threefold compared to those to the Indian Ocean tsunami victims (Winterich et al., 2009). Finally, feelings of empathy towards the cause have also been linked to donation behaviors (Graziano et al., 2007). A richer understanding of how these three factors shape consumers' donation intentions would enable service organizations to target causes that maximize donation behaviors.In this paper, we propose that status moderates the impact of the cause proximity and empathy on consumers' donation intent. Specifically, we predict that status seeking induces consumers to donate to causes that benefit society at large (e.g. a nation-wide food bank,) while an absence of status seeking motive makes local causes (e.g. a local food bank) more attractive. However, these effects are contingent on the consumers' feelings of empathy towards the cause.\n1 Background literature: 1a. Prosocial behavior\n2 Methodology: 2a. Subjects\n3 Results: The manipulation check for status activation indicated significant differences in one's desire for higher social status and prestige among the two status groups (M=4.1 and M=3.1 for status prime and control group, respectively, t=3.10, p<0.01), thereby indicating that the status prime was effective. Conversely, the differences between the two groups were insignificant for feelings of happiness and sadness, thus ruling out mood effects as a potential rival hypothesis (M=5.60 and M=3.15 for status prime group and M=6.14 and M=2.82 for the control group, p>0.05 for both comparisons).We used hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypothesized three-way interaction. The three main effects (status, proximity of cause and empathy) were entered in the first step, followed by the three two-way interactions, and finally by the three-way interaction. The results from moderated multiple regression analysis shown in Table I indicate a significant main effect for empathy, standardized b-coefficient of 0.363, p<0.01. However, this main effect was qualified by a significant three-way interaction between empathy, status and proximity of cause, standardized b-coefficient of -0.292, p<0.01. The three-way interaction accounted for a significant increase in R2 (Change in R2=0.043, F(1, 262)=13.84, p<0.001), indicating that the complex interaction explained a significant amount of the variation in donation intent beyond that explained by the main effects and two-way interactions.To make sense of this complex interaction, we followed the interaction probing procedures by Aiken and West (1991). The three-way interaction is plotted in Figures 1 and 2. Participants in the status motive condition were more likely to donate to a national cause when they felt empathy towards the cause than when they were less empathetic about the cause (slope difference test t=2.35, p<0.001). Conversely, participants in the control group were more likely to donate to a local cause when they felt empathy toward the cause than when such emotions were at a lower level (slope difference test t=3.42, p<0.001). These results provide support for H1 and H2, respectively.\n4 Discussion: As the concept of CSR has evolved over the last decade, corporations have begun engaging their customers as partners in this effort, in effort to build customer relationships based on a shared value system (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001; Vlachos et al., 2009). As the number of these partnership-oriented CSR initiatives continues to increase, it is important to understand what kinds of factors influence customers' willingness to participate in such programs. Prior studies in CSR indicate that the proximity of the target charity in a CSR program is an important factor in the effectiveness of these initiatives (Sen et al., 2009; Hoeffler and Keller, 2002), and research in psychology suggests that status and empathy are linked to socially responsible behaviors (Graziano et al., 2007). Studies have demonstrated that empathetic concern toward the victim directly influences helping behaviors in a variety of contexts (Coke et al., 1978; Davis, 1983). People are more likely to help others when they are able to empathize with the victim's situation, or when they feel a sense of kinship with the victim. We thus predicted that consumers' feelings of empathy towards the cause would be an important determinant of their CSR behavior. In particular, we predicted that social status would interact with empathy and proximity of the cause to influence customers' donation behavior.Our results supported these predictions. Since low status individuals tend to be more attuned to the social context in their immediate environment (Piff et al., 2010), we expected that participants who were not primed to seek high status to demonstrate increased donation intent when the proximity of the cause is close (i.e. a local food bank as opposed to a nationwide effort to fight hunger), and we expected empathy to moderate this relationship. As predicted, empathy feelings had a positive impact on low status seeking consumers' donation intent when the cause was a local food bank.The pattern of results was reversed when the cause involved a nationwide hunger relief effort. Prior research suggests that when the cause is more distant, then low status seeking individuals are less interested in donating (Piff et al., 2010). We predicted that high status seeking should result in higher levels of altruistic behaviors (Griskevicius et al., 2010), particularly when the individual feels empathy towards the distant cause. Our results supported this prediction. When the target of the donation was a national food bank, feelings of empathy had a positive impact among high status seekers. In other words, donating to a distant cause was perceived as a true act of altruism, thus inducing donation intent among high status individuals. These results can also be interpreted in light of Han et al.'s (2010) signal theory based on wealth and need for status. Consumers with high need for status might act as \"parvenus\" and diassociate themselves from lower status consumers by favoring national rather than local donation causes.\n5 Managerial implications: The study findings have important implications for charities that wish to partner with businesses in a CSR campaign. Our results demonstrated that empathy toward the cause is an important determinant of consumer CSR donation behavior. In sum, higher levels of empathy generated increased levels of donation behavior when matched with the right cause. While empathy was measured rather than manipulated in our study, this information could be useful to charities as they craft donation campaigns. By incorporating messaging that generates empathy for the cause, charities could manipulate the level of empathy, thereby increasing customer donation behavior.In addition, the results of this study suggest that charities may be well-served to consider the customer base of their partner business. For example, nation-wide charities may find more success when partnering with businesses that cater to high status customers, as these customers are more likely to donate to national charities. Conversely, charitable organizations that are local in scope may find more success partnering with businesses that have a lower status customer base.The results of this study also have significant implications for marketers and managers of corporations that are considering launching a CSR program. Our results suggest that the status of the customer affects to whom and when they give. For companies that wish to engage their customers through CSR donation campaigns, understanding the socioeconomic status of their consumers can help them tailor their selection of charities. Corporations catering to high status customers, or customers who seek to enhance their status through purchases, may consider aligning themselves with charities on a national level, as these types of consumers respond better to such charity programs. For example, La Madeleine Cafe's Card for the cause program is an example of a nationwide charity against breast cancer that might be highly appealing to high status customers.Companies would be well-served to also consider the donation practices of lower status customers. Our results indicate that these customers, who are more tied to their community out of necessity, prefer to donate to local causes. Companies whose customers tend to be of lower status may want to consider structuring their CSR initiatives around charities and causes in the local community. For example, restaurants catering to lower status individuals might be more successful in partnering with organizations that provide transportation and social support for seniors and disabled residents in the community. By aligning the cause with the status of the consumer, service providers may be able to obtain a higher donation response rate from customers, thereby increasing the level of consumer involvement and engagement with the company.\n6 Limitations and future research: As with any research, the findings of this study should be interpreted with care. First, to maximize internal validity, hypothetical scenarios were used, rather than actual consumption experiences. Future research could utilize diverse methods such as field experiments to further investigate these constructs. Second, our study investigated only the proximity of the cause, but future research could focus on other aspects of the charity, such as characteristics of the recipients, brand awareness of the charity, or fit between the donating corporation and the charitable cause. Third, our study was limited to feelings of empathy, but future research could investigate the impact of other emotions on the CSR donation process. In addition, our study did not control for feelings of guilt on the part of the consumer. Prior research demonstrates that guilt can serve as a powerful motivator to donate to charity (Lindsey, 2005). Given that the customer was asked for a donation to help hungry people immediately after enjoying a large restaurant meal, it is possible that guilt may have served as a motivating factor to donate to the charity. Future research could control for guilt as a covariate. Our study also did not control for altruism, which may be an influential factor in a charity donation situation. Future studies could control for this individual-level factor. Finally, this research employed a cause that had presumably a good fit, or congruence, with the company. Fit can be defined as the perceived link between the company's and the causes's image (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). Prior research shows that a good fit between cause and company may increase donations, whereas a poor fit might not be beneficial or might even hurt the company (Simmons and Becker-Olsen, 2006). Hence, future research should examine the role of fit in inducing consumers' donation behaviors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - In today's competitive marketplace, companies are devoting an increasing amount of time and money to establishing themselves as socially responsible, in an effort to appeal to the value system of their target customers (Sen and Bhattacharya). In the current study, the paper focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) appeals in which the company promises to donate a portion of the purchase price to a charitable cause and requests a matching donation from the customer. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the joint effects of status, proximity to CSR, and empathy towards the cause on consumers' willingness to donate money to a charity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study used written scenarios and a 2x2x2 between subjects quasi experimental design to test the hypotheses. The authors predicted that status would interact with empathy and proximity of the cause to influence customers' donation behavior.\nFindings: - The results supported these predictions. Status seeking individuals exhibited higher levels of prosocial behaviors when the cause was a national one, particularly when the individual felt empathy towards the distant cause. Conversely, empathy feelings had a positive impact donation intent when the cause was a local one and status seeking was not activated.\nOriginality/value: - The results of this study have significant implications for marketers and managers who are considering launching a CSR program. By aligning the cause with the type of consumer, corporations may be able to obtain a higher response rate from customers, thereby increasing the level of consumer involvement and engagement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Justice, management, and governance
|
[
"Business ethics",
"Corporate governance",
"Justice",
"Multinational companies",
"Political philosophy",
"Employee participation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A corporate code of conduct for a multinational corporation (MNC) \"consists of a set of activities that a company commits to undertake when a conflict arises between that business and society at large\" (Sethi, 2003, p. 64)[1]. As Sethi (2003, p. 64) points out:To be effective, a code of conduct must be acceptable to all the relevant stakeholders and must fit within the competitive realities of the marketplace.Acceptability, I take it, admits of degrees so that the activities specified in a code of conduct may vary in their acceptability to different stakeholders[2].What should inform the balance to be struck among the interests of relevant stakeholders of MNCs and large-scale economic enterprises more generally? Questions such as these should be informed, in part, by considerations of justice (Freeman, 1994; Hartman, 1996, 2001)[3]. Among the most influential of this concept is that of John Rawls (1971, 1993). Rawls takes the subject of his account to be the basic institutions of society and the state[4]. In turn, it has been argued that economic enterprises differ from states in ways that preclude the direct application of theories such as that of Rawls to questions about economic enterprises (Phillips and Margolis, 1999; Phillips, 2003; Sollars, 2002). Differences between states and economic enterprises, however, are a matter of degree rather than kind, and as a result, there is no such barrier to applying theories from political philosophy to questions about economic enterprises (Hartman, 2001; Moriarty, 2005).This debate overlooks an important distinction. Prevailing accounts aim to apply theories from political philosophy directly to questions about economic enterprises by drawing analogies between states and economic enterprises. Given the differences between states and economic enterprises, there is reason to question prevailing accounts. Political philosophy indeed matters for the management and governance of economic enterprises in an indirect manner. Rather than draw an analogy between states and economic enterprises, an indirect approach asks what justice requires of the social institutions that regulate economic enterprises and what justice requires of the economic enterprises operating within such an institutional context.\nPolitical philosophy and economic enterprises: There are two approaches by which political philosophy has been brought to bear on questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises[5]. The first concern pertains to the issue of which stakeholders to take into account in the management of economic enterprises. There may be both instrumental and non-instrumental considerations for taking into account the interests of a given stakeholder. Instrumental considerations reflect the idea that the interests of particular stakeholders and economic enterprises do coincide so that managers are able to further the interests of the enterprise by furthering the interests of a given stakeholder. For example, workers who benefit from better working conditions may also be more productive. Non-instrumental considerations reflect the idea that certain stakeholder interests are to be respected even if there is no benefit to the company from doing so. For example, prohibiting coercion and torture of workers on the basis of a conception of human rights is an instance of invoking a non-instrumental consideration for taking into account the interests of workers[6].In business ethics literature, the concept of justice has been invoked as a non-instrumental consideration for taking into account the interests of a wide range of stakeholders in the management of economic enterprises. Freeman and Hartman offer two such accounts (Freeman, 1994; Hartman, 1996, 2001). Although, their accounts differ in a number of ways, they both ask what a conception of justice would require if transposed from the level of society to the level an economic enterprise. Using Rawls (1971), Freeman argues that economic enterprises ought to be \"managed in the interests of its stakeholders, financiers, customers, employees, and communities\" (Freeman, 1994, p. 417). In Rawls (1971, p. 11) account:The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned about furthering their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association.Taking an economic enterprise to be formed by a contract among stakeholders, Freeman argues that parties to such a contract would not accept that economic enterprises be managed exclusively in the interests of shareholders, Freeman asserts that, as a matter of justice, the corporation ought to be managed in the interests of all key stakeholders[7].The second way in which political philosophy has been brought to bear on questions of economic enterprises is with respect to the mechanisms of governance (Dahl, 1985). According to this approach, insofar as workers in an economic enterprise are in a position similar to citizens in a state, just as citizens have a claim to political democracy, so do workers have a claim to workplace democracy. Cohen (1989, p. 27) calls this argument the \"parallel case argument\". Central to the parallel case argument is the view that the relationship between managers and workers is relevantly similar to the relationship between government officials and citizens to warrant extending the right of democratic decision-making to workers[8].Critics of these approaches argue that important differences between states and economic enterprises preclude the direct application of insights from political philosophy to questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises. One difference lies in the fact that the contract underlying the formation of an economic enterprise is an actual contract whereas the contract in Rawls's account is hypothetical (Sollars, 2002). A second difference is that Rawls's account rules out arrangements that depend upon the possibility of exit for their acceptance, but economic enterprises allow for exit (Phillips and Margolis, 1999, p. 623). A third difference indicates that economic enterprises are purposive organizations, whereas society is open-ended with regard to its aims (Phillips and Margolis, 1999, p. 623). Given these and other differences, it is argued that conceptions of justice cannot be directly transposed to economic enterprises. For example, the open-ended nature of the state may help to justify the need for political democracy. Hence, given that economic enterprises are not open-ended in the same way as the state, the arguments for political democracy may not apply to economic enterprises. Rawls himself has emphasized that the social contract differs from other agreements in ways that the principles developed to govern it are distinct from those that apply to agreements in general (Rawls, 1993, p. 276).One response to such criticism is that the distinction between states and economic enterprises is drawn too sharply. Hartman (2001) argues that voluntary associations share enough similarities with states to make it appropriate to apply a conception of justice like that of Rawls to economic enterprises (see also Moriarty, 2005).The next section discusses a different approach while suggests that notwithstanding the differences between the state and economic enterprises, an argument can be made that considerations of justice matter indirectly for the management and governance of economic enterprises. This rationale is supported through illustrative examples two brief illustrations that draw upon Rawls's account of justice.\nMNCs and stakeholders: The first illustration concerns the responsibilities of managers of MNCs to promote the interests of persons in the developing economies in which they operate. Such responsibilities have received a great deal of attention, for example, in the form of questions regarding wages, working hours, and working conditions of those employed by MNCs and their suppliers (Sethi, 2003, p. 17)[9].One feature of Rawls (1999), a theory of global justice concerns the obligations owed by members of \"well-ordered societies\" to members of \"burdened societies.\" At a minimum, a well-ordered society secures human rights for all of its members, has a system of law that is able to impose duties and obligations on all of its members, and has officials who understand the law to be guided by a common good idea of justice (Rawls, 1999, pp. 64-7). In contrast, burdened societies find it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the status of being well ordered because of \"historical, social, and economic circumstances\" (Rawls, 1999, p. 90). Rawls suggests that well-ordered societies owe a duty of assistance to these burdened societies to help them establish the institutions of a well-ordered society (Rawls, 1999, p. 90). Central to fulfilling the duty of assistance is the provision of material benefits to help realize respect for human rights (Rawls, 1999, pp. 108-9).There are conditions under which MNCs - that are largely owned by members of well-ordered societies - have a responsibility to help fulfill the duty of assistance toward those in the burdened societies in which they operate (Hsieh, 2004). The rationale behind this argument is the extent to which the prevalence of burdened societies is the result of governments of well-ordered societies not doing their share to fulfill the duty of assistance, members of well-ordered societies still owe a duty of assistance. Furthermore, in some situations, it is plausible to assume that MNCs and their shareholders benefit directly from the burdensome conditions that characterize the societies in which they operate. In such situations, it seems unfair that MNCs and shareholders benefit from the conditions for which they still are under a duty to help alleviate. This may be called the \"principle of assistance.\" It holds that in those situations in which MNCs benefit directly from the burdensome conditions under which they operate and shareholders still owe a duty of assistance, MNCs have responsibilities associated with fulfilling the duty of assistance (Hsieh, 2004, p. 646)[10].The magnitude of assistance owed, however, is limited in a number of ways so as not to eliminate the gains from trade. Rawls's theory limits the amount of assistance required on the part of well-ordered societies in part to keep well-ordered societies from acting paternalistically toward burdened societies (Rawls, 1999, p. 111). Furthermore, on Rawls's account, there is no general duty on the part of well-ordered societies to reduce social and economic inequalities among societies. Well-ordered societies may exhibit significant differences in their levels of economic development. Although this account grounds responsibilities on the part of MNCs to respect and promote the interests of their stakeholders on grounds of justice, it does so in a manner that does not require drawing an analogy between states and economic enterprises.\nWorkers and governance: The second illustration of extending Rawls's account of justice to economic enterprises concerns the mechanisms of corporate governance. Our starting point is Rawls's account of justice as fairness (Rawls, 1971, 2001). Rawls (2001, pp. 42-8) outlines a set of basic rights that are subject to constitutional protection in a just society. Briefly stated, an instance of interference is understood as arbitrary if little or no justification can be given for it in terms of the worker's interests upon whom the interference is visited. The severity of interference has two dimensions: in terms of the lack of justification that can be given for it and in terms of its impact on workers' interests. Examples of interests to be considered are physical safety; occupational stability to enable maintaining ties to family, friends, and community; and pride in one's work.Given that basic rights are subject to institutional protection, recognition of a basic right to protection against arbitrary interference at work has the potential to inform the rules specifying what is permitted and required with regard to the operation of economic enterprises. At a minimum, recognition of a basic right to protection against arbitrary interference at work would require rules that provide workers a right to exit and rules that limit the amount of discretion exercised by managers.At the same time, there is reason to think that such provisions may be inadequate to protect against arbitrary interference. With respect to limiting managerial discretion, if we accept that economic enterprises are characterized by coordination by authority, then managerial discretion can be limited only so much before eliminating altogether what makes economic enterprises distinct and desirable[11]. Furthermore, there are a number of reasons to hold that the cost of exit is sufficiently high to make it unreasonable to require workers to protect their interests solely by exercising their right to exit[12].First, the contribution of labor and capital to the productivity of an economic enterprise may vary with the firm-specificity of the investment (Blair and Stout, 1999). In the case of workers, this may mean developing skills that are unique to the economic enterprise's production process. The firm-specificity of these investments means that providers of labor and capital will not be able to command as high a return at another economic enterprise. Because greater investment in firm-specific capital increases productivity, from the standpoint of the providers of labor and capital, it may not even be desirable to eliminate the cost to exit[13]. Second, according to efficiency wage theory, given the cost associated with monitoring workers, employers will pay workers more than the prevailing market-clearing wage to raise the cost of exiting their place of work (Akerlof, 1982). Third, the cost of exit is raised for providers of labor and capital as a result of costs associated with search and transition. Fourth, given that managerial discretion is taken to be a defining feature of economic enterprises, using exit as a way to avoid being subject to managerial discretion requires workers to consider withdrawing from economic enterprises altogether, which would represent a substantial cost to workers. Together, these points give us reason to hold that exit alone is inadequate to realize the right to protection against arbitrary interference at work.The question then arises as to what sort of economic regime would more adequately realize protection against arbitrary interference at work. Although the specifics of what would be required will depend upon the economic conditions and broader social institutions of a given society, existing economic regimes provide clues. The fact that these features are found in existing regimes should help to alleviate concerns about the feasibility of the requirements of justice. One feature to be required potentially is for managers to consider the interests of workers in their decision-making[14]. Another feature is the provision for some form of participation, either directly or indirectly, on the part of the workers in the governance of economic enterprises[15].In short, even if it may be inappropriate to apply theories of justice directly to economic enterprises as if they were analogous to states, to the extent that some regimes of governance better protect basic rights than others, Rawls's account of justice can be said to apply to questions about the governance of economic enterprises.\nConclusion: This paper has illustrated two ways in which Rawls's account of justice can be brought to bear on questions concerning the management and governance of economic enterprises. It helps to clarify which interests deserve consideration in the management of economic enterprises and what mechanisms of governance are required to protect those interests. In turn, the paper opens the way to extending the insights from political philosophy to questions about economic enterprises in a manner that avoids the criticisms raised against prevailing accounts that aim to do so.This paper also makes a contribution to two broader areas of inquiry. First, it advances contemporary debate in political philosophy in regard to the requirements of justice for social institutions. Although liberal theories of justice have focused a great deal on what justice requires for the economic opportunities of individuals, comparatively little attention has been paid to examining what justice requires with regard to economic enterprises[16].Second, it aims to inform our discussion with regard to codes of conduct for MNCs. As noted at the outset, codes of conduct help to specify the balance to be struck among the interests of relevant stakeholders in the management of MNCs. We suggest that the content of such codes is open to evaluation from the perspective of justice. Codes of conduct can serve to promote justice when the requirements of justice are not being met, as such codes of conduct represent one important step in trying to meet this challenge.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The object of this paper is to examine the debate in business ethics over extending insights from political philosophy (e.g. theories of distributive justice) to address questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper engages in a philosophical argument.\nFindings: - Even if justice does not matter in a direct manner for questions about economic enterprises, current debate overlooks the possibility that justice matters in an indirect manner for questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises. The paper illustrates two ways in which justice matters for such questions. The first concerns the promotion of stakeholder interests by multinational corporations. The second concerns the claims of workers to participate in the governance of economic enterprises.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is offered as a contribution to the literature on normative theories of managerial responsibility and corporate governance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Technology and medication errors: impact in nursing homes
|
[
"Technology",
"Safety",
"Quality",
"Medication errors",
"Long-term healthcare"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Institute of Medicine (1999) published a report estimating that medical errors occurred in more than 3.7 percent of hospitalizations in the US and that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans died every year owing to medical errors. The Health Grades Quality Study corroborated these numbers in 2004. In the UK, deaths resulting from medication incidents represent 20 percent of total adverse events-related mortalities, costing the National Health System about PS500 million annually (Page and McKinney, 2007). In Canada, Baker and Norton (2006) indicated that overall medical error incidence was 7.5 percent. This number suggests that approximately 185,000 medical errors occur every year and that half could be avoided. Foster et al. (2004) reveal that 12.7 percent of patients admitted to the Ottawa hospital experience medical error and that 4.8 percent were considered avoidable. Medical errors fall into four categories: diagnostic, treatment, prevention and others (Crane and Crane, 2006). Medication errors fall into the treatment error category. In 2007, Quebec health and social service managers proposed a strategic plan to optimize medication processes. In Quebec, every citizen receives healthcare services via public and private healthcare systems. To guide regional actions, the Ministry of Health and Social Service staff required that medication distribution technology for short-term (single dose mode) and long-term (multidose mode) oral medications are implemented. The medication distribution technology, hereinafter called MDT, has two parts: an automated packaging device in the pharmacy; and mobile medication dispensing carts to distribute medications in the care units. We study six public nursing homes (long-term facilities) in Quebec province to measure MDT's effect on medication error detection. Our study also evaluates how MDT enhances medication security. Two research hypotheses were defined:\nLiterature review: A medication error is defined as any avoidable iatrogenic medication event (caused directly by the doctor) resulting from an unintentional dysfunction in therapeutic medication management (Lassetter and Warnick, 2003). This error can therefore occur during any step in the medication process: prescription, dispensing and administration by the nurse. According to the Quebec College of Nurses (OIIQ) (Ordre des infirmieres et infirmiers du Quebec, 2004), medication administration is among the most frequent activities in the Quebec nurse's daily life. Medication administration by the nurse is a crucial step because most medication prescription and dispensing errors are detected during this step (Larrabee and Brown, 2003). Leape et al. (1995) noted that errors occur most often during prescribing (39 percent) and administration by the nurse (38 percent), while the errors produced in the pharmacy and during prescription transcription are respectively 11 and 12 percent. According to Larrabee and Brown (2003), medication administration errors are reported in only 5 percent of cases. The problems related to medication administration, therefore, are underestimated.\nCase study: This research was conducted in a Quebec health and social services center (HSSC). The HSSC's pharmacy serves 800 patients spread over 20 care units in six nursing homes. The HSSC, pharmacy and nursing home we studied are located in the same facility. Medications prepared by pharmacy staff are delivered to other nursing homes by truck. Before implementing the MDT, medications needed to cover a 35 day period used to be prepared at once manually. The method consisted in filling, sealing, identifying and classifying the blisters and putting them on racks and verified to make sure that they were prepared adequately. Once completed, medications were delivered to the care units on Friday every five weeks. If a patient had to take ten different medications per day then ten blisters were prepared and sorted according to administration time. Each blister contained 35 pills to cover the 35-day period. Pharmacy staff needed seven days to prepare and deliver medications to four care units for a total of 35 days to serve the 20 care units.\nMethod: In our study, data collection used the voluntary reporting process by nursing staff (OIIQ, 2004). Tomas and Petersen (2003) identify eight methods to measure errors and adverse events in healthcare (see Table I). They focus on the ability to detect latent errors (or system errors) versus active errors and adverse events.\nResults: Hypothesis 1\nConclusion: We measured the impact of an automated and robotic medication dispensing system on the medication errors in nursing homes. Results show a significant increase in the total medication errors reported. We observed that with MDT, errors can be detected easily and rapidly. This observation is positive because it is now possible to know the extent of medication errors in nursing homes. Our results also indicate that medication errors are less serious following MDT introduction and that the consequences are less serious for the patients. Therefore MDT can significantly improve medication processes in nursing homes. Using an incident/accident voluntary reporting process to measure medication errors has many advantages and disadvantages (Tomas and Petersen, 2003). One disadvantage is that errors are known to be under-reported (Flynn et al., 2002). Also, many factors may influence whether an error will be reported or not such as fear of reprisal, confidentiality, outcome severity, etc. (Kingston et al., 2004; Jeffe et al., 2004). We do not how these factors affected the nursing staff in our study. Moreover the taxonomy used to classify medication errors, severity, consequences and causes may result in misclassification, because healthcare lacks a universally agreed taxonomy for classifying errors (Kaldjian et al., 2006). However, results obtained through our study reveal that long-term healthcare staff would benefit from using an MDT since it reduced total medication errors and increased medication process safety. In Quebec, there are few data on the impact of automated and robotic medication dispensing systems in nursing homes. This study is important for healthcare facility managers considering implementing technologies in the medication process. Our study showed that MDT has no real impact on medication flow and dosage errors. Therefore future research should explore these errors occur and if they follow poor or unsafe nursing practices. We intend to study the impact of human factors on the medication process and on patient safety. Further research should focus on identifying and analysing the main medication-error causes. Targeted counter measures can then be developed to control them. Moreover, HSSC staff intend to implement a barcode medication administration system where the nurse scans the patient's wristband barcode and the medication to make the appropriate verification. In the long term, we are interested in analysing the barcode medication administration system's impact on medication errors to give us a global view of technology on medication processes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study a medication distribution technology's (MDT) impact on medication errors reported in public nursing homes in Quebec Province.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The work was carried out in six nursing homes (800 patients). Medication error data were collected from nursing staff through a voluntary reporting process before and after MDT was implemented. The errors were analysed using: totals errors; medication error type; severity and patient consequences. A statistical analysis verified whether there was a significant difference between the variables before and after introducing MDT.\nFindings: The results show that the MDT detected medication errors. The authors' analysis also indicates that errors are detected more rapidly resulting in less severe consequences for patients.\nPractical implications: MDT is a step towards safer and more efficient medication processes. Our findings should convince healthcare administrators to implement technology such as electronic prescriber or bar code medication administration systems to improve medication processes and to provide better healthcare to patients.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have been carried out in long-term healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. The authors' study extends what is known about MDT's impact on medication errors in nursing homes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The conceptual landscape of digital curation
|
[
"Collaboration",
"Information management",
"Data",
"Data handling",
"Interdisciplinarity",
"Data management",
"Digital curation",
"Data curation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: We swim in a sea of data [...] and the sea level is rising rapidly\nIntroduction: \"Contemplating the digital universe is a little like contemplating Avogadro's number,\" claim Gantz et al. (2008). \"It's big. Bigger than anything we can touch, feel, or see, and thus impossible to understand in context\" (p. 3). IBM concludes, \"Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data-so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone[1].\" Researchers grapple with \"a tsunami of information that paradoxically feeds the growing scientific output while simultaneously crushing researchers with its weight\" (Haendel et al., 2012, p. 1). The data deluge is truly upon us.\nDigital curation: Digital curation centers on \"maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use[3].\" First used in 2001, the term embraces digital preservation, data curation, and the management of assets over their lifecycle (Lee and Tibbo, 2007; Yakel, 2007).\nData: Defining data\nSharing and reuse: Sharing\nResearchers and researcher behaviors: Disciplinarity\nScholarly communication: Cyberscholarship\nInfrastructure: As Poole (2015) suggests, four types of institutions show much potential with respect to digital curation: archives, centers, libraries, and IRs. Yet many researchers remain underinformed about the strengths and weaknesses of each one (Steinhart et al., 2012).\nOverarching concerns: Overarching concerns in digital curation include standards, governance and policy, planning, risk management, evaluation, and metrics, sustainability, and outreach.\nDirections for further research: \"We are at the early stages of a genuine systemic and systematic response to the data stewardship challenges framed by the emergence of e-research, and to seizing the opportunities promised by more effective, broadscale sharing and reuse,\" Lynch (2014b) contends (p. 406). In addressing this transition, scholars might look to six questions. First, at what point(s) of the lifecycle can digital curators' input and support be most valuable? Second, what can further examination of researcher practices suggest about common digital curation needs across communities of practice, domains, subdisciplines, disciplines, institutions, and nations? Third, how can archivists best expand their incipient role in digital curation work? Fourth, what strategies can be used to secure funding beyond one-shot grants and what strategies can be employed to secure funding for ongoing as well as for new digital curation initiatives? Fifth, what outreach and awareness-raising strategies have proven most successful? Finally, what are the most appropriate metrics for measuring success in digital curation work?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to define and describe digital curation, an emerging field of theory and practice in the information professions that embraces digital preservation, data curation, and management of information assets over their lifecycle. It dissects key issues and debates in the area while arguing that digital curation is a vital strategy for dealing with the so-called data deluge.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper explores digital curation's potential to provide an improved return on investment in data work.\nFindings: A vital counterweight to the problem of data loss, digital curation also adds value to trusted data assets for current and future use. This paper unpacks data, the research enterprise, the roles and responsibilities of digital curation professionals, the data lifecycle, metadata, sharing and reuse, scholarly communication (cyberscholarship, publication and citation, and rights), infrastructure (archives, centers, libraries, and institutional repositories), and overarching issues (standards, governance and policy, planning and data management plans, risk management, evaluation, and metrics, sustainability, and outreach).\nOriginality/value: A critical discussion that focusses on North America and the UK, this paper synthesizes previous findings and conclusions in the area of digital curation. It has value for digital curation professionals and researchers as well as students in library and information science who may deal with data in the future. This paper helps potential stakeholders understand the intellectual and practical framework and the importance of digital curation in adding value to scholarly (science, social science, and humanities) and other types of data. This paper suggests the need for further empirical research, not only in exploring the actual sharing and reuse practices of various sectors, disciplines, and domains, but also in considering the the data lifecycle, the potential role of archivists, funding and sustainability, outreach and awareness-raising, and metrics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
"What if my mum sees it?": Examination of visible brand interaction in the presence of a wider network
|
[
"Behaviour",
"Brands",
"E-marketing",
"Virtual identity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Jack is a final year undergraduate student studying away from home. He is a member of various sports clubs and societies and spends a lot of time at their social events, which often include heavy drinking and risque behavior. He and his friends are avid Facebook users, sharing and tagging photos from nights out and \"liking\" brand content. However, since his parents have \"friended\" him on Facebook and he did not have the heart to decline their request, he has become anxious that they will disapprove of his lifestyle and the brands he \"likes.\" Moreover, having heard reports that employers try to look at the profiles of candidates during recruitment, Jack no longer interacts with certain brand content, he otherwise would have in fear that it may be perceived as controversial.\nTheoretical background: Self-presentation and social anxiety\nMethod: Research design\nResults: Social anxiety associated with brand interaction across audiences\nDiscussion: Overall, the results demonstrate that brand interaction intention in the presence of multiple audiences presents a challenge for consumers and is an issue that needs to be considered by those who create brand content for the purpose of consumer interaction.\nConclusion: Overall this research asserts that the presence of multiple audiences is not just an issue for people navigating the assimilation of brand content, but also for businesses and site designers that wish to maximize brand interaction and maintain ethical practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It is known that to encourage people to interact (e.g. sharing) with brands through social media, businesses create content in line with the expectations of their target audience. On these sites, however, such interaction by consumers is visible, contributing to their self-presentation, which can be seen by their wider network; some of whom will find it appropriate, others may not. Currently, little is known about the effects of consumers' own diverse set of audiences on behavioral intention toward brand interaction and emotional effect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey methodology (n=386) was adopted to examine intention to interact with real brand posts.\nFindings: Results show that the brand interaction is associated with social anxiety when it is felt that visible evidence of such actions is discrepant from the audience expectations. This, then, constrains the behavioral intention to interact with brands online.\nPractical implications: For businesses to maximize brand interactions and minimize social anxiety, they must be mindful of not just the expectations of their target but also consider their target's own network. For site designers, this research urges for greater refining of privacy tools and suggests the addition of a \"Secret Like\" option.\nOriginality/value: Encouraging visible brand interaction through social media is paramount for businesses. Managers focus only on their target audience when designing content but neglect to consider the self-presentational implications of interacting with branded content to wider networks. This paper shows that this must be considered to increase success and maintain ethical practice. This is of value for multiple-stakeholders, managers, users, site designers and academics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Concurrent design of nanofluid for x-abilities using MADM approach
|
[
"Nanofluid",
"CE-MADM",
"Concurrent design",
"X-abilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Growing demands of efficient heat transfer for industrial and thermal engineering applications has diverted significant attention towards research and practices on nanofluid characteristics and applications (Wong and De Leon, 2010; Taylor et al., 2012; Yu and Xie (2012)) that potentially leads to better heat transfer performance. In the field of thermal heat transfer equipment's, low thermal conductivity of conventionally used heat transfer fluid was a serious constraint in enhancing the performance and compactness of engineering apparatus. This requires amendments in the design of heat exchanger or improvement in the fluid participating for heat transfer for varieties of different applications to improve performance. One of the idea of increasing heat transfer rate by increasing relative surface area that actively participate in heat transfer. On the path of increasing surface area, growth of nanotechnology has observed a beginning of new generation of heat transfer fluid known as nanofluid. Usage of fins, elongated tubes in heat exchanger, wavy channel (Ahmed et al., 2012; Sui et al., 2011) and blocks (Bhave et al., 2006; Heidary and Kermani, 2012) in passage of flow are also based on the fact of increasing relative surface area for better heat transfer performance. The concept of increasing heat transfer performance by increasing surface area have been studied numerically and experimentally by many researchers by using nanofluids (Choi, 1995; Ahmed et al., 2012; Maxwell, 1881; Hamilton and Crosser, 1962; Yu and Choi, 2003; Eisher et al., 2011; Peyghambarzadeh et al., 2011) or by altering geometry of walls (Ahmed et al., 2012; Sui et al., 2011; Mahmoodi and Hashemi, 2012; Heidary and Kermani, 2012).\nDesign methodology for x-abilities: Combined approach of CE-MADM methodology permits more rapidly design flow with concurrent/simultaneous consideration of design goals and constraints merging experts from different fields into a group. This is a systematic approach that simultaneously consider all the design objectives.\nProcedure: Systematic sequence of steps involved in the procedure for the selection of best nanofluid in heat exchanger is presented in Figure 6 and all these steps are illustrated by an example presented in Table III:\nSensitivity analysis: Available nanoparticles are Al2O3, Cu, CuO, SiO2 and TiO2 with water as a base fluid.\nConclusion: The paper presents a new-fangled methodology to heat transfer mechanism to combine all the design aspects together for breeding a beneficial form of solution. This procedure is basically cooperative for R\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Multiple attribute decision making (MADM) is a conceptual agenda used for evaluation and selection of optimal nanofluid to assure best performance of heat exchanger. Most of the studies focus on nanofluids focus on individual ability at one time. Relatively, not even a single study is available for selection of nanofluid for heat exchanger using concurrent design and MADM approach. The purpose of this paper is to propose a concurrent design methodology using MADM approach to assist improved design of heat exchanger concurrently for all the x-abilities in an integrated manner.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A combined methodology of applying MADM approach using concurrent design for x-abilities is called CE-MADM approach. Implementation of nanofluid to improve thermal performance of heat exchanger entails thorough evaluation of nanofluids in various x-abilities (performance, maintenance, thermophysical properties and modelisation) to make exhaustive management decision. Sensitivity analysis is also proposed to study the behaviour of height of variation of density, heat capacity, thermal expansion and thermal conductivity with varying particle volume fraction and variation of relative closeness of available alternates from ideally best possible solution.\nFindings: MADM approach considering various x-abilities concurrently provide an approach for relative ranking of available nanofluids for optimum performance. Fishbone diagrams of all x-abilities are constructed to identify all the attributes and converge large number of attributes into single numerical index that are concurrently responsible for the cause thus saving time for easy evaluation, comparison and ranking by decision makers. Sensitivity analysis to demonstration height of variation of pertinent attributes with varying particle volume fraction. A MATLAB programming is established to execute calculations involved in the procedure.\nOriginality/value: This paper comprises a predictable and effective mathematical approach to improve design of heat exchanger with nanofluid bearing in mind all the required x-abilities concurrently. This combined approach of CE-MADM is never applied before in the field of nanofluid to predict best possible results in feasible conditions considering all the x-abilities. Sensitivity analysis is also presented from the assumed mathematical equations of thermophysical properties.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Deconstructing Higgins: gender bias in the Pygmalion phenomenon
|
[
"Gender",
"Leadership",
"Gender stereotypes",
"Status",
"Pygmalion effect"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: [...] the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. (Eliza Doolittle, from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion)\nLeader gender and the Pygmalion effect: toward a conceptual framework: Drawing from Eden's (1990b) self-fulfilling prophecy and work model, the Pygmalion effect typically involves the leader eliciting positive expectations and demonstrating supportive behaviors, including activities such as goal setting, providing learning opportunities and feedback (Bezuijen et al., 2009; Conger and Kanungo, 1988). As depicted in Figure 1, the leader's expectations of performance positively impact the target's self-expectations which in turn, elevate effort and achievement (Eden, 1992; Eden and Kinnar, 1991; Shapiro et al., 2007). While not explicitly addressed in this model, it is clear that for this process to occur, the target must internalize the Pygmalion leader's high expectations for performance (Johanson, 1999). In other words, as Tierney and Farmer (2004) observed, the target of the Pygmalion effect plays an active role in the facilitation of this phenomenon by attending to the cues of the leader's high expectations and adjusting their own behavior accordingly to fulfill those high expectations.\nTrust, ascribed leader expertise and gendered work: The first path of our model considers factors that impact subordinate receptiveness to the leader's elicited high expectations for the target's performance. Targets must view their leader as a reliable judge of their potential in order to be receptive to Pygmalion leader cues (Karakowsky et al., 2012). This perception of expertise or competence is reflected in the notion of trust (Cook and Wall, 1980; Rubin et al., 2010). Initial levels of trust in the leader can be explained through a variety of categorization processes such as stereotyping (McKnight et al., 1998) which involves placing an individual in the same category as others, based on such classification as race or gender (McKnight et al., 1998). Categorization processes that place individuals in a positive grouping will lead to high levels of trust beliefs, whereas individuals placed in a negative grouping will not engender such beliefs (McKnight et al., 1998). Consequently, for the purpose of this paper, it is important to consider how gender-based cues can influence the grouping of men and women in ways that can facilitate or impede trust beliefs in the Pygmalion leader.\nGender congruence of leader and target: White and Locke (2000) asserted that research on gender differences in the Pygmalion effect must take follower characteristics into account. Proximal factors such as how much a subordinate relates to his/her leader are useful in explaining how receptive the target is to the leader's Pygmalion-related efforts. Earley and Kanfer (1985) provided empirical support for the importance of a role model whereby those individuals exposed to a high-performing role model were more likely to demonstrate higher goal acceptance and goal satisfaction. According to Gibson (2004, p. 136), a role model can be described as a:\nStatus and perceived power: The second path of our model considers factors that impact target receptiveness to the leader's supportive behaviors. Eden (1990) found that leader behaviors such as coaching subordinates, encouraging the fulfillment of goals and enhancing employees' feelings of self-worth were mediators of the Pygmalion effect. However, in order for the Pygmalion leader's supportive behavior to be internalized, the target must have confidence that the leader's involvement can, in fact, assist the target in achieving higher levels of success (Karakowsky et al., 2012). In that regard, it has been observed that differences in power between leaders and targets \"may set the stage for self-fulfilling prophecies\" (Synder and Stukas, 1999, p. 286). Consistent with Synder and Stukas's (1999) observation, it is noteworthy that many of the settings in which the Pygmalion effect has been demonstrated have taken place in situations with large differences in power between the Pygmalion leader and the target, such as between teachers and students (Dusek et al., 1985), therapists and clients (Copeland and Synder, 1995), as well as managers and subordinates (Eden, 1984).\nThe role of cultural context: Given that gender-based expectations stem from societal attitudes, it is important to consider the broader social context within which the Pygmalion effect may occur. The notion of culture or national culture is a key factor in understanding societal attitudes regarding gender. Hofstede (2001, p. 9) considered culture to represent \"the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another\". Values are a defining feature of culture (Hofstede, 1980) and represent broad-based beliefs that signal what is desirable and undesirable in an environment. Hofstede's (1980) original taxonomy included four cultural values: power distance, individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity-femininity. Among the dimensions of culture, power distance has been viewed as the primary cultural value affecting the differences between men and women in the workplace (Hofstede, 1991).\nSummary and implications: While the Pygmalion effect is a well-researched phenomenon, findings are inconsistent with regard to the role of gender in this phenomenon. The research has found men to be more reliable facilitators of the Pygmalion effect in contrast to women. Our theoretical framework attempted to alleviate this inconsistency by considering contextual factors that can influence a target's receptiveness to the Pygmalion leader's efforts. According to our model, target perceptions of trust, expertise and power ascribed to the Pygmalion leader are influenced by the gendered context of the work, leader-target gender-congruence and gender-based role expectations. In addition, we considered the impact of cultural values of power distance and gender egalitarianism on the relative capacity of women and men to facilitate this phenomenon.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Despite considerable empirical evidence to support the existence of the Pygmalion effect, studies that focus on the role of gender within this phenomenon have produced varied results. Whereas the research has consistently demonstrated the Pygmalion effect with male leaders, less research evidence exists to support this phenomenon among female leaders. This paper aims to present a conceptual framework for understanding the potential role gender can play in the Pygmalion effect and why women may face obstacles in their efforts to serve as Pygmalion leaders. Research propositions are presented with the intent of guiding future research in this area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For the purpose of this theoretical paper, elements of the sociological, structural and psychological perspectives are drawn to present an understanding of the potential influence a leader's gender has on the facilitation of the Pygmalion effect. A brief background to the Pygmalion effect is first provided followed by research related to this phenomenon. Then the underlying elements of the Pygmalion effect are revisited and attention is drawn to those factors affecting subordinate receptiveness to leader influence. Following that, these ideas are integrated with gender-based research to present the theoretical framework and research propositions.\nFindings: This paper's framework offers a fuller understanding of the role of a leader's gender in facilitating the Pygmalion effect by identifying factors that can influence subordinate perceptions of leader efforts. Gender-based cues influence subordinate perceptions of leader expertise and power. In turn, this will influence subordinate receptiveness to leader elicited expectations and supportive behaviors.\nPractical implications: The theoretical framework of this paper suggests that under certain conditions, gender differences can impact subordinate receptiveness to leader behaviors and performance expectations. Managers need to be aware of the gendered-nature of the work context and how it can influence subordinate perceptions of leaders. Otherwise, gender-based cues can unwittingly undermine women who endeavor to elevate follower self-efficacy beliefs.\nSocial implications: Stereotypes regarding women in managerial roles can undermine the capacity of women to effectively mentor and inspire others. These biases must be explicitly confronted and challenged. Moreover, given the global nature of the workforce it is critical to understand how national cultures can differ in their attitudes toward women in management in ways that can impede the ability of a woman to facilitate this transformative process.\nOriginality/value: The theoretical framework of this paper broadens the understanding of gender differences in the Pygmalion effect. This paper attempts to explain the lack of consistent findings for women who attempted to serve as Pygmalion leaders. It is asserted that rather than a leader's gender, it is gender-based contextual cues that influence the leader's capacity to trigger the Pygmalion effect. Thus far, no systematic effort has been made to identify the conditions under which subordinates are receptive to the influence of Pygmalion male or female leader expectations and behaviors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Comparing the measures of consumer knowledge calibration
|
[
"Correlation",
"Knowledge calibration",
"Brier score",
"Mean absolute bias"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge calibration refers to the correspondence between accuracy and confidence in knowledge (Alba and Hutchinson, 2000). Calibration is distinct from the level of knowledge and a person can be calibrated at any level of knowledge. Thus, a consumer who possesses accurate (inaccurate) knowledge regarding a product domain and who is very (not) confident in his/her knowledge can be said to be well-calibrated. In other words, high levels of accuracy coupled with high levels of confidence lead to high calibration. So too does low levels of accuracy coupled with low levels of confidence. Mismatch or lack of correspondence between accuracy and confidence leads to miscalibration. Recently, several studies have examined consumer knowledge calibration (Burson, 2007; Gershoff and Johar, 2006; Hansen and Thomsen, 2013; Kidwell et al., 2008; Pearson and Liu-Thompkins, 2012; Pillai and Hofacker, 2007). These studies have used different measures of calibration, leading to noncomparability between results. Various measures were used, even though the concept being measured was the same - knowledge calibration. Therefore, the issue of noncomparability hinders the accumulation of knowledge. This paper investigates the relationships among important measures of calibration and compares the performance of the measures. In so doing, it provides useful guidance, in selecting the most appropriate measure, to consumer researchers studying knowledge calibration. Additionally, the findings also inform researchers investigating knowledge calibration in allied areas such as psychology and education.\nKnowledge calibration: As noted earlier, knowledge calibration refers to the correspondence between the accuracy of knowledge and confidence in knowledge (Alba and Hutchinson, 2000). High levels of accuracy and high levels of confidence lead to high levels of calibration. So too does low levels of accuracy together with low levels of confidence. High levels of accuracy coupled with low levels of confidence result in under confidence. Similarly, low levels of accuracy coupled with high levels of confidence result in overconfidence. Thus, overconfidence and underconfidence are two types of miscalibration.\nResearch issues on the comparison of measures: Relationships among the measures of calibration\nMethod: This section presents three studies. In Study 1, we use eight data sets to examine the issue presented above. In Studies 2 and 3, an experiment each compares the performance of the measures by examining the feedback-calibration relationship. As noted earlier, this is a robust effect, and hence, has been used to assess the performance of the different measures.\nResults: Relationship between the measures of calibration\nResults: The results of the experiment are shown in Tables VI and VII. We compared the means of the relevant measures between the control group and the experimental group. As in the previous experiment, there was no significant difference between the control group and the experimental group on the correlation measure (Mcontrol = 0.148, CI [-0.085, 0.212]; Mexp. = 0.188, CI [0.116, 0.259], F(1,136) = 0.669 and p = 0.415), the restricted correlation measure (Mcontrol = 0.203, CI [0.157, 0.250]; Mexp. = 0.239, CI [0.184, 0.294], F(1,136) = 1.005 and p = 0.318), the Brier score component measure (Mcontrol = 0.943, CI [0.934, 0.953]; Mexp. = 0.935, CI [0.921, 0.950], F(1,138) = 0.809 and p = 0.370), the MAB measure (Mcontrol = 63.17, CI [61.07, 65.28]; Mexp. = 63.93, CI [61.56, 66.30], F(1,138) = 0.226 and p = 0.635) and knowledge (Mcontrol = 10.114, CI [9.71, 10.52]; Mexp. = 10.157, CI [9.71, 10.60], F(1,138) = 0.020 and p = 0.887) in the first questionnaire (before feedback). Note that sample sizes were lower for correlation measures as cases with zero correlation (because of one variable being constant) were excluded. Similarly, no significant difference was observed in knowledge between control and experimental groups for the second questionnaire (Mcontrol = 11.257, CI [10.884, 11.631]; Mexp. = 11.371, CI [11.003, 11.739], F(1,138) = 0.189 and p = 0.664). However, significant difference (increase) was observed in knowledge between the pre- and post-questionnaires for the experimental group (Mdifference = 1.214; CI [0.772, 1.657] and p = 0.00) and the control group (Mdifference = 1.143; CI [0.713, 1.573] and p = 0.00). As there was a systematic increase in correct answers from the first to second questionnaires, we controlled for the effect of increase in knowledge. Four regression models were run, with increase in calibration as the dependent variable, and feedback and increase in knowledge as the independent variables. In Table VII, feedback has a significant positive effect on increase in MAB measure (B = 3.479, CI [1.545, 5.413], t = 3.557 and p = 0.001). Feedback has a directional effect on increase in Brier score measure (B = 0.014, CI [-0.003, 0.032], t = 1.62 and p = 0.108). However, feedback has no effect on increase in correlation measure (B = 0.051, CI [-0.067, 0.169], t = 0.853 and p = 0.395) or restricted correlation measure (B = 0.036, CI [-0.057, 0.129], t = 0.769 and p = 0.443).\nGeneral discussion and conclusion: Research on consumer knowledge calibration has used different measures of calibration. An understanding of the relationship between the different measures will enable proper interpretation of results and accumulation of the results of various studies. This paper promotes such an understanding. The paper reports that important measures of calibration are not highly correlated. The findings reported in the paper will inform the study of knowledge calibration in consumer research, as well as the study of knowledge calibration in education and psychology, where the issue of different measures of calibration has attracted attention (Hattie, 2013).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Studies on consumer knowledge calibration have used different measures of calibration. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of important measures. In addition, it seeks to identify the best performing measure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reports on three studies. The first study uses eight survey data sets. The second and third studies use experiments.\nFindings: The study found that the Brier score component measure is most responsive to feedback and is the most suitable measure of knowledge calibration. The results also indicate that researchers should use measures that use item-level confidence judgements, as against an overall confidence judgement.\nResearch limitations/implications: By documenting the relationship between the different measures of knowledge calibration, the study enables proper interpretation and accumulation of results of various studies that have used different measures. The study also provides guidance to researchers in psychology and education where this issue has been noted.\nPractical implications: The study provides guidance to managers in knowledge intensive industries, such as finance and insurance, interested in understanding their consumers' knowledge calibration.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study in consumer research that examines this issue.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Working beyond boundaries: The merits of using virtual teams
|
[
"Emerging economy",
"Virtual teams",
"IT sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIncrease in virtual working: The seemingly relentless progress of technology in recent times continues to have significant implications in the world of business. One of the more notable developments has seen virtual working increasingly become the norm around the globe.\nWhat are the benefits?: Of course, virtual teams offer several obvious advantages over face-to-face formats including:\nVirtual teams in India's IT sector: Given the global prominence of virtual teams, the lack of appropriate research into their function within emerging economies is perhaps surprising. The issue has particular relevance within India, where the IT industry continues to increase its contribution to the nation's GDP. Additional testimony to the strength of the sector lies in the fact that Indian software firms account for around half the world's outsourcing business. The country remains the destination of choice for the majority of Fortune 500 companies to either outsource services or establish a business hub there.\nTeam member motivations: It is interesting to find that intrinsic factors drive team members much more than the potential benefits and rewards. Wise organizations will be alert to this and ensure that individuals can:\nComment: The review is based on: \"Virtual team experiences in an emerging economy: a qualitative study\", by Gupta and Pathak (2018), published in Journal of Organizational Change Management. The authors explore the use of virtual teams within India's IT sector and reveal that intrinsic motivators attract individuals to this way of working. Cultural differences within a team are not seen as insurmountable, while unreliable internet connectivity is a more substantial cause of frustration. Such issues apart, virtual teams can enhance overall creativity within technology firms and positively impact on employee turnover as a result.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: Use of virtual teams enables firms to overcome conventional boundaries and exploit talent from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. Virtual teams play a prominent role in India's flourishing technology sector and various intrinsic factors attract IT professionals to this pattern of working and help generate a positive impact on firm performance.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Community colleges through the human resource organizational frame
|
[
"Leadership development",
"Organizational change and learning",
"Organizational learning",
"Community colleges"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There has been a growing emphasis on post-secondary education at the two-year level in countries such as the UK, India, Canada, and most prominently in the United States. Enrollment in US community colleges has steadily grown in the post-WWII era and not just in bare numerical terms. Here, community college enrollments have grown as a proportion of overall higher education enrollment in this country to the point where experts such as the venerable Arthur Cohen have predicted community college enrollment to represent nearly 43 per cent of higher education enrollments overall in the immediate or near term (Cohen et al., 2014). Although the growth in actual enrollments in the previous decade has turned into modest declines as the decade of 2011-2020 closes, most reports from government and respected research organizations (e.g., the National Center for Education Statistics, Columbia University's Community College Research Center, the Education Advisory Board and the College Board) forecast community colleges' future enrollment share in the 35-45 per cent range of all US undergraduate students. Much of the upward influence on enrollments stem from concerns of learners generally about affordability and the specific interests of the diversity of learners that these colleges serve, from high school students seeking a head start towards a degree, to those in the workforce seeking a variety of skills, to learning opportunities of individuals seeking learning for pleasure and personal development into late adulthood. So with the prospects for future growth and the dramatic share of today's postsecondary activity that community colleges hold, the study of these institutions and its leaders is a worthwhile endeavor.\nDiscussion: The human resources frame\nConclusion: The human relations frame and leadership practice\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this conceptual paper is to encourage community college leaders to make greater use of the human resources organizational frame in understanding their organizations and implementing measures to support its students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodological approach: Concepts are drawn from key texts examining human resources organizational frame analysis and community college leadership to locate areas of community college policy development and operations that resonate with tenets of this organizational frame.\nFindings: Connections between some of the typical operations and policies of community colleges and the analytical tenets and concerns of the human resources frame are explored.\nResearch limitations/implications: More in-depth literature analysis could well lead to the discussion of additional measures animated by the human resources frame that can be taken to better support students and their learning.\nPractical implications: These connections between the human resources frame and community college policy and methods of operation lead to the authors' recommendation that community college leaders should make particular efforts think and act with the human resources frame in mind. Emerging issues that are consistent with the concerns and tenets of this frame can be highlighted and recognized for further use in leadership and management practice.\nSocial implications: Community colleges are critical in human capital development for all societal sectors. A human resources perspective puts people and human values at the center of organizational analysis.\nOriginality/value: We add emphasis to leading recommendations for understanding and practice of community colleges through multiple frames. We suggest that the concerns of the human resource organizational frame can help leaders provide thought and action that has additional relevance and possibility.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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