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Exploring the drivers of brand fan page follower discontinuance intention: an adaptation of the Furneaux and Wade's framework	[ "Brand fan page", "Furneaux and Wade's framework", "Unfollowing", "Discontinuance", "Social media" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction:: Over the past few years, social media channels including Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn have gained enormous popularity and drastically changed the ways how organizations and people distribute information and communicate with each other (Aral et al., 2013; Kane et al., 2014; Shi et al., 2014). By the same token, social media is also redefining how businesses interact with their customers (Rishika et al., 2013; Goh et al., 2013). Many companies have now opened brand fan pages (BFPs) on social media platforms to reach potential and existing customers and generate positive word of mouth (Kim et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2018). Research has shown that there are currently more than 50 million businesses that use Facebook globally, and 95% of North American online adults between the age of 18 and 34 follow at least one brand on social media services (MarketingSherpa, 2018). As of April 2018, with 70.88 million followers, YouTube is the most widely followed brand on Twitter. Samsung, with 156.25 million followers, is the most followed brand on Facebook (Statista.com, 2018). Globally, the use of BFPs is also on the rise. For example, 80% of Chinese Internet users are linked with at least one BFP. The BFP of Xiaomi, a popular Chinese consumer electronics maker, has lured ten million fans in Sina Weibo, a dominant micro-blogging service in China (Tang et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018).Despite companies' increasing reliance on BFPs for fostering closer relationships with customers, most organizations, regardless of their sizes, face challenges in retaining their follower bases partially due to the fact that users can interact with multiple BFPs in the same social media platform simultaneously (Poyry et al., 2013; Tang et al., 2018). The BFP unfollowing phenomenon is widespread. One study shows that 45% of Twitter users have unfollowed at least one BFP (Hubspot.com, 2015). Another study of Sina Weibo users reports that the unfollowing phenomenon is more frequent in China as some BFPs even lost ten thousand of followers in one day (Zhihu.com, 2015). BFPs cannot survive or thrive without followers' continued engagement and participation. However, there is a dearth in the information systems literature that examines the motivations that drive BFP users' discontinuance decisions. Prior research on this topic has mostly examined the role played by BFPs on fostering customer-brand relationships (e.g. Kim et al., 2014; Rishika et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2018) and factors that motivate users to follow and participate in BFPs (e.g. Chow and Shi, 2015; Zhao et al., 2016; Shi et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2017; Tang et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018). Kim et al. (2014), for instance, reveal that fans who followed brands in Twitter are more likely to create positive word of mouth than other customers. Similary, Tang et al. (2018) find that users tend to continue to participate in the BFP if they perceive their values are aligned with those of the brand and fellow followers. Relatively few studies have been conducted to understand the discontinuance behavior of brand followers and comprehensively identifying its antecedent factors (Kwak et al., 2011; Liang and Fu, 2016). In the current study, we define BFP discontinuance as the user's action to remove a previously followed BFP from the user's following list in order to stop receiving further communication from and interacting with the brand through the platform.The aim of this study is, therefore, to shed light on the BFP users' discontinuance motivations by addressing the research question, \"Which factors drive users' intention to discontinue following BFPs?\" To answer this question, we ground our research in Furneaux and Wade's (2011) IS discontinuance framework to develop a research model that would enhance our understanding of BFP followers' discontinuance motivations. Based on the technology-organization-environment paradigm (Kuan and Chau, 2001; Mishra et al., 2007), Furneaux and Wade's framework incorporates systems performance shortcomings, continuance inertia and environmental changes to explain the formation of organizational-level IS discontinuance intention. We believe that the Furneaux and Wade's framework can be usefully employed to provide an insightful perspective for examining the user's discontinuance of BFPs.There are several theoretical and practical contributions of this research. First, the great majority of prior studies focus on exploring conditions and consequences of information systems adoption and usage (e.g. Davis, 1989; Bhattacherjee, 2001; Venkatesh et al., 2003; Limayem et al., 2007), yet research on the final stages of the information system use lifecycle continues to be scarce in the literature (Turel, 2015, 2016; Recker, 2016). Our study contributes to the understanding of the discontinuance of information systems and the factors that induce such behavior. Second, while most literature within the fields of information systems, marketing and communication has explored users' motivations to follow and participate in BFPs (e.g. Chow and Shi, 2015; Zhao et al. , 2016; Shi et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018), the previous literature has offered relatively little insight into the dissolution of followed-follower relationship in the social media, especially, BFP context. We argued that both tie formation and dissolution are equally important to BFP success; therefore, this void in the current research needs to be addressed. To the best of our knowledge, this work is among the first to provide theoretical insights into understanding factors that influence the discontinuance intention of BFP users. Third, while the framework by Furneaux and Wade (2011) has been previously used to study organizational-level decisions to discontinue the use of information systems, this research contributes to the development of this theoretical framework by adapting it to the personal and social information system discontinuance context. Finally, our study is expected to offer rich practical insights into how BFP operators can improve follower retention.This study is organized as follows. First, we present an overview of the relevant literature and theoretical background followed by a description of our research model and hypotheses. Then, we discuss the research methodology in detail. This is followed by the presentation of the data analysis results and discussion of findings. Finally, we conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for both researchers and practitioners.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Information systems discontinuance\n3. Model development and hypotheses: Our research model (Figure 1) operationalizes the three discontinuance forces identified by the Furneaux and Wade's framework by identifying the drivers of BFP users' discontinuance intention. Two types of BFP performance shortcomings, dissatisfaction with information quality and service quality, are identified. The individual's continuance inertia includes two constructs: unfollowing costs and trust. The environmental change factor that affects BFP discontinuance intention is identified as alternative attractiveness. While most of the constructs (dissatisfaction, unfollowing costs and alternative attractiveness) in our research model are direct adaptations from the Furneaux and Wade's framework, in order to capture the influence of consumers' brand interest on brand-customer relationships, trust is included in our research model as a continuance inertia factor. Finally, as both the technology and person function within the context of the environment, our model also suggests that interrelationships between the environmental factors and system performance shortcomings and continuance inertia exist. The hypotheses and rationales leading to the hypotheses are presented in the sections below. 3.1 BFP performance shortcomings\n4. Methodology: To validate our research model and hypotheses empirically, an online survey was administered among current BFP users to collect data. Detailed information about the research context, measurement development and data collection process are discussed below. 4.1 Research site\n5. Data analysis and results: In this study, we used partial least squares (PLS) path modeling (SmartPLS 2.0) to validate our research model. Specifically, measurement model was first assessed to ensure the appropriate reliability and validity of the constructs, and structural model was then examined to evaluate the theoretical explanatory power of the model and the significance levels of the hypothesized relationships (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). In the current study, PLS was used due to its ability to easily estimate much more complex models with smaller sample sizes as well as the exploratory nature of the study (Shiau and Chau, 2016; Hair et al., 2019; Shiau et al., 2019). The software package used is SmartPLS 2.0 M3. 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion of findings: This study sets out to enhance our understanding of the antecedents of followers' discontinuance intention with BFPs from the lens of Furneaux and Wade's framework. More specifically, we propose a research model to investigate the effect of BFP performance shortcomings (i.e. dissatisfaction with information quality and service quality), followers' continuance inertia (i.e. unfollowing costs and trust) and environmental change factor (i.e. alternative attractiveness) on inducing BFP followers' discontinuance intention. The proposed research model and hypotheses were empirically validated by analyzing the data collected from a survey among Chinese social media users. The key research findings are summarized as follows.Grounded in Furneaux and Wade's framework of system discontinuance, our research model is able to illustrate a significant portion (47%) of the reasons why one decides to discontinue following a BFP. In this regard, Furneaux and Wade's framework is deemed a valuable perspective in explaining and predicting discontinuance in the BFP context and possibly applicable to other social media phenomena.Among the BFP performance shortcomings, dissatisfaction with information quality shows positive influence on discontinuance intention. This suggests that information provision and exchange are considered the most important utilitarian value of BFPs and that dissatisfaction with the informational system to provide this value leads to discontinuance by followers (Chen et al., 2012). This is consistent with a number of recent studies, which highlight the relationship between information quality and users' BFP participation (e.g. Shi et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018). However, the proposed relationship between discontinuance intention and dissatisfaction with service quality was not supported empirically. This may be attributed to the fact that BFPs serve primarily as an informational system rather than an avenue for service provision, hence its potentials for providing customer service are often overlooked and underutilized. Nevertheless, as companies find new and innovative ways to utilize BFPs for providing or enhancing services to customers, the service aspect of BFPs will likely play an increasingly more influential role in the future. Thus, future studies on BFP are recommended to reexamine this construct and its usefulness in influencing the discontinuance intention of users.Both continuance inertia factors, unfollowing costs and trust, are found to influence discontinuance intention negatively as hypothesized. Unfollowing costs demonstrate the strongest direct influence on BFP users' discontinuance intention among all the proposed motivations. Low perceived unfollowing costs facilitate discontinuance whereas high costs create a \"lock-in\" effect and inhibit discontinuance. This finding is in agreement with those revealed in prior studies on both consumers' and IT users' post-adoption behaviors (e.g. Xu et al., 2014; Chang et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2017). Users' trust in the brand also reduces discontinuance intention. This finding is consistent with those reported in previous studies which suggest that people exhibiting a high level of trust tend to read, forward and comment on the messages posted by the BFP more often than others (Kim et al., 2014).Finally, all of the hypotheses proposed to capture the influence of the environmental factor (i.e. alternative attractiveness) on BFP performance shortcomings and continuance inertia are supported except H9. The emergence of attractive alternatives elevates users' dissatisfaction with the incumbent BFP and lowers users' perceived unfollowing costs. This finding is in agreement with Chuah et al. (2017) which reports that customer satisfaction, switching costs and alternative attractiveness interactively influence customer loyalty. This finding also suggests that studying social media applications without considering the broader technology and business environment would likely be one-sided and misleading. Alternative attractiveness is not found to be a significant predictor of trust as hypothesized. This finding is inconsistent with previous literature which argues that higher attractiveness of alternative brands leads to lower satisfaction and trust toward the current brand (e.g. Yen and Hung, 2017). One possible explanation is that in this study, we only consider the attractiveness of alternative BFPs other than the brands operating the BFPs in our measurements. The attractiveness of alternative BFPs may not translate directly to decreases in trust toward the brand. 6.1 Theoretical implications\n7. Conclusion: Understanding the determinants of BFP follower's discontinuance intention can be crucial to a firm's social media strategies. This study builds on Furneaux and Wade's framework to unpack the processes through which BFP performance shortcomings, continuance inertia and environmental change factors motivate BFP followers' discontinuance intention. An empirical study of 306 Chinese social media users confirmed most of the proposed hypotheses in our research model. The results indicate that BFP followers' discontinuance intention is influenced by dissatisfaction with information quality, unfollowing costs, trust and alternative attractiveness. This study makes important contributions to research on discontinuance in the emerging field of social commerce and offers practitioner insights on how to enhance user relationships and retention in the BFP and social media context.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Many companies have now built brand fan pages (BFPs) on social media platforms to connect with their existing and potential customers. Nevertheless, the inability to retain existing followers would severely threaten the survival of BFPs and the effectiveness of a company's social media strategies. Drawing upon Furneaux and Wade's discontinuance framework, our study develops a research model to understand the BFP user's intention to discontinue following a BFP.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An empirical study was conducted through an online survey of Chinese social media users. The proposed model was tested by analyzing the collected data using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach.\nFindings: The results reveal that dissatisfaction with information quality, unfollowing costs, trust and alternative attractiveness affect the individual's intention to unfollow a BFP. Notably, unfollowing costs is the most powerful factor to predict followers' propensity to discontinue.\nOriginality/value: Our study contributes to the understanding of the discontinuance of information systems. Theoretical implications for future social commerce research as well as practical suggestions for BFP operators are also discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
EU organic logo and its perception by consumers	[ "Consumer attitudes", "Communication", "Consumer purchasing decisions", "Organic marketing", "Attitude-behaviour discrepancy", "Product information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The organic market in the European Union (EU) has developed quite dynamically in the last decade, and total organic sales have increased by 100 per cent between 2004 and 2012 to 20.9 billion euros (Schaack et al., 2014). Indeed, market shares are still small. European countries with the highest share of organic in all food sales in 2011 were Denmark (7.6 per cent), Switzerland (6.3 per cent), Sweden (3.9 per cent), Germany (3.7 per cent) and France (2.4 per cent). In Estonia (1.6 per cent) and Poland (0.2 per cent), the corresponding shares are much lower (Schaack et al., 2014).\nTheoretical background: Generally, labelling is a means of addressing consumers and of providing them with information that is supposed to be relevant to their individual purchasing decisions. Labels are used to develop markets and to promote particular production practices (Caswell and Anders, 2011) by educating consumers and altering their purchasing decisions (Teisl et al., 1999). Consumers have to be aware of the issues being communicated and they have to have knowledge of and interest in the product properties under consideration. Only then, may labelling fulfil its aims of providing information and have an impact on consumers' purchasing decisions by influencing their product perception and judgement (Solomon et al., 2010).\nMethodological approach: An online survey was conducted with 3,000 consumers in six European countries (Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK) in January 2013. The selection of countries took market size and different organic \"labelling traditions\" into account and included Member States where the old European logo was the most important organic logo and no well-known national logos exist (Italy and Poland), countries where the old EU logo was used additionally to an important national logo (Estonia and France) and countries where the old EU logo was of minor relevance and well-established national logos existed (Germany and UK) (see e.g. Padel, 2010 for details). A commercial online panel run by a market research company was used for purposive quota sampling based on some prespecified \"control\" characteristics of the population. Quotas were set for age (50 per cent between 18 and 45, 50 per cent between 46 and 75) and for gender relations (two-thirds women and one-third men). This last relation was frequently observed when analysing food purchasing behaviour (e.g. Spiller et al., 2004; Zander and Hamm, 2010). No quotas were set for the share of organic food consumption, and all test persons had to be at least co-responsible for food shopping (Table I). On average, about one-fifth of the respondents stated that they never or almost never buy organic food. Approximately half of them buy organic food occasionally and approximately 30 per cent of them buy organic food regularly, at least once per week.\nResults and discussion: Knowledge of the EU organic logo and of additional mandatory indications\nConclusions: The aim of the introduction of a mandatory EU organic label was to increase consumer awareness and to foster the organic sector. Because of the experiences with the earlier voluntary organic logo, which was not widely used, a mandatory organic logo was launched, in order to augment the speed of extension of the logo. But, it is not only diffusion of the logo on organic products which is needed - instead successful labelling requires consumers' awareness, knowledge and appreciation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: With the introduction of the mandatory European Union (EU) organic logo for all organic food products in 2010, the European Commission aimed at fostering the internal organic food market. This needs consumers' knowledge of the logo. According to earlier research consumers' knowledge of the EU organic logo is low. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to elicit consumers' attitudes towards organic certification and labelling and to develop recommendations on how to improve consumers' knowledge of the EU organic logo.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By means of an online survey with 3,000 participants in six European countries, knowledge of the logo and attitudes towards organic farming and European labelling, as well as organic food purchase behaviour and socio-demographic indicators were elicited. Factor and cluster analysis based on several statements on the test persons' attitudes towards organic farming and corresponding EU legislation were conducted in order to segment consumers.\nFindings: The results indicate that knowledge of the logo is low. Only about 15 per cent of all respondents knew its meaning. Four clusters of consumers could be identified: \"Committed organics\", \"Pragmatic organics\", \"Organic sceptics\" and Organic disinterested'. With reference to the EU organic legislation's aim of promoting the organic market, particularly \"Organic sceptics\" should be addressed by emphasising the trustworthiness of the organic certification and labelling system.\nOriginality/value: Segmenting consumers according to their attitude towards organic farming, its labelling and certification allows for targeted and efficient communication and organic market development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Informed consent for radiological procedures: a Scottish survey	[ "Radiology", "Medical diagnosis", "Health services", "Patients", "Scotland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Healthcare managers internationally are recognising the importance of patients giving informed consent. However, this is not always supported by clinicians (Lewars, 2004). In 1999 The Royal College of Radiologists in the UK, issued guidance on informed consent (Royal College of Radiologists, 1999) acknowledging that although \"a patient lies down on a radiographic table for examination [it] does not, in itself, indicate that the patient has understood [the proposed action or why it is to undertaken]\". This is particularly true in the area of interventional radiology where the procedures are innovative and evolving and have increased risk of procedural and radiation risk.Although informed consent is recognised of importance, little is known regarding how it is obtained in radiology departments. It had been suggested, however, that confusion surrounds the consent process itself (Gould, 2001). Recently interventional radiologists have voiced concerns over the lack of consistency in consent policies across Europe for interventional procedures (O'Dwyer et al., 2003). Examples of good practice are available (Department of Health, 2001) but the BMA working group on informed consent have reported these have failed to be put into practice (British Medical Association, 2001). It is interesting to note, despite clinical governance being in place, and the existence of National Institute for Clinical Excellence (UK), official guidance is lacking.World-wide there is a lack of research regarding the practice of gaining consent for radiological procedures. Our own literature search on Medline (1996-2004) using the key words \"consent\", \"informed consent\", \"radiological procedures\", and \"interventional radiology\" revealed a dearth of literature.In this paper we describe the situation regarding informed consent for radiological procedures in Scotland during 2002 representing a \"snapshot\" of practice. For the purpose of this work we defined informed consent as \"an act freely taken by a rational person that suggests prior knowledge and understanding of the procedure for which the consent it given\" (Strong, 1979).\nAims: The aims of the survey were to:1. ascertain the existence of informed consent policies across Scottish NHS Trusts and specifically within radiology departments;2. determine the process of consent for radiological procedures;3. identify radiology procedures for which informed consent was required; and4. establish the information-giving strategies of radiology departments.\nMethodology: Sample\nResponse rate: A response rate of 95.2 per cent (n=59/62) was achieved with 81.4 per cent (n=48/59) of questionnaires being completed and usable. Main reasons for non-completion were:* pressure of work (n=5);* inability to complete the questionnaire (n=4); and* in two instances no specific reason was given.Not all respondents answered all seven questions; therefore denominators fluctuate in reporting findings.\nPrevalence of informed consent documents: Overall picture\nUse of consent procedures: Conventional procedures\nProvision of information: In 43 hospitals staff gave information to patients attending for radiological procedures, and 88 per cent (n=38/43) used printed leaflets (Table III). Where the department only performed conventional radiography no patient information was provided.\nDiscussion: The findings indicate considerable diversity in hospital policies in relation to procedures for consent for radiological procedures. Overall there was a lack of codified systematic consent procedures. Heavy reliance was placed on verbal information giving, thus supporting Godwin's view that \"in the majority of cases, consent is implied rather than written\" (Godwin, 2000).In contrast to UK practice, in the USA it is expected that consent should be sought for procedures using contrast media (Bush, 1994). Furthermore, Obergfell (1995) has advocated the development of separate consent forms for each type of procedure, with the relevant risks and benefits described and quantified. To date, this has been adopted by some, but not all states within the USA. A similar situation for disclosure of risk is also found in Australia (Rogers v. Whitaker, [1992]). But the practice across Europe is variable (Marchant, 2000) and anecdotal evidence suggests that in some countries the American model has been adopted. Given the lack of a consistent approach demonstrated by this study, there is an opportunity to optimise clinical risk management in this field by developing a standard approach at a national level, building on the experience from the USA and Australia.In particular, attention needs to be paid to how consent is achieved. It is not acceptable that the patient's consent is sought when they are lying on a trolley immediately prior to an examination. The Department of Health (2001) in England has emphasised that consent is not a one-off event but a process (own emphasis). In particular, it is important that time is available for patient reflection, including adequate time for the patient to formulate and ask questions, following information giving. A more patient centred approach to gaining consent for procedures has been advocated (Bridson et al., 2003).Although there is a body of research describing the production of patient leaflets and web sites (Duman 2000, Charnock 1998), few studies have explored:* patients' uptake of information;* their perception of its value;* the extent it adds to their knowledge base; and* how it influences their preconceived constructs.Clearly to date, assumptions have been made on the effectiveness of material since patients have limited involvement in its development. A further concern relating to information is the disclosure of risk, in particular if the patient should be told the level of risk (Picano, 2004). As no clear guidelines exist this will be challenging. It is interesting to note that 16 per cent of lawyers in a UK study would expect to be told of risks when at a level of 1:1,000,00 (Mayberry and Mayberry, 2001).Specific attention needs to be paid to informed consent policies for vulnerable groups such as people with learning disabilities or mental illness. This is especially pertinent as dementia is increasing in prevalence and the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 had to be fully implemented by autumn 2004. Recent BMJ articles have highlighted the issues of legal competence and incompetence (Moumjid and Callu, 2003).Our findings have significant implications for clinical governance and particularly clinical risk management. As society is changing and patients are becoming more aware of their rights, practices which have been acceptable are now being questioned. There are sensitivities around trans-vaginal ultrasound and barium enemas, for which informed consent is seldom obtained but such procedures may be perceived by patients to be invasive. It may only be a matter of time before a health professional finds themselves charged with battery, which in the eyes of the law is defined as \"one person touching another person without their consent\" (Hope et al., 2003). Patients can be awarded damages (common law) and in extreme cases it could lead to criminal prosecution.To date, emphasis has been placed on gaining consent for interventional rather than conventional radiological procedures. In the light of an increasing litigious society, and greater public interest and awareness of both medical and medico-legal issues related to consent, both radiologists and radiographers need to consider developing informed consent policies, relating to more extensive areas of their work. Although it is very easy to identify obstacles for obtaining consent for imaging procedures it is less easy to identify examples of good practice. This study demonstrated one example of good practice. In one trust, written informed consent was obtained for all procedures using contrast media, whether the examination was a barium enema or interventional such as angiography. This change of practice was implemented by a member of staff on return from working abroad where this was the accepted practice for consent. Recently it has been recommended that radiology nurses inform patients about their interventional examinations, and this can aid the consent process (Davies et al., 2004).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The main purpose of the study was to investigate practices relating to informed consent for radiological procedures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - All Health Boards in Scotland (15) were included in the survey and 62 hospitals were contacted. A questionnaire was developed and sent to superintendent radiographers and radiology managers. Quantitative data were entered in to SPSS-PC for analysis.\nFindings: - A response rate of 95.2 per cent (59/62) was achieved. A total of 15 hospitals described having a trust policy document on consent and six hospitals reported departmental policies. The majority of hospitals used consent forms for interventional procedures, but not for conventional procedures, although two hospitals obtained informed consent for intravenous urography, and one for barium enemas. All departments (n=25/25) using consent forms required the patient to sign the consent form and 20 departments retained the form. Nine departments placed these in the patient's medical records.\nResearch implications/limitations: - The survey demonstrated considerable diversity in hospital practices regarding informed consent for radiological procedures. The findings have significant implications for clinical governance, especially regarding risk management. Some staff may be putting themselves at risk in an increasingly litigious society. The transferability of this Scottish study needs to be established through surveys in other parts of the UK.\nPractical implications: - The study reports diversity in practice when gaining informed consent for radiological procedures and the lack of standardisation for this process.\nOriginality/value: - No previous UK empirical studies on informed consent for radiological procedures has been published.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Who benefits from the high-price segment in commodity markets?	[ "Switzerland", "Coconut oil", "Market niches" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Conventional microeconomic models rest on the homogeneity of goods. Even economists know, of course, that this assumption is not realistic for all items. Therefore, a distinction is made between commodities and non-commodities as summarized by Vatn (2002, p. 319): \"Ordinary commodities are homogeneous in quality. These goods are 'non-specific' in Williamson's terms. At the other end of the scale, we have goods that are 'idiosyncratic;' that is, goods that are specific to the transaction such as the construction of a new building or the creation of a park.\"\n2. Method: The question whether a high-price segment exists requires careful observations and descriptions. It is probably most promising to carry out this observation in a rather rich country. Poor consumers are not a likely base for building a high-price segment. Therefore, we chose Swiss import data as the case to study. The Swiss Customs Administration (SCA) provided vegetable oil import data for the year 2011 with all single import cases including product category, country of origin, quantity, price and recipient. In a subsequent section, we used an econometric data set to explain the observed price differences.\n3. Price analysis: Figure 1 depicts monthly average Swiss import prices (without tariffs) of four standard raw vegetable oils for human consumption (HS 1511.1090 palm oil, HS 1513.1190 coconut oil, HS 1508.1090 peanut oil and HS 1512.1190 sunflower oil) in the year 2011 and distinguishes imports from least developed countries (LDCs) and other countries. At least three important patterns can be identified: first, prices for inputs from LDCs are systematically below the import prices from other countries. This pattern can most easily be identified for coconut oil but also holds for the imports of palm oil and peanut oil. For sunflower oil, this pattern only emerges over recent years, not being visible until 2010.\n4. Econometric analysis: This section provides an econometric analysis of the main determinants influencing the price for raw coconut oil paid at the Swiss border. The extreme price variations of products within the same HS code as depicted in Section 3 can be considered as a first indicator of quality differentials.\n5. Text analysis: As qualitative rather than quantitative analyses appeared to better address our question, we interviewed representatives from importing companies. Two sequences were selected for a detailed analysis. The first sequence is taken from an interview with the person in charge at one of the bulk importing companies. The interviewer (I) had just confronted the interview partner (P1) with Figure 1, and in the sequence, the representative struggles to digest this information:P1: You have a non-LDC price, which generally is without tariffs. Just the base. As you see there. 800 Dollars up to maybe 1,500 Dollars. This is the base. And on top of that, you have some logistic costs, so from Rotter [...].I: Yes, I should add that these already include transport costs.P1: Yes, yes, but if you now have 1,500 Dollars, which is 150 [Dollars per 100 kg]. Let's assume 1:1, [conversion of currency]for simplicity, right? Then add some logistic costs to it, and this would be the border price, wouldn't it?I: Mhm.P1: For refined oil.I: No, unrefined, this is raw oil.P1: Raw.I: Raw, yes. Raw coconut oil.P1: OK, this gets. You can add 20 Francs, in the very best case. And this is without tariff on it or with tariff?I: This is without tariff.P1: Then you are always, always, always under 200 Francs, which is 2 Francs per, always. Simply always. This is not possible.\n6. Conclusions: The empirical evidence answers the question whether commodities have a high-price segment unequivocally with yes. Although a large amount of vegetable oil is imported for world market prices, sometimes of undisclosed origin, segments within the vegetable oil market are increasingly formed. The segment of organic vegetable oil can almost be called traditional by now, but it still is gaining market shares; the segment of fair trade products has emerged more recently and also is gaining importance. Many prices displayed in Section 3, however, are still too high to be explained with these classical segments. They require further distinctive characteristics, and a few of them are explained by P2. Although virgin coconut oil could be established as a niche market (its organic quality being taken for granted), he struggles to establish virgin coconut oil from the Solomon Islands as a separate niche. Such niches require separate middlemen to upgrade and market the oil adequately; therefore, the chains (including the countries of origin) will systematically differ from the chains for bulk ware.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Vegetable oils are usually considered commodities. The purpose of this paper is to use disaggregated import data from Switzerland to show two phenomena. The first is that a growing high-price segment exists in these markets; the second is that least developed countries (LDC) are usually excluded from the benefits of this niche.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis for coconut oil is carried out, using fixed effects regressions for the quantitative part and objective hermeneutics for the qualitative part.\nFindings: The analysis indicates that prices depend on the quantity imported and on the country of origin and that entrepreneurs outside the LDC attempt to create new niche markets, whereas actors in the bulk markets tend to ignore these niches and to continue relying on LDC.\nSocial implications: Bulk markets may continue to exist, but the importance of niches is certainly increasing and should be extended to LDC.\nOriginality/value: It could be shown which market dynamics exist and which of them leave LDC behind.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understandings of Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning	[ "Adaptive learning", "Embodied learning", "Islamic pedagogy", "Knowledge embodiment", "Personal learning", "Personalize learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Personalisation teaching and learning is deeply rooted in early religious institutions, including the early madrasahs that are often cited as representing the earliest higher education institutions. Personalised learning, in various forms, has been used before the rise of mass education and is often traced back to early religious seminaries and madrasahs. In more recent times Victor Garcia Hoz defined personalised instruction in 1970 (Gallagher, 2014) and many followed with similar ideas in the adoption of adaptive tutoring system (Corno and Snow, 1986, cited in Sampson et al., 2002). Personalised learning is often depicted as a one-to-one tutoring system with a teacher being assigned a small group of students. As such, it remains for many a privileged system of tutoring (Gallagher, 2014). It is frequently cited how personalised learning continues to outperform mainstreaming schooling systems (Andersen, 2011; Gallagher, 2014).\nDefining Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning: Paulo Freire defined education as a way to reconstruct, not only human experience but schools and society as well (Elias, 2002 as cited in Mahmoudi et al., 2014). He further explained that pedagogy should not be seen as simple techniques and methods, but becomes a mean to build a holistic person. Based on this, Sabki and Hardaker (2013) extended this understanding through Islamic pedagogy, whereby, it is geared towards one's spiritual construct rather than social. This relates to Ghazali's view on learning that do not see it only as a cognitive reasoning, but spiritual as well, through spiritual forming the human person (Al-Ghazali, 1898). In addition, it relates to the conviction put forward by Nasr, of the inseparable nature of knowledge and the \"Sacred\" (Nasr, 2012).\nConceptualising Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning: Before exploring further the conceptualization of Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning, our interpretations and scope of the research is now considered. It is important to note our interpretation of Islamic pedagogy is underpinned by the theological work of Al-Ghazali (Al-Ghazali, 1898; Gunther, 2006; Iqbal, 2013; Mahmoudi et al., 2014; Nofal, 1993). However, as the breadth and depth Al-Ghazali is wide, this work is further defined within the scope that has been established by Sabki and Hardaker (2013). Similarly, the fundamentals for personalised learning is set through a number of \"traditional\" conventions of adaptive learning and personalised instruction, which has been extended more recently in the field of learning technology (Attwell, 2007; Choi and Ma, 2015; Gallagher, 2014; Prain et al., 2013; Sampson et al., 2002; Valtonen et al., 2012).\nConcluding comments: It is also important to re-iterate the characterizing concepts of Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning, defined in this research, and are underpinned by the Arabic cultural heritage in relation to the spoken word and the Islamic belief in relation to prophecy. This shapes the enduring Islamic approach towards personal interactions between the teacher and learner through orality, facilitating memorisation, and the didactic approach towards the sacred. Islamic pedagogy is dependent on both a personalized approach towards teacher and student embodiment of the sacred texts and supporting material. From an Islamic perspective, embodiment has a physical and spiritual dimension where prophecy is retained and is inherent to existence and daily practice. Without the embodied learning the Islamic approach towards pedagogy is seen to disconnect with many students seeking knowledge. This highlights the centrality of the teachers' relationship with the student and the distinguishing belief of Islamic pedagogy in knowledge embodiment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore what is believed to be a deep connection between Islamic pedagogy as a way to cultivate personal learning experiences. The paper discusses the relationship between the characterising features of Islamic pedagogy and personalised learning that remains central to Islamic institutional developments. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of the embodiment of knowledge in Islamic pedagogy for personalised learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The endeavours to define the characterising features that represents the relationship between Islamic pedagogy and knowledge embodiment.\nFindings: The paper proposes that Islamic pedagogy is dependent on both a personalised approach towards teacher and student embodiment. From an Islamic perspective, embodiment has a physical and spiritual dimension where prophecy is retained and is inherent to existence and daily practice. Without the embodied learning the Islamic approach towards pedagogy is seen to disconnect with many students seeking knowledge. This highlights the centrality of the teachers' relationship with the student and the distinguishing belief of Islamic pedagogy in knowledge embodiment.\nOriginality/value: The papers contribution to knowledge is in considering personalised learning within the context of Islamic education.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work teams to favor knowledge management: towards communities of practice	[ "Team working", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In contrast to the traditional emphasis on external factors to explain organizational success (Porter, 1985), recent strategic management literature has focused on internal resources (Miller and Shamsie, 1996). In this vein, knowledge has received increasing attention. In fact, some authors, such as Grant (1996b) and Nonaka et al. (2001), claim that knowledge is the main source of sustainable competitive advantage.In the business context, knowledge can be defined as relevant information that is applied and that is based partially on experience (Leonard and Sensiper, 1998). Nevertheless, knowledge, especially its tacit dimension, is embedded in the individual and to be a source of competitive advantage it must be transformed into organizational knowledge (Grant, 1996a, b; Nonaka and Konno, 1998; Teece, 1998; Powell, 1998). This is the essence of knowledge management and to achieve this goal, organizations must provide a context of shared identity that favors this process (Kogut and Zander, 1996; Szulanski, 1996).But, how does the firm create this context? On the one hand, several contributions from the academic literature around knowledge management indicate that firms achieve this context by developing communities of practice (Brown and Duguid, 1998; Ruggles, 1998; Lesser and Prusak, 1999; Asoh et al., 2002). In fact, the growing interest in the study of communities of practice stems from the fact that they can encourage the creation of value in the short and long terms, facilitate the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit, overcome the barriers to the transfer of knowledge and ensure collaboration (Asoh et al., 2002). In line with Lesser and Prusak (1999), this type of group often leads to greater ability to manage organizational knowledge. Thus, communities of practice are important to the functioning of any organization, but become crucial for those who recognize that knowledge is their key asset since they fulfill a number of functions related to the creation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge in an organization.On the other hand, the management practice field shows that the past two decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of work teams (Cohen and Ledford, 1994; Goodman et al., 1988; Kirkman and Rosen, 1999; Kirkman and Shapiro, 1997, 2001; Kirkman et al., 2001; Nicholls et al., 1999; Trist et al., 1977; Wall et al., 1996; Wellins et al., 1990). From Grant's (1997, 2001) point of view, this new tendency of organizational design could be considered a way to access the tacit knowledge of the organizational members and so a way to create the appropriate context for knowledge management. However, for individual knowledge to become organizational knowledge, it is not enough to organize the firm around work teams because formal corporate structures may be insufficient for the development, application and spread of knowledge (see, for example, Cabrera and Cabrera, 2002, who address social dilemmas).In consequence, our hypothesis is that the knowledge management process does not happen in just any work team, but only in one with the characteristics to become a community of practice. So, our first objective is to identify, in the light of the literature about communities of practice, the characteristics that a work team needs to favor knowledge management. Then, our second objective is to test empirically how those characteristics exercise a favorable influence on knowledge management, which is conceptualized as a process of creation (C), transfer (T) and integration (I) of the work team members' knowledge.As far as we know, there is still little empirical evidence about how these characteristics favor knowledge management (Szulanski, 1996; Argote, 1999). Moreover, those papers have not examined how these characteristics affect each phase of the process of knowledge management (creation, transfer and integration of individual knowledge). For example, in which phase the team's leader is most important? How does the team members' autonomy influence knowledge management? In this work, we attempt to fill this empirical gap.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section develops the theoretical background for the paper. The third section describes the methodology used to test the hypotheses empirically. Finally, the main conclusions are given based on the results obtained.\nTheoretical development: Knowledge management: the creation of organizational knowledge\nMethodology: The method chosen to test our hypotheses was a survey carried out by means of self-reported questionnaires. A questionnaire was sent by post or e-mail to each of the participants. We guaranteed the confidentiality of individual survey responses, emphasizing that participation was entirely voluntary.Universe and sample size\nResults: To test for relationships between each dimension of a work team and knowledge outcomes, we examined correlations. Table I shows the results obtained.It can be seen that three dimensions are significantly related to both knowledge creation and its transfer and integration. They are: self-management, individual autonomy and climate of trust. Thus, hypotheses H1, H2 and H6 were supported. However, the dimension referring to leadership is only significantly related to knowledge transfer and integration of knowledge, and common understanding and the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills are significantly related only to knowledge creation. So, hypotheses H5, H4 and H3 were only partially supported.We then conducted three multiple regression analysis to assess the relative importance of the dimension of the work team to favor knowledge management. In all of them, the six dimensions were entered as predictor variables. However, the criterion variables were changed: in the first analysis, it was the degree of CTI of knowledge in the team; in the second, the creation of knowledge and in the third, the degree of transfer and integration of knowledge. The results obtained from those analyses are shown in Table II.On the one hand, it can be seen that, in general, the dimensions of the definition of the team, explain a high proportion of variance of the degree of CTI of knowledge in the team (i.e. creation of organizational knowledge).On the other hand, it can be seen that the relative importance of each characteristic of the work team to the knowledge management varies according to which component of the process is being explained. In this way, self-management is the characteristic that best explains the degree of CTI of knowledge in the work team. Moreover, it had a notably strong influence on both phases of the process (i.e. creation of knowledge, and transfer and integration of knowledge). However, the other dimensions had favorable effects of varying intensity on each of the process phases. For example, in favoring the creation of knowledge, the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills, and common understanding were two dimensions that showed strong explanatory power. However, the transfer and integration of knowledge was especially influenced by individual autonomy and leadership. Although both those dimensions were significantly related to the creation of knowledge, they have the least relative importance in explaining that phase of the process.Finally, it should be pointed out that the dimension referring to climate of trust in the team was significantly related to the overall process and each of its phases, although its relative importance was almost equal in all three regression analyses. Therefore, while its presence is essential to knowledge management, as has been shown in other studies (Zarraga and Bonache, 2003), it is not enough.\nConclusions: In this research we have obtained empirical confirmation that knowledge management is favored in work teams which possess certain characteristics: self-management, leadership, individual autonomy, climate of trust, common understanding and the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills. To do that, knowledge management in work teams was conceptualized as a process of creation (C), transfer (T) and integration (I) of the members' knowledge. The results permitted not only the verification of a positive and significant relationship between the work teams' characteristics and the knowledge management in such groups, but also a detailed examination of that relationship. So, we have obtained evidence about what characteristics of work teams favor the knowledge management process in its different phases, so contributing to filling a gap in the literature.Thus, the analyses revealed that the characteristic of a work team that most noticeably influences the whole process of the CTI of knowledge is that labeled self-management. Therefore, this study shows that the adoption of self-managed teams, besides improving various aspects pointed out by other researchers (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999), enhances knowledge management in the team, and so favors the creation of individual knowledge as well as its transfer and integration.However, other characteristics of the work team are seen to favor specific phases of knowledge management. To be more specific, the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills and a common understanding are outstanding features of a work team in achieving the creation of knowledge in the team. That supports the theoretical approaches that reveal that, given a sufficient level of overlapping knowledge that ensures effective communication (common understanding), the interactions between individuals with different knowledge bases (heterogeneous and complementary skills) will increase the organization's capacity to achieve innovation beyond that which any individual member can achieve (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Utterback, 1971; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Ashby, 1956). Therefore, it is logical that, for the creation of knowledge, the aforementioned aspects are more important than leadership, since it is more important in this phase to have sufficient critical mass to lead to new ideas. Moreover, the influence of a leader imposing his/her criteria could restrict the free generation of those ideas and their objective analysis (i.e. group thinking).Individual autonomy, together with leadership, is especially relevant to the transfer and integration of knowledge. As Nonaka et al. (2001) point out, to be able to build organizational knowledge, all the organization's members must be allowed to work autonomously. In addition, Fahey and Prusak (1998), in their work about mistakes in knowledge management, emphasize the error of not recognizing the importance of experimenting within organizations. Those authors state that experimenting means trying new approaches to analysis, initiating pilot schemes, doing things on a \"trial and error\" basis, and allowing individuals to take on additional tasks and responsibilities. However, it should be borne in mind that, if what is sought is a deliberate strategy of divergence of perspectives, it will be necessary to manage the profusion and richness of ideas that will take place in the team (Leonard and Strauss, 1997). In other words, a team leader will be necessary to provide both real and virtual communication space as well as some guidelines. That leader will have to direct the individual goals towards a common goal that is ambitious but realistic (Eppler and Sukowski, 2000).In sum, in light of the empirical results of this research and the review of the literature, this paper makes an important contribution to the field of knowledge management. First, we identify the factors determining that a work team favors knowledge management; i.e. self-management, leadership, individual autonomy, climate of trust, common understanding and the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills. Those six components corroborate the theoretical literature which states that, to create high-performance work teams, it is necessary to go beyond self-managed teams and introduce other dimensions such as leadership, common understanding, etc. (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999; Robbins, 2001). But, additionally, we have deduced these dimensions from the literature about communities of practice and so we can assert that these work team characteristics are part of the concept of community of practice. Thus, this paper makes an academic contribution aimed at clarifying the concept of a community of practice, which, despite its extensive treatment in the literature on knowledge management, has always been surrounded by a high degree of abstraction that has made it difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, more research is need in order to study other characteristics of work teams that could be dimensions of communities of practices and have not been included in this exploratory analysis.The work carried out also makes a practical contribution, insofar as it provides evidence that will help companies to understand the value of knowledge to their success and to obtain maximum performance through the organization of their human resources into teams with the appropriate characteristics to become communities of practices. Future research could study what mechanisms companies must use to achieve those characteristics in their teams.However, the research carried out is not without its limitations, two of which should be stressed. A significant one is its unit of analysis. We recognize that the group rather than the individual would have been a more suitable unit of analysis. However, this approach could not be adopted in our study since we only had data from 21 complete teams. This is the reason why we have used individual level measures. In this sense, it should be noted that these findings are to be interpreted as individual perceptions of the characteristics of the team to favor the process of knowledge management. Future research should employ group measures to determine more conclusively the extent to which these characteristics affect the CTI of knowledge in work teams.A second limitation is the general issue of measuring the characteristics of a community of practice and the degree of knowledge CTI in a work team. Our scales represent new measures. They must be interpreted cautiously until an adequate psychometric method can be established. Moreover, in such complex and fuzzy issues as the community of practice and its connection with knowledge outcomes, the combined use of qualitative and quantitative measurements might prove productive. An empirical work combining both types of approach represents an interesting challenge for further research in the area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To provide evidence about that the process called knowledge management can happen in work teams, but only if they have the necessary characteristics to be considered communities of practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - First, the paper identifies the characteristics of the work team that favor knowledge management from a revision of existing literature about communities of practice. Second, by means of an empirical study of 363 individuals working in permanent teams, the paper obtains confirmation that those characteristics exercise a favorable influence on knowledge management. The empirical study is carried out by means of statistical analysis: exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's a analyses were carried out to check the validity and reliability of scales; conducted correlation analyses were also conducted to test the six hypotheses regarding direct relationships and multiple regression analyses to assess the relative importance of each of the characteristics of the work team in knowledge management.\nFindings: - Empirical evidence is obtained that knowledge management is favored in work teams that possess certain characteristics: self-management, leadership, individual autonomy, climate of trust, common understanding, and the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills. The paper also provides a detailed examination of that relationship. Evidence is obtained about what characteristics of work teams favor the knowledge management process in its different phases (i.e. creation of knowledge, and transfer and integration of knowledge).\nResearch limitations/implications: - On the one hand, the group rather than the individual would have been a more suitable unit of analysis. So, it should be noted that our findings are to be interpreted as individual perceptions. On the other hand, our scales represent new measures. So, they must be interpreted cautiously.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides evidence that will help companies to understand the value of knowledge to their success and to obtain maximum performance through the organization of their human resources into teams with the appropriate characteristics to become communities of practice.\nOriginality/value: - This paper fills an empirical gap in the literature around communities of practice and knowledge management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparison between economic and organic store brands: Packaging as a key factor of store brand equity	[ "Packaging", "Perceived quality", "Customer-based value", "Store brand equity", "Store brand’s positioning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Store brands have been considered as serious rivals to national brands for more than two decades (Hyman et al., 2010; Mayer and Vambery, 2013; Quelch and Harding, 1996; Ter Braak et al., 2014), not only in terms of a good price-quality balance (Gomez et al., 2016), but also by forcing national brands to innovate and develop more effective promotions (Meza and Sudhir, 2010). Since the beginning of the 2000s, they have significantly contributed to retail differentiation (Ailawadi et al., 2008; Collins-Dodd and Lindley, 2003).\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: Our research first deepens the store brand equity concept leading to focus on the role of both packaging and perceived quality since they represent specific determinants of the positive consumers' behaviours. Hypotheses are then exposed.\nResearch methods: This research focusses on measuring store brand equity according to store brand's positioning and type of packaging. In other words, how does the type of packaging influence the development of equity (or global value) in economic and high added value store brands? We aim to measure specifically how the type of packaging influences product assessment and particularly perceived quality, a key determinant of repurchasing. This influence is observed within an overall structural model oriented towards consumer perceptions and assessed by their behavioural intentions. The objective is to measure the indirect influence of packaging on the global value through the perceived quality of two types of store brands (economic and organic).\nResults: Store brand equity depends on positioning and type of packaging\nDiscussion: This study is, to our knowledge, one of the first to tackle the issue of store brand equity in detail by considering two store brand's positioning strategies (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007): those with high perceived added value (the organic store brands), as opposed to economic brands. It thus extends previous contributions that concentrated on \"standard\" store brands. The structural model of brand equity of this research is composed of five components: attitude, packaging (those two components making up perceived quality), perceived quality, high perceived price and purchase intentions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to tackle the issue of store brand equity by considering two store brand's positioning strategies: those with high perceived added value (the organic store brands), as opposed to economic brands. It takes place in the current environmental considerations showing the important role played by the packaging in determining the store brand equity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A PLS Path model divided into four sub-models enables the authors to make specific predictions about customers' purchase intentions. It also provides a concise operational calculation of the brand equity of each studied store brand.\nFindings: Results show that economic brands build their equity with reinforced packaging, and organic brands maximise their brand equity by using simple packaging. In general, reinforced packaging improves the perceived quality of economic store brands but destroys that of organic brands. The calculations of overall equity scores for each studied store brand reveal that economic brands could benefit from further development whilst organic brands already maximise their equity.\nPractical implications: Results will enable large retailers to develop effective campaigns focussing on perceived quality and more specifically by designing packaging that are suitable for the positioning of their brands - a simple packaging for organic brands and a reinforced packaging for economic brands to maximise customers' value.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to deepen the store brand equity, comparing two contrasting types of brands, by studying specifically variations of the levels of customers' perceived quality depending of two types of packaging.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Dispositional correlates of perceived work entitlement	[ "Self-esteem", "Machiavellianism", "Narcissism", "Entitlement", "Protestant work ethic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The perception of workplace entitlement is defined as the deep-seated belief that one deserves more pay, recognition, positive feedback, and other rewards than others deserve regardless of one's contribution to the organization (Huseman et al., 1985, 1987). This insatiable demand for \"getting\" rather than \"giving\" borrows heavily from Adlerian psychology as a pronounced contrast to Adler's socially useful person exhibiting benevolent tendencies (Mosak, 1971). Interest in entitlement has recently increased due to the lament of the popular press on the increase in a host of maladaptive traits and attitudes (Stout, 2000; Twenge, 2006; Zaslow, 2007) as well as the emergence of recurring evidence in the scientific literature finding that the current generation of workers now entering the workforce tend to be more narcissistic and entitled, and have higher self-esteem than previous generations (Twenge, 2010; Twenge and Campbell, 2008; Twenge et al., 2008, 2012).\nGeneration Me: Whereas these generational differences are not large (Donnellan et al., 2009), they are still important to examine \"as even small changes at the average mean that twice or three times as many individuals score at the top of the distribution\" (Twenge, 2010, p. 201) and work values definitely change as employees grow older (Smola and Sutton, 2002). Born in the 1980s and early 1990s, this generation of adults is now starting their careers en masse and have been variously referred to as Generation Y, Echo Boomers, Millennials (Macky et al., 2008; Sheahan, 2006), and Generation Me (Twenge, 2006). Workplace policies and practices have changed, sometimes drastically, to accommodate the sense of entitlement of this decidedly different generation (Zaslow, 2007). Understanding the generation of workers just now entering the workforce is important, especially because Generation Me (the generation to which entitlement has most frequently been ascribed) has more members than the Baby Boomer generation and will numerically dominate the workforce over the next several decades.\nPrevious conceptualizations of entitlement: Although some authors have used entitlement and narcissism interchangeably (e.g. Twenge, 2006; Twenge and Campbell, 2009), entitlement is part of the constellation of traits under the banner of narcissism with the other narcissistic traits being: authority, exhibitionism, superiority, vanity, exploitativeness, and self-sufficiency (Raskin and Hall, 1979, 1981; Raskin and Terry, 1988). Narcissism is \"an extremely positive and inflated view of the self combined with limited empathy for others [...] (and characterized by) intense self-love\" (DuBrin, 2012, p. 1). However, Campbell et al. (2004) advise against measuring narcissistic entitlement as a stand-alone concept because of construct underrepresentation and poor sub-scale reliability, so they developed the Psychological Entitlement Scale to measure a general dispositional type of entitlement likely to lead to consistent attitudes and behaviors across most situations (e.g. work and non-work) and time. However, general dispositional forms of entitlement may run afoul of the specificity matching principle endorsed by trait (Epstein, 1979; Fleeson, 2004) and attitude researchers (Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005) and described by Bosson and Swann (2009) as the desirability that the predictors and criterion be matched at a similar level. That is, general traits and attitudes best predict general behaviors and specific traits and attitudes predict specific behaviors. For example, the attitude toward one's supervisor best predicts specifically helping one's supervisor and does a relatively poor job of predicting help toward other people in general.\nCurrent study: The current study attempts to fill a gap in the extant research literature by examining a very domain-specific work-based form of entitlement separate from narcissism's components and different from the more general measure of dispositional entitlement. Whereas the identification of outcomes associated with perceived work entitlement includes a well-documented body of research (e.g. Blakely et al., 2005; Byrne et al., 2010; King and Hinson, 1994; O'Neill and Mone, 1998; Restubog et al., 2009), in contrast, very little research (e.g. Miller, 2009; Mudrack et al., 1999; Yamaguchi, 2003) has examined the dispositional correlates or antecedents of perceived work entitlement. The current study contributes to the literature by examining the role of Machiavellianism and Protestant work ethic (PWE) in the prediction of perceived work entitlement. To our knowledge, only Mudrack et al. (1999) have simultaneously examined these same constructs. By conducting two separate studies, we will compare the predictive power of different conceptualizations of both Machiavellianism and PWE on perceived work entitlement. In the next section, we trace some critical precursors of entitlement to a general increase in narcissism and to the influence of the self-esteem movement.\nEtiology of entitlement: The etiology of an inflated concern for self so inherently important to entitlement involves considerable debate (Millon, 1981), but the post-Second World War rise in entitlement has been attributed to: first, overly permissive child rearing practices (Mosak, 1959); and second, the oft-criticized (Baumeister et al., 2005; Stout, 2000; Twenge, 2006) self-esteem movement of the 1980s (Mecca et al., 1989). Regarding child-rearing, Huseman et al. (1987) suggest that pampered children may grow to become entitled adults who are more predisposed toward dissatisfaction and anxiety except when they are receiving an inordinately large reward. This inflated sense of self-importance and uniqueness has given rise to a preoccupation with receiving attention and a sense of entitlement to special treatment by others (Bergman et al., 2010). Regarding the self-esteem movement, a sense of entitlement likely also grew, for some, out of efforts at bolstering the well-being and motivation of the younger generation. Mecca et al. (1989) suggested that self-esteem non-contingent on actual performance should be the end goal. However, Weiss and Knight (1980) found that those with high self-esteem engaged in fewer searches for information and ultimately performed more poorly on a task than those with low self-esteem who sought useful information. This lack of humility in a high self-esteem person is the hallmark of entitlement. Stone-Romero and Stone (2003) suggest that in an individualistic culture (like the USA) egocentric individuals will not seek information or feedback that threatens their self-esteem; however, when it does threaten their self-esteem the individual's resulting behaviors lead to a number of dysfunctional consequences for organizations such as decreased organizational, group, and individual effectiveness. Stone-Romero and Stone (2003) suggest that egocentric individuals experiencing feedback-related threats to their self-esteem adopt some combination of prophylactic, therapeutic, cognitive, or behavioral strategies at maintaining their self-esteem in the face of negative feedback. Alternatively, the self-esteem movement spawned by Mecca et al. (1989) seeks to improve self-esteem by sometimes avoiding the possibility of feedback altogether given that feedback is derived from performance and the linkage between performance and self-esteem is seen as unimportant.\nEntitlement, equity sensitivity, and equity theory: Equity theory (Adams, 1963, 1965) is one of the most thoroughly tested theoretical frameworks in management and applied psychology (Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan, 2007). Equity theory suggests that people are motivated to reduce the anxiety they experience when they perceive that they are treated unfairly. Perceptions of (un)fairness are based upon their assessment of their ratio between outcomes received from the job (e.g. salary, benefits, recognition) and inputs brought to the job (e.g. effort, education, and performance) relative to the ratio of a comparison other. The desire for equity was thought to be universal and invariant until just over a quarter century ago with the introduction of equity sensitivity (Huseman et al., 1985), which suggests that not all persons perceive workplace unfairness similarly. Thus, equity sensitivity is a predisposition toward differing sensitivity (Huseman et al., 1987), tolerance (King et al., 1993), or preference (Sauley and Bedeian, 2000) for levels of unfairness at work. It also suggests that most people are equity sensitive in that they expect some equivalency in their ratio of outcomes-to-inputs, but some are benevolent because they prefer to receive less than they contribute, and others are entitled and demand more than they contribute.\nHypotheses: Machiavellianism\nMethod Study 1: A cross-sectional self-report questionnaire was used to collect data from employed persons enrolled in two sections of an upper division management course at a mid-sized public university in the southwestern USA. Totally, 214 participants provided complete and useable data in exchange for extra credit in the class. A demographic profile of the sample and an overview of the measures used in the survey are below. Because cross-sectional data collected from a single source can be affected by common method variance (CMV) (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), we implemented several procedures to both limit and measure its impact. As Podsakoff et al. (2003) recommend, researchers can limit the impact of CMV by taking certain steps in the design of their study a priori as well as measure its impact via certain post hoc statistical controls. Our a priori attempts involved the use of both Likert (e.g. strongly disagree to strongly agree) and Likert-type (e.g. not at all true to very true) response formats, scales with 1-5 and 1-7 numeric responses, gathering data completely anonymously, using scales with reverse-scored items, and measuring social desirability for statistical control. Post hoc steps to assess the influence of CMV on the results involved partialling out the impact of social desirability in regression analyses as well as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests of respondents' ability to differentiate between the constructs in our model.\nResults Study 1: Fit indices\nSummary Study 1: In the first study, Machiavellianism was positively related to perceived work entitlement but the PWE was not in multiple regression analysis that controlled for a form of socially desirable responding. These predictor variables explained 25 percent of the variance in perceived work entitlement. However, this form of domain-specific entitlement may simply have been too narrowly defined to simultaneously relate to broad unidimensional measures of Machiavellianism and the PWE. To further explore this possibility, a more nuanced examination of separate components of Machiavellianism and a more specific form of the PWE are analyzed as predictors of perceived work entitlement in Study 2 below, in closer adherence to the aforementioned specificity matching principle.\nMethod Study 2: A cross-sectional self-report questionnaire was used to collect data from employed persons (not previously surveyed in Study 1) enrolled in two sections of an upper division management course at a mid-sized public university in the southwestern USA. Because of the possibility of CMV (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Podsakoff and Organ, 1986) several attempts at both controlling CMV a priori and measuring it post hoc were undertaken. These efforts included: first, scrambling the survey items to offset any potential order bias so all measures used the same seven-point Likert response format anchored by 1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree; second, gathering anonymous data; third, using scales with reverse-scored items; fourth, measuring social desirability for statistical control; fifth partialling out the impact of social desirability in regression analyses; and sixth, using CFA tests to ascertain respondents' ability to differentiate between the constructs in our model. Totally, 270 participants provided complete and useable data in exchange for a modest amount of extra credit in the class. A demographic profile of this independent sample and an overview of the measures used in the survey are presented in the following sections.\nResults Study 2: CFA\nSummary Study 2: In this second study, a more granular four-dimensional model of Machiavellianism as well as a more narrowly defined conceptualization of the PWE (than those measures used in Study 1 were found to be significant predictors of perceived work entitlement even after statistically controlling for a form of social desirability. It is likely that this nuanced approach aligns more closely with the specificity matching principle suggested for domain-specific research (Bosson and Swann, 2009). In sum, three of the four facets of Machiavellianism were positively related to perceived work entitlement and the PWE and Machiavellian desire for control was negatively related to perceived work entitlement. The overall variance (R2) explained in perceived work entitlement by all of the predictors in Study 2 was 35 percent.\nGeneral discussion of Studies 1 and 2: The results of the two research studies presented here suggest that Machiavellian people who possess amoral values, have a desire for status, are distrustful of others, and who do not endorse the PWE have higher levels of the perception of entitlement at work. Machiavellianism suggests that it is acceptable to manipulate others as one climbs the organizational ladder and that others are to be distrusted in the Machiavellian person's quest to receive what they believe they deserve from their employer. Those low in the PWE are less likely to want to work hard for valued rewards and outcomes and they are less likely to show a sense of tenacity or \"stick-to-itiveness.\" Moreover, entitled individuals will tend to only work hard when their efforts will attract comparatively more rewards, like praise and recognition, than others receive.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Drawing on an equity theory framework, the purpose of this paper is to examine the degree to which dispositional correlates - Machiavellianism and Protestant work ethic (PWE) - predict perceived work entitlement in employed persons.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In two independent samples (n=270 and n=214), currently employed participants completed self-report surveys. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to assess common method variance and provide evidence of construct validity.\nFindings: In Study 1, a general measure of Machiavellianism was positively related to perceived work entitlement, but PWE was not significantly related to the criterion. In Study 2, three sub-scales of Machiavellianism, as well as a different measure of the PWE, were positively related to perceived work entitlement. However, the fourth sub-scale of Machiavellianism was negatively related and therefore in the opposite direction of that which was hypothesized.\nResearch limitations/implications: The primary limitations of the research are the cross-sectional research design and minor risk of common method bias. However, numerous a priori and post hoc procedures were incorporated in an attempt to minimize this risk.\nPractical implications: Managers need to understand how certain dispositional factors influence the degree to which employees perceive that they are entitled to rewards that at times are inconsistent with their contribution to the organization.\nSocial implications: As the workforce ages and older employees are replaced, understanding the dispositional influences on perceived work entitlement helps explain why some, often times younger, workers feel more entitled to organizational rewards than do others.\nOriginality/value: This paper is one of the first to examine relevant dispositional correlates of perceived work entitlement, which is a construct developed from equity theory.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Encouraging partnering and collaboration	[ "Partnership", "Behaviour", "Trainers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As companies focus on core competencies and outsource the bought in component of what they provide may increase, and they may transfer activities to specialist suppliers. As a consequence, combinations of complementary organisations work together in supply chains rather than operate alone as single entities to deliver value to customers. Each concentrates on what it does best. A company that endeavours to do everything itself may become a \"jack of all trades and master of none\".\nDiffering attitudes and perspectives on collaboration: New directions, fundamental change and the negotiation of some form of collaboration can all lead to disagreements, disputes and confrontation between contending viewpoints, interests and arguments. Latent conflicts may be brought to the surface. People may display protective behaviour. Different interests may seek to use corporate development opportunities and channels of communication for their own ends. New ways may need to be found to handle disagreements.Sensitive trainers and developers recognize that the people of an organization and its external business partners may have different perceptions of the desirability, direction and consequences of change and cooperation. Some may feel strongly about certain issues. Old debates, clashes of personality, divisions within the boardroom or tensions between supply chain partners may be brought to the surface.Within many companies and marketplaces there is a legacy of distrust and much scope for misunderstanding between departments, business units, head offices and operating subsidiaries. Some may harbour suspicions that particular groups are seeking to benefit from changes at the expense of others. Certain departments may feel they are being asked to absorb an unfair proportion of staff or budget cuts.There may be potential flash points. Divisions may resent the re-allocation of overhead costs from a corporate centre. Holding and subsidiary company boards and supply chain partners may have differing expectations and perspectives. There might be varying degrees of misunderstanding between national cultures and distinct minorities within an international organization or supply chain.Trainers need to be aware of such differences and should react accordingly. A standard approach may be appropriate for a relatively homogenous organization. However, the greater the diversity between the different elements of an organization or collaborative partners the more desirable it is likely to be that the implementation of change and transformation programmes and cooperative activities should reflect local and differing situations.Possible areas of disagreement and/or arenas of confrontation need to be recognized and likely conflicts of interest addressed. Training messages and corporate communications can themselves become a source of distrust and tension, especially when words are not consistent with deeds. People may perceive a gap between rhetoric and reality. For example, trainers might stress the need to adopt a longer-term approach to the building of partnering relationships with customers while directors take short-term actions to cut costs that disadvantage other parties.The Leading Performance Improvement and Research Programme has examined the approaches of a wide range of organizations in many sectors and identified critical success factors for managing change, competing and winning (Coulson-Thomas, 2002, 2004). It builds on past and related work on building strategic and key customer relationships (Hurcomb, 1998) and using e-business technologies to encourage closer cooperation within and across supply chains (Bartram, 1996).In this article we compare the attitudes and behaviours for handling conflicts of interest and encouraging cooperation within and between organizations of the more successful companies (\"winners\") with those of businesses that struggle (\"losers\"). Trainers need to understand the approaches of the winners and encourage and help others to adopt their behaviours.\nDiffering approaches of \"winners\" and \"losers\" to collaboration: Successful and unsuccessful companies pursue very different approaches to avoiding disputes, handling differences and encouraging collaboration (Coulson-Thomas, 2002, 2004). People associated with \"loser\" companies are cautious collaborators. They stress the time, effort and expense required to establish and build relationships, and they often conclude that the likely results do not justify the investment required.In making such choices losers act as though working with others is an option rather than a necessity. At heart they are reluctant to share and would prefer to operate alone. They keep to themselves in an attempt to avoid becoming entangled in rivalries and drawn into disputes. When negotiating they pursue divisive strategies and seek to benefit at the expense of other parties. They sometimes foment conflicts in order to achieve sectional interests.Some losers prize their independence so much they pass up opportunities to grow that would require them to work with colleagues and business partners. Collaboration is seen as a constraint on their freedom of action. They settle into familiar ways of operating. If existing arrangements and practices appear to work reasonably well they are reluctant to consider alternatives that might offer additional benefits.Winners are more willing to work with colleagues and are more likely to be prepared to co-operate with other complementary suppliers. They see and seek the advantages of collaboration. It might enable them to learn and develop. It may allow them to offer a wider range of services to their customers and pursue a broader range of opportunities.Winners are usually receptive to approaches from others. They are open to new ideas. They welcome suggestions for improvements and innovation. They actively search for potential business partners and explore possibilities for joint initiatives or collective action. They do not mind the confrontation and argument that may need to precede mutual respect and a meeting of minds. They endeavour to find common ground, resolve conflicts and promote shared interests and goals.\nBuilding collaborative relationships: It helps if aspiring collaborators are compatible and complementary. When they need to work with others losers tend to seek out potential collaborators with similar characteristics to themselves. As a consequence, they sometimes find in crisis situations that the whole is not necessarily greater than the sum of the parts. Like drunks endeavouring to prop each other up they compound each other's weaknesses.If the parties endeavouring to co-operate are very different they may not have enough in common to cement a relationship. On the other hand, if they are so alike as to add little to each other's capabilities collaboration may not be justified. Winners are more likely to understand that lasting relationships often involve dissimilar but complementary partners that allocate roles and responsibilities according to comparative advantage.Losers tend to be essentially selfish where relationships are concerned. They seek to co-operate on their terms, and they often put the bare minimum of effort into maintaining them. They hold back emotionally and intellectually and endeavour not to become too deeply involved. They are wary and may even undertake cost-benefit assessments. When negotiating they endeavour to \"score points\" and adopt win-lose approaches.Collaborative \"partnerships\" can take various forms. Whether an informal arrangements or a formal joint venture, such relationships can be of great importance. Opportunities can be addressed and significant amounts of new business won as a result of co-operative action. The consortium bid for a major contract, with each member focusing on an area of core expertise is increasingly acceptable and may be encouraged.Winners work hard at reaping the benefits of co-operation. They commit the effort required to establish and regularly review collaborative processes and practices. For example, they may put practical arrangements in place to clarify the ownership of customers, prevent poaching and protect intellectual property. They are more willing to practice open book accounting and create electronic links between parties, in situations where losers would worry about the confidentiality of information and the risk of exposure to computer viruses and hacking.Winners also recognise that if internal and external relationships are to grow and deepen they should be acceptable and mutually beneficial to all the parties involved. Instinctively, when negotiating they look for win-win outcomes. They also avoid rushing. Some parties will take longer to adjust and integrate than others. Winners also understand the dynamic nature of associations and arrangements. Time, effort and care may need to be devoted to them if they are to become more intimate.Winners willingly commit. They become involved. They are flexible and understanding, and prepared to do things differently to accommodate particular and legitimate interests. They are also not \"fair weather friends\". They can be relied on in crisis situations.\nHandling differences between collaborating parties: Collaboration should not be pursued at any cost or become a distraction. Some losers devote great effort to achieving \"teamwork\" that may conceal or sideline differences and gloss over concerns in order to achieve a bland consensus. Winners adopt a more entrepreneurial approach. They encourage open and frank discussion. They become demanding collaborators and partners. On occasion they may create waves in order to make faster progress.Overall winners recognise that a lack of tension may mean the absence of ambition. The quiet organization may be asleep. Their drive and desire to innovate and push back the boundaries of what is possible may provoke confrontation between those favouring the status quo and those who desire to move on. The need for activities and processes for building mutual understanding, reconciling differences and building collaborative relationships is understood and addressed.Discussion, informed debate, a willingness to challenge and a degree of confrontation is sometimes desirable. It can prevent complacency, spur innovation and lead to higher performance and the creation of new offerings (Coulson-Thomas, 2001). Disputes are usually better in the open - where efforts can be made to resolve them - than hidden when they can fester. Winners put simple and low level dispute resolution procedures in place.Involving different parties in discussions at proposal or concept stage may give them an opportunity to flag up areas of possible difficulty. Although their participation might delay a decision, implementation may be speeded up due to the greater perceived legitimacy of the process and likely outcomes made more acceptable.Mechanisms for identifying, tracking and resolving issues can range from an ad hoc discussion forum or inter-unit team to a partnering agreement or formal issue monitoring and management. Trainers may need to learn how to identify common ground, isolate points of difference, and assess and address the root causes of disputes. In the interests of sustaining a valued collaboration organizational boundaries may need to be redrawn, roles and responsibilities reallocated, processes re-engineered and strategies reviewed.\nImplications for trainers and developers: Trainers, developers and communicators can play a key role in avoiding confrontation and building a culture of collaboration. They can identify supporters and opponents of change and when designing development activities can endeavour to ensure each understands the others viewpoints and legitimate concerns. They can put feedback loops in place and encourage senior managers to listen. They can assess tolerance for diversity and whether sufficient discussion and debate is occurring.The training community should also ensure that key work groups are equipped with the tools they need to be more effective at collaborating and other aspects of their jobs. A new generation of job-support tools can enable the distinctive approaches of superstars or \"winners\" to be captured in ways that enable colleagues to emulate their approaches (Coulson-Thomas, 2003a). They can help ensure that the procedures of partners and agreed practices are adhered to (Coulson-Thomas, 2003b).Friends Provident provides a tool that enables independent financial advisers to create their own marketing collateral and plan marketing campaigns. B&Q provides its suppliers with a tool that makes it much easier for them to manage the process of satisfying its quality requirements. Cisco's front line team uses a tool to help them understand the requirements of customers and build relationships with them.Those developing and delivering courses should work to achieve mutual respect and credible two-way communications between the various parties to a collaborative relationship.Trainers and communicators with responsibilities that embrace a number of collaborative partners should endeavour to appear objective, i.e. ensure they are not perceived to be 'in the pockets' of one particular organisation. When groups such as trainers and communicators push for and achieve a degree of independence, corporate learning centres, courses and trusted internal media can provide a valuable forum for raising concerns, expressing viewpoints, exploring issues, reconciling opinions, fostering collaboration and sharing learning.Those developing and delivering courses should work to achieve mutual respect and credible two-way communications between the various parties to a collaborative relationship. When counselling trainers should encourage colleagues to match words with deeds. People need to distinguish between disruptive opposition and constructive questioning and encourage the latter.Trainers and communicators with responsibilities that embrace a number of collaborative partners should endeavour to appear objective, i.e. ensure they are not perceived to be \"in the pockets\" of one particular organisation. When groups such as trainers and communicators push for and achieve a degree of independence, corporate learning centres, courses and trusted internal media can provide a valuable forum for fostering collaboration and sharing learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Proposes to show that in many organizations trainers, and other groups such as communicators, need to take positive steps to encourage partnering and collaboration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article is intended to share findings from an ongoing investigation undertaken by questionnaire survey, interview and in-company observation into the leadership of performance improvement and corporate transformation.\nFindings: - Those who succeed in building productive collaborative relationships exhibit very different behaviours from those who fail.\nPractical implications: - Trainers need to understand the differing behaviours of \"winners\" and \"losers\" in order to help people to adopt the approaches of their more successful peers and colleagues. It may also be necessary to equip people with job support tools that can help them to collaborate with customers and supply chain partners.\nOriginality/value: - The article highlights behaviours and approaches that trainers and developers need to encourage if individuals and organizations are to become more successful at building partnering and collaborative relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards a framework for the potential cyber-terrorist threat to critical national infrastructure: A quantitative study	[ "Information security modeling", "National security", "Terrorism", "Critical infrastructure", "Cyberterrorism" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the history of mankind, there have been many events and dangers that have threatened the security of states. Those threats caused heavy loss of life, the spread of disease, injuries, destruction of public and private property, displacement of large numbers of people and heavy economic losses. Political unrest at international and local levels, and recent technological developments, are elements that would increase the seriousness of threats against national security (Inoguchi, 1996).\nMain survey: Data set\nReliability and exploratory factor analysis: The researcher carried out two methods of analysis to purify the scale, reliability and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).\nConfirmatory factor analysis: EFA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are two types of factor analyses (Hair et al., 2006; Pallant, 2010).\nStructural equation modelling using PLS: Using PLS path modelling for assessing hierarchical construct models is a relatively new and rarely used method (Wetzels et al., 2009). \"However, several authors have discussed both the theoretical and empirical contributions hierarchical models can make\" (Edwards, 2001; Wetzels et al., 2009; Edwards et al., 2000; Burke et al., 2003; Law et al., 1998; MacKenzie et al., 2005; Petter et al., 2007). This study is in line with the previous research (Wetzels et al., 2009), which recommended conducting further studies using PLS path modelling for assessing hierarchical construct models; this study is consistent with it, making it also a contribution to this trend.\nMeasurement models assessment: Reflective measures\nStructural model assessment: The structural model aims to specify relations between latent constructs in different orders. The structural model testing was carried out after the two scales of validity and reliability were achieved. They are tested by estimating the paths between the first-order reflective constructs, and the second-order formative constructs, in a hierarchical latent variable model, which is an indicator of the model's predictive ability. To assess the structural model, the coefficient parameter estimates were tested, as well as the GFIs (Appendix 2) to assess if the hypothesised structural model fits the data. So, the hypothesised model was tested and the results are presented in Table XII, which indicates that all the hypotheses are accepted. Further details are discussed in the following section.\nSummary and conclusion: The aim of this paper (quantitative) is to examine the validity of the grounded theory resulting from a previous phase (qualitative). The conceptual framework and the hypotheses of this phase were developed based on the developed grounded theory. The model consists of five first order reflective constructs, which are knowledge, awareness, vulnerabilities, response and impact. These constructs represent 22 measurement items in the conventional terrorism threat model and 28 items in the cyberterrorism model. These two models have second and third formative constructs and they can be aggregated in one final model.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The main purpose of this research is to produce the most accurate theoretical framework of the potential threat of cyberterrorism to the national security, compared to conventional terrorism. So it aims to identify the theoretical framework that best explains the threat of cyberterrorism and conventional terrorism to national security derived from empirical data, using grounded theory, and to validate the developed grounded theory statistically by quantitative data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents the results of the quantitative study survey. It provides in the beginning basic information about the data. To purify the data, reliability and exploratory factor analysis, as well as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), were performed. Then, structural equation modelling was utilised to test the final model of the theory and to assess the overall goodness-of-fit between the proposed model and the collected data set.\nFindings: The first study, as a qualitative exploratory study, gives a rich data set that provides the foundation of the development of the second study, as a quantitative confirmatory study. In the researcher's previous qualitative study, it provides a better theoretical understanding of the potential threat of cyber and conventional terrorism to Saudi national security. Also, it provides the development of the grounded theory of the study (Figure 1). It also has led to the development of the conceptual framework and the hypotheses for the second phase of the study (i.e. survey).\nOriginality/value: It is original study based on empirical data collected from Saudi military and security officials and experts in the critical infrastructures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multiteam systems in an agile environment: a realist systematic review	[ "Team performance", "Team working", "Teams", "Agile manufacturing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Specific leadership functions are required for the success of multiteam systems (MTS). For example, leaders need to provide strategy and coordination within teams, across teams and with external stakeholders (DeChurch et al., 2011). Other studies highlighted that leadership behavior needs to concentrate on the team's actions rather than team member behavior (DeChurch and Marks, 2006). Also, situations where leaders were able to synchronize team goals effectively and inter-team coordination increased overall MTS performance (DeChurch and Marks, 2006). Fortunately, research on MTSs is under investigation (DeChurch et al., 2011) and growing. However, team composition for MTSs lacks exploration and analysis (Vessey and Landon, 2017; see also Bell et al., 2015). Also, needed are efforts to understand leadership in MTSs: \"we still know little about [...] how leadership by different leaders in the system distinctively impacts team and MTS goal attainment\" (Vessey and Landon 2017, p. 271). Researchers have called for additional research to be conducted around MTSs, to report what is known and to identify what is unknown, before moving forward (Shuffler et al., 2015).\n2. Method: Systematic reviews provide a synthesis of the literature that is transparent and reproducible, providing evidence-informed knowledge that can inform policy and aid decision-making efforts within any institution/organization (Tranfield et al., 2003). Compared to traditional literature reviews or integrated literature reviews (Torraco, 2005), systematic reviews offer a robust and transparent process that is both \"rigorous in formulation and relevant to practice\" (Torraco, 2016, p. 210). Systematic reviews can be conducted as a self-contained research project when exploring a specific problem derived from practice (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009) and in collaboration with the stakeholder throughout the process. In this case, systematic reviews have been identified as a research methodology (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009) beginning in the medical field and have since branched into other disciplines (see Ellwood et al., 2017; Nguyen et al., 2018; Nicaies et al., 2013). The most significant advantage that systematic reviews, as a method, provide to the researcher is that they are capable of capturing specific mechanisms related to individual programs (Tranfield et al., 2003). In the current research study, this \"program\" is identified as how MTSs are currently being structured and managed at the research location, Toyota Connected (TC). For the current research study, the researchers selected a systematic review as the chosen research methodology due to its rigor and level of synthesis.\n3. Teams, virtual teams and MTSs: 3.1 Teams\n4. Types of MTSs: 4.1 International joint ventures (IJVs)\n5. Leadership: 5.1 Boundary spanners\n6. Theories: A number of theories emerged from the systematic review. Each of these theories that follow served as a foundation to explain the observations and outcomes of MTSs examined in the literature.\n7. MTSs at TC: In the Methodology section, in Table I, the scope of the current study was to identify: How are MTSs structured? What is the best intervention for organizing MTSs? What is the best leadership model for MTSs? The information presented previously in this systematic review identified how different MTSs were structured as well as introduced different leadership models (items 1 and 3) for MTSs from the literature. This section further identifies how the research location, TC, structured scrum, a framework for agility, using their iteration of an MTS, a Teams of scrums or scrum of scrums. The second item in this study's scope, identifying the best method of organizing a multiteam system for the research location (TC) will be covered in the next section titled Proposed solutions for MTS structures at TC.\n8. Proposed solutions for MTS structures at TC: Within TC, there are two main areas that need to be addressed, the leadership structure of MTSs and the structure of an MTS when it spans across two or more organizations. These problem areas are common to most organizations operating multiple teams (e.g. Agile, ICS, IJV) and are not specific only to TC. This section addresses the final research question:\n9. Discussion: The field of MTSs is new and continues to expand as more organizations and industries begin to restructure to accommodate team-based systems compared to the traditional hierarchical systems of yesterday. Organizations are moving away from hierarchical structures and \"advocating empowerment, self-management, shared leadership and team-based designs\" (Mathieu, 2012, p. 511). However, being a relatively new field of study, there is a little literature available to support organizations as they make this move to team-based systems, especially those involving MTSs. The current study adds to this literature and is one of the major contributions from the study.\n10. Conclusion: This systematic review provided the guidelines for problem identification that were utilized to develop the research questions for this study. These guidelines were followed by the researchers in conjunction with the customer, providing better clarity of the problem. This systematic review began the first stage of a more extensive study. Here, both the research location stakeholders and the researchers worked together to merge the literature with current practice to develop newer and better models of conducting business using MTSs for the future. Future research studies will involve testing the models presented in this research study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight a collaborative effort between academia (University of North Texas, Team Sciences) and practice (Toyota Connected (TC)). This study concentrated on current problems that had been experienced by TC: How to structure and manage multiteam systems (MTSs)?\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research study utilized a realist systematic review to address an existing problem by working collaboratively with TC and academia. This collaboration involved problem identification, the development of research questions and a full systematic review guided by the research questions.\nFindings: This realist systematic review merged the literature with current practices at TC in an effort to gather evidence to support the best method of structuring and managing MTSs. The findings include a leadership structure that incorporates both shared leadership (bottom-up) and existing hierarchical structures (top-down).\nPractical implications: The MTS models presented in this study provide new models for organizations/manufacturers/industries to use as a guide when structuring their MTSs.\nOriginality/value: This study provides an example of a collaborative research effort between practice and academia using a realist systematic review. The paper also provides some multiteam system models that could be implemented and tested in different organizations. Also, new responsibilities and roles for scrum and MTSs are presented as a new method of achieving Agile.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Artist-brand alliances to target new consumers: can visual artists recruit new consumers to a brand?	[ "Brand personality", "Signaling theory", "Brand alliances", "Cognitive flexibility", "Visual art" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Artist-brand collaborations are rising in popularity and the art and business worlds are not always sure what to make of such collaborations. As brands increasingly hope to capture the benefits of not just the imagery but also the cultural, historical and philosophical associations with high art, brands are engaging in partnerships with various artists, yet these partnerships have received mixed reactions (Firestone, 2015). For instance, when Jeff Koons collaborated with mass-market retailer H&M, not everyone in the art world was thrilled by the collaboration (Chapin, 2014). Yet, brands continuously link their products with the work of visual artists in attempts to benefit from the transfer of associations from one to the other (Jagadeesh, 2013). Artists bring a variety of symbolic attributes to an alliance, which serve as signals to consumers about the brand. Recent research has shown that the mere presence of an artist can generate \"cognitive flexibility\" in consumers (Hagtvedt and Patrick, 2008a); flexibility in thinking will influence consumer perceptions of the artist-brand alliance such that the alliance may be an effective way to bring new customers to a brand. Thus, interesting opportunities may exist for brands that can successfully facilitate cognitive flexibility in consumers.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Artist-brand alliances and consumers\n3. Experimental studies: 3.1 Overview of studies\n4. Conclusion: Commercial brands can, indeed, benefit from associating with visual artists. Our results provided evidence that visual artists possessing distinctive personalities can add value to a brand alliance with a commercial brand. Partnering with an artist who signals a brand personality that contrasts with that of the brand can attract the brand non-core customers whose personalities align with the artist but not the commercial brand. And this alliance will not damage the brand attachment of the core customers whose personalities match the personality of the brand; this is due to core customers disregarding the partnering artist as a brand signal. Thus, our results extend the brand alliance literature by providing evidence that an alliance with an artist possessing a personality that does not match the personality of the brand can add value for the brand by increasing the interest of non-core customers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Increasing industry interest in visual artists and commercial brand collaborations has heightened the need for research on exactly how visual art can add meaning to brands in ways that enhance brand value to existing consumers and potentially reach new consumers. Consumers are known to select brands on the basis of how well these brands reflect their own personalities. The purpose of this research is to understand whether brand alliances with artists exhibiting distinct personalities can make brands more attractive to consumers whose personalities do not currently match the brand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two experiments are used to examine the impact of artists' personality (in)congruence on consumers' perceptions of the brand and purchase intentions of the brand's products.\nFindings: The results show that consumers whose personalities do not match the brand's current personality are likely to alter their view of a brand when the brand partners with an artist whose personality matches with that of the consumers'. This happens without negatively affecting the brand personality perceptions of current consumers who already identify with the brand.\nPractical implications: When seeking to attract a new target segment, brands can ally with visual artists who convey a personality that matches that of the new target segment.\nOriginality/value: This paper adds to a nascent literature on the power of artist-brand alliances, and demonstrates that these partnerships need not only be between artists and brands with consistent personalities but can also effectively be used to target new consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Women at work! Evaluating equal employment policies and outcomes in construction	[ "Equal opportunities", "Construction", "Australia", "Women workers", "Diversity typologies", "Low representation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One of the major goals of legislation and policies designed to promote equality in employment has been the reduction in occupational segregation by sex, which is the propensity for women and men to work in different occupations (Blackburn et al., 2002). Occupational segregation is an important issue as it is linked to the disadvantage women experience in pay, opportunity and benefits. As a result, national and international goals continue to focus on equitable participation across industries, occupations and job levels, as well as differences in equitable conditions of work between women and men, especially issues of equal pay. In different countries the implementation of a range of legislative approaches is mandated or enforced to different degrees (Bell, 2007; Kirton and Greene, 2005; Jain et al., 2003; Wirth, 2001). The heterogeneity of a broad range of equity and diversity management ideologies is supported by an equally broad variety of policies and organisational practices, and as a result organisations today operate and choose their equality and diversity management approach from this jumble. Yet despite legislation, policies and research in many countries for more than 40 years the issue remains.\nGender segregation: Occupational segregation is endemic across all regions; all economic levels; in all political systems; all religious, social and cultural environments; and is the most enduring aspect of labour markets around the world (Davidson and Burke, 2011; Anker, 1997). It is more prevalent, however, in wealthy industrial countries (Blackburn et al., 2002). Vertical segregation (women holding lower status and less pay in organisations) measures the component of inequality, while horizontal segregation is orthogonal to the vertical segregation and measures the extent of difference within occupations (Blackburn et al., 2002, p. 514). In countries examined by Blackburn et al. (2002), namely the UK, the USA and Greece, the horizontal component of job segregation (access to different jobs or industries) is greater but both are deemed important and need explanation. The concerns of occupational segregation include equity matters such as pay differentials between women and men and the negative effects of how men view women and how women view themselves (Anker, 1997). These factors and their consequences (including mortality, morbidity, poverty and income inequality) are not the only reasons that segregation is disturbing. Occupational segregation is a major source of labour market rigidity and economic inefficiency due to a waste of human resources. In explaining job segregation's persistence Acker (2006) identifies \"inequality regimes\" which are \"loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender and racial inequalities within particular organizations\" (Acker, 2009, p. 201). These underpin the systemic disparities in organisational outcomes that include (but are not limited to) opportunities of job security, pay and promotion. Organisations are repeatedly recognised as gendered constructs exhibiting sustained work segregation, income and status inequality, as well as cultural and individual images of gender and these are perpetuated through their processes, practices and pressures (Broadbridge and Hearn, 2008; Acker, 1990).\nEqual employment typologies: The rise in equal opportunity and anti-discrimination legislation and increasing calls for equality in diversity have encouraged the expansion of organisational policy and practice over the past decades to encompass a range of policy approaches. The use of a combination of various equal opportunity structures and policies are increasingly reported. Liff (1999) noted organisations gaining awards for good practice in Britain are those implementing side-by-side policies to show positive action with those presenting a more radical challenge for organisational culture and practice, and multiple implementations of different equity management strategies are increasingly recommended (Sheridan, 1995; Liff, 1999; Dickens, 2000; French, 2001; French et al., 2010; Strachan et al., 2010). While the implementation of equal employment policies has been argued to have improved the employment status of women around the globe (Thornton, 1990; Cockburn, 1991; Still, 1993; Konrad and Linnehan, 1995; Sheridan, 1995; French, 2001; French and Maconachie, 2004), empirical studies of the effectiveness of - or links between - such policies and diversity policies and the improvement of the representation of women or ethnic minorities are limited. Verbeek (2012, p. 653) and French and Strachan (2007, 2009) note that the links are weak, with the increasing numbers of women in non-traditional work areas and in management rarely linked to equal employment policy or practice.\nMethod: Secondary data gathered from information provided by all construction organisations (n=90) reporting in one year to the Australian Government on their equity management practices were analysed through content analysis using the typology described. In 2011-2012, 90 construction organisations submitted EEO progress reports to the Agency. Errors and omissions in seven left us with 83 viable reports. Each progress report becomes a public document and must detail the workplace profile of men and women and their job roles, the equal employment issues specific across seven employment matters (named below), and the organisational policies and strategies for addressing these issues as well as priorities of actions taken and future plans[2]. For this study appropriate reports were downloaded from the Agency's Online Searchable Database of Reports in May 2012 (EOWA, 2012).\nFindings: There was evidence of a range of different policies and practices taken to address the seven employment matters (see Table III). In the traditional approach category in \"recruitment and selection\", \"promotion and transfer\" and \"training and development\", 42.7, 74.4 and 65.4 per cent of organisations, respectively, reported no activities of any type to address any perceived disparity or inequality of women in their organisations. Combined with the percentage of organisations that reported nothing in these areas the result indicates more than half of all construction organisations report a less than compliant level of activities in the areas of recruitment and selection, training and development and promotion and transfer. Limited numbers of organisations (13.4, 11.0 and 12.3 per cent, respectively) took an equal treatment approach to these employment matters which address discrimination and encourage equal access to opportunity. This involved the use of practices that encouraged the equal treatment of men and women in recruitment, promotion and development, such as women on selection panels and equal numbers of men and women offered access to development opportunities. A limited number of organisations took a proactive approach of some kind - either special consideration activities specifically for women, or neutral treatment programmes embedded in organisational flexibility and change in designing and delivering opportunity strategies specific to the disadvantage of either or both men and women.\nDiscussion: The findings presented suggest that equal employment policies in the construction industry in Australia are minimal in design; implementation and outcomes. Those implemented have a high predominance of equal treatment to fulfil legislative responsibilities, particularly related to overcoming discrimination and harassment, and the neutral treatment of both men and women through policies encouraging flexibility and inclusivity in the organisation of work. Few organisations offer different treatment for women as a group of employees to address past or present disadvantage. Of interest is the combining of different approaches not evidenced in previous research.\nConclusion: We investigated the equal employment policies implemented within organisations designed to manage equality in diversity in one male-dominated industry. We found that the Australian construction industry is engaged in a range of approaches for implementing equal employment policies. However, these approaches are limited to the equal treatment approach to meeting the coercive requirements of legislation, particularly to address discrimination in relation to sexual harassment and the neutral (and equal) treatment of both men and women in the area of work organisation to encourage inclusivity through flexible work practices. In investigating outcomes of these policy approaches and practices we found no correlation between them and the numbers of women in the industry or in non-traditional work areas or management. Overall the implications for public policy is that while legislation may coerce organisations to conform to equal opportunity requirements the variations in application mean that the implementation is not predictive of substantive change to the horizontal or vertical integration of women.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine equal employment policies in Australia's male-dominated construction industry and categorise the types of activities undertaken against an equal employment typology to identify links to outcomes for women in the form of increased participation and management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To explore the issue of low representation of women in construction through the content analysis of 83 construction organisations' equal employment opportunity (EEO) reports.\nFindings: This industry is not engaging with equal employment issues and the numbers of women working in the industry and/or management are based on individual decision rather than an institutional commitment to equality in diversity.\nResearch limitations/implications: Australian legislation mandates organisational reporting of relevant data and offers public access to this information offering a unique data set.\nPractical implications: An ageing population means that the predominately older male workforce is leaving construction in greater numbers with fewer potential replacements making new labour markets a vital consideration.\nSocial implications: Legislation and organisational policies designed to promote EEO for women have existed in numerous countries for decades. One objective of this legislation was to reduce male domination in senior positions and industries/occupations where women were under-represented. Despite this, few women are employed in construction in operational or management roles worldwide.\nOriginality/value: This study offers a comprehensive analysis of a male-dominated industry in one jurisdiction rather than a few selected cases and uses a broader rigorous typology for analysis that acknowledges both equal and different treatment options.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What stops creative employees to implement ideas? Individual culture value orientation perspective	[ "Creativity", "Creative employee", "Idea implementation", "Individual power distance orientations (IPDO)", "Individual superficial harmony orientations (ISHO)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Creativity in the workplace is critical to an organization's ability to innovate, gain competitive advantage, increase success, and improve longer-term performance, as all innovation begins with creative ideas. Employees' creativity, or innovative behavior, defined as the generation of novel and useful ideas concerning products, services, and work methods (Zhang and Zhou, 2014), is the complex product of a person's behavior based on the interaction between individual and work situation (Woodman and Griffin, 1993; Gong et al., 2012).\nTheoretical and hypotheses: In this paper, we draw on the SDR theory to examine how specific individual cultural value orientations inhibit the idea implementation process. Specifically, as described in Figure 1, we suggest that idea implementation is inhibited by creativity through individual power distance orientations (IPDO) and ISHO.\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Non-response bias and attrition analyses\nDiscussion: This study distinguishes from the previous scholarly research studies on employees' innovative behavior at individual level and examines the relationship between creativity and idea implementation. Creative ideas could not predict idea implementation, and employees can significantly improve the odds of implementing creative ideas when they are both lower in power distance orientation (H3). That is, when employees feel \"safe,\" they will consider idea of implementation behavior as the social desirable behavior. In support of the arguments presented in this paper, we find that higher personal culture value orientation (e.g. IPDO and ISHO) indeed significantly hampered the implementation of creative ideas. However, our results do not support the argumentation that IPDO will moderate the relationship between creativity and idea implementation (H1), and ISHO will moderate the relationship between creativity and idea implementation (H2). The possible reason lies on that each one of the individual cultural value orientation is not strong enough to hamper or promote the relationship between employees' creativity and idea implementation.\nLimitation and future suggestions: Despite these contributions, the study is not without its limitations. The cross-sectional nature of my study design, however, limits the ability to determine causality. For example, it is possible that the implementation of creative ideas influences a person in pursuit of ideas realization in due future, which is likely to affect the subsequent levels of implementation, and the next subsequent production of creative ideas. In addition, it is conceivable that engaging in idea implementation also shapes a person's future individual culture value orientation perspective. Thus, future studies employing longitudinal designs are necessary. Finally, the current examination assumed an individual value orientation perspective on the process between creative ideas and idea implementation. Although the results support the importance of these more micro influences, it may nevertheless be possible that more macro elements, such as organizational and team support, may potentially create the link between creativity and implementation.\nConclusion: In this study, based on SDR theory and individual cultural value orientation perspective, we have studied why employees' creativity does not move forward to the idea implementation, and further validated the model proposed under an empirical research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Creativity itself does not necessarily lead to idea implementation. The purpose of this paper is to deeply understand the impact of the individual culture value orientation on employees' motivation on whether they want to push creative ideas into implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, drawing on socially desirable responding (SDR) theory, the author reasons that individual value on power distance and superficial harmony and that these two factors interact to influence employees transform their creativity into implementation. The author argues that prevalence of the failure where creativity cannot be transformed into implementation results from the lack of understanding for two elusive individual culture value orientations: individual superficial harmony orientations (ISHO) and individual power distance orientations (IPDO). Data from 66 middle managers and 301 members of five high-tech firms provide a considerable support for the hypothesized model.\nFindings: The results showed that individuals were able to improve the possibility of putting their creative ideas into practice when they are both lower in IPDO and ISHO.\nOriginality/value: Such findings help the author to understand how individual cultural value orientation complements each other to generate joint impact on the relationship between their creative ideas to idea implementation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Depression screening optimization in an academic rural setting	[ "Six sigma", "Primary care", "Lean thinking", "USA", "Patient centredness", "Quality improvement", "Process redesign", "Depression screening" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Depression prevalence in USA is 9 percent based on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey data from 2006 to 2008 (Centers for Disease and Prevention, 2010). Apart from hypertension, depression is the most commonly encountered disorder in primary care settings (Dejesus et al., 2007). In addition to direct suffering from the disorder, depression has an adverse impact on control, compliance, cost and quality of life related to various chronic conditions like diabetes and heart failure globally (Anderson et al., 2001; Dirmaier et al., 2010; Rustad et al., 2013; Moussavi et al., 2007). Addressing depression begins with screening, particularly as most primary care patients with depression present with general medical complaints (Uzun et al., 2009). Primary care providers often encounter difficulty in correctly identifying depressed individuals (Mitchell et al., 2009).\nMethodology: Setting\nFindings: Pre-intervention\nConclusions and recommendations: This article summarizes a collaboration's context, input, process and product between a sub-specialty and PCMH using LSS methodology. The product thus far is a standardized depression screening mechanism for the adult population in primary care with improved and validated depression screening instrument (from 17 percent at baseline to 75.9 percent) without significant increase in duplication screening, while assuring appropriate follow up with embedded resources and optimization in data collection and reporting. We plan to use learning during the process to inform planning for similar screening in the pediatric population. To our knowledge, this is a unique study that uses LSS methodology to optimize depression screening in population mental health assessment. A study reported using six sigma methodology to improve successful outreach and patient engagement via telephone at a managed behavioral health organization (Beard, 2008). Depression tends to be normalized when chronic conditions like diabetes and heart failure are present, but has negative influence on the quality of life (Coventry et al., 2011; Dirmaier et al., 2010; Chapman et al., 2005; Rustad et al., 2013; Lowe et al., 2005, 2004; Ganguly et al., 2013; Klein et al., 2006; Valuck et al., 2012). The PHQ-2 branching to PHQ-9 instrument's utility, validity and easy interface with EHR are well established (Simon et al., 2013; Dejesus et al., 2007; Maurer, 2012). Screening for depression and follow up has been identified as a preventive health measure that can have a financial impact on accountable care organizations like DHMC (Group, 2012). Reliance on population health monitoring registries can underestimate performance (Parsons et al., 2012). Our preference for appropriate screening instruments for depression and anxiety has been addressed in the literature. A standalone question performs poorly compared to ultra-short two- or three-questions on identifying depression cases in primary care (Mitchell and Coyne, 2007). Using various tools like mind map, fishbone diagram, swim lane process map and FMEA is not exclusive for LSS methodology and can be combined with other QI strategies like plan-do-study-act (Nicolay et al., 2012; Aleem, 2013).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Primary care plays a critical role in screening and management of depression. The purpose of this paper is to focus on leveraging the electronic health record (EHR) as well as work flow redesign to improve the efficiency and reliability of the process of depression screening in two adult primary care clinics of a rural academic institution in USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors utilized various process improvement tools from lean six sigma methodology including project charter, swim lane process maps, critical to quality tree, process control charts, fishbone diagrams, frequency impact matrix, mistake proofing and monitoring plan in Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control format. Interventions included change in depression screening tool, optimization of data entry in EHR. EHR data entry optimization; follow up of positive screen, staff training and EHR redesign.\nFindings: Depression screening rate for office-based primary care visits improved from 17.0 percent at baseline to 75.9 percent in the post-intervention control phase (p\nResearch limitations/implications: Impact of interventions on clinical outcomes could not be evaluated.\nOriginality/value: Successful implementation, sustainability and revision of a process improvement initiative to facilitate screening, follow up and management of depression in primary care requires accounting for voice of the process (performance metrics), system limitations and voice of the customer (staff and patients) to overcome various system, customer and human resource constraints.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Content growth of institutional repositories in South India: a status report	[ "Institutional repository", "Open access", "Categorisation of item types", "Content growth", "Institutional repository software", "South India" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The growth of institutional repositories (IRs) varies greatly among the world's nations. According to Directory of Open Access Repositories (April 2018) and International Association of Universities (2018), 19.05 per cent (389) institutions in the USA and 27.32 per cent (209) institutions in Japan possess repositories. The rate is really on the higher side when it comes to the institutions in the UK (76.86 per cent [196]) and Spain (88.64 per cent [117]). Germany with half of the institutions (46.18 per cent [163]) and France with 28.18 per cent (104) institutions established repositories is in the middle path. Italy has achieved a very high 96.93 per cent deployment rate of repositories with 95 institutions. The contribution to the deployment of IRs in developing nations is evidently very low compared to developed nations, and many reasons behind this low representation exist.\n2. Review of literature: IRs projects have played a significant role in the development of IRs in the World. CARL project of Canada (Shearer, 2003), DARE project of Dutch government (Van der Vaart, 2002) and LEADIRS project of UK (Barton and Waters, 2004), provided financial and intellectual support to the institutions to implement an IR. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) encouraged the development of IRs in the Institutions of UK by conducting 14 projects including RoMEO, SHERPA, ePrintsUK, TARDis and DAEDALUS (Awre and Baldwin, 2005). Ware (2004) surveyed 45 IRs in the UK, and he noticed that reasonable number of IRs have grown, but the content growth was extremely low.\n3. Background of the study: The southern part of India is called South India. It comprises the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala as well as the Union territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, and Puduchery. South Indian institutions have an undeniable role in the establishment and management of open access repositories. The first IR in India was established by a South Indian Institution, the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, in 2002. Other South Indian institutes, such as Indian Academy of Science, DRTC, have contributed a great deal, and nearly half of Indian IRs are situated in the South Indian region. Many studies have mentioned the global growth of IRs. However, studies of content growth and type-wise growth of content of IR are few, and have not previously been undertaken in India. Dynamically, maintaining an IR is equally important to its initial establishment. Likewise, content growth represents the key challenge confronted by IRs in India and beyond. However, an IRs size can never be considered as a measure of quality, as the initial content or size of an IR will typically be high. Though if an IR's size grows proportionally, its success can be assumed. As such, studies based on content growth are relevant to the present research.\n4. Objectives of the study: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate content growth of IRs in South India and analyse the traits and trends exposed by these IRs. It also attempts to categorise the types of items available in IR and determine item type growth rates. This study aims to provide insight into the overall development of IRs in South India. The main objectives of the present study are to:\n5. Methodology of the study: Using ROAR and Directory of Open Access Repositories (ROAR, 2016; OpenDOAR, 2016), 39 repositories were located in South India. From these, Personal websites, the repositories used for journal archiving were excluded. Because these repositories do not meet the primary objectives of an IR. An IR has to capture, store, preserve and disseminate the intellectual output of an Institution (Crow, 2002; Lynch, 2003; Barton and Waters, 2004). The pages of some IRs could not be accessed and queries sent to IR managers to know their status. Some managers responded that the repositories were not working and some did not respond. The investigators checked the URL of those unresponsive IRs every week over a period of two months to ensure that such repositories were not working and were also excluded from the study. Thus the study was limited to 22 operational IRs at 21 institutions (Table I). The IR of Bangalore University was registered in ROAR and OpenDOAR after the first phase of data collection (after September 2016). Therefore, it was also excluded from the present study.\n6. Analysis and findings: Following the analysis of 22 IRs in South India, some repository characteristics were identified, including: subjects, software, content type, language, geographical distribution and repository size. The total content growth of IRs and the type-wise growth of content were calculated by comparing these data (December 2017) with data collected on September 2016.\n7. Discussion: The majority of IRs were multidisciplinary in nature, which is consistent with the findings of Pinfield et al. (2014), in which multidisciplinary repositories represented 62 per cent of repositories worldwide. Most institutions (63.64 per cent) in South India used Eprints software to run IRs. However, Dspace is more commonly used in India and worldwide (Sawant, 2012a; Singh, 2015; Pinfield et al., 2014). The science discipline exhibited significant representation in the IR landscape. Approximately half of IRs were concentrated in Karnataka State, and all IRs included only English language materials, with the exception of three repositories. This study revealed that very few universities have established IRs. Due to the indifference of universities to constitute IRs, documents in Indian languages are not properly archived and preserved, and this has led to the dominance of English language items in South Indian repositories.\n8. Conclusion: Although the number of IRs in South India remains low, it is encouraging to note that most repositories seem to be dynamic. Except for one IR, the total content of all repositories has been changed over 15-month period. Even if Indian repositories are growing very slowly compared to the developed nations (Roy et al., 2011; Choudhury and Choudhury 2014), their characteristics such as subject coverage, content type, language, and software type (open source OAI complaint software) are similar to repositories in rest of the World (Pinfield et al., 2014). Journal articles were the most important item of Indian repositories. It was added mostly to the total content of repositories while considering the number of items added over 15-month period. However, very few universities in South India have established IRs. As research institutions with on-going studies in various academic disciplines and languages, Universities must take the initiative to establish, maintain, and develop IRs. It will help to preserve the documents in Indian languages. The number of smaller repositories was relatively high in the IR landscape of South India, which encompasses a variety of items. This is a good indication that South Indian IRs not only store documents but also actively engage in data curation activities. The growth trend of repositories in South India is also hopeful as it shows the slow but steady progress.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the content growth of institutional repositories (IR) in South India and analyse the type-wise growth of items available in these IRs and also discuss the traits and trends exposed by them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With the help of Registry of Open Access Repositories and Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), 39 repositories were located in south India. From these, Personal websites, the IRs that are currently not working and the repositories used for journal archiving were excluded. A total of 22 operational IRs at 21 institutions were identified for the study. Within a 15 month period, the data were collected from the 22 IRs twice for monitoring content growth.\nFindings: The content of nearly all IRs have grown over the 15 month period, and the overall content growth rate was 7.82 per cent. Journal articles were the important content type of IRs, while thesis and conference papers were the next common. Moreover, item monographs exhibited the highest growth rate. Other categories, conference proceedings, and conference papers also exhibited a high growth rate. The present study revealed that Indian repositories were actively engaged in data curation activities, depositing a wide variety of items in their respective IRs. Overall, South Indian repositories exhibited a slow growth rate and tended to become inactive. Most South Indian Universities had not constituted the IRs, which led to the dominance of English language material in these IRs.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study was conducted only in South Indian IRs.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study in India, attempting to determine the type-wise growth of items in IRs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social diffusion and loyalty programs: a path to succeed	[ "Word of mouth", "Structural equation modeling", "Satisfaction", "Hotel loyalty program", "Commitment-trust" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, social diffusion is an emerging force which is critical to leverage tourism services and subsequently the adoption of e-business in the area of e-marketing (Tsiotsou et al., 2010). The internet plays a key role as a communication tool (e.g. information sharing) and helps to build a closer relationship between hotels and guests and induces guests to repeat their purchase of that hotel's brand (Lacey and Morgan, 2009). The online world has become more dynamic and is changing how hotels contribute to the creation and distribution of personalized information. In this sense, by obtaining information from the experiences of others, potential guests could be attracted to the loyalty program.\n2. Conceptual development and hypotheses: 2.1 The essence of loyalty programs\n3. Research method: 3.1 Web-based questionnaire survey\n4. Results: 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion and conclusions: 5.1 Conclusion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to define a model of social technology diffusion, comprising constructs that explain guests' likelihood of recommending their hotel loyalty program to their peers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The diffusion effect is explained by commitment-trust, satisfaction with user-to-user interactivity, satisfaction with user identifiability and word of mouth. A total of 2,812 usable responses were obtained through an online questionnaire sent to guests with two or more transactions with the loyalty program.\nFindings: The results suggest that commitment and trust and word of mouth are crucial to enact social diffusion. As such, hotel loyalty programs need to be leveraged through enacting social diffusion.\nPractical implications: Tourism and hospitality practitioners dealing with loyalty programs should create and post new trustworthy content that might be beneficial for the hotel loyalty program in their efforts to provide a more valuable experience for guests.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides empirical evidence that the likelihood of sharing with other guests or the intention to belong to a hotel loyalty program community exists and then goes on to offer a range of possible responses based upon four relational mediators.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Profiling company-generic production capabilities in the process industries and strategic implications	[ "Strategizing", "Capability", "Configuration modelling", "Process industries", "Production system" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background and introduction: The process industries span multiple industrial sectors and constitute a substantial part of the entire manufacturing industry. One difference between companies in the process industries and those in other manufacturing industries is that the products supplied to them and delivered from them are materials or ingredients rather than components or assembled products. As defined in this study, the process industries include petrochemicals and chemicals, food and beverages, mining and metals, mineral and materials, pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, steel and utilities.\n2. A frame of reference: The usability of the configuration model for the production system in the process industries was previously validated as a tool for aligning a company production system with its research and development (Storm et al., 2013).\n3. Research approach and methodological considerations: 3.1. Research approach\n4. Empirical findings: The empirical findings from the three case studies are presented in this section as three individual cases followed by a cross-case analysis. In each case study, the company is introduced, including a data matrix containing all results from the interviews with respective respondents. The comments from the respondents on the data matrix are presented in a running text. The preliminary synthesis and discussion of the data are separated in two sections representing the first two related research questions:\n5. Discussion and research outlook: Many of desired changes in company production capabilities represent areas that not only require top-management attention, but areas that should be scrutinised against corporate strategy in the decision making process. However, since companies belonging to this \"family\" of industries are often very asset intensive, their ability to respond to changes is often limited in a short-term perspective. In the light of this, company decisions related to changes in the configuration of new plants and production system set-ups in existing plants are therefore of importance to the companies; either you get it right, or you have to live with imperfect solutions for a considerable time.\n6. Managerial implications: In the development of a company's manufacturing and business strategies, it is important to recognise that good alignment between the product-market environment and the process-manufacturing environment always requires a company to strike a balance between the two, considering the associated trade-offs.\n7. Conclusions: In the process industries it is essential to obtain an improved understanding and characterisation of the material transformation system and company-generic production capabilities. Using a prior model of the material transformation system in the process industries as a template and research instrument, the use and usability of profiling company-generic production capabilities was studied in three case companies representing the food, mineral and steel industries. Using the configuration model as a facilitating tool during the interviews with the respondents they had no problems in positioning their companies with the individual variables. Afterwards, in their review of the matrix data, the respondents' comments, although very much condensed in this paper, presented an interesting holistic and rich picture of their companies' generic production capabilities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A robust description of the material transformation system is fundamental for understanding its capabilities and thus for communicating, prioritising and changing the system. Deploying a previously developed configuration model the purpose of this paper is to test the industrial usability of the model as an instrument to gain a better understanding of the material transformation system through externalising the generic production capabilities of the system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In a multiple case study approach and using a prior conceptual configuration model of the material transformation system in the process industries as a research instrument, company-generic production capabilities were investigated in three companies representing the mineral, food and steel industries.\nFindings: The empirical results supported the utility of the model as an instrument in providing a coherent set of elements that define operations and thus serve as a platform to model company-generic production capabilities and serve as input to strategizing though implicating needed change to the material transformation system. The theoretical contribution was mainly the empirical validation of the previously developed conceptual model as a tool in knowledge formation of the capabilities of the system and to outline the concept of \"production capabilities configuration\".\nResearch limitations/implications: Three sectors of the process industries were studied but it is recommended that the results should be replicated in complementary case studies or a survey of larger samples from the process industries. Those studies should not only be limited to increase the empirical knowledge base, but possibly to identify additional new variables, further refine the set of variables in the present model and investigate their relationships.\nPractical implications: It is argued that the model can already be used as a tool to support both horizontal and vertical communication on production capabilities, thus facilitating, e.g. manufacturing strategy development.\nOriginality/value: The validated conceptual model supported by the empirical evidence is new knowledge to be used in the analysis of company-generic production capabilities in the process industries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Flexible budgeting influence on organizational inertia and flexibility	[ "Institutional logics", "Management accounting", "Kaizen", "Organizational flexibility", "Flexible budgeting", "Organizational inertia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Companies use a series of activities and tools to support planning, control, and decision making in order to enhance organizational performance and competitive advantages over their competitors. In this context, management accounting systems and practices identify, collect, measure, classify and report information for these purposes (Hansen and Moven, 2003). Particularly, since the 1920s that budgeting has been widely used for planning and controlling in organizations, projecting revenues and expenses for the upcoming period based on both past information and forecasts (Garrison et al., 2007; Horngren et al., 1999).\n2. Constructs and theoretical framework: There is a need for more dynamic management accounting and control, in general, and, particularly in multinationals that face high business and market uncertainties. Unanticipated external events may invalidate companies' strategies facing strategic uncertainties. In this context, flexible budgeting has been proposed as a way of dealing with such uncertainties. Notwithstanding, the apparent need for greater flexibility, organizational inertia is recognized as prevalent in many of these situations. Therefore, different institutional logics may emerge and evolve in a process in which the discourse of organizations' key elements may simultaneously converge and diverge in more complex and dynamic ways supporting, enhancing, but also constraining management accounting and control in practice.\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Case study\n4. Analysis of findings: 4.1 Flexible budget influence on organizational inertia\n5. Discussion: This research shows that to address the contradictory role of the use of flexible budgets and the latent conflict between organizational inertia and flexibility, one viable approach is to focus on continuous improvement projects, which can help minimize profit reduction. Even though the impact on profit was not significant in this case, continuous improvement initiatives helped to maintain a high employee morale. However, this was only possible because the controller supported those projects and helped the person in charge of them (i.e. the production director in this case study). In short, these results show that continuous improvement programs can make the organization more flexible (Chan and Tay, 2018) while breaking down the organizational inertia. By contrast, these findings are not aligned with Moilanen (2008), wherein contact was infrequent between the parent firm and the subsidiary in the Soviet Union, in a context where budgetary controls were also emphasized. But the results are consistent with Brenner and Ambos (2013) in that face-to-face contact is typical in an organizational culture denominated by the builder type. Our findings are also in line with Schaffer et al. (2014, p. 32) findings that argue that \"visits and the discussions and meetings of headquarters management with local management might be more effective than autonomous discussions on the part of subsidiary managers based on outputs generated by parent PMS.\"\n6. Conclusions: The objective of this paper was to investigate how the use of flexible budgets influences organizational inertia and flexibility in a firm that has experienced a substantial drop in sales volume.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the use of flexible budgets may influence different institutional logics (organizational inertia and flexibility).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research based on a single case study in a multinational subsidiary company was carried out. The data were mainly collected using the dialog technique through open-ended and semi-structured interviews and complemented with direct observation in informal and formal meetings and the analysis of internal documents. Content analysis was used for the analysis of the findings.\nFindings: The use of flexible budgets, which isolates the negative variations due to the decrease in sales volume, may contribute to organizational inertia. However, this can be counterbalanced if the managers try to minimize the decline in performance through initiatives that promote organizational flexibility. In this case study, it was found that the alignment between the production director and the controller, who frequently work under different institutional logics, was important to stimulate organizational flexibility particularly in continuous improvement projects.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of this paper are based on only one in-depth case study. Hence, the results cannot be generalized, but a theoretical contribution can be made. Furthermore, the findings are constrained by the constructs used and the specific managerial and theoretical perspectives that have supported the analysis.\nPractical implications: These results can be useful particularly for companies that are dealing with the abrupt drop in the sales volume and use the flexible budget as a performance assessment technique. These firms must pay attention because this combination can stimulate organizational inertia. To counteract this problem, it is necessary that controllers and the managers work by understanding the initiatives that promote organizational flexibility, mainly by Kaizen projects, which can minimize performance decline.\nSocial implications: The main contribution may be how to deal with the different managers' behaviors, given the decrease in sales volume, and it can help an organization survives in times of economic recession and fierce competition environments.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to both practical and academic dimensions. Indeed, despite being widely used, flexible budgeting is not a widely researched topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Increasing the focus on sustainability: Some potential barriers to overcome	[ "Sustainability", "Brazil", "Leadership", "Organizational learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe growing importance of sustainability: Sustainability is one of the most prominent issues to emerge in recent times. Public concern about society and the environment has risen, as they have become more aware of problems such as climate change, pollution, waste, and depletion of natural resources.\nKey factors: Knowledge sharing is imperative if organizational learning is to occur. A strong emphasis on teamwork provides an important conduit for the dissemination of knowledge within a firm. Dialogue is a fundamental part of effective teamwork, as it provides valuable opportunities for members to:\nSustainability in Brazil: The importance of these characteristics to sustainability is evident within Brazilian organizations. Brazil is unique in the sense of being an emerging global economy that is also regarded as a committed advocate of sustainable behaviors. In this particular context, the scope for conflicts of interest is all too apparent.\nBarriers to learning: Unfortunately, it seems like the powers that be are hell bent on raining on this particular parade. Enthusiasm for sustainable actions only surfaces when suggestions fit with the mayoral agenda. It is consequently no great shock to learn that this council does not have mechanisms in place to ensure that sustainability knowledge is properly documented. As things stand, such information resides almost solely in the minds of committed employees.\nComment: The review is based on: \"Sustainability learning challenges in a Brazilian government organization\" by Fernanda de Paiva Duarte, published in International Journal of Organizational Analysis. Growing demand for firms to focus on sustainability provides rich opportunities for competitive advantage. This article examines the issue in the context of an emerging economy and identifies various barriers that must be overcome for effective sustainability learning to take place.\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: Businesses are under growing pressure to act more responsibly toward society and the environment. Together with appropriate leadership, a strong emphasis on communication and open-mindedness can help overcome challenges and increase the effectiveness of sustainability learning.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Revealing barriers to healthier fast food consumption choices	[ "Values", "Barriers", "Health", "Consumption", "Fast-food", "Food-choice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the 1970 s, the dominance of the fast food industry has been linked to the Western world's growing waistline (Currie et al., 2009). A causal link between obesity and the fast food industry has yet to be proven. However, the fast food industry's immense resources, dominant supply chain position, and aggressive marketing tactics have fuelled accusations of responsibility and an increasing number of health professionals argue that the fast food industry giants should take some responsibility for the food culture they helped promote (Schroder and McEachern, 2005). As a result of increased pressure from lobby groups and the negative publicity that accompanies this, fast food companies have recognised that they can no longer rely on convenience, product and service consistency to keep customers.\n2. Methods: 2.1 Data collection process\n3. Results and discussion: The respondents were of a relatively even gender split with 13 females, and 11 males. Over half of respondents were under the age of 30, and 42 per cent of the sample consumed McDonalds at least once a week.\n4. Conclusion and implications: This study has investigated the deep-seated reasons driving consumer's fast food choices, and more specifically, the reasons behind consumers continued selection of the unhealthy options, even when presented with a new healthier alternative. Most notably, the findings show that consumers' fast food choices are repeatedly linked with the influence of past consumption habits and with what consumers chose to associate with the term \"fast food\". The results of this study have a number of practical implications for the fast food industry. McDonalds' consumers chose not to associate McDonalds with healthy food, but rather, their preconception of what McDonalds is, appears to be inextricably linked to the traditional (unhealthy) menu items. Such engrained food habits have previously been found to be very difficult to change. This appears to have contributed to the respondents overlooking the introduction of the new Weight Watchers' meals as an alternative to their traditional purchase. The label of \"fast food\" itself appears to allow consumers to use an alternative set of criteria to evaluate their purchase decision, noticeably excusing health from the factors being considered. Traditional perceptions of fast food as quick, cheap and tasty \"burgers and fries\" appears, in many cases, to have a \"halo\" like effect, classifying a fast food consumption experience as a junk food choice. If fast food companies want to increase their sales of the healthy menu items, they will need to change public perception of their brands. Instead of aligning themselves with the traditional label of fast food, McDonalds and others need to move towards being seen as a quick service restaurant provider offering healthy food. Management needs to be aware that changing engrained consumer perceptions is a lengthy process. A good place to focus attention here is on current initiatives that aim to limit teaching unhealthy food consumption practices to the next generation of consumers. McDonalds, for example, has announced that they are changing the default option in Happy Meals to Apple slices and a reduced portion of chips, which is to be congratulated as a positive step in making healthier food options more readily available. Another potential option to help shift the traditional view of McDonalds would be to remove playgrounds, birthday parties, school team sponsorships and the controversial toys with Happy Meals. With young consumers not viewing a trip to McDonalds as a special eating occasion, it could help change consumers' tactic of using an altered set of criteria to evaluate food choices at McDonalds, thereby reintroducing health as a more prominent consideration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In light of growing concerns around obesity, the present work investigates why consumers continue to choose traditional unhealthy fast food options over newly offered healthier fast food alternatives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 24 value laddering interviews were conducted with people who had just purchased an item from the traditional menu at McDonalds. Individual reasoning for not selecting a healthier Weight Watchers' approved alternative was aggregated across the respondent set to form a summary map which pictorially displays barriers to healthier fast food choices.\nFindings: Consumers' choices not to purchase healthier fast food options were dominated by Self Direction type values and are heavily influenced by engrained perceptions that fast food is junk food.\nPractical implications: For the fast food industry, this research highlights that to help shift consumers' choices toward healthier alternatives, they need to reposition themselves as quick service restaurants that offer good tasting food that is both convenient and healthy.\nSocial implications: For public policy makers, this research suggests a need to address the perceptions of personal relevance of obesity and diet related health issues.\nOriginality/value: The valuable in-depth information collected via the value laddering process offers substantial insights into the unexplored area of barriers to healthier fast food consumption.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Predicting hotel attractiveness via personality traits of applicants: The moderating role of self-esteem and work experience	[ "UK", "Hotel sector", "Self-esteem", "Big five", "Hotel attractiveness", "Job applicants" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the UK hotel industry, job applicants look at the potential job as a starting point of their career and not an end itself (Rahimi and Gunlu, 2016). Given that the hotel industry is a people industry (Rahimi, 2017), emphasis ought to be given to understanding prospective ones, as they are the ones that will form the human basis of the organizations in the (near) future (Holland et al., 2007). A number of studies have linked applicants' characteristics - including personality - with job post descriptions (Morgeson et al., 2005; Theron, 2009). In this vein, researchers have stressed the need to focus on personality traits that influence preferences relating to employment characteristics (Barrick et al., 2013; Horng et al., 2016; Kozako et al., 2013). This paper, in congruence with the Person-Environment (P-E) fit theory (Kristof, 1996) and the Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) cycle (Schneider, 1987), adopts the Big Five (BF) personality traits model as the means to predict the facets of hotel employer attractiveness that are most valued by different types of job applicants. Put differently, given that individuals and organizations pursue the best possible fit, it is likely that a unique value proposition can exist for both, based on their personality profile. Additionally, in line with previous research another core self-characteristic, namely, self-esteem, is examined as a moderator in the relationship between the personality characteristics of potential applicants and their view of preferred employer characteristics. Self-esteem is deemed to be fundamental to the evaluations that individuals make for themselves, others and the environment (Judge et al., 2007) and may thus cause significant variations in applicants' perceptions and preferences (Jang and George, 2012). Finally, as work experience may also largely influence applicants' preferences and expectations from their future employers (Gu and Chi Sen Siu, 2009), comparisons are made between those with and without prior experience in the hotel industry. The conceptual model examined in this study appears in Figure 1.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Employer attractiveness\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Methodology and procedures\n4. Results: With regards to regression weights for paths involved in the structural model, the significance of a series of direct influences from BF traits on hotel attractiveness moderated by self-esteem are tested, and the paths that are significant for at least one of the two groups of respondents are presented on Table II and Figure 2. Conscientiousness exerts significant effects on all five forms of employer attractiveness, whereas the rest demonstrate significant effects for only one of those two groups (e.g. the effect on attracting working environment: bIn = -0.351, p < 0.001 and bEx = -0.067, p = 0.359 > 0.05). Then, openness to new experiences seems to have significant and positive relationships with attractive working environment and social responsibility for applicants with previous employment in the industry, although this is not the case for those with no working experience in the industry. Each of the extraversion and agreeableness factors has only one significant relationship with development opportunities and attractive rewards, respectively. Finally, none of the five facets of employer attractiveness seems to be significantly influenced and, thus, shaped by emotional stability. Therefore, findings offer partial support to P1.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: 5.1 Conclusions\n6. Limitations and suggestions for future research: As with any study, ours has some limitations that ought to be taken into account when interpreting its findings. First, it has been conducted only among applicants in the UK; thus, the findings of this study cannot be safely generalized among other national populations. Additionally, participants of this study had applied only for non-managerial, frontline job posts in upscale hotels. Therefore, the desired profile of hotels as employers may significantly differ among individuals that are able to fill managerial job positions or have expertise in a particular field. As such, future researchers could test our propositions among applicants of other job positions (managerial, back-office, etc.), in middle scale hotels and hotels outside the UK, to identify what constitutes the desired profile of a hotel as an employer, taking into consideration the unique mix among the personality profile of the applicants - the profile of the job position - and the hotel ranking.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the fact that hotels rely heavily upon frontline employees, extant evidence on what makes a hotel attractive in the eyes of job applicants is scarce. Thus, this paper aims to incorporate the Big Five personality traits model to identify what potential hotel job applicants are likely to seek in their prospective employers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Applicants for non-managerial, frontline posts at upscale hotels were approached via three branches of a career agency located in England, UK; their responses were gathered via a self-administered questionnaire. The 522 usable responses were used in a covariance-based, multi-group structural equation modeling scheme to investigate three main research propositions with regards to the applicants' personality traits' influence on their perceptions of a hotel's attractiveness as a potential employer.\nFindings: Analysis of responses indicates significant differences regarding the impact of extraversion, conscientiousness and openness on perceived facets of employer attractiveness. Additionally, findings suggest that high self-esteem does make applicants more demanding, while work experience also influences their preferences regarding the hotels' profiles as an employer.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results of this study are limited to applicants for non-managerial, frontline job positions in upscale hotels in the UK.\nPractical implications: Practically, this study offers practitioners valuable feedback regarding the potential applicant's personality profile that grants the best fit with an upscale hotel.\nOriginality/value: While different studies tried to identify the organizations' attributes that attract potential applicants, evidence on what attracts individuals to a hotel is very limited. Hence, the present study tries to address this gap and link potential applicants' personality profiles with that of hotels as employers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Defining a data-driven maintenance policy: an application to an oil refinery plant	[ "Big data analytics", "Predictive maintenance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Competition on a global scale, fast-changing customer needs, shorter product life cycles require a high level of efficiency in all industrial environment (Groger et al., 2012). Indeed, maintenance represents a key factor for production reliability (Groba et al., 2007): several different strategies are still applied, but a growing focus is put on predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance can be considered as the attitude to \"use the actual operating conditions of plant equipment and systems to optimize total plant operations\" (Mobley, 2002). Future failures can be predicted through statistical data referring to the equipment, but a more accurate prevision is provided through the analysis of data related to the current production process (Groba et al., 2007). Noteworthy, the monitoring of a production process is connected to several variables which generate a large amount of data. In this scenario, knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) techniques help in automatically analyzing data with the aim of bringing out valid, novel, potentially useful and ultimately understandable patterns (Fayyad et al., 1996).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 DM applications for maintenance and reliability\n3. Research approach: The current research approach aims at analyzing the refinery stoppages impact on components breakdowns: indeed, interpreting data related to previous stoppages and defining a timeframe of interest will allow decision makers to identify the need for predictive maintenance interventions on the components showing a high probability of breaking.\n4. Case study: 4.1 Oil refinery description\n5. Results and discussion: The current work aims at explaining the relationships between the work orders emitted for some components after a sub-plant stoppage and within a defined time interval. In order to qualitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, three academic experts and six members of the maintenance department of the refinery were interviewed. They considered the approach to be a valuable opportunity to anticipate the occurrence of components breakdown to improve the operational performances. Moreover, the six members of maintenance department have been involved in data preprocessing and in the parameter definition, to adapt the methodology to the specific requirements of the oil refinery analyzed. Next subsections are devoted to present and discuss some quantitative results based on the case study, in particular vacuum and topping sub-plants are considered.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, a data-driven model for a maintenance policy definition is developed and applied to an oil refinery plant. Maintenance is a focal point in the production process of refinery plants since they should be run continuously. Hence, it is important to evaluate whether the occurrence of a stoppage in a sub-plant has an impact on the functioning of other components.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is developing a data-driven maintenance policy through the analysis of vast amount of data and its application to an oil refinery plant. The maintenance policy, analyzing data regarding sub-plant stoppages and components breakdowns within a defined time interval, supports the decision maker in determining whether it is better to perform predictive maintenance or corrective interventions on the basis of probability measurements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The formalism applied to pursue this aim is association rules mining since it allows to discover the existence of relationships between sub-plant stoppages and components breakdowns.\nFindings: The application of the maintenance policy to a three-year case highlighted that the extracted rules depend on both the kind of stoppage and the timeframe considered, hence different maintenance strategies are suggested.\nOriginality/value: This paper demonstrates that data mining (DM) tools, like association rules (AR), can provide a valuable support to maintenance processes. In particular, the described policy can be generalized and applied both to other refineries and to other continuous production systems.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Structural equation modeling for validating impact of 5S implementation on business excellence of manufacturing organizations	[ "Structural equation modelling", "Business excellence", "Confirmatory factor analysis", "Lean manufacturing", "5S", "Manufacturing organizations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The extreme global competition among the manufacturing organizations has created challenges of intense pressure from their competitors and customers in the manufacturing sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). The rapid changes due to turbulent manufacturing environments necessitate consistent melioration in organization's performance dimensions like improved productivity, good quality, ensured delivery, termination of wastage and cost optimizations for realizing customer satisfaction and trust toward their products. The manufacturing organizations that are not focusing holistically on these business excellence performance parameters (BEPP) have failed to attain profitability and survival in the competitive world (Oke, 2005). It has become imperative for organizations to continuously meliorate at a quicker rate in order to sustain better position amongst the competitors in global manufacturing market. These challenges have led the manufacturing organizations to evolve and imbibe new management programs, techniques and innovative ways to enhance critical performance parameters leading toward business excellence. Lean manufacturing is one of the most dominating programs that consist of tools and techniques that firmly assist organizations in succeeding in unpredictable industrial competitive environment through waste elimination, cost optimizations, quality and productivity improvement, reliable deliveries and high customer satisfaction (Shah and Ward, 2007; Rahman et al., 2013). Various LM initiatives adopted by manufacturing organizations include kaizen, 5S, quality circles, Poka-Yoke, visual controls, cellular design, total quality management, total productive maintenance, quick changeover, pull scheduling and value stream mapping (Singh and Ahuja, 2015b; Vinodh et al., 2015). Lista International Corporation (2007) has concluded that 5S is typically the first lean method that facilitates organizations in pursuit of waste reduction (WR), eliminating unplanned downtime, improving the workplace, eliminating searching time of items at workplace, eliminating difficulties in using and returning of items and exercising enhanced inventory management (Muruganantham et al., 2014; Randhawa and Ahuja, 2017).\n2. Literature review: 5S technique was originated in Japan during the late 1960s. The historical roots of 5S were based on the principles of Shintoism (cleanliness of mind), Buddhism (Orderliness) and Confucianism (self-discipline) related to Japanese culture while its value and ethics have existed from the times of Samurais (De Mente, 1994; Ohno, 1988). Takasi Osada (1991) was the first person who formulated the framework of 5S, based on five pillars, in Japanese acronym for Seiri (organization), Setion (neatness), Sesio (cleaning), Seiketsu (standardization) and Shitsuke (discipline) (Dogan et al., 2014; Ikuma and Nahmens, 2014). 5S initiatives are aimed at building standardization and eliminating waste from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (JISHA, 1999; Gapp et al., 2008; Osada, 1989, 1991). TPS was the pioneer company that adopted the 5S principles; later on, companies in North America and Europe such as Siemens corporations, Sauer Sundstrand, Hewlett and Packard and Harley Davidsons also followed the 5S principles (Pheng, 2001). The Japanese believed that the practice of 5S in the manufacturing organizations not only would bring physical improvement in the working environment but would also improve their thinking process (Ho, 1997; Kumar et al., 2007). The principles of 5S imbibed in the organizations are the essential requirements to build better quality of product with little or no wastage. Hirano (1995, 1996) have proclaimed that 5S implementation can lead to termination of wastage and enhancement of competitive image of the organizations.\n3. Significance of deploying SEM for evaluating performance of manufacturing organizations: In the manufacturing organizations, the traditional method such as regression technique is deployed for modeling the cause and effect to evaluate the predictive model when the regressor variable and criterion variable are continuous and measurable. When these variables comprise of others variables known as latent, dimensions and constructs variables, it requires more sophisticated techniques for analysis. The most significant technique to colligate the latent or constructs variables is SEM in the multivariate analysis (SeyedJavadin et al., 2012; Garcia et al., 2014). SEM has the capability to clarify the direct as well as indirect effects among the interrelated variables and produce complete effects, which is the final aggregate of both the direct and indirect effects, instead of multiple linear regression, which just manages direct effects only (Keith, 2006; Agus and Hajinoor, 2012; Westland, 2012). SEM has found wide number of application in vast areas along with area of economics and social sciences in which it is generated. It is a multivariate tool that looks into the interrelationships between the observed (indicators or manifest variables) variables and latent variables while considering measurement error that may go with variables or a technique to analyze relationships between endogenous variables (known as structural model in SEM), and between endogenous and exogenous variables (known as measurement model in SEM) (Blunch, 2008).\n4. Research methodology: The research methodology involved formulation of detailed 5S questionnaire by thorough literature review related to 5S technique and consultations with managers, TPS consultants and lean councilors from various industries in order to incorporate their suggestions and expert advice. The 5S questionnaire has been designed so as to cover each significant parameter that is essential for the implementation of 5S program, and it engulfed all the BEPP accrued through 5S implementation. The questionnaire has been pre-tested on the sample of industries and validated through peers, TPS consultants, lean councilors, academicians, industrial resource persons and executives from Confederation of Indian Industries in order to conduct effective survey. The systematic methodology used in the research is portrayed in Figure 1.\n5. SEM for validating the impact of 5S implementation on business excellence: The study involves SEM analysis conducted through AMOS software. SEM analysis covers various statistical analyses like path analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), causal modeling with latent variables, and analysis of variance and multiple linear regressions. SEM analysis specifies, estimates and evaluates models of linear correlations among a set of predictor attributes estimated related to few outcome attributes (Shah and Goldstein, 2006; Kaur et al., 2015).\n6. Analysis and formulation of SEM_5S model: 6.1 Preliminary investigation of data\n7. Conclusions: 5S has emerged as the foundation for several improvement program of lean, and 5S program plays a significant role toward accruing of business excellence in the manufacturing organizations. The research has validated through SEM_5S model that the significant variables such as TII, EII and FSIS of 5S implementation program have performed extremely significantly toward accruing the BEPP in manufacturing organizations. The empirical investigation of data collected through 5S Questionnaire by using SEM is aimed at evaluating the effects of various Endogenous constructs like TMI, EII, BFSI and FSIS on Exogenous construct BEPP.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deploy structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to empirically validate the interrelationships amongst significant variables of 5S implementation and business excellence performance parameters (BEPP) in SEM_5S model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The confirmatory factor analysis approach is utilized to generate the effective SEM_5S model by using AMOS 20.0 (analysis of moment structures) software. The data have been collected from different manufacturing organizations that have successfully deployed the 5S program by using well-designed questionnaire for the evaluation of SEM_5S model.\nFindings: SEM of 5S various parameters has established that attributes like top management involvement initiatives, employee involvement initiatives, basic 5S initiatives (BFSI) and fifth S initiatives (Shitsuke) should be holistically emphasized during the implementation of 5S program, leading to attainment of high level of melioration in the BEPP. SEM has been deployed to evaluate the original and modification indices of the model, which further establishes the improvement in SEM's effectiveness. The model establishes the significant impact of 5S implementation on business excellence of manufacturing organizations.\nOriginality/value: The outcomes of the study will help the organizational managers, HR executives and practitioners from manufacturing organizations to know about the significant factors which should be followed holistically to achieve overall organizational business excellence through strategic 5S initiatives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
International business and the Balti of meaning: food for thought	[ "Cooking", "Thailand", "Embodied realism", "Metaphor" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In international business and communication research, various approaches to language map a conceptual territory ranging from objectivist to subjectivist approaches, traditions and fields of research (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Griffin, 2006; Janssens et al., 2004). Within these territories, different assumptions have been formulated regarding epistemology, ontology, human nature and methodology. Our aim in this paper is to report from a trip beyond the epistemological boundaries (of objectivism vs subjectivism) and on into a more hybrid and less explored area of the terrain. To achieve that we support that any lived experience of making life sensible is holistic, imaginative and embodied (Cunliffe and Coupland, 2012). People feel/perceive/act (engage embodied experiences) before they make sense of their experiences (cognition) and use language and communication to \"talk sense\" into their social reality. In order to capture these different aspects holistically, research interpretations require matching embodied, imaginative and abductive processes which are sympathetic to the phenomena of lived experience under observation.\nCooking in international business research: towards a triadic framework: Preparation: the \"embodied ingredients\" (Capta)\nThe lived experience within a Chinese multinational: an \"embodied\" case approach: Epistemological flavourings\nDiscussion: It was intriguing to observe that the Lego method proved to be equally stimulating to \"Imagineering\" in both the pilot study and the main study. One of the differences we noticed between Thai and Chinese \"Zhuoyue\" employees was that the Thais seemed to be more inclined towards anthropomorphic, communal, organismic and relational metaphors (such as school, home, tiger, giraffe) and the Chinese engineers used more mechanistic metaphors (car, airplane, train). During the discussions in the process of building the future company model (how they would like the company to be), we also confirmed the Chinese tendency towards mechanistic metaphors (the racing car) and the Thai tendency towards embodied metaphors (a heart as engine). Thai culture being a more embodied culture also inspired a greater use of embodied metaphors (this was also noticeable when Thai participants spoke in Thai to each other, e.g. the Thai expression \"pood kwam nai jai\" literally means \"speak from your heart\"=express what you really feel).\nConclusions and implications: We proposed that embodied cognition/embodied realism greatly enhance our understanding of how language affects international business and MNC activities. Our view of language and discourse is that it is like a thick liquid medium that flavours experience in the blended and improvizational processes of meaning making. Embodied approaches emphasize the role of language as a mediator between corporeal and cognitive engagement. In this view, language is a kind of catalyst for meaning that translates both embodied sensing and sense-making cognitions as a framing device enabling \"sense-talking\" or \"talking sense\". The process is always imperfect, ongoing and unfinished because ineffable embodied experience can never be fully \"translated\" into reason. As the researcher is present, she is a part (in some way, intimately or more at a distance) of this complex, subjective process and if she thinks she can observe it objectively and from the outside, she is fooling herself.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interactive processes linking lived embodied experiences, language and cognition (body-talk-mind) and their implications for organizational change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use an \"embodied realism\" approach to examine how people feel/perceive/act (embodied experiences), how they make sense of their experiences (cognition) and how they use language and communication to \"talk sense\" into their social reality. To exemplify the framework, the authors use a cooking metaphor. In this metaphor, language is the \"sauce\", the catalyst, which blends raw, embodied, \"lived\" experience with consequent rationalizations (\"cooking up\") of experience. To demonstrate the approach, the authors employ the study of a Chinese multinational subsidiary in Bangkok, Thailand, where participants were encouraged to build embodied models and tell their stories through them.\nFindings: The authors found that participants used embodied metaphors in a number of ways (positive and negative connotations) in different contexts (single or multicultural groups) for different purposes. Participants could be said to be \"cooking up\" realities according to the situated context. The methodology stimulated an uncovering of ineffable, tacit or sensitive issues that were problematic or potentially problematic within the organization.\nOriginality/value: The authors bring back the importance of lived embodied experiences, language and cognition into IB research. The authors suggest that embodied metaphors capture descriptions of reality that stimulate reflexivity, uncover suppressed organizational problems and promote the contestation of received wisdoms when organizational change is pressing and urgent. The authors see the approach as offering the potential to give voice to embodied cultures throughout the world and thereby make IB research more practically relevant.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards strengthening the development of women entrepreneurship in Malaysia	[ "Malaysia", "Entrepreneurship", "Small and medium enterprises", "Women entrepreneurs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Women entrepreneurship has become an area of great interest and concern amongst researchers. This is understandable, as many countries have widened the access of women to entrepreneurial ventures, a privilege which was largely provided to men in the past. As more and more success stories of women entrepreneurs are showcased, many women who are either housewives or employed are inspired to start up their own businesses. At the same time, the already successful ones are trying to move away from emulating their successful male counterparts. As a matter of fact, women entrepreneurs are beginning to set standards of behaviours that distinguish them in an attempt to create an identity of \"her\" own rights. All these developments create a totally new playing field as women entrepreneurs compete with their male counterparts for the same business opportunities.\nDevelopment of women entrepreneurship in Malaysia: The world is witnessing a boom in women entrepreneurship where 25 per cent of the businesses are owned by women. Specifically, in the USA, 38 per cent of the businesses are owned by women (Rosmah, 2010. Russian women constitute over one fourth of all the owners of private businesses (Iakovleva and Kickul, 2011). In China, 25 per cent of businesses are possessed by women since 1978. About 23 per cent of the private companies owned by women have been established in Japan (Rosmah, 2010, whilst 31 per cent of European women involved in entrepreneurship as their career (Jong, 2013). In Malaysia, women entrepreneurs are becoming a force to reckon with, particularly in recent years due to the acknowledgement that they are the key contributors to the economic growth of the country. The number of women entrepreneurs in Malaysia has since increased due to the support and guidance provided by the government, private sector and non-governmental organisations over the past decade. According to the latest census, from the 645,136 active SMEs in operation, 127,091 or 19.7 per cent are owned by women (Hamzah, 2012) compared to 82,911 or 16 per cent in 2005 (Farah Zamira, 2013). The majority of female-owned enterprises focussing in the services sector amounting to as much as 91.7 per cent of their overall participation as SMEs, followed by manufacturing at 6.9 per cent with the remaining in construction, agriculture or mining [Women Entrepreneurs Network Association (WENA), 2012].\nIssues surrounding Malaysian women entrepreneurs: Cultural barriers\nPolicy recommendations: To begin with, a change in mentality towards entrepreneurship as a career choice and the perception on women entrepreneurship are important considerations which can possibly be achieved through a more holistic education system that fosters entrepreneurial skills, gender equality and, more importantly, cultural change. Because entrepreneurship education has been recognised as one of the important determinants that could affect career decision of students (Ooi et al., 2011), it is vital to inculcate entrepreneurial culture and the sense of equity amongst the younger generation (as early as during the secondary level of education) to increase their understanding and appreciation of the roles and significance of entrepreneurs along with the context of gender. Above all, emphasis must be given to inculcate entrepreneurship as the first career option rather than as the last resort, particularly amongst the female students for they account for the majority of university students in Malaysia (Trading Economics, 2012), yet the number of unemployed women graduates is higher than male, i.e. 19.5 per cent compared to male (14.4 per cent) (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2011).\nConclusion and future research direction: This paper has identified eight major issues faced by women entrepreneurs in Malaysia based on the review of literature. It has contributed to knowledge for it has addressed the scarcity of research in the context of development of women entrepreneurship in Malaysia and possibly beyond. To some extent, comparisons are carried out with other countries, both developed and developing, to justify the issues highlighted. The similarities identified infer that some of the issues and recommendations may be applicable across borders, subject to further empirical investigation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to identify developmental issues associated with women entrepreneurship, with the Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a base. Subsequently, the paper also aims to devise certain stratagems and new policies for ensuring women entrepreneurial growth.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An overview of the issues surrounding women entrepreneurship development in Malaysia is provided, drawing on the extant literature. The issues comprise cultural barriers, lack of spousal support, gender inequality, lack of confidence, weak social and business networking, few laws to support working families and neglected women entrepreneurs in the cottage industry, as well as domestic help and home-based childcare.\nFindings: Based on the issues identified, strategies are proposed to address them, contextualising on the gender aspect of women entrepreneurship.\nPractical implications: A summary is provided on the research and practical gaps from the perspective of strengthening women entrepreneurship and with the aim of encouraging further research in this area. The paper posits that an understanding of the gender aspect on issues related to the development of women entrepreneurship in Malaysia is required if policy measures are to be constructive in assisting women entrepreneurs in achieving their full entrepreneurial potential.\nOriginality/value: Very limited studies have been undertaken in the past to assess the issues faced by women entrepreneurs in the context of overall development of women entrepreneurship. This is of great value to an SME-dominated economy such as Malaysia where the paper provides a comprehensive summary of the strategies and policy measures required to strengthen women entrepreneurship development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The implications of the introduction of a dedicated plastic surgery trauma list on waiting times and NHS spending	[ "Plastic surgery", "Organizational effectiveness", "Customer satisfaction", "Injuries", "National Health Service", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The 1990 NCEPOD report states that we must ensure that all emergency patients have prompt access to theatres, critical care facilities, and appropriately trained staff 24 hours/day, every day of the year (NCEPOD, 1990). In addition, hospitals providing emergency services must provide a dedicated emergency theatre. The 2003 NCEPOD questionnaire revealed that 25 per cent of the plastic surgery workload was emergency cases (NCEPOD,2003). Delay in operating on trauma patients is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, patient waiting time and increased costs to the NHS (Lankester, 2000; Exton, 2008).A study of plastic surgery trauma patients (Exton, 2008) highlighted appropriately PS400,000 per annum was spent waiting for surgery. Over 60 per cent of the cases were suitable for a day case procedure. Following this a dedicated weekly half-day trauma list was introduced and the audit loop completed (one year later). The financial implications of this are explored. In addition, we noted that 40 per cent of UK units report no dedicated plastic surgery trauma lists.\nMethods: All patients attending the unit requiring emergency surgery were included (October and December 2006). Delay times were calculated from an exact record of booking times (time that the case was booked onto the emergency list) to the time of the procedure. It was assessed on the standard of a day surgery unit, where the ideal is a maximum half-day wait (six hours) for a procedure. We determined the mean delays experienced by our patients in days.The data collected were compared to data collected prior to the introduction of the dedicated Plastic Surgery Trauma list. We determined the financial implications of this list on the spending in the unit, this was based on the bed cost for 24 hours (PS300). The list cost per annum is PS70,000. In addition, we calculated the number of day surgery suitable trauma cases, enabling planning for further lists. Example of cases included were tendon repairs, finger fractures, lacerations with exclusions for patients at extremes of age, procedure complexity or requirement for involvement of other surgical teams.Statistical analysis with a Mann Whitney U test to compare the average waiting times pre and post the introduction of a weekly dedicated day case list shows a statistically significant reduction in waiting times (p<0.001).\nResults: Over the three-month period 186 operations were booked (186 patients). Complete data was obtained for 98 per cent (n = 182) of cases. One patient did not attend for surgery. There was a male:female ratio of 2:1, with age ranging from eight months to 99 years, with a mean of 34 years (Figure 1). We note that the cohort demographics match that of the initial audit (Exton, 2008).A total of 30 patients (16 per cent) underwent surgery on the dedicated DSU list. The remaining 84 per cent (156 patients) remained in an inpatient bed awaiting theatre space. A further 65 per cent of cases could have been undertaken in a day surgery unit (DSU) setting if the facility had been available.Pre-dedicated list\nDiscussion: Dedicated plastics trauma lists\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - NCEPOD (1990) states that we must ensure that all emergency patients have prompt access to theatres, critical care facilities, and appropriately trained staff 24 hours/day, every day of the year. Hospitals providing emergency services must provide a dedicated emergency theatre. Our previous study highlighted potential savings and reduced waiting times, leading to the introduction of a dedicated weekly half-day list. This purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the extra list on both waiting times and spending.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research is based on a prospective audit of emergency surgery (Lister Hospital, Stevenage) from October-December 2006. Delay times from booking time to time of operation were calculated. This was assessed based on a standard of a day surgery unit, where the ideal maximum is a half-day wait. Findings were compared with data prior to the introduction of a dedicated list.\nFindings: - There were 186 operations performed. The mean wait for surgery was 0.7 days/patient, compared with 1.3 days/patient prior to the dedicated list. Assuming that the ideal waiting time is a maximum of half a day, 55 per cent of patients achieved this, compared with 22 per cent prior to the introduction of the list.\nOriginality/value: - The introduction of a dedicated day surgery plastic surgery trauma list led to a significant reduction in patient wait time. The dedicated list also achieved a potential reduction of 900-bed days/annum, thus saving PS180,000/annum for the trust.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Modeling critical factors for assessing Indian food safety practices	[ "Food safety", "Inspection", "Assessment", "Food business", "Regulation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The changing ecosystem of the world trade forces the countries to implement the transparent system for their domestic, export and imported commodities. Food safety assessment can be defined as the process of evaluation against desired outcomes and covers a wider objective than audits against a standard or inspection for regulatory need. Food safety assessment is an integral part of food safety system study and ensures compliance to the food safety practices adopted by food business operator (FBO). Manufacturer can no more take consumers for granted and is required to design the system which provides assurance across the food chain. There is a need for self-imposed discipline in the form of integrated approach that focuses on cultural changes and food safety practices to achieve improvements. The causes of food borne illness can be complex and depend on where the product is most vulnerable in the food production chain. Food safety must take into account all potential hazards emanating from raw materials to delivery and end use by the customer. There have been a significant number of studies on the implementation of food safety system based on national and international standards including ISO 9001, ISO 22000 and other frameworks like TQM and private standards (Mensah and Julien, 2011; Vladimirov, 2011; Taylor and Kane, 2005; Walker et al., 2003; Psomas and Kafetzopoulos, 2015). The researcher community has widely captured the factors around food safety and HACCP implementation in terms of motives, barriers and challenges. The international standards are implemented based on the needs of the trading partners including customers or importers with embedded need for evaluation. It is important to demonstrate that the stated food safety system as desired by customer and market is implemented effectively by FBO and accordingly, many organization assess their food safety practices. Audit is often used as a synonym to assessment and is defined as systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled (ISO 19011, 2011). It can be seen from the literature that various factors influence successful implementation; however, in practice, this can be only established after assessing the system. The motivation for implementation of food safety ensures compliance to food safety regulations and reducing the chances of food safety failure incidents (Eves and Dervisi, 2005; Talib et al., 2015; Violaris et al., 2008).\n2. Background: The change in Indian economy with \"Made in India\" initiatives motivates the business to implement standards at par with developed country in the world to develop confidence among stakeholders and trading partners. The food business is one of the most important contributors to the trade which has the responsibility to feed the 1.2bn Indian populations. Major shift of approach in the national food control system in India motivates FBO to implement food safety and exhibit compliance to national and international standard. The approach toward quality has undergone similar changes with a shift from process controls to assurance system based on process approach and preventive controls (Dale et al., 2000). At the same time, a risk-based approach was adopted. More recently, there is a paradigm shift to manage the non-tariff barriers measured under the ambit of technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. Eves and Dervisi (2005) indicated the importance of due diligence for legislative compliance as an important driver for food safety practices which is primarily achieved by carrying out assessment. The evaluation of food safety implementation carried out by independent third party strengthens the confidence of consumers as well as regulators (GFSI-BRC, 2011). Certifications schemes covering food safety evaluations have their own advantages and disadvantages. There are significant improvements observed; however, the lack of commitment from certification bodies in terms of appropriate planning, time and technical experts acts as barriers (Zeng et al., 2007; Davids, 2011). There is mandatory need for assessment in the regulation which motivates FBO to implement food safety practices (Shukla et al., 2014; Mortimore, 2000; Matyjek et al., 2005; Zeng et al., 2007). The food regulation in India is not an exception and provides provision for due diligence by FBO (FSSR, 2011). Globalization creates market demands for FBO to display compliance to the food safety practices adopted. These are made obligatory in the form of corporate requirements, customer requirement and/or a certification requirement including private standards (Talib et al., 2015; Bas et al., 2007). Williams et al. (2006) proposed the adoption of flexible approach toward business while achieving the quality and importance of customer satisfaction and cooperation between stakeholders. The high-end export markets of developed country require commitment from the exporting partners, especially developing countries' competent authority and the assurance that the food meets their standards (Shukla et al., 2014; Matyjek et al., 2005; Ramnauth et al., 2008). FBO may also take up the initiative for assessment voluntarily to improve their basic hygiene. The motivation at top management is one of the important drivers for any food safety initiatives including implementation and assessments (Azanza et al., 2005; Escanciano et al., 2014; Clayton et al., 2002; Fatimah et al., 2014; Jevsnik et al., 2008; Psomos et al., 2010; Violaris et al., 2008). The regulators and/or FBO evaluate the system processes and flow as a part of complaint handling investigation strategy.\n3. Methodology: There is a lack of study in India on the assessment of food safety practices. Also, it is important to study food safety assessment as a separate aspect from the food safety system implementation approach. Accordingly, the research was designed to answer the above questions and keeping the following objectives:\n4. Result and analysis: A total of 96 managerial and above level respondents were included in the final sample. The sample distribution was based on the role of organization. The respondents were primarily FBO (47 percent), regulatory bodies (24 percent) and certification and laboratory (24 percent). The 7 percent response represents industry associations which though seem to be a smaller fraction but is an indicative of larger group of FBO. Industry associations represent the generic feedback of multiple FBOs and hence are highly important for this study.\n5. Discussion: This study provides a careful insight on the food safety assessment practices and goals for achieving overall objective. Assessment forms an integral part of food safety study. This paper provides a new approach of food safety research by providing insights on challenges and benefits achieved from assessment. The impetus for FBOs to consider audits is primarily due to their business needs and legislation mandate. Customer-driven initiatives are taken by the organization in line with the need to market demand and changing global perspective bringing in the requirements of food safety. Assessment of food safety practice provides a solution to consumer's complaint as part of investigation strategy. Most of the organizations take up the food safety audits as a result of mandatory requirements under legislation and to demonstrate due diligence. The FBO does not want to face the heavy penalties due to failures and adopt a preventive assessment approach. However, there is a larger perspective toward food safety assessment and achieving the overall goal of assurance. Globalization and international trading of food stuff requires self-compliance approach which is based on assessing the food safety practices internally. All these reason stated above are duly supported by the literature (GFSI-BRC, 2011; Shukla et al., 2014; Eves and Dervisi, 2005). The two factors which can be classified as challenges are organizational resentment and assessment practice. Organization internal resistance at the level of management and employees toward assessment hinders the overall success of assessment. Organizational inhibition is augmented with multiple inspections and surveillance by multiple authorities and/or certification systems. In addition to above, the technical practices adopted in assessment are not standardized. The understanding, skill and overall competence of the person involved in assessment are not harmonized which results in personal bias. The assessor's technical capability, appropriate planning and execution of the assessment process are important elements of successful audits. The assessment planning should include the appropriate distribution of time, transparency and standardized protocol. The lack of transparency during assessment, lower competence levels of the assessors, poor auditing skills combined with lack of availability of standardized protocol, lack of understanding of complex procedures and inadequate time inhibit the process of food safety assessment. Similar findings can be seen in the studies carried by other researchers (Motarjemi, 2000; Wallace and Powell, 2005; Celaya et al., 2007; ISO 22003, 2013).\n6. Recommendations: It is important to review and evaluate the implementation status of the established food safety system of FBO as well as at the national level to demonstrate compliance to stakeholders of food trade. It is important to determine that the stated system as desired by customer and business needs is implemented effectively by FBO. This paper provides a new area of food safety research by providing insights on critical factors including challenges and benefits achieved from assessment. Based on the above study of factors impacting the choice of food safety assessment, there are primarily three major recommendations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: India is in the process to achieve an important place in $2,000bn global food trade. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need to develop a food safety system which is well written down in line with international practices that are highly coordinated based on self-compliance to assure consumer protection. Accordingly, many organizations undergo assessment of their food safety system to verify compliance internally as well as externally. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight on the critical factors and benefits by evaluating the food safety assessment practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based survey is conducted among 96 Indian food business operators and regulators involved in assessment practices to obtain critical factors for the assessment of food safety practices. The questionnaire captures indicators for motivations or challenges and benefits of food safety assessment to identify critical factors using exploratory factor analysis. Model for the food safety assessment practices was developed based on multiple regression analysis by determining the impact of factors on the benefits of food safety assessment.\nFindings: This paper identifies four factors responsible for assessing food safety practices, namely, business-centric approach, legislative needs, technical practices and organization resentment as a combination of reasons and challenges along with two benefits risk: protection and organization reinforcement. The regression analysis indicates that the organization reinforcement gets positively impacted by business and technical practices and negatively by organization resentment. Risk protection has a significant relationship with legislative needs.\nOriginality/value: This is the first attempt to systematically explore the factors around the assessment of food safety practices in India. This study provides inputs for the practical application of managers and regulators.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Must have or nice to have	[ "Value proposition", "Customer management", "Decision making unit", "Organisation buying" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational buying behavior is a complex human decision-making process driven not only by logic and facts, but also by emotions (Bagozzi, 2006). Hence, creating a strong personal connection through salesperson interactions (Singh and Venugopal, 2015) is integral to the organizational buying process (Kemp et al., 2018). Customer solutions in business-to-business (B2B) selling require the sales person to have deeper customer insights (Chicksand and Rehme, 2018; Ulaga and Reinartz, 2011). They also require a fundamental shift in focus from quality and price to total cost of ownership (Monczka et al., 2016; Sheth et al., 2009; Snelgrove and Stensson, 2017; Vitasek, 2017a, 2017b), which, in turn, demands that sales people work with focus on long-term customer development (Dixon et al., 2001; Timo et al., 2018). In this study, we discuss the concept of value and the drivers of value appropriation in business relationships (Chicksand and Rehme, 2018). Customer value is expressed as the monetary benefits accrued which improve the buyer's revenue (Anderson and Narus, 1998; Brandenburger and Stuart, 1996). It also includes sacrifices such as total transaction costs (Williamson, 1975; Nordigarden et al., 2014), which include the price paid for goods and services, initial search costs, learning costs and switching costs (Chicksand and Rehme, 2018). The case provides a framework for a sales person's B2B selling approach, the techniques and skills (Agnihotri et al., 2015; Hunter and Panagopoulos, 2015; Marshall et al., 2012; Moncrief et al., 2015; Hoar et al., 2015) to adopt in view of the changing B2B selling environment in the age of ever-evolving technological advancements (Joon-Hee, 2017).\nOrganization buying behavior: a case study: Ajay Sharma was the South Zone, Sales Engineer with ATP Consultants, a Bangalore-based company that was in the business of selling the WATMIZER system, an ultraviolet system used in centrally air-conditioned environments. Even after a few months of his joining, he was unable to make a sale. There were times when the prospects showed interest in the product, but they either delayed the purchase decision or did not buy at all. He was worried about his performance, or lack of it, in selling the WATMIZER system. In fact, he had not achieved a single sale on his own since joining the company. The only sale he had achieved was owing to the efforts of Mr. Vijay Singh and Ms. Meeta Singh, the Directors of the company. In March 2016, ATP Consultants convened a meeting to analyze Ajay's performance. During the meeting, he had to explain why he had been unable to achieve his sales target. Needless to say, Ajay was worried and looking for options that could help him generate and convert leads into sales. He wanted to discuss these options with Vijay to seek his support and approval. He had only one week's time before that meeting to explore his options and create a presentation for the directors.\nThe company AEROPURE: manufacturers of the WATMIZER system: AEROPURE, an Indian company in operation since 2000, was based in Pune. The company manufactured the WATMIZER system, which was an ultraviolet system used in centrally air-conditioned environments. They had customers for their product in the domestic market as well as overseas in countries such as Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, US and the Middle East. In early 2000, AEROPURE was the only manufacturer of ultraviolet (UV) lamps in India, which was a major component of the WATMIZER system. Their manufacturing unit was located in a four-acre plot in an export zone at Chakan, Pune. In the past, AEROPURE and their competitors were importing ultraviolet lamps from Terilair (USA), TUK (Canada) or the UK. These lamps available in China and India were of inferior grade and unsuitable for the ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) application required to manufacture the WATMIZER system. AEROPURE began manufacturing its UV lamps, 80 per cent of which they exported to the USA. The company had received several awards including DSK Energy award 2011 for outstanding contribution to energy saving; the ACREX award; and the GREEN CERTIFICATION award. Besides, it has also been awarded the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9001 & 14000 certifications. AEROPURE manufactured purification systems for effluent water and drinking water.\nThe WATMIZER system: The WATMIZER system was an ultraviolet system, which was used in centrally air-conditioned environments (HVAC Systems - heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems) to save energy and improve indoor air quality by killing bacteria and germs. The product worked on a principle similar to that of using UV lamps in water purifiers to disinfect water and make it safe for drinking. In enclosed centrally air-conditioned spaces, there were high chances of bacteria, germs, mold and fungi settling and growing in the coils and fins of the cooling coil block of the air handling unit (AHU). WATMIZER was a system of UV lamps mounted on an aluminum frame and placed within the air handling units. The UV rays acted on the cooling coil and destroyed germs, bacteria, mold and fungi, thus keeping it clean. Besides reducing the level of harmful bacteria and viruses in the environment, the system also improved energy transfer efficiency and helped to save power. Air handling units were installed in centrally air-conditioned premises to remove dust and cool the used air within the premises. These AHUs sucked out used air (normally warmer air) from work spaces through the return air ducts, releasing only 10 per cent to the atmosphere and recycling 90 per cent through the air handling units. In the air handling unit, the air was made to pass through a filter and cooling coil. The cooling coil was constructed of tubes carrying cold water and fins to direct the flowing air in a way to maximize contact with the cooling water tubes. After passing through the cooling coil, the cooled air was pushed out with the help of a blower and returned to the work spaces through other air ducts. Refer to Appendix 1 for an air-conditioning system and Appendix 2 for how a typical air handling unit works.\nCentrally air-conditioned system: In a centrally air conditioned system, air from the work spaces was sucked back through \"return-air-ducts\" and passed through the air handling units. As the air entered the air handling unit, larger particles were filtered out by a filter. The air then passed through the cooling coil where cold water flowed through the pipes. The air that flowed over these cooling coils cooled because of heat transfer between the cold water in the tube and the air outside. The air was then sent back to the work spaces through a different duct by the action of a blower. The air, which was recycled (90 per cent), contained micro-dust and micro-moisture. This micro-dust and micro-moisture settled on the pipes and fins of the cooling coil because they were a few degrees cooler than the ambient air. Viruses, bacteria, germs, fungi and mold settled on this surface and formed colonies on this layer of dust. The \"dust\", which was actually a mixture of micro-dust, micro-moisture and billions of bacteria, fungi, virus, formed a covering on the fins and tubes in the cooling coil and reduced the efficiency of heat transfer between air and the cooling water. As a result, extra power was consumed to achieve the required level of cooling. These viruses, bacteria, molds, spores, fungus, etc. settled and grew exponentially inside the damp and dark areas of the cooling coil and then spread all over the buildings through the air conditioning systems, thus making the indoor environment infectious, unhealthy and unsafe to breathe.[1] This constantly increased the total bacterial and fungal count.\nCustomer: The typical customers of the WATMIZER system were hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hotels and large companies that had the facility of a centrally air-conditioned system. Customers were segmented depending on their concern for environment, health and safety (EHS) and interest to provide their employees a clean working environment. Progressive companies and multinationals belonged to this segment as compared to smaller still-to-evolve companies. Customers were also segmented based on the time when they purchased the WATMIZER system, either at the initial stage of the construction, wherein the WATMIZER system was a part of the original air handling unit equipment or at a later date, which was technically referred to as a retrofit.\nBuying process: The product was meant for business and commercial setups. The purchase of the product was perceived to be a complex decision; hence, several departments of a company were involved in the decision-making process. A typical decision-making unit (DMU) involved the following departments:\nCompetition: Terilair (USA) and TUK (Canada) were the two companies that manufactured UV lamps of the required grade. Terilair had business association with Redman, and TUK with Tapman for selling UGI systems in India. Redman and Tapman had stopped promoting UGI systems as they had broken off their relations with the supplier companies. The reason was that Redman and Tapman were huge companies with multiple divisions and they found the potential of UGI system too small to justify their efforts or return. Dustman, a big player in water purification till now was not very much interested in the use of UV lamps for air purification though they did supply a WATMIZER-equivalent system imported from a British manufacturer of UV lamps to few customers. Refer to Appendix 6 for price of the system and that of the competitors system that was imported. By 2016, there were no companies in India aggressively selling an UGI system for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Until now, Dustman was not interested; however, seeing the future business potential, it changed its perspective and became a competitor to AEROPURE.\nClient's satisfaction to date: Till date, client satisfaction has been impressive. For Sonora Software, for instance, the payback was 11 months and indoor air quality improvement over 90 per cent. For Shalaka Constructions, the payback was 15 months and indoor air quality improvement 83 per cent. Absenteeism at PELL Systems dropped by 50 per cent. Savings were accrued through reduced downtime during maintenance and reduced annual maintenance costs as the cooling coil did not require any cleaning. ATP Consultants conducted proof of concept (PoC) tests in many companies to establish the evidence of savings and improvement in indoor air quality between 11 and 29 per cent. The drop in total bacterial count and fungal count was in excess of 70 per cent and more than 50 per cent, respectively. In most places, the payback on investment was around 15 to 24 months. Refer to Appendix 7 for PoC test, and Appendices 8, 9 and 10.\nAjay Sharma, the sales person: Ajay was an engineer and had previous experience of working in a company, which dealt with the assembling and selling of air handling units. Earlier, he had worked for five years in another company that sold air conditioning systems. ATP Consultants had found him suitable for their job profile and appointed him with a salary package 25 per cent higher than his contemporaries in the market. Ajay joined ATP Consultants in April 2015. He reported to Business Development Director, Sharmishta Dey. His job responsibilities included identifying prospects, developing business presentations, managing objections and closing sales. He went through an intense product and sales training for the WATMIZER business.\nDilemma: The client's officials of facilities and the finance departments were excited by the WATMIZER system; yet, they were reluctant to make an investment in those cases, where the PoC had demonstrated energy savings and indoor air quality improvement. In March 2016, Mr. Vijay, Director, ATP Consultants, convened a meeting to analyze Ajay's sales performance. He was asked to explain the reason for not being able to achieve his sales target. Ajay wanted to explore a few options that would help him generate demands and convert sales. He wanted to discuss those options with Vijay to seek his support and approval. Ajay was left with only one week's time for making his presentation before the directors of ATP.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide an opportunity to study organization buying behavior, specifically buying and selling in the B2B context. The case demonstrates the need to understand the expectations of the buyer's decision-making unit and the challenges involved in acquiring and retaining customers based on the articulated value proposition of the product. The case also provides an opportunity to explore the critical issues related to an organization's buying process, while emphasizing on the importance of customer relationship management and the challenges involved in sales conversion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The case is a filed-based study that aims to provide insight on differences between buying and selling in B2B & B2C and an understanding on customer value proposition in B2B buying context.\nFindings: The case provides a comprehensive overview on the key role of decision-making units and decision-making process in B2B context.\nOriginality/value: This is an India-specific field-based case study on B2B selling situation. The case provides a framework on salesperson B2B selling approach, techniques and skills in view of the changing business selling environment in the age of technologically advanced digital world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Services branding triangle: Examining the triadic service brand promises for creating a strong brand in banking industry	[ "Perceptions", "Relationship marketing", "Brand management", "Brand image", "Services marketing", "Service failures" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As a result of recent economic uncertainty, structural change, and competitive pressure in financial markets (Debling, 1998; Harris, 2002; Howcroft and Durkin, 2003; Kliesen, 2013; McDonald et al., 2001; Milligan, 1995; Moules, 2009; Nellis et al., 2000; EYGM, 2013; Deloitte, 2014), it has become important for financial service institutions, including banks, to develop strong brands in order to not only survive, but also thrive in such a challenging situation. A key challenge is meaningful differentiation to avoid commoditization (Devlin and Azhar, 2004; Deloitte, 2014), including an increasing focus on building relationships both externally and internally (Devlin, 1998; King and Grace, 2010; Saunders and Watters, 1993). At the same time, prior research (de Chernatony and Cottam, 2006; de Chernatony and Dall'Olmo Riley, 1999; Devlin and Azhar, 2004; Jones, 1999; McDonald et al., 2001) documents a number of issues faced in the branding of financial services. For example, de Chernatony and Cottam (2006) assert that financial service providers have traditionally placed little importance on their brands. Previously, Devlin (1998) had arrived at the same conclusion, stating that achieving true brand equity in the financial services market may prove quite difficult. Moreover, because of the intangibility of bank services and a lack of product differentiation between competing bank brands, branding is uniquely challenging for banks (Bravo et al., 2010; O'Loughlin and Szmigin, 2005). These challenges have been compounded by the damage to bank brands caused by the recent financial crises (Brand Finance, 2013; Wallace et al., 2013). In general, these various studies suggest that brand and branding have not been part of the mindset of executives and managers within the financial services industry until quite recently.\nBackground: Prior research stresses the importance of front-line/contact personnel in creating an image of a service organization because the intangibility of services elevates the importance of contact personnel for service quality, brand image, and business performance (Berry, 2000; Zeithaml et al., 2013). As front-line personnel are the most visible aspect of service organizations, they make a significant contribution in shaping customers' impressions about the service organization and in the development of the subsequent customer relationship and brand preferences (Bitner, 1995; de Chernatony, 2010; Lovelock and Wirtz, 2011; Zeithaml et al., 2013). Indeed, service organizations often succeed or fail based on the quality of their workforce (Frei, 2008). Anderson and Mittal (2000) claim that during these service encounters (or \"moments of truth\") is when brand value propositions are kept or broken. Each encounter contributes to (or detracts from) a customer's overall satisfaction and brand image or brand value, and in turn, ultimately the willingness to continue doing business with the organization (Anderson and Mittal, 2000; Bitner, 1995; Lovelock and Wirtz, 2011; Zeithaml et al., 2013). However, in order for service providers to offer the quality of service consistent with a brand promise (i.e. the desired brand experience), service providers, particularly front-line employees, must understand and internalize appropriate brand values through effective internal marketing (Bitner, 1995; Dall'Olmo Riley and de Chernatony, 2000; de Chernatony, 2010; Kotler, 2002). Moreover, de Chernatony (2010) states that brand differentiation in services results from an amalgam of the way that personnel's knowledge and skills contribute to what the customer receives (functional knowledge), along with the way that the personnel's behavior and feelings give rise to how the brand is received (emotional values), which further emphasizes the critical role of personnel in creating strong service brands and brand equity.\nMethod[1]: Survey and measurement scales\nResults: Exploratory factor analysis\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study was designed to empirically test the three promises theory of making brand promises, enabling brand promises, and delivering brand promises. This objective was accomplished by comparing differences in perceptions of CBBE dimensions across management, contact personnel, and customers in the banking industry. Hypothesis testing with one-way ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences between the perceptions of management and customers (external branding gap) and between contact personnel and customers (interactive branding gap), but no significant differences between management and contact personnel (internal branding gap) for all brand equity dimensions. The results in Figure 2, which are summarized from Table II, show that both management and contact personnel perceive all of the brand equity dimensions as being significantly more important than the customer experiences with regard to the brand equity dimensions. These gaps indicate misalignments between the perceptions of management and contact personnel and the perceptions of consumers concerning their experiences. The existence of no significant difference between the perceptions of management and contact personnel (i.e. non-existence of internal branding gap) suggests that both management and contact personnel perceive the importance of brand equity dimensions in a similar way. However, customer experiences with these brand equity dimensions suggest that they are not being experienced at the level deemed important by managers and contact personnel.\nLimitations and future research directions: The study has some limitations, and thus caution should be exercised in generalizing the results. One limitation is that the sample was limited to a convenience sample of Turkish adult citizens of a single major metropolitan area in Turkey and bank personnel in three cities. Recruiting banks/branches to participate proved difficult. In fact, most bank managers declined to participate in our study, which limited our ability to include managers and employees from different banks. As a result, we used convenience sampling. This was the reason for expanding the sample size beyond the initial target cities. In addition, this study did not consider or test the brand equity dimensions for specific bank brands. Instead, the personnel data were collected from a total of 14 branches of private, state, and foreign banks, which is consistent with the objectives of this study. We suggest that the future research could include managers and employees in the sample for better representation of the banking industry. An additional limitation is that the study focussed specifically on comparing the importance ratings of bank management and contact personnel with customer beliefs concerning delivery (of promises). Other measures (suggestions are made below) of the services branding triangle framework were not considered. A final limitation is that the study used a four-point scale to eliminate the respondents' tendency of selecting the mid-point (i.e. neutral) of the scale, which was confirmed with pretesting. However, this may have introduced some bias in that respondents were forced to select an answer of important or unimportant instead of neutral. The decision of using of a four-point scale without including the answer choice of neutral was made based on the pre-test results and the cultural tendencies of the population.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine customer, management, and contact personnel perceptions of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) and its dimensions utilizing a services branding triangle framework in the banking industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from customers, managers, and contact personnel of three types of banks in Turkey - state, private, and foreign.\nFindings: The study finds significant external branding gaps between the perceptions of managers and customers and interactive branding gaps between the perceptions of contact personnel and customers, but no internal branding gaps between the perceptions of managers and contact personnel with respect to CBBE dimensions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample was limited to Turkish adult citizens of a single major metropolitan area in Turkey and bank personnel in three cities.\nOriginality/value: The services branding triangle framework used in this study allows service brand managers to understand not only the differences in the perceptions of brand equity dimensions of bank customers, managers, and contact personnel, but also provides an opportunity to identify the external, internal, and interactive branding gaps of each of the brand equity dimensions. The findings provide an empirical test for the three promises theory and identifying potential branding gaps resulting from differences between consumer, management, and contact personnel perceptions of CBBE and its dimensions. The paper discusses the implications of the findings in developing a strong services brand and brand equity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge management enablers: a case study	[ "Knowledge management", "Knowledge management systems", "Corporate strategy", "Leadership", "Organizational culture", "Communication technologies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The information technology boom has caused enterprises to realize the shift from the resource economy of controlling land, machines, factories, raw materials, and labor forces to the knowledge economy of creating business value through the utilization of intangible knowledge. This has caused \"knowledge management\" to be of crucial importance in the public sector as well as the private sector both for organizations as well as for individuals, and it has grabbed people's attention and generated significant discussions. However, as enterprises start to manage their organizations' knowledge they need to be clear of the factors that will influence knowledge management, which are known as knowledge management enablers. Because enablers are the driving force in carrying out knowledge management, they do not just generate knowledge in the organization by stimulating the creation of knowledge, but they also motivate the group members to share their knowledge and experiences with one another, allowing organizational knowledge to grow concurrently and systematically (Ichijo et al., 1998; Stonehouse and Pemberton, 1999).Knowledge management enablers are the mechanism for the organization to develop its knowledge and also stimulate the creation of knowledge within the organization as well as the sharing and protection of it. They are also the necessary building blocks in the improvement of the effectiveness of activities for knowledge management (Ichijo et al., 1998; Stonehouse and Pemberton, 1999). In related research, knowledge management enablers include the methods of knowledge management, organizational structure, corporate culture, information technology, people, and strategies, etc. (Bennett and Gabriel, 1999; Earl, 1997; Arthur Anderson Business Consulting, 1999; Arthur Anderson and APQC, 1996; Zack, 1999; Davenport, 1997; Long, 1997; Bose, 2004).In the process of carrying out knowledge management, enterprises have to face the varying conditions of corporate culture, workflow processes, and the integration of group members' knowledge. They also need strong support from top management, because it is possible that during the process they will encounter resistance from employees. Enterprises also need to increase the usage of information technology in order to help the problem regarding the flow of information. Therefore, other than the collection of knowledge management theories, if through the study of actual experiences of various companies we can identify the key enablers, then we will be able to observe the various aspects of knowledge management as well as its overview. Thus, through the study of key enablers among the best practices in the knowledge intensive industry, this research not just tries to validate theory with reality, but it also hopes to provide a reference for academia as well as the business field. Although we might not be able to successfully duplicate previous experiences, through comparing and contrasting various enterprises' efforts on knowledge management we will be able to help enterprises understand the effect that different enablers have on the case companies.\n2 Literature review and discussion: Knowledge management has a significant influence on the success or failure of business management, and hence bringing in knowledge management within a corporation has become one of the hottest topics for literature discussion. Besides, knowledge management is a key component in an organization's ability to realize the full potential of its intellectual assets in strategic and tactical decision making and in creating a competitive advantage (Hsieh et al., 2002; Bose, 2004; Rowley, 2004). In order to ensure the success of bringing in knowledge management, it is crucial to be able to acquire the key enablers so as to make it possible to effectively utilize an organization's limited resources, reduce the use of manpower, material, and time, and still be able to achieve the expected results.Ichijo et al. (1998) believe that in order for organizations to avoid arbitrary or un-systematic growth of knowledge they need to construct some enablers so that the organization's knowledge can grow concurrently and systematically. These enablers are those that form a system that can stimulate group members to advance in the growth of knowledge, to breakthrough the barriers that hinder the growth, and to encourage sharing among members regarding their knowledge and experiences. In addition, from the angle of the social environment, Gupta and Govindarajan (2000) believe there is an inter-relationship between the enablers and such a social system of the combination of various enablers should not be treated as by chance - instead it should be treated as a whole system.Arthur Anderson Business Consulting (1999) point out that knowledge management has to start simultaneously with people and business. On the part of the people, leadership and corporate culture are the biggest enablers, because it is through them that job description, the necessary knowledge for the job, and the members' work atmosphere are clearly defined so that learning and change can continue to occur. On the part of the business, information technology and performance evaluation are the biggest enablers, because strong information technology helps communication in the business and information can be collected quickly, then acquired, and finally re-used.Based on the previous findings, this research believes \"knowledge management enabler\" refers to the key factors that determine the effectiveness of executing knowledge management within the organization, and it is closely related to the current state of the utilization of information technology among the members, which are the driving force that solidifies knowledge management. However, knowledge management enabler is not a brand new discussion; it was mentioned in many published papers, such as \"Critical success factors for implementing knowledge management\" (Skyrme and Amidon, 1997; Davenport et al., 1998; Liebowitz, 1999; Holsapple and Joshi, 2000; Hasanali, 2002; Chourides et al., 2003; Bose, 2004;Hung et al., 2005; Wong, 2005). They mainly focus on the proof of the effect of knowledge management enablers and at the same time they identify many different enablers like the method of knowledge management, organizational structure, corporate culture, etc.After considering several knowledge management theories from various scholars and well-known enterprises, we have organized them in Table I and have listed them into four categories: strategy and leadership, corporate culture, people, and information technology.2.1 Strategy and leadership\n3 Case study: The implementation of knowledge management is a long-term strategy for a corporation, and with knowledge as an intangible asset, the usefulness of it usually cannot be seen in the short run. Therefore, this research uses the method of a case study and has directed our survey on Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE) and VIA Technologies, Inc. (VIA). The reason that we have chosen these two companies is that they both have already carried out a knowledge management strategy for a period of more than five years and its effect is apparent and recognized by the industry. This research anticipates through the case study of these two companies that we will be able to verify the finding of enablers concluded by other papers, thus showing the inter-relationship between theory and business. We also hope the result of this study can provide a reference for academia and the business field.3.1 ASE\n4 Meaning in management: In ASE's and VIA's process of implementing knowledge management, among the enabler of strategy and leadership it is clear that the most important thing is \"gaining the top manager's acceptance and support.\" This is also one of the necessary processes before the execution of any strategy. This matches with Greengard (1998), Von Krogh (1998), Davenport et al. (1998), Liebowitz (1999) and Storey and Barnett (2000) finding that managers have to understand and see the value of knowledge management and be willing to support it, and then they can play an active role during its implementation. Other than this, the measurement of knowledge management performance indicator has a major influence on this enabler as well. Since, knowledge management is not a short-term strategy, but long term, once it has obtained the support and acceptance of the top mangers, the strategy for knowledge management is maintained and the concept of knowledge management can penetrate throughout the whole company.For the corporate culture enabler, the \"building of an environment of sharing among employees\" is most important. However, it needs to be supported by information building, which is the support of the information technology enabler. This matches with Ruppel and Harrington's (2001) finding on the extent of the application of information being directly proportional to the extent of mutual trust in the corporate culture. It points out that for an organization to maximize the utilization of its intra-net, it is necessary to build a culture of mutual trust and support among those who provide the information and those who use the information. It is especially necessary to increase the extent of mutual trust, including the management of the intra-net and the renewal of information so that employees can trust the information in the network.ASE mandates every employee to generate one to two teaching materials every six months and to set up a system for the users of the materials to rate it. This is the method of quantity before quality. Learning about the building of the information system allows the materials to be digitized and communicable. With the set up of the Best-Known Method forum platform, ASE connects every department's database, making the search of information much easier. In addition to the emphasis on the digitalization of the teaching material and the importance of the search function, VIA also emphasizes the transparency of information within the company, which means that the employees can find all the problems that the company is facing when they enter the knowledge management system.The people enabler shows that other than the training courses for the talents and the channel of learning that are important - which is identical to Davenport et al. (1998), Jarvenpaa et al. (1998), Liebowitz (1999), Alavi and Leidner (2001), Chang (2001), Eisenhardt and Santos (2002), Massey et al. (2002) and Schultze and Leidner' (2002) finding - the reward in management is essential as well. ASE initially uses the method of mutual evaluation, and then after one month it combines with the management system to become a part of the performance evaluation. On the other hand, VIA joins with the management system so as to process the form of employee performance evaluation.Another common enabler is the \"establishment of a dedicated unit\" for implementing knowledge management. This is one of the enablers that is not extensively discussed or generalized in this paper. As for ASE's knowledge management center, it represents the support of top managers, and the dedication and strategy of implementing knowledge management. This center does not just manage knowledge; it mainly plays the role of a catalyst. As for VIA, although there is no dedicated department, there is a similar division that operates and establishes knowledge management projects, which is headed up by the division head. This also explains VIA's belief that knowledge management will happen naturally in the industry and it does not need to be converted into slogans for its implementation.\n5 Conclusion and suggestion: Under the influence of the advancement of information technology with economic globalization, many enterprises have started to actively implement knowledge management with the goal of obtaining their future competitive edge - \"knowledge.\" Since, people are the source of knowledge production, the application of knowledge management includes more than just the digitalization of documents, the setting up of the system, or the application of information technology. It is also a mixture of a combination of various factors resulting in the difficulty of implementing knowledge management. Therefore, if enterprises can be certain of the key enablers for implementing knowledge management, then they will be able to speed up the efficiency of knowledge management and make the process of implementation much easier.This research first concludes that strategy and leadership, corporate culture, people, and information technology are four of the enablers in knowledge management, based on past-published papers. Through the case study of ASE and VIA, we have found that for the strategy and leadership enabler the most important part is to obtain the support of the top managers. For the corporate culture enabler, the important part is the forming of a culture of sharing but needs to be supplemented by information technology. For the people enabler, other than the training courses, the channels of learning and the incentive program for the employees are also key factors. As for the information technology enabler, other than the digitalization of the documents, the speedy search of knowledge for its re-use is becoming more and more important. In practice we have discovered that the \"establishment of a dedicated unit\" is also a key enabler, and this enabler mainly plays the role of furthering knowledge management, taking communication, and coordinating as its duty.This paper reaches the same conclusion as previous studies regarding the strategy and leadership, the corporate culture, the people, and the information technology enablers. This verifies the academic theories with real practice in the industry. In addition, this research has also discovered that establishing a dedicated unit for implementing knowledge management is also one of the key enablers. Its role does not just stop at managing knowledge, but instead it plays the role of furthering knowledge management by taking on the duty of assisting and coordinating different departments in their communication.In the flow of knowledge management, this research approaches from the angle of enablers as being the factors that increase the efficiency of knowledge management has concluded that the key enablers, through the discussion of published papers, have combined with the case study to create the best practices. We have not just validated theory with business practice, but have also provided a reference for academia and business field, and we hope that enterprises will be able to understand the key enablers as they implement knowledge management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To analyze the crucial role that enablers play in carrying out knowledge management within the enterprise.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research uses the method of a case study and has directed the survey on Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE) and VIA Technologies, Inc. (VIA). It is anticipated through the case study of these two companies that it will be possible to verify the finding of enablers concluded by other papers, thus showing the inter-relationship between theory and business.\nFindings: - It is found that among the enablers: on the part of strategy and leadership; obtaining top managements' support is most important; among organization culture enablers is the forming of an atmosphere and culture of sharing is most important but needs to be supplemented by informational technology; among people enablers, other than training courses and channels that provide learning, employee incentive program is one of the executing key factor; and among informational technology enablers, other than the digitization of documents, the function of speedy search of information for its re-use is becoming more and more important.\nPractical implications: - The result of this study not just validates theory with reality; it also provides a reference for the academia as well as the business field.\nOriginality/value: - This paper has discovered that establishing a dedicated unit for implementing knowledge management is also one of the key enablers. Its role does not just stop at managing knowledge, but instead it plays the role of furthering knowledge management by taking on the duty of assisting and coordinating different departments in their communication.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Henry George, John Rae, and the theory of capital in a rapidly transforming economy	[ "United States of America", "Economic theory", "Capital", "Economic development", "Agglomeration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: To the majority of modern economists trained in the neoclassical tradition, the remark of Henry George (1839-1897) \"that the social organism secretes, as it were, the necessary amount of capital just as the human organism in a healthy condition secretes the requisite fat\" (George [1879] 1956, p. 86) probably seems appallingly simple minded, or perhaps just appalling.[1] This paper will argue, however, that George's capital theory was informed by, and consistent with, a \"frontier tradition\" in North American capital theory and that it has a very modern flavor and implications for economic development. Rae (1796-1872) was the most profound expositor of this theory. His work was cited by Henry George, as well as by Jevons, Boehm-Bawerk, Fisher, and other established members of the profession. Rae and George differed on important policy issues, notably tariffs, but their respective approaches to the role of capital in economic development shared many features, especially the stress on technological change and incentives. As modern discussions of economic development shift away from mere accumulation of capital to the role of institutional and technological change - topics that are handled poorly by the neoclassical theory and only very abstractly by the Austrian - the frontier tradition offers some important insights for our consideration.\n2 Henry George's capital theory: Classical economics grew up singing Adam Smith's paean to frugality:Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and misconduct [...] Parsimony, by increasing the fund which is destined for the maintenance of productive hands, tends to increase the number of those hands whose labour adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed [...] It puts into motion an additional quantity of industry, which gives an additional value to the annual produce [...]\n3 John Rae and his capital theory: Superficially, John Rae provides a striking contrast to Henry George. George's Progress and Poverty has been read by millions, but is rarely treated seriously and sympathetically by professional economists[4]. Rae's New Principles of Political Economy has been difficult to obtain and rarely read during most of the time since its publication in 1834, but it did attract serious attention from the better economists including George (George, 1898, p. 121), Mill, Veblen, Schumpeter, and Fisher. (See the account by (Mair, 1990).) Boehm-Bawerk discovered Rae after writing his History and Critique of Interest Theories and gave him credit for anticipating many of his own ideas when he wrote the second edition. It is noteworthy that George, who died in the midst of his campaign for mayor of New York on October 29, 1897, refers to Rae despite the fact that Rae's first professional revival began with a Quarterly Journal of Economics article in that very year[5].Rae was born in Scotland in 1796, studied medicine at Aberdeen, and emigrated to Canada in 1822. He taught at backwoods schools while participating vigorously in public affairs, doing geological field work, and writing New Principles of Political Economy. Rae's economic ideas were shaped by his life on the Canadian frontier, and one goal was to argue for tariff protection for the infant manufacturing industries of North America[6].The purpose of this summary is not to repeat the detailed exposition of Rae's capital theory contained in Boehm-Bawerk or the general sketch of his ideas done by Mair (1990) or the specialized essays in Hamouda et al. (1998), but rather to call attention to the points of similarity between the theories of Rae and George. Since, George had read Rae and Rae had worked out his capital theory in considerable detail, it seems appropriate to call attention to those aspects of Rae's work that provide more systematic expositions of topics that George only touched on.Rae's book was written as a response to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, so it sbegins with an analysis of situations in which individual acquisition of wealth consists of a transfer from other individuals, rather than an increase in national wealth as argued by Smith (Rae, 1964, pp. 11-12). This, of course, is one of George's main themes, although the reasons emphasized by the two are different. George argues that individuals can become wealthy by producing wealth, which adds to national wealth, or by obliging others to pay them for use of land or other government created privilege, which does not add to national wealth (George, 1898, Ch XIV). Rae argues that, under most circumstances, the only way that national wealth can be increased significantly is for the productive techniques to be changed (Rae, 1964, p. 13). He points out that individuals who become wealthy typically acquire wealth from other individuals who are becoming poorer. Such transfers are probably not a crushing refutation of Smith's insistence that national wealth is the sum of individual wealth. Rae's example, however, is more pertinent. He speaks of the man who has become wealthy by acquiring ten farms and suggests that the nation that has become ten times as wealthy over some period of time has probably not increased every item of land and capital in the same proportion. This gives a particularly prominent role to invention, as well as to the transfer of technology from other countries and its adaptation to domestic conditions (Rae, 1964, p. 15). The government can assist in advancing domestic technology (Rae, 1964, p. 15), and this is useful because individual firms can rarely capture the full benefits of investing in technology transfer because the skills spillover rapidly to other firms (Rae, 1964, p. 52).Rae's vision of the world has sharply diminishing marginal productivity of capital, combined with a rate of savings that is highly responsive to the interest rate (Rae, 1964, p. 22). The strength of \"the effective desire for accumulation\" varies among the individuals in a society, but those with a higher effective desire will offer more in current consumption goods to those with a low effective desire and thus will acquire more and more of the existing capital.Although Rae does sometimes use the term \"rate of return,\" his preferred approach to the concept is in terms of the time for an equivalent point-input, point-output investment to double. \"Instruments\" of order A return double the original investment in one year. Order B doubles in two years, and instruments of order Z double in 26 years (Rae, 1834, Book II, Ch. IV). A nice feature of this approach is that it leads to a focus on more rapid exhaustion of an instrument through more intensive use as a source of greater profit (Rae, 1834 pp. 114, 164). For example, an excellent road may wear out more quickly than a poor one because the excellent road will be used by a larger volume of traffic per year. Society realizes the return, in the form of a larger volume of services, in a shorter time, which implies a higher rate of return.For Rae, the determinants of the capital stock of a country were \"the effective desire of accumulation\" (the inverse of the marginal rate of time preference), and the factors affecting the return from investment:* the quantity and quality of materials (natural resources);* the progress of the inventive facultyl; and* the rate of wages of labor (with a lower wage making a greater range of projects profitable) (p. 130).Nothing can be done about natural resources, wages are determined outside his model and, in any event, cannot be depressed much, so that leaves invention as the only feasible way to encourage the accumulation of more capital.As a result of the assumptions and analysis, Rae realized that he had devised a theory of the determination of the amount of capital that a society would accumulate under given conditions. The equilibrium capital stock was exactly analogous to the equilibrium population that resulted from the subsistence wage theory combined with the wages fund, which was accepted by Rae but not by George. Rae devoted considerable attention to \"the circumstances which determine the strength of the effective desire of accumulation\" (Rae, 1834, Bk.II, Ch VI). In effect, Rae provided a reservation rate of time preference that paralleled the culturally determined subsistence wage:There must be some strong inherent vice in any community, where the certain prospect of plentiful subsistence does not produce an abundant population. It can only be, also, from the effects of some great inherent vice, that, in any community, a very profitable investment can be held out, and yet capital not accumulate with rapidity. Where there is no sufficient prospect of subsistence, people may be restrained from marriage [...] Where there is no sufficient prospect of profit, people may be withheld from accumulat ing capital [...] But the fact is, that people, rather than live single, are inclined to marry at all risks, and hence population is kept down by misery, and premature death; and they are also, rather than do nothing, inclined to embark in adventures where the chances are against their success; hence the vast numbers of unsuccessful projects that in most communities are continually dissipating accumulations of capital [...] To form a right judgment of the powers of any community [...] to increase its capital, we must consider, that, if abundance of secure and profitable investments for capital were presented, its members would be more eager to possess additional capital, and, therefore, would be more prompted to accumulate it; and the capital they possessed would be more productive, and would not be subject to be risked and lost in imprudent speculations (Rae, 1834, pp. 29-30].Rae's ideas about capital were more detailed and more fully worked out than were George's. But both had some version of a marginal efficiency of investment and a marginal rate of time preference, as well as subsidiary assumptions that led to a determinate capital stock. Those are the elements of capital theory. They disagreed on the wages fund and subsistence wage theory and the role of government in fostering technological change and on the protective tariff. Rae's book was oriented toward building a case for government intervention to foster the transfer of technology to North America. George analyzed the history of civilization at a more abstract level and pleaded the case for an end to privilege, especially the privilege of receiving land rents, but also tariffs. Yet both were keen observers of American conditions, as well as students of history.\n4 A frontier capital theory: Rae and George were both shaped by the North American frontier, and that experience gave to both of their capital theories certain similarities that set the two apart from the neoclassical mainstream.[7] Both Rae and George had observed the rapid growth of the capital stock under the ideal conditions of the developing frontier. Rae and George used theory to analyze the dynamics of the economic growth and development that they observed around them, while neoclassical capital theory increasingly focused on consistency with the general body of microeconomic theory[8].4.1 Supply of capital\n5 Conclusions: It might be argued that Rae and George were not even playing in the same sandbox with the neoclassical capital theorists. After all, they were not writing about equilibrium or whether the interest rate would be positive in the stationary state. They were concerned with the process of rapid economic development. Can anything of use to the modern discussion of economic development be learned from this brief excursion into the less traveled byways of the history of capital theory?It is notable that the field of development economics, itself, originally built around the mainstream neoclassical views concerning capital with the addition of some socialist inspired ideas concerning the efficacy of central planning, has been undergoing considerable reexamination. William Easterly (2003), for example, has been harshly critical of the behavior of the World Bank and the IMF, which have inflicted the mainstream prescriptions on the less developed world. A decade earlier Bauer (1991, p. 43) had concluded, based on a long career studying economic development, that, \"The growth of income does not depend on the volume of saving and investment, and poor people can save and invest sufficient amounts to emerge from poverty [...] To have capital is the result of economic achievement, not its precondition.\" He recommended that the government protect life, liberty, and property and let individuals pursue their own objectives.The microcredit approach attracted widespread attention in 2006 when Professor Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize. The successes of small loans in enabling the poor to advance themselves raise the question of how much better their lives would be in a world with institutions devised by Henry George. The importance of secure property rights for the poor has been stressed by Soto (2000). Of course, the feasibility of securing good land titles for the poor is enhanced by a significant land value tax. The steps are still small, but both theory and practice show some signs of moving toward Henry George. To achieve George's full vision, however, requires some changes.Suppose we were to be able to provide even the poorest of the poor with security both for person and for property. Suppose, further, that a serious land value tax were to provide access to the land for whoever could make the most efficient use of it. And suppose, still further, that the revenues from the land value tax were used to relieve people of tax burdens on labor, capital, and transactions. Finally, assume that the people could control the rent seekers, corrupt politicians, and incompetent international do-gooders. Maybe, just maybe, the social organism would, indeed, \"secrete the necessary amount of capital.\" I think so. You may want to accuse Henry George of appalling optimism about politics, but don't call his capital theory simple minded.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to establish a historical context for the often maligned capital theory of Henry George within a North American frontier tradition that includes John Rae.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Modern discussions of rapid technological and institutional change provide a framework for detailed re-examination of the capital theories of Rae and George, whose critics were largely constrained by a rigid neoclassical perspective.\nFindings: - Both Rae and George presented capital theories, defined as explanations of the supply of and demand for capital resulting in a determinate capital stock. Both writers stress elements that were not emphasized in neoclassical capital theory, most notably that the capital stock can increase rapidly under certain conditions; increases in knowledge, inventions, technical and technological changes, and scale are more important than mere accumulation of capital; high rates of return combined with rapid technical obsolescence and physical deterioration provide the opportunity for rapid changes in the form of the capital stock, and; the ephemeral nature, and hence potential mobility, of capital implies that security of property is essential for economic growth.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The focus on two writers leads to the question of how widespread their ideas were in nineteenth century North America.\nPractical implications: - The rapidly changing technology and institutions that Rae and George observed place their theories closer to some modern trends in the study of economic development than to the literature of neoclassical capital theory.\nOriginality/value: - George's grasp of economic theory deserves greater respect than it has often received in the economics literature when his work is considered in its historical context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Internship impact on career consideration among business students	[ "Reflection", "Experiential learning", "Business students", "Internships", "Careers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Internships are a practical way for college students to envision a future career with limited investment of time and resources. As graduation approaches, the array of internship choices available to 18-24 year olds takes on added importance as they struggle to complete their academic studies while addressing their preferences regarding vocational options. According to career development theorist Super (1990), this phase is marked by attempts at developing a realistic self-concept that reflects needs, interests and abilities leading to tentative career choices. Throughout this exploration process, myriad strategies are used to narrow the range of prospects for career fit. One option that allows business students to investigate jobs and fields of interest while maintaining a foothold in an educational context is the internship. This time constrained exposure to the world of professional work provides opportunities to try out different roles in a range of organizations before graduation. The internship has been considered such an important part of an undergraduate's education that several scholars have suggested it be a mandatory requirement of a business schools' curriculum (Hiltebeitel et al., 2000; McCarthy and McCarthy, 2006; Divine et al., 2007; Templeton et al., 2012).\nLiterature review: Research examining the influence that an internship has on career decisions has reported a mix of results across a range of majors. In surveys comparing students who had completed an internship with those who had not, interns reported lower levels of agreement regarding benefits of the experience in shaping future career path and improving job opportunities (Moghaddam, 2011), higher importance to career benefits of the internship (Swanson and Tomkovich, 2012) and no difference in their confidence in the career fit of their job after graduation (Callanan and Benzing, 2004) compared to peers who had not completed an internship. A longitudinal study over a ten year period in a single firm found that the extent to which interns (who came from different colleges) agreed, disagreed or were neutral regarding the influence of the experience on their career choice varied year by year (Cook et al., 2004). Among students who had just completed an internship in their major of occupational safety and health, participating in the internship confirmed and strengthened their intentions to become a professional in that field and helped them identify the type of industry they wanted to work in (Fender and Watson, 2005). Likewise for students who completed internships in retail, positive attitudes toward retailing after internship were significantly related to their attitudes before the experience (Liu et al., 2011). However in a study comparing interns and non-interns who were sports management majors, those students who participated in an internship had a less positive attitude toward the profession than did non-interns at the end of the internship, although there was no difference in attitude at the beginning of the internship (Cunningham et al., 2005). Moreover, in one study using in-depth interviews, researchers reported that for some interns occupational choices were in the process of being overturned as opposed to being refined (Walmsley et al., 2012). Therefore, even an unsuccessful internship experience can aid students in determining career direction (Beard and Morton, 1999; Templeton et al., 2012) and help them avoid unrewarding career paths.\nMethodology: Participants\nResults: The results of the content analysis yielded the following job functions (presented alphabetically) within which students performed internships: accountancy, administration, economics, finance, human resources, information technology, investment banking, law, marketing, project management, public relations, real estate agent, sales and supply chain. Just over half the interns (54 percent) expressed a preference for continuing a career path within the same job function as their internship. Among students who had their expectations confirmed, statements such as the following were made:\nDiscussion: In the course of reflecting on the impact of the internship on their career consideration, students learned valuable information about themselves in relation to this work experience. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the relationship between internships and career-related preferences within the context of students' reported intentions to explore future opportunities within the same or different job functions or industries as their internship. Over half the interns who completed an internship in a business discipline affirmed their interests in pursuing those same job functions in the future. The experience had a positive or confirming effect on their career considerations. However, less than half the interns expressed interest in continuing a job search in the same industry as their internship. Getting an inside view of the industry made a difference in expanding students understanding of what is required for success in that industry as no amount of classroom content could. Thus, the internship provided opportunities to learn what they did and did not want to do, and where they did and did not want to work within the parameters afforded by this experience. This insight, for some, could lead to changes in their college coursework as they move toward graduation or affirm a change in major already made.\nConclusions: The opportunity to complete an internship was beneficial to all students in that it allowed for greater career exploration, narrowed or affirmed their range of job/industry possibilities and provided insight into themselves and the professional world of work - outcomes that are incumbent upon universities to promote through experiential learning (Clark and White, 2010). By having the internship experience, reflecting on that experience, forming and testing theories about how they fit into the job and/or industry of their placements, students can move more confidently along a career path as they cycle through Kolb's (1984) model of experiential learning throughout their internship experience(s).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on the impact of the internship experience on business students' career intentions in regard to pursuing a career path in the same job function or industry as their internship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: After completing and reflecting on an internship, 198 undergraduate students responded to the prompt: \"discuss the impact of the internship on your career consideration.\" Responses were analyzed using a content analysis methodology in order to determine whether or not interns would pursue the same job functions (e.g. sales) or industry (e.g. non-profit) as their internship in their post-graduation job search.\nFindings: Across the job functions and industries identified within the internships, 54 and 45 percent of interns confirmed their expectations of career fit, respectively. The implications of confirming and disconfirming these expectations for students are discussed.\nOriginality/value: Given the value of internships to business students, surprisingly few studies have examined their influence on undergraduates' career considerations. Students select internships with the intention of learning about job functions or industries for possible career fit, yet the authors know little about whether the experience confirms or disconfirms their expectations. This study seeks to address this gap. The authors suggest that internships, as experiential activities, merit greater attention as they provide students opportunities to learn what they do or do not want to do, where they do or do not want to work and whether their self-concept fits a possible career path - saving themselves and potential employers the cost of job dissatisfaction and turnover.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The immediate effect of corporate social responsibility on consumer-based brand equity	[ "Culture", "CSR", "Global branding", "Corporate social responsibility", "Brand equity", "Consumer Brand equity", "Brand-cause fit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The growing emphasis on the importance of socially responsible behavior to the advancement of society as a whole has led brands to experience an increase in stakeholders demanding an active participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices (Thorne et al., 2017). As a result, brands have been taking a strategic approach to CSR by integrating socially responsible activities into the brand's core value proposition to drive brand equity and build strong brands (Guzman and Becker-Olsen, 2010). Naidoo and Abratt (2018) even go to the extent of proposing that a brand with social intentions may develop social brand equity distinct from its commercial brand equity. Since the power of a brand lies in what the customers have learned, felt, seen and heard about it (Keller, 1993), brands are increasingly communicating their social initiatives to consumers. For instance, the beer brand Stella Artois launched a commercial during the 2017 Super Bowl to inform consumers about its partnership with Water.org, an organization whose goal is to bring clean water to millions of people in need around the world (Kline, 2018). Ultimately, the announcement of a brand CSR program is important to reach desirable outcomes, as past research has shown that CSR signals positively affect brand performance (Cowan and Guzman, 2018; Lai et al., 2010; Price and Sun, 2017). This study thus examines the immediate effect that a CSR communication has on the dimensions of brand equity (i.e. awareness, perceived quality and loyalty) to provide a deep understanding of what drives overall brand equity.\nBackground: Strategic approach to corporate social responsibility\nTheoretical framework: CSR and brand equity: the role of awareness, perceived quality and loyalty\nResearch method: An experiment was conducted to test the hypotheses. In this study, we examined the change in brand equity based on an actual CSR program run by the multinational car company, Volvo. The company has taken a strategic approach to CSR by integrating social responsibility to its vision, which is to become the world leader in sustainable transport (Hoque et al., 2014). In its efforts, Volvo created the \"corporate citizenship scorecard\" to make it easier to keep track of its CSR progress (volvogroup.com). Their corporate citizenship aims are based on a variety of social and environmental concerns such as health, diversity inclusion, reduction of harmful emissions, energy consumption management in car production, etc. First, a pretest was conducted to identify Volvo's CSR activities with the highest and lowest perceived fit. Next, in the main study, we used the information on brand-cause fit found during the pretest to test the proposed hypotheses. The data were collected in three different countries--USA, Australia, and Spain--to increase the generalizability of our findings, and to investigate the role of political, economic, and cultural environment on the impact of CSR on the change in overall brand equity.\nDiscussion: Consumers and society have placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of corporations and brands to engage in social responsible practices (Thorne et al., 2017). In response, firms are investing significant resources in developing a strategic approach to CSR that allows the integration of social responsibility into the brand's core value proposition (Guzman and Becker-Olsen, 2010), to generate a win-win-win situation for society, businesses and customers (Gupta and Pirsch, 2006; Laughlin and Ashan, 1994). Yet firms continue to lack a clear understanding of the implications of a CSR strategy on the change in brand value from the consumers' perspective. Our research offers insights into these implications, revealing that an emphasis on CSR activities leads to an immediate positive change in brand equity. We also demonstrate that this effect holds regardless of the level of brand-cause fit. Moreover, the effect is greater for countries where CSR activities are perceived by consumers to be voluntary than in countries where CSR activities are perceived by consumers to be controlled by the government. In general, this research makes several contributions to the marketing literature.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In response to consumer and society demands for firms to be socially responsible, brands have been taking a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) by integrating socially responsible activities into their brands' core value propositions to strengthen brand equity. Thus, from a brand building perspective, this paper aims to investigate the immediate effect that brand CSR communications have on the change in brand awareness, perceived quality and loyalty, to provide a deeper understanding of how each dimension affects the overall change in brand equity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: With evidence from an experiment conducted in three different countries (Australia, United States and Spain), based on an actual brand CSR program, this paper explores the different immediate effects of change in brand awareness, perceived brand quality and brand loyalty, after the exposure to a CSR message, on the overall immediate change in value that consumers give to a brand. Furthermore, it examines the role of brand-cause fit and the influence that differences in cultural, economic and political environments have on this effect.\nFindings: The change in brand loyalty due to CSR communication is the key dimension driving the immediate positive change in overall brand equity. In addition, change in brand awareness has an inverted U-shape relationship with change in overall brand equity, whereas the change in perceived brand quality does not have an influence. Finally, the results indicate that this immediate effect holds regardless of the level of brand-cause fit, but is greater in countries where firms are expected to participate and CSR reporting is not mandatory, making such practices be seen as voluntary.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study offer research implications for academics, and practical considerations for brand managers, interested in how to rapidly generate changes in consumer perception by leveraging CSR activities for brand building in global settings. Specifically, it indicates that when the aim is to quickly build brand equity, the goal of communicating CSR activities must be to increase the level of attachment that consumers have to the brand since loyalty is the main driver of the immediate change in overall brand equity.\nOriginality/value: Although many scholars have demonstrated the impact of CSR on various consumer behavior outcomes (e.g., brand attitude, purchase intention, loyalty), from a brand build perspective the implications of the immediate effect of a brand communication of CSR practices on consumer-based brand equity remain less clear. This study addresses this gap to gain a deeper understanding of how to rapidly generate changes in consumer perception to build strong brands while leveraging CSR practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A meta-analytic review of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values	[ "Meta-analysis", "Hedonic", "Utilitarian", "Shopping", "Value" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hedonic and utilitarian shopping values propose that consumers are guided by two different shopping conditions. The hedonic shopping value suggests that consumers shop to seek value according to pleasure, recreational consumption and high-arousal stimuli (Babin et al., 1994). Conversely, the utilitarian shopping value views consumers as more efficient and rational, and they shop with a focus on task completion (Batra and Ahtola, 1991).\nHypotheses: We predict a positive association between hedonic and utilitarian values, as they should be complementary. Batra and Ahtola (1991, p. 161) stated that two kinds of consumer evaluations exist \"in which a consumption object is cognitively placed on both a utilitarian (e.g. useful, beneficial, etc.) and on a hedonic (e.g. pleasant, agreeable, etc) dimension\" and argued that hedonic and utilitarian values \"need not be (and usually are not) mutually exclusive; for example, toothpaste may both prevent cavities and provide pleasure from its taste\". Thus, both dimensions may exist at the same time as a complement. Babin et al. (1994) suggested that a consumer may discover the service or product that motivated the shopping journey at an exceptionally low price at the first store visited (utilitarian) and that this pleasure-shopping journey (hedonic) creates both types of values. Therefore:\nStudy 1: Database development\nResults: We estimated the main relationships of hedonic and utilitarian that can be viewed in Table I.\nStudy 2: Procedures\nResults: Hypotheses testing\nGeneral discussion: Theoretical applications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Hedonic and utilitarian shopping values have been researched since the mid-1980s in the fields of marketing, retail and specially on consumer behaviour. A number of studies have found evidence of their effects on satisfaction, buying intention and loyalty, but others have found no such effects or negative results. The purpose of this study is to apply a meta-analytic review on the shopping values.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper presents a meta-analysis of the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian value on shopping response, using 190 studies. The authors also limited their search to the past 19 years (1995-2014).\nFindings: The findings are as follows: hedonic shopping value is positively associated with utilitarian, r = 0.56; hedonic and utilitarian exhibit positive main effects on satisfaction, buying intention, loyalty, perceived benefits and search for information; in general, these associations are stronger (vs weaker) for utilitarian value; the effect size for the association between utilitarian and buying intention is stronger in the experimental condition and the indirect effect of hedonic on value, loyalty and word-of-mouth by the mediating effect of value.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors proposed and found support for the parallel mediating effect. They also observed that not only hedonic and utilitarian shopping values had indirect effects on loyalty and word-of-mouth through perceived value and satisfaction but also both shopping values had different effects depending on the respective mediator. The indirect effects of hedonic values occur because the emotional and psychological circumstances of experience increase the perceived value, influencing consumers' responses.\nPractical implications: Retailers can create specific stores for consumers to attend to their shopping values. For example, the Adidas brand centre in Beijing/China provides the consumer with a unique and interactive retail experience. This kind of concept store and its experience (e.g. tunnel entry and team room) are congruent with shoppers' hedonic value. Conversely, Nike Factory Store in the USA provides the consumer with a simple and fast retail experience.\nOriginality/value: The authors provide sufficient evidence that the two dimensions, hedonic and utilitarian value, are positively associated. This result is congruent with Batra and Ahtola (1991), Babin et al. (1994) and Spangenberg et al. (1997). The results support Chiu et al.'s (2005) argument that utilitarian and hedonic are positively associated based on Fishbein and Ajzen's affect-cognition link and suggested that the instrumental and functional values are related to spontaneous responses that are more subjective and personal.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implications of TQM in firm's innovation capability	[ "Total quality management", "Knowledge management", "Innovation", "Market orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation is nowadays an important issue in order to acquire competitive advantages and growth (Silva et al., 2014). In consequence, companies should implement processes and strategies that facilitate the germination of new ideas and lead to the generation of innovations (Tontini and Picolo, 2014; Visnjic et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Innovation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection and sample\n4. Analysis and results: Structural equations modelling (SEM) methodology was employed to test the hypotheses. Conventional maximum likelihood estimation techniques were used to test the model (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1996). The fit of the model is satisfactory (kh2=2,154.44, df=722; GFI=0.87; RMSEA=0.054; CFI=0.90; NNFI=0.90; IFI=0.90), thereby suggesting that the nomological network of relationships fits the data (Figure 1).\n5. Discussion of results, limitations and future research issues: It is generally accepted that innovation has a positive effect on companies' performances and allows them to survive in the current changing markets.\n6. Conclusions: Based on the relationship between TQM and innovation, this study has provided evidence that there is a curvilinear effect between TQM and organisational innovation, and MO and KM perspectives play a mediating role between TQM and innovation. Specifically, what could be done with respect to TQM and KM to drive innovation in an organization would be to implement tools and techniques that use both TQM and KM, such as brainstorming, taxonomy, COP, social networking services or advanced search tools and so on. In addition, this research reveals that, as far as MO and innovation are concerned, companies need to establish frequent communication channels with customers so that they can identify and respond quickly to their needs. Overall, this research has contributed to confirming a positive relationship between TQM and innovation, which remained unclear in the literature, and to suggesting that the effect of TQM on innovation is notably greater in companies with high TQM levels than in companies with lower quality levels.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Over the last few decades, some researchers have analysed the role of total quality management (TQM) as a precursor of innovation. However, the relationship between TQM and organisational innovation remains unclear and contradictory. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework intended to clarify the complex effect that the implementation of a TQM system has on organisational innovation, where market orientation (MO) and knowledge management (KM) play a mediator role.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data in this study come from a survey of 706 Spanish CEOs. The results were analysed employing structural equation modelling to determine how TQM, MO and KM influence innovation.\nFindings: The results of the empirical study show that there is a curvilinear effect between TQM and organisational innovation. Both MO and KM perspectives play a mediator role between TQM and innovation.\nPractical implications: Managers should be aware that management based on TQM help organisations not only to get higher quality but also to be market oriented and better manage their knowledge; what will help them to develop innovations.\nOriginality/value: This research sheds light on the question of the relationship between TQM and organisational innovation that has received mixed conclusions in the literature. There is evidence in this research that the relationship between TQM and innovation responds to a curvilinear relationship, where high levels of TQM favour a more than proportionate effect on the development of innovation. It also clarifies the mechanisms by which this effect is produced, with MO and KM as mediator variables.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Young professionals' conspicuous consumption of clothing	[ "Clothing", "Conspicuousness", "Expensive", "Fashionable", "Young professionals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic factors such as increased disposable income have led to a steady growth in the sales of high-end luxury goods (Truong, 2010). In real terms, people's incomes are nearly three times higher than 1950, yet regardless of their salary bracket, 60 per cent say they feel similarly deprived as they cannot afford to buy everything they really need (Mintel, 2012). This could be partly due to people now regarding many high-end goods as being essential. Status in today's society appears to be an important factor within social existence and personal comparison with others affects an individual's well-being (O'Cass and McEwen, 2004). This can result in \"keeping up with the Joneses\", an attempt to inflate the ego by portraying wealth and status with the acquisition and display of goods to impress others, typically known as conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1934). Conspicuous consumption is becoming more available to the masses resulting in people being increasingly judged through their material lifestyles (Varman and Vikas, 2005).\n2. Literature review: 2.1. Conspicuous consumption\n3. Methodology: The literature provided key insights into the concept of conspicuous consumption and its transformation from being solely luxurious goods purely for the high class to the inclusion of more affordable products for the masses. The review has allowed an understanding of the characteristics of public self-consciousness, materialistic individuals and how levels of self-esteem affect their relationship with conspicuous consumption. Previous research on these influences has treated them as generic influences, devoid of context (see, e.g. Xu (2008) for self-consciousness and Podoshen et al. (2011) for materialism). In attempting to examine the relationship between conspicuous consumption and these variables in the context of expensive and fashionable clothing, as well as how conspicuous consumption varies across both personal characteristics and consumption patterns, the research takes a quantitative approach.\n4. Results: 4.1. Public self-consciousness and conspicuous consumption\n5. Conclusions: As intended, the results provided a clearer insight into conspicuous consumption in the context of clothing and its relationship with public self-consciousness, materialism and self-esteem as they relate to the expensive and fashionable dimensions. In addition, the nature of the relationship between conspicuous consumption and the important variables of demographics and shopping behaviour was also uncovered. Taken together, the results will be of particular interest and value to retail marketers when designing strategies to promote their products.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between conspicuous consumption and public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem, demographics and shopping behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Focusing on clothing, public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem are examined in relation to two characteristics of clothing: expensive and fashionable. Using a sample of 261 UK young professionals, the paper compares the five factors across three levels of clothing conspicuous consumption (low, medium and high).\nFindings: Findings indicate that while the five factors were associated to different levels of conspicuous consumption, the relationship was not always evident. Expensive clothing was more related to conspicuousness than fashionable clothing and differences between low- and medium/high-conspicuousness individuals appear to be larger than the difference between medium and high-conspicuousness groups.\nPractical implications: Price appears to be a more powerful influence on conspicuous consumption than the fashionable element and therefore a strategy focused on expensive prices is essential in attracting conspicuous consumers.\nOriginality/value: The study provides an insight into conspicuous consumption in the context of clothing and its relationship with public self-consciousness, materialism and self-esteem as they relate to the expensive and fashionable dimensions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational culture and intellectual capital: a new model	[ "Organizational culture", "Intellectual capital", "Modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This study examines the connection between the concepts of organizational culture and intellectual capital to enable the proposal of a model to measure intellectual capital. This model highlights culture as an essential component of intellectual capital.First, the concept of culture is defined. Then we examine individually the principal models that are used to measure intellectual capital, focusing on their structure and the location of culture. Next, the importance of this capital for organizations is emphasized. Finally, the proposed model is elicited and the established relationships between all the components of intellectual capital are explained, using culture as the central nucleus.\n2. Concept of organizational culture: Numerous definitions can be found in the specialised management literature for the term \"organizational culture\". However, there has not yet been any definition agreed by consensus and commonly accepted by all authors. Therefore, this section tries to gather together the most significant contributions to its conceptualisation and structure, with the objective of designing a reference mark that describes in a more precise way what is understood as culture within a company.The origins of the term are found in social anthropology, where it is defined by Tylor (1871) as \"that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society\".In sociology, the term \"organizational culture\" is used to explain the differences among managerial results in a qualitative way (Pettigrew, 1979). In the 1980s, the term became related to the debate over tangible and intangible aspects, considering organizational culture as the motor of the organization and defining it as \"the values shared by the members of the organization\" (Peters and Waterman, 1982). From then on, all authors have agreed that the identification of intangible aspects is a point of cohesion in culture (Leal, 1991). In any case, as company culture (including corporate culture) accounts for the installation and development of new strategies, its analysis is essential (Bueno and Morcillo, 2003). In fact, for many companies, organizational culture can end up being more valuable than its own tangible assets (Kaplan and Norton, 2004). These authors also focus on the anthropological roots of the term, defining it as \"symbols, myths and rituals that form an integral part of the conscious or subconscious mind of the group\".In spite of the many existing contributions, there continues to be a gap in the methodology regarding the relationship that it presents with the managerial administration. From this point of view, some authors have developed instruments to measure it.A significant study was carried out by Deshpande et al. (1993), in which culture was defined as \"a pattern of shared values and beliefs that help individuals to understand organizational functioning, and thus provide them with the norms for behaviour in the organization\" (Deshpande and Webster, 1989). They follow on to identify four cultural archetypes in the employment of processes (from organic to mechanics) and focus of the organization (internal or external). These are:* culture type clan (organic and internal focus);* adhocractic (organic and external focus);* hierarchical (mechanic and internal focus); and* market (mechanic and external focus).Another relevant source is that of O'Reilly (1996). The employees classify 54 declarations of value according to the importance that they perceive culture has in their company. Once the results are analyzed, it describes organizational culture with a high level of reliability.Equally important is the acknowledged study by Hofstede (1980). It proposes four cultural dimensions:1. power distance;2. masculinity;3. individualism; and4. uncertainty avoidance.These have been studied at the level of nationality of the organization, appropriately considering the numerous dimensions that countries' cultural differences produce.To conclude, although a definition by consensus does not exist, in respect to the construction of culture and a method to measure it, the authors can, however, confirm the existence of some common elements such as beliefs, values, norms and attitudes, with regard to what most of the papers identify. At the same time, one must define culture at a generic level, from the perspective of the particular organizational culture of the company, which is what the proposed model will reveal.\n3. Delimitation and location of culture in the main models of measurement of intellectual capital: This section attempts to analyse the principal models that have been used to measure intellectual capital, highlighting in each of them the role of culture and its specific location.As is shown in this section, it can be claimed that in the majority of models put forward up until now, culture is defined as an intrinsic component of the organization. Therefore it presents itself as independent from the denomination used by each model within the internal structure of the organization.However, all of them lack an internal logic that would synchronize the elements with the variables employed when characterizing intellectual capital as a body. There is a tendency to consider each one of the mentioned elements or capitals (according to the denomination of each model) as isolated factors or independents without a nexus existing to connect them or to highlight the connection between each other and the influence that the organization exercises in its development.Due to this point, the investigation centres on the search for the stated internal logic and for the consideration of culture as a key element in this. This gives a new focus to the role that is played by the configuration of intellectual capital in each enterprise.3.1 Kaplan and Norton model: the Balanced Scorecard\n4. The importance of culture as a central nucleus in the measurement of intellectual capital: Among the meticulous and varied literature that surrounds the concept of \"organizational culture\", there are numerous authors who give culture more importance than just being part of the basic foundations of a company's success. The theory mentioned by Flamholtz (2002) complies with this, as culture is regarded as \"an area of essential organizational development, a strategic keystone for a successful company\". From his point of view, Copeland (2001) indicates that the definition of culture of the company is a key step to the development of intellectual capital.Likewise, it has been seen how Edvinsson, in his model of Skandia Navigator, positioned culture and the values in the centre of the original components of intellectual capital (Figure 2). In this way, it can be seen that to define culture as a simple element configured within structural capital is extremely limiting, considering the importance granted to it by managerial literature.However, as the authors have indicated previously, the proposal model does not only make organizational cultural independent as a new capital, but also includes it as the link between the five capitals defined by the Intellectus Model. This consideration is due to contributions such as that of Smircich (1983), according to whom culture is more than something that the organization possesses. Therefore, it is seen as the nucleus or essence of the company.In the same way, Tierney (1988) claims that organizational culture is a net of interconnected relationships, which can feasibly be measured with a certain grade of reliability. Indeed, some investigators argue that there has been a tendency to focus on organizational culture as a series of independent elements, ignoring its multidimensional nature. It is a concept composed of an intimate interrelation of numerous variables (Schein, 1990). This, united from different definitions and components, whose diverse authors present detailed descriptions and empirical measurements for the concept of culture, brings us to a complex centre of interrelations between human capital, organization, technology, business and social factors.4.1 Proposed model\n5. Conclusions: Taking its base from the capitals of the Intellectus Model, after considering it the most advanced in this matter, an innovative proposal to measure intellectual capital has been presented that considers culture as the main capital. This provides an internal logic, as it determines, through culture, the relationships between the remaining capitals that shape the model.Cultural capital has been defined at two levels:1. national culture; and2. organizational culture.National culture is based on the differences detected in the administration of the knowledge and intellectual capital among companies located in different countries, according to the particular characteristics that define its culture in relation to the dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980).With regard to organizational culture, the relationship to justify the connection with each one of the five integral capitals of the intellectual capital has been analysed, after revising the literature that places culture in the centre of this net of connections.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between the concepts of organizational culture and intellectual capital to enable the proposal of a model to measure intellectual capital. This model highlights culture as an essential component of intellectual capital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study begins with an analysis of the connection between the concepts of organizational culture and intellectual capital. It then examines the principal models that are used to measure intellectual capital, focusing on their structure and the location of culture. The importance of this capital for organizations is emphasized.\nFindings: - The paper proposes a new model to measure intellectual capital. This model considers culture as the central nucleus around which the remaining integrated capitals configure. The importance of cultural capital is seen within organizations at two levels: the national culture; and the culture of the organization. These are essential features, and give internal logic to the proposed model.\nOriginality/value: - The models of measurement of intellectual capital lack an internal logic which would synchronize the elements with the variables employed when characterizing intellectual capital as a body. There is a tendency to consider each of the elements or capitals mentioned as independent, without a nexus existing to connect them. This paper centres on the search for the stated internal logic and for the consideration of culture as a key element in this. This gives a new focus to the role that is played by the configuration of intellectual capital in each enterprise.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Omnichannel fashion retailing: examining the customer decision-making journey	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Decision making", "Fashion retailing", "Risk", "Omnichannel", "Customer journey" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of omnichannel retailing is geared towards serving customers when and how they want. This has been to the extent that the development and challenges of omnichannel retailing are now so fast and defected that they are no longer related to the more siloed perspective of multichannel theory (Picot-Coupey et al., 2016). Today's consumers are now routinely engaging with multiple channels and devices, making a single shopping journey more complex (Mintel, 2014, 2015; Retail Systems Research, 2013). Despite this, the consequences of cross-channel experiences are still worryingly unknown (Kollmann et al., 2012; Piercy, 2012). Omnichannel, therefore, provides a specific mandate to explore how the proliferation of retail channels fit into a decision-making journey for fashion.The motivation to research omnichannel is compelling since customers exhibit greater loyalty and spend at least 20% more than their multichannel counterparts (Bodhani, 2012; IDC Retail Insights, 2010). From a theoretical standpoint, omnichannel is an emerging literature theme within retail marketing (Lazaris and Vrechopoulos, 2014a; Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014; Savastano et al., 2016). However, the concept has yet to mature despite its importance within the retail industry (Bernon et al., 2016; Verhoef et al., 2015). While extant research has implied a focus on distribution and logistics (Christopher, 2016; Hubner et al., 2016; Murfield et al., 2017) there is scope to examine omnichannel retailing through the lens of the customer. Research grounded in decision-making theory is therefore well-placed to achieve a customer-centric view of omnichannel decision-making. For fashion, Barnes (2013: 201) asserts that, \"future fashion marketing research in the area of omni-channel is likely to be highly valued by practitioners\". Fashion consumer behaviour has changed as a result of the development technology and there is a need for research to examine how customers are interacting and engaging with a variety of different channels as part of the overall decision-making journey. The timely need for such research is driven by fashion retailers who are now looking to achieve best practice in their omnichannel offering.The aim of the paper is to examine the stages of decision-making in the omnichannel shopping journey for young, high involvement female fashion consumers. The objectives are: to review the theoretical foundation of consumer decision-making in the omnichannel context; to examine how the shopping behaviour of high-involvement female fashion consumers has changed and the impact this has on decision-making, specifically in terms of perceived risk and brand; to analyse themes from the data collection to develop a theoretical framework that refines, evaluates and reflects decision-making journey. The study will bring together the research by means of literature gaps identified in a customer decision-making journey framework that correlates high involvement with stage, channel and device usage across the journey along with consumers' affective experiences. With a systemic investigation, this decision-making and customer-centric perspective expands the current scope of omnichannel retailing and fashion consumer research.\n2. Literature review: Retailing business models have evolved during the past decade to reflect the increase in the breadth of channels and the changes in shopper behaviour (Brynjolfsson et al., 2013; Verhoef et al., 2015). The study therefore draws and synthesises three literature streams: omnichannel retailing, fashion consumer behaviour and decision-making. 2.1 Omnichannel\n3. Methodology: Based on the current literature there exists an opportunity to provide an in-depth qualitative study. Being positioned as a study of depth the research employed a four-phase multi-method approach since only a limited application of multi-method approaches have been used in empirical omnichannel studies for example, Alexander and Alvarado (2014) and Wolny and Charoensuksai (2014). Table 4 provides summary of each stage of the research. Phase one focus groups (Patton, 2002) enabled participants to share their experiences and expectations on omnichannel fashion retailing. During phase two semi-structured interviews (Malhotra, 2010) featuring photo-elicitation (PE) took place where participants mapped their omnichannel customer decision-making journey. Phase three enabled participants to evidence the fashion shopping encounters through an online blog diary (Nicholson et al., 2002; Schroder and Zaharia, 2008). At the phase four follow-up interviews of participants (Belk et al., 2013; Lowrey et al., 2005; Xia, 2010) were probed further based on their blog diaries responses and prior phases of data collection.The purposive sample for the study was confined to Manchester, UK, consisting of female fashion consumers aged 18 to 24 (McCormick and Livett, 2012). The study sought participants who were high-involvement fashion consumers and these were recruited from the University of Manchester. In order to identify the extent of an individual's involvement for this study fashion involvement was understood as a continuum from apathetic (uninvolved); moderate (less motivated); enthusiast (highly involved) (Cardoso et al., 2010). Participants were identified as high involvement consumers on the basis of those who view branding as important to them, who regularly purchase clothing at least once per month, who perceived that apparel has a self-expressive function and who emphasised the importance and sensitivity to choosing the right product (Cardoso et al., 2010; Hourigan and Bougoure, 2012; Jordaan et al., 2006; Kim, 2005; Koller and Salzberger, 2006; Summers, 1970). Participants were carried through the multi-method approach in order to probe deeper and deeper at each stage. By producing such connected phases of data collection, the data collection process became a journey. In essence, each phase of the data collection was a point of reflection and a refinement process to build a picture of the omnichannel decision-making journey and so, the phases of the study become greater than the sum of their parts.The qualitative data were then analysed using a grounded theory approach in order to identify patterns across the breadth of the dataset. The research recognises both purist approaches to grounded theory analysis--where the findings are purely derived from the primary data and approaches which acknowledge the role and importance of existing theories and the literature that have a valid role to play in theory formation McCracken (1998). This research recognises that there is a continuum or scale as to the strength of the grounded theory approach and it is the decision of the researcher as to which level of concentration of grounded theory they choose to apply. This is supported by Corbin and Strauss (2015, p. 383) \"since no researcher enters into the research process with a completely blank mind\". Whilst grounded theory analysis is an organic process, the significance of structure is still recognised through the coding process. The research data were carefully analysed using the approach of Glaser and Strauss (1967) three-step process of: open coding--data disaggregation and reorganisation into labelled units; axial coding-recognition, establish, evidence and explain the relationship between primary categories and sub-categories; selective coding integration of categories into principle categories which underpin the theory proposed. As the comparison takes place, new codes will be created and existing codes reanalysed, as any new codes come to light. The data were analysed using Microsoft Excel to maintain closeness to the data, in line with La Pelle (2004) and Ryan (2004). Themes, patterns and categories emerged and were refined further at each phase of the data collection.\n4. Findings and analysis: In accordance with the research aim and objectives careful analysis of the multi-method study allowed decision journey themes and patterns to emerge which culminated in a new framework for omnichannel decision-making. An integrated findings and analysis discussion provide an overview of the final framework and consider key themes in detail. 4.1 A framework for the omnichannel customer decision-making journey for fashion\n5. Conclusion implications and limitations: In terms of the empirical contribution high-involvement fashion consumers now engage in complex decision-making journeys and are accustomed to engaging with an array of channels. Despite such developments, the intrinsic nature of customer decision theory has remained relatively unchallenged. The consumer behaviour-based journey model presented extends the original consumer decision process to reflect fashion shoppers' interactions with the omnichannel retail environment. Furthermore, the paper brings together a unique constellation research themes of which have been discussed in the literature review to present an updated picture of decision-making journey for fashion. The paper asserts that the consumer decision process should not be discarded but revised and updated to reflect the influence of technology and fashion consumer preferences for shopping across channels. Based upon an in-depth multi-method and qualitative approach, the research also finds that the contemporary decision-making for fashion features a complex and rich journey of not only stages both existing and new, but also channels, devices and affective experiences which combine to create a brand experience which customers can access whenever and however they choose. Therefore, the findings have contributed not only an understanding of omnichannel decision-making but brought the focus to fashion which is an emerging area of omnichannel research. The study finds that the omnichannel decision-making journey for high-involvement fashion consumers one predicated on risk and the findings and analysis highlight the strategies female fashion consumers use in order to mitigate decision-making risk which is useful to both researchers and practitioners alike.The research suggests implications for practitioners by asserting that any fashion retailer is only as good as the weakest point in its customer journey. By using the customer decision journey retail marketers can uncover the cognitive paths of their customer audience and reveal clues why business performance may be not as desired. Practitioners can use the decision-making journey tool to evaluate a brand experience by looking at customers emotional experiences over the course of the journey in order to close the gap between actual and desired brand experience. Looking to key stages of the journey, the research identifies that the post-purchase phase of the decision journey is more extensive than first expected. The findings reveal a need for retailers to prioritise the delivery and returns stages as they represent major stress points for consumers. The framework also identifies which channels and devices are used during each stage journey. This understanding will enable retail staff and marketing teams to gauge what stage a consumer is at in their decision-making journey and optimise channels and devices to better fit customer needs at each decision stage. In doing so, marketers will be able tailor automated campaign strategies in a more sophisticated manner based upon the customer journey stages. The decision-making journey is a method by which to move a fashion retail brand further towards an omnichannel strategy and while it can be applied to large scale retailers this is also a useful and cost-effective tool for fashion retail SMEs to examine their current retail marketing strategy.The limitations of this research include the small sample size, specific high-involvement fashion consumer segment type and geographical location. It is suggested that future research on this area investigates whether larger samples of high-involvement female fashion consumers demonstrate a similar decision-making journey. There is also scope for further investigation into how concepts such as customer-brand engagement manifest across each channel.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the customer decision-making journey of high involvement female fashion consumers in the context of omnichannel fashion retailing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is qualitative in nature, using a multi-method approach consisting of focus groups, semi-structured interviews, online diaries and follow-up interviews, with grounded theory applied to analyse the data.\nFindings: The results of the study include a framework to outline the stages of the omnichannel customer decision-making journey for young high involvement female fashion consumers. The findings also reveal that an omnichannel decision-making journey is the one that predicated on risk and that consumers employ specific strategies to avoid such risks.\nResearch limitations/implications: Due to the nature of this research, the sample size is limited and may not be generalised. Data collection was confined to Manchester, UK.\nPractical implications: Customer journey mapping enables practitioners to view the entire shopping experience through the eyes of the customer and enables retailers' fault-find issues within the customer and brand experience.\nOriginality/value: The paper advances knowledge about fashion and consumer behaviour. The customer decision journey framework maps the emotional experiences, devices and channels encountered by high-involvement fashion consumers across each stage of the omnichannel journey.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multidisciplinary consensus for the development of ADHD services: the way forward	[ "Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder", "Health care quality", "Consensus statement", "Integration", "Recommendation", "Health care", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is estimated to affect 3-9 per cent of school-aged children and young people in the UK and 2 per cent of adults worldwide (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2008). ADHD is a neurobehavioural (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2007) and developmental disorder (Zwi et al., 2000), primarily characterised by the co-existence of attention problems and hyperactivity and symptoms starting before seven years of age (Biederman, 1998). ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children (Nair et al., 2006). It is a chronic disorder (Van Cleave and Leslie, 2008). Follow-up studies of children with ADHD find that 15 per cent still have the full diagnosis at 25 years, and a further 50 per cent are in partial remission, with some symptoms persisting associated with clinical and psychosocial impairments (Faraone et al., 2006). Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanisms to compensate for some or all of their impairments (Gentile, 2004). The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) was set up as a special health authority for England and Wales in 1999 (Raftery, 2001) to \"provide guidance to the National Health Service (NHS) on the use of selected new and established technologies\". NICE was first announced in the previous government's white paper The New NHS in 1997 (Department of Health, 1997). NICE synthesises evidence on the effectiveness and cost of treatments and reaches a judgment as to whether, on balance, the intervention can be recommended as a cost-effective use of NHS resources (Sculpher et al., 2001). Guidance from NICE applies to the NHS in the same way as guidance from other branches of the Department of Health. While local health economies are required by statute to take account of - but not necessarily follow - guidance, general practitioners (GPs) have greater clinical discretion. NICE clinical guidelines have shown how the condition should be treated in the UK (Newdick, 2001), but this guidance is not followed universally or consistently. This multidisciplinary consensus addresses some key challenges in the implementation of NICE guidelines and seeks to ascertain levels of agreement amongst ADHD professionals. There is a need to engage ADHD service development, mental health commissioning and NHS managers to address primary care involvement and define the optimal service model. The objective of this project is to define practical and achievable recommendations through consensus that can be implemented to improve ADHD management in the UK.\nMethod: A multidisciplinary group of professionals met in August 2010 with the objective of defining themes for future ADHD service development and the implementation of NICE clinical guidelines. Through a day of discussion, the steering group agreed the following ten themes that required further consensus:1. role of a care coordinator;2. commissioning ADHD Services in the NHS;3. engaging primary care in the management of ADHD;4. nursing resources required to manage ADHD;5. optimising the model patient journey in ADHD;6. delivering patient-centred care in ADHD;7. managing children with learning disability (LD);8. addressing co-morbidities of ADHD;9. improving diagnosis of ADHD; and10. engagement with other agencies to support care.In total, the steering group agreed 40 consensus statements across the ten themes. The statements are listed in the Appendix.In order to establish wider consensus, a Delphi methodology was used. The statements were collated into a questionnaire and circulated to other professionals working in the field of ADHD. The level of individual agreement with each statement is measured using a four-point Likert scale, which allows respondents to record levels of agreement with each statement and suggest changes. Each statement was scored \"strongly disagree\", \"disagree\", \"agree\", or \"strongly agree\".Questionnaires were completed by a mixed group of clinical professionals involving 122 respondents (Table I), at ADHD health professional meetings held in various locations throughout the UK.The Delphi method is a systematic and proven consensus method that relies on a steering group of experts. These experts are involved in one or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the questionnaire feedback and the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, the initial steering group is encouraged to revise earlier answers in light of the questionnaire replies from the wider multidisciplinary audience. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the \"correct\" answer (consensus). The process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of rounds, achievement of consensus or stability of results) and the mean or median scores of the final rounds determine the results.The following key characteristics of the Delphi method help the participants to focus on the issues at hand and separate Delphi from other methodologies:* structuring of information flow;* regular feedback;* anonymity of the participants; and* role of the facilitator.Responses were collated and analysed statistically. Levels of agreement with the original statements were unusually high from the outset of the project, so no further amendment was made to the original statements.\nResults: All 40 statements achieved agreement in excess of 74.9 per cent, indicating a strong consensus across the respondent group. There was minimal variation between sub-groups, indicating strong alignment across professions. Of the 40 statements initially produced by the consensus group, 36 scored over 90 per cent agreement through the questionnaires. The lowest score was 75 per cent, suggesting that wider consensus was strong for all of the statements.Between consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists, 34 of the statements scored over 90 per cent agreement. Six statements scored lower, between 75.9 per cent and 88.5 per cent agreement.In the paediatricians group, 37 of the statements scored over 90 per cent agreement. Three statements scored lower, between 71.4 per cent and 86.1 per cent agreement.Among the nurses, 33 of the statements scored over 90 per cent agreement. Seven statements scored lower, between 75 per cent and 88.9 per cent agreement.In the trainee group, 32 of the statements scored over 90 per cent agreement. Eight statements scored lower, between 66.7 per cent and 88.3 per cent agreement.\nDiscussion: The consensus steering group consisted of a multi-disciplinary group of ADHD professionals in the UK. Over half the contributors during the questionnaire stage were doctors and the level of consensus was over two-thirds for all statements. The variation in scoring across each of the subgroups of respondents may prove useful in understanding the different perspectives offered by each sub-group.Managing ADHD requires a multi-disciplinary approach. It is therefore important that appropriate mechanisms are put in place for timely referral between the agencies involved. The group found a high level of agreement concerning the importance of a care coordinator. The care coordinator could be anyone within the multi-disciplinary team (MDT), providing a central point of contact for the patient, family and carer. A key focus of this role would be the provision of appropriate access to necessary support services. The components listed in the ADHD coordinator statement are all important in defining the ideal skill requirements. Some respondents noted that the care coordinator should be involved in patient assessment and triage, but not diagnosis of ADHD. A holistic approach to patient care is important and the care coordinator must be appropriately informed to identify needs and refer appropriately. Changes in structure across the NHS are rapid and far-reaching. The care coordinator may therefore require a detailed understanding of the local health economy to ensure that ADHD is understood and resourced appropriately.A second key finding of the consensus group was the need to raise awareness in primary care regarding ADHD, especially with GPs. Commissioning may be developed collaboratively across multiple GP consortia. Failure to treat ADHD effectively has significant social and economic impact. ADHD is associated with impaired academic and social performance and causes emotional distress for both patient and family. The impacts of ADHD persist over many years and continue into adulthood in up to 50 per cent of patients.The consensus process found the roles of health visitors, schools and teachers to be important in ensuring that children are referred quickly and appropriately for assessment. The provision of appropriate support should include education, training, communication tools, clinical guidelines and care pathways. Shared care pathways between primary and secondary care may be useful in ensuring appropriate patient assessment and prescribing of medication. Some nurses felt that the role of the care coordinator was already covered within their activity; however, the consensus group considered that the care coordinator should be a separate role alongside the nursing role, but may be covered by the same person if appropriate. The sub-groups that were least supportive were the consultant paediatricians and psychologists.The steering group considered that the integration of services across the MDT required the close involvement of ADHD nurses in both the primary and secondary care settings. There was consensus that the role of nurses in appropriate supplementary prescribing was a potential opportunity. Supplementary prescribing is increasingly widespread by nurses and pharmacists in the UK. Treatment initiation should always be agreed across the wider clinical team. There was strong support for the adoption of care pathways in the effective management of ADHD.Some NHS Trusts have plans in place for patients with ADHD to transition their care from secondary to primary care, but others lack them because of the absence of an adult ADHD service. Prevalence of ADHD in adults is 2.5 per cent; hence, young people currently treated for ADHD by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and paediatricians are likely to require treatment beyond the age of 16 (Verity and Coates, 2007). It is important that the needs of adolescent and adult patients are addressed by local service design. There is a broad need to address ADHD in order to improve the quality of life of patients, parents and carers. Appropriate treatment of ADHD is needed to avoid potentially severe difficulties (Harpin, 2005). Clinicians working with ADHD children should be familiar with the evidence base. Information and parenting support can best be provided within the primary care setting. The literature on ADHD in girls is scant and inconsistent (Sharp et al., 1999). Compared with boys, girls with ADHD are under-recognised (Groenewald et al., 2009). More girls may remain undiagnosed than boys, as they tend to be less disruptive. Identification of girls with ADHD is hampered by parental and teacher bias. Girls are more likely to be inattentive without being hyperactive or impulsive, compared with boys (Staller and Faraone, 2006). They may still be failing at school, however, and experiencing other problems due to their ADHD. ADHD in girls may be associated with more severe cognitive and language problems and greater social problems (Staller and Faraone, 2006). In order to recognise ADHD in girls, education for teachers, Special Education Need Coordinators (SENCOs) and school nurses is important.Recent changes in the pattern of health and social care delivery across the UK (Department of Health, 2010) provide the context for an increased alignment between social services and the NHS in the treatment of ADHD. Local authorities have Health and Well Being Boards (HWBB) responsible for the integration of public health and social care services. ADHD has a significant negative impact on quality of life when not diagnosed and managed effectively (Harpin, 2005). Integrated care pathways (ICPs) have been shown to improve outcomes and produce efficiency savings in the delivery of care.ADHD professionals are strongly supportive of the statements defined in this consensus project. The need for integration of ADHD services across care settings and with the involvement of commissioning teams is clear in order for ADHD services to develop in the UK. Currently many children are undiagnosed and develop into adulthood with significant deficit. The impact of this is profound and should be addressed with urgency. There is strong consensus that the involvement of wider agencies is critical in understanding the impacts of ADHD and developing effective services. Whilst small variations in response between sub groups were observed, none of the statements scored less than 75 per cent agreement either by sub-group or in total suggesting that both clinical alignment between roles and knowledge of the current service provision is strong amongst ADHD professionals.The strong levels of agreement between different professionals indicate the strength of feeling amongst ADHD professionals working in the NHS.\nRecommendations: The following recommendations are intended to provide a stimulus to the further development of ADHD services across the UK:* A care coordinator should be nominated for each patient in order to ensure that access to services and local agencies is optimised.* ADHD professionals should seek to engage with other services, including education, primary care, specialist care, support services, commissioners, social care and public health.* Wider education is needed to ensure that policy makers at national and local level are fully aware of the impacts of untreated ADHD and the course of treatment over many years.* Adult services across the UK should be developed as a matter of urgency to avoid patients dropping out of treatment during the transitional period after paediatric care stops at age 16 (or 18 if in full time education).* Primary care clinicians need to be educated to recognise the diagnostic signs of ADHD.* Specialist ADHD nurses should be recognised a key resource in effective patient management.* Integrated care pathways (ICPs) for ADHD should be implemented to ensure appropriate assessment diagnosis and management of each case. ICPs will also offer the chance of improved outcome and resource optimisation.* Patient-centred care is paramount to successful management of ADHD and requires that the patient, family and carer be educated regarding the condition and their choices.* Particular attention should be paid to the diagnosis and management of ADHD in children with learning difficulties.* Early diagnosis and effective management contribute significantly to outcome in patients with ADHD. Care must be taken to recognise the differing presentations of girls and boys and to avoid under-diagnosis of ADHD in girls.* Local authorities should be increasingly involved in the development of effective services for the management of ADHD.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children. There is a need to engage service development, commissioning and service managers to address primary care involvement and define service models that will enable effective management of people with ADHD. The purpose of this project is to define recommendations through consensus that can be implemented to improve ADHD management in the UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A set of 40 consensus statements has been developed by a multidisciplinary group of ADHD professionals in the UK. These statements cover ten topics, ranging from commissioning of ADHD services to optimisation of the care pathway. The aim of the project was to define a set of standards that could be tested across a wider clinical population.\nFindings: - A total of 122 respondents scored each statement on a questionnaire and levels of agreement were summated and analysed. Of 40 statements, only four scored less than 90 per cent agreement, with all statements achieving greater than 74.9 per cent agreement.\nOriginality/value: - Recommendations support the wider integration of ADHD services and the closer involvement of commissioners within the new GP consortia to ensure that the potentially negative societal and personal impacts of ADHD are managed effectively and with appropriate use of resources.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A response to global nonprofits' succession failure	[ "Planning", "HR", "Succession", "Chief executives", "Boards", "Global nonprofits" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Many nonprofit organizations are on the horns of a major dilemma, as their executive directors near retirement age. On the one hand, they now have excellent opportunities to transform their organizations into new, more competitive, and more vibrant ones. On the other hand, they have encountered some major institutional challenges, because they often have terrible track records with executive succession issues. In essence, the boards of these organizations and their chief executive officers have failed to plan for an executive successor. The outcome of their inactions poses some very serious threats to their organizational vulnerability and sustainability in an era of tight government and other available funding, as well as in highly competitive social and human service environments for delivering goods and services to constituents. It is imperative that boards of directors - as the governing bodies of nonprofits with fiduciary responsibilities - start to work cooperatively with their chief executives and HR departments to urgently address this strategic organizational issue with the utmost celerity.\nA call for action: Given these findings, there is a great need for a tripartite call for action among boards, CEOs, and HR professionals.\nAt the board level: Boards of directors need to be more vigilant in their role as nonprofit governing bodies. Adding executive succession planning as a board meeting agenda item, discussing this issue at least semi-annually, and attending and participating in workshops delivered by external consultants at annual strategic board retreats will create excellent opportunities to address this issue.\nAt the chief executive level: Chief executives must play more active and meaningful roles in the succession planning process, despite the fact that executive succession is basically a board activity. Playing such a role may add significant value to the selection process, as chief executives can make possible recommendations for successors. They also have intimate knowledge of the chief executives' \"real\" job description.\nAt the HR level: HR must have significant involvement in the succession process with board members and chief executives. This involvement should include engaging external consultants and succession experts to conduct succession workshops as part of chief executive and board retreats as well as a continued awareness and updating of executive succession issues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to raise the level of awareness of the critical need to have a chief executive succession plan in nonprofit organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a review of survey literature to determine the degree to which nonprofits plan for chief executive succession.\nFindings: The findings reveal a serious lack of planning for successors in nonprofit organizations.\nOriginality/value: This paper underscores the need for a three-pronged approach by nonprofit boards of directors, chief executive officers, and HR departments to address planning for successors to prevent potential chaotic organizational situations and create sustainable nonprofits.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The importance of mentoring for individuals and organizations: Mentoring: a mutually beneficial relationship between mentor and mentee that serves to create strong organizational ties while offering networking opportunities	[ "Mentoring", "Training", "Trust", "Culture", "Networking", "Professional education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWhat is mentoring?: Mentoring is not a recent concept, in fact the word \"mentor\" comes from the ancient Greek tale of Odysseus who entrusted his son's education to his friend, Mentor. However, the value of mentoring is becoming increasingly recognized, not only in terms of individual job satisfaction and career progression but also because of the impact mentoring can have on the achievement of organizational goals.In essence, mentoring is a simple concept. An experienced employee takes on the task of \"showing the ropes\" to a new member of staff. The expression \"showing the ropes\" is derived from seafaring, where an experienced sailor provided guidance to new crew until they developed a sound understanding of how to work the complex system of raising and lowering sails in response to wind and weather conditions. This illustrates a situation where mentoring not only assisted in staff training, but also provided a key element in ensuring the success of the entire enterprise and the safety of the crew.\nThe benefits of mentoring: Mentoring has been shown to have personal benefits for both the mentor and the mentee. These may seem more obvious in terms of the mentee: the new member of staff gains a good introduction to organizational culture, is helped to identify their own place within the organization, and begins to identify a clear career pathway. For the mentor, the benefits may be equally powerful and may include: increased self-confidence, recognition of his or her importance to the organization, satisfaction in seeing the mentee solve problems and perhaps even a re-evaluation of the mentor's own career goals. In effect, mentorship provides key opportunities for \"networking\", that all-important web of informal contacts that can be crucial to career development. The organizational benefits include happier employees, a reduction in staff turnover, particularly soon after completion of initial training periods, and increased productivity.\nAn e-mentoring initiative at Rockwell Collins: The mentoring relationship can be formal or informal, however, it is now generally formalized to some degree in most organizations in recognition of its contribution to staff development and organizational stability. A modern approach to mentoring can be observed at the aviation electronics firm, Rockwell Collins. This organization values mentoring and recognizes the process as a major factor in effective knowledge transfer as well as an essential component in the firm's leadership development program. To facilitate a culture of mentoring, and to encourage everyone to engage in the mentoring process, Rockwell Collins has developed an e-mentoring program that encourages every employee to identify their own needs for being mentored, as well as their particular skills that can be used in mentoring others. The company has developed an e-mentoring tool and offers regular online seminars, termed \"webinars\", to train mentors and mentees in the use of this tool. While employees are encouraged to identify their own mentors, the mentoring process does feed back into employees' annual performance reviews. A recent survey in 2009 indicated that Rockwell Collins staff felt that mentoring not only helped them to give and receive knowledge and skills but that it was also valuable in assisting their understanding of different perspectives and to help build or expand professional networking.\nModels of mentoring: There are several different models of mentorship including supervisory mentorship where a line manager also acts as mentor; peer mentoring where peers offer support, encouragement, knowledge transfer and networking opportunities; team mentoring, where a small team share knowledge and skills, encourage and support each other and provide a basis for networking opportunities; hierarchical mentorship where more senior employees mentor their juniors; and external mentorship where mentoring is provided by an external individual or agency.There are benefits and detriments to each of these models. A recent study by Richard et al. (2009) explored the personal values of employees and how these were mediated by the supervisory mentoring relationship. The authors explained mentoring in terms of social exchange theory, which postulates that both individuals in a mentoring relationship stand to gain more than they lose. The gains may be in terms of new knowledge, increased confidence or new relationships. The losses may be related to the time that relationship building can take, or to loss of autonomy when knowledge is shared between employees. A high level of trust between participants in a mentoring relationship seemed to be related to the benefits gained from the mentorship.While Richard et al. (2009) focused on supervisory mentoring many experts feel that this is the least satisfying type of mentorship due to role conflicts between supervision and mentoring. A supervisor's first responsibility is to the organization that he or she represents. This can disrupt the mentoring process if the mentee's needs and goals are not congruent with those of the company. A mentor without supervisory responsibility may have more ability to focus on the individual needs of the mentee and to provide personalized guidance and career advice, even if this results in the mentee choosing another career pathway. In addition, a mentee may wish to discuss personal issues, or problems that might have an impact upon work with a mentor, but would not necessarily disclose these to a supervisor.\nAuckland University Library: change without mentoring?: It is unusual today to read about successful staff development and knowledge transfer without the concept of mentoring being introduced into the discussion. However, Adams (2009) in her case study about staff development at Auckland University Library, seems to have done just this.Auckland University realized that today's library needs to reflect the needs of the modern consumer and that facilitation of such an environment requires a sophisticated set of communication and other skills. Using the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONAL) Vision, a library staff development advisory group (LSDAG) established to help the library adapt to a high-speed information culture realized that a flexible, adaptive workforce was required to meet the library's changing needs. This meant that barriers between technical and academic staff roles needed to be broken down, allowing the most qualified person to undertake any given task.\nAdding mentoring to the mix: A matrix of skills needed by all library staff was identified by the LSDAG including: critical thinking, team working, adaptability, communication, time management and administrative skills. A commitment to personal and career development was also included in the matrix and this is perhaps where a discussion of mentoring may have been relevant. In a situation such as Auckland University Library where everyone experiences rapid change at the same time, a system of peer mentoring may be the most appropriate model to help employees identify clear goals and to provide mutual support and encouragement. Peer mentoring is often used in education to offer student-to-student support, but can be used in any setting where colleagues mentor and support each other. However, a study comparing traditional mentoring with other models such as peer mentoring found that while reciprocity and role modeling were important components of all types of mentoring, mentees felt that they received more help from traditional mentors than from peer mentors (Ensher et al., 2001). Therefore, another solution might be to use external mentors to support the Auckland University staff while they adjust to new ways of working and develop new career goals based on opportunities arising from these changes.\nConclusion: However mentorship is perceived and utilized, it remains an essential component of effective knowledge transfer, well-planned career development and professional networking. Varying models of mentoring may be particularly suited to different environments; the important elements seem to be a commitment to staff development and openness to change. When these exist, mentoring provides value for both the employee and the employer by increasing job satisfaction and organizational stability.\nComment: All three articles provided interesting insights into organizational change. However, as the articles by Francis (2009) and by Richard et al. (2009) were both about mentoring, the article by Adams (2009) seemed to be the odd one out. The article by Richard et al. (2009) was the most academic of the three as it reported on original research into supervisory mentoring from the perspective of social exchange theory. This was interesting but did not examine any of the drawbacks to this model of mentoring, particularly those inherent in conflicts between the role of the mentor and the role of the supervisor. The articles by Francis (2009) and by Adams both described changes in an organizational culture. In the former, this was about the introduction of an e-mentoring program and its effect on both employees and the organization; the latter described how an academic library implemented change to meet the needs of twenty-first century service-users.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This review is prepared by an independent writer who provides context and commentary.\nFindings: - Mentoring is not a recent concept, in fact the word \"mentor\" comes from the ancient Greek tale of Odysseus who entrusted his son's education to his friend, Mentor. However, the value of mentoring is becoming increasingly recognized, not only in terms of individual job satisfaction and career progression but also because of the impact mentoring can have on the achievement of organizational goals.\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bridging diversity management and CSR in online external communication	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Diversity management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In both scholarly and business worlds there is a growing recognition that in order for companies to secure not just competitive success but the legitimacy they require in order to operate, they must address the wants and expectations of a wider range of stakeholders than they traditionally did. Contemporary organizations are increasingly coming under close societal scrutiny. They are responding to this situation by implementing a number of strategies and practices that can address the changing business context and the pressing demands of internal and external constituencies. In particular, \"globalisation, changing demographic trends and discourses around the role of corporations in society and in societal governance have pushed organizations to put both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and diversity management (DM) onto the agenda\" (Hansen and Seierstad, 2017, p. 2).\nTheoretical framework: bridging DM and CSR: Setting the background: DM and CSR as two strategic areas of contemporary corporate practice\nMethodology: As mentioned above, this paper argues that the synergies that exist between DM and CSR practices can emerge and take discursive form in external communication. We argue in particular that these synergies can be revealed through a fine-grained analysis of the discursive strategies employed on corporate websites related to these issues. Burchell and Cook have already highlighted the potential contribution of CDA for the exploration of CSR:CDA raises some important questions for understanding the discourse of CSR. In particular it highlights two key issues; firstly, identifying the way in which a discourse selectively translates events around it, and secondly, examining why that particular interpretation and discourse has gained predominance.(Burchell and Cook, 2006, p. 123)\nFindings: multimodal discursive strategies for communicating the link between DM and CSR: In what follows, Microsoft's multimodal discursive strategies employed on the \"Global Diversity and Inclusion\" website are exemplified and explained. These findings concern the concentric recontextualization of social actors and social actions that characterizes the corporate discourse. Such recontextualization makes visible and enables the discursive interweaving of DM and CSR values and initiatives in order to represent them as Microsoft's joint corporate strategies. It should be noted that, in what follows, the particular usage of the terms of organizational identity and corporate identity is meant to accommodate our approach to the conceptualization of these two complementary terms. Our approach is based on Cornelissen, Haslam and Balmer's perspective as they draw attention to the blurring lines between corporate and organizational identity calling for an integrate understanding of these two terms: \"an organizational identity can relate to a corporate identity and inform the perceptions and interaction of its stakeholders and hence be a corporate identity\" (Cornelissen et al., 2015, p. S8). Christensen (2008) also points out that \"we can define corporate or organizational identity as the way an organization is commonly presented\" (p. 1016).\nDiscussion and conclusion: Results from the analysis show in detail how the intersections and synergies between DM and CSR are discursively realized in online external communication; in particular, they show how DM is integral to internal CSR in the analyzed company strategy, while also stretching its impact beyond the limits of the organizational boundaries, along with external CSR. Thus, the main relevance of such a research endeavor lies in showing how through communicatively bridging CSR and DM, organizations can strategically create an interface with pressing societal demands and, at the same time, ensure recognition and a sense of pride among their employees.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the need to reconsider online external communication that integrates diversity management (DM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) by examining the multimodal discursive strategies purposefully employed by organizations to reflect the symbiotic relationship between these two areas of management practice and to communicatively emphasize their corporate commitment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Building on the recently emerged stream of literature linking DM and CSR, and adopting a critical perspective on discourse analysis, this study delves into the multimodal discursive strategies that help bridge DM and CSR in online external communication. The analytical approach proposed is used for the qualitative analysis of 43 web pages selected from Microsoft company's \"Global Diversity and Inclusion\" website.\nFindings: Findings highlight the discursive efforts made by the organization to strategically integrate DM and CSR communication into one single framework. The analysis reveals how the coordinates of social practices (social actors and social actions) are purposefully and multimodally recontextualized in the corporate discourse when communicating this integration.\nOriginality/value: This study extends the focus of critical discourse analysis from exclusively language to the interplay of different semiotic modes, offering a fine-grained exploration of the multimodal meaning construction performed by organizations in the context of online external communication.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cooperation with suppliers, firm size and product innovation	[ "Age", "Suppliers", "Product innovation", "Firm size", "Radical/incremental", "Technological cooperation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In dynamic environments, firms need to renovate, expand and even modify their products. This innovation activity is a necessary condition to survive. Traditionally, firms have developed new products through application of existing knowledge (Grant, 1996). However, when firms do not have the capacity to develop a new product different from competitors, the access to external knowledge resources is critical for it. It allows including new ideas that complement and renew the knowledge of the firm (Chesbrough et al., 2006). More innovative firms with many internal capacities cannot carry out innovation activities themselves too (Teece, 1986).\n2. Theoretical framework: The creation and application of new technological know-how to the activities carried out by the firm allows it to generate a product or a process that is new, and provides new value for the clients, so allowing the company to obtain satisfactory returns. One can differentiate product innovations (the new technological know-how is used to design and develop new products or existing but improved products) and process innovations (the new technological know-how is used to create new production processes or improve existing ones). Product innovations are normally more appropriate when entering new markets, since they allow the company to respond quickly to the needs of the clients, increase the quality and variety of products and to gain market share at the expense of its competitors (Vaona and Pianta, 2008; Nieto and Santamaria, 2010). In contrast, process innovations lead to improvements in the efficiency of production process, cost reductions, owing, in the case of small companies, to investments made in machinery or new technology, and, in the case of large companies, to the search for greater flexibility (Cohen and Klepper, 1996; Vaona and Pianta, 2008; Cassiman et al., 2010). It could explain the greater propensity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for product innovation than process innovation. In this research we focus exclusively on product innovations.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample description\n4. Results: The R statistical system was used to test the models. Analytically the two models (logistic regressions) are as follows.\n5. Discussion: Based on the ESEE database, the results show that TCS enhances the likelihood of developing new products, and has a positive relationship with radical innovation. Therefore, this research suggests that TCS may be an efficient strategy to increase the outcome of the innovation process.\n6. Conclusion: This paper has explored the impact on the outcome of the innovation process of firms' decisions to engage in vertical TCS. We took into account a broad set of determinants but paid particular attention to the effects of different firm sizes on the contribution of TCS.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of technological cooperation with suppliers (TCS) and the firm size on propensity to develop product innovations and on propensity to radical innovations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses data from Business Strategies Survey (ESSE in Spanish). The final sample was composed by 1,952 companies representing the Spanish manufacturing industries. Some control variables were introduced: age, propensity to export and sector technological intensity level. Logistic regression analyses were adopted to analyze the data.\nFindings: The results indicate that those firms that cooperate technologically with suppliers have a greater propensity for product innovation and, specifying, for radical innovations; and the larger firm size, greater the propensity to product innovations. However, radical product innovations depend of some characteristics of firms and environment.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample just focusses on Spanish manufacturing companies. Small firms will benefit more from the TCS.\nPractical implications: Some characteristics of firms and environment can originate some rigidity and take a more conservative attitude. In this sense, large and small firms, as well as, the oldest firms have a more conservative attitude when they carry out radical product innovations.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to product innovation literature and also to the debate regarding firm size and innovation. It distinguishes between radical and incremental innovations. Indeed, some characteristics of firms (such as size or age) and environment should be considered when the firms carry out the innovation process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Differences in implementing corporate social responsibility through SA8000 and ISO 26000 standards: Research from European manufacturing	[ "Corporate strategy", "Sustainable production", "Standards" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent decades, interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increased in all types of industry, from private to public organisations and from small sized to large worldwide companies (Danilovic et al., 2015). Over time, the voluntary and philanthropic approach of CSR has been modified to a more complex framework in which social responsibility can also support profitability. Drucker (1984) introduced the principle that business should convert its social responsibilities into business opportunities. CSR has been discussed in many ways resulting in a wide array of definitions and interpretations (Silberhorn and Warren, 2007). According to Dahlsrud (2008), who analysed 37 definitions of CSR, none of the definitions actually defined the social responsibility of business, but instead described CSR as a phenomenon. The distinctions among the definitions are mainly useful in introducing different kinds of approaches and implementation patterns (Dahlsrud, 2008) which, in many cases, are based on a reporting process and a voluntary disclosure (Gamerschlag et al., 2011).\nBackground to SA8000 and ISO 26000: The SA8000 standard was first issued in 1997 by SAI then revised in 2001, 2008 and 2014. According to SAI documentation (Social Accountability International (SAI), 2014a, p. 2):The foundational elements are based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights, conventions of the ILO, international human rights norms and national labour laws.\nLiterature review: CSR through SA8000 and ISO 26000: The CSR literature offers a vast number of papers in general, while a minority of them are dedicated to CSR through SA8000 and ISO 26000 standards.\nResearch methodology: Eight research questions emerged from the literature review. Each research question generated a hypothesis; the null hypotheses, which were transformed into questions for a questionnaire administered to CSR managers, are:\nResults and analysis of the kh2 and Cramer's V-tests: Table II presents the kh2 results for every hypothesis. Using the \"p-value\" or Pearson kh2 (Schumacker and Tomek, 2013) just if there is a relationship between the two variables can be validated. kh2-tests the difference between the observed frequencies (fo) and expected frequencies (fe). A cut-off for the p-value has to be set. In this case it is a=0.05 (5 per cent). When the p-value is less than the cut-off the null hypothesis has to be rejected (no association between the two variables) and the alternative taken as true (there is an association between the two variables). However, the p-values do not indicate to what degree SA8000 or ISO 26000 affect the second variable. Therefore, in order to evaluate specific patterns, the p-values of Table II have to be interpreted using the cross-tabulation results shown in Table AI.\nDiscussion: Using a standard and the effectiveness in managing CSR strategically\nConclusions: This research has brought to light, through hypothesis testing, some differences between CSR implementation by means of the standards SA8000 and ISO 26000. The differences between the two standards should be interesting for practitioners who are thinking of implementing a CSR system and trying to weigh the pros and cons of each standard.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: There are different ways of implementing a corporate social responsibility (CSR) system. One interesting way of implementing a CSR system is based on standards such as SA8000 and ISO 26000. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences brought by the two standards in European manufacturing in CSR implementation using a survey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Eight hypotheses were derived from an analysis of the implementation pattern for a CSR management system revealed from a review of the literature as well as from the actual two investigated standards. A questionnaire based on these hypotheses was administered to the CSR managers of 326 European manufacturing companies. A kh2 and Cramer's V-tests were used to validate the results. The CSR managers also added comments to their responses. The qualitative results gathered from the respondents' comments helped the authors' to better understand the quantitative data.\nFindings: The results showed differences in how the standards affect strategies, economic and financial issues, stakeholders involved, environmental management, customer and market issues, supply chain management and CSR key performance indicators. The results indicated that it is not clear how production and technical departments can be involved in and committed to such standards or, in general, to a CSR system.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is based on a sample of European manufacturing managers and limited to the implementation of two specific CSR standards.\nPractical implications: The differences between the standards should be interesting to practitioners who are thinking of implementing a CSR system in a manufacturing context and weighing the pros and cons of each standard.\nOriginality/value: This research analyses, for the first time, the differences in CSR implementation brought by SA8000 and ISO 26000 in manufacturing and, in particular, in production and technical departments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service quality in alcohol treatment: A research note	[ "Alcoholism", "Health services", "Customer services quality", "SERVQUAL", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Healthcare quality has become one of the UK government's overriding objectives. Consequently, a National Health Service (NHS) quality agenda has been established - a series of commitments and performance targets that emphasise capacity indicators (e.g. waiting times) as benchmarks for meeting quality expectations (Leatherman and Sutherland, 2003). Private healthcare providers have also become subject to similar quality standards when the Healthcare Commission (2006) was established in 2004 to drive service quality improvements.Zeithaml et al. (1990, p. 19) defined service quality as the \"discrepancy between customers' expectations or desires and their perceptions\". Service quality can also be conceptualised as an evaluation or an attitude about a service (Bateson, 1995). Evaluating healthcare services can be difficult and the literature suggests that in professional services, customers have \"fuzzy\" expectations about what they expect from service providers, and are often unsure whether services have met their expectations (Ojasalo, 2001). The patient has an active role as participant thereby helping to create the service, inferring that unless the patient does what health provider suggests then the service cannot be effectively delivered (Bitner et al., 1997). These attributes have particular relevance for problem drinkers assessing the quality of treatment they received.Excess alcohol consumption is a significant cost to the NHS - PS1.7 billion per annum (Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, 2004). In England, 26 per cent of the population (8.2 million people) have an alcohol-use disorder, with 1.1 million people classed as alcohol-dependent or problem drinkers (Department of Health, 2005). Alcohol treatment services are fragmented in the UK and it is suggested that problem drinking services are patchy with no established or consistently applied indicators (Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, 2004). Problem drinking treatment is provided by voluntary, statutory (NHS) and private sectors. The NHS specialist alcohol treatment units are organised to deal with complex problem drinking and alcohol misuse. Brief interventions, which offer advice, can take place in GP surgeries and hospital emergency departments and serious alcohol-induced liver disorders are treated in hospital departments. All NHS services are currently funded by primary care trusts (PCTs) whose purpose is to implement national health priorities. Primary care organisations are accountable to the Department of Health but they also have responsibility to plan and fund local health services (Klein, 2006). Voluntary alcohol treatment agencies, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), provide services for problem drinkers and receive funds from various sources such as local authorities, charities and PCTs (Touquet and Paton, 2006). Primary care trusts can also fund private sector treatment. Given this situation, we aimed to evaluate service quality in a private alcohol treatment clinic treating both private and NHS patients in one UK city. The study used the Parasuraman et al. (1985) service model as its theoretical framework.The service quality model is constructed around expectations and perceptions theory from research undertaken by Parasurman et al. (1985, 1988). Their findings suggested that customers evaluate an organisation's service quality by comparing service performance with expectations of what they think the performance should be and that four factors and five service quality dimensions shape customer expectations. Our research established that four factors: word-of-mouth; personal needs; past experience; and external communication influenced service expectations among service providers. The same research revealed that the five service dimensions were the most appropriate attributes for assessing quality \"in a broad variety of services\" (Zeithaml et al., 1990, p. 20). From the research, a measurement instrument SERVQUAL was designed in the form of a questionnaire to evaluate service quality and service quality gaps as perceived by customers and managers (Parasuraman et al., 1990). Service quality gaps occur when customer and manager/practitioner perceptions do not meet their expectations. The SERVQUAL instrument is a quantitative, diagnostic instrument - that if used properly - enables managers to identify systematic service quality shortfalls (Ghobadian et al., 1994), or what Zeithaml et al. (1990) termed the \"gap analysis\". The SERVQUAL questionnaire includes 22 paired questions divided between \"expectation\" and \"perception\". Perceptions are measured on a seven-point scale (Zeithaml et al., 1990). The expectations section records customer service expectations within a specific category and the perceptions section measures the customer evaluation similarly (Parasuraman et al., 1990). The 22 paired questions reflect five service dimensions:1. Tangibles. Physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication.2. Reliability. Ability to perform services dependably and accurately.3. Responsiveness. Willingness to help customers and provide prompt services.4. Assurance. Employee knowledge and courtesy and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.5. Empathy. Caring and individualised attention staff provide to customers.Constructs used in medical service evaluations appear to fit the five service dimensions, and SERVQUAL has been widely used in numerous US healthcare studies. The NHS quality agenda focused research attention on service quality, resulting in several UK healthcare studies using SERVQUAL (Youssef, 1996; Conway and Willcocks, 1997; Curry and Sinclair, 2002; Silvestro, 2005) although no studies to date used SERVQUAL to measure alcohol treatment service quality. The SERVQUAL instrument is reliable (Brown et al., 1993) and the instrument is said to have concurrent validity (Asubonteng et al., 1996; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Brensinger and Lambert, 1990). The SERVQUAL approach is both a methodology as well as a method; it underpins theoretical and philosophical concepts around service quality. Its extensive use, spanning 25 years, also suggests it is reliable and valid. It was designed to be adapted to measure service quality in any organisation.\nMethod: Participants\nResults: Service quality evaluation - patients\nDiscussion: Our study suggests that the treatment clinic delivered quality services through qualified and well-trained staff. Management systems and processes monitored and measured service delivery, and service physical attributes were a good standard. The emphasis on process and efficiency prevailing in the treatment clinic reflected its private sector organisational model. The clinic staff's primary objective is to make a profit and it has to configure and deliver its services efficiently. The question is whether more empathetic, \"human touch\" approaches could be factored into the treatment centre process in a profitable way.Results indicate that patients felt the treatment clinic exceeded their expectations on four of five dimensions (with only \"reliability\" falling below expectations). Staff felt services fell below expectations on four of five dimensions (with only \"tangibles\" exceeding expectations). This implies that treatment clinic staff were not meeting their own or patient expectations on the most important patient service dimension of \"reliability\".Our alcohol treatment clinic study objectives were to evaluate whether service quality can be delivered to high standards in a private sector alcohol treatment clinic. Our findings suggest that service quality is achieved by emphasising service delivery management using established quality and performance measurement systems. The two service quality gaps suggested by our research are service inconsistency and a lack of empathetic relationships with patients. We suggest that the treatment clinic was delivering services in a way envisaged by the NHS quality agenda (Leatherman and Sutherland, 2003) with emphasis on performance improvement and capacity indicators (e.g. waiting times, measurement of patient outcome). However, our findings suggest that performance improvement was being achieved at the expense of an empathetic relationship with patients and a limited focus on meeting their individual needs. Therefore, we conclude that problem drinking treatment in the clinic was constructed predominantly around processes and programmes and not always around patient needs. Staff placed little emphasis on patients as individuals; the treatment programme was designed on a group patient basis, aftercare treatment was delivered as group and individuals were encouraged to join external alcohol support groups. As a result, patients sought fellowship among other patients to provide one to one emotional support.Our findings also suggested that SERVQUAL was an appropriate methodological framework in this service setting. The service quality dimensions relate well to medical treatment care dimensions (Gabbott and Hogg, 1999) and the attributes by which patients framed their treatment service expectations, in particular, their past service experience and their personal needs, emerged as highly relevant concepts in the study. Our study has limitations, however. It relied on self-report methods among a relatively small number of individuals that raise questions about reliability, validity and generalisability. Specifically, although the SERVQUAL questionnaire - administered via structured interview and completed by the first author - efficiently recorded patients' perceptions, in our view it did not provide a means by which changes in performance or learning could be derived. In terms of how treatment clinic clients perceived service quality, the most informed findings came from another qualitative study, which was much less structured (see Resnick and Griffiths, 2010). The SERVQUAL questions also proved challenging for less literate clients with poor concentration, who quickly disengaged from more structured processes. The study included a small number of patients who had undergone the clinic's treatment programme and were continuing to return for weekly aftercare groups. However, the sample did not include patients completing the programme who subsequently did not attend aftercare groups either because they had resumed drinking or did not find the group helpful. Therefore, it would have been valuable to gain insights into disengaged patients' service delivery perceptions. This small-scale study was limited to one private sector alcohol treatment clinic in one city, which may not be a typical alcohol treatment service provision. Despite the increasing numbers of UK people suffering from problem drinking and the treatment and care of alcohol-related illnesses' growing cost to the NHS, service quality delivery in alcohol treatment services is not widely researched. As a consequence, future alcohol treatment service delivery research needs to be undertaken in both the NHS and private sector.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate service quality in a UK privately funded alcohol treatment clinic.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were gathered via interviews with two groups of participants using the SERVQUAL questionnaire. The first group comprised 32 patients and the second 15 clinic staff. The SERVQUAL instrument measures service quality expectations and perceptions across five service dimensions and identifies gaps between service expectations and perceptions of what was delivered.\nFindings: - Patients' service quality expectations were exceeded on four of five dimensions. However, staff members felt services fell below expectations on four of five dimensions with the \"reliability\" service dimension emerging as the common service element falling below expectations for both participant groups. It was concluded that achieving consistent service delivery and increasing empathy between staff and patients improves overall service quality perceptions.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper relies on self-report methods from a relatively small number of individuals.\nOriginality/value: - There have been limited research studies measuring alcohol treatment service quality in the private sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Gender differences in work experiences and satisfactions of Norwegian oil rig workers	[ "Sex and gender issues", "Norway", "Oil industry", "Job satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Women have increasingly moved into the paid workforce over the past 20 years. They have moved into jobs that were traditionally held by women (e.g. education, healthcare, and retail) as well as into non-traditional jobs (e.g. technology and engineering). There is some evidence however, that women's recent movement into non-traditional jobs has slowed (Hughes, 1995; Kerka, 1999). There are a few different ways to define non-traditional jobs. One, the least stringent, defines a non-traditional job as one in which women have a lower representation than women in the workforce as a whole. A second uses a predetermined percentage (e.g. 10-15 percent or less) to determine whether a job is non-traditional. The historic sex segregation of occupations determines whether a job is non-traditional or not. For example, men working as nurses would also work in non-traditional jobs.\nMethod: Procedure\nResults and discussion: Analysis plan\nLimitations of the research: Some limitations of this study should b e noted to put the results in broader context. First, all data were collected using self-reports raising the possibility of common method variance and response set tendencies. Second, some of the measures had levels of internal consistency reliability below the generally accepted level of 0.70. Third, the sample of females was small. Fourth, the large difference in sample sizes of females and males urge caution in the interpretation of the results. It should be noted, however, that the absence of gender differences observed here has also been reported in other occupations in which larger samples of females were included.\nFuture research directions: It is important that future research on women's experiences in NTOs include larger numbers of women. By definition, few women are working in these occupations. One solution is to over-sample women. We used this approach in a study of Canadian MBA graduates from a single university. This was not possible in the present study as the unions were unable or unwilling to specify the sex of their members in advance, only providing an overall random sample list of their members. An examination of gender differences was only a part of a larger study of employees working on oil rigs in the North Sea which necessitated a large but random sample of employees.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The present study sets out to compare women (N=24) and men (N=613) working on Norwegian oil rigs in the North Sea on work experiences, work satisfaction, perception of safety attitudes and safety climate, and psychological health.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected using questionnaires from 1,022 women and men, a 59 percent response rate. Only those respondents working in traditionally male-dominated jobs were considered.\nFindings: - Few differences were observed, suggesting that those women that continue in this occupation compare favorably with their male colleagues.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings should be considered tentative, given the small number of women taking part in the study.\nPractical implications: - For the past three decades, women were encouraged and supported to enter non-traditional occupations (NTOs). NTOs were occupations that have traditionally been male-dominated. Only modest inroads have been made by females during this time. Women in NTOs typically report work experiences reflecting unique challenges, most resulting from the gender culture of their workplace and findings show that women that survive in these jobs report similar experiences to those of their male colleagues.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds to one's knowledge of women's experiences in non-traditional jobs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Serving sizes and energy values on the nutrition labels of regular and diet/light processed and ultra-processed dairy products sold in Brazil	[ "Food labelling", "Milk products", "Nutritional facts", "Processed food" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The consumption of processed foods and foods from animal sources (especially processed animal products) (Monteiro et al., 2012) has increased in recent years compared to the consumption of unprocessed foods such as grains and legumes (Popkin, 2011; WHO, 2013; Malik et al., 2013). Processed foods are made from natural ingredients while adding salt, sugar and/or fat and using techniques like smoking for preservation. On the other hand, ultra-processed foods are ready-to-eat and are mainly composed of industrial ingredients. These products have low nutritional value and fibre content but have a large amount of energy, refined carbohydrates, sodium, trans fatty acids and/or saturated fatty acids (Monteiro et al., 2012).\nMethods: This was a census-type cross-sectional study. Information was collected from the nutrition labels of all processed and ultra-processed dairy products available for sale in an intentionally chosen supermarket that belongs to one of the ten largest supermarket chains in Brazil (Associacao Brasileira de Supermercados, 2013). Informed consent was obtained from the establishment's managers.\nResults: The data included information from 451 processed and ultra-processed dairy product labels. Of these products, most (82 per cent) were classified in the \"dairy drinks, fermented milk and yogurt\" group (41 per cent) and the \"ricotta, semi-hard, white, soft and cream cheeses\" group (41 per cent). In regard to serving size, it was observed that all of the groups had median reported serving sizes that were in compliance with Brazilian law (Table II). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that only two of the five groups had median serving sizes that were equal to the value recommended by law, while the others had median reported serving sizes that were within the range of 30 per cent above or below the reference value, as permitted by law. Even so, high variability was found in the reported serving sizes in all groups, with the maximum values being at least two times larger than the minimum values. Of particular note was the \"ricotta, semi-hard, white, soft and creams cheeses\" group, which had the greatest range - the maximum value was six times larger than the minimum value. It is emphasized that there has been no standardization of serving sizes, as all of the groups had foods with serving sizes above and below the values recommended by Brazilian law.\nDiscussion: This was the first census-type study to analyse the serving size information of dairy products at a supermarket of one of the ten largest supermarket chains in Brazil. The data analysed showed that processed and ultra-processed dairy products present inadequacies in regard to reporting information on serving sizes on labels - both by reporting smaller serving sizes and serving sizes that do not comply with Brazilian law and because of the high variability of serving sizes for similar products. In addition, \"diet/light\" foods tend to report serving sizes that are even smaller and more inadequate, even though they have similar energy density to regular foods and higher energy density per appropriate portion as prescribed by Brazilian law for \"diet/light\" foods.\nConclusions: This study has shown that processed and ultra-processed dairy products present inadequacies in terms of reporting serving size information on their labels - both by reporting servings that are smaller and not in compliance with Brazilian law, and because of the high variability of serving sizes for similar products. \"Diet\" and \"light\" foods may report smaller serving sizes in order to report lower energy values. The association between serving size variability and energy values in similar foods supports the hypothesis that smaller serving sizes are reported in order to demonstrate non-existent differences in energy values, given that energy density was similar between the \"diet/light\" foods and the regular foods. This situation can hinder the understanding of serving sizes and compromise comparisons of similar foods.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the serving sizes and energy values reported on the nutrition information of all processed and ultra-processed dairy products in their regular and diet/light versions available for sale in a large supermarket in Brazil.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A check was done for associations between the compliance of reported serving sizes, energy values per serving and energy density for regular foods and foods advertised at \"diet/light\" (with reduced fat and calories).\nFindings: The data included information from 451 dairy product labels. Most of the products had serving sizes smaller than the reference set by Brazilian law. A high variability of serving sizes was found for similar products. \"Diet/light\" foods tend to report serving sizes that are even smaller and more inadequate. Moreover, the energy density of these products was similar to that of the regular foods. Smaller serving sizes may be being presented on \"diet/light\" foods in order to report lower energy values and on similar foods to show non-existent differences in energy values. These results point to the importance of standardizing serving size information on food labels so that consumers have access to clear and accurate information about food products.\nOriginality/value: This was the first census-type study to analyse the serving size information of dairy products at a supermarket of one of the ten largest supermarket chains in Brazil. This work extends the scope of current food labelling and contributes to the discussion about how nutrition labelling has been presented to Brazilian consumers and its possible consequences for food choices and the guarantee of consumer rights.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
To claim or to retire: The social security claiming decision of employed and unemployed workers	[ "Retirement", "Older workers", "Poverty", "Unemployment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Although social security (SS) is traditionally thought of as a source of support for retired and disabled workers, it may serve as an additional source of support for older workers who lose their jobs Coile and Levine (2007).\n2. Institutional background and review of the existing literature: 2.1 The SS claiming decision\n3. Data: This study exploits both the original Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data and the cleaned and processed version prepared by RAND (version O). The HRS is a longitudinal panel study that surveys a representative sample of approximately 20,000 people in America over the age of 50 every two years, from 1992 until 2012. The HRS is the best available data set for exploring retirement issues in the USA as it is a mine of information concerning health, wealth, demographics, respondents' expectations, and projects concerning retirement. Although the HRS is a biennial survey, meaning that most variables are only measured at the time of the interview, i.e. every two years, it makes it possible to observe transitions from one state (e.g. work or unemployment) to another (e.g. retirement), and, most importantly, it offers enough information (particularly the exact date of SS take-up) to allow a survival analysis of claiming delays, which might be the best tool to analyze the SS claiming behavior.\n4. Descriptive analysis and results: This section is organized as follows: first, I provide a fresh look at the main correlates of claiming and retiring to characterize the typical individual in the sample under study. Second, I estimate a Cox duration model to show that those correlations paint an accurate description of the claiming behavior: the unemployed and those at the bottom of the income distribution are more likely to claim SS benefits in the first months after becoming eligible. Last, I consider simultaneously the possibility of claiming and retiring in a bivariate probit framework, which allows me to derive predictions on the probability of claiming conditional on not retiring.\n5. Discussion of mechanisms: 5.1 The earnings test hypothesis\n6. Discussion and conclusive remarks: Claiming SS involves making a decision: claiming early at the cost of permanently reduced benefits and enjoying this new source of income as early as age 62 vs delaying and collecting higher benefits later and for a shorter period. The jobless are more likely to claim early benefits than their working counterparts. This is a typical finding of the outstandingly rich retirement literature. But they are believed to claim early because they retire early. The fact that there is a group of unemployed individuals who claim at age 62 while not exiting the labor force at the same time, meaning that they continue their job search, might give another meaning to the early claiming pattern.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use the Health and Retirement Study to examine the social security (SS) claiming decision of older Americans, with a focus on the behavior of the unemployed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a duration model first, and a bivariate probit framework then, the author investigates whether older unemployed individuals lacking liquidity use SS benefits as a safety net in order to finance consumption during an unemployment episode, even if they do not retire at the same time. In this way, SS might be thought as a form of unemployment insurance (UI) which would allow them to maintain their standard of living during their job search.\nFindings: The author finds evidence of a claiming pattern specific to the unemployed: they claim sooner than full-time workers, even when they do not retire at the same time. They also seem to discontinue this behavior when their access to UI is extended, which gives support to the author's hypothesis that the unemployed workers, who lack liquidity, claim their SS benefits even if they do not wish to retire, as a source of alternative unemployment benefits.\nOriginality/value: By focusing on the SS claiming behavior of the unemployed rather than on their retirement patterns, this paper sheds light on the social insurance role of SS retirement benefits for unemployed workers who are not willing to retire, but need a new source of income while they continue looking for a job.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A meta-analysis of positive humor in the workplace	[ "Humour", "Job satisfaction", "Morale", "Employees behaviour", "Supervisor effectiveness", "Subordinate performance", "Workgroup cohesion", "Burnout" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here (Harry S. Truman).\nHumor: a theoretical overview: Researchers have spent centuries trying to isolate a definition for \"humor\" and to describe what it means to say someone has a \"sense of humor\". However, these efforts have been fraught with complications given the complexity of the humor construct (Allport, 1961; Foot, 1991; Freud, 1928; Kuiper and Martin, 1998; Martin, 2001; Martin et al., 2003; Maslow, 1954; Robert and Yan, 2007; Vaillant, 1977; Warnars-Kleverlaan et al., 1996). A review of the extant theoretical literature on humor suggests there are at least four contributing factors that make defining and operationalizing humor difficult:1. the terms \"humor\" and \"sense of humor\" are often used interchangeably;2. humor is multi-dimensional and the dimensions are seemingly diverse;3. humor is quantified in various ways; and4. there are numerous humor styles, some positive and some negative.Semantics\nThe role of positive humor in the workplace: In this study, we cumulate the extant literature on positive forms of humor in the workplace to explore the extent to which positive (coping or affiliative) humor is associated with desirable employee, team, and leader outcomes as well as the extent to which such humor may buffer the effects of workplace stress on employee burnout. Figure 1 summarizes the relationships we examine in this study.Employee positive humor\nMethod: Database\nResults: Table II reports the results of meta-analyses examining relationships between employee humor and its correlates. Employee humor was found to relate negatively to burnout (r= -0.23, k=13) and stress (r= -0.25, k=17), and positively to health (r=0.21, k=9) and coping effectiveness (r=0.29, k=4). Employee humor was also found to positively correlate with work performance (r=0.36, k=3) and workgroup cohesion (r=0.20, k=3), and negatively correlate with work withdrawal (r= -0.16, k=9).As can be seen in Table III, results also suggest supervisor humor positively relates to subordinate job satisfaction (r=0.39, k=5) and workgroup cohesion (r=0.42, k=3), and negatively relates to subordinate work withdrawal (r= -0.31, k=3). Supervisor humor also positively relates to subordinate perceptions of supervisor performance (r=0.45, k=10), as well as subordinate work performance (r=0.21, k=5) and subordinate satisfaction with supervisor (r=0.16, k=6).Table IV reports the results of the meta-analytic regression examining the potential sense of humor buffers the relationship between workplace stress and burnout. Results suggest an employee's use of positive forms of humor (coping and affiliative humor) may cushion the negative effects of perceived workplace stress on burnout. Positive humor added between one and nine percent over workplace stress to our understanding of burnout. These results are consistent with prior research which suggests sense of humor mitigates stressful situations by promoting relaxation and reducing tension, and by permitting a positive reinterpretation of stressful events so they may be met in a more optimistic manner (Bentley, 1991; Bischoff, 1990; Lippitt, 1982; Martin et al., 2003; Ziv, 1981).\nDiscussion: Martin et al. (2003) proposed that individuals may intend to use humor either positively or negatively, and may direct it either inwardly or interpersonally. We meta-analytically cumulated research on positive workplace humor, and found that regardless of whether it is self- or interpersonally-directed, it is associated with effective workplace functioning.Implications for practice and society\nConclusion: \"Humor is a universal trait. It has existed in every culture, ancient and modern. It transcends language, geography, and time\" (MacHovec, 1988, p. 6). Despite the enduring nature of humor, it has seldom been taken seriously by organizational scientists (Brief, 1998). Although anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests humor has significant positive implications for organizational and employee effectiveness, prior research investigating humor in the workplace has tended to be narrow in scope and published in diverse literatures, making it difficult to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the findings and implications. We attempt to fill this void by meta-analytically cumulating across these studies and reporting results relevant to multiple workplace dimensions. Our results confirm and clarify the valuable role positive humor plays in the workplace.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The benefits of humor for general well-being have long been touted. Past empirical research has suggested that some of these benefits also exist in the work domain. However, there is little shared understanding as to the role of humor in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to address two main gaps in the humor literature. First, the authors summarize several challenges researchers face in defining and operationalizing humor, and offer an integrative conceptualization which may be used to consolidate and interpret seemingly disparate research streams. Second, meta-analysis is used to explore the possibility that positive humor is associated with: employee health (e.g. burnout, health) and work-related outcomes (e.g. performance, job satisfaction, withdrawal); with perceived supervisor/leader effectiveness (e.g. perceived leader performance, follower approval); and may mitigate the deleterious effects of workplace stress on employee burnout.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors examine the results of prior research using meta-analysis (k=49, n=8,532) in order to explore humor's potential role in organizational and employee effectiveness.\nFindings: - Results suggest employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup cohesion, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work withdrawal. Supervisor use of humor is associated with enhanced subordinate work performance, satisfaction, perception of supervisor performance, satisfaction with supervisor, and workgroup cohesion, as well as reduced work withdrawal.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Profitable avenues for future research include: clarifying the humor construct and determining how current humor scales tap this construct; exploring the role of negative forms of humor, as they likely have different workplace effects; the role of humor by coworkers; a number of potential moderators of the humor relationships, including type of humor, job level and industry type; and personality correlates of humor use and appreciation.\nPractical implications: - The authors recommend caution be exercised when attempting to cultivate humor in the workplace, as this may raise legal concerns (e.g. derogatory or sexist humor), but efforts aimed at encouraging self-directed/coping humor may have the potential to innocuously buffer negative effects of workplace stress.\nOriginality/value: - Although psychologists have long recognized the value of humor for general well-being, organizational scholars have devoted comparatively little research to exploring benefits of workplace humor. Results underscore benefits of humor for work outcomes, encourage future research, and offer managerial insights on the value of creating a workplace context supportive of positive forms of humor.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning opportunities in rheumatology practice: a qualitative study	[ "Health care", "Continuing professional development", "Workplace learning", "Collaborative relationships" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The emergence of evidence-based medicine and its wider application as evidence-based practice has popularized the notion that research findings should be more widely utilized in health care and other settings. Evidence-based medicine has been defined as the explicit and conscientious attempt to find the best available research evidence to assist health-care practitioners to make the best decisions for their patients (Sackett et al., 1996). Indeed, evidence-based approaches permeate the health fields, including nursing, public health, physiotherapy and mental health, as well as more distant fields of social work, probation, education and human resource management (Trinder and Reynolds, 2000). Health-care practitioners know they are expected to ensure that they adhere to the latest evidence about best practice, yet they do not always make the best use of the new sources of evidence such as clinical guidelines and systematic reviews of clinical trials (Dougados et al., 2004; Nutley et al., 2007).\nTheoretical framework: We applied a learning typology developed by Eraut (2007) that has been shown to be useful in the Swedish context (Wallman et al., 2011). The typology characterizes two main learning processes at work: working processes with learning as a by-product and recognized learning processes. The typology also describes learning activities that are embedded in both of these processes (Eraut, 2007).\nMethods and materials: The study was based on individual and small-group interviews, which were analyzed using directed qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005).\nResults: Our study shows that the adjusted typology of formal and informal learning was useful to categorize our findings. The study also showed that non-formal learning opportunities were perceived as important and that relationships in the workplace with peers, patients and others were central to learning in the workplace, while opportunities in recognized learning processes were more limited. While the study focused on the participants' perceptions of learning opportunities, perceptions linked to the support for learning in the organization were also expressed.\nDiscussion: The learning opportunities that were found in this study were largely in accord with those proposed in the typology (Eraut, 2007). The adjustments were a collapse of categories and a proposed addition of categories. Differences between the original typology and ours may depend on the manner of data collection. In interviewing (our method), the narratives of individuals are personal in nature. This contrasts with Eraut's method of observation, which may be more influenced by the observer. Also, differences in the overall professional maturity of the study participant group may be important, as many participants in our study had a long experience in the field, whereas Eraut's original typology was based on employees in early and middle careers.\nConclusions: In conclusion, we found that working processes with learning as a by-product were a major source of learning in rheumatology practice, that there were relatively few opportunities for recognized learning processes, and that the organizational awareness of learning opportunities in the workplace was perceived to be low. In the clinical context, locally adapted strategies at organizational and individual levels are needed to maximize opportunities for informal learning, taking the importance of personal relationships into account. The findings also suggest a need for increased continuing professional education in the specialty. Both first-line managers and their organizational leaders at the county council level have a responsibility to facilitate health professionals' participation in continuing education; the responsibility for supplying educational interventions lies with the education system. This study hopes to have contributed to raising the awareness of clinical leaders of the range of ways in which people can learn in the workplace, and to recognize the factors which hinder or enhance individual and group learning in rheumatology. Future research should focus on exploring how informal and formal opportunities may best enhance learning in workplaces with different local needs. Another interesting aspect to study further is how these opportunities differ for different professional groups, and if the proposed additions to the typology represent learning opportunities that can be found in other work environments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore what opportunities for learning practitioners in rheumatology perceive of in their daily practice, using a typology of workplace learning to categorize these opportunities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Thirty-six practitioners from different professions in rheumatology were interviewed. Data were analyzed using conventional qualitative content analysis with a directed approach, and were categorized according to a typology of formal and informal learning.\nFindings: The typology was adjusted to fit the categories resulting from the analysis. Further analysis showed that work processes with learning as a by-product in general, and relationships with other people in the workplace in particular, were perceived as important for learning in the workplace. The use of many recognized learning opportunities was lower. Barriers for learning were a perceived low leadership awareness of learning opportunities and factors relating to workload and the organization of work.\nResearch limitations/implications: The generalizability of results from all qualitative inquiries is limited by nature, and the issue of transferability to other contexts is for the reader to decide. Further studies will need to confirm the results of the study, as well as the proposed enhancement of the typology with which the results were categorized.\nPractical implications: The study highlights the importance of relationships in the workplace for informal learning in rheumatology practice. In the clinical context, locally adapted strategies at organizational and individual levels are needed to maximize opportunities for both professional and interprofessional informal learning, taking the importance of personal relationships into account. The findings also suggest a need for increased continuing professional education in the specialty.\nOriginality/value: The workplace learning typology that was used in the study showed good applicability to empirical health-care study data, but may need further development. The study confirmed that informal workplace learning is an important part of learning in rheumatology. Further studies are needed to clarify how informal and formal learning in the rheumatology clinic may be supported in workplaces with different characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring brand masculine patterns: moving beyond monolithic masculinity	[ "Masculinity", "Brand personality", "Cluster analysis", "Scale development", "Brand gender" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Gender has long been used by brand managers as a basis for market segmentation and targeting strategies (Carsky and Zuckerman, 1991) since gender segments are easily identifiable, accessible and that they are large enough to be profitable (Darley and Smith, 1995). Today, gender is considered as a central component to implement segmentation strategies when launching new products and brands (Sadler, 2005). Most authors in gender studies have noted the confusion between sex and gender (e.g. Deaux, 1985; Borna and White, 2003; Carr, 2005). To avoid this confusion, it is important to distinguish between these two terms. The term sex refers to biological sex, and gender reflects a person's social or psychological sex (Bem, 1985; Oakley, 1972; Pryzgoda and Chrisler, 2000). Recently, launches of worldwide products and brands based on gender distinctions have been carried out and new managerial concerns about brand gender-typing are raised. To appeal to male consumers, brand managers are attributing a masculine sexual identity for traditionally non sex-typed brands and products. That was the case of Coca-Cola when launching Coke Zero destined to men. Pepsi Co. followed the same approach by launching Pepsi Max for the same target group. Imbuing those brands with a masculine identity was facilitated by work carried on different aspects of the marketing mix such as the packaging. The impact of those sex-typed brand associations on brand evaluation have been addressed in the marketing literature (Vitz and Johnston, 1965; Fry, 1971; Sirgy, 1982; Whipple and Courtney, 1985). For instance, Vitz and Johnston (1965) report that masculine men smoke cigarettes with a masculine brand image. Later, Fry (1971) demonstrate that feminine gendered men smoke cigarette brands with a less masculine image. Another managerial support for investigating brand masculinity also emerges from market evolution. In times where usually sex-typed brands extend their products to target the opposite sex (e.g. Dior with Dior Homme, L'Oreal with MenExpert and Unilever with Dove Men Care), issues about the impact of brands' sexual attributions on brand extension have been addressed (Jung and Lee, 2006; Grohmann, 2009). In addition to demonstrating that consumer's perceptions of their own gender would influence their evaluations of brands and products, the importance of parent's brand gender in consumer's evaluations of cross-gendered brand extensions was established. In this regard, a study by Jung and Lee (2006) shows a higher acceptance of a cross-gender extension when it is made from a masculine parent brand to target female subjects than the other way round. Therefore understanding brands' masculine dimensions (BMD) is an important managerial concern because practitioners use masculine gender-based marketing strategies to develop and manage their brands.\nBrand personality and brand gender: The anthropomorphisation (Hanby, 1999) and humanisation (Ambler, 1999) of brands are the theoretical building blocks of the gendered personality approach to brands. These concepts are the foundations for the metaphor that defines brands as living entities (Fournier, 1998; Lannon and Cooper, 1983) entitled with characteristics such as personality traits, age and gender (Alreck et al., 1982; Aaker, 1997; Grohmann, 2009). Aaker (1997) defined brand personality as \"the set of human characteristics associated with a brand\". She distinguished five facets of brand personality. Brand personality contributes to building brand loyalty by developing brands' symbolic meanings, which strengthen consumers' emotional connection to the brands (Fournier, 1998; Biel, 1993). This process plays a major role in any symbolic, emotional or experiential consumption experience (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Arnould and Thompson, 2005). Therefore, brand personality is an important part of consumer-based brand equity (Keller, 1993).\nBrand masculinity or brand masculinities: toward a multidimensional construct: Consistent with previous definitions of brand gender, we consider brand masculinity to be a dimension of a brand's gendered personality. In this regard, brand masculinity is defined here as \"the set of masculine human personality traits associated with masculinity applicable and relevant to brands\" (Grohmann, 2009). Traditionally, masculinity is related to competitiveness and goal-achievement, to independence and instrumentality (Gill et al., 1987). In other words, it was always considered to represent a detachment from others and self-centredness (Jordan et al., 1991). The remainder of this section discusses the theoretical foundations of the sub-dimensions in the masculine construct.\nScale development and validation: Step 1: content validity, face validity and item generation\nExploring types of brand masculinities: After exploring the nature and the structure of BMD, the aim of this section is to explore the different types of masculinities that are attributed to brands. Since the two dimensions explored before are generalisable across a wide range of product categories (i.e. both symbolic and utilitarian, and across gendering of product categories), therefore, we can sort brands into homogeneous clusters using the scale dimensions explored above in order to uncover the different masculine patterns attributed to brands by consumers. To enhance the scope of the classification, we analysed the data collected in Studies 3 and 4. Overall, we included 1,632 inputs in the following analyses. The data collected in Study 3 were used in the exploratory phase (12 brand names, 465 inputs) and the data collected in Study 4 were used for confirmatory purposes (33 brand names, 1,167 inputs). This cross-validation aimed to ensure the reliability of the classification (McIntyre and Blashfield, 1980).\nDiscussion and conclusion: This paper aimed to investigate the many patterns of brand masculinity and thus rejected a monolithic approach to conceptualising brand masculinity. The paper explored the two major masculine brand gender dimensions, \"male chauvinism\" and \"heroic\". We showed that each sub-dimension is grounded in both practice and the academic literature. Our rigorous selection of items, statistical analysis and interpretation of the data set shows that both sub-dimensions do measure the same construct: BMD. Our study proposed a new scale to measure brand masculinity; this scale is reliable, valid and generalisable across product categories' gender. Finally, through cluster analysis, we identified four different types of brand masculinities: subaltern, hegemonic, chivalrous and emerging. Therefore, Connell's suggestions on multiple masculinities are reflected in the way brands are perceived by consumers but this study does not support any hierarchal structure between different patterns of brand masculinity. During the development of the scale, the choice of brand names in different product categories led us to assume the applicability of this scale and the cluster analysis' results to symbolic and utilitarian products, in goods and services.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research seeks to explore the nature and the structure of brands' masculine dimensions; to develop a reliable and a valid scale to measure brand masculinity and to explore the different brand masculine patterns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A series of four studies developed and validated a two-factor, five-item measurement scale for brand masculinity using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Content and face validities; reliability and internal validity; convergent and discriminant validities were established. Generalisability of the two dimensions across the gendering of product categories was assessed. A cluster analysis was used to explore brand masculine patterns.\nFindings: The results indicate that brand masculinity is a bi-dimensional construct (i.e. \"Male chauvinism\" and \"Heroic\" dimensions). A cluster analysis performed on 45 brands revealed four brand masculine patterns: hegemonic, emerging, chivalrous and subaltern.\nResearch limitations/implications: French student subjects constitute the sample. Future studies might investigate the transferability of the results to other cultures. The classification scheme broadens the existing brand personality and brand gender literature and its derived brand taxonomies.\nPractical implications: The results provide brand managers with a marketing tool to measure their brands' masculinity and allow them to adapt specific, previously developed gendered marketing strategies.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the brand personality and brand gender literature with new insights about the nature and structure of brands' masculine dimensions. The study moves the conceptualisation of this construct forward rejecting thus previous monolithic approaches to brand masculinity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Downtime analysis of drilling machines and suggestions for improvements	[ "Reliability analysis", "Confidence interval", "Downtime analysis", "Drilling machine" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Underground mines are a main source of minerals. Growing demand for metals as a result of modern lifestyles and the industrial development of recent decades has focused our attention on the factors affecting the extraction of minerals. One of the most important factors is unscheduled downtime of the machines used in the extraction of ore. Lost production due to downtime will obviously increase the production costs (Roman and Daneshmend, 2000). A mine production system consists of many subsystems. To make the system both profitable and practical, the optimisation of each subsystem in relation with other subsystems should be considered (Barabady and Kumar, 2008). To achieve this aim, reliability and maintainability analysis for each subsystem in mine production system should be performed. Since the mid-1980s, reliability analysis techniques have been essential tools in automatic mining systems (Blischke and Murthy, 2003; Barabady and Kumar, 2008).\n2. Drilling machine and data collection: All drilling machines for mining applications are composed of similar operational design units, such as cabin, boom, rock drill, feeder, service platform, front jacks, hydraulic pump, rear jack, electric cabinet, hose reeling unit, cable reeling unit, diesel engine, hydraulic oil reservoir, operator panel and water tank. A typical example of a drilling machine and its components are presented in Figure 1.\n3. Reliability and downtime analysis: The failure data used in this study were collected over two years for four drilling machines operated in two different underground mines in Sweden. The Maximo computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) is the main source of the failure data. In CMMS, the failure data are recorded based on calendar time. Since drilling is not a continuous process, the time between failures is estimated by considering the utilisation of each machine. In this study, we test and validate the failure and repair data after collection. We test for trends using the Laplace trend test; we also test for serial correlation (Ansell and Phillips, 1994). When these tests are used, depending on the results, classical statistical techniques for reliability modelling may be appropriate (Ascher and Feingold, 1984; Kumar and Klefsjo, 1992; Modarres, 2006; Birolini, 2007; Louit et al., 2009; Ghosh and Majumdar, 2011). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test is classically used for the selection and validation of the probability distribution models (for further information, refer to Louit et al., 2009). In this study, we conduct all component analysis based on the black box approach.\n4. Methodology: A simple yet important graphical method to visualise downtime is the jack-knife diagram (Knights, 2001). In this diagram, the failure data are presented as a log-log graph. The graph shows log number of failures (vertical axis) and log repair time (horizontal axis). The curves of constant downtime appear as straight lines with a uniform and constant gradient (Knights, 2001). This study uses the jack-knife diagram with the downtime confidence interval to analyse the downtime of the components of the drilling machine. Three equations are used to establish the confidence log-log plot. The estimation points are the mean, lower limit and upper limit of the downtime. The value of these points can be estimated from the following equations (Wijaya et al., 2012):\n5. Results and discussion: The present study only considers corrective maintenance. It assumes that the failure times follow a Weibull distribution and the repair times follow a lognormal distribution; therefore, the iid assumption is validated before analysis. The maximum likelihood estimation method is used to estimate the corresponding parameters using Minitab software. K-S test is used to validate the distributions using Easy Fit software.\n6. Conclusions: The downtime analysis of drilling machines shows a significant difference between the three machines used in same mine (mine Y) in the downtime of components A (rock drill), C (hoses) and E (boom). There is no significant difference between these machines in the downtime of component D (accumulators). The analysis also finds differences in the downtime of components B (feeder) and F (cables). Components A and B used in mine X have less downtime than the same components used in the machines of mine Y, most probably as a result of the differences in the rock properties between the two mines. Further research is required to explain the differences in the downtime between the same models of the drilling machine. There is a significant difference in the downtime of component G (steering system) found in machines used within a single mine and across mines. In contrast, there is no significant difference in the downtime of component I (hydraulics) found in machines 1 and 2 used in different mines. In general, there are notable differences in the downtime of most investigated components of all machines used in both mines. For the machines used in the same mine, three out of six components have significant differences. For machines used in both mines, five out of six components have significant differences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the downtime of four drilling machines used in two underground mines in Sweden. The downtime of these machines was compared to show what problems affect downtime and which strategies should be applied to reduce it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study collects failure data from a two-year period for four drilling machines and performs reliability analysis. It also performs downtime analysis utilising a log-log diagram with a confidence interval.\nFindings: There are notable differences in the downtime of most of the studied components for all machines. The hoses and feeder have relatively high downtime. Depending on their downtime, the significant components can be ranked in three groups. The downtime of the studied components is due to reliability problems. The study suggests the need to improve the reliability of critical components to reduce the downtime of drilling machines.\nOriginality/value: The method of analysing the downtime, identifying dominant factors and the interval estimation for the downtime, has never been studied on drilling machines. The research proposed in this paper provides a general method to link downtime analysis with potential component improvement. To increase the statistical accuracy; four case studies was performed in two different mines with completely different working environment and ore properties. Using the above method showed which components need to be improved and suggestions for improvement was proposed and will be implemented accordingly.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimization studies on the development of a blended fruit nectar based upon papaya (Carica papaya) and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria)	[ "Fruits", "Drinks", "Papaya", "Bottle gourd", "Nectar", "Response surface methodology", "Optimization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the twenty-first century, people have become more concerned about their diet, health and wellness. Consumer awareness concerning juice beverages has increased the number of positive attributes desired for these products, apart from refreshment. Nectar is a non-fermented beverage, produced from the dissolution of the edible portion of the fruit and sugars in water, for direct consumption and acid could be added, respecting the characteristics and compositions established for each fruit, such as sensory attributes, juice content, soluble solids, total acidity and total sugar. Fruit mixtures present a series of advantages, such as the combination of different aromas and flavors and the sum of their nutritional components.Bottle guard (Lagenaria siceraria) is 96.1 percent water, so is light on the stomach and aids digestion. It is beneficial for health in many ways. The pulp of the fruit is considered cool, diuretic, antibilious, and useful in coughs and as antidote to certain poisons, Decoction of leaves mixed with sugar is considered beneficial in jaundice and fruit is also used in cholera (Rahman and Anisuzzaman, 2008). The juice of bottle gourd is a valuable medicine for excessive thirst due to severe diarrhea, diabetes and excessive use of fatty or fried foods. However, due to poor sensory acceptability, incorporation of bottle guard with other fruits to develop health promoting products is very scanty.Papaya, Carica papaya L., is one of the major fruit crops cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical zones. It is widely used for consumption as a fresh fruit and for use in drinks, jams, jellies, ice-cream, pies and as dried or crystallized fruit (Villegas, 1997). Its carbohydrate content is mainly composed of invert sugar which is a form of predigested food. The papaya has remarkable medicinal virtues which were fully recognized even in ancient times. Ripe papaya is an excellent tonic for growing children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.Research on preservation and storage studies have mostly been confined to vegetable juices of carrot, pumpkin, tomato, spinach and beetroot (Ayranci and Tuetuencueler, 1993; Hsin and Swi-Bea, 1996; Chen et al., 1996; Su-Yeun et al., 2000; Dhaliwal and Hira, 2001) and very few studies have been carried out on preservation or blending of bottle gourd juice with other juices. Majumdar et al. (2011) developed bottle gourd-basil leaves blended juice using RSM. The optimized level of independent variables and the predicted response values were: bottle gourd juice, 75.0 mL; basil leaves juice, 33.5 mL; lemon juice, 7.8 Ml; acidity, 0.25 percent and sensory score of 7.8 on hedonic scale. The mixed fruit nectars were formulated from puree blends, consisting of cashew apple, acerola, papaya, passion fruit and guava (De Sousa et al., 2007). A study of different papaya nectar formulations showed an increase in sensory acceptance with increasing pulp content up to 40 percent (Mostafa et al., 1997). Mixed nectars of papaya and mango pulps were studied (Mostafa et al., 1997) and products with equal amounts of both pulps and a total of 30 or 40 percent pulp in the formulation were accepted best. Nectars with good acceptability have been developed by blending papaya with mango, passion fruit, pear and guava fruits (Kalra and Tandon, 1984; Kalra et al., 1991; Gowda, 1995; Imungi and Choge, 1996; Tiwari, 2000). The preparation of nectar from papaya and bottle guard may be very much cost effective as the availability of these fruits is almost throughout the year at cheaper rates. Moreover, development of nectar based on papaya and bottle guard would not only ameliorate the sensory acceptance of bottle guard in the beverage, but also add health beneficial nutrients of bottle guard to the product. This blended nectar is also not available commercially and no systematic research has been carried out on the development of this product. Therefore, optimization of the process parameters for the development of this type of nectar may open the way for its commercial production.Design of experiments is important for multifactor experiments to save time and capable of predicting the optimum of the combined factors. Response surface methodology (RSM) is a collection of certain statistical techniques for designing experiments, building models, evaluating the effects of factors and searching for optimal conditions for desirable responses. The RSM technique gives the effect of an individual and interactive effect of the parameters on the response and this has been successfully used to optimize a process (Demirekler et al., 2004) and to develop a product (Basantpure et al., 2003; Heinio et al., 1997). RSM has been used extensively for optimizing processes in the tropical fruit juice production (Chan et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2006; Sin et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2003). The main advantage of RSM is the reduced number of experimental runs that provide sufficient information for statistically valid results. The objective of this work was to develop blended fruit nectar based upon papaya and bottle gourd, and to optimize the formulation using response surface statistical methodology.\nMaterials and methods: Ripe papaya and bottle gourd were purchased from local market. Sugar (sucrose) was also purchased from local market. Citric acid used was of food grade. The fruits were washed, peeled, blanched in boiling water for 2 min before extraction of juice by a laboratory mechanical juice extractor and filtered through muslin cloth. The ingredients compositions of the mixed nectar were optimized from 20 different formulations based upon acidity, total solids and sensory score. The nectar samples so produced were analyzed for their pH, total soluble solids (TSS), titrable acidity (TA) and the sensory attributes of flavor and taste.Sensory analysis\nResults and discussion: The responses at different process variables combinations are shown in Table II. ANOVA was conducted to assess the significant effect of the variables on the responses (Table III). The regression analysis of the experimental data was carried out to observe the significance of the effect of various process parameters on the various responses. The regression coefficients (b) for various responses are given in Table IV. The sign and magnitude of the coefficients indicates the effect of variables on the responses. Negative sign of a coefficient at linear level indicates decrease in response value with an increase in level of the variable, whereas, at interactive level, the level of one variable increases while that of other decreases to give similar response values. In case of quadratic terms, negative sign of a variable indicates that the minimum is at centre point and it increases or decreases towards the a level of the variable. Positive sign indicates maximum response a centre point. The response surface plots were generated to visualize the combined effect of two variables on a particular response.The values of coefficients of determination (R2) for various response variables are shown in Table IV. The coefficient of determination, which is defined as the ratio of explained variation to the total variation is a measure of degree of fit (Haber and Runyon, 1977). The closer the value of R2 approaches unity, the better the empirical model fit the actual data (Little and Hills, 1978). The R2 values of 0.81, 0.97, 0.99, 0.80 and 0.85 for pH, TA, TSS, flavor and taste, respectively, suggested that more than 80 percent variability could be explained by the predictive models. The data from Table III indicate that the lack of fit was non-significant for all the response variables, which confirms the significance of model at both 1 and 5 percent level of significance. The predicted R2 values were in reasonable agreement with the adjusted R2 values for all the response variables (Table IV). The response surface plots were generated to visualize the combined effect of two variables on a particular response.pH\nConclusions: RSM was successfully used for the optimization of the levels of the various processing variables. Papaya/bottle gourd juice concentration ratio was optimized at 2.47:1, sugar concentration at 20.95 and citric acid at 0.30 in order to obtain a pH of 3.99, titrable acidity of 0.348, TSS of 20.80, flavor and taste rating of 7.43 and 7.18, respectively, at hedonic scale. The values of taste and flavor signify the sensory acceptance of the product. The product can be developed successfully using these optimized conditions. The commercial production of such nectar using these optimized conditions may add new dimension to the health beverage industry.Since bottle gourd is considered low in calories, cool, diuretic and antibilious, it is an awesome foodstuff for shedding extra calories and maintaining optimum health. Papaya is also equally well known as nutritional goldmine rich in vitamins, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. Since both papaya and bottle gourd have beneficial nutritional and medicinal properties, the development of nectar using these fruits with high sensory acceptance can prove a boon for market promoting health foods. Future research will be focused on the nutritional and health properties of such nectars. Although there is lot of confirmed information regarding the health promoting properties of bottlegourd and papaya, more information on the health promoting properties of such mixed fruit nectars will boost its demand in society believing in the healthy beverage foods.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Mixed fruit nectars present a combination of different tastes and flavors with combined nutritional attributes. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and optimize the process variables for blended nectar based upon papaya (Carica papaya) and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The nectar based upon papaya and bottle gourd was prepared with varying levels of papaya/bottle gourd juice concentration (1.5:1- 4:1), sugar concentration (12-21 per cent), citric acid concentration (0.30-0.50 per cent) and optimized using response surface methodology. A central composite rotatable design (CCRD) with three levels for three independent variables was used for optimization studies. The responses measured were pH, TA, TSS, flavor and taste of the developed nectar. Responses were numerically optimized in combination with design expert software.\nFindings: - The models developed for all responses were significant without significant lack of fit. Papaya/bottle gourd juice concentration ratio, sugar concentration and citric acid level were optimized at 2.47:1, 20.95 and 0.30 per cent, respectively, in order to obtain a pH, titrable acidity and TSS of 3.99, 0.348 and 20.80, respectively, with hedonic scale sensory ratings of 7.43 and 7.18 for flavor and taste, respectively, of the nectar.\nPractical implications: - The commercial production of such nectar using these optimized conditions may add new dimension to the health beverage industry.\nSocial implications: - Development of such health-promoting mixed fruit nectars will boost demand of healthy beverage foods in society.\nOriginality/value: - The product can be developed successfully using these optimized conditions. Since both papaya and bottle gourd have beneficial nutritional and medicinal properties, the development of nectar using these fruits with high sensory acceptance can prove a boon for market promoting health foods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Board member contingent compensation: watch your back	[ "Boards of directors", "Compensation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently distributed for comment its proposed guidelines for the reporting of \"Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure.\" These guidelines, when adopted, will apply to all US public companies and will likely be required for 2007 proxies. The changes and additions to current compensation reporting guidelines are expansive and require much more inclusiveness for the calculation of total annual compensation for senior officers and members of boards of directors. Now required in the calculation and reporting of executive and director compensation, for example, is all compensation paid currently or deferred (e.g. options, restricted stock, or other equity awards and grants), as well as retirement and any other post-retirement benefits including those that accrue as a function of change-of-control provisions. All perquisites and other personal benefits must also be reported.\nA spotlight on the reporting of director compensation: While changes to executive compensation and its reporting have become relatively routine in recent years, the reporting of director compensation has been less circumscribed. More detail than at any prior time is now required in the reporting of director compensation. Essentially the reporting guidelines for directors are now identical to that for the firm's senior officers. In addition to the reporting of any base retainer, all equity-type awards (e.g. stock options, grants, and awards, restricted stock and any other instruments with option-like features) and the dollar value of all non-stock incentive plans (e.g. bonuses) must be reported as well.Of particular note, however, is the reporting of contingent forms of directors' compensation. At issue are firstly, the potential for self-dealing in setting directors' compensation and secondly, the extent to which additional compensation for officers directly informs additional compensation for directors. These situations create the potential for a textbook moral hazard problem.Consider, for instance, that CEOs do not set their own compensation. The compensation committee of the board, comprised of independent directors has that responsibility. Notably, boards of directors do, in fact, set their own compensation, a point clearly noted in the Model Business Corporation Act. Obviously, this sets the stage for a substantive moral hazard. At the risk of some understatement, most of us would find the notion of setting our own salaries and benefits to be enticing and a challenge for it to become something less than scandalizing.That said, we are far less concerned about boards setting their cash retainers than we are their role in authorizing and managing their own stock-based compensation components. Consider the case of stock options. As we have all learned in a series of sobering reports, stock options for senior officers can be associated with untoward behavior designed to raise - by virtually any means - the price of the common stock as a means for enhancing executives' own stock options. In principle, however, the board of directors will, based on their responsibilities as stewards of the corporation, monitor such behavior. Contingent rewards like stock options should be pursued with reason, and the board is the rightful - and legally specified - steward of where that line is drawn. A serious potential problem presents, however, when both the officers and the board simultaneously benefit from aggressive stock price enhancing behavior. In fact, any time that additional compensation for officers directly informs additional compensation for directors, there is that moral hazard, writ large, to which we earlier referred.Perhaps the better course, then, is that boards' compensation should not include contingent arrangements of any sort, certainly including stock options. Board members should unquestionably be fairly rewarded for their service. Directors are, in fact, increasingly well paid, and there is substantial evidence that their compensation is rising steeply. We have no quarrel with that as long as the pay is not contingent. There is a timeless adage suggesting that those doing the \"accounting\" should not be doing the \"counting.\" In many ways, companies with officers and boards with contingent pay is a textbook violation of that humble guideline.\nA contemporary counter-trend: The Coca-Cola Company recently announced a new compensation program for its directors that provides a new twist on the notion of contingent board pay. It is essentially a 100 percent incentive only plan which is explained in detail in its 8-K filing:The Compensation Plan grants directors equity share units each year equal to a flat fee of $175,000 payable only upon the attainment of pre-defined performance targets. When the performance target is met at the end of the performance period, the share units will be payable in cash. Should the performance target not be met, all share units ... would be forfeited in their entirety ... (emphasis is ours)The performance target in this initial year of the new compensation program is an eight percent compounded annual growth in earnings per share over a three year period. If this eight percent target is not met, the directors will receive no compensation for the three-year period. Embedded in such a system, however, is our textbook moral hazard.Let us establish from the onset that we have absolutely no reason to question the motives or the principles of these directors. There is, however, an underlying concern about the potential of aggressive incentives leading to worrisome behaviors. We have all witnessed the results of temptations to achieve common stock targets (e.g. repricing, favorable timing, back-dating). Such temptations are always in starker relief with single objectives such as the price of common stock, or reliance only on growth in earnings per share. This is the very material from which financial restatements are made. Again, we are not implying that Coke's board would ever accede to a manipulation of earnings. We are, however, concerned that Coke's board has placed itself directly in the line of decidedly unfriendly fire.Permit us to illustrate by relying on a situation where we might all agree that impartiality is of paramount importance. Consider a federal judge with a pending case in which a distant relative is a defendant. Perhaps the judge has never even met this individual. Nevertheless, the judge will recuse herself. Why? The issue is not whether she can assess the evidence with disinterest. The issue is not whether she can dispassionately render judgment on the disposition of the case. Rather, the issue is the mere appearance of impropriety. And, on that basis, she will recuse herself. And so, metaphorically, should Coca-Cola's board.In the boardroom, consider a \"close call\" for the audit committee or the entire board regarding a transaction and its impact on Coca-Cola's earnings. Or, consider a suggested change in Coca-Cola's appetite for risk in the last year of the three-year evaluation period. No board member, at Coca-Cola or otherwise, should be impaneled to make such decisions when the outcome completely determines his or her own compensation. Remember, too, who constitutes the ultimate jury for whether this target was, in fact, achieved. The answer is almost certainly the audit committee - independent members of the board directly linked to the financial outcome of that verdict.Any decision made by the Coca-Cola board over the next several years, then, risks being viewed - and evaluated - through that lens. Any change that the board might adopt in its new board compensation program will be, rightly or wrongly, suspect. The issue for us, however, extends well beyond Coca-Cola's compensation program. A larger question is whether, or to what extent, boards of directors should be subject to contingent compensation. If such arrangements are not formulated and implemented with considerable care, contingent compensation for boards will exacerbate, not ameliorate, the long-standing tensions between shareholders, boards of directors, and other corporate constituencies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Examines new SEC guidelines for the reporting of \"Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study discusses the new SEC guidelines for the reporting of \"Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure\".\nFindings: - The compensation of governance boards should not include contingent arrangements of any sort, certainly including stock options.\nPractical implications: - Provides executives with information on important factors to consider in compensating board members.\nOriginality/value: - Of particular value to CEOs and other board members.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lean Six Sigma in consumer banking - an empirical inquiry	[ "Lean Six Sigma", "Case study", "Service quality", "Empirical analysis", "Operations management", "Consumer banking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the years, research in operations management (OM) has revealed a shortage right from theory building to testing (Boer et al., 2015). Since OM involves ensuring both efficiency (maximizing output with limited resources) and effectiveness (meeting quantity and quality requirements in output), bringing theories into practice becomes essential (Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002). Studying and testing the applicability of theories strengthens them. Despite the acknowledged practical value of OM theories and methodologies, their relevance has attracted criticism (Boer et al., 2015; Slack et al., 2004). Schmenner and Swink (1998) claimed that some OM theories had little practical relevance. Later, Schmenner et al. (2009) observed that empirical investigations in OM were relatively less than in other management subjects. Theoretical content in scholarly OM articles is majorly focused around the agency theory, network theory, control theory, behavioral theory, systems theory, game theory, queuing theory and theory of constraints (Walker et al., 2015). According to McAdam et al. (2008), a few other OM-related theories related to Quality Management concepts were less recognized by the scholars. This could be due to the diverse potential of Quality which cuts across various theories and cannot be attributed to one single theory. For example, as noted by Schroeder et al. (2005), quality management has its associations, applications and relevance with behavioral theories, leadership theories, contingency theory, resource-based view, statistical process control theory, human resources theories, organizational theory, etc. However, a few other scholars claimed quality management by itself as a theory. For example, total quality management was recognized as an OM theory (Leonard and McAdam, 2001; Dale et al., 2001; Sunder et al., 2018). Though there have been several scholarly publications related to such quality concepts including Lean, Six Sigma, etc., considering the industry application and subsequent evolution, there still exist many research opportunities in testing OM theories related to quality, using additional research methodologies and studying emerging topics in this field. To further this cause, this paper discusses an empirical investigation of practical application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS), a state-of-the-art quality concept in effecting process improvements in consumer banking services.\n2. An outline of LSS: \"Lean\" is an OM concept pioneered by Toyota for maximizing value creation while minimizing waste through continuous improvement and bottom-up employee participation in product and service contexts (Womack and Jones, 2005). According to Hines et al. (2004), the value proposition for customers increases as wasteful activities and associated costs decrease. This results in shorter delivery cycles or smaller delivery batches without additional cost. Alongside Lean's noteworthy successes, criticisms of its shortcomings exist. Parker and Slaughter (1994) observed that Lean lacks top-management accountability with tactical problems filtering downward the organizational hierarchy. Bhamu and Kuldip (2014) claimed that there was no evidence of any data-driven measurement system in Lean literature. Some of the Lean principles like \"Pull,\" being inherent in the nature of services, do not add new value (Arfmann and Federico, 2014).\n3. Methodology: According to Eisenhardt (1989), reflection and comparison with existing theory in real-time settings can help in bringing objectivity to the research process. This approach encourages reflective, practitioner-based insights and inputs which could reveal both the challenges and outcomes of the investigation. Since the research questions here require an in-depth analysis of LSS applications in consumer banking settings, case study research is adopted here to explore the challenges and outcomes. According to Yin (2003), the case study method is used to illuminate a particular situation by means of gaining a close in-depth understanding of it. It helps in making direct, real-time observations, collect data and analyze prevailing situations and settings, compared to relying on the derived data (Bromley, 1986). Empirical exploratory research is appropriate here as very little is known in the academic literature about LSS in BFS, unlike its implementation in other services.\n4. Case studies: Two case studies are presented below here, and the discussions provide details of the LSS steps followed. In both cases, the value contributed by the DMAIC phases toward realizing significant improvements in the project outcome metrics, the results and their implications are also discussed.\n5. Lessons learned and managerial implications: The above case studies provide evidence of the successful application of LSS in consumer banking and the associated multiple benefits. Since the probability of occurrence of defects is higher and the corresponding tolerance and business impact consequences are critical in consumer banks, the necessity for application of LSS projects deserves emphasis. LSS, with a focus on reducing defects, process variations and waste, and on striving to improve \"value\" with customer centricity, is relevant for the BFS context. Since the BFS setting operates at a risk of customer satisfaction for any process changes, a systematic approach to problem solving such as LSS is highly essential for Banks. The business outcomes observed from the above case studies include both tangible and intangible benefits. The tangible benefits include KPI improvement, cost savings and increased process efficiencies. Intangible benefits include employee satisfaction and morale, continuous improvement culture building and enabler for staff learning and empowerment.\n6. Conclusion and outlook: Today, the applicability of the LSS approach is expanding rapidly across the services sector. LSS has made a significant impact on how service organizations handle process-related problems. As an OM practice, LSS becomes more helpful in BFS firms as every defect could have a significant financial impact leading to customer dissatisfaction, damaging the overall reputation of the bank. LSS also enables building and retaining customer relationships for Banks by delivering defect-free services. The banking industry with operations such as transaction-based back offices, call centers, equity research, transcription services, etc., has the obligation to maintain the service levels by improving and maintaining the KPIs at an optimum level, which is essential for the banks to create positive impressions and a strong brand. The two case studies presented above are classic examples of how LSS can transform BFS processes and the mind-set of frontline staff and management.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The evolution of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) within the operations management theory has enjoyed significant success in both manufacturing and services. Though the applicability of LSS is evident in the services sector through various publications, academic research on the use of LSS in the Banking and Financial Services (BFS) is limited, and hence deserves greater attention. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of LSS in consumer banking in real-time setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study method is used to study the application of LSS in two consumer banks with stage 1 featuring identification of appropriate consumer banks where LSS projects could be undertaken, and suitable LSS readiness assessment was performed. In stage 2, LSS project opportunities were identified in the select banks through stakeholder engagement. Finally, in stage 3, LSS projects were executed for process improvements in a real-time setting.\nFindings: The case studies provide evidence of the successful application of LSS in consumer banking and the associated multiple benefits. The extent of applicability and appropriate managerial implications in project management context are elaborated. An LSS project selection criterion is recommended as a part of the study. Further, the study explains five important managerial implications in BFS context, with an outlook for future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: Practitioner research shows that BFS organizations have changed their ways of working by adapting LSS over the last decade. However, the academic research concerning the applicability of LSS in BFS is apparently limited, and none of these are specific to \"consumer banking.\" This study serves as a strong foundation for future research in this area, which is at its nascence and upcoming in the researchers' community. However, strong generalizations should not be made as this study is limited to two cases.\nPractical implications: Since the cases are executed in the real-time setup of consumer banks, the paper has several practical implications. First, the paper confirms the applicability of LSS in consumer banking and concludes that LSS project management is merely a sub-set of LSS deployment. Second, LSS needs to be understood using a \"systems thinking\" perspective in order to move away from a narrow project-only approach. An LSS project selection criterion is recommended as a part of the study, which could serve as a managerial resource. Other managerial implications include effective management of stakeholders and change leadership as essential elements of LSS project management in banks.\nOriginality/value: LSS has been successful in the past few decades in the manufacturing and service sectors. However, its application in BFS is limited. This study illustrates the applicability of LSS in consumer banks, which deals with high volumes of data, customer bases and associated financial transactions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Extracting inflation risk premium from nominal and real bonds using survey information	[ "Affine models", "Break-even inflation rate", "Inflation risk premium" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to the former Federal Reserve chairman, inflation-linked bonds are a valuable source of information about inflation expectations (Bernanke, 2004). The simplest way to explore this idea is to rely on the Fisher's (1930) hypothesis, which associates the break-even inflation rate (the difference between nominal and real interest rates) with the expected inflation. However, observed prices are connected to the risk-neutral probabilities. Therefore, the break-even inflation rate is the inflation expectation in the risk-neutral world. Thus, to compute inflation expectation in the physical world using nominal and real bond yields, one must disentangle the components of market beliefs and risk aversion embedded in prices.\n2. Model: In this section, we describe the Gaussian affine no-arbitrage term structure model of nominal and real rates. The uncertainty in the economy is characterized by a filtered probability space\n3. Data: To estimate the model presented in Section 2, we use monthly data on nominal Brazilian yields with maturities of one month, one, three, six, and ten years and on real Brazilian yields with maturities of two, five, and ten years. The database covers the period from April 2005 to February 2016. Although the sample size is smaller than others found in studies that use only nominal yields, it is compatible with the sample size of works that jointly model the nominal and real yields[5].\n4. Results: In this section, we analyze the empirical performance of the model of Section 2. First, we address the estimation procedure. Next, we present the fit of the model to the observed yield curves. Finally, we discuss the inflation forecasting performance of the model and the inflation risk premium.\n5. Conclusion: In this paper, we propose a four-factor joint model of nominal and real yield curves. The model belongs to the class of Gaussian affine models. In order to capture incompleteness between the nominal and real bond markets, we connect one risk factor with only one of the curves. The model is estimated using the Kalman filter technique. The data are from the Brazilian market. First, we assume that only observed yields are priced with measurement errors. Although the model presents good fit of the yields, it has poor inflation predictive ability. So, we also use an alternative version in which we assume that besides yields, the one-year ahead survey-based inflation forecasting is also observed with errors. When we include information about inflation survey in the estimation procedure, the model outperforms the inflation survey not only for the short horizon but also for medium and long horizons. Therefore, the inclusion of survey information improves the inflation forecasting performance of the model. Finally, we find that the main monetary policy instrument of the Central Bank of Brazil (prime rate) has a negative relation with inflation expectation. Therefore, when the Central Bank raises the short-term rate, the market belief of future inflation decreases, which can be interpreted as Central Bank credibility in its mission to curb inflation. On the other hand, the tight monetary policy increases the risk premium, representing a cost of the inflation targeting regime.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to forecast future inflation using a joint model of the nominal and real yield curves estimated with survey data. The model is arbitrage free and embodies incompleteness between the nominal and real bond markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology is based on the affine class of term structure of interest rate. The model is estimated using the Kalman filter technique.\nFindings: The authors show that the inclusion of survey data in the estimation procedure improves significantly the inflation forecasting. Moreover, the authors find that the monetary policy has significant effects on the inflation expectation and risk premium.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to estimate inflation using a joint model of nominal and real yield curves with Brazilian data. Moreover, the authors propose a simple arbitrage-free model that takes it account incompleteness between the nominal and real bond markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mapping outcomes of four Queensland city futures initiatives	[ "Engagement", "Outcomes", "CLA", "Futures initiatives" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This article provides a critical analysis about the foresight methods and processes that help shape and design city futures in South East Queensland. The article compares the visioning outcomes of four South East Queensland city futures initiatives. The four South East Queensland councils in this study were responding to the perceived challenges posed by rapid growth. The initiatives aimed first to deliver, explore and shape the multiple opportunities anticipated from this growth, and second, to protect against potential threats that unrestrained growth implied. These city futures initiatives were then about imaginative city visions and themes that, when implemented, could guide the popular development of whole-of-city strategies such as cultural precincts, art and music; transport planning; and sustainable economic development. The city futures initiatives were dedicated to constructive longer-term topics, evinced through city visions and key outcome areas. Outcomes outline the priority areas and \"outcomes describe what we hope to see, feel and hear around us if the vision is to be achieved\" (Logan City, 2013; Corporate Plan 2013-2018). Leading up to the causal layered analysis (CLA), clarifications of how the cities managed show that although global urgencies may have been similar, and the cities have responded differently according to local conditions, the outcomes remain relevant and transformational today. The CLA will be applied to the outcomes of the four city futures initiatives of the four South East Queensland city councils as they attempted to prepare for and manage the opportunities and risks inherent to rapid growth.\nContext: the four city councils: While the initiatives have achieved great outcomes for the cities, they have also contributed to the personal experiences of the council staff and the community that led or that took part. The initiatives are designed to look ahead 20 and 30 years, to guide traditional planning tied to four-year electoral cycles common to each city.\nTheoretical framework: CLA is the central futures method used in this article as a means of deconstructing the outcomes attained by the four cities' initiatives. CLA \"asks us to go beyond conventional framings of issues\" (Inayatullah, 2015, p. 13). The outcomes that are mapped and deconstructed are the frames for what particular aspects of the city might be like in the long-term future. Initial or \"flagship\" outcomes of each city are used as examples and are mapped against short-term plans to clarify how the initiatives' outcomes are embodied or evident in the short-term plans and are still enabling desired futures. The outcome statements of four long-term futures visions are mapped across the four cities:\nOutcomes of Maroochy 2025 - A Visioning Journey: Litany\nOutcomes of Logan 2026 - City Directions: Litany\nOutcomes of Gold Coast's Our Bold Future: Litany\nOutcomes of Our Shared Brisbane - Living in Brisbane 2026: Litany\nInsights from the CLA: Litany\nConclusions: Cycles of new Mayoral leadership have conflated the hard systems of engineering and economic feats with soft systems of socially just networks, green corridors, education, active transport and cycleways, support for healing centres and better disability support programmes. This is problematic but is not \"the end of the road\". As political groups change, Inayatullah's conclusion is that \"different foresight processes are necessary for different phases in city planning and development\" (Inayatullah, 2011, p. 660). This is a practical pathway for change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to map the outcomes of four influential South East Queensland city visioning and foresight initiatives conducted by the cities of Maroochy, Logan, Gold Coast and Brisbane.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper applies causal layered analysis to map the outcomes of four city visioning and foresight initiatives.\nFindings: It is averred in this paper that cities need to map their experiences of past futures initiatives for what worked and what has resulted today, and for recommendations of futures actions and innovations.\nOriginality/value: This paper deepens the discussion about the critical features of the four initiatives by focusing on their outcomes and alternatives they could produce to influence the futures of their cities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antioxidant activity and zebrafish teratogenicity of hydroalcoholic Moringa oleifera L. leaf extracts	[ "Moringa oleifera", "Hydroalcoholic extract", "Zebrafish embryo", "DPPH" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Moringa oleifera (MO) is a plant that commonly distributed in tropical and subtropical countries, such as South East Asia, South America, northwest India. MO is rich in phytochemicals and phytosterols for essential nutrient and reproductive growth. The nutritional compositions of MO including vitamin, minerals, amino acid, b-carotene and omega fatty acids (Abdull Razis et al., 2014), are used by the people in the rural region to treat malnutrition (Kasolo et al., 2010) and taken daily in a form of vegetable by some communities. It also has health benefit and healing abilities for different ailments and diseases, including anaemia, asthma, bronchitis and many other diseases (Abdull Razis et al., 2014). These pharmacological activities are reported mainly from the leaf extracts (Galuppo et al., 2014; Jaiswal et al., 2009) and vary depending on the parameters such as maturity stage, locality, extraction methods and extraction solvents (Nobosse et al., 2018).Types of solvents such as aqueous, methanol, ethanol or mixture of aqueous-organic solvents are pivotal in determining the yield of phytochemicals. Some studies were comparing the antioxidant activity and phytochemical content of MO leaf and revealed the aqueous methanol has the highest antioxidant-containing phenolic and flavonoid yields, compared to ethanol and water (Siddhuraju and Becker, 2003; Nobosse et al., 2018; Muhammad et al., 2016). Besides, extraction conditions and methods also influence the total bioactive compounds from the leaves of MO (Rodriguez-Perez et al., 2015). For instance, high yield of bioactive contents through sonication extraction by disrupting the plant cell walls (Vinatoru, 2001).The quantity and types of bioactive compounds vary based on extraction method and solvent used, hence this study was aimed to compare hydroalcoholic (ethanol, methanol) of the MO leaves extracted using the Soxhlet extraction method, on the phytochemical content, antioxidant activity, acute toxicity and potential teratogenicity on the zebrafish embryo. Zebrafish embryo was used as an alternative toxicity model due to its high homology in genetic compositions and organ structures and well extrapolated in the mammalian model (Santoriello and Zon, 2012).\nMethodology: Plant collection and authentication\nResults: Phytochemical analysis of MO hydroalcoholic leaf extracts\nDiscussion: MO is consumed in the form of vegetables by some communities. The medicinal and pharmacological activity of MO extracts are common, for instance, the type of solvents used for the extraction and the extraction method have been studied for the quantitative of phytochemical constituent and antioxidant activity. However, there is no study on comparing toxicity, antioxidant activity using the Soxhlet extraction method with hydroalcoholic extracts. Hence, this research was sought to compare the antioxidant capacity and the toxicity of hydroalcoholic MO leaves extracts using DPPH assay and zebrafish embryo, respectively.Polar solvents and hydroalcoholic mixtures are the promising solvents for the extraction of phytochemicals in plants matrices, including MO (Siddhuraju and Becker, 2003; Sultana et al., 2009). Each solvent has its advantage for phytochemical extractions. Ethanol is more effective in polyphenol extraction, methanol is more on the low molecular weight polyphenols and acetone is effective in flavanoids. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of phytochemical extraction also depends on the type of plants. For instance, aqueous ethanol is more effective than aqueous methanol and aqueous acetone in the extraction of flavonols in green and black tea (Wang and Helliwell, 2001), and aqueous acetone is yielding more total phenolics and exhibits high antioxidant capacity in barley (Liu and Yao, 2007). However, there is still no study reported the antioxidant capacity and toxicity of MO leaf extracts using Soxhlet extraction method. For all these reasons, Soxhlet extraction with alcohol and water (80:20 v/v) was selected. Few studies had demonstrated aqueous methanol extract of MO extract exhibited the highest antioxidant capacity, followed by aqueous ethanol and water (Siddhuraju and Becker, 2003; Nobosse et al., 2018; Sultana et al., 2009), which is parallel with this study. Methanol is a highly polar solvent and known to provide the highest polyphenols extraction yield compared to ethanol and water, and the high polyphenol constituents might correspond to the higher antioxidant activity through a synergistic interaction of the different polyphenols and the hydrogen atom donation.The aqueous-alcohol mixtures at different ratios were reported effective in extracting different polarities of bioactive constituents (Sultana et al., 2009). Importantly, the aqueous-alcohol solvent is common and acceptable for human consumption. The findings on the high DPPH antioxidant activity and qualitative phytochemical analysis obtained in this study is supported by other reports (Nobosse et al., 2018; Siddhuraju and Becker, 2003). In the phytochemical analysis, all the tested constituents were present, except saponin in the aqueous methanol. This observation is different from what has been reported by Okumu and colleagues with the solvent using magnetic stirring extraction method (Okumu et al., 2016). This can be explained by the different geographical source and extraction method, as these parameters affect the phytochemical contents (Muhammad et al., 2016; Pallavi Bhokare et al., 2018; Raghavendra et al., 2013). The other possible reason for the absence of saponin in aqueous methanol might due to the hot extraction (Soxhlet) with methanol especially, causes the formation of methyl derivatives in saponin, and disintegration of acylated forms to produce artefacts saponin (Majinda, 2012; Oleszek and Bialy, 2006).For extraction techniques, the Soxhlet extraction has been reported to yield the highest phytochemical constituents (Pallavi Bhokare et al., 2018). Conversely, a study by Vongsak and colleagues revealed the low yield of phytochemicals from MO leaves extract using Soxhlet extraction compared to decoction and maceration techniques (Vongsak et al., 2013). The discrepancy in the study might due to the different solvent used for extraction, where absolute ethanol was used as the only solvent in their study for optimising the extraction techniques. Altogether, this revealed that all extraction methods are equally important in medicinal plants, and factors such as solvent affect the final extract. The current study failed to quantify each phytochemical group. Nonetheless, future work for quantitative analysis is warranted to compare the best extraction methods for yielding highest phytochemical contents.The use of zebrafish in biomedical research is emerging due to the high homology with the human gene. Hence, the zebrafish was used as a toxicity model in this study to evaluate the potent toxicity of MO leaves extracts to humans. Based on the data obtained, the aqueous methanolic extract has lower LC50 compared to aqueous ethanol (163.87 +- 12.88 mg/mL and 337.48 +- 30.04 mg/mL, respectively). The reported toxicity studies of the MO leaf extracts thus far were mainly on the rodents with the used of aqueous, hydroalcoholic or alcohol (methanol and ethanol) as solvents of extraction. There is no study on the MO leaves extracts on zebrafish embryotoxicity, and hence predicting and verifying the toxicity of these extracts based on the data obtained in this study is challenging. A study comparing the toxicity of chemicals in the zebrafish embryo with mammalian model revealed that LC50 of zebrafish embryo accurately predicts the acute toxicity for oral route in the rat (Ducharme et al., 2015). For toxicity on rodent, ingestion of the methanolic MO leaves extract at 200-400 mg/kg in rat significantly increases the serum total protein, globulin, creatinine, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and blood urea nitrogen (Oyagbemi Ademola et al., 2013). Also, an aqueous methanolic MO leaves extract at 2000 mg/kg daily through oral, for 48 h, increases the aspartate aminotransferase and total bilirubin level (Okumu et al., 2017). Taken together, we postulated that aqueous methanolic extract is toxic.Nonetheless, hydroalcoholic MO leaves extracts could be safe for consumption, as long as is within the realistic dose (depends on the tested model). In term of safety for human consumption, only powdered MO leaves was reported safe up to 50 g per day in a single dose, or 8 g per day for 40 days, and none of the solvents-extracted MO leaves extract has been tested in human (Stohs and Hartman, 2015). Zebrafish phenotypic assay also widely used in the screening of the bioactive substances with anticancer properties, due to homologous between zebrafish embryogenesis and human carcinogenesis (Rusdi et al., 2019; Parng et al., 2002). The embryo that survived in the aqueous methanol extract at the concentration of 300 ug/mL was positive for yolk sac oedema and bent tail. Yolk sac oedema in zebrafish might be due to the impairment of the blood flow or fluid (Belair et al., 2001). The bent tail observed can be associated with the ability in interfering BMP proteins and its pathway to suppress tumour metastasis (Rusdi et al., 2019). This suggests that aqueous methanolic extract might possess anticancer properties and further studies are needed to explore the potent anticancer activity.\nConclusion: This study demonstrated Soxhlet extraction of MO leaf extract using aqueous methanolic has the better antioxidant capacity and more toxic compared to aqueous ethanolic as observed in zebrafish embryotoxicity assay. This study gives a better understanding of how these extracts could be efficiently used as the source of nutrient.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Moringa oleifera (MO) is a herbal remedy that is rich in essential amino acids and phytochemicals in the leaves, seeds and pods. It is becoming a famous food in various ethnic groups, and the consumption is increasing worldwide. However, there is no safety profile of the hydroalcoholic MO leaf extracts, or documented teratogenicity aspect. This study was sought to compare the antioxidant activity and the teratogenicity of hydroalcoholic MO leaf extracts in the zebrafish embryo.\nDesign/methodology/approach: MO leaves were extracted with aqueous alcohols (ethanol or methanol: water, 80:20 v/v) using the Soxhlet method. The antioxidant capacity was determined using DPPH assay. The concentrations of extracts ranging from 3 to 1,000 ug/mL were used to examine the toxicity and teratogenicity on the zebrafish embryo.\nFindings: Both hydroalcoholic MO leaf extracts were positive for alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, tannins, flavonoids, phenols, coumarins, quinones and glycosides, except saponins only absent in aqueous methanol extract. The antioxidant capacity based on lC50, was 15.92 +- 3.62 mg/mL for aqueous methanolic and 25.28 +- 2.89 mg/mL for aqueous ethanolic extract. For acute toxicity, the aqueous methanolic extract has lower LC50 (163.87 +- 12.88 ug/mL) compared to aqueous ethanolic extract (337.48 +- 30.04 ug/mL). The embryo treated with aqueous methanolic extract showed phenotypic defect but not on the aqueous ethanolic extract.\nOriginality/value: This study suggests that aqueous methanol of MO leaves extract has better antioxidant capacity compared to ethanol, and ethanolic leaf extract is safer (higher LC50 and no teratogenicity) than methanolic extract.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antimicrobial activity of raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean extracted by ethanol-hexane method	[ "Soybean", "Antimicrobial activity", "Ethanol hexane extraction", "Isoflavones" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Soybean (Glycine max) is a marketable agriculture plant which is mainly used to produce the various kinds of products like edible soybean oil, soy milk, tofu, soy flour, roasted soy bean and many processed products. Soybean is not only processed in a part of human food market, however it is also widely used to produce animal feeds and used in the industries of cosmetics product and biodiesel as well. Analysis of soybean composition showed a high variety of amino acids which play important roles in human health and high levels of fatty acids and various vitamins and minerals. A large group of compounds derived in plants called bioactive phytochemicals have been found in soybean. Three types of major groups are isoflavones, lignans and coumestans. From these three groups, the isoflavones are very rich in soybean. Isoflavones in soybean are generally produced by the enzyme chalcone isomerase which converts flavones precursor to isoflavones.\nMaterials and method: Soybean materials\nResults and discussion: The experiment was done to study the inhibition of the two types of bacteria E. coli and S. aureus using isoflavones extraction by ethanol-hexane method. Raw soybean, roasted soybean and soybean flour were used as the three main soybean materials. Various extraction techniques have been used by different research groups for extraction of isoflavones from soybean such as methanol, ethanol and acetonitrile with different proportions of acidified and non- acidified water (Luthria et al., 2007). In this study, a solution of 70 percent ethanol was used to extract isoflavones from soybean samples and then the suspension was extracted further by hexane to obtain the isoflavones. Hexane is a non-polar solvent therefore it is perfect in dissolving non polar compounds. Hexane facilitates the lipid removal from the soybean materials. Because of the high volatility makes hexane to evaporate in a short time thus hexane used in the extraction procedure was evaluate during incubation in water bath at 80degC.\nConclusion: According to the results, the microbial inhibition of active compounds or isoflavones could be extracted from raw soybean, roasted soybean and soybean flour materials by using the ethanol-hexane extraction method. Bacterial inhibition effect on the growth of microorganisms, E. coli and S. aureus, was found in all three soybean extracts. The inhibition zone was obviously shown that soybean extracted solution containing the highest activity of inhibition effect found in soybean flour extract then the medium activity was roasted soybean extract and the lowest activity was raw soybean extract. Inhibition effect on the growth of E. coli was higher than S. aureus after using various isoflavones solutions. Ability of growth inhibition effect decreases as the concentration decreases. However, the determination of the isoflavones contents isolated from each soybean materials have to be further analyzed to compare the amount of isoflavones present in each extracted solutions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the antimicrobial compounds extracted from various types of soybean materials; raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean. Bacteria growth inhibition was tested in E.coli and S. aureus by disk diffusion method. Efficiency of antimicrobial activities were compared among the extracted solution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Soybean (Glycine max) isoflavones contain the ability to inhibit the growth of many strains of microorganisms. The solid-liquid extraction, ethanol-hexane extraction, was modified to isolate the inhibitory compounds from the three different types of soybean materials. All crude extracts at various concentrations performed under different extracted solutions (75, 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25 and 3.125 percent) were tested with E. coli. and S. aureus to determine the antimicrobial activities and the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC). Disk diffusion method was chosen to study the antimicrobial activity of isoflavones.\nFindings: Soybean flour extract inhibited the growth of E. coli and S. aureus more effective than roasted soybean and raw soybean, respectively. The MIC of inhibitory compounds extracted from soybean flour was 6.25 percent (0.031 mg/ml), roasted soybean was 25 percent (0.125 mg/ml) and raw soybean was 50 percent (0.250 mg/ml). Crude extracts of soybean flour and roasted soybean showed better results than raw soybean. All the three of extracted soybeans inhibited the growth of E. coli better than S. aureus.\nOriginality/value: Ethanol-hexane extraction was successfully used to isolate the antimicrobial compounds from raw soybean, soybean flour and roasted soybean. Comparison of antimicrobial activity showed that soybean flour contained the highest inhibition activity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Aesthetic labour, cost minimisation and the labour process in the Asia Pacific airline industry	[ "Airlines", "Competitive advantage", "Marketing strategy", "Professional ethics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competition in the Asia Pacific airline industry has intensified in recent years in response to the combined effects of the entry of new low cost airlines such as Virgin Blue, Australian Airlines, Air Asia, JetStar and Freedom Air, and as a result of the adverse travel environment brought about by fears of terrorism, the Iraq war and SARS. The entry of low cost competitors, coupled with the adverse operating environment, has forced the entire industry to adopt cost minimisation strategies in response. As a result, many airlines are now compelled to restructure their organisations in order to cut costs. Some of these cost cutting initiatives include \"off-shoring\" some jobs to lower cost environments, intensifying capital utilisation, business decentralisation, franchising, out-sourcing non-core activities, in addition to attempts to reduce airline unions' bargaining power and intensifying the labour process by reducing cabin staff.Another consequence of this new operating environment is that to achieve a competitive advantage, airlines must now compete on two fronts - lowering fares and maintaining or improving service standards. Thus, while it is necessary to cut costs, just as important to organisational success, is the way airline employees deliver that service. Airlines, therefore, are focused increasingly on service delivery and many have sought to compete by marketing a service image that may be consistent with customers' expectations of high quality service. It is this \"service image\" or \"organisational aesthetic\" (see Witz et al., 2003) which we argue, heavily relies on the use of aesthetic labour and which tends to be sexualised. Among many of the full service carriers (FSCs) in the Asia Pacific, the ubiquitous marketing image is that of the attractive, doting female flight attendant who happily caters to every passenger's whim (for instance Singapore Airline's \"Singapore Girl\" icon - see Heng, 1997). FSCs use of aesthetic labour however, tends to be fairly subtle and marketed in combination with other elements of the value proposition such as inflight entertainment, catering and comfort. By contrast LCCs inability to market these selling points, we assert, leads them to accentuate price and the aesthetic qualities of cabin crew in their marketing efforts - especially in Asia where anti-discrimination laws are absent or loose.This deployment of aesthetic labour, we argue, goes beyond appealing to the senses and becomes a sexualised appeal when innuendo is added to image, and when the customer interprets the organisational aesthetic as being sexualised. Hence, we argue that the boundary between aesthetic and sexualised labour is largely defined by the customer's role in interpreting the images projected by the organisation. This strategy, we suggest, raises a number of ethical questions for human resource management. Furthermore, we contend that the dual strategies of LCCs - cost minimization and the deployment of aesthetic labour - may be ultimately contradictory and hence unsustainable over the longer term.The balance of the paper is organised into four sections. The first examines the competitive dynamics and pressures of the airline industry, especially with respect to low cost carriers[1] (LCCs), while the second reviews the literature on emotional, aesthetic and sexualised labour in the context of flight attendants' employment. The third section analyses the specific cases of Virgin Blue and Air Asia, which we argue are characteristic of the labour process strategies of the emerging LCC industry in the Asia-Pacific region. These brief vignettes from the Asia Pacific, indicate overt attempts by LCCs to seek competitive advantage through aesthetic labour. The final section discusses the implications of this strategy.\nLow cost carriers (LCCs): strategy and practice: Beginning several decades ago, three interconnected forces combined to radically alter the airline industry: product market liberalisation, the commercialisation and privatisation of state-owned airlines, and management's accelerated pursuit of \"globalisation\" both in terms of the product market (through expanded route networks) and the labour market (through the dispersal of operations to different parts of the globe) (Blyton et al., 2003). In simple terms, the aviation industry has been transformed from one characterised as relatively stable to one characterised as increasingly volatile and highly competitive.Preceding these changes, state-owned, full-service carriers (FSCs) dominated this largely uncompetitive industry. These carriers were generally regarded, and indeed regarded themselves, as the primary providers of a public need and were often viewed as an extension of a state service (Kangis and O'Reilly, 2003). With this mission, these airlines had little to do with the management of their own business, and, given the benign competition due to barriers to entry, efficiency among these carriers did not form the vanguard of managerial concern. This lack of focus on efficiency was, not surprisingly, often reflected in their financial performance (Kangis and O'Reilly, 2003). Over time, however, liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation produced a proliferation of new carriers entering the market. These new entrants were generally \"lower\" cost operations with aggressive, competitive mind-sets. Therefore, in order to survive, the once highly protected traditional carriers were forced to restructure - now with a focus squarely directed at improving efficiency and cutting costs (Kangis and O'Reilly, 2003).Throughout this period it has become clear that the original business model typifying the industry - that of the full-service carrier - is one of declining relevance. This marginalisation has been driven by the arrival, and unqualified success, of a new model - the low cost carrier. On inception, the LCC model generally targeted large leisure markets and routes that would be most stimulated by low fares. Their aim was to tempt travellers to fly rather than drive, or to take trips they would otherwise not make (Barkin et al., 1995; Mason, 2001).On their entry into the market, the FSCs largely ignored these new operators. In fact, the FSCs assumed that the LCCs were only capable of supporting a niche market; one that only enticed low-low-yield passengers and operated on short-haul routes that larger competitors were not interested in (Franke, 2004; Lawton, 2003). An atmosphere of complacency among the major players prevailed, and only in the 1990s, when the impact of liberalisation and privatisation was fully realised, did the incumbents seriously consider the ramifications of this new model (Franke, 2004). To counter this threat, in conjunction with restructuring their own businesses, many of the FSCs joined the battle and started their own value-based brands. Low cost carrier offshoots including Buzz (KLM) and GO (British Airways) proliferated with varying success.One of the key advantages of LCCs is that intrinsically, the model offers a good level of protection from the cyclical nature of the industry. In essence, this means that when economic downturns strike, demand for premium services tend to decline as more passengers seek cost effective travel alternatives (Binggeli and Pompeo, 2002). Indeed, there is evidence that in difficult times LCCs generally outperform full-service operators (Lawton, 2003). The burgeoning success of the low cost carrier also suggests that the demand for air travel is now highly elastic: cheaper flights mean greater sales (Lawton, 2003). Experience has shown that LCCs have not only expanded from their original niche, but have established a business model that seems to be better prepared to adapt to market changes (Franke, 2004).The success of the LCC model is attributed to its streamlined and simplified strategy. Succinctly, to offer low fares, the cost structure of an LCC must be significantly less than that of incumbent FSCs. Facilitating this, value-based operators are privy to three interconnected cost advantages: lower input costs, cheaper product design, and cheaper process design (Barkin et al., 1995).Low cost carriers strive to keep input costs, especially labour costs, as low as possible. LCCs may, but not always, have lower standard pay rates than traditional carriers particularly for aircrew and cabin crew. LCCs also focus on generating higher productivity by lengthening shift times, using fewer cabin crew and intensifying aircraft utilisation which translates into more flying per duty period (Barkin et al., 1995; Doganis, 2001).LCCs also contain labour costs by outsourcing all non-core business activities such as aircraft servicing, cleaning, passenger handling, revenue accounting and catering. Outsourcing means that staff numbers can be contained and that airlines can shop around to find the cheapest providers (Barkin et al., 1995; Doganis, 2001).Cheaper product design is the second cost advantage of LCCs. This is achieved by removing those add-ons that the customer does not perceive as crucial (Barkin et al., 1995). First, this requires LCCs to operate a single aircraft type (generally acquired at discounted rates), equipped with high-density and single class seating. In-flight catering or entertainment is generally not provided and in some instances, there is no pre-assigned seating, enabling LCCs to employ fewer cabin crew per flight (Lawton, 2003). Another characteristic, although this does vary, is that LCCs tend to operate out of secondary, lower charging and less congested airports. This has a two-fold benefit; first, it enables carriers to save on airport related charges and second, it facilitates short turnaround times and promotes punctuality.Cheaper process design is closely linked to product design and refers to streamlining procedures. For LCCs this means operating high frequency, scheduled point-to-point short-haul services with short turnaround times (Doganis, 2001). Online ticket sales and ticketless check-ins also help LCCs to keep costs and hence prices low (Doganis, 2001; Lawton, 2003).Clearly, the continued success and long-term sustainability of the LCC operator relies on maintaining these cost advantages. However, we would also argue that a number of LCCs seem to have adopted the marketing and employment strategies that were most popular with FSCs in the 1970 s and 80 s. In particular, many LCCs seem to have adopted and accentuated the use of emotional, aesthetic and sexualised labour to market their service image - a strategy that we assert may prove to be unsustainable in light of the other elements of LCCs competitive environment. The mobilisation of emotional, aesthetic and sexualised labour in the airline industry is discussed in the following section.\nEmotional, aesthetic and sexualised labour in the airline industry: The concept of \"emotional labour\" gained currency in the 1980 s, with the work of Hochschild (1983, p. 7) who defined emotional labour as \"the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display\". Morris and Feldman (1996, p. 987) provide a similar definition of emotional labour, defining it as the \"effort, planning and control needed to express organisationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions\".Much of Hochschild (1983) early analysis was based on the emotional labour supplied by flight attendants in the airline industry but as we argue, Hochschild's analysis tends to conflate the visual with the emotional. In other words, while Hochschild provides \"fine grain\" observations of the particular physical characteristics desired by airline management's of their flight attendants, these are unsatisfactorily viewed through the single theoretical lens of emotional labour. While we would not dispute the connection between emotions and physical displays, we would suggest that the construct of emotional labour, by itself, does not offer a sufficiently nuanced explanation of the various types of labour effort required of flight attendants. To understand the contours of this argument, it is necessary to briefly turn to \"emotional labour\" accounts of airline service work which we subsequently argue, would be better viewed through the construct of \"aesthetic labour\".In her book, Hochschild (1983, p. 182) observed that a flight attendant may often be called to simultaneously utilise two traditional \"feminine\" qualities: \"those of the supportive mother and those of the sexually desirable mate\", hence a manifestation of projecting simultaneously \"being motherly\" and \"sexually alluring\". The mobilisation of this emotional labour work, as Hochschild described, is most visible through the airline industry's advertising - especially by full service carriers in the 1970 s. For instance, in discussing the marketing efforts of US full service carriers she states that:Through the 1950 s and 1960 s the flight attendant became a main subject of airline advertising, the spearhead of market expansion. The image they chose, among many possible ones, was that of a beautiful and smartly dressed southern white woman, the supposed epitome of gracious manners and warm personal service.\nVignettes from LCCs in the Asia Pacific: Critical management studies such as this often confront the difficulty of how best to interrogate the subject matter when access to appropriate case studies is unlikely to be granted due to the perceived sensitivities of the subject material. While discussions with flight attendants may have provided useful insights into the processes and issues of aesthetic and sexualised labour, this has not proved to be possible. Instead, we interrogate these issues through discussion of two vignettes from the emerging LCC industry in the Asia Pacific. These vignettes are of Virgin Blue, the LCC operating in the Australian domestic airline industry; and Air Asia which was first established as an LCC operating domestically within Malaysia but which now also offers international short-haul services throughout South East Asia. These vignettes explore the advertising and marketing efforts of these two carriers that we say demonstrate how aesthetic and sexualised labour is mobilised for commercial purposes.Virgin Blue\nDiscussion: These vignettes from the emerging LCC industry in the Asia Pacific raise a number of interesting questions. These questions go to the conceptual boundary between aesthetic and sexualised labour and the practical and ethical consequences of using such a strategy. Moreover, there is the broader question of how sustainable the use of emotional, aesthetic and sexualised labour is in the face of increasing competition among LCCs and between LCCs and full service carriers. These questions are explored in the following sections.Aesthetic labour, sexualised labour and the customer-employee service experience\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Low cost carriers (LCC) in the Asia Pacific are pursuing a strategy of marketing the aesthetic qualities of their cabin crew in order to differentiate their \"value proposition\". This strategy concentrates on the physical dispositions of employees, thus mobilising the concepts of aesthetic and sexualised labour for commercial purposes. This paper aims to investigate some of the practical and ethical issues of such a strategy. In addition, the paper seeks to explore the boundary between the theoretical concepts of aesthetic and sexualised labour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Presents two vignettes from the emerging LCC industry in the Asia Pacific. The first vignettes is of Virgin Blue, a LCC operating in the Australian domestic airline industry; the second vignette is of Air Asia, first established as a domestic LCC in Malaysia, but has now expanded to international short-haul routes within the region.\nFindings: - The strategic deployment of aesthetic and sexualised labour in LCCs is ethically problematic on a number of levels. Concomitantly, this strategy is potentially undermined by the contradictory focus on cost minimisation, essential for LCC survival. Thus, the use of aesthetic and sexualised labour as a commercial strategy has the potential to become unstable over time because of the competitive dynamics and the somewhat paradoxical need to reduce costs while improving service standards.\nOriginality/value: - The conceptual boundary between aesthetic and sexualised labour is explored in the new LCC industry in the Asia Pacific. The ethical and practical consequences, and the sustainability of such a strategy in this new environment are considered.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Relationship between organizational commitments and organizational citizenship behaviour in a sample of private banking employees	[ "Competitiveness", "Commitment", "Productivity", "Organizational citizenship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The human resource attributes constitute a factor that significantly distinguishes one company from another. It is a key element in achieving the goals of a company. According to Ivancevich et al. (2006) human capital is the key to organizational success. These authors add that the quality of human resources is becoming one of the most important aspects that provide staff enthusiasm, and impulse to achieve the organization objectives with the highest effectiveness.\nTheoretical foundations: Institutions are encouraged to implement strategies that promote a culture of openness, cooperation, trust and collaboration, centred on mutual trust, empowerment, responsibility and the common good among their employees. As a result of this vision, it is essential to pay attention at strengthening the employees' citizenship behaviour, as a priority for achieving organizational goals. This topic has been studied by theorist because of its influence in the managerial and academic area (Organ and Ryan, 1995; Motowidlo et al., 1997; Motowidlo and Schmit, 1999; Le Pine et al., 2000).\nMethodology: The research design included descriptive and quantitative methodologies. Variables were measured and analysed in accordance with statistical methods. The population of interest consisted of 254 employees from a private bank, and the sample size was 154 with a 5 per cent margin of error and a confidence level of 95 per cent. To achieve a representative and balanced distribution of employee responses, we asked, and assisted, a HR representative to randomly select the employees in the research sample. Meetings were then held with the selected employees in the workplace to outline the purpose of the research and data collection procedures, discuss confidentiality issues, and encourage involvement in the project. The number of participants was 119, representing a response rate of 77.3 per cent. It included a representative sample of employees providing administrative support and other employees who do not work in administrative positions at a private bank in the north metropolitan area of Puerto Rico.\nResults: Results are based on the analyses and descriptive statistics utilized in order to characterize the set of data collected. Inferential statistics was used on sample data to infer conclusions about the population surveyed (Pagano, 2008). Data analysis allowed for establishing the relationship between commitment and socio-demographic variables, with the demonstrations of organizational citizenship behaviour in its dimensions.\nAnalysis of statistical results: The Cohen (1988) scale was used for the interpretation of the correlation coefficients (see Table I).\nConclusions and final comments: There is strong evidence that organizational commitment is positively correlated to the organizational citizenship and its civic virtue dimensions, courtesy and altruism in the sample. These results are consistent with some found in the literature (Meyer and Allen, 1991; Niehoff and Organ, 1993; Munene, 1995; Feather and Rauter, 2004). However, the results differ from those in a study by Schappe (1998) where it was noted that organizational commitment is only a predictor for the meaning of organizational behaviour actions. The results also show that organizational commitment and some of its dimensions correlated positively with the demonstration of organizational citizenship behaviour.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there was a relationship between commitment and the behaviour of organizational citizenship among bank employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on the outcomes of a doctoral dissertation, which was a case study combining a mix methodology. The results validated the conceptual model proposed by the researcher and answered the research questions. Measurement instruments used include the organizational citizenship scale and the organizational commitment scale, developed and validated by Rosario et al. (2004).\nFindings: The paper finds that there is a positive correlation between the organizational commitment and the indicators of organizational citizenship behaviour and civic virtue, courtesy and altruism dimensions shown by the employees. The dimensions of affective and moral commitment had the strongest correlation with the civic virtue dimension of organizational citizenship.\nResearch limitations/implications: Sample consist only of private banking employees.\nPractical implications: The organizations should support the affective and moral commitment in their personnel in order to develop strong citizenship behaviour.\nSocial implications: The organizational commitment with demonstrations of citizenship behaviour, civic virtue, and courtesy and altruism dimensions may impact the organization and the community creating a good base to improve the quality of life.\nOriginality/value: This is the first attempt to study the relationship between organizational commitments and organizational citizenship behaviour in a sample of private banking employees in Puerto Rico.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
ICT usage in Ghanaian secondary schools: teachers' perspectives	[ "Self-efficacy", "Training", "Perspectives", "Teacher", "Administrative support" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: ICT is becoming increasingly important in our daily lives and in our educational system. For example, ICT has challenged the conventional teaching methods, transformed instructional practices and contributed to emerging new instructional methods (Tezci, 2011; Kubiatko and Halakova, 2009). With its prospects, ICT has become an important component of educational reform and an integral part of school curriculum (Papanastasiou and Angeli, 2008). The educational prospects of ICT could include enriching learning environments, permitting learners to embrace several perspectives on complex phenomenon, encouraging flexible knowledge construction in complex learning domains and catering for individual differences (Sang et al., 2010). The potential benefits of ICT in education have influenced many nations to implement ICT in their educational systems so as to churn out ICT skilled human resources who can be able to cope with global challenges (Almekhlafi, 2006; Levin and Wadmany, 2006a). However, a research study has revealed that teachers' pedagogical use of ICT have fallen and also there is certain lack of trust in the role of ICT in promoting learning (Kankaanranta and Puhakka, 2008 cited in Sipila, 2014).\n2. Literature review: To successfully initiate and implement educational technology in school's program depends strongly on the teachers' and students' attitudes (Selwyn, 1999; Woodrow, 1991; Teo, 2009). Teachers' perceptions of technology are essential if computers are efficiently incorporated into teaching and learning process in schools. Some researchers studied the relationship between teachers' perceptions of ICT integration and the actual integration of ICT into teaching. Ismail et al. (2010) investigated teachers' perceptions of the use technology in teaching languages in United Arab Emirtaes (UAE) schools. In total 621 responded to the questionnaire and 28 teachers participated in the focus group interview. Analysis from both the quantitative and qualitative data found teachers' perceptions of ICT integration into teaching, barriers to ICT integration, incentives for teachers, types of ICT used and their students' use of ICT. One of recommendations stated in the study was to examine the impact of ICT integration on language education in general and students' language proficiency in particular. In a similar study, Almekhlafi and Almeqdadi (2010) used mixed methods to conduct the perceptions of technology integration of 100 teachers in K-12 schools in UAE. Results obtained from the study showed that teachers use ICT in schools. Also, they adopt varieties of technologies to enhance students' learning. However, male teachers' methods of integration differed from female teachers.\n3. Research questions: RQ1. What are teachers' ICT usages in secondary schools?\n4. Methodology: In this study, 24 public and private secondary schools were randomly selected. The selection of schools was based on student-computer ratio (MoE, 2009) and the information provided by the school heads. The schools comprised three public secondary schools and three private secondary schools in each region. The categorization of the schools was urban schools, semi-urban schools and rural schools. The participants were randomly selected. A total of 650 questionnaires were received, representing 76.5 percent return rate from 850 questionnaires distributed to teachers. Of these, 85 questionnaires were deemed unusable, due to data incompleteness, and were subsequently dropped from the data set leaving 575 questionnaires for data screening. Of these, 199 questionnaires were detected as outliers and deleted from the data set leaving 376 cases for the data analysis. A table of values of sample size determination was used to determine the sample size of respondents in each school (Burke and Larry, 2008). The questionnaire consists of 35 items and was categorized into three sections. Section A consists of seven demographic items, section B consists of five items of teachers' ICT usage and section C consists of three items of perceived access to ICT, six items of competency, four items of administrative support, five items of self-efficacy and five items of training that were related to teachers' use of ICT. A reliability test was carried out to determine the internal consistency of items in the questionnaire using Cronbach's a reliability test. Cronbach's a coefficient for the pilot questionnaire was 0.90 and the final questionnaire used for the study was 0.92. According to Kline (2005), a-value of 0.90 is considered excellent, 0.80 very good and 0.70 acceptable. In this study, the observed variables had excellent internal consistency.\n5. Data analyses: SPSS 16 program was used to perform different types of descriptive statistics and independent t-tests from the quantitative data collected through the questionnaire.\n6. Research findings: Of 376 respondents, 64.1 percent were males and 35.4 percent were females. The age of the teachers ranged from 20 to over 50 years. 39.4 percent were between 30 and 39 years old; 14.4 percent were over 50 years old; 64.4 percent of the teachers taught in public schools while 35.6 percent taught in private schools. In total 35.9 percent of the teachers came from urban, 30.6 percent from semi-urban and 33.5 percent from rural schools. In terms of academic qualification, 61.7 percent had bachelors' degree, 25.5 percent had masters' degree, 8.8 percent had diploma and 4.4 percent had other qualifications. In addition, 59 percent had more than five years ICT experience, 25.3 percent had between four and five years ICT experience, 12.2 percent had between two and three years, while 3.5 percent had between zero and one year ICT experience.\nRQ3. Perceptions of male and female teachers in ICT access, competencies, administrative support, training and self-efficacy: As shown in Table VII, an independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the access, competence, self-efficacy and administrative support scores for males and females. There was significant difference in self-efficacy scores for males (mean=4.1, standard deviation=0.675) and females (mean=3.9, SD=0.661; t(372)=3.027, p=0.00). Based on Cohen's (1988) criteria of effect size, the magnitude of the differences in the means was very small (e2=0.024). Also, there was significant difference in administrative support scores for males (mean=3.3, SD=0.983) and females [mean=3.5, SD=0.932; t(372)=-2.562, p=0.01]. The magnitude of the differences in the means was very small (e2 =0.017).\n7. Discussion: This study presented evidence that teachers' integration of ICT into their teaching was low. This is in line with similar study (Agyei and Voogt, 2011; Tezci, 2011; Sipila, 2014) which reported low knowledge of teachers' ICT integration into their lesson. This finding might be attributed to the lack of teachers' training on how to integrate ICT into their lessons during their teacher education program. Generally, teachers' perceived access to ICT is \"once a week.\" This is an indication that teachers' access to ICT in schools is low. Low ICT access levels as reported by teachers are possible barriers for their inability to use ICT in classrooms. The results showed that the overall ICT competency of a teacher was moderately competent. According to Sipila (2014) teachers who are competent in the use of ICT often integrate the technology into their lessons. Most teachers perceive themselves as moderately competent with basic ICT applications (i.e. internet, world wide and word processing programs). This finding agrees with other studies (Sipila, 2014; Tezci, 2011; Goktas et al., 2009; Aydin, 2013).\n8. Conclusion: A review of the literature revealed that the issue of teachers' perceptions of ICT integration into teaching has not been comprehensively investigated in different contexts. Therefore, this study sought to investigate teachers' perceptions of ICT access, ICT training, ICT competencies, self-efficacy, leadership support, and ICT integration. The results showed that teachers' perceived ICT training, competence and access were low. These concerns (i.e. low training, competence and access) are common in developing countries where ICT has just been introduced into their curriculum (Eze et al., 2013; Chigona and Chigona, 2010; Sulungai et al., 2011). The national curriculum (MOESS, 2007) and policy documents (Ghana ICT4AD Policy, 2003) highlight the importance of ICT integration in schools to enhance teaching and learning. But, as long as the national curriculum and policy document do not force the teacher to use ICT in the subject being taught, the decision to whether use ICT in the classroom or not rests on the teacher. If the teacher lacks necessary training and competence to use a digital device in classroom, the device will be neglected. Makrakis (2005) posits that new ICTs need new teacher roles, new teachings and new strategies of teacher training. To achieve the goal of teaching in the technology rich learning environment in the twenty-first century, teachers requires new technology with new teaching to develop ICT competence. For further educational change, instructional technology would have to act as a catalyst for change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate secondary school teachers' perspectives on ICT usage in secondary schools in Ghana.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 376 teachers from 24 public and private schools from four regions in Ghana participated in this study. Survey and focus group interviews were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and independent sample t-tests were used to analyze the findings.\nFindings: The result indicated that teachers' perceived ICT usage, perceived access to ICT, perceived ICT training and perceived ICT competence were low. Furthermore, the analysis showed that male teachers' perceived confidence in the use of ICT was higher than female teachers. On the other hand, the perceived administrative support for female teachers was more than that for male teachers. Finally, this study discovered that there was no significant difference in public and private school teachers' access to ICT, administrative support, self-efficacy, competencies and training.\nOriginality/value: This contributes to the literature on the perceptions and use of teachers' ICT in secondary schools. The results provide insights into factors that teachers perceived as obstacles to integration of ICT into their teaching, particularly in developing nations. The study shows that teachers' perceived ICT competencies and ICT training do not depend on the type of school the teacher is employed to teacher.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
India's Right to Information Act, 2005: a catalyst for good governance	[ "Public authorities", "Public Information Officer", "First Appellate Authority", "Central Information Commission", "State Information Commission", "India", "Governance", "Information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a democracy, the People are the real sovereign[1]. The Constitution of India explicitly recognizes this truism by speaking in the name of \"the people of India\". However, in reality this oft quoted dictum is more followed in breach rather than in observance as the citizens' access to basic and essential information about policy formulation and governance has often been denied leading to mal-administration, bad governance, non-accountability, and lack of transparency and which in its turn promotes rampant corruption and arbitrary, capricious and whimsical exercise of power by public authorities. Though citizens' authority to appoint and dismiss governments is well recognized in a democratic polity like ours, yet they could not invoke this power effectively owing to non-accessibility of the basic information, necessary for exercising informed choices and decisions.Hence, it is essential and indispensable for the people to know what the government is doing and will do in order to enable them to appraise the policies and functioning of their elected representatives and public authorities. Thus, in a democracy, free and unhindered access to information is like oxygen to human beings. A well informed people are therefore the best guarantee of the survival and strengthening of the democratic process (Sathe, 1991). The Apex Court has very pertinently observed:[...] that Government of responsibility like ours where the agents of the public must be responsible for their conduct there can be but a few secrets. The people of this country have a right to know every public act, everything that is done in a public way by their public functionaries. They are entitled to know the particulars of every public transaction in all its bearings[2].Thus, the first and foremost pre-requisite for ensuing good governance, combating mal-administration and venality in public life is to put in place an effective legal frame work recognizing and ensuring an unhindered citizen's right to information, subject to a few exceptions.\nCitizens' right to information - historical background: The developed countries had enacted separate laws for ensuing citizens' right to information much earlier as such right has always been considered as an important instrument for entrenching democracy and promoting good governance. Sweden, in fact, was the first country to come out with its own legislation for ensuring citizens' access to information in the year 1766 itself. The Constitution of Sweden explicitly states that citizens shall have free access to official documents (Jain, 1982). In 1966, the USA adopted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which established a right to information held by federal government agencies. Strengthened after the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, FOIA became the model for dozens of statutes adopted by US state governments. FOIA also became a model legislation for other counties to emulate, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - all of which have adopted the similar laws by the year 1982. By 1990, 15 other nations-mainly wealthy advanced democracies in Europe or the Commonwealth - had similar statutes (Roberts, 2006). In the next two decades, however, enthusiasm for FOIA-style laws exploded (Banisar, 2006). Some of the other wealthy democracies - such as the UK, Germany, and Japan - finally adopted similar statutes. Many countries - such as South Africa, Mexico, and states in Central and Eastern Europe - adopted freedom of information laws as a way of expressing a new commitment to democratic governance. Some governments also adopted freedom of information laws to control corruption, often acting on advice from international organizations such as the World Bank or Transparency International (Roberts, 2010).Unfortunately, the policy of secrecy continued in India until very recently due to continuation of the secrecy regime founded by the colonial rulers and operation of laws enacted and implemented by the foreign administration in India for the advancement of its own partisan and selfish considerations. The continuation of the Official Secrets Act, 1923[3] and some of the obnoxious provisions[4] of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872[5] have almost deprived the citizens of their access to official records and documents, resulting in the negation of peoples' right to know. Though the Constitution of India guaranteed in Article 19 (1) (a) the freedom of speech and expression to every citizen yet it is available only against the state as delineated by Article 12 of our constitution and which certainly speaks about the severe restrictions to which this freedom is subject to. Further, the right to information may not be co-extensive with the right to freedom of speech and expression in the absence of proper legal frame work for sanctifying and enforcement of the latter. Perhaps, that was the reason why the Apex Court has recognized that right to information was an integral part of any open government in S.P. Gupta v. Union of India[6]. In that perspective, the right to know existed independently of the right to freedom of speech. Further, right to know would also be a part of the right to personal liberty guaranteed under article 21 of the constitution and so held by the Apex Court of India in Francis Coralie Mullien v. Union Territory of Delhi[7]. In Life Insurance Corporation v. Manubai Shah[8], the Supreme Court recognized the linkage between free speech and the right to know to make the latter a part of the former.In spite of all these beneficial judicial pronouncements, citizens' right to information in reality could not be assured effectively owing to the absence of proper legal frame work, recognizing this right as an enforceable one against every public and quasi public authority. In fact, social activists and Civil Society Organizations like Mazdoor Kissan Sakti Sangathan (MKSS), Parivarthan[9] have always been in the forefront demanding citizens' unhindered access to information and public records to promote transparent, accountable and citizens' friendly governance. Ultimately, the Union of India had enacted a FOIA, 2002 which received bouquets as well as brickbats in view of its positive as well as glaring retrograde provisions. The glaring deficiencies and short comings in the FOIA, 2002, has resulted in the emergence of vociferous demand from the public activists and civil society groups for the enactment of an effective and pragmatic legislation for upholding citizen's right to information and all this naturally impelled the parliament to enact and enforce:Right to Information Act, 2005[10]. This Act is acclaimed as a trend setting, unique and extra-ordinary legislation in the post independence India, aims at promoting transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority by assuring free and speedy access to information to citizens.It gives every citizen, the right to question public authorities and secure information about matters affecting them in thousands of ways. This Act makes it very clear that disclosure of information by public authorities is a rule while non-disclosure is an exception. Hence, if this Act is used innovatively and proactively by the citizens it would certainly promote accountability and transparency in the functioning of public authorities, apart from prevention of abuse and misuse of public power.\nRight to Information Act, 2005 - an overview: Scope and coverage of the Act\nContours of right to information and meaning of information: The Act says that right to information includes the right to inspect works, documents and records, taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records, taking certified samples of materials and obtaining information in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes, etc. from any public authority[14]. Thus, every citizen has an access to any information held by any public authority[15]. This right also extends to inspection of official records, documents, public works, taking samples and obtaining copies of documents, plans, contracts, maps, etc. Similarly, the term \"information\" is broadly defined so as to cover records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models and data material held in any electronic form. Hence, citizens can procure any information kept and maintained by any public authority in any form or mode. Any information accessible to a parliamentarian or legislator cannot be denied to a citizen and thereby the status of a citizen has been enhanced and elevated to any legislator in the matter of access to information. Further, the reasons for seeking information by an applicant need not be disclosed[16]. Even information pertaining to third parties but held by a public authority can be procured by a citizen. In such a case, the public authority should part with such information after giving a notice and hearing objections of the third party concerned[17].Access to information under the Act\nConclusion: The initial feedback on the implementation and consequential outcomes generated by the present Act over the last more than six years at the national and sub-national level is like a mixed bag of notable successes and failures. Though the Act has been used as a potent weapon by many public driven individuals, RTI activists and civil society groups for exposing scams, public frauds, pilferage of public money, abuse and misuse of public power and venality in governance process at various levels yet the appointment of persons with political affiliation or connection and doubtful integrity as commissioners in the State Information Commissions is definitely a stumbling block in realizing the laudable aims and objectives of the Act. The only way this problem can be surmounted is by building up pressure on the political establishment by the civil society groups and public spirited individuals for the appointment of highly competent, absolutely honest and impeccable persons as commissioners in the Central and State Information Commissions and which will definitely pave the way for independent, professional and non-partisan functioning of these bodies. The increasing piling up of appeals before the central and state commissions makes access to information cumbersome and dilatory, resulting in the frustration of the definite time frames laid down under the Act. Hence, informal, simplified and expeditious procedures should be adopted by the commissioners in the disposal of appeals to make citizen's access to information becomes meaningful and hassle free.Further, no law can bring about desirable changes on its own unless and until its beneficial provisions are strictly implemented and public are adequately aware of the beneficial provisions of the enactment. Therefore, the effective implementation of any law demands the proper and increasing awareness of its provisions by the citizens' and which alone makes them assertive and proactive about their rights and responsive towards their obligations. This Act is not an exception to this universal truism. Hence, the first and foremost imperative for achieving an effective enforcement of this Act will be to sensitize the citizens' about its beneficial and empowering provisions in promoting accountability, transparency and probity in the functioning of every public authority. Unfortunately in a country like India, wherein around 35 percent of people are still illiterate, unaware, and ignorant and further for a huge section of populace even to get two meals a day is a struggle for existence. In this distressing backdrop, to expect these people suffering from poverty and depravation to invoke the empowering provisions of this Act would be a mere pipedream and unrealistic. In this depressing and discouraging scenario, the enlightened and public spirited citizens and civil society organizations can play a pivotal role in espousing the rights and interests of the indigent, ignorant and depraved sections of the society by invoking the provisions of this Act for spearheading the cause of the vulnerable sections and mitigating the pilferage of public money. This Act is undoubtedly an effective and potent weapon in combating the evils of mal-administration and bad governance afflicting India's polity. It definitely binds the policy makers and administrators accountable to the people by acting as an effective check against arbitrary, capricious and whimsical exercise of public power. Hence, it is not a surprise that the Act generates a lot of hopes, aspirations, inspirations and expectations amongst the people towards responsive, open and accountable governance. But ultimately whether all these expectations arousing in the minds of people will be translated into reality, or not hinges upon the assertiveness, tenacity and unflinching commitment of the citizens' to use it as a shield against all the evils of mal-administration and mis-governance besetting India's polity. Thus, the efficacy of the Act ultimately depends upon how effectively citizens use it to realize its goals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to analyze and assess the efficacy of one of India's path-breaking and trendsetting enactments of recent origin, namely, the Right to Information Act, 2005 in promoting transparency, accountability and probity in governance process at the national and sub-national level and how it is useful as a potent legal tool in fighting against and preventing maladministration, bad governance and venality in the governance process at different levels of administration in India.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper focuses purely on the doctrine study by tracing out the historical background of the Citizens' Right to Information and an overview of the Right to Information Act, 2005. It also comprehensively discusses the meaning of information and right to know under the Indian constitutional framework and how its boundaries have been further widened with the enactment and enforcement of the Right to Information Act, 2005. Further, the paper also deliberates on how the citizens are empowered to enjoy and exercise unhindered right to information under the Act on a par with the legislators.\nFindings: - The paper discloses that the Right to Information Act, 2005 has undoubtedly immense benefits for the Indian polity in the form of strengthening of democratic process and promoting good governance practices.\nPractical implications: - The study throws ample light on how the informed and empowered citizenry is imperative for a meaningful democracy and also in promoting good governance and further in exposing maladministration.\nOriginality/value: - The study on the path-breaking enactment of recent origin in a young democracy like India has paramount contemporary significance for young and transitional democracies across the world for strengthening democratic systems and promoting good governance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Conflict handling in small firms' foreign business relationships	[ "Small firms", "Conflict", "Foreign business relationship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As an inherent feature of human relationships, conflicts in business relationships are unavoidable (Plank and Newell, 2007; Celuch et al., 2011). They are often perceived as dysfunctional, i.e. having a clearly negative impact on both the relationship and the firm in general (Cheng and Sheu, 2012; Finch et al., 2013). Attention is paid relatively less frequently to their potentially positive impact (Rosson and Ford, 1980; Vaaland and Hakansson, 2003). However, Vaaland and Hakansson (2003, p. 128) underline that \"conflicts may both be functional and dysfunctional:\" they can be a problem to be removed or a tool for improvement. Accordingly, we may assume that outcomes of conflicts may be negative or positive (Duarte and Davies, 2003). An important issue is, therefore, proper conflict handling to assure positive outcomes. Moreover, conflicts can manifest at different levels and include small day-to-day problems and misunderstandings as well as severe, escalating conflicts that threaten the existence of the relationship (Ellegaard and Andersen, 2015). We may assume that these different levels are linked to different sources of conflicts and their different outcomes. Small day-to-day problems accompany every business activity and, if handled correctly, should not lead to severe consequences. In turn, severe conflicts may threaten the existence of the firm and even lead to the ending of the relationship. Taking the network perspective, changes that appear within the dyad as the effect of relationship ending may negatively impact other network actors, who need to reconfigure their activities (Tahtinen and Halinen-Kaila, 1997). As a consequence, a relationship ending may influence not only the dyad but also other network relationships and resources. It should be stressed that the ending of a relationship does not always have negative consequences for a firm - in some situations, it may be beneficial (Zaefarian et al., 2017). Therefore, the proper analysis of sources and outcomes of conflicts within the network is an important question.\nConflicts in small firms' foreign relationships: Nature of conflicts\nMethodology: The paper presents a qualitative, exploratory study. This type of research is particularly suitable for understanding why and how things happen (Marschan-Piekkari and Welch, 2004) and is appropriate in analyses of networks and business relationships (Easton, 1998). Moreover, because of qualitative research, it is possible to discover and to explore \"a complex set of factors\" (Freeman, Styles and Lawley, 2012, p. 93). However, this type of research does not allow the application of statistical generalisations, a fact that constitutes its main limitation.\nAn analysis of the illustrative examples of six small firms: Sources of conflict situations in foreign relationships\nDiscussion: Resource-constrained as they are, small firms often have relationships with larger and stronger actors, including MNEs. As our research has shown, this has an impact on conflicts in foreign relationships, assessed from the perspective of small firm in terms of the sources and outcomes of these conflicts and possible actions taken as part of conflict handling.\nConclusions: Our study contributes to research on conflicts in two ways. First, our analysis of small firms' international activity in conflict situations provides a contribution to the existing, rather limited, body of literature by investigating the nature of conflicts in small firms. On the basis of this study, we identify the sources of day-to-day problems and of severe conflicts in small firms' foreign relationships. Second, we point to actions that could be taken by small firms to handle both types of conflicts in a way that will produce positive outcomes. This is especially important, as the foreign actors with whom small firms cooperate include not only firms of a similar size and comparable resources but also large MNEs. Moreover, for a small firm, a conflict, despite its type, in a foreign relationship, if handled incorrectly, may lead to serious problems influencing the firm's performance. The actions that could be taken by small firms to handle both types of conflicts play an important role, especially for small firms' managers, who, despite the limited resources of their firms and often despite their own limited international experience, can control these aspects to ensure that conflicts in foreign relationships have positive outcomes. That is why conflicts, regardless of their level of intensity, constitute a relatively big challenge for small firms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to indicate how conflicts in foreign business relationships are handled by small firms from a relational point of view and how these conflicts can be used by small firms in a positive way.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses qualitative study and presents the results of in-depth interviews conducted with six small, Poland-based firms.\nFindings: The paper indicates the nature of conflicts in foreign business relationships from the perspective of small firms, including the sources of conflict and its outcomes. The main sources of conflict indicated include service or product quality, financial aspects of cooperation and cultural differences. The study exposes the existence of both negative (e.g. financial consequences) and positive (e.g. gaining new experience) outcomes of conflicts. It shows that positive conflict handling often constitutes a significant challenge for small firms and that the authors cannot really speak of one optimal method of conflict handling. Regardless of the method adopted, the costs involved should be taken into detailed consideration.\nPractical implications: The paper points to actions that could be taken by small firms to handle conflicts in a way that will produce positive outcomes.\nOriginality/value: Managing international relationships is a more challenging task compared with domestic ones, especially for smaller firms. The paper exposes the impact of two categories of conflict (called day-to-day problems and severe conflicts) in a foreign relationship on small firms and considers different methods of handling the conflict situations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accounting for modern slavery: an analysis of Australian listed company disclosures	[ "Australia", "Sustainability", "Labour", "Modern slavery", "ASX 100", "Listed company disclosure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Much has been written in recent years concerning the globalisation of business practices and the benefits provided by access to global markets. Driven by consumer desire for cheap goods, many business organisations have abandoned vertical integration in favour of horizontal business models that incorporate a variety of outsourcing and offshoring activities (Stringer et al., 2016). The argument is that by moving production in labour-intensive industries to countries that are less well developed and where labour is cheaper businesses can benefit from reduced costs while meeting customer demand for products and services and maintaining income (Gold et al., 2015). Although this proposition sounds good in theory, there is a dark side to the practice, and the pressure it puts on other organisations that keep labour \"in house\", that the western world is only just beginning to acknowledge; it provides a fertile ground for a form of exploitation which has come to be known as modern slavery.\n2. Literature review: Despite being illegal in most countries, including Australia, as well as expressly prohibited by Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in practice slavery-related activities continue even if the nature of the practice has changed (Crane et al., 2019; New, 2015). It has been argued that there are currently more than 35m slaves worldwide and that the practice extends to every corner of the globe, although it is more commonly found in developing countries (Crane, 2013; Gold et al., 2015). Modern slavery constitutes a vast array of abuses that range from domestic servitude and sex slavery to organ trafficking and child exploitation (Quirk, 2006). Areas of greatest concern from a business perspective include forced labour, debt bondage, child labour and human trafficking, which is often necessary to transport people to where the labour is needed (Crane et al., 2019; Crane, 2013). Corporate responsibility in relation to modern slavery is further highlighted by LeBaron (2014, p. 237) who argues that \"at least 80 percent of forced labour [that] occurs in the private economy [...] involves business [organisations] in some way\".\n3. Research design and methodology: Attention is drawn to three aspects of research design and methodology in the following sub-sections: background to content analysis, data collection and data analysis design.\n4. Results: Results for the content analysis provide an indication of how the ASX 100 companies accounted for modern slavery in 2016, prior to the Government Inquiry being announced. An overview of the sample is contained in Table II (additional detail can be sought from the corresponding author). The extremes in approaches to disclosure are stark. Ten companies (10 per cent) disclosed no modern slavery-related information either in standalone, annual reports, or on their websites, while 90 companies did make some disclosures. Nevertheless, of the ten non-disclosing companies three (ResMed Inc., Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd and Reece Ltd) did produce an online modern slavery statement. Stimulus for ResMed's statement was the California and UK Acts, for Domino's it was the UK Act, but Reece did not reference any overseas legislation. At the other extreme, 17 companies (17 per cent) disclosed standalone information, a modern slavery statement based on the UK Act, a supplier code of conduct and a human rights statement.\n5. Discussion: Analysis of the ways in which ASX 100 companies account for modern slavery provides a potential benchmark reflecting voluntary practice prior to promised legislation on modern slavery being enacted in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017b).\n6. Conclusion: Legislation requiring companies to report on their modern slavery practices has been introduced in a growing number of countries with Australia being one of the most recent to engage. In 2017, a Parliamentary Inquiry recommended modern slavery legislation be introduced, and the Attorney-General's Department lent its support by recommending reporting requirements about modern slavery in supply chains be mandated for larger companies. Although modern slavery and its disclosure are topics of great contemporary interest, literature indicates a lack of systematic evidence available from Australia and this paper contributes by addressing the research question:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Given the impending introduction of legislation requiring large Australian listed companies to make supply chain disclosures about modern slavery, the paper aims to reveal current voluntary practice. The purpose of this paper is to provide a benchmark for assessing the current engagement of large companies with modern slavery in Australia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Institutional theory provides the foundation for assessing current voluntary practice in relation to modern slavery disclosures by large Australian listed companies. Content analysis is used to identify quantity and quality of modern slavery disclosures of the top 100 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The contents of annual and standalone reports available on websites, as well as other online disclosures, are examined using terms associated with modern slavery identified from the literature.\nFindings: Evidence gathered about modern slavery disclosures by ASX 100 companies shows information in annual and standalone reports reveal far less than other disclosures on company websites. Overall, the volume and quality of disclosures are low and, where made, narrative. A wide range of themes on modern slavery are disclosed with bribery and corruption and human rights issues dominant. Although currently in line with institutional theory, as there appear to be mimetic processes encouraging disclosure, results support the idea that legislation is needed to encourage further engagement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper provides a baseline of understanding about the volume and quality of modern slavery disclosures as a foundation for future research into the practices of Australian companies prior to the signalled introduction of legislation mandating reporting. It also identifies potential lines of research. The sample only examines large Australian listed companies which restricts generalisation from the results.\nOriginality/value: This is the first academic research paper to examine quantity and quality of modern slavery disclosures of large Australian companies. Results add support for the introduction of legislation by government.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Residents' perceptions of wine tourism on the rural destinations development	[ "Impact", "Wine tourism", "Rural development", "Rural destinations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Wine tourism is one of the most important resources in the wine industry. It depends on the territorial system, generating success with the operational synergies of various actors in their extended wine supply chain or network (Tommasetti and Festa, 2014). This type of tourism has two characteristics: first, it has importance as tourism (or touristic potential) and, second, it promotes wine production. Both are significant in generating revenue for a local community, region or the state. Today, there are numerous definitions of wine tourism, but mostly they consider visiting of tourists to different wine manifestations, cellars and wineries with the aim of tasting wine.\nLiterature review: Perceptions are things which originate from inside of individuals, their observation or remark. It is personal experience, which can be different from person to person (Lindsay and Norman, 1977; Pickens, 2005; Xu et al., 2016). In contexts of our paper, perceptions are revised to understand how locals perceive the impacts of wine tourism on a given rural tourism development. In the research of Gursoy and Rutherford (2004), local economy could be strongly supported by tourism development where there are certain positive perceptions impacts on this development. Authors examined perceptions impact on economics, social, cultural and environmental development. Their findings of positive impacts of perceptions are only connected with residents who strongly support mass tourism and they see effects in the growth of the economy. Others, with the positive perceptions, focus on social and cultural development support alternative tourism. Similar results are in the studies of Yoon et al. (2001), Lee and Chang (2008), Byrd et al. (2009) and Xu et al. (2016). On all of these studies, there is strong connection between positive resident's perceptions and economy development.\nData and methodology: This study is based on a similar recent case study published by Xu et al. (2016). However, it is specific because of diverse geographical, climatic, economic and social environment. In addition, our study was analyzed by the technique of SEM, instead of reliability tests and multivariate regressions in Xu et al. (2016), or ANOVA test in Byrd et al. (2009) which considers similar objectives.\nResult and discussion: Table I shows the descriptive statistics of the data.\nConclusion and implications: Fruska Gora Mountain as region is traditionally a significant wine producer in Serbia. Considering its geographical position, relief, climate and cultural heritage, it has created many recognizable, authentic wines, which are served in restaurants, family farms and wine cellars. However, these potentials are not sufficiently utilized for the development of tourism, although they represent significant potential. This region has several traditional business sectors in tourism with opportunities for global competitiveness and also the ability to develop completely new sectors in view of changes in the global tourism market. Priority should be given to those sectors in which this region can develop the strongest attractiveness and where it can quickly build its own competitive advantages in such a way that products and services are modeled on competitors, or even better, in a way completely different from the competitors, that is, by installing one's own identity. Wine tourism represents a base for the development of tourism in Serbia. Such an approach should enable a significant affirmation of wines from this region and show this geographical area as an important gastronomic destination and, thus, contribute to the growth of the regional economy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of wine tourism on rural destination development. Consequently, this study attempts to develop contemporary insights on this under-researched area such as residents' perceptions of wine tourism and its impact on the rural destination development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, the authors used a structured survey questionnaire from a random sample of 318 respondents based on the Fruska Gora Mountain in Serbia. Research also used structural equational modeling for empirical econometric testing in this data sample. This technique is appropriate for multivariate analysis.\nFindings: Personal resident benefit associated with wineries is positively related to resident perceived economic impact (H1) R2=0.624; socio-cultural impact (H2) R2=0.685 and environmental impact (H3) R2=0.716 of wineries on local communities. Looking at the path diagram, the authors concluded that personal resident benefit associated with wineries is strongly related to resident perceived impact of wineries on local communities as regression weights are higher. Other findings relate those residents' positive perceptions of wine tourism to increases in sales revenue, environmental protection, intrapersonal and interpersonal communication.\nResearch limitations/implications: The positive attitude of the local population is an essential link of development. Such understanding of residents' perceptions optimizes destination management in the future and, more importantly, local sustainable development. This has high policy implications.\nOriginality/value: The present study contributes to the scientific circles by connecting perception research with wine tourism.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
IT governance enablers in relation to IoT implementation: a systematic literature review	[ "Information systems", "Governance", "IoT", "COBIT5", "Enablers", "Governance", "IoT", "IT governance", "Implementation", "Systematic literature review" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information technology (IT) governance is high up on the agenda in many organizations, and high-level IT governance (ITG) models are more and more important within organizations (Huygh and De Haes, 2019). IT is becoming a crucial component in the organizations making ITG an important key point to enable business goals and mitigating risks associated with IT implementation (Bernroider, 2008). ITG goals include encouraging desirable behavior in the IT utilization and allowing the business level to become aligned with IT, aligning IT objectives with the overall business strategy, the measures of IT performance and the competitive advantages provided by IT for the organization (Higgins and Sinclair, 2008; Kude et al., 2017). ITG has the potential to deliver suitable IT management practices to create better decisions using the IT's resources (Bart et al., 2018).\n2. Background: The ITG enablers referenced in this research are the ones presented in COBIT 5. The COBIT 5 seven enablers intend to promote a more efficient and effective governance and management system for enterprise IT (ISACA, 2013). The ITG enablers intend to achieve and sustain a business-IT alignment, which is the core of ITG (Henriques et al., 2020; Ndlovu and Kyobe, 2016).\n3. Methodology: This research applied an SLR based on the original guidelines proposed by Kitchenham (2004). In this case, the review aimed to identify and summarize the main contributions published regarding IoT and the ITG enablers. The stages detailed in Figure 1 were constituted using Kitchenham (2004) as a reference.\n4. Results: Regarding RQ1, it was verified that the terms \"ITG Enablers and \"IoT\" were not used in the same way in the scientific papers consulted during our research, which makes it more difficult to create a direct correlation between ITG enablers and the IoT. As such, we had to perform a broader search in each subject area and then interpret the articles' information for a correlation between them to be possible.\n5. Discussion: Below it is shown the description for each ITG enabler in the context of an IoT implementation. The information was collected from the various articles selected for this literature review.\n6. Conclusion: This research investigated which are the most suitable ITG enablers that can assist organizations in IoT implementations. From the 44 articles selected, a list of recommendations based on each ITG enabler is proposed to guide a proper IoT implementation (Table VIII), hopefully increasing the success rate.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to obtain a list of recommendations addressed by the information technology (IT) governance enablers in relation to IoT implementation. The reason behind this it is the lack of information about these instances which could the organizations to be more effective when implementing IoT.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The objectives will be obtained using the methodology - systematic literature review.\nFindings: During the research, a list of recommendations was created on each IT governance enabler in relation to IoT implementation, showing the flaws that exist at the literature level for each enabler.\nOriginality/value: The state of art of this research is a creation of a list of recommendations according to IT governance enablers to be applied on an IoT implementation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cost efficiency and welfare performance of banks: evidence from an emerging economy	[ "Cost efficiency", "Bank", "Welfare performance", "Social cost", "Financial consumer protection", "Quantile regression", "Ghana" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A banking system that is not price-competitive has dire consequences for the financial consumer. Prior literature shows that the financial consumer suffers the social cost of the market power of banks in such a system. For example, in Mexico over the period 1993-2005 social cost from market power was estimated at 0.15% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 (Solis and Maudos, 2008). Similarly, in the banking sectors of 15 European countries over the period 1993-2002 welfare loss from market power was estimated at 0.54% of GDP in 2002 (Maudos and de Guevara, 2007). In Saudi Arabia, the social cost associated with market power, using data for the period 2001-2012, was estimated at 0.82% of GDP in 2012 (Almounsor and Mensi, 2016). For a developing economy like Ghana in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the social cost of market power was estimated at 2.6% of GDP in 2008 (Aboagye, 2012). In the same measure, an inefficient banking system exacerbates the plight of the financial consumer. This ranges from 0.021% for cost inefficiency to 0.075% for profit inefficiency to GDP (Solis and Maudos, 2008).What most empirical studies have done is to examine the relationship between market power and cost efficiency in a bid to test the validity of four competing hypotheses (i.e. structure-conduct-performance (SCP) hypothesis, the relative market power hypothesis, the quiet life hypothesis, and the X-efficiency hypothesis) to explain this phenomenon (Tu and Chen, 2000; Weill, 2004; Maudos and de Guevara, 2007; Solis and Maudos, 2008; Delis and Tsionas, 2009; Fu and Heffernan, 2009; Ariss, 2010; Aboagye, 2012; Williams, 2012; Alhassan and Ohene-Asare, 2016; Almounsor and Mensi, 2016). We extend and complement this extant literature by examining the relationship between the consequential social cost of market power (i.e. welfare performance of banks) and cost efficiency. Our motivation is that market power in banking systems cannot be done away with completely, and as suggested by Sarpong-Kumankoma et al. (2017) banks should be allowed to possess some level of market power to sustain the value-enhancing effect of cost efficiency. Also, Mirzaei et al. (2013) are of the view that policymakers should not be excessive in their rollout of competition policy as that may yield unintended consequences by destabilizing the banking system. Thus, society would have to endure the consequential social cost (welfare loss) of banks' market power. Recent studies have shown that the process of deregulation has had limited success at restraining the prowess of bank market power (Ho, 2012; Williams, 2012; Detragiache et al., 2008). These studies have confirmed, however, the existence and relevance of the concept of mutual exclusivity between welfare gains from reduced market power and cost-efficient banks. The available empirical evidence shows that welfare gains occasion loss of bank cost efficiency at the macro-level (Maudos and de Guevara, 2007). However, it is unclear how welfare gains and cost efficiency relate at bank-level. Extending this link to the bank-level is important because in banking, competition or market power takes place at a much lower level than the macro level [1].In order to bridge this gap, this paper investigates the relationship between banks' welfare performance and cost efficiency based on Ghanaian banks. The Ghanaian banking context is suitable mainly because the sector has seen extensive reforms over the period 1988 to 2016 [2]. The net effect of these reforms include: (1) the removal of government control over interest rates, credit rates, and exchange rates; (2) the liberalization of the Ghanaian banking system resulting in the emergence and operation of a number of locally incorporated banks and foreign banks; (3) independence to the central bank; (4) consolidation and (5) closure of the supervisory and regulatory gaps while promoting financial consumer protection, innovation and financial inclusion. However, high interest spread has been a major downside of the numerous changes that have taken place in the Ghanaian banking system. This makes the banking sector uncompetitive due to mispricing from the exercise of market power. The percentage of welfare loss to GDP per year, as shown in Figure 1, has been increasing steadily from an average of 2.99% of GDP in 2009, it reached 4.92% of GDP in 2012. Despite a significant decline in welfare loss to GDP in both 2013 and 2015 by 1.58 and 1.09% respectively, there was an increase in welfare loss of 1.26% of GDP between 2015 and 2017. Therefore, the continuous limited success with financial liberalization in the area of price competition gives rise to the paramount need for mechanisms to reduce welfare losses from the market power of banks.Further, the analysis of the Ghanaian banking sector shows supplementary unique features; specifically, the dominance of foreign banks and market knowledge (learning by doing). These unique features enable us to answer the following related questions which have seen limited attention in the extant literature. How do foreign banks affect social welfare in an era of their dominance? How does \"learning by doing\" affect social welfare? How does the interaction of either foreign banks or market knowledge with cost efficiency affect social welfare?Our paper makes the following contributions to bank performance literature in general and the Ghanaian banking system. First, using a sample of commercial banks from an emerging economy in SSA banking system for the period 2009-2017, which was characterized by foreign banks' dominance, we extend the previous studies that focused on emerging economies in Europe, Asia and Latin America on the impact of cost efficiency on bank social cost due to mispricing (Maudos and de Guevara, 2007; Fang et al., 2011; Almounsor; Mensi, 2016). Unlike previous studies that confined the estimation of social welfare loss to national level aggregate, the present study computes social welfare loss at the individual bank level scaled by total assets, year on year. Therefore, our test variable, social welfare loss, enables us to examine bank-level heterogeneity in social welfare loss from market power. Also, the study applies the QR approach to provide an added advantage as welfare performance differs from one bank to another. Thus, we resolve concerns about cross-bank variations in our estimate of welfare performance and provide increased room for policy relevance. From our review of prior literature, this paper is the first to apply the QR estimation technique to examine the effect of cost efficiency throughout the conditional distribution of bank welfare performance rather than just the conditional mean effect of cost efficiency.Second, our paper provides new empirical evidence by examining the conditioning effect of foreign banks and market knowledge on the relationship between cost efficiency and welfare performance of banks. On one hand, studies like Ghosh (2016) suggests that the banking sector globalization is a precondition for improvement in the cost and profit efficiencies of banks in developing countries. On the other hand, the findings of Asongu and Nwachukwu (2018) suggest that information sharing plays a critical role in safeguarding the financial consumer by reducing loan prices and increasing loan quantities borrowers receive. Thus, the interaction effect of cost efficiency and foreign banks, as well as cost efficiency and market knowledge could have a more apparent impact on welfare losses and provide relevant policy direction in the effort to reduce welfare losses. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the conditioning effect of foreign banks (in an era of their dominance) and market knowledge on the social welfare of banking firms in SSA [3]. Additionally, although there is a major shift from state commercial banks to private foreign banks and domestic banks in Ghana, the available empirical accounts have failed to quantify the welfare implications of this change as a post-policy evaluation; our paper contributes in this direction.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the related literature and develops the hypotheses; Section 3 discusses the data, empirical models and econometric estimation techniques used; Section 4 details the findings; and Section 5 concludes and discusses the implications of the study.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Theoretical underpinning and related literature\n3. Data and methods: 3.1 Data and sample selection\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Summary statistics and univariate results\n5. Summary, conclusion and implications: 5.1 Summary\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The study examines the relationship between the consequential social cost of market power (i.e. welfare performance of banks) and cost efficiency using data covering the period 2009 to 2017 from the Ghanaian banking industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopts the ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effect (FE) panel regression and the quantile regression (QR) approaches to control for heterogeneity and provide increased room for policy relevance. The two-stage least squares instrumental variables (2SLS-IV) regression is used to ensure the robustness of the findings against the problem of possible reverse causality.\nFindings: The results indicate a positive relationship between banks' welfare performance and cost efficiency, which suggests that greater cost efficiency hedges welfare losses. In other words, welfare gains and cost-efficient banks are not mutually exclusive. Also, the results show evidence that the sensitivity of welfare gain to cost efficiency depends on the knowledge of local market dynamics. Further, the findings from the QR estimation suggest that, but for welfare loss at low (Q.25) to the median (Q.50) quantiles, cost efficiency is a necessary and sufficient condition to hedge the welfare losses.\nPractical implications: The results demonstrate that financial consumer protection cannot be achieved without cost efficiency in the presence of both foreign banks and high market knowledge. Therefore, our paper suggests an integrated cost efficiency policy approach that has the complementary effect of a robust information sharing mechanism and incentives to hedge against welfare losses in the banking sector of emerging economies. Moreover, if welfare gain is synonymous with cost-efficient banks, then the presence of a quiet life is typical of financial consumer protection.\nOriginality/value: This study provides insight into the importance of cost efficiency to the public policy of financial consumer protection in an era of foreign banks' dominance. From the review of prior literature, this paper is the first to apply the QR estimation technique to examine the effect of cost efficiency throughout the conditional distribution of bank welfare performance rather than just the conditional mean effect of cost efficiency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Framing the local food experience: a case study of a Finnish pop-up restaurant	[ "Local food", "Food experience", "Food culture", "Finnish food", "Local – global", "Locality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In this paper, we examine how the diners at the locally themed pop-up restaurant event Trip to Province understand the locality and its local food. Earlier in the research, the term \"local food\" has often been explained through a geographical lens wherein the short distances between producers and consumers, and also direct purchases from the farms, are the main characteristics (Sims, 2010, p. 107; Roininen et al., 2006, p. 20). Sometimes locality is perceived as products produced in the same country in which they are consumed (Edwards-Jones et al., 2008, p. 265; Morris and Buller, 2003).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Food tourism\n3. Case study and methodology: 3.1 Study setting\n4. Research findings: framing the talk about local food experience: Different aspects of locality were talked about in all three of the group interviews, even if we did not ask the interviewees separately to ponder the issue. As a result of the analysis, we found three frames through which interviewees perceived local food: immediate surroundings, Finnish national ethos and the global discourses of food enthusiasts. Next, we will examine more closely how the frames are manifested in the interviews.\n5. Discussion: In this paper, we have analysed the group interviews of customers who had dining experiences in pop-up restaurants in order to show how locality and especially local food are talked about. In summary, local food was discussed in the context of three frames: locality in terms of immediate surroundings and people, locality in terms of the Finnish national ethos and locality in terms of global discourses among food enthusiasts. However, despite forming these frames for analytical clarity, these are not mutually exclusive but overlapping and shaped in use.\n6. Conclusions: By examining local food experiences, we found that local food is not just about the food, its quality or taste. Local food also encompasses other dimensions that are manifested through the local and global cultural frames of interpretation. The results of our study indicate that these frames convey shared meanings and that they play an essential role when talking about local food.\n7. Limitations of the study: The study has limitations that should be considered in future research. First, we observe that the size of the empirical data of the study is small, consisting of three group interviews. Research data should be expanded by conducting more case studies on the subject. Second, the findings should be examined by comparing them more specifically with case studies conducted in other countries, so that the impact of culture on the findings could be explored.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse how Finnish customers at the pop-up restaurant event Trip to Province, which took place in South Ostrobothnia, Finland, make sense of the locality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data consist of 3 group interviews and 18 respondents, whose responses were analysed using a frame analysis.\nFindings: Locality is discussed in the context of three frames: the immediate surroundings, the Finnish national ethos and the global discourses of food enthusiasts. The results show that, in terms of local food events, locality comprises not only food, but also place, people and cultural context conveying national and global elements.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data of this study are limited in size, and limited to the Finnish context.\nPractical implications: Local food events could be promoted to locals and nearby residents, not just to tourists. With the design of the eating environment (music and visuals), the local food experience can be enhanced.\nSocial implications: Local food events strengthen the residents' regional identity.\nOriginality/value: The research setting for this paper is original; the study takes part in the scarce discussion about gastronomic tourism in Finland. The study broadens the view that local food is just about food; regarding local food events, locality also entails place, people, nationality and globality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The unexpected side of relational e-HRM : Developing trust in the HR department	[ "E-HRM", "Procedural justice", "Employment relations", "Relational HRM practices", "Techonology innovativeness", "Trust in the HR department" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, two phenomena have significantly affected employee trust in the HR department, especially in Europe. On the one hand, the increased flexibility and insecurity that characterize relations in the labour market and on the other, the internal reorganization of the HR function oriented to achieving efficiency and the simultaneous transformation of the function into business partners (Caldwell, 2008; Graham and Tarbell, 2006).\nTrust and e-HRM practices: Trust in the work environment is often perceived as an integrative mechanism creating and sustaining social systems and a source of increased efficiency and effectiveness. Lack of trust can lead to dysfunctional outcomes such as cynicism, low motivation, low commitment, low job satisfaction and intent to quit (Gould-Williams, 2003; Svensson, 2012).\nMethods: A wide and structured survey was used to collect data on employees that are part of the Generation Y. The sample was drawn from the alumni of two important northern Italian universities and four high schools. Only alumni born in or after 1981, with at least three months work experience, were eligible to participate. Self-employed and internship employees were excluded. The convenience sample was constructed taking into consideration the ratios of education levels of the Gen Yer inhabitants of the whole considered region (undergraduate, bachelor and master degree). Within each institution, alumni were stratified considering their school backgrounds (i.e. school topic/academic faculty) and gender. We chose to focus on Gen Y employees since they are \"digital natives\", qualified in the workplace due to their distinctive relationship with technology that they consider integral to their lives and as a way of knowing and interacting with the world (Hershatter and Epstein, 2010). Moreover, for young employees, \"management quality\" is a top motivational factor (after pay) and they highly appreciate organizations that are constantly available for feedback and interaction (Ng et al., 2010). Consistently with these considerations, our key assumption is that e-HRM practices allow the organization to keep in touch with the workforce and contribute to a collaborative and highly professional work environment, which is more easily perceived by Gen Y employees in accordance with their presumed technological orientation (Cennamo and Gardner, 2008).\nResults: Our results provide some evidence that e-HRM practices play a relevant role in the employee-organization relationship and contribute to the debate on the role of the HRM department in modern organizations.\nDiscussion: The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between relational e-HRM practices, perceived procedural justice, trust in the HR department and employee attitude to technology. Research on social exchange theory has shown that employee attitude is influenced by HR practices, by their perceptions of HR systems, and that they reciprocate their perceptions accordingly. Research also demonstrates that e-HRM practices are changing the role of HR departments towards a more strategic partnership with line managers, without however referring to the relationship with employees (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005; Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007).\nLimits and future research: Our paper serves as a prelude to the growing body of theory and research seeking to explain the emergence and existence of the e-HRM challenge in shaping the employee-organization relationship. The main limitation of this study is the sample; the next step is to analyse a sample that includes digital natives but also digital immigrants and the digitally uninformed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the organizational redesign opportunities currently offered by web-based technological innovations contribute to rebuilding and strengthening the employee-HR department relationship, rendering personnel management policy criteria more transparent, increasing perceived fairness and thus helping to instil trust in the HR department, albeit in a diverse virtual context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors designed a survey involving 526 Gen Y employees and tested the hypotheses using structural equation modelling analyses.\nFindings: The results confirm a positive relationship between relational e-HRM system adoption, procedural justice and trust in the HR department.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results provide evidence that technology can support the development of institutional trust in virtual environments and thus contribute to the growing e-HRM literature, to the more consolidated strategic HRM research domain and to the debate on trust in technology-mediated relationships.\nPractical implications: The paper provides valuable and at times unexpected results on the new potential role of the HR department in the current fluid and insecure labour market, thereby forming the basis for defining some useful guidelines to design and implement the e-HRM architecture.\nOriginality/value: The paper focuses on understanding how relational e-HRM could impact on the direct employee-HR department relationship, from the Gen Y employees perspective, that is almost neglected in the growing literature. Moreover it suggests some unexpected insights on the role of technology innovativeness in moderating the impact of e-HRM on trust in the HR department.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using the eye-tracking method to study consumer online health information search behaviour	[ "Research methods", "Web search", "Health information", "Information search behaviour", "Eye tracking", "Consumer online health information search behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Searching for health information online is now a routine behaviour for many people. It was estimated back in 2013 that more than 70 per cent of adult internet users in the USA search online for information on a wide range of health issues, and more than 25 per cent read or watch someone else's experiences of health or medical issues (Fox and Duggan, 2013). Positive correlates of health information seeking on health outcomes have been reported. For example, information seekers, compared to non-seekers, were more likely to have healthy eating intentions (McKinley and Wright, 2014), consume more fruits and vegetables and have a more active lifestyle (Ramanadhan and Viswanath, 2006; Ramirez et al., 2013). However, people do not benefit equally from online health information. A Pew Research Center study revealed that more than 90 per cent of online searchers reported only moderate, minor or no help from their searches (Fox, 2011). Numerous studies also suggest that consumers feel frustrated with their online health information search (OHIS) experiences (Arora et al., 2008; LaValley et al., 2017).\n2. Common research methods used in consumer OHIS studies: An exhaustive account of methods employed in this area is beyond the scope of this paper but Table I lists the most commonly used methods or combinations of methods employed in studies of consumer OHIS, along with the OHIS aspects which these methods address.\n3. Human eye movements and the method of eye tracking: Psychologists generally view the human perceptual system as manifesting visual dominance over other sensory inputs for many everyday tasks (Posner et al., 1976). This processing bias is easy to recognise in many routine information tasks where people rely heavily on screens to scan, read and monitor textual and graphical information. Obviously, this characterisation refers to users who are not visually challenged but our contemporary information technologies lean heavily toward visual over auditory or tactile displays.\n4. Eye tracking reveals OHIS behaviours not observable with other methods: Researchers using eye-tracking methods for the first time are often overwhelmed by the volume of data generated. According to Holmqvist et al. (2011), there are hundreds of measures that can be derived from eye-tracking data, and it is incumbent on the researcher to be clear in advance what data they require to answer their specific research questions. For research on OHIS behaviour, we will focus here on particular measures that help us understand or predict consumer behaviours and their associated cognitive and affective states. However, it is important to recognise that there are multiple measures from eye-tracking data that could inform design. Thus, the present section is intentionally selective, not exhaustive.\n5. Conclusion: Eye-movement technology has evolved to the point where data on eye fixations and movements on an information display can now be reliably captured. These data provide reliable and valid data that can enable us both to study direct use and to infer causality of user knowledge and interface design on relevance and quality judgements, topics that are particularly important for everyday health information seeking (Zhang et al., 2015). As data from our research indicate, eye movements can provide unique insights that are not easily obtained through other methods, while also complementing existing methods by providing supplementary insights into underlying processes that users themselves cannot easily or consciously provide in a reliable manner. For example, the eye-tracking data in our first example allowed us to reveal where users actually look when inspecting health webpages and allowed us to speculate on the relationship between their true reading behaviour and their measured e-health literacy. Moreover, eye-tracking methods have great potential for providing input for search behaviour modelling, which is essential to entail real-time search support for consumers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce eye tracking as a method for capturing direct and indirect measures of online human information search behaviour. The unique contribution of eye-tracking data in studying information behaviour is examined in the context of health information research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The need for multiple methods of data collection when examining human online health information behaviour is described and summarised. The nature of human eye movements in information use and reading is outlined and the emergence and application of contemporary eye-tracking technology are explained.\nFindings: The paper summarises key contributions and insights that eye tracking has provided across multiple studies, with examples of both direct data on fixations and gaze durations as well as theoretical assessments of relevance and knowledge gain.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a basic introduction to the application of a unique method for information research in general and online health information search in particular and provides readers with an awareness of how such data are captured and interpreted.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Uncertainty and adaptation in the context of Brexit: An entrepreneurial action and dynamic capabilities approach	[ "Uncertainty", "Adaptation", "Entrepreneurial action", "Dynamic capabilities", "Winery operators", "International business" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Uncertainty and Brexit\n2. Literature review: This study's emphasis on how firms cope with uncertainty in a changing business environment justifies the consideration of two theoretical propositions that will help address the study's main concerns. These propositions include entrepreneurial action theory (EAT) (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006; Mitchell and Shepherd, 2010) and the DCA (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Helfat and Peteraf, 2009; Teece et al., 1997; Teece, 2007, 2012). Together, these propositions represent the foundation of a third important contribution in the form of two proposed theoretical frameworks. The first (Figure 1) depicts the significance of the two adopted theories, as well as their relationships in the context of adaptation and building resilience in light of turbulence. This framework is further enhanced through Figure 2, which associates the theories and the study's findings.\n3. Methodology: The main objective of this study is to propose a framework based on the EA and DCA ideologies to understand uncertainty and adaption in view of Brexit from the perspective of operators (owners and managers) involved in two industries with important commercial links with the UK, notably, the Prosecco Superiore (Italy) and Cava (Spain). The perspectives of these participants constitute the unit of analysis of the research. Babbie (2016) refers to a unit of analysis as what or who is under study, which in the social science field is essentially represented by individuals.\n4. Results: 4.1 An uncertain environment - Brexit\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Coalescing the entrepreneurial action theory and dynamic capabilities approach frameworks\n6. Conclusions: This research contributes to the academic literature in various forms. First, grounded on the EAT and DCA ideologies, the study proposes a framework, which theorises a sequence of processes involving firm adaptation to uncertainty, specifically, in the context of Brexit. Notably, the framework postulates that sensing is an antecedent of and is reinforced by the EAT's attention and evaluation stages, whereby anticipatory measures to adapt to uncertainty are followed by plans and strategies, then executed (seizing) and reappraised (transforming/reconfiguring). Second, the study examines firms operating in a very competitive environment, and in an industry with strong trade ties to the UK. Despite the potential impacts Brexit could have on firms and industry, to date the academic literature has not fully addressed this phenomenon. While this is true for the wine industry examined in this paper, the greater ramifications of Brexit are still an active issue extensively researched. This study contributes to furthering understanding in this area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to propose a framework to understand firms' adaptation to uncertainty and change, specifically, in regards to the perceived impacts of the Brexit phenomenon. In doing so, the study considers entrepreneurial action theory (EAT) and the dynamic capabilities approach (DCA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with owners and managers of 34 family-run firms operating in Italy's Prosecco Superiore and Spain's Cava industries.\nFindings: The element of uncertainty because of the imminent Brexit decision clearly emerged and was demonstrated through various effects on firms including the falling British Pound. The findings revealed that combining the EAT and the DCA provides a stronger explanation in understanding adaptation to uncertainty. For example, sensing (DCA) was suggested to be a precursor of opportunity attention and evaluation (EAT) or recognising opportunities and was subsequently manifested by operators' action or seizing (DCA), including through more involvement in exports and wine tourism.\nOriginality/value: The study is one of the few efforts to date to examine the potential impacts of an uncontrollable contemporary phenomenon, and ways to adapt from the perspective of entrepreneurs involved in a traditional and socioeconomically significant industry. The different adaptive strategies that emerged from the findings can provide practical insights. The proposed framework emphasises the theoretical and practical value of understanding adaptation through the lens of the adopted theoretical foundations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Determinants of outsourcing decision for facilities management (FM) services provision	[ "Nigeria", "Facilities", "Contracting-out", "Make or buy", "Support services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Outsourcing has been variously defined as the \"contracting-out\" of services that were previously performed in-house to an external service provider for a fee as a mean of increasing organisational efficiency and effectiveness (Steane and Walker, 2000; Monczeka et al., 2005; Li and Choi, 2009). Its use as a strategy for improving efficiency has made it one of the most researched areas in management studies and has witnessed a steady rise among organisations both public and private, as they have increasingly placed more attention on concentrating on core activities while outsourcing their non-core services (Ancarani and Capaldo, 2005). Findings from previous surveys (Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 2001) gave four main reasons for the growing popularity of outsourcing among organisations:\n2. Literature review: Outsourcing and outsourcing decisions have generally received tremendous attention in the literature. A few such examples are discussed below to put the study in a proper perspective. First, a brief overview of some schools of thought (theoretical perspectives) about outsourcing is discussed. Second, a review of past studies on the concept of outsourcing decision is discussed. Third, outsourcing as it relates to FM services in banks is presented. Finally, a summary of literature review is presented.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research approach\n4. Results and discussion of findings: 4.1 Demographic details of survey respondents\n5. Conclusion, recommendation and future research: The importance of outsourcing as a strategy for improving performance has been variously acknowledged by scholars and professionals. Besides, FM is acquiring increasing popularity all over the globe, with several sourcing strategies springing up for FM services provision. It is therefore vital to determine the relevant variables that can be taking into consideration when confronted with the decision to outsource or retain in-house. This paper uses questionnaire survey to identify key determinants that influence the decision to outsource FM services in Nigeria using data obtained from 21 licensed commercial banks, and explores their relative importance and correlations between the decision factors. In the survey, 41 target respondents were asked to rank the level of importance attached to 25 factors developed from the literature using a 5-point Likert scale. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and statistical analytical tools such as mean, RII, percentages and standard deviation. Kendall's coefficient of concordance was used to examine the general similarity or dissimilarity in the rankings of the decision factors between respondents, while Spearman's rank correlation was used to establish the degree of association between the factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine key determinants that influence the decision to outsource facilities management (FM) services. FM is said to be acquiring increasing popularity all over the globe, with several sourcing strategies springing up for FM services provision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on questionnaire survey approach, this paper uses purposive sampling to administer 84 questionnaires to selected bank executives operating in the 21 licensed commercial banks in Nigeria, soliciting their responses about what constitute key determinants of outsourcing decision in the context of FM services provision. In all, 41 responses were received, giving a response rate of 49 per cent.\nFindings: Supported by empirical evidence, this study established 14 factors as key determinants of outsourcing decision for FM services provision. The top three rated factors were \"to improve company's focus\", \"to make cost transparent\" and \"to improve stakeholders' satisfaction\", while \"to restrict own investment in staff\", \"to retire personnel\" and \"to play along with trend in privatisation\" were the least rated. There was no significant difference in the rankings of the factors by respondents, while most of the highly rated factors exhibited strong correlation with other factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: Due to limited dimension of sample size, more robust techniques such as factor analysis and structural equation modelling could not be used.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an enhanced understanding of outsourcing decision and basis for further research into decision support models for outsourcing in the context of FM services provision.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The challenges facing international HRM in an increasingly globalised environment	[ "Selection", "Recruitment", "Retention", "Pre-departure training", "Repatriation", "Dual careers", "International managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: We live and work in a world where the effects of globalisation become increasingly apparent. The changing role of international HQ staff, in particular HRM, has resulted in greater responsibilities for international managers who may now be required to cover entire regions. They therefore have to be competent to adapt to several different cultures and international HRM has to cope with the following key challenges:\nSelection criteria: International HRM when tasked with selecting the best people for working in other cultures needs to consider a formidable list of desirable competencies which are required for successful appointments. These are in many ways more demanding than those required for working in the home country. Apart from technical competence they require a high degree of flexibility, the ability to deal with the unexpected in often complex environments, characterised by continuous change, and to operate in a wide range of cultures, frequently under pressure and having to make decisions often without top management guidance.\nRecruitment strategies: There are four generally recognised recruitment strategies for searching for and obtaining quality candidates to fill overseas appointments. These are:\nSelection methods: The selection methods to find the most suitable personnel for international management appointments can take several forms. Some companies prefer to invite applications from internal candidates before looking externally. This has the main advantage of close knowledge of potential candidates but the field may be limited.\nDual careers: When I was Director of Courses at The Centre for International Briefing at Farnham Castle in the early 1990s it became increasingly evident that the traditional pattern of the expatriate, generally male, accompanied by the \"trailing spouse\", was undergoing a great change. There was a new trend for more short-term assignments, often unaccompanied. In addition, the concept of \"dual career\" couples became more accepted, with both partners keen to pursue their own professional careers, even if at times this might mean working in separate locations. Furthermore, two-income families are now very prevalent. In many cases the second income may move the family into greater affluence and therefore relocation could result in serious financial loss and a lower standard of living as well as possible loss of self-esteem. Dual careers have therefore become an increasingly inevitable fact of life in many relationships and this can often lead to potential problems when HRM is attempting to arrange international assignments. To reduce problems in this area, companies have developed a number of strategies which aim to ease the situation. Unless these issues are fully recognised there is a risk that dual career couples can provide obstacles to international mobility:\nPerceived international career anxieties: Many of those who consider an international career express a number of concerns. These need to be addressed at an early stage in the selection process. The author had the privilege some years ago of assisting the HR department of a global multinational in its initial interviewing of graduates as potential young international managers. A series of one-day seminars were held covering the following topics:\nPre-departure training: Selections for international assignments rarely fail because of a lack of professional or technical competence. They more often fail because of personal and family issues and the lack of cross-cultural skills to enable them to adapt to the new cultural environment. Those who work internationally are expensive when one takes into account salaries, air fares, accommodation, allowances and education fees. It is therefore important that the learning curve after arrival overseas is as short as possible. Failure to adapt, both on the part of the working partner and the accompanying family, can be both serious and expensive for the individual, the family and of course for the reputation and image of the organisation itself and the country of origin. The international community is often very close-knit and any apparent failures are readily observable in the \"gold fish bowl\" of such a community. Expatriate assignments can be considered a failure either because assignments are not completed or because those appointed do not perform effectively. Therefore it is important to have an appropriate, carefully structured pre-departure programme to prepare them and, where possible, other members of the family, for living harmoniously and working effectively in the new environment. Such training is often organised through the HR Department. It should cover, inter alia, values, habits and customs of the new culture, as well as a briefing on social, economic and business aspects. The overall aim is to reduce the risk of failure because of the inability to adapt to the new environment and to cope with the inevitable culture shock that the majority will experience.\nPayment arrangements: Another important task of international HRM is to advise on the payment package for staff in an overseas appointment. This can be complicated by local taxation and employment legislation, the need to assess cost of living allowances, possibly a hardship allowance to compensate for working in a difficult, remote, more dangerous location, medical cover, support for children's education, a grant towards domestic servants and subsidised return flights to the home country. Problems can occur over equity between expatriate and home country nationals and compliance with local laws on employment.\nRetention of key personnel: Retention of key staff is another area of concern to HRM. Senior staff who have wide experience of successful appointments abroad are of high value and are difficult to replace should they wish to leave the company for a competitor. Retention can be assisted by a company plan to provide help on repatriation to the home country. The returnees' perceptions can often be summarised as \"I'm going home, what's the problem?\" However, in reality the situation can be quite challenging, as inevitably things have changed while they have been abroad. Some form of planned repatriation support is therefore very important for both the returnees themselves and for their family to help them adjust to the changes and reintegrate. It is important for those returning to the home country to realise that their experiences of living and working overseas will have had a profound effect on the whole family and their expectations. They are therefore likely to experience what is described as \"reverse culture shock\". They expect to be able to move back into the community, renew contacts with friends and fit easily into their former lifestyle.\nConclusion: The successful implementation of the greatly increased responsibilities of international HRM in the recruitment, selection, training and retention of key personnel who will spend the greater part of their professional career overseas, is crucial to the success of international companies. In addition, the caring and efficient organisation of their repatriation will contribute to their retention.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper to examine the responses that international HRM needs to make to the challenges it faces with increasing responsibilities in the globalised environment. It covers the key areas of recruitment, selection, training and retention and uses examples from the author's involvement in working with a major multinational in the recruitment of potential international managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Analysis of the concerns expressed about an international career and the coping strategies offered by employers.\nFindings: The paper highlights the paramount aim of international companies to reduce failure on assignment overseas and maintain retention on return to the home country.\nResearch limitations/implications: Analysis and review of current trends to meet challenges facing international HRM.\nPractical implications: The increased competition to recruit potential high quality international managers, to prepare them for overseas assignments to ensure successful appointments and to plan their repatriation and retention.\nOriginality/value: Emphasises with real-life examples the key challenges and analyses what is being done to meet them.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Challenges in halal food ecosystems: the case of the United Arab Emirates	[ "United Arab Emirates", "Islamic law", "Muslim consumer behaviour", "Halal supply chain management", "Halal food certification" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Halal is an Arabic term that bears the meaning of permissible according to shari'ah, or Islamic law (Riaz and Chaudry, 2003). Beyond its jurisprudential meaning, its contemporary usage has become synonymous with the narrower context of Muslim dietary law (Kashim et al., 2015), especially in the context of food sourcing, most prominently, meat and poultry (Al-Qaradawi, 2013). However, it is also used to refer to a number of other products and services across the Islamic economy (Randeree, 2019), such as halal pharmaceuticals, halal cosmetics and halal tourism (Reuters and Standard, 2016).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Halal food in Islam\n3. Methodology: The research methodology was an ethnography of the halal food ecosystem in the UAE. The ethnographer performed as a multilingual (English, Arabic, Hindi and Urdu) embedded researcher (Lewis and Russell, 2011), using collaborative and reflexive practitioner approaches as part of the sample population.\n4. Results and analysis: The findings demonstrate a range of issues emerging from the research using grounded theory methodology. Though too numerous to list exhaustively, examples of open coding data sets include importation regulation; food safety, control and testing; country of origin of products and consumer confidence; variation in the perception of the need for the use of \"halal\" as required terminology within a Muslim majority country; abattoir systems and processes; halal certification systems and their effectiveness and reliance; food types for which consumers would wish to see availability of halal options; variability in consumer and retail supply chain professionals' expectations for unifying global halal certification and governance; and inconsistency of consumer confidence, disaggregated by age, nationality, ethnicity, intra-faith perspectives (Randeree, 2016) and other demographic traits.\n5. Discussion: Overall, the findings suggest that the UAE exhibits a well-developed halal ecosystem proportionate to its geographic size and population. However, the halal landscape of the UAE compared to other countries is one of the most challenging for farm-to-fork halal integrity, due to the diversity of its population and corresponding consumer demand for a wide variety of food types. The UAE relies heavily on imported goods across all sectors including food, though is increasing domestic food production, reinforced through a rising presence of food re-processing plants in Jebel Ali Free Zone. Food sold in the UAE comprise approximately 80 per cent imported products, with the remaining 20 per cent locally sourced, such as dairy products, poultry, eggs, seafood and fresh vegetables. For locally processed food manufacture, for example snack foods, nearly all source ingredients are imported. The federal government has invested over $1.5bn towards the development of the food-processing industry over the past decade, focussing on a value-added food-manufacturing sector targeting local and re-export markets. There are approximately 150 food-processing plants in the UAE, including those producing vegetable oils, soft drinks and juices, snack foods, pasta, confectionary and dairy products. Dubai's food-processing industry alone is valued at $3bn and grows up to 11 per cent annually (Government of Ras Al Khaimah, 2010).\n6. Conclusions: Although the halal food sector is one of the most advanced sectors of the Islamic economy, second only to Islamic finance, to achieve maturity, the halal sector requires strategic development. The most significant issue within the halal food sector, but applying more broadly across all sectors of the Islamic economy, is standardisation, where agreement and consensus on global HFC, production and distribution standards are hard to achieve and thus far, elusive. This presents a substantial opportunity and there is evidence that ESMA and others are collaborating more in extending regulatory frameworks, practice and conduct as well as shari'ah standardisation with respect to issues around the breadth of Islamic scholarly interpretations on permissibility of products and services in an effort to go beyond limited national concerns and towards developing a truly global, standardised and trusted halal food ecosystem.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate challenges in balancing interoperability, food quality and customer satisfaction in halal food supply chains.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employed ethnography and grounded theory research methodologies. Research methods were ethnographic content analysis and document content analysis. The research framework encompassed a range of stakeholder groups connected with the halal food supply chain in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), focussing on Islamic jurisprudence, halal food sector analysis, import regulation compliance, halal food certification (HFC), food production, retailing and consumption.\nFindings: The research found that supply chain intermediaries are challenged in balancing interoperability issues around non-unified global certification standards. Consequent variability in customer confidence in halal standards was found.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research focussed on the internal supply chain in the UAE, with future scope in HFC systems among external supplier nations and wider market research on customer perceptions of halal food integrity.\nPractical implications: Transferability of the findings is high; to other halal food markets in particular, as well as supply chain systems for halal products across other Islamic economy sectors, notably halal pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Aligning the halal ecosystem with trends in healthy eating and environmentalism is also considered.\nOriginality/value: The paper uniquely explores the halal food sector from the perspective of variant stakeholder disciplines in halal sector governance and operation. It exposes vulnerabilities in halal supply chains in a nation with one of the most demanding and diverse agri-food supply systems in the world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leaders of the future: Identifying authoritative research in leadership studies	[ "Leadership", "Leadership development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Hsing-Chau Tseng and Chi-Hsiang Duan, of Chang-Jung Christian University in China, and Hui-Lien Tung of Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, have joined forces to produce a literature overview of publications on modern leadership studies. Their article \"Mapping the intellectual structure of modern leadership studies\" outlines the research and cross-referencing methodologies they created and followed to produce a series of authoritative sources on this expanding field of research (Duan et al., 2010).\nLiterature review: Qualities of good leadership, in any scenario, are difficult to identify and quantify. In the business world, leadership is a central concept in the study of group dynamics, goal orientation, and organizational efficiency. Many studies have been done on the various aspects, opinions, and theories of leadership qualities, including in the following areas:* Theories of behavioral style, in Lindell, M and Rosenqvist, G. (1992), \"Management behavior dimensions and development orientation\", Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 3, pp. 355-77.* Transformation or charismatic leadership, described in Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B. J. (1994), \"Transformational leadership and organizational culture\", International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 541-54.* Leader-member exchange, in Graen, G. B. and Uhl-Bien, M. (1995), \"Relationship-based approach to leadership: development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years\", Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 6, p. 219.A problem encountered by the authors was that this formidable body of diverse information imparted a great deal of knowledge, but this knowledge had to be mapped and quantified. They describe this \"knowledge network\" of citations and cross-references as being \"composed of sufficiently large number of published articles, active researchers ... and citations appearing in various media\". The key parts of these networks are the nodes, bridges that connect different or even separate foci in the network. These nodes produce the names of researchers and citations of the most important works in the field.\nMethodology: The authors used a mixture of bibliometrics, based on citation and co-citation analysis, and social network analysis. In the bibliometric research, citation analysis is used to identify influential publications and scholars in the leadership field. Co-citation is a complex method of information gathering that is summarized in this article: briefly, pairs of influential names in the field are identified, and then papers are identified that cite at least one reference to each of a specified pair of authors' names. This information is retrieved using Lockheed's DIALOG to search the online version of Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).This process had three main stages:1. Selection of databases and journals in leadership studies. The databases of SSCI and the science citation index (SCI) provided the population for the research, which included a comprehensive collection of 6,000 refereed journals.2. Data collection and analysis of this material, including authors, topics and citations. The data is \"systematized by sorting, summing, sub-totaling, ranking, and screening\". The number of articles published between 1997 and 2006 in the two selected journals, and the references these articles cited, were counted, sorted, and tabulated using an Excel spreadsheet. 53 highly cited publications were identified and listed chronologically, and 30 highly cited journal articles were selected.3. Data mapping, in which the knowledge gained from this research is mapped to \"describe the knowledge distribution process\" in leadership studies. \"Key nodes\" from the above analysis were identified and imported to Ucinet software for social network and factor analysis.\nResults: Among the most cited leadership article titles were the following:* Conger, J.A. and Kanungo, R.N. (1987), \"Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings\", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 637-47;* Lowe, K.B., Kroeck, K.G. and Sivasubramaniam, N. (1996), \"Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature\", Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 7, p. 385;* Shamir, B., House, R.J. and Arthur, M.B. (1993), \"The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: a self-concept based theory\", Organization Science, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 577-94;* Kerr, S. and Jermier, J.M. (1978), \"Substitutes for leadership: their meaning and measurement\", Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Vol. 22, p. 375; and* House, R.J. and Howell, J.M. (1992), \"Personality and charismatic leadership\", The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 81-108.According to the tabulated results, House, Shamir and Conger were the most cited authors between 1997 and 2006, heading a list of most influential authors in leadership studies.Further analysis through the co-citation process revealed that many of the authors had very few co-citations, for a number of reasons; for example, either they had had little impact on the development of the discipline, or their work was too recent to have had an impact. Nevertheless, the top 20 authors were identified and entered into a co-citation matrix for social network analysis. The authors produce a series of tables and graphs to demonstrate their findings.This work has led to the identification and mapping of the most influential periodicals, articles and authors on leadership studies. They have been able to identify correlations in the literature, in order to fine-tune and direct new research into this or divergent fields and disciplines. The techniques used exemplify how norms and trends in a field of study, especially one as large and expansive as leadership, can be understood and transmitted, and then visualized graphically. The final list is given in their conclusion, in which they cite the four emergent concentrations of interest over this ten-year period:1. effectiveness of leadership style;2. leadership theory and development;3. leadership categorization; and4. the current issues of leadership research.Finally, the authors supply one caveat to their research: their analysis was restricted to a certain number of leadership journals, excluding other journals that may have included significant work on the subject. Consequently, they encourage further study in leadership studies and the appropriate dissemination of the acquired knowledge.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the methodologies of researching literature in leadership studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Objectives are achieved through a series of research techniques, including bibliometrics (citation and co-citation research), social networking, mapping and cross-referencing. The most influential authors, journals and articles in leadership studies were identified from 1997-2006.\nFindings: - Certain authors provide the core theories of leadership studies, and very few authors in the field are co-cited in other articles.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research should not be limited to the Leadership Quarterly and Educational Learning journals used for this study.\nPractical implications: - Practical outcomes include greater understanding, nurturing and training of leadership talent in organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The paper outlines a coherent research methodology for literature review in a given field of study, while also providing a helpful bibliography of influential work in leadership studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
From headline to lifeline: does news set agenda for policy?	[ "Public policy", "Content analysis", "Internet access", "Lifeline program" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As of 2018, 89 per cent of American adults used the internet, while 65 per cent owned broadband internet service at home (Pew Research Center, 2018a). Meanwhile, 95 per cent of Americans now own a cell phone of some kind, and 75 per cent own a smart phone (Pew Research Center, 2018b). The internet and related telecommunications access have embedded themselves in Americans' daily life, from households to the workplace and from business to public service. Yet today, there are around 11 per cent of Americans who are unconnected to the digital age, according to a Pew Research Center survey (Anderson et al., 2018).\nLiterature review: Lifeline Program\nResearch questions: To remedy the gap in the literature on media agenda setting in the Lifeline Program, this study will investigate news media coverage of the Lifeline Program, specifically the volume, type and nature of the news media coverage, across different episodes of reforms and modernization by the FCC from the inception of the program in 1985 to the present. It also seeks to study any possible connection between the volume and nature of the coverage on the timing of policy initiatives. Therefore, three research questions are identified for the study, as given below:\nMethodology: Sampling\nResults: RQ1 addresses the volume of articles covering the Lifeline Program. As stated, there were 124 articles published on the Lifeline Program from 1984 to September 2018 when the articles were collected. Articles ranged in length from 83 words to 2,422 words (M = 571.1, SD = 323.6). Table II presents the descriptive statistics of the nominal variables used in the study, reporting the frequency of each theme or concept and the corresponding percentage of occurrences. Each of these themes is not mutually exclusive. Therefore, an article can contain several of these themes. Further descriptive analyses are presented below.\nConclusion and discussion: To explore the media coverage of the Lifeline Program and examine any potential association of the timing of news coverage on the policymaking regarding the program, a content analysis was conducted on all the articles published on the subject of Lifeline in US newspapers from 1984 to 2018. Our analysis suggests the existence of a dynamic relationship between media coverage and policymaking regarding the Lifeline Program. Meanwhile, the analysis also reveals some critical characteristics about the coverage of the Lifeline Program in newspapers, which are worth the attention of policymakers and media advocacy practitioners. This section provides a summary of the main findings and discusses the implications of the study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper is an investigation of the volume, nature and tone of news media coverage of the federal Lifeline Program from its inception to 2018. It aims to examine whether news media coverage is correlated with significant episodes of reform in the program.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the ProQuest Major Dailies database, articles covering the \"Lifeline Program\" were analyzed. Specifically, a quantitative codebook was developed, based on the literature, and four coders were trained to systematically analyze the 124 articles that discussed the program between 1985 and 2018.\nFindings: The findings suggest that reforms in the program were preceded by significantly higher volumes of media coverage; however, the analysis is unable to confirm that negative media coverage has a stronger agenda setting effect. In addition, no significant difference was found between positive and negative news stories in their use of research-based information.\nOriginality/value: This study is interdisciplinary in its ability to combine policy and journalism studies as a mechanism to understand the relationship between the two forces.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Hotels' online reputation management: benefits perceived by managers	[ "Online review", "User-generated content", "Reputation management", "Perceived hotel benefits" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: User-generated content (UGC) has changed tourist decision-making behavior and marketing practices in the hotel industry (Law et al., 2014; Schuckert et al., 2015). Specifically, UGC based on reviews and ratings about products and services has a strong influence on consumer decision-making in the hotel industry (Cantallops and Salvi, 2014; Ladhari and Michaud, 2015) and, therefore, has an indirect influence on performance (Nieto et al., 2014; Phillips et al., 2015). The predominance of different types of comments (positive or negative) regarding a hotel has a positive correlation with the customer's intention to make a reservation at that hotel (Sparks and Browning, 2011), leads to the creation of perceptions about quality (Ladhari and Michaud, 2015) and influences customer expectations (Mauri and Minazzi, 2013). Therefore, companies that effectively manage UGC will have a competitive advantage. First, they will have greater knowledge of how customers perceive their services and those aspects where there is room for improvement. Second, they can undertake effective competitor analysis and identify the specific market segments to which they should direct their actions (Loureiro and Kastenholz, 2011; Phillips et al., 2015). Where hotel managers understand how to respond to online reviews and how these responses affect the benefits deriving to the hotel, hoteliers can adjust their management models to fit their business objectives.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 User-generated content in tourism\n3. Hotel reputation management: This study describes a hotel's reputation management (HREPM) as a superordinate second-order construct affecting six first-order dimensions. According to the literature (Agarwal et al., 2015; Fombrun et al., 2015; Walsh et al., 2016), HREPM is modeled as a superordinate second-order construct because \"it represents a general concept that occupies the domain of specific dimensions\" and \"one cannot drop a dimension and retain its conceptual meaning\" (Wright et al., 2012, p. 371). The choice of this set of dimensions for defining the domain of the HREPM construct is based on the works of Fombrun (2007) and Baka (2016).\n4. Hypotheses development: This study, in focusing on the perceptions of the hotel managers surveyed, refers to \"perceived hotel benefits\" as the potential positive outcomes (impacts) of effective reputation management in three different areas: PFB, PCRB and PCBB. PFB measure the managers' perceptions of the impact on market share or sales. PCRB measures the managers' perceptions of the impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. PCBB measures the managers' perceptions of the impact on the hotel's brand value and reputation.\n5. Methodology: 5.1 Measures\n6. Results: 6.1 Measurement model\n7. Discussion and conclusion: 7.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to develop a measurement model to help hotels manage their reputation within the context of online reviews and ratings platforms and evaluate the impact of this reputation management on the benefits derived by the hotels, as perceived by their managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Partial least squares was used to assess the model and make a causal predictive analysis, using data from a survey of a random sample of 335 Spanish hotel managers and personnel involved in reputation management.\nFindings: This study shows the operationalization of hotel reputation management as a superordinate second-order construct affecting six individual first-order dimensions, strongly impacting on three key benefits as perceived by hotel managers (i.e. financial benefits, customer relationship benefits and customer-based brand benefits), within the context of online review platforms.\nPractical implications: Based on the results of this study, hotel managers can improve the effectiveness of their management of ratings and reviews. They can also learn which aspects they should focus on when managing ratings and reviews.\nOriginality/value: Based on the opinions of hotel managers, a causal model for managing online reviews was developed and validated. This study shows how reputation management affects the benefits derived by hotels as perceived by their managers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
E-citizen: Developing research-based marketing communications to increase awareness and take-up of local authority e-channels	[ "Research", "Marketing communications", "England", "Local authorities", "Internet" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last five years the UK Government via the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), formerly known as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), has encouraged local authorities to develop e-government solutions across a range of local services. This has led to the establishment of various e-channels, for example, web sites, interactive digital television and e-enabled call centres.This process was kick-started by the launch of the e-government National Strategy (ODPM, 2002) in November 2002 and has included:* publication by the ODPM of priority outcomes for local e-government;* 22 national projects to provide e-government solutions; and* PS0.9 million funding to each English local authority.The ODPM (2005, p. 5) described this as \"an increasingly sophisticated and complex programme of work designed to support local authorities during the delivery stage of their e-government investment\".E-citizen, developed and led by Norwich City Council, formed part of this programme of work. The PS3 million ODPM-funded project was set up in May 2004 and was originally known as the Take-up and Marketing National Project. The name was changed early on in the development phase to reflect the emphasis from the programme board and project team on finding out what citizens wanted from e-government.The project was established against a background of low take-up of e-government services in the UK for 2003, at 11 per cent compared to the European average of 27 per cent (e-forum, 2003). The key aim of e-citizen was to show how local authorities could increase take-up to a higher figure. No specific target was set, but it was expected that research conducted during the project would indicate to the ODPM a realistic figure to aim for in the future.E-citizen was divided into five phases. The remainder of this paper highlights key areas of work from each of these phases. It finishes with a discussion about the impact of e-citizen on current government thinking and practice, and the potential benefits to local authorities and citizens in applying the project's findings.\nPhase 1 - development phase (March 2004 to June 2004): The ODPM's other 21 national projects (ODPM, 2006a) were concerned with infrastructure and supply-side elements. e-citizen was the only national project looking at the demand-side, tasked with helping local authorities market their e-channels to increase take-up. The business case approved by the ODPM in May 2004 set out the high level aim of the project: \"To develop a product which will enable local authorities to encourage their citizens to take-up e-services.\"A programme board was assembled consisting of members from:* Norwich City Council (Chair);* Nottinghamshire County Council;* London Borough of Hillingdon;* Norfolk County Council;* Kent Connects Partnership;* North West e-Government Group (NWeGG);* ODPM;* Cabinet Office's e-Government Unit;* The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA); and* local government communications.The main focus of work was to commission research into the current state of e-government in England, then to use these findings to develop proof of concept marketing communications campaigns to increase awareness of local authority e-channels.The Research Programme Managing Agency\nPhase 2 - market research to determine potential for e-government amongst citizens in England (July 2004 to January 2005): MORI (2006a) were procured to supply three of the projects, with Opera undertaking the fourth. This was the first time there had been a comprehensive research programme to inform the national approach towards the take-up and marketing of local authority e-channels. The Society of Information Technology Managers (SOCITM) described e-citizen as \"the most important piece of work that has ever been carried out in the UK into these issues of take-up and promotion of local authority e-channels\" (SOCITM, 2005, p. 117).There were four surveys:1. What People Want (MORI, 2004);2. The Intermediaries Research (Opera, 2004);3. Local Authority Survey (MORI, 2004); and4. Literature Review (MORI, 2004).What people want\nPhase 3 - proof of concept marketing communications campaigns throughout England to test different approaches (June 2004 to February 2005): It was clear from the research that a general lack of awareness of e-channels amongst the adult population of England was holding back take-up. The project team now developed a series of proof of concept marketing communications campaigns, based on the research findings. The aim was to test if targeted campaigns could have an impact on awareness levels and consequently take-up.Develop a methodology to target early e-government adopters (the matrix)\nPhase 4 - evaluation of campaigns and publication of results (March 2005 to April 2005): The aim of the proof of concept marketing campaigns described previously was to test the findings of the market research phase that:* awareness and take-up of local authority e-channels could be increased amongst the early adopters identified by the MORI research;* targeting marketing campaigns at different customer segments would be effective; and* these segments were interested in specific services, and these could be used as hooks to attract people to use e-channels.The results from the proof of concepts \"indicate that targeted marketing communications campaigns will drive take-up of local e-channels amongst citizens\" (e-citizen, 2005d). The key finding was that lack of awareness is currently holding back take-up in some local authority areas. This was an important finding. It showed that no matter how good (for example) a web site, how well designed, how accessible and so on, if people do not know it is there and what is on it, they will not use the e-channel route to the delivery of the service.The research also highlights that marketing communications campaigns will start to have a positive effect on awareness, even when the campaign is live for as little as four weeks. People are also then interested in using the service again:With a fully funded complete campaign, it is reasonable to assume that awareness will be driven to optimal levels and usage will follow through as a result (e-citizen, 2005d, p. 5).Long term investment in realistic marketing budgets, sufficient to create and maintain interest, is required whether at local authority level, via partnerships of authorities, at a regional level or nationally (e-citizen, 2005d, p. 5).The campaigns had a measurable effect (e-citizen, 2006e). Overall the proportions of people claiming to have seen the campaigns rose from a typical 4 per cent across the campaigns, to typically 15 per cent after the campaigns in just four weeks, giving a net impact of around 10 per cent. Interest in using the services in the future was also positively affected by the campaigns. For example:* Online jobs service, to help residents find employment - awareness of website increased by 12 per cent following campaign; there was a high recall of the campaign (15 per cent); 70 per cent of people said they would be interested in using the service.* Online payments service - awareness of website increased by 5 per cent; high recall of the campaign (12 per cent); people who would definitely consider using the service increased from 32 per cent to 49 per cent.* Using intermediaries to access advice and information from council web site - awareness of the service doubled to 40 per cent; 33 per cent of people recalled the campaign; 80 per cent would be interested in using the service in the future.Other impacts (other than just increasing awareness)\nPhase 5 - reporting the results to local authorities and wider context (April 2005 to March 2006): All the results are available on www.e-citizen.gov.uk. Norwich hosted an event for over 200 local authority officers where the findings were published. Since then a number of councils have used the methodology to run campaigns.The ODPM provided additional funding to roll-out the findings to English local authorities. The concentration of work took place between September 2005 and March 2006. The next version of the web site was launched, and it now provides easy access to all the project's deliverables, including research findings, campaign materials used during the proof of concepts and video footage of the campaigns.The ODPM was restructured in May 2006 and responsibility for e-government passed to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The results of the research and proof of concepts from e-citizen have been used by the DCLG as the basis for a PS4.6 million advertising campaign (ODPM, 2006b) to take place between April and July 2006. The aim is to increase awareness of e-channels and drive take-up. Norwich City Council/e-citizen are represented on the programme board for the national campaign.\nDiscussion: Market research played a significant part in this project. The initial studies defined current practice and take-up and enabled e-citizen to develop its hypothesis that lack of awareness was holding back take-up of e-channels. The creative material used in the proof of concepts was tested with focus groups before it was used in live campaigns. All 13 campaigns had extensive pre- and post-research studies to track their impact. The research was conducted by professional research companies, and e-citizen had a research director represented on the project team. The proof of concepts were developed by a professional marketing communications agency.In other words, we really tested our approach and applied the results in a highly professional manner, and so we are confident the results are very solid. This is the reason why the DCLG has been prepared to invest a further PS4.6 million in the national campaign to run in 2006. Without e-citizen, the government would not have the justification or methodology to do this. It is a mark of our achievement that a relatively small project has had such a major impact on government thinking.The main aim of the project was to develop a product which local authorities could use to increase take-up of their e-channels. All the findings from e-citizen have been published on the project web site and our approach has already been adopted by some authorities, for example, Basingstoke and Surrey (e-citizen, 2006). In addition, an easy to use Toolkit has been sent to all English local authorities, and further dissemination events have been organised across the country.We will be adding additional information to the web site, for example, showing how a business case for e-channel marketing can be developed. This will include justification for securing new marketing budgets, the potential return on investment and the impact on reputation and levels of customer satisfaction. We plan to demonstrate the link between the e-citizen findings and the Local Government Association's (LGA) \"Reputation\" campaign (Local Government Association, 2006) and recent work from MORI (2006b) on the five drivers of customer satisfaction.The focus for e-citizen has been on the low hanging fruit and early adopters of e-government. These people have the access, skills and trust to use e-channels immediately. This does not mean that people without these attributes should be ignored. We showed very clearly during the proof of concepts that intermediary organisations can play a vital part in bridging the digital divide. However, the e-citizen research showed that there are 17.5 million adults in England who want to access council services via e-channels. This is a great challenge to local authorities, but also a great opportunity. Councils have to make sure their e-channels work, that they are accessible and that they do deliver services. In other words, e-channels have to prove that they \"do what they say on the tin\". This requires sustained and long-term investment in e-infrastructure. The opportunity is that as millions of citizens use these e-channels, resources are freed up to be invested in services for the socially excluded.These are major issues which are beyond the scope of the current project. We set out to define the potential market for e-government, which we have now done, and also to suggest some approaches to driving up take-up, which we have also achieved. For e-citizen, the audience now is communications officers within local authorities. We want to help them secure the investment they need to run campaigns.Norwich City Council is proposing to take ownership of the e-citizen products and to continue to publish information concerning take-up on www.e-citizen.gov.uk\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - At the English local authority level, there has been significant investment in e-government infrastructure (e-channels) in the last five years, but take-up of these e-channels is low. This paper aims to look at e-citizen, a PS3 million project funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and led by Norwich City Council, which has developed a methodology to enable local authorities to encourage their citizens to use e-channels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper undertakes a comprehensive research programme to inform the national approach towards the take-up and marketing of local authority e-channels.\nFindings: - The study finds that there are a large number of English adults who are ready, willing and able to use e-channels, the so-called potential early adopters of e-government. Take-up is low, however, because awareness of e-channels is low. One solution to increase take-up is to run targeted marketing communications campaigns. The gross potential take-up market in England is 17.5 million adults aged 15+.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research conducted by e-citizen is the largest and most comprehensive study of the take-up of local government e-channels in the world. This work has established that there is a large potential market for e-government in England and that running marketing campaigns is one way of realising this potential. These findings can be applied throughout the UK and also internationally, although the project did not test whether different nationalities might have different reactions to marketing campaigns. e-citizen did not consider other variables which impact on take-up, such as accessibility of e-channels and their effectiveness.\nPractical implications: - The methodology and findings from e-citizen have already been taken-up by a number of English local authorities. The UK Government, through the DCLG, has picked-up the e-citizen findings and applied them in a PS4.6 million national marketing campaign.\nOriginality/value: - Work of this nature and scale has not been conducted before. It has been financed by central government but delivered by a consortium of English local authorities, government representatives and private sector suppliers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work-life boundary management styles of women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia - "choice" or imposition?	[ "Ethiopia", "Women entrepreneurs", "Work-life boundary management", "Work-life integration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Worldwide, women are engaging in entrepreneurship in large numbers (Kelley et al., 2011). The flexibility allowed by self-employment is identified as one of the factors motivating women to become entrepreneurs, as it allows them to manage their work-life interface (Tremblay and Genin, 2008). Although some research findings support the idea that being self-employed helps women to achieve the desired autonomy, flexibility and control (Annink and Den Dulk, 2012; Demartino and Barbato, 2003; Loscocco, 1997), other evidence indicates it may not ease the management of their work-life challenges (Lee Siew Kim and Seow Ling, 2001; Marlow, 1997; Parasuraman and Simmers, 2001; Shelton, 2006). This may be because women have many and varied responsibilities in both domains (at work and at home) and mere flexibility alone, as allowed by self-employment, cannot solve their work-life issues (Ezzedeen and Zikic, 2015; McGowan et al., 2012; Reynolds and Renzulli, 2005).\nTheoretical perspectives: Boundary theory\nMethods: Context\nResults: The findings of the study are summarised in Table I, classified under the two overarching themes that emerged during analysis: the boundary management styles of the women and their work-life boundary management challenges.\nDiscussion: The aim of this study was to explore and explain the work-life boundary management experiences and challenges of women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. The study identified integration as a boundary management strategy for most women, which is enabled by the thin work-life boundary attributable to the women's self-employment. Similar to our findings, other recent studies have also noted \"boundarylessness\" (Ezzedeen and Zikic, 2015) and relatively high permeability and flexibility as characteristics of entrepreneurship (Galvin and Schieman, 2012). This boundarylessness permits the frequent transition by women between the two domains of work and home behaviourally (e.g. making phone calls to home while at work and vice versa), psychologically (e.g. worrying about child care while at work and thinking about work while at home), and temporally (e.g. getting things fixed at home during work hours).\nConclusion: Our study highlights that integration as a boundary management style appears to be imposed on most women as a result of the normative expectations on women to fulfil traditional gender roles (as a wife and mother) and societal expectations on women to participate in social networks. Most of the women integrate their work-life roles substantially, to the point that a boundary between life and work hardly exists. The literature identifies individuals as proactive, taking a lead in making decisions based on their preference of work-life management style (Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000; Kossek et al., 1999). Yet, individuals' work-life boundary management experiences are influenced by different environmental and contextual factors (Kossek and Lautsch, 2012; Kreiner, 2006). Our study revealed that the women's choice of boundary management style is not only influenced by normative societal expectations on women to ultimately handle care and domestic responsibilities, but also by expectations to fulfil certain community obligations while also taking responsibility for managing and growing their businesses. This requires them to be everywhere and fulfil all their responsibilities by constantly integrating their work and life roles.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the work-life boundary management experiences and challenges women entrepreneurs face in combining their work-life responsibilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted with 31 women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia using a grounded theory approach to investigate how they manage the boundaries between their work-life roles, the challenges they face and how these challenges affect their boundary management experiences.\nFindings: Integration, as a work-life boundary management strategy, is imposed on women as a result of normative expectations on women to shoulder care and household responsibilities, as well as to fulfil societal roles and obligations. In addition, challenges related to managing employees at home and at work frequently require women to combine work and life roles, forcing them to integrate even more.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study underline the need to recognise the work-life interface challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and to develop programmes and hands-on training to help them adopt work-life boundary management tactics. In addition, it is hoped that the findings will inform policies and women entrepreneurship development programmes designed by the government, development partners and other stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the work-family literature by highlighting the contextual and environmental factors imposing work-family boundary management styles on women entrepreneurs in the Sub-Saharan country of Ethiopia.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Employer-employee relations in a state-owned power sector undertaking: an analysis	[ "Employee relations", "Organizational justice", "Employee empowerment", "Conflict management", "Employee", "Power sector" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the heightened competition, the power sector is insatiable towards success and prosperity in the long run. With the ferocious competition between the public and private power sector utilities, the importance of human capital has been increased. The employees' level of commitment and involvement in organizational activities makes it viable for the business firm to climb the mountain of success. Ultimately, organization is obligated to redesign strategies for the development of the internal stakeholders by proactively initiating satisfactory measures along with fair and equitable treatment, involvement in the decision-making process, and the amicable management of conflicts among the organizational members. Employees, the most critical stakeholders and business partners (Kim and Rhee, 2011), must be appropriately taken care of for enhancing their level of satisfaction and contentedness. Organizations' priority towards enhancing the well-being of employees is considered relevant for a healthy employer-employee relations climate (Holtzhausen and Fourie, 2009). The inclination to evolve competitiveness and profitability, power sector organizations require strong and quality employee relations (ERs). Thus, ERs has been emphasized as an important concern for research in this unit, which prodigiously contributes to the great interest of scholars and HR professionals.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: A comprehensive research model shown in Figure 1 was operationalized to establish the linkage between these three predictors and ERs. OJ, EE and CM were served as the predictors of ERs and employed as the independent variables to predict ERs as the dependent variable. The extant literature provides a conceptual background on these constructs, based on which the study hypotheses were formulated.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research design, sampling and data collection\n4. Results: An exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze the items in the questionnaire. It filtered out the relevant factors (predictors of ERs) that specify the quality of the relationship between employers and employees in the power sector. In this analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's test of sphericity were performed to analyze if the data were suitable for administering factor analysis. KMO determines the adequacy of sampling, and the value of KMO was 0.773, which depicted that the data taken for the analysis were adequate. Bartlett's test of sphericity measures the overall significance of correlations among the variables (p=0.000). Thus, the results shown in Table I indicate that the data used in this study were appropriate for conducting factor analysis.\n5. Discussion: This research provides extensive knowledge of the relationship between employers and employees in the power sector. In this unit, the notions of OJ, EE and CM are analyzed as the consequential measures of employee relations. The results revealed that OJ fosters an association with employee relations which is positive and significant. This finding is in line with the study carried out in South Korea by Kim et al. (2017). Additionally, it was found that EE positively and significantly affected employee relations; this corroborates a similar finding conducted earlier (Men, 2011). Furthermore, the relationship investigated between CM and employee relations is positive and significant. The adequate management of conflict increases individual cooperation and the relationship quality. The study by accumulating the conceptual evidence stated by Chen et al. (2005) and Posthuma (2011) proposed this hypothetical relationship and found that workplace conflicts are positive to organizations if managed constructively. This hypothesis was not empirically validated by the prior researchers, though it has a strong theoretical base.\n6. Implications: This scholarly endeavor has highlighted some theoretical as well as practical implications which will navigate both the academicians and practitioners in the following ways:\n7. Limitations and future research directions: Although the study revealed a new line of investigation of employee relations in power sector undertaking, it lacks in demonstrating generalized outcomes because it is confined to a single state-owned power transmission unit of Odisha. Further investigation would be extended by conducting a comparative study considering other states of India and also international perspectives. For future analysis, better employee relations would be recommended by encompassing other potential constructs.\n8. Conclusion: Organizational sustainability in the long run depends on its employees, the strategic public and business partners. Employees are the vital assets of the enterprise, and hence need utmost care and support from the organization. Effective strategies are to be implemented to establish a quality relationship with the employees. Mutual obligation and reciprocal behaviour of both the parties influence each other to invigorate peace and harmony within the work environment. The study, therefore, concluded that the results justify the phenomenon by acknowledging the significant role of organizational justice, employee empowerment, and conflict management in maintaining better employee relations. The power sector undertakings should emphasize on those measures which can more elevate the social bonding between the organization and the employees. The organization by ensuring affirmative relations with the employees can deliver motivated, satisfied, and productive workforce to challenge the dynamism of competition. Thus, it is the hour, organization should prioritize on employee satisfaction which could create a pleasant and productive workplace to promote organizational performance along with employees' professional development.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the significant predictors that have an impact on cultivating an environment of positive employer-employee relations in power sector organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Primary data were gathered by administering a structured questionnaire among 154 respondents (executives and non-executives) of a state-owned power sector of India. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were employed for statistical analysis of the data using SPSS (version 20).\nFindings: The analysis used a total of 17 independent variables, and only three factors were extracted, namely organizational justice (OJ), employee empowerment (EE) and conflict management (CM), and established as the significant predictors of employee relation (ER). The proposed hypotheses were found to be statistically significant.\nPractical implications: This scholarly endeavor provides plausible insights regarding the predictors vital for nurturing harmonious ER in power sector undertakings. It becomes highly imperative for both managers and academicians for developing strategies to cultivate a facilitative work environment to generate contented and competent workforce that can confront the challenging business world.\nOriginality/value: This work is a distinct manifestation of exhibiting quality relationships among the organizational entities by integrating the association of OJ, EE and CM for flourishing cordial employee relations (ERs) in the new perspective of power sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance: The mediating role of employee competencies	[ "Organizational performance", "SEM", "HRM practices", "Hospitality industry", "Hotel industry", "Employee competencies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's hyper-competitive arena, organizations stakeholders are demanding that all functional areas within the firm including human resources functions clearly demonstrate their contributions to overall organization's performance and ensure that a firm's human capital contribute to the achievement of its business objective (Baird and Meshoulam, 1998; D'Aveni, 1994; Jackson and Schuler, 1995). Such resources take on special relevance when dealing with labor-intensive service industries, especially, the hospitality industry where the accomplishment of the business is contingent predominantly on the social and technical skills of its personnel, their ingenuity and hard work, their commitment and attitude for competitive success (Gabriel, 1988). Creating competitive advantage through people requires careful attention to the practices that best leverage these assets. Human resource management (HRM) practices are a set of internally consistent policies and practices designed and implemented to ensure that a firm's human capital contribute to the achievement of its business objectives (Delery and Doty, 1996). The hospitality industry encompasses different activities and purposes including lodging, catering and other establishments besides hotels. However, Dittmer (2002) argued that the hotel industry represents a key segment of the hospitality industry. Several other authors (Enz, 2009; Poulston, 2008) deliberate that the hotel industry is a people industry. They further indicated that employees are cogitated as the focal point of the hotel industry for the reason that they may possibly develop a dazzling image for prompt and cozy service or taint the perfect vacation reality. Hooghiemstra (1992) posited that competencies are the underlying characteristic of a person that could be a motive, traits and self-concepts, attitudes or values, content knowledge or cognitive or behavioral skills. Zhang et al. (2008) opined that organizational performance is the extent of success to which the organization reaches its aims. Majority of the studies on HRM practices in the hospitality industry focus on developed economies such as the UK (Watson et al., 2007), the USA (Kalargyrou and Woods, 2011), New Zealand (Poulston, 2008), Spain (Agut et al., 2003), Germany (Langer, 2003), Australia (Davidson et al., 2010) and Ireland (Nolan et al., 2010). However, with some exceptions (Honyenuga and Adzoyi, 2012; Mensah-Ansah, 2014), scant research study exists on HRM practices in the West Africa hospitality industry. Therefore, this study attempted to examine the role of employee competencies in the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance of the hotel industry in Ghana.\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Human resource management practices\nMethods: Research setting and data structure\nAnalytic approach: The efficacy of the proposed model and hypotheses were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science 20.0 and the Analysis of Moment Structure 20.0. In the first step, the researcher tested the measurement model. To establish construct validity, the researcher examined: the relationship between the observable indicators and their latent constructs and correlations among sub-dimensions. The second step was to test the overall model. Baron and Kenny (1986) classical product method was used in examining the role of employee competencies in the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance. A multi-group moderation analysis with maximum likelihood criterion was applied in assessing the degree of correlation in the classification of hotels (Baron and Kenny, 1986).\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion: This study reveals important empirical results that make a significant contribution to clarifying the question of the role of employee competencies in the relation between HRM practices and organizational performance. Results confirmed H1 by showing that recruitment and selection has a significant influence on employee competencies. This results parallels the findings of several studies which found that effective recruitment and selection leads to competitive advantage and high performance of organization (Chen and Cheng, 2012; Pfeffer, 1994; Storey, 2007). The results validates the assumption of researchers (Naquin and Holton, 2006; Lee, 2010). H2 confirms a significant influence of training and development on employee competencies. These results support the contentions of Zumrah et al. (2013) who argue that employees who participated in training apply the new learned skills, knowledge and attitude in their everyday work and demonstrate better abilities and competencies in performing their job. The results are in line with the opinion of researchers (Cheng and Brown, 1998; Swanson, 2001). Results of H3 suggest that career planning does not make any significant influence on employee competencies. This result is inconsistent with the findings of Ayanda and Sani (2010) who assert that career planning systems help employees in developing such skills which are not only important for their own development and growth but are also important for the development and success of the organization as a whole. The results does no validate the assumption of researchers (Leibowitz et al., 1986). H4 also has a similar result showing a non-significant influence of performance appraisal on employee competencies. This result supports the findings by Osman et al. (2011) who contend that an ineffectual appraisal procedure results in numerous undesirable challenges comprising stalled employee efficiency, less morale, less enthusiasm in supporting organizational values and objectives consequently stalling the effectiveness of the organization. The results are not in line with the opinion of researchers (Young et al., 1995). The results of H5 confirm a significant influence of employee participation on employee competencies. These results parallel the findings of several studies which found that employee participation is positively related to performance, satisfaction and productivity of an employee (Pfeffer, 1994; Verma, 1995). The results are in line with the opinion of researchers (Ardichvili et al., 2003). Results of H6 indicate that employee competencies have a significant influence on organizational performance. These results support the supposition by Cartwright and Baron (2002) when they contend that the accomplishment of an expected strategic outcomes hinges on the employee's coherence, interaction, harmonization, dedication and the improvements of suitable competencies. The results validates the assumption of researchers (Lockhart, 2013; Rose et al., 2006). The results of the study objective confirm a significant indirect (mediated) effect of HRM practices on organizational performance. The results parallel findings by others studies which found that the enhancement and improvements of employee competencies are very crucial for organizational effectiveness leading to enhanced employee performance, greater efficiency and assist in creating essential competencies for firms (Kehoe and Wright, 2013; Levenson et al., 2006). The results are in line with the opinion of researchers (Bhardwaj, 2013; Kehoe and Wright, 2013).\nLimitations and suggestions for future study: There are certain limitations that offer important avenues for future research. Data were collected using a cross-sectional research design; however, the adoption of a longitudinal research design would have assisted in testing the casual relationship among variables (Malhotra and Birks, 2003). Moreover, quantitative research design was used in analyzing data collected through structured questionnaires (Dillman et al., 1993; Grix, 2004). Profound qualitative data are encouraged in future studies (Guba and Lincoln, 1989). The adoption of both qualitative and quantitative approaches would have provided a more in-depth as well as valuable clarifications (Remenyi et al., 2005). Furthermore, the data used in this study are extensively subjective opinions of employees (Real et al., 2014). Adoption of objective measures is encouraged in future studies (Benson and Hagtvet, 1996). This area could be improved by receiving feedback from multiple sources and cross-validating the responses to identify personal biases from individual respondents. Another limitation is the generalizability of the study. The results of this study cannot be generalized because they come from a sample of hotels in a specific context. We should also be careful when applying the results obtained to other sectors given the specific characteristics of the hotel industry. The present study meaningfully expands the SHRM literature by elaborating different types of HRM practices and conceptually and empirically exploring the mediating mechanism that explains the effect of HRM practices on organizational performance. As revealed in the present study employee competencies mediated the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance. Nevertheless, further conceptual and empirical endeavors are needed to achieve a clear and comprehensive understanding of the HRM - organizational performance nexus. With regard to HRM practices, employee performance could be a promising mediating mechanism that underlies the effect of HRM practices on organizational performance. Future research is encouraged to examine the possible mediating effect of employee performance in the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance using distinct HRM practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of employee competencies in the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An integrated research model was developed by combining principal factors from existing literature. Data were collected through questionnaire from 600 employees of the selected hotels. The validity of the model and hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The reliability and validity of the dimensions are established through confirmatory factor analysis.\nFindings: The results indicate that some HRM practices impact organizational performance through their influence on employee competencies. The study further revealed that employee competencies mediate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research was undertaken in the hotel industry and the analysis based on cross-sectional data which cannot be generalized across a broader range of sectors and international environment.\nPractical implications: The findings of the study have the potential to help policy makers, stakeholders and management of hotels in adopting proper and well-articulated HRM practices in building human capital and stimulating the necessary behaviors that create advantage for the organization.\nOriginality/value: This study extends the literature by empirically adducing evidence that employee competencies mediated the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance of the hotel industry in Ghana.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Identification and quantification of influent factors in perceived quality of the e-service provided by a university	[ "Perceived quality", "Service management", "E-service", "Quality dimensions", "Customer quality service" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competitiveness and continued expansion of services in the global economy reinforced the importance of service quality in customer satisfaction and business performance (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003). Perceived quality in services is widely regarded as a driver of competitiveness and financial performance, influencing on satisfaction and loyalty of customers and creating positive word of mouth (Bitner et al., 1990, 1997; Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003; Gummesson, 2008; Johnston, 2005; Svensson, 2006a, b; Roos and Edvardsson, 2008; Gronroos, 1990, 2007; Stiakakis and Georgiadis, 2009; Cho and Menor, 2010; Czepiel, 1990; Buttle, 1996; Groth et al., 2001). Perceived quality influences on satisfaction, satisfaction influences on consumer loyalty and loyalty influences on performance (Cristobal et al., 2007; Yen and Lu, 2008). So, relationships involving customers and suppliers (business to consumer) or providers (business to business), including those via the internet, have increased in importance as research topics in operations management.\nQuality dimensions in service: Service quality has been widely discussed in scientific research, involving scholars and practitioners (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Zeithaml et al., 1993; Liljander and Strandvik, 1995; Yasin et al., 2004; Svensson, 2006a, b; Olorunniwo et al., 2006; Gronroos, 1990; Stiakakis and Georgiadis, 2009; Cho and Menor, 2010; Ho and Lin, 2010; Johnston, 2005). Zeithaml et al. (1993) define service quality as the difference between perceptions (perceived performance) and customer expectations. It turns to be, therefore, a comparison between expectations and perception of performance (E-P=Q). When performance exceeds expectations, the service is perceived as excellent and the customer experiment a pleasant surprise. When the opposite occurs, quality becomes unacceptable. In balance, quality is satisfactory (Gronroos, 1990). On the other hand Cronin and Taylor (1992, 1994) argue that this disconfirmation model fails to appraise perceived quality. They claim that quality service depends on customers' attitude, and his or her perception about the service is what really matters in judging quality.\nResearch: The main purpose of the research was to identify influent factors and quantify their importance in the perceived quality of the e-service provided by a university with more than 30,000 students. The method was a survey with users. By reviewing the literature and focus group sections with scholars and practitioners, we proposed five constructs and indicators to organize perceived quality in e-service. For checking the model, as a dependent variable, we proposed a final comprehensive indicator about the overall perception of quality about the e-service of the university. We proposed one question for each indicator and then made a pre-test with ten selected users, in order to improve reliability. At the end, with an acceptable reliability, 16 indicators were selected (four to trust, three to each other constructs). The list below shows tags and a brief description of each indicator. This is an initial survey. Based on results, confirmatory further surveys should be launched:\nResults: We used performance answers. Content validity is grounded on previous bibliography research, discussion with experts in focus group and pilot test. For reliability validation, we calculated composite reliability. For unidimensionality and discriminant validity, we performed an EFA based on principal component method. KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.934 (OK if greater than 0.5). Bartlett's test accepted the sample at a significance level of 0.000. Approximated kh2 is 3,120 with a degree of freedom of 105. All correlations were significant at the 0.00 level (two-tailed). Some of the indicators loaded on unexpected factors, as predicted and explained by Buttle (1996), so we decide to reorganize constructs. First we extracted three factors, as shown in Table V, with 71 percent of variance explained (Hair et al., 2009 suggest at least 70 percent). We also tried four factors. For all rotations, one question remained isolated. Finally, in order to test the hypothesis, we extracted five factors, accounting for 79 percent of total explained variance. The best result was achieved by equamax rotation with Kaiser normalization (Table VI). We admitted five factors, with reallocation between constructs. We adopted names for the constructs as closers as possible to the originals, and changed tags.\nManagerial implications: The structural analysis has shown that trust, responsivity and empathy are directed related to perceived quality by e-service user of the university. H1, H3 and H4 are supported, respectively at significance levels p1\nFinal remarks: The purpose of this paper was to identify influent factors and quantify their influence in the perceived service quality of the e-service provided by a university. The main research method was a survey with users of the e-service of a university. We utilized a two-step methodology: a qualitative part to identify and organize indicators; and a numerical survey to assess preferences and evaluations of the users of the e-service of a university on issues appraised by the selected indicators. By theoretical review, focus group with experts and a pre-test, we organized indicators under five constructs: trust; convenience; responsivity; empathy; and personalization. Although this is a simple model, which could have been solved by regression techniques, we used the software SmartPLS as it offers statistics that helped verifying the validity of the model. Moreover, in further research, we are supposed to use more elaborated models. In this case, SmartPLS is a better-suited option.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a multiple item scale for measuring perceived quality in e-service provided by a university.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used a two-step methodology: a qualitative part to identify relevant dimensions and indicators in e-service and a numerical survey to assess preferences and evaluations of 252 users, regarding indicators of e-service quality, as well as a global degree of satisfaction with the overall e-service. Multivariate and structural techniques helped extracting guidelines for improving perceived quality.\nFindings: The authors refined a scale by factor analysis, remaining five dimensions and 15 items. The five dimensions are: trust, convenience, responsivity, empathy and personalization. The authors found out that trust, responsivity and empathy, at a 0.01 level, are directly related with the overall satisfaction with e-service.\nResearch limitations/implications: Specific results are not generalizable to others universities, but the method can be replicated in others e-service providers. For continuity, the authors recommend multicriterial methods for prioritizing indicators. For confirmatory analysis, the authors suggest a new survey with a larger sample, aggregating new indicators by more qualitative research.\nPractical implications: The method can help universities to evaluate and eventually reformulate their strategies in dealing with e-services users.\nOriginality/value: The paper helps clarify how to structure and organize indicators related to e-service perceived quality and how to identify those activities that can help managers to improve it.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Value-at-risk concept by Swiss private banks	[ "Value analysis", "Banks", "Risk analysis", "Asset management", "Financial risk", "Switzerland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since Value-at-Risk (VaR) first received wide representation in July 1993 in the Group of Thirty report (Group of Thirty, 1993), the number of users of - and uses for - VaR increased significantly. It is important to recognise that the VaR technique has gone through considerable refinement, including essential process changes since it originally appeared. Researchers in the field of financial economics have long distinguished the importance of measuring the risk of portfolio and financial assets or securities (Campbell et al., 2001; Culp et al., 1998; Simons, 2000; Tan and Gautham, 1999). In recent years, the growth of trade activity and instances of financial market instability have prompted new studies underscoring the need for market participation to develop reliable risk measurement techniques (Glasserman et al., 2002; Martin et al., 2001; Rockafellar and Uryasev, 2000; Rogachev, 2004). Nowadays the VaR is a standard risk measurement that is applied as an approach to risk management, which was emerging as the industry standard either by choice or by regulation. The VaR measures focus directly, and in currency terms, on a major reason for assessing risk in the first place - a loss of portfolio value. That is why VaR as a modern risk measurement for customer portfolios is a special point of research here.VaR has become in recent years the most important benchmark for the measuring and estimation of risk in portfolios of diverse and often complex instrument. VaR is a single summarising statistical measure of possible portfolio losses due to normal market movements. Moreover, VaR aggregates all of the risks in a portfolio into a single number suitable for use in the boardroom, reporting to regulators, or disclosure in an annual report. In estimating VaR it is important to not only provide the most accurate forecasting as possible, it is especially important for a bank to know if a model tends to underestimate or overestimate VaR. Risk managers must consider how much risk they are taking, if they have enough capital to take it and whether they are getting adequately paid for taking that risk. These central questions of risk management hinge on the meaning of the term \"risk\". We analysed how VaR was applied in the daily routines of the Swiss private banking industry. VaR models, understanding the concept and its use for customers were at the centre of this precise and practical research.\nKey findings: * Nearly one-third of respondents report that their banks currently implement a VaR concept.* The risk policy of most Swiss private banks is based on risk responsibility, risk management and risk control.* Portfolio and asset managers are significantly involved at the current stage of risk communication to private banks' clients for at least half of the banks where VaR technique is broadly used.* Three main applications of VaR in asset and portfolio management are decision making for assets allocation, \"what-if\" modelling, measuring and monitoring of market risk.* Approximately three-fourths of the banks using the VaR concept apply the historical simulation technique in estimating the process. In addition, some used the variance-covariance approach, Monte-Carlo method and scenario simulation.* Findings confirm a high expectation and optimism concerning the role of VaR concept in risk management practise. The quantity of the banks applying VaR technique is getting larger and larger, not only as a result of regulatory requirements.* Almost all banks are missing the dynamic approach to VaR estimation. A more specific problem of practical implementation of the VaR concept in portfolio and asset management is how to make market risk estimating more precise.\nSurvey and its results: The results presented here are based on a questionnaire study undertaken in 2003 and updated in 2005. The questionnaires were sent to the heads of risk management of major private and regional banks in East Switzerland. Excluded from the survey were big banks (UBS, Credit Suisse) as well as foreign and Swiss exchange banks. We addressed 57 Swiss banks. They corresponded to about 14 percent of the total number of registered banks in Switzerland. From these 33 banks which sent us responses (see Figure 1), the resulting response rate was 58 percent. This is high response for a survey of this type. It was initiated by the Basle Banking Committee in the last few years. One may assume that the high participation rate was due to the strong interest the banks took in the problem discussed. This is also reflected in the hierarchical positions of the respondents: about a quarter of the questionnaires were filled out by a member of the board. Moreover almost all questionnaires were answered by senior risk managers.Being small banks, about 64 percent (see Figure 2) of the responding banks had not introduced VaR in their own risk management system. Most of them noted that their banks did not apply the VaR concept at that time, but that they had a great interest in this risk measure. Actually just 36 percent of the responding banks used VaR reporting. This left us with a total sample of 12 banks for further analysis. All of these banks used the VaR for internal purposes such as legal reporting, internal controlling, investment monitoring. Half of them also made possible the use of the VaR estimation for big portfolios (like trading positions or institutional clients), and only one bank had introduced the VaR for all customers.The survey shows that the risk policy of most Swiss private banks is based on risk responsibility, risk management and risk control. Three competence steps can be defined. On the first level management remits measures of risk limitation and formulates risk policy in details. Then risks are collected from the partial books and current tax structures. Finally the bank's management and the risk board define the responsible groups and delegate risk supervision to them. The responsibility for the risk evaluations of customer portfolios belongs to the daily work of every investment consultant. However, simply with derivative instruments, like structured products, it is difficult to calculate VaR at first sight for non-linearity reasons. In these reports, the risks of the investments are measured and presented in a transparent manner. This is especially important for structured products, which can behave either like stocks or like bonds, depending on the product design and the price movement of the underlying securities.Portfolio and asset managers are significantly involved at the current stage of risk communication to private banks' clients for at least half of the banks where VaR concept is broadly implemented. Risk management generates a value both financially and non-financially, e.g. protection of reputation. This thesis is comprehended by approximately 95 percent of asset and portfolio managers in the banks with active VaR application technique. In those banks business management is accountable for active management of risk exposures and control functions are responsible for objective check on integrity of risk taking and for setting exposure limits where appropriate. Further we analyse the advantage of the VaR use due to asset management reply in those 36 percent (see Figure 2) of the responding banks that apply VaR methodology in their own risk management systems.Asset managers make portfolio management decisions including asset allocation across broad assets classes and/or market sectors. In addition, portfolio managers may choose to actively implement their asset allocation choices by selecting undervalued securities within an asset class as opposed to purchasing a passively managed index proxy. According to about 65 respondents in the analyzed banks cluster, one of the primary benefits of VaR for asset managers is that it facilitates the consistent and regular monitoring of market risk. Both internal and external portfolios are included here. Institutional investors can calculate and monitor VaR at a variety of different levels. When calculated and monitored at the portfolio level, the risks taken by individual asset managers can be evaluated on an ongoing basis.The next point is the \"what-if\" modelling of candidate traders that is used in two-thirds of responding banks in this cluster. VaR can be beneficial to asset managers who wish to eliminate transactional scrutiny by top (or senior) management or directors and trustees. In this way VaR can actually help give portfolio managers more autonomy than they might otherwise have without a formalised VaR-based risk management process. Nevertheless VaR will never tell an asset manager how much risk to take. It will only tell a manager how much risk is being taken. So, VaR is a tool for helping managers determine whether the risk to which they are exposed is the risk they think it is and whether it is the risk of their choosing.A third application of VaR to asset management due to our respondents (supported by the half banks in the cluster) involves measuring and monitoring market risk using a formal system of pre-defined risk targets or thresholds. In essence, risk thresholds take ad hoc risk monitoring one step further and systematise the process by which VaR levels are evaluated and discussed for portfolios and asset managers. VaR is actually a piece of information about the distribution of possible future losses on a portfolio. The actual profit or loss will not be known until it happens. Nevertheless the VaR is a very useful statistic. And the primary benefit of a risk target system is the formalisation of a risk monitoring process.Figure 3 presents how often portfolio managers use VaR reporting in their practice.The results show that interest of asset managers in VaR is very different from bank to bank. Almost every bank calculates VaR for internal purposes and/or to represent market risk. Fewer of them apply the concept for customer reporting and/or to estimate risk for some specific finance instruments such as structured product or funds. The reason is that some banks are absolutely sure that their customers do not understand the VaR concept. Nevertheless many asset managers have avoided or criticised VaR based on the notion that systematic measurements and disclosures of risk serve only to attenuate the autonomous nature of the investment management process. On the contrary, measuring VaR and using it as the basis for internal monitoring and risk targets, external risk disclosures and transactional risk evaluations can actually give the asset manager more autonomy than if investors or senior managers are unsure of what the fund's market risk exposure actually are. Because the VaR does not capture all relevant information about market risks, it is, at best a tool in the hands of a good risk manager. The chief range of VaR applications remains through conversations with customers.Main majority of the banks using the VaR concept apply the historical simulation technique in estimating the process (see Figure 4). Some use the variance-covariance approach, Monte-Carlo method and scenario simulation in addition. Application possibilities, simple representation, data rows and calculation speed affected the choice of estimation technique used by banks. It is interesting to note that all banks which implemented scenarios for the VaR estimating applied worst-case scenarios as stress testing and half standard scenarios according the Bank for International Settlements. Only three banks define for themselves the VaR scenarios under their own assumptions. The bank practice showed that foreign exchange rates, equities, market actions, underlying price rows had the largest influence on the VaR estimation. Mathematically it reflected the exponential weights used to calculate the variance-covariance matrix and volatility movements of portfolios.Generally there are two types of bank assets: loans and marketable securities. The latter compose the bank's trading portfolio. For such a portfolio the VaR limit system is very important. Unfortunately there were few banks which had an obvious limit system. Most of the respondents implemented the general trade limits and VaR limits for biggest portfolios. Such VaR limits were yearly constantly defined amounts, which were periodically reviewed by senior managers. Only two banks defined limits as a certain percentage of the current portfolio value.\nConclusions: From the bank perspectives VaR has both positive and negative points. There is no need to explain that VaR is a unique risk figure overall for banks. It is like a common denominator for various risks. The reason is that VaR is used by portfolio managers as comparable risk measurement across different asset classes and business lines. VaR not only shows the risk potential but also the combination of risk factors of different kinds. Swiss asset managers define VaR as a synthetic indicator containing numerous global risk data, other factors and taking the diversification effects into account. As top level risk consolidation, the VaR services capital allocation.But there are certain disadvantages of using VaR. First of all, this risk measure could become a black box. The question is that extreme variations are not covered. Therefore stress testing is often needed. Secondly, the VaR concept has strong assumptions. There is also the problem of the few lost events. VaR as used in practice is based on historical data. Actually it means that the VaR speaks only about history and does not consider the future. From this point of view, VaR looks like a very accurate number, but correlations can change and history is not always a perfect guide. Therefore banks prefer scenarios and stress testing. On the other hand the other estimation methods require a long computation time. Thus ad hoc analysis is not possible. Some asset managers characterise VaR as a single risk number, which is easy to understand; others do not use it as they find the classical methods (for example, Greek implementation) easier to quantify risk. In summary almost all banks are missing the dynamic approach to VaR estimation.Finally, we would like to emphasize that risk managers are primary concerned with the risk of events that are very unlikely to occur but could lead to catastrophic losses. A more specific problem of practical implementation of the VaR concept in portfolio and asset management is how to make market risk estimating more precise. Asset managers need the risk measurement that rejects daily market fluctuation and observes daily position changes in portfolio.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to consider the problem of using the Value-at-Risk (VaR) technique and examine its practical implementation by Swiss Private Banks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is based on a survey originally undertaken in 2003 and updated in 2005. The research results provide details on how asset and portfolio managers understand and apply VaR methodology in their daily business.\nFindings: - From the banks' perspectives, VaR has both positive and negative points. It is like a common denominator for various risks. The reason is that VaR is used by portfolio managers as comparable risk measurement across different asset classes and business lines.\nOriginality/value: - This analysis shows how banks can implement VaR concept more effectively through its practical implementation areas in: portfolio management decisions and asset allocation; the \"what-if\" modeling of candidate traders; and measuring and monitoring market risk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bilateral learning model in construction claim negotiations	[ "Bayesian learning", "Claim negotiation", "Discount factor", "Risk attitude", "Zeuthen strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The large scale and complexity of construction projects result in enormous uncertainties during the process of project implementation (Cheung and Pang, 2013). Under the incomplete contract system, claims between contractors and owners are inevitable (Vidogah and Ndekugri, 1997). Commonly, contractors would behave opportunistically in order to recover the loss incurred by cutthroat bids through post-contract claims (Ho and Liu, 2004; Cheung and Pang, 2013), especially under the condition of competitive bidding. Negotiation is perceived as the most appropriate method to solve claims (Ren et al., 2002), because it saves time and cost, keeps friendly relationship, and provides flexibility and control (Marzouk and Moamen, 2009). Claims, which cannot be settled amicably, will turn into disputes (Kumaraswamy, 1997). Disputes usually require third party intervention (Fenn et al., 1997), and may escalate into costly arbitration and litigation (Cheung, 1999; Cheung and Suen, 2002; Chong and Zin, 2012). Therefore, successful negotiation outcomes are of crucial importance to the parties. However, negotiations are often inefficient due to inadequate negotiation information mastered, complex interaction process, differences of intellectual backgrounds, and overabundance of variables involved (Ren and Anumba, 2002; Marzouk and Moamen, 2009).\nStructure of construction claim negotiations: The structure of construction claim negotiations, which is presented in Figure 1, mainly includes the following elements:\nBilateral learning model in claim negotiations: Offer-counteroffer bargaining model\nIllustrative example: We gave an illustrative example to explain how the bilateral learning model operates. It is assumed that the contractor claimed for PS1 million during the construction phase. Considering that the responsibilities and risks should be partially undertaken by the contractor, the owner initially consented to offer PS700 thousand as expense compensation. If offers were made in equal intervals of time, assuming as one week from one party's offer to the other party's counteroffer in this example, and the annual interest rates for the owner and the contractor were 6.2 and 4.5 percent, respectively, then we calculated the discount factors for a week as d\nDiscussions: The purpose of this study is to provide references to dynamic offers for the parties under the circumstance of claim negotiations with incomplete information, and thus enhance the efficiency of claim negotiations. We chose Zeuthen strategy and Bayesian learning as the basic model to simulate the bargaining process. The precondition of adopting Zeuthen strategy is to acquire the parties' utility functions. Features such as substantial claim amounts, long duration of negotiations and variance of the parties' risk attitude, all amplify the effects of discount factor and risk attitude in utility functions. However, existing studies on Zeuthen strategy and Bayesian learning in construction negotiations usually take a static perspective (without consideration of discount factor), and use linear utility functions (with the assumption of risk neutral) (Ren et al., 2002, 2003; Ren and Anumba, 2002; Karakas et al., 2013). In contrast, the bilateral learning model put forward in this research corresponds well with engineering practices and has the following advantages. For one thing, each party constantly updates the estimation of the opponent's bottom line and utility functions according to each latest offer of the opponent under the consideration of discount factors. The consistency of Zeuthen strategy and the Nash bargaining solution model offers support for the model to calculate the specific concession in each round without decreasing joint utility. For another, the shape of utility functions reflects the parties' risk attitude, consisting of risk preference, risk avoidance, and risk neutral. Hence, both parties employ certainty equivalent method and curve fitting to build their own curve utility functions in order to represent their satisfaction with objective negotiation outcomes more reliably. Overall, the theoretical contribution of this study mainly manifests in the introduction of discount factor and risk attitude to improve the existing model based on Zeuthen strategy and Bayesian learning.\nConclusion: This research aims to set up a bilateral learning model in construction claim negotiations. We first adopted certainty equivalent method and curve fitting to construct the parties' own curve utility functions. Then taking the opponent's bottom line as the learning goal, we chose Bayesian learning to update the estimation of the opponent's utility functions round by round. Furthermore, discount factors were added to revise both parties' utility functions. Finally, the parties can determine whether to concede and the specific concession in each round. The consistency of Zeuthen strategy and the Nash bargaining solution model guarantees the effectiveness of the bilateral learning model in construction claim negotiations. Moreover, the illustrative example verifies the feasibility of this model. Overall, this research introduces discount factor and risk attitude into the pervious bargaining model and improves the application of Zeuthen strategy and Bayesian learning in the negotiation area. The employment of this model in claim negotiations is conducive to making reasonable offers without losing joint utility. Therefore, unnecessary transaction costs can be cut down. Nevertheless, we developed the bilateral learning model based on mathematical deduction. In future work, scholars can collect empirical cases to make comparisons between actual solutions and model solutions, and thus modify the model put forward in this research. In addition, the model could be used as a basis for multi-agent negotiations. How to introduce the deterrent function of an independent third party in claim negotiations into this multi-agent system seems to be an interesting topic that needs further exploration.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The learning ability on critical bargaining information contributes to accelerating construction claim negotiations in the win-win situation. The purpose of this paper is to study how to apply Zeuthen strategy and Bayesian learning to simulate the dynamic bargaining process of claim negotiations with the consideration of discount factor and risk attitude.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors first adopted certainty equivalent method and curve fitting to build a party's own curve utility function. Taking the opponent's bottom line as the learning goal, the authors introduced Bayesian learning to refine former predicted linear utility function of the opponent according to every new counteroffer. Both parties' utility functions were revised by taking discount factors into consideration. Accordingly, the authors developed a bilateral learning model in construction claim negotiations based on Zeuthen strategy.\nFindings: The consistency of Zeuthen strategy and the Nash bargaining solution model guarantees the effectiveness of the bilateral learning model. Moreover, the illustrative example verifies the feasibility of this model.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the authors developed the bilateral learning model by mathematical deduction, scholars are expected to collect empirical cases and compare actual solutions and model solutions in order to modify the model in future studies.\nPractical implications: Negotiators could refer to this model to make offers dynamically, which is favorable for the parties to reach an agreement quickly and to avoid the escalation of claims into disputes.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model provides a supplement to the existing studies on dynamic construction claim negotiations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Establishing the effect of government support on the relationship between gender egalitarian and women leadership effectiveness among public universities in KSA	[ "Saudi Arabia", "Gender egalitarian", "Women leadership effectiveness", "Government support" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's businesses and organizations are identified with disparity between men and women occupying leadership positions (Fritz and Knippenberg (2017). In Saudi Arabia, women clearly remain a minority and there are various influences connected to lower women leadership involvement (Fritz and Knippenberg, 2017; Hoyt and Murphy, 2016). Recently, the lack of effective leadership within various organizations, be they public or private sectors, have become a topic of research in developed, developing, and emerging economies (Management Study Guide, 2015). The effectiveness of leadership has been a topic of interest for research for many years. Pioneers in this field were psychology scholars, such as House et al. (1991), and sociology scholars, such as Stogdill (1950). By the 1960s, leadership researchers started to focus on the study of effective leadership. Hence, this has become one of the most significant topics of discussion or debate in most fields of leadership. Issues related to the effectiveness and qualities of leaders have attracted researchers' attention for many years, leading the recent trend of debate, and it is becoming increasingly challenging to ignore the leadership roles and opportunities in various organizations especially in the education sector (Madsen et al., 2012; Pradhan et al., 2018; White, 2013).\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Relationship between gender egalitarian and women leadership effectiveness\nGovernment support as moderator: Past empirical researchers dedicated to examining the relationship between government policy and performance have primarily been conducted in developed organizations. They serve as significant evidences that indicate the relationship between government policies and performance. Even though a majority of the findings have been dedicated to developed organizations, they have suggested that government policy does affect performance in developing organizations as well (Alajmi and Ahmad, 2016; Shariff et al., 2011; Shariff and Peou, 2008).\nTheoretical framework: As discussed above, this study is guided (underpinned) theory. Figure A1 is the study's research framework. See Appendix 1.\nMethodology: This study adopted the quantitative method, and it is important to justify why this is so. Quantitative research is carried out through questionnaires, mail, telephone, or the Internet, among others (Sellers, 1998). Survey design was therefore adopted to gauge the opinion of female leaders in public-sector universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The targeted population in this study is female leaders due to Saudi women and education provided insight into the complex social and cultural challenges, such as deans, deputy deans, directors and head of departments in public universities because they hold administrative post and serves as leaders in various universities, hence they can answer the question. The population consists of 2,800 female leaders in all public-sector universities in KSA. Therefore, this study's population is from public universities from five geopolitical zones (East, West, Middle, North and South) in Saudi Arabia. Hence, with a population of this size for the study, the sample is 338, according to Krejcie and Morgan (1970).\nResult: The descriptive results are presented and the profile of the respondents shows that 13.3 per cent (n = 36) are deans, 22.5 per cent (n = 61) are deputy deans, 34.3 per cent (n = 93) of respondents are directors of unit and 29.9 per cent (n = 81) are heads of department. In terms of education, the majority of the respondents at 65.7 per cent (n = 178) have a PhD certificate, while 11.4 per cent (n = 31) of respondents have a bachelor's degree and another 22.9 per cent (n = 62) of respondents have a master degree. A descriptive analysis of data was conducted to describe the gender egalitarianism, government support, and leadership effectiveness from the women leaders' perspective. The results of descriptive statistic are shown in Table I and the dependent variable (leadership effectiveness) received the second minimum mean value among all constructs (3.74) which indicates that women leaders emphasize the lack of leadership effectiveness which is reflected in the main problem statement of the study. See Table AI.\nCross-validated redundancy: The model's predictive relevance can be examined by the Stone-Geisser non-parametric test (Chin, 1998; Fornell and Cha, 1994; Geisser, 1975). Generally, there are several forms of Q2 that can be gained based on the form of the chosen prediction. A cross-validated commonality is obtained when the points of the data are predicted employing the underlying LV scores. If the prediction of the data points is acquired by the LVs that predict the block in question, a cross-validated redundancy Q2 is the output. According to Fornell and Cha (1994), the redundant commonality is found to be larger than 0 for all endogenous variables; therefore, the model is considered to have predictive validity, but if the reverse were true, the predictive relevance of the model cannot be concluded. As illustrated in Table AVI, the cross-validated redundancies and commonality for leadership effectiveness were at 0.166 and 0.123, respectively. Thus, based on the criteria suggested by Fornell and Cha (1994), all values are more than zero which indicates an adequate predictive validity of the model.\nConclusion and recommendations: This study explores the effects of various key independent variables (gender egalitarianism) on leadership effectiveness by examining government support as a moderator in the public universities of Saudi Arabia. The main motivation behind this study is to enhance the effectiveness of female leadership in the KSA while identifying the vital role of various variables including gender egalitarianism and highlighting the importance of government support as a moderating variable.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Even though nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important, particularly in the context of Saudi Arabia where moral relativism play a vital role. This paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey design with 500 full-time employed women, working in Saudi Arabia Public University were selected using quantitative approach. PLS-SEM is used to analyse the predicted hypotheses.\nFindings: The initial prediction was found that gender egalitarian is significant on women's leadership effectiveness, and government support to the extent that is associated with women's leadership effectiveness and tend to have stronger relationship. Also, the indirect effect of government support on the relationship between gender egalitarian on women leadership effectiveness was not significant.\nResearch limitations/implications: Due to the selected survey approach, the data are correlational using quantitative method. Thus, mixed method is needed to confirm these findings.\nPractical implications: Saudi Arabia Public Universities, policymakers and leaders of higher education institutions should focus on female leaders to improve their leadership effectiveness. Universities should formulate future strategies to empower women through the various stages of their career to become good leaders.\nOriginality/value: The present study is among the first if any that examines relationship between gender egalitarian and women leadership effectiveness with moderating role of government support in developing country of Saudi Arabia.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Issues in the selection of fall prevention and arrest equipment	[ "Construction industry", "Construction equipment", "Health and safety", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Working at height is the highest risk activity in the United Kingdom (UK) construction. Almost half of the 50-80 UK workers killed annually by falls are in the Construction Industry, within which around 50 per cent of all fatalities are due to \"falls from height\" or \"falls through fragile [roofing] materials\". Construction related falls from height also account for the majority of fatal accidents in the service or other industries, in which employees or building owners have fallen from height during building repair or maintenance (HSC, 2006).The objective of the research reported here was to investigate general principles and industry practices in the selection and use of fall prevention and arrest systems, in order to provide guidance on best practice. It forms part of a larger study of a range of available fall protection equipment, for the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) between 2002 and 2004 (HSE, 2005), covering:* purlin trolley systems;* fall arrest mats;* safety netting;* safety decking;* cable and track-based fall arrest systems; and* National Association of Scaffolding Contractors SG4:00 (operational guidance system) (NASC, 2003).Issues specific to the selection and use of particular systems will be dealt with in subsequent papers.\nMethodology: Data collection\nGeneral selection issues: Introduction\nConclusions: Much information on modern fall protection equipment and advice on equipment selection has been extracted from published sources and experienced practitioners in construction. This paper summarises the most important of this information that is related to general issues in equipment selection and use and provides, along with the full report (HSE, 2005), a comprehensive discussion of the issues that advanced practice should consider in planning work at height.This synthesis of information and advice has been tested by reference to practitioners and, it is believed, is currently the most comprehensive available from any single source. However, the variety of equipment available for fall protection is continues to expand and improvements to existing equipment, such as advanced guard rails in scaffolding, and new developments in, for example, safety decking, should be accommodated in future expansion of guidance on specific equipment selection issues. Nevertheless, most of the generic conclusions about selection issues, described here, are likely to remain relevant whatever developments in equipment take place.\nFurther research: The choice between active fall prevention, restraining line and harness, and passive fall arrest mats or nets, is logical, on the basis of the hierarchy of control. However, further study of real experience, particularly the consequences of fall accidents involving safety nets and fall arrest mats, could alter this conclusion in some circumstances, for example where rescue is problematic or where falls into the arrest medium are increasing in frequency. It is conceivable; for example, that the very presence of apparently secure fall arrest equipment will lead to an increase in risk taking behaviour (risk homeostasis) and a higher incidence of resultant injury. This is worthy of further study.In order to monitor such trends, incident reporting and analysis of falls involving these systems would be very useful. A federation of equipment manufacturers, similar to the National Association of Scaffolding Contractors (NASC), could initiate such a system, in order to better understand the \"real-life\" experience and performance of their equipment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The research objectives are to investigate current methods of fall protection, identify issues in their selection and use, and produce guidance on best practice for designers and constructors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A steering group with both health and safety and production experience directed a variety of data collection methods: interviews with industry specialists to assist in identifying the significant issues in fall protection and selecting fall protection systems; study of published research, legislation, codes of practice, and system technical data; focus groups to investigate both generic and system-specific issues; and visits to manufacturers, suppliers, contractors' offices and sites, to observe and discuss systems in development, planning, erection and operation.\nFindings: - This paper deals with all the general issues in equipment selection: a hierarchy of selection; legislative guidance; interaction with the structure; impact on site operations; rescue of fallers; issues specific to maintenance and refurbishment; and costs arising from equipment selection.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a summary of the most important issues contained in the full Health & Safety Executive report of the research, the only comprehensive source of such practical guidance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cross-national market segmentation in the fashion industry: A study of European, Korean, and US consumers	[ "Advertising", "Market segmentation", "Fashion industry", "Europe", "South Korea", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Given the rapid growth of global markets and an optimistic outlook for their future, researchers and practitioners have a keen interest in understanding the process of building strong brands in foreign market environments. An important issue in global branding is how to advertise a brand to establish equity that will lead to sustainable competitive advantages (Sandler and Shani, 1992; Yoo et al., 2000). In an era of rapid globalization, an important question - and one that is little studied - is whether market segments that cut across national boundaries can be targeted with global advertising campaigns. The focus of the study presented here is on whether cross-national market segments exist in the fashion industry and, if so, whether these segments can be effectively reached via the use of a global advertising campaign.Sales of global fashion brands are expanding rapidly in growing Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea because young consumers in those countries are brand- and fashion-conscious (Bryck, 2003; Morton, 2002). A consumer preference for brands with a global image, even when quality and value are not objectively superior, has been proposed as a reason for companies to consider global brands (Shocker et al., 1994; Taylor and Raymond, 2000). Therefore, a company needs to identify the response of consumers worldwide to its global advertising for a specific consumer segment. Although several researchers have suggested the need to cross-culturally analyze reactions to different types of advertisements (dePelsmacker and Geuens, 1998; Yoo and Donthu, 2002), few studies have been undertaken to assess differences in consumer attitudes toward global advertisements based on segments that cut across nations.Evidence increasingly suggests that firms using a global strategy have an advantage in building brand equity (Best global brands, 2006). Although many studies have focused on product standardization, advertising standardization, and global marketing strategy (GMS), relatively few have examined whether cross-national segments can be effectively targeted by marketers (Taylor, 2005). The fashion industry for women is particularly relevant in terms of examining the feasibility of cross-national segmentation. Research indicates that females tend to be more fashion-conscious, be more knowledgeable about fashion brands (Blyth, 2006), and read more fashion magazines than male consumers (Chamblee et al., 1993; Putrevu, 2004). This implies that marketers need to pay special attention to women when expanding and advertising fashion brands to international markets.This study explores two key research questions in this regard. They are:RQ1. Are there cross-national lifestyle segments that can be targeted by marketers of women's fashion merchandise?RQ2. What type of advertising for fashion merchandise is most effective with women of different lifestyle segments and nationalities?The latter research question is aimed at providing insight into how marketers can effectively position brands and develop better marketing communication strategies.\nLiterature review: Global advertising: a cross-cultural perspective\nResearch model and hypotheses: Theoretical framework\nMethodology: The study site\nResults and discussion: Fashion lifestyle segments\nConclusions and implications: With accelerating globalization and advances in information technology, the recent issues regarding globalized marketing have highlighted the need to examine whether marketers can identify and target cross-national market segments. This study looked for cross-national segments in the fashion industry and examined whether three ads appearing as part of a global advertising campaign had equal appeal to the segments. Our results provide striking evidence that:* there do appear to be cross-national fashion segments for consumers, at least in the counties examined in these studies, and;* in a global advertising campaign, targeting the cross-market segment may be more effective than designing an ad. to appeal to consumers of only one nationality.The study also suggests that there are sometimes interactions between fashion lifestyle segment and nationality, which might suggest that minor tweaks to a campaign are appropriate in some cases. However, the main effect of fashion lifestyle was the primary driver of the results in this study, which focused on a very well-known global brand.The four lifestyle segments identified are the \"information seekers,\" \"sensation seekers,\" \"utilitarian consumers,\" and \"conspicuous consumers.\" The fashion lifestyle segments were consistent with apparel consumer segments suggested by Shim and Bickle (1994), but not previously verified in a cross-national study. These segments were significantly different for attitude toward ad., attitude toward brand, and purchase intention for the brand. For example, the information seekers and sensation seekers tended to have more favorable attitudes toward the French and US versions of the ad. compared to the other segments, and they liked the Korean ad. less than the French or US ad. In addition to attitude toward ad. and brand, purchase intention for the brand differed significantly by fashion lifestyle segment. The existence of these segments supports the notion that there is a trend toward a global consumer culture, at least in the context of the marketing of fashion products. Thus, it appears that, for the case of segmenting fashion markets, global consumer culture is a stronger influence than cross-national differences.Given the strength of the main effects for the fashion segments, the results imply that global fashion marketers should consider the motivations of the segment they are trying appeal to across markets. These segments have distinct patterns in terms of information search, factors that are more heavily weighed in making purchase decisions, and brand name importance. Thus, our results suggest the ability to build brand equity in the fashion industry by using promotional strategies to appeal to global market segments rather than national consumers or uniquely local segments.In general, our findings imply that in the fashion industry, firms using global appeals may have an advantage in increasing brand equity. Apparently, building a uniform brand image that appeals to one or more of the fashion segments across cultures can be an effective strategy.A related point is that global media (e.g. different editions of Vogue or MTV) may be an effective tool for reaching cross-national segments, since these segments are likely to have similar media habits. The use of promotional techniques such as using VMDs in retail stores in various countries with messages that target a specific segment may also be useful in building brand equity. Additionally, geographic distance may not be a barrier for global advertising via advanced information technology (e.g. internet, SMS, MMS). It would appear to be viable to target fashion lifestyle segments using a limited number of promotional messages transmitted via the internet across nations. The adoption of more e-advertising strategies may well improve global advertising effectiveness and help build brand equity.At a theoretical level, our findings are consistent with the GMS framework proposed by Zou and Cavusgil (2002). In an increasingly global economy, it should not come as a major surprise that there are at least some segments for some types of goods and services that cut across national boundaries. The GMS framework would suggest offering standardized products for each cross-national segment and then using a unique but standardized advertising program to appeal to each (i.e. if there were four cross-national segments, this would require a unique strategy to appeal to each of the four segments). While our study does not provide a full test of all the prongs of GMS theory, our findings do suggest that, as with GMS, the use of appeals to global segments will be effective. On average, the cross-national fashion lifestyle segment a consumer belongs to is actually more fundamental in the consumer's reaction to an advertisement than is the consumer's nationality.Because our study has limitations, and because it is clear that more research is needed on cross-market segmentation, our results should be interpreted with some caution. While great care was taken to ensure that the USA and European consumers included in the study were in Korea for only a short-term stay, the sample was collected from only one geographic location. Further, validation with samples collected in multiple countries would be worthwhile. In examining the reactions to ads, the study examined just three ads with subtle differences from a single advertising campaign. Still, the fact that the segments reacted differently to these ads, as opposed to ads with more striking differences, would appear to further support the finding that the fashion lifestyle segments prefer different types of advertising. A good topic for future research would be to examine whether ads with substantially different themes and creative strategies would produce even more differences in reactions from the market segments. In general, additional research on cross-national segmentation in a variety of product and service categories is needed. Finally, because only one high-involvement product category was examined here, there are clear limitations on the generalizability of our study to other product categories. More research is needed to further examine the feasibility of cross-market segmentation in other contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To discover whether there are market segments for the fashion industry that cut across countries and respond differently to advertising messages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey was administered to Korean, European, and US female consumers. Cluster analysis is used in an attempt to identify lifestyle segments that cut across cultures.\nFindings: - Four cross-national market segments are identified. These segments can be labeled as follows: \"information seekers,\" \"sensation seekers,\" \"utilitarian consumers,\" and \"conspicuous consumers.\" Findings also reveal that fashion lifestyle segment had a stronger effect on the reaction to a set of three ads for a major global fashion company (one each from the French, Korean, and US editions of Vogue magazine) than did consumer nationality.\nPractical implications: - Findings suggest that it is viable and perhaps desirable for global marketers in the fashion industry to target cross-national market segments as opposed to developing individual segmentation schemes for each country.\nOriginality/value: - Relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national segmentation have been studies. The study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests standardized advertising is appropriate for some fashion marketers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A qualitative approach to understanding brand image in an international context: Insights from Croatia and Serbia	[ "Brand image", "Qualitative research", "Ethnocentrism", "Personal nostalgia", "Croatia", "Serbia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Brands may be both strategic assets that bequeath competitive advantages to owners and act as potent repositories of meaning in shaping consumers' self-identity (Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998; Fournier, 1998; Bengtsson and Ostberg, 2006). How to manage brands to build relationships with customers, and in turn improve the financial performance of firms, has thus become a priority for senior managers and of interest to academic researchers (Keller and Lehmann, 2006).\nBrand identity and international markets: Several prominent frameworks exist for understanding brands' tangible and intangible characteristics, of which, arguably, that offered by Kapferer (2012) is the most preeminent. Kapferer (2012) contends that brand identity should be represented by a hexagonal prism (Figure 1), standing between the brand manager (sender) and consumers/wider publics (recipients).\nCase context: During the socialist era, in orthodox centrally planned economies like the USSR, the task of enterprises was to produce according to state plans and standards. In these countries branding was typically limited to \"common luxuries\" such as tobacco and alcoholic drinks (Manning and Uplisashvili, 2007). However, in some other CEE states, such as Hungary and Socijalisticka Federativna Republika Jugoslavija (SFRJ), which experimented with \"market\" reforms, branding during the socialist era was more developed and extended to a wider range of consumer goods. The SFRJ sought to develop a hybrid economic system which placed greater emphasis on consumer goods than in the more orthodox state socialist regimes of CEE (Hall, 2002). This \"watered down brand of capitalist-flavoured consumerism\" (Patterson, 2003, p. 183) was supported by a nascent advertising and marketing community which looked west rather than east for inspiration. This community thought in terms of brands rather than products with the former perceived as an inherent feature of a consumer society (Patterson, 2003). In the SFRJ, brands such as Cockta Cola and Fructal juices were introduced as socialist equivalents to western icons such as Coca-Cola.\nMethodology: A qualitative approach was adopted, utilising focus groups. This was ideally suited for capturing complex meanings and their thematic dimensions (Kipnis et al., 2012). Focus groups can elicit a detailed understanding of how participants conceptualise a product category or brand (Keller, 2008), and enable participants to compare, contrast and challenge the experiences and perspectives of others (Craig and Douglas, 2001; Wilkinson, 2004).\nFindings: Given the focus of the study, the findings are organised according to Kapferer's (2012) six dimensions of brand identity. Table III presents a thematic conceptual matrix, comparing the perceived brand image of socialist era brands in domestic and foreign markets against those of transnational brands. In the presentation of quotations, M and F denote male and female and C and S Croatia and Serbia, respectively. Reference is also made to the age category (18-21, 35-45 and pensioners) and the number of the focus group i.e. S1, S2, etc. For reasons of space, unless otherwise indicated, one quotation has been used to express a consensus of views.\nDiscussion: This paper illustrates the role that qualitative research can play in generating consumer insights across international markets, specifically, in capturing the polymorphous nature of perceived brand images. In the case studied, the appeal of the socialist era brands principally reflects their status as symbols of national self-determination in markets characterised by significant consumer ethnocentrism. Both Croatian and Serbian participants perceived the socialist era brands as national symbols rather than socialist per se. In their home markets, consumption of socialist era brands cuts across age, class and gender boundaries and their appeal does not principally relate to institutional nostalgia for the socialist era. Feelings of nostalgia are linked to personal and family memories and participants did not regard the products as \"anti-capitalist\" or a means to express any disillusionment with post-socialism.\nResearch implications: Much research on ethnocentrism, COO and international branding depends on a binary classification of \"foreign\" and \"domestic\" (e.g. Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Sharma et al., 1995; Zhou et al., 2010). The case of the socialist era brands suggests that this may be simplistic. For instance, regarding PBF, both the transnational brands and those from other SFRJ successor states are regarded as \"foreign\" but the meanings attached to them are strikingly different. In this context, the PBF measure (Zhou et al., 2010) lacks ecological validity. For the Western Balkans, future branding research should distinguish between the \"near abroad\" (i.e. brands from other ex-SFRJ republics) and those with North American and Western European origins. This is relevant for work in other regions - for example Chinese consumers may distinguish between brands from other Asian emerging economies and those with Western origins.\nManagerial implications: The findings highlight the difficulties firms from the region face in creating standardised brand images across the successor states of the SFRJ. This is despite high geographical proximity, broadly similar standards of living and low psychological distance (Dow and Larimo, 2007). Even if firms standardise marketing activities, how brands from the region are perceived across countries is likely to be substantially different because of the strong ethnocentric cultures. For instance, some Serbian socialist era brands, while much loved in their home market are derided in Croatia. In the \"home\" market, strengthening consumer associations between a brand and the nation state is likely to be fruitful given favourable attitudes to \"our\" brands and how certain brands act as symbols of national self-determination. However, strengthening associations between a brand and the COO is likely to further alienate consumers in other SFRJ successor states. In foreign markets adaptation is necessary so that masking linkages to a particular country may be a precondition for successful market entry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims to demonstrate the utility of qualitative research for: understanding differences in brand image across markets; the critical assessment of marketing theory; informing revisions to quantitative scales and metrics used in international branding research. This is accomplished via research on a particular case (socialist era brands in Croatia and Serbia).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 12 focus groups, cutting across two countries (Croatia and Serbia) and three age groups (18-21, 35-45, pensioners), were conducted. The contemporary brand images of labels from the socialist era were compared against competing products (launched in the post-socialist period by local manufacturers and those from transnational companies).\nFindings: Analysis revealed significant differences in the image of the socialist era brands between their home and foreign markets. Variations are linked to a cultural context of newly (re)emerging states with high ethnocentrism, animosity and uneasy political relationships. Transnational brands, however, appear immune to much consumer ethnocentrism.\nResearch limitations/implications: Firms from the region face significant barriers to creating standardised brand images across the successor states of the Socijalisticka Federativna Republika Jugoslavija. While strong in their home markets, the socialist era brands are rarely suitable platforms for international market entry in the region. The dangers of conflating \"Western\" with foreign in international branding research are documented.\nOriginality/value: The case illustrates the role qualitative research can play in understanding variations in perceived brand image across international markets. It evaluates the utility of Kapferer's approach to brand identity. The concept of origin hierarchies is introduced and the inadequacies of international marketing research that relies on a simple domestic versus foreign dichotomy are documented.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Joint pricing of VIX and SPX options with stochastic volatility and jump models	[ "Jumps", "Calibration", "Risk-neutral pricing", "Stochastic volatility", "VIX options" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the introduction of The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) futures by CBOE in March 2004 and later VIX options in February 2006, the trading of derivatives on the VIX index has expanded considerably. Figure 1 shows how the financial crisis starting in 2008 has been followed by a significant increase in volatility trading along with an increased volatility of the VIX index. VIX options give investors the possibility to directly and effectively invest in volatility without having to factor in the price changes of the underlying instrument, dividends, interest rates or time to expiration. Moreover, VIX derivatives can serve as an effective hedging instrument against financial turmoil. Szado (2009) finds that VIX call options did a better job hedging against the financial crisis than The S&P 500 Index (SPX) put options - another typical hedging instrument against downside risk.\n2. Model specifications: In this section, the general model setup is introduced. All the models we consider are embedded in the general affine jump-diffusion setup introduced by Duffie et al. (2000). This specifically entails that the characteristic function of the return process has an analytic solution for all maturities. Consider a filtered probability space (O, F, {F\n3. Calibration to VIX and index options: 3.1 Data description\n4. Conclusion: Using the proposed VIX pricing formulas derived in Lian and Zhu (2013) for models featuring stochastic volatility and/or jumps, this paper has studied the joint calibration performance of the model specifications to the VIX and SPX option surfaces on October 22, 2008, and on May 16, 2012. Pricing of VIX options in the SV and SVJJ model was done using the formulas of Lian and Zhu (2013), while a computationally simpler pricing formula was derived in the SVJ specification. Pricing of VIX options with a model calibrated to SPX options fails to match prices, confirming the findings of Chung et al. (2011), namely, that the VIX and SPX options markets contain different information about the risk-neutral dynamics of index returns. A joint calibration of the models to both options markets with the Feller condition imposed reveals that the Heston model fits both markets poorly. Adding jumps to the return dynamics improves the calibration to SPX options but adds no improvement to the VIX error measures. Here, the additional jumps in the volatility dynamics are essential in lowering the error measures for the fit to the VIX options prices. Still, the overall fit of the SVJJ specification is unsatisfactory with an average relative percentage error on October 22, 2008, and May 16, 2012, of 15.2 and 21.2 per cent, respectively. A calibration without the Feller condition imposed improves the calibrations considerably with overall average percentage errors for the SVJJ model on the two dates of 8.1 and 10.9 per cent, respectively. Still, the fit is not satisfactory for many purposes, and more flexibility is needed in the model to jointly fit both options markets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper studies the performance of commonly employed stochastic volatility and jump models in the consistent pricing of The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) and The S&P 500 Index (SPX) options. With the existence of active markets for volatility derivatives and options on the underlying instrument, the need for models that are able to price these markets consistently has increased. Although pricing formulas for VIX and vanilla options are now available for commonly used models exhibiting stochastic volatility and/or jumps, it remains to be shown whether these are able to price both markets consistently. This paper fills this vacuum.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In particular, the Heston model, the Heston model with jumps in returns and the Heston model with simultaneous jumps in returns and variance (SVJJ) are jointly calibrated to market quotes on SPX and VIX options together with VIX futures.\nFindings: The full flexibility of having jumps in both returns and volatility added to a stochastic volatility model is essential. Moreover, we find that the SVJJ model with the Feller condition imposed and calibrated jointly to SPX and VIX options fits both markets poorly. Relaxing the Feller condition in the calibration improves the performance considerably. Still, the fit is not satisfactory, and we conclude that one needs more flexibility in the model to jointly fit both option markets.\nOriginality/value: Compared to existing literature, we derive numerically simpler VIX option and futures pricing formulas in the case of the SVJ model. Moreover, the paper is the first to study the pricing performance of three widely used models to SPX options and VIX derivatives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The image of accountants: from bean counters to extreme accountants	[ "Accountants", "Advertising", "Advertising media" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The role of the accountant is traditionally characterised by objectivity, emotional detachment, soberness and attention to fine detail. Accordingly, the stereotypical image of accounting as boring and accountants as uninteresting and dull seems to have become commonly held. However, more recently the accounting profession seems to have been promoting a rather different image of accounting and the accountant. For example, humorous websites have been established, including \"Extreme-Accounting\", which is sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)[1]. We have also witnessed searches for the funniest accountant in the Western world[2]. In this context, the reactions to an accounting software advert picturing a dominatrix, which appeared on the back cover of Financial Management in 2004/2005, is especially interesting. This advert has a very distinct image of a young woman in a red latex jump suit. She holds a black snakelike whip in her mouth, biting it hard; she wears black high-healed boots; and her outfit shows several O-shaped signs. However, not everyone found this advert as amusing; a number of letters to the Editor of Financial Management described it as offensive and denigrating[3]:I would like to express my concern about the Requisoft ads that are placed on the back cover of the magazine. I find their suggestive nature offensive. A professional organisation should not allow such material to denigrate its standing. Unfortunately, I have to tear off the back cover to avoid the embarrassment of having such images in my office (Financial Management, November 2004, p. 10).This letter could be said to express a desire to protect the conservative image of the accounting profession. Such a conservative image projects a person who is respectable, accountable and, in particular, non-seducible. In a sense, the writer, Mr Wentworth could be said to be disciplining the profession by stating that this is not the way to behave, and that the advert in question should not appeal to a profession that wishes to be taken seriously. However, reaction to the critics of the advert was swift:I would like to thank Jim Mirabel and Gary Wentworth (Letters, November) for perpetuating the dull, grey image that I have worked for years to shrug off. In future FM will take pride of place on my desk - face down of course\" (Financial Management, December/January, 2004/2005, p. 13).This second letter does not necessarily imply that its writer disagrees about the competence required of the accounting profession. Mr Sheldon appears to suggest that such competence does not have to prevent accountants from having a sense of humour. Nevertheless, from one perspective, the advert may be seen as a threat to the accountability and trustworthiness of accountants:[...] it would be dangerous for accountants suddenly to be seen as flamboyant risk-takers, since this would conflict with their prudent and conservative characteristics (Smith and Briggs, 1999, p. 30).But from another perspective, it may also be a problem if the image of accountants remains too conservative:Without action there will be no heroes and accounting runs the risk of becoming regarded as a second class profession (Smith and Briggs, 1999, p. 30).The dominatrix advert seems to challenge the traditional image of the accountant as an accountable and trustworthy person, and suggests a change from being conservative to being ultra-modern.Researchers who have studied the portrayal of accountants in the media have identified both positive and negative images. For example, Robert (1957), Stacy (1958) and Cory (1992) found images of accountants in the printed media that characterised them as dull, sober and expressionless. Similarly, Beard (1994), Smith and Briggs (1999), and Dimnik and Felton (2006) also found the stereotype of the boring accountant in popular movies (e.g. the Dinner Game, 1998), but they also discovered a more diverse picture. Whilst movies generally portrayed accountants as honest, disciplined and respectful of the law (e.g. the Moonstruck, 1987), on occasions they were also portrayed as persons who can be unprofessional and prone to criminal behaviour (e.g. the Circle of Friends, 1999). Furthermore, accountants are sometimes characterised as being short-term oriented, single-mindedly concentrating on costs, and misunderstanding the purpose of business, all of which can lead to disaster for their companies (see Dimnik and Felton, 2006). However, in other instances, accountants have more recently been portrayed as adventurous outdoor types who are interested in action sports (see Bougen, 1994; Friedman and Lyne, 2001; Ewing et al., 2001).These previous studies have mainly investigated how people, who are not involved with the accounting profession, perceive the accountant as a person; they are not usually concerned with the work of accountants. Although the accounting software adverts analysed in this paper does not necessarily portray accountants per se, they are directed at the (management) accounting profession. As the aim of the advert is to encourage accountants to purchase the product, they have to reflect the role and values of accountants. Consequently, if the argumentation in adverts changes, we can infer that it reflects changes in the image of the (management) accounting profession, as recognised by the accountants themselves. This prompted us to investigate changes in the image of accountants through the discourse used in accounting software adverts which are directed to the (management) accounting profession, as they appeared in the CIMA journal over the past four decades[4]. We then reflected on whether these changes are specific to accountants, or reflect broader shifts in society. In particular, the following research questions are explored:RQ1. What is the image of management accountants that is portrayed in the accounting software adverts appearing in the CIMA journal over the past four decades?RQ2. Does the image constructed by these adverts reflect a change in wider social practices of our society?In this paper, we are focusing on the social message contained in the text of the accounting software adverts, not their marketing effects. Whereas the mainstream marketing literature is generally concerned with how to communicate successfully with potential buyers (Rothschild, 1987), in focusing on the social message we are concerned with how the adverts shape the potential buyer, i.e. the accountant, as a consumer of accounting software. This is important since the social message (re)produces the image of the accountant and contributes to the construction of the social identity of the accounting profession (see Fairclough, 2003). However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore how and to what extent these images influence the social identity of the accounting profession\nMethodology: Below, we first describe our method for investigating the first research question: the image of accountants. We then outline the theoretical framework we use to address the second research question: whether the adverts reflect broader social practices. Finally, our selection of the adverts we analyse is explained.Exploring the images\nThe discourse of accounting software adverts: In this section, we present the discourse analyses of four accounting software adverts which appeared in the CIMA journal between 1975 and 2007. In our textual analyses, we examined all the textual features described earlier, but here we include only those features which are of particular relevance to the specific advert. All the adverts adopt a conditional deterministic scheme, i.e. if you buy x, then you obtain y. Given that the aim of the adverts is to convince an accountant to buy the product, this is not that surprising. However, this rather general marketing discourse is not the focal point of our paper. We are interested in the following dimensions that construct the image of the accountant:* the social context;* the character of the accountant; and* the feature of the software product.Obsolete man advert\nImages and wider social practices: Over the past four decades, the discourse of accounting software adverts, and hence the image of the accountant, has changed significantly. New representations of the social context, the character of accountants and the features of the management accounting system have emerged. The context has changed from practical operational business problems to problems of system completeness, competitive advantages in a global context, and most recently to endless enjoyment. The emphasised qualities of the accounting software have changed from providing information for rational decision making, to integrating diverse management perspectives, and most recently to doing the \"donkeywork\". Also, the character of the accountant, as portrayed in the adverts, has changed from a responsible and then rational person, to an instructed action-man and more recently a hedonistic individual (see summary in Table I). The changing discourses of these adverts reflects changes in wider social practice from (pre-)modernity to high-modernity and to hypermodernity; as will be further discussed below.Change in wider social practices\nConclusion and perspectives: On this basis, we conclude that the image of the accountant as produced by the analysed accounting software adverts has changed over the last four decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, we witness a responsible and rational accountant, providing information for rational decisions making. In the beginning of the 1990s, the emerging discourse constructed a more adventurous and powerful image of accountants, as daring and thrill-seeking explorers. The accounting discourse is still rather rationalistic, yet more disaggregated. Albeit, the more recent gain without pain advert draws on a hedonistic discourse, which suggests that pleasure is available for management accountants, without requiring any effort from them. Replacing discipline, prescribed norms and social controls, the idea of seduction and pure pleasure becomes an important disciplining tool. This change in the image of the accountant follows a change in the wider social practice from (pre-)modernity to high-modernity and more recently into hypermodernity.It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore how and to what extent these images influence the social identity of the accounting profession. However, our analysis does raise some concerns. In particular, this recent move to a hedonistic discourse appealing to the accountant, and hence hyper-reality, causes us to question not only the appropriateness and social fairness of management accounting and control systems, but also the trustworthiness of management accountants. Is it appropriate for the management accountant profession to encourage free consumption by one group of employees, while increasingly tightening the disciplining techniques for other groups of employees? Obviously, this has implications for the trustworthiness of the management accounting profession. Will the groups of employees who are disadvantaged by such systems trust management accountants? A more complicated question, however, is whether it is possible for anyone to trust a person who actively supports such systems. A hedonistic attitude only takes one's own pleasure into account, and if such a discourse is promoted by top management, it could lead to disastrous consequences where everyone puts his own pleasure first and no one looks out for the long-term interests of the business (e.g. Enron). Can a management accountant be trusted - not only by lower level employees, but also by top management? While the first part of the question is related to a political debate around the accountant's role in relation to the allocation of resources among social groups, the second part of the question relates to the role of the management accounting profession and image that it seeks to promote.It may also be argued that to a certain extent adverts, such as the two more recent analysed in this paper, foster a sort of hyper-reality that does not exist. Maybe the adverts are only teasing the accountants with dreams of adventurous or hedonistic lifestyles. Maybe objective, sober and emotionally detached accountants need to get away from their day-to-day reality by dreaming about challenges or endless pleasure. In order to address such issues we need to further research the order of discourse of the practitioners of management accounting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which a profound change in the image of accountants can be seen in the discourse used in accounting software adverts that have appeared in the professional publications of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants over the last four decades.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Methodologically, the paper draws from Barthes' work on the rhetoric of images and Giddens' work on modernity. By looking at accounting software adverts, an attempt is made to investigate the image of the accountant produced by the discourse of the adverts, and whether the image produced reflects a wide social change in society.\nFindings: - It was found that in the 1970s and the 1980s the accountant was constructed as a responsible and rational person. In the 1990s, the accountant was presented as an instructed action man. However, in a recent advert the accountant appeared as a more hedonistic person. Overall, the changes observed reflect changes in wider social practice from modernity, through high modernity, to hyper-modernity.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The image of the accountants has implications for the development of the accounting profession. In particular, the move towards hyper-modernity, where empathy towards others and the virtues of self-discipline and fairness are not at stake, has implications for the trustworthiness of the accounting profession.\nOriginality/value: - Although there has been some research into the image of accountants, particularly in the media and popular movies, extant works have mostly investigated how others perceive accountants and how accountants are generally portrayed. The paper however, places more stress on the construction of the image of the accountants when appealing to the accountants.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Power dynamics in organizational change: an Australian case	[ "Social innovation", "Professions", "Organizational skills", "Social change", "Social dynamics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper reports on research conducted into the power dynamics that manifested within an Australian intellectual property law firm (hereafter referred to as IPL) as it faced significant challenges to its business model, professional practices and partnership structure. IPL was not unique in facing such challenges as professional service firms (PSFs) generally are under pressure to adopt alternate forms of logic (such as managerial and market logics) in response to globalization, digitization, ideological shifts (neoliberalism) and the continuous emergence of disruptive technologies (Saks and Muzio, 2018; Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Lander et al., 2017). Professional logic (as traditionally enacted) centers on client relationships, autonomy, collegiality and professional ethics (Leicht, 2018). This contrasts strongly with enterprise logic centered on the view of the market as \"the locus of human perfection\" (Giddens, 1994). As the market is assumed to be the supreme arbiter of knowledge; there is no need for credentialing/licensing, codes of ethics or other forms of regulation (Leicht, 2018). Attempts by PSFs to adapt to changing circumstances through structural transformation, thus, can result in the layering of alternate logics upon that of professionalism, creating contradictions and tensions (Adler et al., 2008; Seo and Creed, 2002); undermining the expert status of professionals (Schilling et al., 2012); and disregarding traditional notions of professional autonomy (Thomas and Hewitt, 2011).\nThe phenomenon of hegemonic power: There is a vast literature on the phenomenon of power (see, e.g., Lukes, 2005; Weber, 1970), coverage of which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, although there is a long history of debate over the nature of power and its apprehension, consensus on the forms through which power manifests remains elusive (Lukes, 2005; Bachrach and Baratz, 1962). In this paper, we focus on the third dimension of power according to Lukes' (2005) classification: namely, forms of abstract power where groups acquiesce unwittingly to their own domination (the other two dimensions of Lukes' classification refer to where the exercise and consequences of power are observable and where the power agenda is disguised and controlled in a way that benefits a particular power elite). We commence by exploring hegemonic power and its role in support of a particular social order. As with all forms of abstract power, this form of power shapes peoples' apprehension of the existing social order as an inevitable and natural phenomenon of life (Tilly, 1991, p. 594).\nOther forms of abstract power manifestation in organizations: Other forms of abstract power also manifest in organizational endeavor; forms which are more vulnerable (than hegemonic power) to becoming discernible as they are less insidiously bound to the identity-formation and sense-making processes of everyday life, and because alternative options to them are potentially observable, especially under changing circumstances. These forms of abstract power include an embedded institutional logic and the way organizational arrangements are structured and implicitly justified.\nPower fault lines at the organizational level: Under certain conditions, the influence of insidious forms of power can become visible. As Bertels and Lawrence (2016, p. 338) point out, contradictions can lead to tensions within organizations which, in turn, can open windows of insight into the workings of abstract power. Seo and Creed (2002, p. 226) concur, arguing that contradictions can lead to the emergence of change agents who are able to disrupt the prevailing \"mutually reinforcing systems of practices, interests and ideas.\" Tensions resulting from such contradictions include those generated by the inability of the organization to adapt to changing operational environments; increasing functional inefficiencies as a consequence of attempts to retain legitimacy in ideological contexts that are transforming; and the adoption of practices which contradict the dominant logic of the organization and create incompatibilities within the institutional field (Pache and Santos, 2013; Borum, 2004).\nPossibilities for agentic action: Bertels and Lawrence (2016, p. 338) argue that individuals have complex relationships with the logics that dominate organizational endeavor; relationships that go beyond their organizational roles and which are strongly influenced by their individual and professional identities. The introduction of competing logics exacerbates this complexity. Where subgroup identities form and are affiliated to competing logics, this can \"exacerbate tensions between logics, thereby making their combination untenable\" (Battilana and Dorado, 2010, p. 1420).\nResearch methodology: In seeking to understand \"what was going on\" with respect to power dynamics within IPL in its attempts to address challenges to its existence, this research responds to the call by Suddaby et al. (2008) for more investigations of PSFs from \"within.\" By locating the research in the interpretivist research paradigm, the research setting was viewed as a socially constructed reality in which a recursive relationship manifested between institutionalized assumptions regarding \"how the world works\" (ideology); structurally embedded shared assumptions (culture), and personal assumptions generated through individuals' \"lived experience\" of that social reality (mental models).\nThe case: the structural transformation of IPL: IPL has existed for over 100 years. Structured from its beginning as a professional partnership, there has until recently been \"a fusion of ownership and control, revolving managerial tasks among owners, consensus-based governance, a high degree of professional autonomy, collegiality, and minimal management structures and systems\" (Lawrence et al., 2012, p. 104). By 2016, IPL had 33 partners, 19 of whom were equity partners, operating on the \"lock-step\" model whereby profits were pooled and shared among equity partners based on the number of equity units each held (equity units being based on an individual's length of service). The Sydney and Melbourne offices are significantly larger than the offices in Perth and Brisbane.\nDiscussion: The strategic narrative of the case reflects organization tensions created by the contradictions between ideological changes, institutional logics and the partnership structure of IPL. While broader (global ideological) forms of abstract power appear to have influenced XY and his small group of supporters to advocate for IPL's adoption of a corporate structure with its associated managerial logic and practices, those partners who were resisting change appeared still to be under the influence of the dominant (institutional) logic of professionalism and the arrangements of the traditional partnership structure. This orientation led to their resistance to any alternative structural arrangement and, thereby, to any change to their professional practices (and, thus, identity). Even in the face of recurring poor business results, the influence of the dominant logic of professional practice was evident, with these partners advocating the strategy of everyone \"just working harder\" as the solution to IPL's poor economic performance, as one equity partner's criticism of XY demonstrates:He should just put his head down and meet his budget instead of wasting his time thinking about the business. If everyone made budget, we wouldn't have a problem.\nConclusion: The case reflects the complex power dynamics of organizational change. It shows that what \"was going on\" during the almost two decades of IPL's transformational journey was inadequate attempts at sense making, scant awareness of the influence of abstract forms of power, and the inappropriate exercise of agentic power leading to disunity and dysfunction in the firm. Nobody demonstrated any awareness of the abstract forms of power that were shaping their perception of the situation and their assumptions about how to address the challenges it posed. Similarly, agentic power was exercised through conventional acts of individual/collective coercive resistance and persistence, without any conception of the need for critical reflexivity at the individual or collective level. In this sense, \"what was going on\" did not reflect any insight into the power dynamics that were manifesting; nor the presence of any enlightened form of \"working with power.\"\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of abstract forms of power in organizational change by exploring the role of such forms of power in the recent structural transformation of an iconic Australian Intellectual Property law firm. The research literature reflects relatively few studies on the increasing complexity of power dynamics in organizational and institutional arrangements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The complexity of the investigated phenomena led to the adoption of three qualitative methods in order to access the specific forms of data that were perceived to be relevant to answering the research question (\"How did abstract power dynamics influence the nature and outcomes of the firm's structural transformation?\"). Ethnography was used in the attempt to discern, through participation and observation, the assumptions that manifested in action and/or inaction; phenomenology in the exploration through unstructured interviews with 41 staff members and 4 clients of the firm, of their interpretation and \"sense-making\" of their \"lived experience\" of \"what was going on\" in the firm; and narrative enquiry in establishing a narrative of critical events, and their impact on \"what was going on\" in the firm, including those that had occurred over the years prior to this research initiative.\nFindings: The research shows the effects of contradicting forms of abstract power (namely, hegemonic (ideological) power, dominant institutional logic and structural power) as the firm struggled to address challenges to its existence. The impact of these forms of power upon the partners' apprehension and interpretation of the emerging challenges to the firm's business performance remained inconspicuous throughout the period of transformation. However, these contradictory forms of abstract power insidiously created tensions within the organization which were poorly addressed, resulting in organizational dysfunction and destructive sectarian conflict. The results show that the inability of partners to discern the nature of the forms of power which were influencing their responses to the crisis was a consequence of under-developed collectively reflexive capabilities and an absence of collaborative problem-solving practices. This resulted in a negative outcome for the firm.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research has significant implications for collective endeavor in global business operations that are becoming increasingly complex. In particular, the complexity of power relations, as insidious ideological forces supported by ubiquitous technologies threaten to subsume agentic power in ways that domesticate and neutralize it, requires the development of sophisticated forms of collective ways of \"working with power\" - capabilities that include the ability to demystify the abstract forms of power that can shape the experience of social realities as \"inevitable and natural.\" Further research into these forms of power, and the surreptitious role they play in organizational arrangements, is an important requirement. With respect to limitations, as the research is located in the interpretivist research paradigm, the issue of interpretation is problematic. A strong effort was made to limit unwitting interpretive bias but the possibility of such bias cannot be ruled out, especially as, in some cases, the data are an interpretation of prior interpretations of events and/or experiences (as, e.g., in the interview data).\nPractical implications: Working constructively with various forms of power is becoming a critical capability within organizations. This has implications for the relational and communicative skills that underpin effective collaboration of staff and other stakeholders. Such collaboration needs to include the collective ability to make explicit through critical dialogue the surreptitious influence of abstract forms of power upon the prevailing organizational arrangements and routines. To achieve this, these forms of power have to become demystified through constructive critique of the taken-for-granted aspects of everyday organizational life. This has important implications for leadership development practices and educational programs.\nSocial implications: Unless leaders develop the ability to make the influences of abstract forms of power more conspicuous, and develop collaborative capabilities to work with insight into their management, they run the risk of agentic power becoming subsumed and neutralized by such forms of power. This has important implications for organizational agency and, especially, for the creative agency of the individuals who work within organizations. On a broader scale, it has implications for institutional arrangements and for the critical apprehension of global ideologies.\nOriginality/value: Studies of abstract forms of power are relatively rare in the research literature. This is probably a result of the long-standing dominance of positivism, with its realist ontological assumptions and its objectivist epistemological assumptions. In exploring the influence exerted by abstract forms of power on the inability of the partners of a professional services firm to apprehend their situation more accurately, and to interpret their strategic options with greater insight, this research makes an original contribution to the understanding of the influence of abstract power dynamics in organizational change, and in organizational arrangements more generally.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Walking with intangibles: experiencing organisational learning	[ "Project management", "ESD", "Experiential learning", "Ecology", "Outdoor education", "Place-based learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2009 a chance meeting led to the opportunity of developing a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) project with a third sector outdoor learning provider, Widehorizons Outdoor Education Trust. KTP is a highly successful UK government sponsored programme that funds the development of innovative solutions to business challenges by unlocking knowledge held within universities and other research-based organisations (www.ktponline.org.uk/). This is done through the appointment of a graduate KTP Associate who works on the project under joint supervision. The project on which I worked as the knowledge base supervisor, was collaboratively designed with staff at Widehorizons and was fully funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and The Technology and Strategy Board (TSB).\nKTP journey and challenges: a project narrative: Widehorizons Outdoor Education Trust (Widehorizons) runs six centres that offer subsidised residential and day outdoor experiences for children from nursery age to late teens. The children mainly come from London schools and many are disadvantaged. Activities ranging from growing food and examining minibeasts, through bushcraft and field studies, to team building, climbing and kayaking, taking place in various settings from Forest Schools and rural woodlands to rivers, coast and mountains. Created in 2004, Widehorizons was formed from existing outdoor education service provision, managed by local government and was the brainchild of its CEO, Mike Penny, the former borough advisor. Penny, who retired as CEO last April and is currently Director of Education, described the Trust\nUnderstanding organisational pedagogy: practices, interviews and observations: Exploring pedagogy\nEnvironmental and experiential learning models: a cross-cutting pedagogical consideration of literature and applied learning: Process: cycles, spirals\nConclusions: Outdoor education is renowned for being a community of people who share similar traits and ethical values and has therefore a unique organisational culture (Barnes, South and Humberstone cited in Barnes, 2003). Barnes (2003) cites Mittens' finding of \"morality grounded in relationship and response\". Yet, while this ethical environmental awareness might lead to particular relational understandings, Barnes (2003) also notes that outdoor communities consider themselves outside the mainstream and while altruistic are also highly individual. During the partnership I found that I too share many of these values and characteristics in my teaching, which has been enriched through the project. Investigating values \"in another environment\" through visits and research, I have temporarily inhabited the organisational context and created understandings from intangibilities such as the quality of relationships, through reflection on auto-ethnographic differentiation that would have otherwise been difficult to evidence. Experiencing different understandings, I reflected on similarities and differences and sought further understanding through conversations. This is where involvement in the project becomes an ethnographic process and from this gathering of multiple forms of data and in the process of meaning making, with a reconstructed identity, comes greater self, societal and partnership understandings and flexibility.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply experiential learning theory to discuss a UK project-based knowledge transfer partnership (KPT) project between a university and a third sector organisation offering outdoor and experiential education for around 32,000 inner city children annually. It uses different models to critically consider how different experiential paradigms or world-views support different understandings of project experience in the real world. It examines the nature of experiential learning through project experience, applying a phenomenological inquiry to reflect on how experiential learning is valued academically and culturally. It considers environmental influences to balance the relational practices that represent intangible experiential elements in partnership work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a postmodern qualitative methodology, this paper applies different frameworks to narrative, a synthesis of data from the project, an interview, literature and reflection to present a critical consideration of experiential learning constructs. It foregrounds the academic value of ethical subjectivity and as such also presents a reflective Feminist auto-ethnographic praxis grounded in the project.\nFindings: Experiential learning is critical for human inquiry. Valuing experiential learning methods differently offers ethical applications for facilitating project work and partner relationships.\nPractical implications: Applied experiential learning theory supports organisational understanding in project work. An ethics of subjectivity places equal value on expertise in its own environment leading to a facilitated rather than a hierarchical transfer of knowledge, critical for project success. The project is financially successful and has wide reaching social and environmental impact. Thinking differently about provision means a substantial number of children beyond those physically visiting the organisation will benefit through teacher training.\nSocial implications: The UK government no longer funds outdoor education. This paper demonstrates the importance of fostering environmental relationships for human identity, to support education for sustainable development and wider societal and environmental understandings.\nOriginality/value: Developed through project process this is a new values-based, environmental, organisational and educational transformational approach to partnership. It is useful in education, working in partnership with businesses and ESD.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Alternative paths to leadership: New models of development training	[ "Leadership", "Management development", "Training methods", "Career development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Considering how busy the day to day running of a business - or even just one of its departments - is, it is easy to get so caught up in the present that we forget to think much about the future. We all know we should be doing it, but somehow our good intentions to stop, reflect and strategize often get relegated down the to-do list due to more immediate concerns. The problem is we can only get away with this for so long before we begin to lose sight of the bigger picture and the direction in which the company is moving. Here's a question, for instance. Who will be the CEO of your company in ten years? Or, who will head up the major departments in five? And another question: why will it be those people rather than anyone else?\nLeadership development at Sony Europe: At Sony Europe, for instance, future leaders spend their training talking to water, considering significant emotional events, writing letters to loved ones and keeping journals. What's more, the senior managers who have experienced the program tend not to be able to praise it highly enough. Sales director for Sony Netherlands, Barend Ezechiels explains what the experience has taught him: \"If you talk to water and then make ice crystals you can see a difference. If you talk in a friendly way, you get smooth crystals with no edges. If you talk angrily the crystals change colour and are irregular and broken, and if you talk with compassion then there is also a different structure. It is really strange.\" Thus, Ezechiels reasons that \"If you are thinking negatively when you are in front of the group and you don't believe something yourself, this will radiate to the others.\" The ice experience \"helps you to understand you own feelings and use them in a professional way.\"Talking to water is part of the program that Swan Consulting Services developed for Sony. It is based on developing emotional intelligence in leaders, helping them to build strong relationships as they move around the business, and has so impressed participants that they have demanded that human resources introduce emotional intelligence training much more widely. The course is made up of three modules: the first looks at the individual's motivation and life values and teaches them how to understand what great leadership looks and feels like; the second explores the energy of emotions and how to use this positively; the third is mostly concerned with coaching.Though it is an unconventional approach to leadership training, Sony Europe decided on this eight-month program because its president believes that the change in managers' perspectives will lead to change in the whole company culture. Thus far the results look promising.\nBubble leadership: Professor Pierre Casse and Eoin Banahan share the belief that different approaches to leadership development need to be explored, and they have come to their own preferred model through experience with large companies such as IMD and Kellogg. Traditional leadership training repeatedly faces challenges of how to select candidates, how to manage the ambiguity relating to the program's purpose and how to introduce new learning into the working environment. Recognizing this, they have advice to offer on each of these difficulties, which reiterates the need to take a flexible approach, thus allowing candidates to take control over their own experience of the training, and a similar need to think through and challenge how training can make a difference when back in the office.What is particular to Casse and Banahan, though, is their bubble leadership model. This model stems from the premise that it many leadership programs are unrealistic in their expectations and thus fail. \"You cannot go home and change your organisation,\" they argue. \"It is impossible and totally unrealistic. However, what you can do is go home and create in your own immediate environment a unique bubble of sanity and excellence.\" Based on this philosophy, they advocate that each manager is required to think on a small scale but to do it thoroughly. Leadership training thus teaches them how to mobilize their teams around an exciting vision, advising them how to get around the problems of mistrust, fear and manipulation that prevent progress.Under this model, leaders are trained in how to get above average output from their teams, which means they can allow and encourage them to express dissatisfaction, act in a provocative way, create and use conflicts and behave in an emotional way. While many managers may be startled by these suggestions, they are taught that managing these behaviors well actually leads to better team output. The bubble technique encourages managers to pursue ideals, but to keep these ideals within an achievable remit, and thus results are more satisfying than those that tend to come from more traditional approaches.\nFive general rules: Whichever leadership program training managers decide is best for their staff, they will increase its chance of success if they keep in mind five basic best practices. These key points have been made by Miller and Desmarais, following their extensive work with a Canadian-based retailer. Though they appear self-evident when pointed out, they are too often overlooked and are thus worth repeating:1. align leadership development with strategic initiatives;2. get the support of key stakeholders;3. assess the impact of organizational culture;4. link leadership development to other HR processes; and5. sustain development through support of others.No leadership management program should be embarked upon without first thinking through each of these five points at length, for to overlook one of them is to greatly increase your chance of failure. Once this strategic basis is in place, then training managers are invited and encouraged to be more creative in the programs they design or commission in order to develop and retain their leaders of the future.\nComment: This is a review of \"The boss in a bubble\" by Pierre Casse and Eoin Banahan, \"Can you feel it?\" by Rebecca Johnson and \"Developing your talent to the next level: five best practices for leadership development\" by Deborah Miller and Serge Desmarais.\"The boss in a bubble\" offers an explanation as to why many leadership development programmes fail and sets out an alternative approach involving creating \"a bubble of sanity and excellence\". This method has arisen from Casse and Banahan's delivery of leadership training in European business schools and companies. The authors believe that it is impossible for leaders to change an entire organization and thus they should not expect to. Instead they should work to change their immediate sphere within the company. The paper offers advice as to how to go about this and also on how to transfer new skills from the training environment back into the workplace.\"Can you feel it\" describes the unusual leadership training programme that Swan Consulting Services developed for use with Sony Europe's senior managers. The article explains the origins, design, content and evaluation of the program, which includes writing journals and talking to water. It provides comments from those who have completed the course, who have spoken positively about the subsequent improvement to their leadership skills and management styles.Miller and Desmerais argue that learning development is a key part of talent retention and offer five key development practices, each identified as a successful approach through their work with Canadian Tire Corporation. Using this organization as a case study, the article describes how each of the five steps was incorporated into successful leadership development planning, but also generalizes in order to show how the same approach might be more widely applicable. The authors emphasize the need for stakeholder support, strategic planning, consideration of company culture, links to other human resources process and long-term commitment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews non-traditional and current approaches to leadership development, in order to highlight the importance of leadership training and to offer ways around the typical difficulties that come with it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments.\nFindings: - Considering how busy the day to day running of a business - or even just one of its departments - is, it is easy to get so caught up in the present that we forget to think much about the future. We all know we should be doing it, but somehow our good intentions to stop, reflect and strategize often get relegated down the to-do list due to more immediate concerns. The problem is we can only get away with this for so long before we begin to lose sight of the bigger picture and the direction in which the company is moving. Here's a question, for instance. Who will be the CEO of your company in ten years? Or, who will head up the major departments in five? And another question: why will it be those people rather than anyone else?\nPractical implications: - Provides case studies that may form the basis of further research into new models of leadership development, or may offer practical advice for training managers in a variety of organisations.\nOriginality/value: - Offers new ways of thinking around a strategic problem that all big companies need to be addressing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Who becomes a public sector employee?	[ "Unobserved heterogeneity", "Public sector", "Twin studies", "Worker sorting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The literature on the public sector labor market indicates that public and private sector employees differ in many characteristics. To date, numerous studies have analyzed the phenomenon, beginning with Bellante and Link (1981) and Blank (1985), who examined which types of workers are more likely to choose a public sector job. For example, public sector workers are more educated (e.g. Blank, 1985; Lassibille, 1998), more likely to be parents and married (e.g. Jovanovic and Lokshin, 2004) and more risk averse (e.g. Bellante and Link, 1981; Hartog et al., 2002). Public sector employees also have different occupational preferences (Blank, 1985), and they value non-monetary benefits more (e.g. Demoussis and Giannakopoulos, 2007) than their private sector counterparts do.\n2. Previous research on sector choice: Theoretical models assume that workers choose the working sector that maximizes their utility, thereby leading to self-selection of preferable activities by workers (e.g. Roy, 1951). Blank (1985) noted that employees choose the working sector that gives them the highest monetary returns. Earlier literature has shown that less skilled workers earn more in the public sector, whereas more skilled workers earn more in the private sector (e.g. Lucifora and Meurs, 2006; Cai and Liu, 2011). In line with this evidence, Borjas (2002) found that workers tend to exit the public sector to enter the private sector at higher wage levels.\n3. Data and methods: 3.1 Data sources and the sample\n4. Results: Table II reports the estimates of workers' characteristics on the yearly probabilities of entering the public sector. Column 1 gives the logit regression estimates for the entire sample. Column 2 gives the fixed effects logit regression estimates for the DZ sample, in which shared family and environmental factors are accounted for. Column 3 gives the fixed effects logit regression estimates for the MZ sample, in which both shared environmental and genetic factors are controlled for. Gender, age and year dummy variables are automatically dropped from columns 2 and 3 due to the lack of within-twin variation in these variables. It must be noted that the sample size in column 1 is smaller than the size of the entire sample (49,154 vs 79,364) because the entry probability model disregards those person-year observations in which a person worked in the public sector during periods t-1 and t or exited the public sector and entered the private sector.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This paper used twin data linked to register-based individual information to examine worker sorting into public sector employment. Its contribution to the previous literature is an analysis of public and private sector employee data along three encompassing dimensions, namely, between groups (using a rich data set of worker characteristics), within groups (using within-twin variation to examine worker sorting among genetically identical employees) and over time (applying an entry probability model).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which individual characteristics are related to the decision to become a public sector employee using twin study data matched with register-based, individual-level panel data for the 1991-2009 period.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The probability of public sector entry is examined using fixed effects logit regression to control for shared environmental and genetic factors.\nFindings: The results show that unobserved factors partially explain the well-documented relationships between many individual characteristics and public sector employment choice. However, the results also show that highly educated and more extraverted individuals are more likely to enter public sector employment, even when both shared environmental and genetic factors are controlled for. Workers also tend to exit the private sector to enter the public sector at lower wage levels.\nOriginality/value: The twin design used in this paper represents a contribution to the existing literature. This paper is also the first to examine the probability of entry into the public sector instead of comparing public sector workers with private sector workers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Performance measurement system innovations in hospitals as translation processes	[ "Actor network theory", "Health organizations", "Accounting innovations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over recent decades, the need for efficiency in the healthcare sector has prompted public sector reforms that call for a modernization of performance measurement systems (PMSs) in use within hospitals. This modernization involves all the aspects of an innovation process. The introduction and redesign of PMS has generated a number of difficulties caused by the diversity of the actors involved in the process of change. Often, their different interests, sometimes ignored, have caused the newly introduced systems to fail, so that they have been rapidly put aside and substituted with further innovations. The different interests may derive from different logics, managerial or health-professional, of the actors operating in a healthcare context, and have to be satisfied by the technical characteristics of any new system such as cost allocation method, incentive mechanism and software package. Moreover, the logics and the technical aspects underlying the new system should be consistent with the earlier logics and techniques already in use in the organization. Thus, it has been argued that \"the fate of a system is always in the hands of others\" (Preston et al., 1992, p. 577). According to this view, a new PMS is never a ready-made package that can be implemented (Justesen and Mouritsen, 2011).\nPMS changes and innovations in health organizations: Many authors have followed an ANT-inspired approach to provide a better understanding of the dynamics of change in PMS, highlighting the actants (human and non-human) directly involved. Borrowing Latour's (1987) arguments, Chua (1995) examined the development and implementation of a costing system in an Australian public hospital. She related how accounting information based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) was accepted and how a network of actors progressively emerged, demonstrating how accounting numbers connected diverse interests. Lowe (1997) emphasized that the emergence of technical artefacts was the result of an elaborate process of translation, which relied on the ability of some actors to convince other actors to accept their conception of the issues and validate their solutions. He showed how the use of accounting techniques (perceived as a technology) could influence the decision makers within healthcare institutions.\nResearch methodology and methods: In order to improve our understandings of the processes of translation involving a flow of PMS changes, we carried out a longitudinal case study at a large teaching hospital located in the south of Italy, where we examined the dynamics of changes in PMS from 1998 up to 2003. We focused on this research period for the following reasons: the corporatization process was introduced into Italian hospitals in the nineties and produced its effects at the end of this decade; and, since 2004 various institutional changes have involved the governance of hospitals, maintaining the status quo in all organizational procedures.\nThe teaching hospital: organizational profile: The teaching hospital under observation is one of the largest university hospitals in Southern Italy, with a very articulated organizational structure, currently composed of five departments and 33 medical units. This organizational complexity increased during the corporatization process, which was enacted in 1998 in response to a reform in the public healthcare sector. For the sake of clarity, it should be remembered that the Italian healthcare system is funded by the regional governments. This means that, as well as normative changes and reforms, changes in hospital management systems can also be due to the dynamics of regional finance.\nPMS changes and innovations: This section aims to offer empirics on how the success of a given PMS innovation is influenced by a variety of actors spread out in time and space. To do so, we selectively describe PMS changes interpreting them as processes of translation. In particular, we observe the four moments of the process of translation (problematization, interessement, enrollment, mobilization) from the managerial and the health-professional points of view, recognizing the actors involved in the construction of the network. In problematization, some enrolling actors identify the other actors to be involved in a project by defining their problems and presenting the project as the right solution to their problems, i.e. as an obligatory passage point (OPP) (Callon, 1986; Lowe, 1997). In interessement, the enrolling actor seeks to lock the other actors into the roles that are proposed for them. Enrollment consists of negotiations aimed at the establishment of a set of roles for each of the actants involved. Finally, the forth moment, mobilization, \"refers to how the enrolling actants control the enrolled actants or ensure that representations of interests remain fixed\" (Lowe, 1997, p. 442). Another moment is pointed out by Callon (1986), referring to dissidence, as betrayals and controversies. For the purpose of our study, it relates to all the possible impediments to the continuation of the introduced PMS, stemming from whatever reasons, such as accidents, the emergence of new needs or the interference of new actors that can be in contrast with the result of the previous mobilization. Keeping this in mind, our analysis leads us to define a PMS innovation as a successful process of translation.\nConclusions and implications for future research: On the basis of the arguments developed in the theoretical part of this paper, the field evidence offered specific insights into the phenomenon under study. The longitudinal approach was appropriate to the theoretical suggestion of examining the sequence of different PMS innovations as related translation processes. Indeed, it showed the different links between the subsequent procedure innovations and, in doing so, it presented an overview of all innovations, providing a richer understanding of the motivations and the implications of a given PMS innovation. Particularly, we noticed that PMS innovations emerged from two main points: the dialectics between managerial and professional agencies; and the variety in actants' interests and needs related to the nature of medical activity, described by Lamothe and Dufour (2007) as a \"diversified professional federation.\" In both these points, the case highlighted how the elements of the previous PMS \"package\" (Malmi and Brown, 2008) behave as actants (Lowe, 2001a) in the translation of a PMS innovation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight how the variety of the actors involved in a performance measurement system (PMS) innovation are spread out in time and space. Healthcare contests are examined, where such an innovation is influenced by present and past systems and practices (spread out in time), and by managerial and health-professional actors (spread out in space).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on Callon's actor network theory, the authors describe PMS innovations as processes of translation, and distinguish between incremental and radical innovations. The theoretical arguments are used to explain the evidence drawn from a longitudinal case study carried out in an Italian public teaching hospital, referring to the period from 1998 up to 2003.\nFindings: The conceptual framework shows how the translation moments lead to a recognition of the different actants involved in a PMS innovation, how their interests are interrelated and mobilized. Moreover, it shows how the interaction among the actants involved in the process is related to the type of PMS innovation, i.e. radical vs incremental. The case evidence offers detailed insights into the phenomenon, testing the explanatory power of the framework, and highlights how the failure of one of the translation moments can compromise the success of a PMS innovation.\nOriginality/value: This study differs from the extant accounting literature on PMS innovations as it highlights how the introduction of a new PMS can be affected by some elements of the previous systems \"package,\" which are relevant for the mobilization of the actants through the new project.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of service bundles on the mechanism through which functional value and price value affect WOM intent	[ "Customer experience", "Engagement", "Word–of–mouth", "Value creation", "Prospect theory", "Service bundles", "Mental accounting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Because of its effectiveness as a competitive strategy, service bundling - marketing service packages in particular combinations - is ubiquitous in many major service industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and hospitality (Fourbert and Gijsbrechts, 2007; Barrutia-Legarreta and Miguel, 2004). According to a recent industry survey, 83 percent of telecommunication customers in North America bundle their services (JD Power Report, 2013). Yet, despite the prevalence of bundles and their enormous potential to create value for customers and increased profits for firms, research on service bundles remains surprisingly sparse, and this limited understanding of bundling motivated the present study.\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Stremersch and Tellis (2002) defined bundling as the sale of two or more separate products (or services) in one package. They emphasized the word \"separate\" because this signifies that these are distinct products and/or services, for which distinct markets exist. The existing literature on bundling can be categorized into a few broad streams: the pricing and promotional implications of bundles (e.g. Basu and Vitharana, 2009); customer responses to bundle offers (e.g., Han et al., 2009); and designing and offering value through bundles (e.g., Haas et al., 2013). Much of the early research was product-focused, as well as emphasizing price optimization strategies and customer responses to such offers. This also meant that little attention was paid to the existing customers' response to bundles.\nThe base model: value-Attitude-WOM: While the relationships among value, attitude, and behavior are well established in the prior literature, this base model is a critical first step in establishing how bundling affects the relationships among these constructs - specifically, customer perceptions of functional value and price value, attitudes, and behaviors. This base model is briefly discussed to establish the rationale for focusing specifically on perceptions of functional value and price value.\nImplications of bundles: The prospect theory and the related theory of mental accounting are well established in the literature. Although these theories have not previously been used in a product-service bundling context, elements of these theories have been clearly identified as central to behavioral research on bundling. The prospect theory was introduced on the premise that expected utility theory does not hold when customers make decisions under uncertainty (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992). The complexity of many services, including telecom services, leads to risk and uncertainty; one way of dealing with this risk and uncertainty is by means of bundles. In the prospect theory, outcomes are thought of as gains or losses, and customers respond behaviorally to outcomes so framed. One of the basic phenomena of choice under both risk and uncertainty is that losses loom larger than gains (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984). The observed asymmetry between gains and losses is known to be far too extreme to be explained by personality traits or demographic characteristics; such as decreasing risk aversion or customers' income level. In the current context of customers subscribing to a telecom bundle, their gain is the product (telephone handset) bundled with the service from the same company, and the loss is the fee paid. For customers who purchase the different elements from different firms, the gain is the product purchased from one firm and the service from another, probably with less integration between the product and the service. The loss is the two sets of payments made to the two firms (the SP and the retailer selling the handset).\nHow the bundle/non-bundle purchase determines the impact on attitude of functional value and price value: Based on the prospect theory and mental accounting, previous studies have reported evidence that customers who buy a service as a bundle consume less of that bundle than those who buy the same components separately with separate prices for the individual components (Prelec and Loewenstein, 1998; Soman and Gourville, 2001). The suggestion is that customers who buy a bundle perceive far greater ambiguity in the sunk cost of their purchase than customers presented with separate prices, and that this greater ambiguity decouples the sunk cost of the purchase from the extra benefit of experiencing the entire bundle of services (Stremersch and Tellis, 2002). Simply put, customers who pay a bundled price take less account of the sunk costs of their purchase than customers who pay separate prices. This means that those who buy the product-service bundle will experience greater ambiguity in assessing price value as compared to those who paid separate prices for product and service. It therefore is likely that price value will have a weaker effect on attitude toward SP among those who purchased the product-service bundle than among those who did not:\nHow the bundle/non-bundle purchase determines the impact of attitude on WOM: As noted above, the effect of attitude on behavior is well established. Here, the pertinent question is whether this effect depends on whether one purchases a product-service bundle from a single firm or two components from different firms. The present study considers how the prospect theory and mental accounting help in understanding the way customers evaluate bundles. As evaluation is often the antecedent to attitude formation, it is argued that the bundle/non-bundle variable will affect the evaluative process, that is, how value is perceived. However, while the differences between bundled and non-bundled products/services are relevant to the effect of value, they are unlikely to influence how attitude determines the WOM generation. While positive attitudes lead to positive WOM generation, the impact of attitude on WOM is unlikely to depend on whether or not customers purchased a bundle. Once attitudes are formed on the basis of perceived value (which in itself will be dependent on bundles), the outcome (i.e. the effect of attitude on WOM generation) is likely to be uniform across the two groups:\nHow the bundle/non-bundle purchase determines the total effects of functional value and price value on WOM: Given the effect of value on attitude, and the implied subsequent indirect effect through attitude on WOM, the question of interest here is the overall effect of price and functional value on WOM behavior and specifically, how these total effects are impacted by the presence or absence of service bundles. In terms of how bundling influences the total effect of price value, the previously cited literature on ambiguous sunk costs is critical. As noted, customers purchasing a bundle perceive far greater ambiguity in the sunk cost of their purchase than customers presented with separate prices, decoupling the sunk cost from the additional benefit of experiencing the entire bundle of services (Stremersch and Tellis, 2002). This means that customers who pay a bundled price account less for the sunk costs of their purchase than do customers who pay separate prices, resulting in this group finding it more difficult to evaluate the value they derive from their service bundle. In other words, those outside bundles will have clearer perceptions of the price value they derive from the service, because they paid two distinct prices for the product and the service. Therefore:\nMethodology: Data were collected through an online questionnaire distributed via e-mail to the web panel members at a major mobile phone operator in Finland (referred to here as the focal firm). The questionnaire was initially developed in English and was then translated into the local language by one of the authors. To avoid translation errors, the questionnaire was back-translated into English by a different person; the two versions were compared, and minor inconsistencies were resolved (see Mullen, 1995).\nResults: The data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) and SmartPLS (Ringle et al., 2005). PLS estimation is a well-established approach in the marketing literature and in management disciplines for dealing with complex models (cf. Hair et al., 2013). PLS is also very useful when testing hypotheses of an exploratory nature, making it particularly appropriate for the current research.\nDiscussion: The main focus of this research was a comparison of two types of service offerings: those in which the focal firm acts as the resource integrator, creating a bundle based on their in-house product-service offerings; and those in which the customer as the resource integrator purchases an unbundled offering, which they create for themselves by purchasing the product from one firm and the associated service from another. This study therefore addresses a novel research question with major implications for industry practice concerning how bundles impact the perceptions of value created, and how those perceptions in turn influence certain types of engagement behaviors differentially for the bundle and non-bundle groups.\nConclusion: Utilizing a theoretical framework previously used to examine bundling, this research sought to identify empirically any differences between purchasers of product-service bundles and those purchasing components from two separate firms, focusing on how they evaluate price and functionality, and how such evaluations in turn impact attitudes and WOM generation. The study has been shown to contribute both to theory and to managerial practice. A unique feature of the study was its access to a leading telecommunication SP in Northern Europe and to their web panel of customers with known purchase characteristics (bundle vs non-bundle), yielding some important insights for both scholars and practitioners.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute toward the current limited understanding of service bundles by investigating how purchasers of combined product-service bundles (bundle customers) differ from those purchasing a product and associated service separately (non-bundle customers).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The hypothesized effects were tested on a representative sample of mobile phone subscribers in Finland, through a multi-group moderated analysis using variance-based structural equation modeling.\nFindings: While functional value had a stronger effect on attitude for bundle customers, price value is a stronger determinant of attitude for non-bundle customers. There was no difference between the groups in terms of how attitude determines the word-of-mouth (WOM) intent. The total influence of functional value on positive WOM intent was stronger for bundle customers vs non-bundle customers; in contrast, the total influence of price value on positive WOM was weaker for the bundle customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Two interrelated frameworks, prospect theory and mental accounting theory, are used to analyze customer response to service bundles. The results demonstrate that bundles play a powerful role in determining engagement behaviors critical to firms. Purchasing a service bundle vs a non-bundle influences how price value and functional value determine attitude and WOM intent in fundamentally different ways.\nPractical implications: In devising communication strategies to maximize positive WOM, managers need to emphasize functional benefits for bundle purchasers and price benefits for non-bundle customers. The results also demonstrate that it is more important for firms to track perceived value, as value and not attitude differentiates WOM generation in the two groups.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to demonstrate how bundle and non-bundle customers determine value, and how functional value and price value determine WOM generation and attitude toward service provider in fundamentally different ways. The comparison of the bundle group where the firm acts as the main resource integrator to a non-bundle group where the customer is the main resource integrator in creating value helps demonstrate the need for firms to treat the two groups in distinct ways.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning from our mistakes: How trainer responses to errors can influence trainee learning and development	[ "Training", "Employee development", "Learning", "Learning from errors", "Learning motives" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Despite our best efforts, errors happen in every organization. While we all aim to avoid them wherever possible, learning from errors when they do happen leads to improved employee performance and plays an important role in career development and success.\nComment: The review is based on \"Trainers' responses to errors matter in trainees' learning from errors: evidence from two studies\" by Zhao, B., Seifried, J., and Sieweke, J., published in Journal of Managerial Psychology.\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 paper is prepared by an independent writer who adds her own impartial comments and places the studies in context.\nFindings: Trainer response to errors plays an important role in trainee learning from errors. Negative trainer responses to errors reduce trainees' abilities to learn from errors by inducing negative feelings in the trainees and reducing their motivation. Trainer response needs to be consistent with the organization's error climate for trainees to learn from errors effectively.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Application of the experiential simulation learning approach (ELSA) model to teach sustainability to international business management undergraduate students	[ "Management", "Sustainability", "Case studies", "Experiential learning", "Paradigms", "Undergraduates" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: All true learning is experience. Everything else is just information (Albert Einstein).\nContextualisation and objectives: Sustainability science is a special discipline which focuses on the dynamic interactions between nature and society geared to social justice, reliable prosperity and ecological resilience (De La Vega-Leinert et al., 2009). In the present socio-economic and environmental global scenario, sustainability is therefore a topic that higher education (HE) institutions and businesses cannot ignore. And even though there has been a visible rise in the number of MA/MBAs including sustainability as part of their training, integrating sustainability modules in the core training of business management undergraduates is quite recent, and still perceived by many as being out-of-scope. This is mainly due to: traditional mindset (\"the business of business is business\"); uncertainty about the relevance of sustainability practices in most business industries; confusion with less-welcomed terms (e.g. greenwashing); or the specific socio-cultural and geopolitical framework and economic priorities of the individual\nMethodology: The steps of the process as designed by the author are presented in Figure 1. In order to raise awareness, help develop critical and constructive thinking, and engage the students in this essential and complex field of corporate sustainability, we adopted a T\nResults: The results reflect the replies of about 360 business management international undergraduate students of 52 different nationalities, which took part both as target population and as evaluators of the project.\nDiscussion and concluding remarks: This applied research is grounded on the idea that understanding the individual cultural frameworks, tacit knowledge, aspirations and motivations of international students in a \"foreign\" HE context is crucial in managing the knowledge creation process, both for the individual students and for the class (Morey, 2010). It tends to enhance critical thinking and trigger cohesiveness in class; this in turn favours a collaborative learning climate in class, leads to the tacit acquisition of life-long skills.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute an illustrative case study on the application of participatory and learner-centred model, using a highly international cohort of students' tacit knowledge and shared experiential learning in the context of integrating mainstreaming sustainability-focused topics in business education at undergraduate level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is about the development of a participative experiential learning pedagogical framework which the authors named \"experiential simulation learning approach\", with the acronym ELSA, designed to meet the specific needs of a highly international cohort of rather sustainability-reluctant undergraduate management students.\nFindings: Using students' diverse tacit knowledge and developing a relevant experiential active learning (EAL) model stood out as being a most powerful teaching-and-learning tool. It seemed to help to enhance critical thinking and trigger cohesiveness in class; this favoured a collaborative learning climate which in turn might lead to the tacit acquisition of life-long skills.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitations to the development of this approach were: the lack of context-specific updated and academically reliable bibliography; the undergraduate students' widespread tendency to refer mainly to \"digests\" of information (preferably online), rather than engaging in critical analysis of contents in academically acknowledged books and journals; the international undergraduate students' personal challenges as \"foreigners\" which may affect them mainly in relation to: group work, independent learning, confidence and communication.\nPractical implications: It seems that integrating EAL is quite effective in the context of undergraduate management students, particularly in view of leading rather reluctant students to understand and be willing to positively apply sustainability-based principles to their own change management process and to become active leaders of organisational change.\nOriginality/value: The methodological framework hereby presented is quite innovative, as it seems to be among the very first to be implemented in view of enhancing undergraduate students' learning experience, instead of targeting post-graduate students. This is extremely relevant in regards to embedding sustainability concepts, frameworks and tools, as they prove to be much more significant and long-lasting if integrated in the early stages of training of future business management professionals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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