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Social network analysis in supply chain management research
|
[
"Research methods",
"Social network analysis",
"Supply chain management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The supply chain management (SCM) discipline is increasingly investigating supply chain relationships beyond the traditional buyer-supplier dyad, focussing instead on the supply network (e.g. Hakansson and Persson, 2004; Choi et al., 2015). Given that a supply chain is a network of companies (Carter et al., 2015) and thus consists of several interconnected parties, such as sub-suppliers, suppliers, manufacturers, logistic service providers, and customers (Bellamy et al., 2014), this shift in perspective seems natural. Social network analysis (SNA), which is both an approach and an analytical method, allows for an in-depth investigation of the structural characteristics and the inherent relationships of such networks that would not be easily understood if investigated by traditional research approaches (Kim et al., 2011; Dempwolf and Lyles, 2012; Hollenbeck and Jamieson, 2015). These networks can be examined from a macro perspective (i.e. interorganizational level), with a focus on organizations and/or institutions, or from a micro perspective (i.e. interpersonal level), with a focus on individual actors (Carpenter et al., 2012; Carnovale and Yeniyurt, 2014).\nBackground: What is SNA?\nMethodology: To provide a comprehensive examination of studies conducting SNA research in the SCM discipline, we systematically examined the SCM literature by conducting an SLR of articles (e.g. Durach et al., 2015) that employ SNA and analyzing them along the previously identified seven dimensions (see Tables I and II). The application of an SLR appeared useful because SLRs are a rigorous method that minimizes researcher bias and enhances transparency and reliability (Tranfield et al., 2003; Crowther and Cook, 2007). In contrast, other review processes, such as the narrative review process, rely on informal, subjective methods to collect information and therefore are prone to biases (Klassen et al., 1998). The SLR was first developed in medical sciences research (Tranfield et al., 2003) and is increasingly used in the SCM research field (e.g. Kaufmann and Saw, 2014; Durach et al., 2015).\nResults: Results for dimensions 1-4\nDiscussion and directions for future research: Dimensions 1-4: when to use the SNA approach and what to investigate\nManagerial implications: This study provides supply chain managers with guidance on how to use SNA to map and oversee social networks in which they are embedded. Managers can use this knowledge to better assess their supply chains and the inherent connections and to make informed decisions about their supply chain partners. This knowledge can also enable managers to better understand the structural characteristics of their extended network and to direct their supply chains in such a way that they are lean and quickly adaptable to the many unpredictable changes. Being aware of the social network around an organization can lead to a significant competitive advantage (Hollenbeck and Jamieson, 2015).\nLimitations and conclusion: This study is not free of limitations. The first limitation is the focus of our identified articles. In particular, the study is based on articles that employ the SNA method to investigate SCM phenomena and that are of empirical nature using network measures or visualization techniques. This focus, however, does not fully represent the extent to which social network theory and SNA are used in the SCM discipline.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate when and how to best use social network analysis (SNA) in the supply chain management (SCM) discipline. In doing so, the study identifies SCM phenomena that have been examined from a social network perspective (SNA approach) in the SCM literature and highlights additional SCM phenomena that would be worth investigating using social network research. Then, the study critically investigates the application of SNA as a methodology (SNA method), with the goal of assessing and mitigating methodological risks in future studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study carries out a systematic literature review of articles published in 11 top-tier SCM journals over a 20-year period.\nFindings: First, while social network research has gained momentum especially since 2010, scholars are not yet entirely aware of the many possibilities the SNA approach offers to the SCM field. Second, expanded possibilities also hold for the development of SNA as a method.\nOriginality/value: The paper guides future SCM research by investigating when SNA is the right approach to use and how SNA as a method should be performed. Theoretically richer and practically more relevant research should result.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A model of mobile payment usage among Arab consumers
|
[
"Brand loyalty",
"Experience",
"Expectations",
"Arabs",
"Mobile payment applications"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The mobile payment \"space\" is evolving rapidly (Nielsen, 2016). Mobile payment application(s) are used nowadays for several types of payments (Kim et al., 2010). Online mobile banking has been driven by smartphone adoption among consumers where consumers are using their mobile devices to pay for goods and services. Around the world, over one-quarter of consumers indicate that they are highly likely to use a mobile-only bank. In fact, 38 percent of consumers worldwide have purchased a product or service using a mobile application, 47 percent of consumers have made a transaction on their mobile device (Nielsen, 2016). In 2017, Samsung electronics will add a cutting-edge mobile payment method, the Samsung Pay, which will be the first to verify financial payment applications (Gulf News.com, 2017). This indicates a shift from viewing the use of a mobile device for browsing and accessing internet-based systems to an application-enabled mobile wallet that substitutes a check, cash or a card as a payment form (Contini et al., 2011). Nowadays, there is a shift in focus of mobile service providers from developed countries to developing countries (Longini and Gaza, 2013). \"Emerging markets have set the pace when it comes to mobile payment adoption and use. In fact, it's likely that some countries will largely skip over the traditional payment models centered on bank accounts and credit cards that dominate in developed markets, and instead will rely almost exclusively on digital tools for managing and moving money\" (Nielsen, 2016). This is especially true in many of the wealthier countries of the Arab Middle East, where broadband use is increasing rapidly due to improved mobile infrastructure and the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets among Arabs. The large range of available applications and increasingly commercial models that are linked to these applications will all lead to further growth of mobile payment (Wansink et al., 2013). This implies a growth and complexity in the related players such as financial institutions, retailers and technology giants, in addition to start-ups (Nielsen, 2016). The International Telecommunication Union estimates that there were 4.9 billion mobile phone subscribers at the end of 2011 with a global penetration rate of 87 percent. Of that 87 percent, 79 percent were in the developing world. However, the different services and technologies involved in the process of mobile payments within the existing differences among stakeholders, suggest that consumers have different motivations and expectations from them (Au and Kauffman, 2008). For example, according to the first national competitiveness report of the Syrian economy, Syria's position in technological readiness is very much lagging (109/131), with a deteriorating technological capacity regarding the utilization of modern information technology (Dimashkiyyah et al., 2007). However, although the demand for smartphones and mobile commerce in the Arab world outstrip developed countries, extant studies ignored the developing world (e.g. Amoroso and Watanabe, 2012; Chen, 2008; Kim et al., 2010; Schierz et al., 2010; Walsh et al., 2008) because the mobile payment market in the Middle East is anticipated to grow rapidly within the next few years (Grail Research, 2010). \"Mobile offerings are widely becoming a core part of every financial institution's strategy, but mobile-only banking is best positioned for growth in developing markets\" (Nielsen, 2016). Moreover, in a research conducted by Eid (2011), findings indicate that the Middle East market is an ideal market for e-commerce activities among developing countries. Thus, despite the rapid growth of e-commerce and mobile services, consumers in the Middle East have not completely understood the mechanism of mobile payments. In addition, they are most likely not willing to use mobile commerce out of their fear of their personal privacy and financial security being compromised (Al-Hosni et al., 2010). Reviewing the relevant literature, this paper will build on past studies (e.g. Choi et al., 2008; Chen, 2008; Dahlberg et al., 2008; Dai and Palvia, 2009; Hu, 2009; Kim et al., 2010; Lin and Wang, 2006; Mallat, 2007; Taha et al., 2013; Turel and Serenko, 2006; Wang and Li, 2012; Wang and Lin, 2012; Zhao et al., 2012; Zhou and Lu, 2011; Zhou, 2011) through addressing customer satisfaction with mobile payment applications, use experience, use expectations and brand loyalty as antecedents to continuous purchase intentions. The main reason behind selecting a sample of Arabs from the Middle East is due to the rise of mobile banking as a new way of doing business in the region, and so far, limited research has been undertaken on actual users from this region. This research aims to develop and test a theory-based research integrative model of factors that predict Arabs' behavioral intentions to use mobile payment application(s).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: Mobile payments are tied to the use of mobile devices (e.g. laptops, tablets and mobile phones). Sullivan (2010) describes mobile applications as software designed to run on a mobile device. De Bel and Gaza (2011, p. 12) define mobile payments as \"a transfer of funds in return for a good or service, where the mobile phone is involved in both the initiation and confirmation of the payment.\" Mobile payment applications in this study includes all goods, services and bills authorized or initiated in a payment process with a mobile telecommunications device (Silberer et al., 2002), from a wide range of industries (e.g. IT, finance, retail, the media), for end users (Dahlberg et al., 2008).\n3. Method: To examine the actual use of mobile payment application(s) among Arab consumers from nine Arab countries in the Middle East, the mixed method of data collection and research approach is used. For the first phase, the focus group approach was used as a tool for the qualitative research (Deshpande, 1983) because the problem had not been explored before (Creswell, 2008) for the aim of providing input for the quantitative phase. Syria was used as a site for the focus group investigation. For the second phase, a quantitative study was conducted.\n4. Data analysis: 4.1 Qualitative data\n5. Results: The standardized solution of SEM analysis in Figure 1 indicates the strength of the relationship effects between the constructs. For H1, results indicate a significant positive effect of satisfaction with mobile payments applications qualities on customer use experience (SQ - CEx: b=0.70; p0.001), and an effect of perceived system security on increased customer use experience with mobile payments applications (SS - CEx: b=0.18; p0.001), thus, H1 is supported. The structural link from experience with payments applications to the expectations from using mobile payment applications is strong, positive and significant (CEx - CEp: b=0.80; p0.001), thus, supporting H2. In addition, the relationship proposed in H3 is confirmed; that is perceived customer expectations of mobile payment affected customer brand loyalty with mobile payment applications (CEp - BL: b=0.41; p0.001). Similarly, as hypothesized in H4 regarding future purchase intentions of mobile payment, we found a strong positive and significant link with brand loyalty towards continuous customer purchase intentions of mobile payment applications (BL - PI: b=0.84; p0.001), as seen in Figure 1.\n6. Discussion, implications and recommendations: This study aimed to empirically examine the determinants of mobile payment application(s) use intention among consumers in the Arab world where mobile payment application has not reached the desired level of use and there is scarce research on the topic in the region.\n7. Limitations: Focus group participants were limited to the Syrian use experience with mobile payment applications which might differ along other experiences and applications in other Arab countries and consumer segments. In addition, the study used the self-reporting method, which could have limitations related to possible social desirability effects. The data collection method did not allow us to verify the demographic responses of participants, especially for females, who are reluctant to reveal their sex on the internet for reasons related to privacy and social pressure (Mazman and Usluel, 2011). Further studies should explore how demographic variables, such as age and gender, could influence individuals' intentions to use mobile applications. The study encompassed mobile payment applications in nine countries rather than having a comprehensive focus on one market, product type, or business. In addition, the paper did not perform a comparative study between sampled Arab countries, but rather it sees all countries and respondents just as Arabs. It could be helpful to explore the model in the future on a country and product specific basis, and to perform a comparative study between Arab countries and users. In addition, the study reveals no information about mobile payment applications that were considered inadequate or unsuitable and were rejected.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of perceived satisfaction with mobile payment applications based on use experience, and subsequent stated expectations on brand loyalty and future use behavior using a theory-based research integrative model of factors that influence Arabs' intentions to use mobile payment application(s).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual model was developed using the mixed research method approach. The focus group approach was used for the qualitative study and structural equation modeling for the quantitative study. Primary data were collected online. Participants were 305 Arab consumers from nine countries in the Middle East.\nFindings: Satisfaction with the quality of mobile payment application(s) increased use experience and enhanced consumers' expectations, which in turn positively affected loyalty and purchase intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study encompassed mobile payment application(s) in nine countries rather than focusing on one market, or on one product type and business. The paper did not perform a comparative study between sampled Arab countries, but rather it sees all countries and respondents just as Arabs.\nPractical implications: Service providers should build mobile application(s) based on the features of usability, availability, reliability, adaptability, accessibility, responsiveness and security.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first studies that empirically examines mobile payment consumer's usage behavior from nine countries of the Arab world where there is scarce research on the topic in the region.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Systemic leanness: An index for facilitating continuous improvement of lean implementation
|
[
"Evaluation",
"Continuous improvement",
"Lean",
"Lean manufacturing",
"Lean production"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Toyota Production System in the name of lean manufacturing has been implemented by various manufacturing firms across countries for more than four decades (Stone, 2012). For past one decade, lean implementation has also grown significantly in the domain of services (Narayanamurthy and Anand, 2016). In both manufacturing and services, lean adoption in general consists of broadly three stages (as shown in Figure 1).\n2. Literature review: The review was carried out to document the different types of leanness assessment studies published in literature. The review also identified the elements and sub-elements used in the leanness assessment studies, synthesized and developed an integrated framework, and discussed the need for considering the interactions. In this section, we also discuss how the assessment can assist in continuous improvement of lean implementation journey.\n3. Application of GTA: GTA methodology is chosen to incorporate the relationships within the elements and sub-elements for assessing the systemic leanness. Other methodologies such as ANP and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) techniques can also be used to develop the relationship. But ANP requires a large number of pairwise comparison and ISM delivers only relationships among the elements without leanness computation. Hence, the GTA methodology is used for this study. Flowchart explaining the step-by-step procedure for applying GTA is shown in Figure 4.\n4. Results and discussion: Figure 12 plots the logarithmic transformed permanent values of the five elements and final systemic leanness score for four different extreme scenarios and a case example. Scenario analysis carried out provides a continuum on which any value stream can be plotted to understand their current status and to identify their future target systemic leanness score. The continuum also helps a value stream to perform self-benchmarking by comparing its present and past systemic leanness score. Thus, this would facilitate CI of LT implementation.\n5. Conclusion: This study began with four research questions unanswered in leanness assessment literature. Each one of them has been answered in detail through this study. Leanness assessment method demonstrated in this study can rank the level of implementation of different lean elements thereby answers the first research question. The second research question is answered by demonstrating an assessment methodology using GTA which can capture the impact of interactions between the lean elements on final leanness score computed. Systemic leanness score obtained as a result of conducting the demonstrated leanness assessment and final lookup table developed through scenario analysis can assist in understanding the position of the value stream in comparison to other benchmarking partners. This answers the third research question. Finally, individual element permanent value reveals the elements with scope for further improvement, thereby answers the fourth research question.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a leanness assessment methodology that takes into account the interaction between lean elements for computing the systemic leanness and for assisting continuous improvement of lean implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Key elements determining the leanness level were identified by reviewing the relevant literature and were structured as a framework. Graph-theoretic approach (GTA) was used as the assessment methodology for its ability to evaluate the interaction between the elements in the developed framework.\nFindings: Interactions between the lean elements were configured. Application of the proposed GTA for assessing systemic leanness was demonstrated. Scenario analysis was performed and a scale was developed to assist firms in comparing their systemic leanness index.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is unique in developing an assessment approach for measuring the systemic leanness. In addition, this study explains how the implementation of lean thinking (LT) in a value stream can be continuously improved by proposing a systemic leanness index that can be benchmarked. The proposed approach to measure systemic leanness can be tested across different value streams in future for extending its generalizability.\nPractical implications: Proposed framework and leanness assessment approach presents an innovative tool for practitioners to capture the systemic aspect of LT. Proposed assessment approach supports practitioners in achieving continuous improvement in lean implementation by revealing the lean elements that need to be focused in future.\nOriginality/value: Study introduces a new perspective for LT by studying the importance of interactions between the lean elements and by incorporating them to assess the systemic leanness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A study of information security awareness in Australian government organisations
|
[
"Information risk",
"Information security (InfoSec)",
"InfoSec awareness",
"InfoSec behaviour",
"InfoSec vulnerabilities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is increasingly important for organisations to ensure a high level of security of electronic data. Hence, management of information security (InfoSec) is a critical issue for both public and private sector organisations. Historically, InfoSec solutions have been largely technical in nature, focusing on the development of hardware, software and network solutions. However, InfoSec is not only a technical problem, but is also a \"people\" problem (Schultz, 2005). InfoSec-related issues can be better addressed by also considering the influence of the human factor to complement hardware and software solutions (Schneier, 2000).\n2. Method: 2.1 Participants\n3. Results: 3.1 Overview\n4. Discussion: Interviews were conducted with members of senior management from three organisations, and employees of these organisations were asked to complete a Web-based questionnaire, which contained questions relating to demographic details, perceived information risks, knowledge of InfoSec policies, InfoSec attitudes and behaviour whilst using a computer.\n5. Conclusions and future research: In general, participants scored slightly higher on questions testing their knowledge than for those regarding behaviour and attitude. While it is difficult to compare scores directly across these three areas, this finding is, nonetheless, consistent with the sentiment echoed by the managers in their interviews, namely, that employees generally possessed good knowledge of InfoSec even if their actions were not always consistent with good policy. This suggests that any remedial action might be best-directed towards training programs to improve policy compliance that focus on changing the behaviour of participants. This training should be contextualised (i.e. tailored to the specific needs of the audience) and use case studies (Brooke, 2006) rather than generic courses that resemble lectures to improve compliance with, rather than simply knowledge of, policy (Parsons et al., 2010). In particular, as evidenced with both questionnaire participants and management interviewees, the use of social networking sites is still a potential issue and specialised training programs may be beneficial (Parsons et al., 2011).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the human-based information security (InfoSec) vulnerabilities in three Australian government organisations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A Web-based survey was developed to test attitudes, knowledge and behaviour across eight policy-based focus areas. It was completed by 203 participants across the three organisations. This was complemented by interviews with senior management from these agencies.\nFindings: Overall, management and employees had reasonable levels of InfoSec awareness. However, weaknesses were identified in the use of wireless technology, the reporting of security incidents and the use of social networking sites. These weaknesses were identified in the survey data of the employees and corroborated in the management interviews.\nResearch limitations/implications: As with all such surveys, responses to the questions on attitude and behaviour (but not knowledge) may have been influenced by the social desirability bias. Further research should establish more extensive baseline data for the survey and examine its effectiveness in assessing the impact of training and risk communication interventions.\nOriginality/value: A new survey tool is presented and tested which is of interest to academics as well as management and IT systems (security) auditors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impacts of hotels' error management culture on customer engagement behaviors (CEBs)
|
[
"Trust",
"Customer engagement behaviour (CEB)",
"Error management (EM)",
"Error management culture (EMC)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is no denying the importance of information technology (IT) for hotel operations. As IT becomes ubiquitous and essential, hoteliers have reacted by investing millions of dollars to deploy IT tools as a means to attract and retain guests (Hua et al., 2015). However, IT is a two-sided coin, as potential threats arise along with its advantages in the hotel industry (Berezina, 2010). Information vulnerability has emerged as a critical issue given the growing number of credit card transactions. For instance, problems include loss and misuse of hotel guests' personal information stored and/or transmitted electronically, which could be caused by either malfunctions of hardware/software or intentional unauthorized disclosure by a third party (Berezina, 2010). Statistics show that in the USA, about 38 per cent of credit card fraud involves the hotel industry (Ducey and Gilger, 2013). Given the increasing stakes for hoteliers to comply with credit card security (Ricca, 2015), how to effectively cope with a hotel information security breach deserves greater academic and practical attention.\n2. Theoretical foundation: 2.1 Error management and error management culture\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Research design\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample profile\n5. Conclusions and implications: This study tackled the phenomenon of an information security breach in the hotel industry by examining the role of EMC in CEBs and trust through a scenario-based experimental design. Survey results of 235 respondents supported the hypothesis that during an information privacy breach, a hotel's high EMC significantly increases consumers' positive WOM intentions and revisit intentions and decreases consumers' negative WOM intention. However, a hotel's error management practices do not directly affect consumers' engagement behaviors. As expected, consumer trust fully mediates the impact of EMC on positive WOM (both online and offline) intentions, negative e-WOM intention and revisit intention, while partially mediates the influence of EMC on one's negative offline WOM intention. The results suggest that it is critically important to recognize the influence of EMC on consumers' engagement behaviors, which is exerted through reconstructing or demolishing consumer trust toward the company after an error occurred. While an information security breach sends a negative message to consumers about the company's failure to provide a safe transaction environment, a company's lack of error management efforts would deteriorate consumers' trust, while a high EMC with open communication, quick detection and correction can convey a positive message to consumers that desired solutions will be implemented. Therefore, the efforts that a hotel company takes to display a high EMC is essential for regaining consumers' trust and promoting positive CEBs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Drawing upon an error management perspective, this study aims to examine how in the wake of an information security breach, a hotel's error management culture influences customer engagement behaviors and trust. The potential moderating effects of the perceived error controllability are also assessed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study develops four experimental conditions concerning a privacy breach in Hotel A, where different levels of error controllability and error management culture are manipulated for testing hypotheses. Data collection is administered with the help of Amazon Mechanical Turk.\nFindings: The findings from 235 former hotel guests show significant influences of error management culture on customer engagement behaviors, which are mediated by consumer trust. No moderating effect of the perceived error controllability is found.\nPractical implications: This study stresses the significance of cultivating a high error management culture and communicating it to attract consumers. It also provides guidance to hoteliers for adopting effective error analysis and management approaches, improving customer engagement and, ultimately, enhancing the firm's performance.\nOriginality/value: The results of this study expand the error management literature by studying the impacts of error management within the organization to its impacts on consumer-related outcomes. Further, this study contributes to the customer engagement literature by focusing on a series of customer engagement behaviors after a service failure scenario. Third, this study extends previous service failure and recovery literature to credence-related service encounters.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Review of empirical research on intellectual capital and firm performance
|
[
"Performance",
"Empirical",
"Intellectual capital",
"Systematic review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Nowadays, an organisation's value creation is largely based on intangible resources and capabilities, i.e. intellectual capital (IC) (Drucker, 1993; Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Grant, 1996; Stewart, 1997; Sveiby, 1997). Edvinsson and Malone (1997) suggested that intellectual assets clearly outweigh the tangible corporate value, and the World Bank (2005) reported that intangibles account for 77 per cent of the total global wealth. In addition, a company's sustainable ability to compete in the modern knowledge economy is increasingly derived from the exploitation of knowledge resources (Stewart, 1997; Teece et al., 1997; Zack, 1999). Another stream of literature has argued that IC has a positive relation to a company's innovation capability (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). Indeed, the conceptual literature has suggested that IC has a positive impact on firm performance (e.g. Bontis, 1998, 2001).\nResearch approach: The purpose of this study is to systematically review empirical IC literature and judge whether IC has influence over firm performance outcomes. The systematic review started with a literature selection process, which is depicted in Figure 1. In the first stage of the process, a computerised search was carried out to find the targeted body of literature. The abstract and citation database Scopus (www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus) was utilised as the search tool because it is capable of producing the most accurate search results among the major scientific databases (Falagas et al., 2008). In the second stage, articles were excluded based on refining the subject category. In the third stage, the selected articles were screened by title. In the fourth stage, articles were eliminated after examining the abstracts. In the fifth stage, publications were excluded based on the full text. Finally, in the sixth stage, the \"snowballing\" technique was used to identify useful literature from the reference lists of remaining literature.\nFindings: Development of empirical IC research\nConclusions: This review of empirical IC research highlights three key themes that are related to how IC influences firm performance. First, IC dimensions increase firm performance through interactions and combinations. Second, quite often the relation between IC and firm performance is best comprehended via mediator models. Third, strong empirical evidence exists regarding the effect that IC has over a firm's innovation performance and other aspects of innovativeness.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The basis of value creation has shifted from tangible factors of production towards intangible resources such as intellectual capital (IC) (e.g. Grant, 1996). The average organisation's IC has been estimated to be three to four times over its book value (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997); thus, it is vital for companies to understand how it is created, managed, measured and evaluated. However, there are still many debated and complex issues, and the empirical measurement of IC is one of those. The purpose of this paper is to determine if IC systematically influences firm performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic review procedure was utilised as this study's research design.\nFindings: The findings demonstrate that IC influences firm performance mainly through interactions, combinations and mediations. Also, there is a great deal of evidence on the significant relationship between IC and firm's innovation performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper reviews only empirical studies based on survey data and statistical methods of analysis.\nPractical implications: The research points to some focal aspects of IC that are associated with firm performance.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to review empirical literature on IC and firm performance. It increases the current understanding by bringing together the research related to the issue and drawing meta-level analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Information literacy capabilities of upper secondary students: the case of Vietnam
|
[
"Information literacy",
"Vietnam",
"Self-assessment",
"High school",
"Assessment",
"Information literacy assessment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The idea of developing information literate individuals is widely accepted. However, how to deliver information literacy (IL) programmes is the most difficult part and requires much more effort from educators. Context is an important part that needs to be considered in the implementation of IL programmes. Within a specific context, how an IL programme is valued, supported and delivered is considerably influenced by that context. The context could facilitate or restrain the development of IL (Lloyd, 2011). This study provides an understanding of the IL capabilities of Vietnam's upper secondary students in a context in which the education system is still in transition, from the transmission approach to the constructivist approach in teaching and learning.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 The scope of information literacy\n3. Methodology: An assessment of all IL aspects in a study is a very big challenge. It is suggested that the assessment should start with IL skills: developing search strategies, evaluating information sources, using information ethically and using English to engage with information effectively. Therefore, this research has used a quantitative measure of students' IL to understand the IL capabilities of Vietnamese upper secondary students. By using a multiple-choice questionnaire to measure students' IL capabilities and their self-assessment, this research could collect data from a large sample and statistically compare between different groups.\n4. Findings and discussion: The number of items used to test each IL component were not equal. Thus, the numerical scores were translated into percentage scores to compare across items and test areas. Vietnam's education institutions use the following grading system to assess students' academic capabilities: good and very good: 7+; fail with reassessment opportunity and pass: 3.5-6.5; fail with no reassessment opportunity: 0-3. This grading system was applied to this study. The percentage scores were divided into three groups: less than or equal to 30 per cent (<= 30 per cent) (low), more than 30 per cent and less than 70 per cent (30 < score < 70) (average) and more than or equal to 70 per cent (>= 70 per cent) (high).\n5. Conclusion: From what has been discussed above, it can be seen that this research does support the results of many studies in the past in terms of students' IL capability and their self-assessment. Vietnamese upper secondary students' IL capability bears noticeable similarities to students at the same level in other countries. Vietnamese students' IL is not particularly advanced. They show a propensity to use simple search techniques and a superficial use of Google. They also demonstrate poor performance in information evaluation. This study indicate that more work will need to be done to strengthen IL of upper secondary students in Vietnam.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to focus on investigating information literacy (IL) capabilities and IL self-assessment of Vietnam's upper secondary students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The investigation was conducted in two upper secondary schools in the country using a multiple-choice questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on the IL competency-level assessment toolkit of high schools in the USA, the tool for real-time assessment of IL, to measure students' IL in terms of developing search strategies, evaluating information sources, using information ethically and using English to engage with information effectively.\nFindings: The findings reveal that students' IL has not been well equipped. There is a real need to work toward improving the IL capability of Vietnam's upper secondary students. The findings also reveal gender differences in IL capabilities.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research used a closed-response questionnaire, which is considered appropriate to engage with Vietnamese high-school students, to explore students' lower-level IL skills and their self-assessment rather than higher-level thinking competencies.\nPractical implications: This research may help Vietnam's educators understand high-school students' IL competency and raise their awareness of the importance of IL to encourage the implementation of an IL programme.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the existing knowledge by adding substantially to current understanding of IL level of Vietnamese upper secondary students - a context which has not been explored to date. It also indicates gender inequality in IL capabilities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Floundering in a deregulated market: an energy company seeks new strategies
|
[
"Business strategy",
"Energy sector",
"Competitive analysis",
"SWOT analysis",
"Service industry",
"Five forces model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The firm considered in this analysis, a subsidiary of a major energy company located in Alberta, provides electric utilities services to its customers. In the past, the electricity transmission and distribution operations were under the control of city municipality, but a corporate restructuring was considered necessary to provide the company with greater operating flexibility. Subsequently, the company was de-regulated from municipal control. Under this new corporate structure, the company re-designed its mission and vision. The mission of the company is to be a customer-driven, competitive and profitable company in the energy sector with a vision to be the first choice supplier for energy products.\nBusiness strategy: The area of strategy has seen a dramatic change over the past few decades. As firms try to find the right alignment between their internal activities and corporate objectives, an organized framework helps to analyze this strategic alignment. Mills et al. (2002) suggest a conceptual framework on how a firm's resources can sustain a competitive advantage. After Skinner's initial work on strategy (Skinner 1969), the framework for business strategy was first developed by Weihrich (1982), who introduced the internal and external analysis that was structured into a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) matrix. The model proved quite beneficial over time to explain the value of a strategic fit between a firm's internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. As the model evolved over time, the framework has been split into two different strategic views, namely, the industry organization view and the resource-based view. The industry organization view assumes a homogenous resource base and explores competitive advantage through the relationship between the firm and the industry using opportunities and threats. A major contribution to this strategic view has been Porter's five competitive forces model (Porter 1985). This view assumes that companies within an industry have identical strategic resources, which are mobile across the industry and that companies pursue similar competitive strategies. In this model, a firm faces five competitive forces: rivalry, threats of substitutes, supplier power, buyer power and the threat of new entrants and entry barriers. In this environment, a firm can effectively achieve a leadership position using generic strategies such as cost advantage, differentiation and focus. The second view, called the resource based view, emerged as a dual of Porter's theory. It assumes a heterogeneous resource base across companies and prescribes how different companies can exploit their internal resource base to achieve a competitive advantage. Wernerfelt (1984) developed this competitive theory based on the recognition that the ability of a firm to implement its market strategy largely depends on its own resource base.\nCurrent strategy analysis: Table I summarizes an assessment of company's operational actions and their relationship to the strategic priority areas.\nIngredients for new strategy: Formulation of a business strategy must take into account the realities of the marketplace, capitalize on the company's strengths, address the weaknesses and be consistent with the overall corporate strategy. The company must consider these points when examining its future strategic direction. The first consideration must be to link operations and other functional strategies to the vision statement. The key phrase in the vision statement, \"first choice energy company\", implies a desire to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Toward this end, the main necessity for this company is to have a distinctive competency and a world-class service delivery process. If the company aims to become a first choice energy company, it must achieve a distinctive competency by delivering better products and value than its key competitors and force the competition into a reactive mode. This distinctive competency would need to address various performance dimensions, including a service quality process that exceeds customer expectations, technology that enhances that service, an empowered workforce to implement and operate that technology and management that listens to the voice of customers and facilitates work flows. The six response actions (listed in Table III) ranging from re-engineering to developing new products can be used to meet or exceed customer expectations. Rather than focusing on price-related innovation, innovation activities should be directed toward creating services to address customer needs. It is difficult to win customer loyalty based solely on the price. Focusing on the actual service delivery process will ensure long-term customer loyalty and must be a part of company's revised business strategy.\nConcluding remarks: This paper addressed the business strategy challenges faced by an energy company. It analyzed the current strategy through SWOT analysis, five forces model and competitive positioning. The paper also provided some key recommendations for the company to develop a new business strategy. These recommendations include finding the right fit with core strengths and corporate vision; building a sustainable competitive advantage through the quality and service of delivery process; a new focus on the front-line customer service separated from the finance function; and more initiatives on new product development. Such efforts must be supported with an appropriate training program and employee empowerment. Adhering to these points is likely to provide an unambiguous direction for the company and support the development of a framework for a long-term sustainable competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the business strategy of an energy company, identify the shortcomings in its existing strategy and provide recommendations to streamline a strategic direction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper applies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis, five forces model and competitive positioning analysis.\nFindings: The company needs to evolve its management strategy from an engineering focus to a customer and competitive focus.\nPractical implications: The paper demonstrates that a real firm can apply traditional conceptual business models and successfully modify its business strategy to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage, better front-line customer service and newer product development initiatives.\nSocial implications: The main customers for this company being the residential consumers, the focus on the front-line customer service will benefit the customers and the community in general.\nOriginality/value: The paper applies existing methodologies for strategy analysis to the business challenges faced by an energy company. The method can be used to find shortcomings in a current strategy, to identify the right fit between competitive strategy and operational competency and to provide a clear direction for the company.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Learning from China's business leaders: lessons for troubled times
|
[
"Performance management",
"China",
"Business development",
"Culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In November 2008, the first three authors were having lunch in Beijing with a group of executives from the Board of the China Association of Productivity Science (CAPS). After some discussion of the global financial crisis, one of the Chinese executives said, with some glee as well as sarcasm, to Westerners Heap and Tuttle, \"We are pleased to see that the US is turning to socialism in order to solve its financial crisis.\" As we have reflected on this comment, offered as a good-natured \"rib\" to those of us who have been viewed as attempting to export our brand of capitalism to the world, we have discovered that there were many elements of truth in this notion that we did not fully comprehend at the time.The economies of the USA, Europe and China have traveled different paths to have arrived at their current state. The management practices, the legal systems that underpin the enterprises, the relationship between business and public policy, forms of ownership and governance are considerably different in the different systems. Perhaps most importantly, the history and culture that form the context for business in China and the West have led to different values and assumptions about the purpose and priorities of businesses. These have been reflected in the education systems that produce the managers and leaders for governments and businesses.This however may describe the present more than the future. In many ways travel, the internet, globalization of the media, music and entertainment industries as well as the fashion industries have led to a homogenization of certainly youth culture across the world. The globalization of business enabled by communication and information technology has created in the multinational organizations a blurring of cultural differences and the emergence of \"trans-national\" cultures that enable successful executives to work effectively and team with colleagues across nations and cultures.The growth of global business, particularly the financial industry, has outpaced the ability of civil society and its institutions to understand, control and regulate its practices. This recent financial crisis has clearly pointed this out. As central banks and governments across the world have been forced to step in and clean up the mess created by a broken economic system each nation, in its own way, is asking fundamental questions about how did this happen, how can we fix it and how can we keep it from happening again. The outcome of this \"rebooting\" of our global financial systems and the global economy is far from certain at this point even though it would appear that we have moved beyond the \"emergency room stage\" that threatened a collapse of the global financial system.Where each nation lands following this re-engineering of each country's policy and regulatory apparatus will certainly be different from where they started. Undoubtedly, there will at a minimum, be greater coordination of the new regulatory structures and practices each nation creates. Quite likely, there will be new international and global structures to monitor and \"police\" global business. It therefore seems to be a reasonable assumption that due to the interdependence of economies that the \"new global economic architecture\" will cause nations to work ever more cooperatively and possibly become more homogeneous than before.One area in which this homogenization might occur is in the extent to which business is viewed as instrument of national policy. At a very macro level, it could be stated that the West, and the USA in particular, has not viewed business as an instrument of national policy. In fact, quite the reverse; economic development policy making has traditionally viewed government's role as creating the infrastructure that allows business to pursue its \"free market\" strategies in order to create wealth. In the USA the Government serves the interests of business rather than business serving the interests of government. This is because it has been viewed that \"what's good for General Motors is good for America\".Events of the past two years, have led to serious questioning of this traditional view. As the USA has seen crisis after crisis from Enron to the banking and insurance industry scandals, to the debate over whether health insurance companies are concerned more with continued profits than with promoting the well-being of patients, there is considerably more skepticism of the view that what is good for business is good for the country as a whole. As a result, the relationship between business and public policy is being re-examined and is certain to be reshaped over the next few years.In China, with its tradition of State-owned enterprises, the relationship between business and government has been dramatically different. Business has existed more to serve the interests of the state rather than the owners of private capital. In both China and the West, enterprises existed to serve the interests of their owners but the different ownership structures have led to very different types enterprises.As China began its opening-up process, the ownership structures of its organizations began to evolve. Today, there are a large variety of ownership structures in Chinese enterprises. These range from state-owned, to partially state-owned, to foreign owned, to joint ventures to Chinese entrepreneur owned private businesses, and more.As pointed out by the executives during our November lunch, the USA and other Western nations are moving from totally private ownership to public ownership of all or a part of private firms. We hear more talk of public-private \"structures\" as part of the solution to the toxic assets problem. Few would predict that the USA will create permanent state-owned businesses, however, having moved through this process, there seems little doubt that business practices will be permanently modified through regulation, required transparency, greater congressional oversight and modified national economic policy.Does that mean that the USA will become more like China in that business will be increasingly viewed as an instrument of national policy? We would not predict that. However, it seems extremely likely that the current crisis will give increased emphasis to a trend that has already begun to evaluate businesses in terms of what some have labeled the \"triple bottom line\". This view suggests that business success is not be defined only in economic terms - e.g. profitability. Business success must be defined also in terms of the firm's impact on the environment as well as in terms of the social outcomes that it produces.While this approach does not say that business must serve the interests of government as would be the case in a state owned business, it does say that for a business to be \"sustainable\" it must simultaneously provide economic return to its owners, social value to society and must do this while either improving the environment or at least not harming it. These three outcomes closely resemble the types of outcomes that would be expected by Chinas leaders in the most recent five-year plan which focuses on creating the \"harmonious society.\"In the USA we see evidence for this shift in thinking in terms of the rapid growth in business schools of centers, curricula, and student organizations that focus on the importance of business in creation of social value. Time will tell if this is a temporary reaction to the financial meltdown or if it represents a fundamental shift in the thinking of students in terms of their career aspirations. An example of this trend is seen in the \"State of Smith\" address made by Dean G. Anandalingam, Dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland - College Park or \"Dean Anand\" as he prefers to be called[1]. In describing how the College will Take Responsibility for the Future Dean Anand stressed Academic Excellence, Growing Global Citizens, Social Value Creation and Leading in the Nation's Capital given the University's location near Washington, DC. He defined the social value creation initiative as addressing issues of environmental sustainability and global citizenship. He described the Smith School's commitment to \"institutionalizing our social impact programs to better prepare students to lead in a world that needs both economic prosperity and transformative social change.\"Therefore, if we can assume that both China and the west are on trajectories that will lead them toward expecting more similar outcomes from businesses, i.e. economic, environmental and social performance results, despite coming from different political and economic systems, we propose the hypothesis that there will be considerable value in promoting an expanded two-way dialog between Chinese and Western leaders and executives. It is the authors' view that to be useful, this dialog must be viewed as a dialog among equals and it must recognize that wisdom can flow in both directions. Too often, in the eyes of some Westerners, there has been the view that others have more to learn from the West than the West has to learn from others - in this case from China. This has led to a type of business education imperialism where the West has attempted to export its perspectives and techniques of management to the world. While, there are certainly lessons that the Western economies can validly \"export\", it is the premise of this article that emphasis on the one-way flow of management expertise, to the extent that it exists, is both arrogant and flawed. Those who lived through the import of Japanese Management techniques over two decades ago remember that this was the stimulus for the quality revolution in the USA. Manufacturers are still learning lessons from exemplary Japanese companies such as Toyota as evidenced by the popularity of \"lean manufacturing\".At a minimum a two-way dialog will provide an opportunity for leaders from each perspective to learn by testing their ideas against a \"contrasting culture.\" In a global world such a dialog will promote increased understanding among and between business leaders who will increasingly be competing and partnering with each other. It will also force all participants to challenge their assumptions against perspectives that may be based on very different assumptions. It is also quite likely that in an economy as diverse and rapidly growing as China there will also be \"best practices\" that can be discovered and exported to the West as well as the more traditional forms of transfer from West to East.In this article we will attempt to offer a \"pilot\" test of this hypothesis by capturing and sharing the wisdom of three senior and successful Chinese executives who have operated in three very different spheres of the Chinese economy. These three individuals represent three very different organizations and different perspectives. The three interviewees were selected due to their recent induction as \"Fellows\" of the World Academy of Productivity Science[2]. Fellows are individuals who have devoted a significant portion of their professional life to efforts to contribute to their organization, their community and their nation through efforts to promote \"sustainable productivity\".As we conducted the in-depth interviews that served as the basis of the article, it became clear that these Chinese executives were deep thinkers whose practices flowed out of their rich culture as well as their varied personal experiences. We will introduce their stories to you and then attempt to assess whether the hypothesis posed above is valid, i.e. that there are best practices and organizational wisdom among Chinese leaders and managers that will benefit Western leaders and managers.\nThe interviews: Interview no. 1 - Wang Xiancheng, Chairman of the Board of JCHX Mining Construction Group\nConclusions and implications: This investigation of the leadership and management practices of three senior Chinese executives had two purposes. The first was to provide a pilot test of the hypothesis that Western leaders and executives could benefit from a two-way dialog with Chinese leaders and executives. The second purpose was to \"tell the stories\" of three recently inducted Fellows of the World Academy of Productivity Science as a means of using their example to stimulate the spread of advanced management thinking that will improve sustainable organizational productivity - economic, environmental and social, i.e. SEE productivity[3].Interview analysis 1\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to promote an expanded two-way dialog between Chinese and Western leaders and executives which recognizes that \"wisdom\" can flow in both directions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Interviews were undertaken with three Chinese executives and analyzed against a model of performance excellence.\nFindings: - An understanding of some of the similarities and differences of Western and Chinese business practices and a conclusion that there are lessons for Western businesses to learn.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The work involved interviews with only three Chinese executives and thus represents a tiny sample.\nPractical implications: - Illustrates some of the practices that might be worth considering by the West as we climb out of the current economic depression and re-focus business efforts for a longer-term future.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adopts a novel approach of analyzing interview outcomes against a reference model. The core value is, however, in highlighting the benefits that might arise from extended dialog.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Transformational leader attributes: interpersonal skills, engagement, and well-being
|
[
"Transformational leadership",
"Work engagement",
"Well-being",
"Interpersonal skills",
"Emotional skills",
"Political skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Management and human skills have long been recognized as important characteristics for leaders at every level of an organization, from front-line supervisors to top management (Katz, 1955). More recently, managerial skills have been conceptualized as a type of resource within the realm of microfoundations that contribute to organizational capabilities (Felin et al., 2012; Molina-Azorin, 2014; Sprafke et al., 2012). Organizational capabilities are particularly important from a strategic management perspective as they can lead to distinct advantages and, in the case of dynamic capabilities, provide mechanisms that stimulate firm creativity and innovation (Winter, 2003). In this regard, managerial skills are essential resources, or \"human capital\" (Castanias and Helfat, 2001, p. 662), that allow for the development and improvement of competitive advantages at the organizational (macro) level. These processes require leaders to be transformational in order to foster the types of organizational changes necessary to survive and thrive in a fast-paced global business context (Harvey and Novicevic, 2005). For example, research findings demonstrate a positive effect of transformational leadership on the creation of organizational knowledge (Song et al., 2012).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1. Transformational leadership\n3. Method: 3.1. Procedure\n4. Results: The means, standard deviations, and correlations for the study variables are presented in Table I. The control variables measured were correlated with the outcome variables in the study at statistically significant levels. Age was included as a control variable in the analyses to account for the association of leadership expertise with time (Lord and Hall, 2005). Hypotheses were tested using four-step hierarchical regression models in order to identify direct effects and the effects of the interaction terms within the same analyses after controlling for specific variables (Aiken and West, 1991). This approach offers an appropriate examination of \"interactions within [...] components (i.e. interaction effects)\" comprising the microfoundations that contribute to organizational capabilities (Felin et al., 2012, p. 1353), and is consistent with individual-level research methodology in management contexts (Reynolds, 2006).\n5. Discussion: The purpose of this research was to examine transformational leadership attributes using an individual-level, leader capability model that incorporated two emotional skills (control and sensitivity) and political skills. The framework was expanded to include the motivational aspect of work engagement. The complete theoretical model accounted for what managers are capable of specific to personal interactions and the energy they bring to their work in order to explain their transformational leadership and well-being. Of the direct effects, political skill was the only one of the three interpersonal skills significantly and consistently related to transformational leadership. This finding supports and extends previous literature on the importance of political skills as a leadership capability regardless of the level to which emotional skills are developed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of interpersonal skills (emotional and political skills) and work engagement on transformational leadership and leader well-being at work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Emotional control, emotional sensitivity, political skills, work engagement, transformational leadership behaviors, and job satisfaction were assessed in an empirical study of 278 employees. The relationships between emotional skills, political skills, work engagement, and transformational leadership were evaluated using participants in managerial positions (n=159). The combined influence of interpersonal skills and work engagement on job satisfaction was examined as a comparison between managers and non-managers (n=119).\nFindings: In addition to the positive effects of work engagement on outcome measures, results showed political skill is an important capability contributing to transformational leadership and leaders' job satisfaction. Findings also showed the interaction of emotional skill, political skill, and work engagement contributed to job satisfaction among managers.\nPractical implications: Organizations must provide managers with opportunities to develop political skills or modify selection processes to identify candidates who possess political skills for management positions. Organizations will also benefit from implementing ways to engage managers in their work to facilitate transformational leader behaviors and promote their well-being. In addition, organizations can work to identify and develop managers' emotional control and sensitivity skills specific to individual needs.\nOriginality/value: Research investigating personal attributes that influence transformational leadership as an outcome is limited. This study contributes to the leadership literature and sheds light on the literature on the microfoundations of management competencies by examining managers' skills and engagement on their leader behaviors and job satisfaction. Insights are discovered regarding the combination of emotional skills, political skills, and work engagement that indicate interpersonal skills and engagement have supplementary effects on transformational leader behaviors and leader well-being.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Can teamwork work more efficiently? Ways to identify and address the skills gap
|
[
"Teamwork",
"Workplace training",
"Teamwork skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Ken Blanchard once famously remarked that \"none of us is as smart as all of us\". Many firms have clearly taken the sentiments of this US author and management expert on board. Because when it comes to organizational success, teamwork is widely viewed as a vitally important factor.\nThe teamwork challenge: Companies, not surprisingly, place significant emphasis on building effective teams. Development of team-oriented skills is thus a major component of training. However, thanks to globalization, the task has become much harder. Diversity is a defining feature of many teams today. Therefore, getting people with the right skills on board is now even more critical. The task is to recruit team members who can utilize their individual capabilities to enhance the effectiveness of the whole.\nGood team, bad team: Different researchers contend that various factors can contribute to team success. Among the many cited are:\nMeasuring teamwork skills: The quest to gain greater understanding of teamwork skills has stimulated interest in a range of assessment tools. These commercially available apparatus come in a range of forms and focus on such as:\nInstruments and manager insights: This tool was utilized in an exploratory study involving 16 accomplished male middle managers from a large energy firm in India. Participants were first asked various open-ended questions asking them to describe their ideas of key characteristics in \"great\" and terrible \"teams\". In the next phase, the Team Work Skills Questionnaire was completed. This also involved indicating attributes covered in the questionnaire that were most critical to teamwork. In addition, respondents were asked about the feature most lacking in their experience and one they considered the least important.\nComment: The review is based on \"Toward more practical measurement of teamwork skills\" by Brock et al. (2017). In this short yet instructive piece, the authors explore how teamwork skills can be usefully measured. They consider different commercially available instruments and imply that their use alongside the views of experienced managers might offer the best means of indicating skills gaps that can be subsequently addressed through training initiatives and transform more teams into successful ones.\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: Teamwork is critical to organizational success, but many teams remain ineffective and even dysfunctional. Deficiency in certain skills is often assumed to be the cause. This has increased interest in various commercially available instruments designed to measure teamwork skills and identify voids that can be subsequently addressed through training. However, these tools are as yet limited in scope and might prove most effective if used to substantiate insights from accomplished managers with experiences within both competent and ineffective teams.\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"
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] |
Of stories that matter: The social construction of risk in planning for coastal areas in Antique, Philippines
|
[
"Planning",
"Risk",
"Social construction",
"Local government",
"Disaster risk management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Disaster risk reduction (DRR) has become a buzzword in both development scholarship and practice as a result of the global recognition that disasters are manifestations of ongoing development problems (Alexander, 2006). Planning is key to DRR as it guides future initiatives aimed at addressing vulnerable conditions as well as other aspects of resilience building. Along with a decentralized disaster management set up, the involvement of various stakeholders in planning is vital (Berke et al., 2010). Multi-stakeholder participation in planning ensures that initiatives are appropriate and socially acceptable since there is an opportunity for the articulation and integration of the knowledge, values, and concerns of vulnerable populations (Burby et al., 1999). In practice, however, planning is shaped by (as much as it shapes) the social, economic, and political context. Planning bodies, dynamics, and practices can be said to be \"products of the place.\"\nUnderstanding disaster risk: paradigm shifts, social construction and risk governance in the Philippines: Shifting paradigms\nMethodology: This paper is based on a field study carried out in the Municipality of San Jose de Buenavista, Antique Province, Philippines from 2013-2014. San Jose de Buenavista is the capital town of Antique Province in Western Visayas. It has a total land area of 4,450 hectares, 2, 614 of which are classified as agricultural land. It has 28 barangays, 14 of which are coastal and 14 are inland. It has a total coastline of 13.65 kilometers. San Jose has a total population of 63,415 (2013 est.), 60 percent of which reside in the coastal barangays. As an agricultural town, around 64 percent of the households are engaged in farming and fishing (Municipal Planning and Development Office, 2013) Physically, it is a small, almost flat coastal town built by merging alluvial sediments and beach deposits (MPDO, 2013) (for a map of the case study area, see Figure 1).\nRisk perception of CSOs and coastal communities, and the role of government actors in DRM plans: Framing disaster risk in municipal DRM plans\nOf missing narratives and the politics of risk: explaining government actors' dominance and the marginalization of local narratives: While the narratives of government actors dominate, the central narratives of context, community and livelihoods which characterize framing by actors on the ground are conspicuously absent from the plans. Of the number of factors inherent to the DRM planning system, the limited municipal government's capacity to conduct participatory risk assessment is a foremost issue. As a consequence, the municipal government relies on available quantitative data on exposure and vulnerability that do not capture the nuances on the ground which is a key feature of CBDRM's qualitative and context-based planning methodologies.\nConvergences, divergences: addressing vulnerabilities, building resilience: While plans do not guarantee that vulnerabilities are addressed they are an important first step in building resilience (Berke et al., 2010). The level by which coping and adaptation strategies outlined in DRM plans converge or diverge with risk perceptions by actors on the ground has implications in the process of addressing vulnerabilities.\nConclusion: Planning for disasters is seen as an opportunity for the integration of scientific knowledge and local knowledge. However, in the case of San Jose be Buenavista, this remains a work in progress. In the municipal DRM plans, there is a recognition that disasters are not only consequences of extreme events or the result of inadequate behaviors and practices of people. Rather, they reflect marginalization in the community. Nevertheless, the assumption that the marginalized are helpless victims in the face of hazards remains. This study, however, will better inform current practice if the following limitations will be addressed in the future: the need to look at the extent by which plans can be implemented and applicable to the local context; the need to look at interactions of identified actors beyond planning workshops and meetings, and the need to examine the role of actors in DRR that are not directly involved in planning, such as the media, the academe, and the private sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The recent shift in the Philippine Government's emphasis from response to a more proactive approach came with the recognition that different stakeholders play important roles in the governance of disaster risk. The purpose of this paper is to look beyond the question as to whether all stakeholders are involved in disaster risk management planning and examines the extent by which the narratives of risk of actors at the margins shape how risk is framed in municipal DRM planning in Antique, Philippines.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a field study carried out in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique Province, Philippines. Data were gathered through key informant interviews and focus group discussions as well as a review of archival records and documents.\nFindings: The narratives of CSOs and communities, which revolve around livelihoods and community life are conspicuously absent from the plans whereas that of government actors occupy a central position in the risk discourse. The study highlights the power-saturated process of defining and addressing risk to disasters, where knowledge is intimately linked to power as some voices shape plans and policies, whereas, others are excluded because their knowledge is socially constructed as less reliable and therefore irrelevant.\nOriginality/value: There is a dearth of studies that examine disaster risk as social constructions in the context of planning in the Philippines and in other disaster-prone countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Exploring research on quality and reliability management through text mining methodology
|
[
"TQM",
"Quality management",
"Cluster modelling",
"Management fashion",
"Probabilistic topic modelling",
"Reliability management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Concerns about trends, fashions and fads in management research and practice is not a new phenomenon in the academic community (Abrahamson, 1996, 2009; Abrahamson and Eisenman, 2008; Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999; Czarniawska, 2007, 2011a, 2014; Czarniawska and Panozzo, 2008; Parush, 2008; Starbuck, 2009; Trout, 2004). Researchers within the field of quality management (QM) and total quality management (TQM) are no exception to this general rule: the issue has fueled debate for many years with even Deming (1986) taking a stand urging scientists and practitioners to promote valid quality improvement measures instead of just flaunting slogans (Dahlgaard-Park, 1999, 2011; Dahlgaard-Park et al., 2013; Rocco and Parry, 2011; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2002; Sousa and Voss, 2002; Van Der Wiele et al., 2000). As the ongoing digitalization of society offers access to an ever increasing amount of data as well as ever more powerful hardware and software, new methods of exploring and describing trends in digital material continuously arise (Glenisson et al., 2005; Delen and Crossland, 2008; Dereli et al., 2011; Rosen-Zvi et al., 2010).\nTheoretical frame of reference: Academic contributions are valued differently within different academic disciplines. In general, the academic paper is seen as the highest ranking form of publication (Becher and Trowler, 2001). This means that by studying academic papers one can obtain an insight on which issues and topics have been addressed in IJQRM throughout the years - in other words which fashions and trends have prevailed. Czarniawska (2011a) challenges the perhaps common notion of fashion in research being something negative. According to Czarniawska (2011a), fashion is both a cultural phenomenon and a production system, and further suggests it is necessary to have a balanced approach between the two. Fashion, understood as the prevalent way of doing something, has a close connection to what Kuhn and others call paradigm (Czarniawska, 2011a). The problem seems to be that instead of studying fashion, or paradigms, so as to better understand them, researchers get stuck on moralizing about the issue (Czarniawska, 2011a). From this perspective it is easy to miss the potentially progressive momentum of fashion. In a way the very concept, or meaning of the word, \"fashion\" is paradoxical, both promoting innovation and reflecting \"dime a dozen mass-production\" (Czarniawska, 2011a). As summarized by Czarniawska (2011a): \"On the one hand, its variety is limited by the iron cage of existing institutions, which fashion reproduces; on the other hand, fashion is engaged in a constant subversion of the existing institutional order, gnawing at its bars.\" (Czarniawska, 2011a, p. 601)\nData source: The IJQRM\nMethodology: Data mining process\nResults and trends in the data: The results from the cluster modeling are shown in Table I. As mentioned in the methodological section, an eight cluster model was chosen as the final round of modeling. In this case the smallest cluster contained only 31 abstracts. Chopping up the data further by adding new clusters was hence deemed superfluous since clusters containing so few abstracts would make them unreliable for large scale trend identification, instead they would be zooming in on details. As clusters 3 and 4 together represented the majority of the data set (66 percent) they were further modeled into eight new clusters so that further analysis would be possible.\nDiscussion: Within the academic community there exists a debate regarding trends, fashion and fads in research (Abrahamson, 1996, 2009; Abrahamson and Eisenman, 2008; Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999; Czarniawska, 2007, 2011a, 2014; Czarniawska and Panozzo, 2008; Parush, 2008; Starbuck, 2009; Trout, 2004). This study supports the claim that new topics and research areas are constantly introduced, indicating that there are indeed trends, fashion and fads in research. The study also shows that, in the case of IJQRM and the research it represents, there exists a stable nucleus covering quality and reliability management, which might be labeled the academic fields' core fashion or leading paradigm. However, the study cannot say anything about why or how new introductions or changes occur. The patterns could be explained by variables put forward by Czarniawska (2011a), Czarniawska and Panozzo (2008), Starbuck (2009) and Trout (2004), such as changes in the editorial board, new observations, experiences or interests in the academic community, alteration of financing and boredom. Additionally, considering the results it could be argued that established and fashionable terms such as quality or reliability management slowly become devalued due to inconsequential or frivolous usage. Subsequently, the terminologies become ill-defined, vague and all-encompassing rendering them unsuitable for research purposes. Conversely, researchers with a long-term commitment to quality and reliability management research might have an interest in actively reflecting upon their personal stand and influence on the fields epistemological development. If it is believed that the research area rests on a shaky theoretical base, it might be wise to prioritize terminological consistency and resist introduction and usage of new terminologies even if they increase the prospect of publication. Otherwise one renders the risk of contributing to the terminological inflation and further watering down the fields theoretical foundation. However, if one does not look upon the research field as weakly rooted in theory or publication is of high importance the results indicate that one should be cautious of fading stars, like QFD in this case, and instead prioritize topics on the rise, such as Six Sigma and lean in this study. For more detailed exploration of these kind of causes and effect-chains regarding trends in research, data mining studies like Dereli et al. (2011) are very complementary as they include supplementary information, e.g. name of writer, country of origin, university, etc. The combination of these two approaches could offer a way to identify the true driving forces behind trends that Czarniawska and Panozzo (2008) put forward as the main factors when new trends and fashions are launched.\nConclusions: This study supports the notion that there are trends in research, but as the results do not give any guidance as to the reasons behind these trends, complementary studies are needed. Topics identified by the study to be in decline are QFD and areas within the fields of reliability, failure and maintenance management. A topic on the rise is Six Sigma with a particular orientation toward lean, innovation, implementation and improvement.\nFuture research: The collected data could be re-used but processed with different cluster-models as well as on the basis of other word vectors, e.g. term frequency. This would give an interesting view of how the document matrix affects the clustering and their content. Yet another angle would be to explore supervised learnings models, alternatively one could filter the data set for a specific topic, e.g. ISO, and subsequently model with this material, giving a detailed insight of a specific topic and its evolution over time.\nLimitations: The study focuses on research article abstracts. Other journal content such as book reviews, general reviews, secondary articles, editorials, guest editorials, awards for excellence (notifications), introductions or summaries from conferences, notes from the publisher and articles without an abstract are not a part of the study which may exclude certain topics and trends.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe research presented in the International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management (IJQRM), thereby creating an increased understanding of how the areas of research have evolved through the years. An additional purpose is to show how text mining methodology can be used as a tool for exploration and description of research publications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study applies text mining methodologies to explore and describe the digital library of IJQRM from 1984 up to 2014. To structure and condense the data, k-means clustering and probabilistic topic modeling with latent Dirichlet allocation is applied. The data set consists of research paper abstracts.\nFindings: The results support the suggestion of the occurrence of trends, fads and fashion in research publications. Research on quality function deployment (QFD) and reliability management are noted to be on the downturn whereas research on Six Sigma with a focus on lean, innovation, performance and improvement on the rise. Furthermore, the study confirms IJQRM as a scientific journal with quality and reliability management as primary areas of coverage, accompanied by specific topics such as total quality management, service quality, process management, ISO, QFD and Six Sigma. The study also gives an insight into how text mining can be used as a way to efficiently explore and describe large quantities of research paper abstracts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focuses on abstracts of research papers, thus topics and categories that could be identified via other journal publications, such as book reviews; general reviews; secondary articles; editorials; guest editorials; awards for excellence (notifications); introductions or summaries from conferences; notes from the publisher; and articles without an abstract, are excluded.\nOriginality/value: There do not seem to be any prior text mining studies that apply cluster modeling and probabilistic topic modeling to research article abstracts in the IJQRM. This study therefore offers a unique perspective on the journal's content.\n",
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Applying the physics of notation to the evaluation of a security and privacy requirements engineering methodology
|
[
"Evaluation",
"Information security modelling",
"Computer privacy",
"Security requirements engineering",
"Privacy requirements engineering",
"Physics of notation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The main objective of security and privacy requirements engineering methodologies is to provide techniques, methods and norms for dealing with each task during the early stages of the information systems (IS) development cycle. Security and privacy requirements engineering methodologies supply researchers with existing information about security and privacy requirements in a thorough manner, providing the necessary context to operate (Mellado et al., 2010). Thus, it is imperative that security and privacy requirements should be specified at the early stages of an IS development process, as by conducting this analysis at an early stage, the building of such requirements is more efficient and also brings about more robust designs (Kim et al., 2006).\n2. Related work: In the IT field, one theory of visual notation design that the literature review revealed is the Cognitive Dimensions Framework (Blackwell and Green, 2009; Green and Petre, 1996; Green, 1989). This framework sets out a vocabulary of terms designed to capture the cognitively relevant aspects of structure, and shows how they can be traded off against each other, being applied to visual programming environments. Nevertheless, this framework lacks to define theoretical and empirical foundations; it excludes visual representations from its analysis; it does not support evaluation of the chosen notations under evaluation.\n3. Secure tropos methodology: Secure Tropos methodology (Mouratidis, 2002) is based on the principle that security should be analysed and considered from the early stages of the software system development process, and not added as an afterthought. It is considered as a structured approach for goal-oriented security and privacy requirements, applicable to software systems, either to traditional ones or to cloud computing environments (Mouratidis et al., 2016). It is based on social hierarchies and adapts components of the i* framework (Yu et al., 2006). The methodology provides a modelling language, a security-aware process, and a set of automated process to support the analysis and consideration of security from the early stages of the development process. This methodology is intended to support all the analysis and design activities in the software development process, supporting the fully capturing, analysis and reasoning of security and privacy requirements from the early stages of the development process. More specifically, it provides a modelling language that represents security and privacy requirements through constraints, allowing developers to model multi-agent software systems and their organisational environment. This language combines concepts:\n4. Visual notation principles according to the theory of notation: For the effective approach of the evaluation of the graphics of notation, the reader should be aware of specific definitions. A visual notation (or visual language, graphical notation, diagramming notation) consists of a set of graphical symbols (visual vocabulary), a set of compositional rules (visual grammar) and definitions of the meanings of each symbol (visual semantics). The visual vocabulary and visual grammar together form the visual (or concrete) syntax. Graphical symbols are used to symbolise (perceptually represent) semantic content, typically defined by a metamodel. The meanings of graphical symbols are defined by mapping them to constructs they represent (Moody, 2009). A valid expression in a visual notation is called a visual sentence or diagram. Diagrams are composed of symbol instances, arranged according to the rules of the visual grammar. What has to be addressed in visual notation design is the clear design goal. Goals such as simplicity, aesthetics, expressiveness and naturalness are often mentioned in the literature. In addition, to be most effective in facilitating human communication and problem solving, visual notations need to be optimised for processing by the human mind. Thus, cognitive effectiveness is defined as the speed, ease and accuracy with which a representation can be processed by the human mind (Larkin and Simon, 1987). Cognitive effectiveness determines the ability of visual notations to both communicate with business stakeholders and support design and problem solving by software engineers.\n5. Methodology evaluation: The Secure Tropos graphical notation has not followed specific justification regarding the design choices of the symbols that are used. These design choices have been asserted, following unself-conscious design culture (Alexander, 1964), which it is not based on explicit design principles but on instinct, imitation, and tradition. Nevertheless, we proceed with the evaluation of its graphical notation based on the nine principles of the Theory of Notation (Moody, 2009).\n6. Threats to validity: The evaluation of Secure Tropos methodology presented in this paper is subject to threats to validity, since in this way we can denote the trustworthiness of the results of our analysis. Moreover, we will be able to identify to what extent these results are true, and not biased by the researchers' personal and subjective perspective.\n7. Conclusions: The effectiveness of a methodology to efficiently communicate its content with the users is of equal importance to the semantics of it. In this paper, we evaluate a security and privacy requirements engineering methodology, namely, Secure Tropos, based on the most well-known theory, the Physics of Notation, which has been synthesised from theory and empirical comparison and can be used for the evaluation, comparison and improvement of visual notations. Our qualitative analysis resulted in valuable lessons learned, which are thoroughly discussed in Section 4, and can also be applied to other security and privacy requirements engineering methodologies. This application, which is one of our future works, will allow us:\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is the analysis of a security and privacy requirements engineering methodology. Such methodologies are considered an important part of systems' development process when they contain and process a large amount of critical information, and thus need to remain secure and ensure privacy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: These methodologies provide techniques, methods and norms for tackling security and privacy issues in information systems. In this process, the utilisation of effective, clear and understandable modelling languages with sufficient notation is of utmost importance, as the produced models are used not only among IT experts or among security specialists but also for communication among various stakeholders, in business environments or among novices in an academic environment.\nFindings: The qualitative analysis revealed a partial satisfaction of these principles.\nOriginality/value: This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a security and privacy requirements engineering methodology, namely, Secure Tropos, on the nine principles of the theory of notation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The functional and usable appeal of Facebook SNS games
|
[
"SNS game",
"Facebook game",
"Kansei Engineering",
"Appeal",
"EGM (The Evaluation Grid Method)",
"Quantification Theory Type I",
"Social media",
"Computer games"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social Networking Services (SNS) games have become very popular in recent years because they are simple and easy to play and they encourage social interaction among players. These characteristics have caused this type of game to be called \"casual games\" or \"social games\". They are also called Social Networking Services games, because they are used on social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Plurk, and QQ (OICQ).SNS are used for promoting social relationships and reflect many of the complicated interpersonal relationship in the society. More specifically, they are designed to facilitate communication, collaboration, and content sharing across networks of people, who can then share ideas, interests, activities, and events through their individual networks on a platform or web site. The emergence of SNS have changed how people use and engage in the internet.SNS, such as Facebook and Myspace encourage both amateur and professional developers around the world to create multipurpose applications for social interaction through an open platform. Since the launch of the Facebook Developer Platform in 2007, Facebook has experienced rapid growth, from relatively few to innumerable applications. For example, it accrued more than 35,000 applications on its platform in July 2008. The growth of applications has also led to even higher traffic on the corresponding social networks. Nazir et al. (2008) believe it is important to characterise such social network-based applications as an emerging type of workload.The developer platform provides an excellent stage for the successful launch of many original and interesting games from the entire world. As a result, the utility rate of Facebook has increased substantially, attracting larger customer segments through the games that are available on its platform. The Facebook platform is currently the most popular place for SNS games, and it is not surprising that Facebook continues to create new modes for increasing friendship through SNS games. According to statistics, the number of Facebook users increased by 100,000 because of Facebook games (Lai, 2009). The rapid increase in the popularity of Facebook games has led online games in a new direction and this merits exploration through research.Because this type of game is very popular on the Facebook platform, we have focused on these games in our study and refer to them, hereafter, as \"Facebook games\". This type of game is particularly simple, fun, and addictive, and does not require continuous online presence or too much thinking. SNS games are simpler to play than other games and, therefore, attract more players that are non-professional. There is a strong demand for these games in the worldwide market and they generate enthusiastic responses from fans. The great mass fervour for SNS games has sparked researchers' interests in comprehending the style, unique characteristics, and appeal of this type of game. Therefore, a study of the unique characteristics of SNS games and their contribution to social integration through the internet is of great importance to the field of internet research.We argue that a critical reason for the surge in popularity and availability of SNS games is that they are particularly attractive to players because of particular elements, which we have named \"appeal factors\" in the study. \"Appeal\" can range from an abstract idea, such as \"instant\", to a specific element, such as \"instant downloading\". These definitions refer to human preferences and this research studies the constituents of the various appeal factors. Compared to the content of MMORPGs, Facebook games have become slimmer and simpler but their appeal has increased. We hypothesise that they possess special characteristics that other types of games do not have. We also believe that these characteristics have a strong relationship with human perception, cognition, and affection, and that these attributes affect human preferences.Therefore, we have focused our study of SNS games on their appeal to users. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted as ways to explore this issue. To make a qualitative assessment, we collected data from authoritative articles, analysed games by ourselves, and interviewed experienced game designers. For the quantitative assessment, we conducted a survey using a questionnaire and analysed the resulting data statistically.Functionality and usability are two of the most important issues for computer systems. Foley and Van Dam (1982) concluded that usability was atleast as important as functionality. Furthermore, the relationship between functionality and usability is both close and inseparable. Hence, researchers have explored how usability acts on functionality and affects the effectiveness of a system. Research shows that instead of limiting functionality, usability actually complements functionality (Goodwin, 1987). Thus, our study employs the perspectives of both usability and functionality to probe the appeal of SNS games.In the following section, we explore Facebook games from the perspective of the functionality and the usability needs of gamers in cyberspace. Related theories and documentation are also reviewed.\n2. Review of the literature: 2.1 The usability issues of games\n3. Research objectives: Social interaction has materialised successfully in cyberspace with the help of SNS games. It is worth contemplating why people readily accept SNS games as a way of proceeding with social interaction. This study explores the appeal of SNS games from the perspectives of game usability and the functionalities that are facilitated by the internet. The two critical issues to be probed are why players prefer SNS games to other types of games and what specific characteristics causes them to be addicted to continuous game play. The most important types of appeal or appeal factors, and the specific characteristics, and reasons for gamers' preference are identified and the relationships between them are established in the study. In addition, the different weights given to these reasons and the characteristics of the appeal factors are quantified through statistical analysis.\n4. Research methods: The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. For qualitative research, the evaluation grid method (EGM) was adopted during the phase of in-depth interviews with individual experts. The contents of the interviews were recorded and summarised in the form of hierarchy diagrams (Figures 1 and 2), which were then used as the foundation for the design of a questionnaire. For the quantitative research, the questionnaire was distributed and the data collected were used for statistical analysis, applying Quantification Theory Type I. All of these procedures were conducted according to the theory and processes of Kansei Engineering.4.1 Interviews using the EGM\n5. Analysis and results: 5.1 The hierarchical diagram of Facebook games\n6. Discussion: People play games to enjoy the game play or to kill time. However, people choose to play Facebook games for the additional reasons of usability and functionality. Furthermore, \"easy and convenient\", \"friendly and lively\", and \"social interaction\" could explain why people prefer Facebook games. Because \"easy and convenient\" is task related, SNS games enable the user to accomplish tasks with the factors of \"easy and convenient\" and \"friendly and lively\"; and these conform with characteristics of usability that make them usable for one set of users but may render them unusable for another (Goodwin, 1987). For example, people choose to play SNS games for reasons such as \"simple\" and \"facilitated\", which cannot be found in other types of games, such as MMORPGs. In addition, the reasons such as \"easy to approach\" and \"lifelike\" can be viewed as the factors that motivate players to play the game without resistant feelings, such as \"hard to play or understand\" caused by other types of games.\"Social interaction\" concentrates on the functions provided by the systems that users choose to carry out their tasks (Goodwin, 1987). Hence, \"social interaction\" conforms the issue of functionality. For example, people choose to play SNS games for the functional purpose of \"social interaction\" so that they obtain \"interaction feedback\", such as \"trade\" and \"cooperation\" and they feel \"accompanied\" through various online activities in these games.Bennett (1978) proposed that \"user acceptance is strongly affected by how the function is invoked as well as what functions the system contains\". In this regard, we found that the function of \"social interaction\" in SNS games does invoke people to play them. However, it is not enough for users to understand the functions of these games. The games must also have sufficient usability factors to induce people to play them. Furthermore, the characteristics of \"easy and convenient\" and \"friendly and lifelike\" can complement some of the insufficient aspects of functional \"social interaction\". This could explain the extraordinary appeal of SNS games compared with various other types of games.The results of this study, shown in a hierarchical diagram of SNS game preferences, were determined by the EGM (Figure 2). In order to explore the issues related to functionality and usability in cyberspace, the greatest factors of appeal of SNS games were found to be \"easy and convenient\", \"friendly and lively\", and \"social interactive\", as determined from the evaluation. The player that chose an SNS game did so mainly because of one or more of the following 14 characteristics: \"relaxed\", \"free\", \"instant\", \"facilitated\", \"simple\", \"accompanied\", \"interaction feedback\", \"being concerned about\", \"competitive\", \"dressing-up and decorative\", \"exquisite\", \"vivid\", \"lifelike\", and \"easy to approach\". Finally, the weights of the features of Facebook games were analysed using Quantification Theory Type I. Among these factors, \"friendly and lively\" had the highest value of R2 (0.692), showing that the test reliability of this factor was the highest.\n7. Conclusions: 7.1 Findings and managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to explore the appeal of social networking services (SNS) games from the perspectives of game usability and the functionality that is facilitated by the internet. Why players prefer SNS games to other types of games and what specific characteristics causes them to be addicted to continuous game play are the two critical issues to be probed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors interviewed 11 experts and surveyed 321 gamers using a questionnaire to gather the data about their preferences. The authors believe that a preference-based study can reveal the underlying reasons for the appeal of SNS games. The collected data were analysed using Quantification Theory Type I.\nFindings: - The semantic structure of appeal, determined from the interviews of experts, shows the hierarchy of the relationship between the types of appeal or appeal factors, the reasons for gamers' preferences, and the specific characteristics of SNS games. According to the statistical analysis, the three most important appeal factors of SNS games are \"easy and convenient\", \"friendly and lively\" and \"social interaction\", and these are affected in varying degrees by particular reasons and characteristics.\nPractical implications: - Based on the findings, the paper hypothesises that the popularity of Facebook SNS games can be ascribed to the design of game, which targets the psychological preferences of players.\nOriginality/value: - SNS games have become very popular due to some of their appealing characteristics. The findings provide important information for designers and researchers of Facebook SNS games. The study also contributes to the field of human-computer interaction in cyberspace.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Psychological contract, engagement and employee discretionary behaviours: Perspectives from Uganda
|
[
"Uganda",
"Engagement",
"Employees",
"Psychological contracts",
"Discretionary behaviours"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of psychological contract has continued to receive much attention in the fields of human resources management and organizational behaviour (Guerrero et al., 2013; Kasekende et al., 2016; Rousseau, 2012). Extant literature has indicated that the implicit perceptions of employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract (SPC) have differing results (Willem et al., 2010). Many scholars believe that perceptions of fulfilment of their unwritten expectations and obligations are important (Bal et al., 2010; Kasekende et al., 2016). The current study examines the psychological contract concept in terms of perceptions of fulfilment of employer obligations, employee obligations and SPC and how they are related to employee engagement and employee exhibition of extra-role behaviours.\nA strategic approach to human resource management (HRM): the public service sector: According to Thompson and Bunderson (2003), the public service sector is highly significant with employees seeking to satisfy the need to realise their ideological values through helping others. Thompson and Bunderson (2003) argue that to a great extent this is determined by a number of factors including the perception that the other party has fulfilled its obligations. There is a degree of self-selection based on the ideological values associated with work in the public sector, reinforcing findings reported elsewhere (Willem et al., 2010). Over the past decade, the Uganda Government has made efforts to improve the efficiency and quality of the services they deliver to their employees (Foley, 2008). Those at the helm of civil service reforms and public administration (United Nations Development Programme, 2010 report) have ensured that employees are trained in a cost-effective manner to meet the demands of a changing environment. These drastic HRM measures were aimed at increasing the management of employee psychological contract (Katarangi, 2010) with the intention of improving their engagement at work and hence exhibit discretionary behaviours. However, what appears on the ground is contrary to expectations of the public service sector (Katarangi, 2010; Ssewanyana et al., 2011). Employee engagement and exhibition of discretionary behaviours continue to deteriorate despite the Uganda public service's effort to boost the social exchanges through improved investment in fulfilling government obligations towards the employees (Ssewanyana et al., 2011). It is therefore unclear whether psychological contract as exhibited through employer obligations, employee obligations and SPC boosts the employee engagement to influence employee exhibition of discretionary behaviours in the public service sector in Uganda.\nEmployee discretionary behaviours: Employee discretionary behaviours have been referred to as OCB (Organ, 1988). According to Organ (1988), discretionary behaviours on the part of the employee are not explicitly recognized by the organization, though in the long run they promote the efficient and effective functioning of an organization. But Stone-Romero et al. (2009) argue that the behaviours that are typically viewed as discretionary are in fact requirements of many roles (especially at managerial level). Being discretionary, researchers do not reflect such contributions as a requirement in performance appraisal. Scholars have come up with various forms of discretionary behaviours including self-rated (Kickul and Lester, 2001), supervisor rated, peer rated or customer rated discretionary behaviours (Johnson and O'Leary-Kelly, 2003).\nPsychological contract: The concept of psychological contract (Argyris, 1960) is used to describe an inherent agreement between a group of employees and their supervisor. Rousseau (2012) argues that the psychological contract is the set of expectations and obligations that individual employees have as work experiences. Willem et al. (2010) studied Belgian employees' psychological contract and found that public sector employees attach less importance to career development opportunities and financial rewards promises and perceive these promises as less fulfilled. These public sector employees also perceive social atmosphere and work-life balance as less fulfilled. Willem et al. (2010) further observed gender differences as significant in the fulfilment of the psychological contract. In this study, we deviate from Willem's et al. (2010) study of envisaging the psychological contract and its effects in form of gender differences stand by extending it in terms of supervisor-subordinate differences. Many scholars agree that the psychological contract is the unwritten agreement that exists between the employee and employer that contains a set of mutual expectations. These expectations on the side of one party create obligations on the other party (Kasekende et al., 2016). As earlier stated, the psychological contract is based on the social exchange theory (Wimbush et al., 2002) which posits that social elements exist in contractual relationships; individuals voluntarily provide benefits to other parties, which oblige these parties to provide benefits in return (Wimbush et al., 1997). These benefits are often unspecified and can be either extrinsic or intrinsic.\nEmployer obligations and employee obligations: As earlier stated, expectations one party has of the other create an obligation on the other party to fulfil such expectations (Kasekende et al., 2016). In light of extant literature, the concept of psychological contract seems to have no universally acceptable operationalization. The most general operationalization of the psychological contract is the belief in obligations existing between two or more parties (Rousseau, 2012). Obligation is a commitment to future action, which the parties have agreed upon, even though the terms of the commitment, fulfilment and extent of mutuality opens a contract to contentions. Rousseau (2012) argues that individuals begin to formulate their side of the psychological contract (expected obligations) before they join the organization. Similarly, supervisors formulate their expectations of the employee just before they join the organization. Subsequent to the signing of an employment contract, the psychological contract (employee expectations vs employer obligations) evolves and shifts as both employer and employee modify their expectations of each other. Problems can and do arise when either party in the psychological contract feels cheated.\nThe SPC: The SPC describes employees' subjective perceptions (accurate or not) of the actual HRM practices of their employer in comparison with their psychological contract (Guest, 1998). This state is directly related to, and yet distinct from the employees \"psychological contract\". According to both Guest (1998) and Rousseau (2012), the psychological contract refers to individuals' beliefs regarding the terms and conditions of an exchange relationship between themselves and their employer. Each employee holds beliefs regarding the \"ideal\" returns (Rousseau, 2012) their employer has agreed (either implicitly or explicitly) to provide him/her as exchange for his/her contribution. The SPC (Guest, 1998) is thus operationalized as the employee's perceived discrepancy between this \"ideal\" return and the \"actual\" one they perceive as receiving from the organization such as compensation and rewards.\nEmployee engagement: The concept of employee engagement as it is today is believed to have been officially developed by Kahn (1990). Kahn's ideas on employee engagement are mainly influenced by Goffman's (1961) internationalist theory. This is evidenced when Khan writes that people act out momentary attachments and detachments in role performances (Kahn, 1990). According to Kahn (1990), personal engagement is the simultaneous employment and expression of a person's \"preferred self\" in task behaviours that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence and active full role performances. Kahn posits that the fields of meaningfulness, safety and availability are important to fully understand why a person becomes engaged. Scholars who later researched on engagement such as Maslach et al. (2001) and Quinones et al. (2013) based on the works of Khan.\nJob level (supervisor vs subordinate): Currently organizations face the dilemma of attempting, simultaneously, to increase the exhibition of discretionary behaviours of their employees by fulfilling their psychological contract and increasing engagement levels. This attempt might be achieved by providing incentives that fulfil employee expectations of the employer (Rousseau, 2012). Although, the majority of studies have been conducted using employee expectations (i.e. the subordinate) (Rousseau, 2012), there has been a gradual movement towards an increased use of fulfilling employer expectations (i.e. supervisor) in organizations (Kasekende et al., 2015). Despite the increased interest among researchers, the literature has not yet developed a rigorous definition of what the employer is (Tetrick, 2004). This may be attributed to the plethora of types of employer categories and an almost infinite number of variations or gradations within each employer/supervisor category (Tetrick, 2004). Employer/supervisor may be defined as a person or business that employs one or more people, especially for wages or salary. In contrast, employee expectations are clear and easily distinguishable (Giallonardo et al., 2010). The literature on organizational behaviour has pointed to the need to understand the effects of these employer obligations on the attitudes and behaviours of individuals at work. In accordance with the social exchange theory and reciprocity norms, it can be posited that employees, because they receive less inducements from organizations compared to supervisors, exhibit less discretionary behaviours compared to their supervisors (Coyle-Shapiro and Parzefall, 2008). However, research results have been inconclusive and inconsistent (Muldoon et al., 2013). On the other hand, Kidder and Parks (2001) observed that nurses (employees) exhibit less discretionary behaviours, but when they perceive they have a more relational contract, they are likely to exhibit these behaviours more. But there appears relatively little research on these contradictions.\nThe research model: the mediating effect of engagement on the psychological contract-discretionary behaviour relationship: Combining all of the above variables, the author proposes to test a model (see Figure 1) based on employee engagement. This model anticipates that employer obligations, employee obligations and state of psychological contract will have a positive influence on employee discretionary behaviours mediated by the employee's engagement values. This may partially explain why the employee level of discretionary behaviours will be much higher among those who are highly engaged than among those employees who are disengaged.\nMethodology: Participants and data collection\nResults: The multidimensionality of psychological contract\nResearch implications: This study offers several implications. From an academic point of view, we explore the role played by employee engagement in extending the inputs of a fulfilled psychological contract towards employee exhibition of discretionary behaviours in commissions and agencies of the public service. Our results imply that employers in commissions and agencies may increase the level of exhibition of discretionary behaviours among their staffs if they are able to fulfil the implicit expectations of their employees through employee engagement. The results deviate from the plethora of literature that has mainly focussed on outcomes of discretionary behaviours by providing an understanding of the tenets that are a prerequisite to employee exhibition of discretionary tendencies. The implication for policymakers would be to provide a conducive atmosphere which enables employees to freely exhibit discretionary behaviours. Moreover, policymakers stand to gain insights from our study where they will be able to design more suitable support programmes that enhance the engagement of employees for discretionary behaviour. This study further offers guidance to managers in the public service on what to focus on (i.e. fulfilment of employer obligations and state of psychological contract and engagement) for commissions and agencies if they want to achieve higher levels of employee involvement in roles that go beyond their job description.\nConclusion: This study provides an initial attempt to examine the effect of psychological contract and discretionary behaviour exhibition in a developing country setting, namely, Uganda. The research findings indicate that public service bodies may increase exhibition of discretionary behaviours by ensuring fulfilment of employer obligations, employee obligations and state of psychological contract for employee engagement. Additionally, the results show that honouring psychological contracts increase the exhibition of discretionary behaviour among workers, provided that these workers become fully engaged at their work. These findings have implications for employee management skills.\nResearch limitations and future research: The study may suffer from mono-method bias since all of the data were collected using self-report questionnaires. Scholars may attribute the findings to individuals' tendencies to respond to similar types of measures in similar ways. Whereas this bias might have been a peril, it is improbable. Further research in this area needs to be conducted to examine employer obligations, employee obligations, state of psychological contract, employee engagement and discretionary behaviours in other perspectives, taking into account the effect of different organizations and environments. Fastidiously, larger samples from different professions and occupations might offer a foundation for more robust outcomes that help managers to manage the fulfilment of implicit obligations and hence the congruence between subordinates and supervisory staffs. In addition, further debate is needed regarding the strategic role HRM can play in managing the exhibition of discretionary behaviours in Uganda. This has, in general received petite consideration.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation effect of employee engagement on the relationship between employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract and employee discretionary behaviours.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical data were collected using self-administered questionnaires with 278 participants from 11 commissions and three agencies in the public service in Uganda. The authors used hierarchical regression analysis to investigate the hypotheses.\nFindings: The results indicate that employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract were positively related to employee discretionary behaviours. In addition, employee engagement was found to be a partial mediator between employee obligations, employer obligations and state of the psychological contract and discretionary behaviours among for both subordinate and supervisory staffs.\nOriginality/value: Since little is known about the process by which public service commissions and agencies in Uganda promote employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract on discretionary behaviours, this paper contributes to the literature by examining human resource management practices in a developing country context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supporting making online: the role of artifact, teacher and peer interactions in crafting electronic textiles
|
[
"Secondary school",
"Online education",
"Electronic textiles",
"Maker education",
"Computer science education",
"Physical computing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Makerspaces in libraries and schools now support learning among youth with a variety of computing-related activities (Halverson and Peppler, 2018; Lee and Phillips, 2018). Particularly popular are maker activities that involve robotic construction kits that allow youth to design and build robots (Blikstein, 2013a), Makey Makey that let youth realize physical interfaces for screen-based programs (Lee et al., 2014) and electronic textiles (e-textiles) that let learners connect microcontrollers to sensors and actuators by sewing them onto fabric and programming them to make interactive toys and artwork (Buechley et al., 2013). These maker activities help youth to connect with computing in new ways by integrating practices such as sewing and crafting and by using everyday materials such as paper and textiles that can diversify participation in making and computing activities (Halverson and Peppler, 2018; Jayathirtha and Kafai, 2019).\nMethods: Context\nFindings: Our analysis revealed how moving making online changed interactions between Ben and the youth by shifting the role of physical and code artifacts, opportunities for improvisation within teaching, channels for providing student feedback, and encouraging learning from peers.\nDiscussion: Moving online from face-to-face revealed changes in ways we can engage youth in maker activities. On the positive side, the online environment made text (i.e. computer code) more visible and provided opportunities for the teacher to better learn about student conceptions and give individual, iterative feedback. However, such text-mediated interactions simultaneously reduced one-on-one communication to issues around coding ideas more easily accessible through computer screens and static program texts. The lack of shared physical space, time, and artifacts limited opportunities for emergent, improvised teacher-student interaction and learning from peers, practices key to promoting equity in maker education (Fields et al., 2019). Based on these observations, we suggest directions for future design and research efforts, as extended closure of face-to-face learning settings pushes teaching and learning making online.\nConclusion: Moving maker activities from face-to-face to online spaces challenges teaching practices that rely on easy access to tangible artifacts, improvised teaching, and casual peer interactions. To support maker activities online, we need to rethink online tools and teaching practices to support multimodal views of artifacts, teacher and student improvisation, and to better facilitate peer interactions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report changes when a classroom-based makerspace moved from face-to-face to an online setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To better understand changes in teaching maker activities, as they move from face-to-face to online contexts, the authors analyzed video and interview data from six weeks of an introductory computer science high school classroom (38 youth) that was implementing an electronic textiles unit, shifting to asynchronous online teaching and learning during the March 2020 state-wide school closure because of the pandemic. The authors analyzed field notes and videos of face-to-face and online interactions between the teacher and his students in learning to craft and code their electronic textiles projects.\nFindings: The analysis revealed changes in the role of physical and code artifacts, in improvising teaching, and channels for communication between the teacher and students.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study discusses the implications for future pedagogical design and research efforts, as the authors continue to engage youth and work toward designing equitable learning opportunities with maker activities online.\nOriginality/value: In maker activities such as electronic textiles, youth design, sew and program circuits to make personalized three-dimensional, textile artifacts. However, nearly all research on supporting and teaching making has been conducted in face-to-face settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Financial services and ethical hazards: antecedents of repeated ethical violation
|
[
"Organizational development",
"Financial salespeople",
"Sales management",
"Recidivism",
"Business ethics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Literature on ethical decision-making has contended that organizational factors, individual attributes and moral issues affect unethical behavior (Bommer et al., 1987; Trevino, 1986; Ferrell and Gresham, 1985); yet, few studies have clarified what causes people's repeated violation (RV) of ethical codes. Even fewer have explored the social or environmental context, namely, organizational factors, as an interactive mechanism that connects people's social cognition with behavioral learning outcome: for example, learning through observing violations being committed. To more aggressively pursue goals, financial sales units tend to expand through recruiting more salespeople, aiming to develop new markets. This may have a toxic effect on financial institutions (Pilcher, 2016), with pressure to succeed potentially leading salespeople to behave unethically, inflicting costs for business in terms of service recovery and lost revenue[1]. It is, therefore, important for managers to identify the hazards that drive unethical behavior (Pendse, 2012).\nTheory and hypotheses: Theoretical background\nData and methodology: Through accessing one-year (2013) offense records on salespeople in a leading life insurance corporation in Taiwan, this study acquired 1,231 observations, after excluding records with missing information. To protect confidential information, the sample did not contain individual ID numbers or names, and the dataset was password-protected. This sample was representative for the following reasons. First, Taiwan's insurance industry is a world leader in the global market, recently ranking 10th in the world in its market share of total premiums (Swiss Reinsurance Company, 2016). Second, the investigated company has delivered remarkable sales performance. Its product strategy focuses on the personnel involved in selling, with new contract premiums for salespeople and for market share both among the highest in the business. Third, this company's salespeople have provided excellent service quality, and have received awards for quality performance.\nEmpirical results: Analyses\nConclusion: This study adds to knowledge on the causes and patterns of repeated unethical behavior. Based on insights from SLT, this study proposed that various experience-related and socially cognitive antecedents combine to increase the likelihood of RV and confirmed that the company's sales strategy can intensify these effects by using LDV to elaborate the interactive effects. The findings support that modeling peer misconduct in the organization, observer characteristics (job tenure and PV), and behavioral enforcement through the low intensity of ethical issue (IC violations) directly increase the likelihood of RV. Importantly, sales development by recruiting salespeople, when leading to an increase in organizational size, could strengthen the reoffending risk.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Prior studies have extensively explored individual examples of unethical behavior in sales organizations but focused little on repeated violation (RV) of ethical codes, particularly when managers develop salesforces. Based on social learning theory (SLT), the authors propose a multilevel model of RV antecedents and suggest that organizational influence (social cues and modeling) and individual factors (observer characteristics and behavioral outcomes) affect RV, especially with increasing recruitment of salespeople.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data from a leading financial company in Taiwan, the authors analyzed 1,231 records of salespeople's misbehavior through logistic regression and average marginal effects.\nFindings: Modeling in the organization (i.e. peer misconduct), observer characteristics (i.e. experience concerning job tenure and prior violations) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. information concealment violations) were all found to affect the likelihood of RV, and the interactional effect of organizational size was confirmed.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study contributes to ethical decision-making theory by explaining aspects of RV through SLT. Its multilevel model, integrated with organizational strategy theories, adds an SLT-focused paradigm into unethical behavior research by considering vicarious learning and self-learning, alongside the reciprocal determinism of cognition, behavior, and environment.\nPractical implications: Managers should consider socially based patterns of violation when initiating a sales business plan. The chances of RV are increased by unethical models in the organization and offenders' potential for violations, which is reinforced by social environment.\nOriginality/value: This study clarified the key drivers of RV decision-making using SLT and identified an effective sales development strategy to maintain an ethically responsible salesforce.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Street-level collaboration: perception, power, and politics on the frontlines of collaboration
|
[
"Case study",
"Policy implementation",
"Collaborative governance",
"Bureaucratic politics",
"Development administration",
"Street-level bureaucracy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Governments are constantly devising administrative mechanisms to spur collaboration between multiple stakeholders and sectors. Public administration scholars have rightly underscored the boundary-spanning function of government (Bingham and O'Leary, 2008; Radin, 2007; Kettl, 2006; McGuire, 2006), and a rich body of scholarship on collaborative governance--broadly defined as multiple stakeholders across the public and private sectors working toward a shared goal--has emerged (Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015a; Emerson et al., 2012; Thomson et al., 2009; Ansell and Gash, 2008; Huxham, 2003). Now that the field has better conceptual and theoretical clarity on the topic of collaborative governance, scholars are calling for implementation studies that focus on managers, processes and outcomes (Cristofoli et al., 2017; Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015a; Weber and Khademian, 2008; Bryson et al., 2006; Agranoff, 2006; Thomson and Perry, 2006).Overall, the literature on collaborative governance tends to assert that collaboration--if done well--leads to better outcomes. However, scholars also caution against this celebratory tone (O'Leary et al., 2009; Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015a), pointing to the paradoxical nature (O'Leary and Bingham, 2009) and dark side of collaboration (O'Toole and Meier, 2004). This caution notwithstanding, May and Winter (2007b) point out that the beneficial nature of collaboration is taken as a \"truism,\" at least in part because of the challenges in measuring outcomes (see also Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015a; Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015b). Furthermore, collaborative governance is understood to unfold in a realm where power is shared, diffused and exercised horizontally rather than through vertical hierarchies. Thus, while much of the literature celebrates the power of collaboration, several scholars have also called for the study of power in collaboration (Pells, 2015; Taylor, 2007; Agranoff and McGuire, 2001; McCann and Gray, 1986).There is limited research on examining collaboration \"failure\" or \"divergence\"--particularly in the context of frontline implementation of collaborative governance initiatives. Given these gaps in the literature, this paper examines two research questions: (1) How do frontline workers perceive a collaborative initiative (initiated by individuals in positions of power and authority)? (2) How do these perceptions shape the implementation process and outcomes? To answer these questions, this paper examines the implementation of an unsuccessful collaborative initiative (within a provincial/subnational government in India) aimed at improving maternal and child health outcomes. The central puzzle being investigated is that in spite of a favorable perception toward the initiative's overarching goals, frontline workers chose not to participate--making street-level collaboration unsuccessful.This paper is organized into five sections. First, policy implementation literature is surveyed to explicate lessons for the street-level implementation of collaboration. Second, it describes the case study context. Third, the methodology is discussed, including the technique of process tracing for case study research. Fourth, findings and analysis are presented. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion connecting street-level bureaucracy's theoretical insights to the confluence of perception, power and politics on the frontlines of collaboration.\nLiterature review: The implementation conundrum\nThe case study: An unsuccessful collaborative initiative in state C[1], India\nMethods: Following Yin (2009) and George and Bennett (2005), a single case design with multiple embedded cases is used to investigate this revelatory case[4]. Within State C, District S was selected because all state-level respondents suggested it as the ideal \"site\" to observe implementation of the collaborative initiative in its live context since the district's administrative leadership had made implementation of the initiative a key priority.The primary source of data comes from observations of 28 village-level Project M meetings, which serve as multiple (embedded) cases[5]. Following Ragin (1999), these 28 cases were selected because they shared a common outcome: unsuccessful implementation. To ensure effective triangulation, data is collected from multiple sources; both vertically within and across departments (see Table I). While a semistructured interview guide was prepared, interview data took the form of stories or narratives that enabled respondents to reconstruct events, articulate their thoughts and reflect on their experiences. This form of data is aptly suited for research aimed at refining theory, examining constructs (e.g. perceptions, street-level collaboration, discretion) that are not well defined in the Indian context and exploring interactions among variables (e.g. power, politics, local context, institutional histories, turf battles) that are too complex to capture through structured data collection instruments (Eisenhardt, 1989, 1991 Dyer and Wilkins, 1991; Ospina and Dodge, 2005; Flyvbjerg, 2006; Pentland, 1999).The primary unit of analysis is street-level collaboration, that is, the implementation process at the village-level of administration to test the theoretical proposition that the way Project M was perceived by street-level collaborators caused the implementation of the collaborative initiative to become unsuccessful. To test this theory, process tracing is used--\"an analytic tool for drawing descriptive[6] and causal inferences from diagnostic pieces of evidence--often understood as part of a temporal sequence of events or phenomenon\" (Collier, 2011). Thus, in terms of this study, the process tracing technique requires establishing that: (1) certain perceptions about Project M emerged, (2) village-level collaborative meetings were unsuccessful and (3) a link between the perceptions (cause) and the unsuccessful implementation of collaborative meetings (effect) exists (Mahoney, 2012).\nFindings and analysis: Descriptive inferences\nDiscussion and conclusion: This study examined a case of unsuccessful collaboration within a subnational government in India that conceived of a collaborative governance initiative--aimed at interdepartmental coordination and citizen participation--to respond to calls for improving maternal and child health outcomes. The study's findings confirm frontline workers' perception that the initiative was essentially a particular department's (i.e. health-related) intervention and not collaborative, caused the collaboration to be unsuccessful. In effect, street-level bureaucrats instead of acting as street-level collaborators (i.e. spanning boundaries and working horizontally across departmental boundaries) acted within the traditional confines of their bureaucracies as the perfect archetype of a bureaucrat.This theoretical intuition of street-level collaboration is particularly relevant when collaborative arrangements and initiatives are either nested within or superimposed upon existing bureaucratic structures and organizational hierarchies. Collaborative governance literature, much of it written within a Western public service context where relative to India's administrative systems have greater degree of discretion and delegation of authority for street-level bureaucrats, is not well suited to theoretically predict what happens when collaboration is nested within centralized bureaucratic structures.Street-level bureaucracy theory does predict that frontline staff are independent and will not necessarily follow prescribed orders, but in the Indian context given the limited discretion and lack of delegated authority, it can be theoretically predicted that street-level bureaucrats will be more likely to at least \"appear\" to be following orders. However, even though this study confirms the exercise of discretion and independence by frontline staff--which is consistent with street-level bureaucracy theory--there is more nuance to this finding that meets the eye. Instead of the predicable \"top-down\" versus \"bottom-up\" divergence, this study finds a convergence between the \"top\" and \"bottom\"--in their own way, both policy-level bureaucrats and street-level bureaucrats did not participate (see Figure 1 and Figure 2 box 5 and 6) in collaboration. This research highlights the shortcomings of street-level bureaucracy theory in the context of government-to-government collaboration--that is, when frontline staff have to weigh trade-offs of working with their counterparts in other agencies.Although policy implementation literature underscores multiple influences and levels of accountability for street-level bureaucrats (Hill and Hupe, 2003, 2014 Hupe and Hill, 2007), there is limited application of it to the implementation of collaboration. A key contribution of this study is that it highlights the role of bureaucratic politics (i.e. institutional histories, power balances and turf protection) in shaping and influencing how street-level bureaucrats will \"weigh how to act\" for street-level collaboration.Stated another way, street-level bureaucrats will weigh the trade-offs of whether to participate or not based on existing influences of bureaucratic politics. Interestingly, in this particular case study, although the collaboration did not succeed, the existing bureaucratic politics shaped the processes and outcomes in favor of health-related indicators (i.e. institutional deliveries). This study posits that the presence of bureaucratic politics is sufficient to determine the processes and outcomes of collaboration. This means that to a lesser degree processes and outcomes are dependent on individual exercise of discretion and more dependent on institutional values and organizational structures being called upon to collaborate.Rather than depict boundary-spanning collaboration, what is depicted here is boundary-confined collaboration; that is, collaboration to the extent that competing institutional histories, power balances and turf issues will allow for. In terms of an initial theoretical intuition, what emerges from this revelatory case is that when collaboration is initiated between organizations with different institutional histories and structures, collaborative processes and outcomes will be shaped to a larger extent by bureaucratic politics and to a lesser extent by managerial practices.The implications for policymakers and executive leaders in positions of power and authority who can shape and initiate collaboration is that \"political-logic\" is as important as \"program-logic\". To say that \"design matters\" would mean to understate the political intuition needed to choose which institutions and organizations to call upon and not to call upon for collaboration. The logical extension of such an intuition is that not all policy problems can be solved (or need to be solved) through multisectoral and multistakeholder collaborative governance initiatives. The strategy to address certain policy problems might just require good old-fashioned effective administration within a departmental hierarchy.This practical consideration might be especially relevant in non-Western country settings where the necessary reforms to provide for increased decentralization of administrative structures have not taken place. The theoretical and practical implication being that predominantly centralized administrative structures are not conducive to implementing collaborative governance the way it is conceptualized by Western-centric literature. This study's findings have relevance for key decision-makers beyond non-Western country contexts as well--as it focuses attention on the proposition that formal and informal organizational structures, which are shaped by institutional values, histories and politics, influence collaborative processes and outcomes. While collaborative governance is conceptualized through cross-boundary and cross-sectoral structures and collaborative public management is operationalized through a \"new\" set of skills for the public manager, further research is needed to examine the practical implications of how collaborative structures interact with existing organizational structures during implementation of such collaborative initiatives. This study underscores that policymakers, administrative leaders, program managers and researchers studying and implementing government-to-government collaboration will need to reimagine their theoretical and program frameworks to consider the politics of and in collaboration.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: To examine the implementation processes and outcomes of collaborative governance initiatives through the lens of bureaucratic politics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An in-depth single case study research design with 28 embedded cases to study the implementation of a collaborative governance initiative. This paper uses the analytical technique of process tracing to explicate necessary and sufficient conditions to uncover causal mechanisms and confirm descriptive and causal inferences.\nFindings: This study finds that when street-level bureaucrats perceived the collaborative initiative as a health intervention (and not as a collaborative initiative), it resulted in low levels of stakeholder participation and made the collaborative initiative unsuccessful. This paper finds that bureaucratic politics is the causal mechanism that further legitimized this perception resulting in each stakeholder group avoiding participation and sticking to their departmental siloes.\nResearch limitations/implications: This is a single case study about a revelatory case of collaborative governance implementation in India, and findings are analytically generalizable to similar administrative contexts. Further research is needed through a multiple case study design in a comparative context to examine bureaucratic politics in implementing collaborative initiatives.\nPractical implications: Policymakers and managers need to carefully consider the implications of engaging organizations with competing institutional histories when formulating and implementing collaborative governance initiatives.\nOriginality/value: This study's uniqueness is that it examines implementation of collaborative governance through a bureaucratic politics lens. Specifically, the study applies Western-centric scholarship on collaborative governance and street-level bureaucracy to a non-Western developing country context to push the theoretical and empirical boundaries of key concepts in public administration.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The interrelationship between net interest margin and non-interest income: evidence from Vietnam
|
[
"Vietnam",
"Diversification",
"Bank risk",
"Non-interest income",
"Bank margins",
"Three-stage least squares"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Trends such as globalisation, disintermediation and re-regulation have impacted not only the competitive viability of banks but also the nature of the intermediation business. Changes in the nature of financial intermediation have been accompanied by a change in the nature of bank income (Allen and Santomero, 2001). The reduction in net interest margin (NIM) reflects increasing competition on the returns on earning assets and the cost of bank funds. The growth in core deposits at banks has reduced since customers have more options that offer them similar services and pay higher interest rates such as cash management accounts and mutual funds. Loan yields have declined because of the increasing competition from non-bank creditors such as finance and leasing companies. Accordingly, banks have offset the impact of reduced traditional income sourced from margin income via increases in fee income. Non-interest income (NII) have accounted for an approximately half of total operating income of US banks and contributed a significant amount to the total income of banks in many developed countries (Nguyen, 2012). NII generated by off-balance sheet (OBS) activities includes trading gains and fees, investment banking and brokerage fees, net servicing fees, insurance commissions, net gains on assets sales, fiduciary income, net securitisation, service charges on deposit accounts, other foreign transactions and other NII (Clark and Siems, 2002). Such a shift has a number of important implications from the perspectives of bank management and regulatory policy.\n2. Literature review: As per the conventional view, a decline in NIM precedes an increase in NII, which indicates that an increase in NII is a reaction to the falling revenue. Consequently, increased NII is acting to supplement declines in NII rather than replacing margin income (DeYoung and Rice, 2004). However, an increase in NII precedes a reduction in NIM, suggesting a trade-off between NII and NIM. This reflects the increased competition and the process of disintermediation that reduced the comparative advantage of banks in obtaining funds and advancing loans. In response, banks has shifted towards non-traditional activities because these activities may generate higher net margins via interest and fee income banks charge to compensate, for example, for providing the line of credit options included OBS contracts (Angbazo, 1997). Prior studies find mixed findings. Several studies indicate that NII have increased at the expense of NIMs (Lepetit et al., 2008a; Rogers and Sinkey, 1999; Williams and Rajaguru, 2012). Accordingly, banks have offset the impact of decreased traditional income by improving NIIs. However, others demonstrate a positive relationship between interest income and NII (Ozili, 2017). Accordingly, high-performing banks have greater levels of NII and NIM (Carbo Valverde and Rodriguez Fernandez, 2007; Stiroh, 2004). This is mainly due to the cross-selling strategies and increased loan commitments. Whereas, Nguyen (2012) finds the negative two-way relationship between NII and NIM in the particular period.\n3. Methodology: Nguyen and Nghiem (2015) demonstrate that results obtained from Granger causality are sensitive to model specification and the number of lags. In addition, Belsley (1988) suggests that 3SLS can be more efficient than 2SLS, a relative advantage that increases with the strength of the interrelations among the error terms. Therefore, the 3SLS estimator which combines 2SLS and SUR is used in our study.\n4. Data: We use annual data extracted from the balance sheets of individual Vietnamese banks over the period 2006-2015 where there is a significant change in the income structure of banks. Since 2006, Vietnamese banks have been required to publish their annual reports to improve the transparency in the banking system. Data are also collected from Vietstock database for cross-checking and missing data. Only domestic commercial banks are selected as they are main active players in the banking system while foreign banks and joint-venture banks[11] are somewhat limited to operate in the Vietnamese markets. Initially, we obtain 334 observations from unbalanced panel data of 40 banks including five state-owned commercial banks[12] and 35 joint-stock commercial banks[13]. However, in order to examine whether the negative/positive relationship between NIM and NII still holds using four different measures of NIM, we have 322 observations after eliminating missing data. The summary statistics of the posited variables are indicated in Table I.\n5. Empirical results: Table II presents the correlation matrix of the various variables used in our study. For the convenience, we concentrate on the interpretation of correlation between NII and all measures of NIM. At the first glance, NII is negatively correlated with all four measures of NIM. Along with this, the correlations of other control variables in both equations are also reported[14]. However, whether NIM has an impact on NIM can be only addressed by using 3SLS estimation in a simultaneous equations model as presented in the following section.\n6. Conclusion: Our study investigates the interrelationship between NII and NIM in the Vietnamese banking system between 2006 and 2015. The findings show the negative two-way links between NII and NIM, thus lends to support the subsidisation hypothesis. The measure of robustness checks is used and indicates the consistent results. This implies that Vietnamese banks face a trade-off between NII and interest income.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interrelationship between non-interest income (NII) and net interest margin (NIM) in the Vietnamese banking system between 2006 and 2015. Thereafter, the impact of NII on risk-adjusted returns is also examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Various analysis techniques are used to achieve the research objectives.\nFindings: The findings show a negative two-way link between NII and NIM, thus supporting the subsidisation hypothesis. Furthermore, NII is found to have a negative impact on risk-adjusted returns. When observing this relationship in sub-samples, the findings indicate that the negative impact of NII on risk-adjusted returns still holds in the first subsample (2006-2011). The coefficient of NII becomes positive but not significant for the subsequent period (2012-2015). In addition, the Spearman rank-order correlations of returns on assets and NII for both sub-samples are negative. Together, the author concludes that there are no diversification benefits in the Vietnamese banking system.\nPractical implications: The evidence suggests a trade-off between non-interest activities and traditional lending ones. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the Vietnamese banks may use NIIs to expand leverage and herd by coordinating NII strategy during the economic downturns. Thus, the banking system may be exposed to a greater risk. The research has implications for bank supervisors, policy-makers and bank managers.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first attempt to investigate the interrelationships between net NII and NIM in the Vietnamese banking system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Interdependence between best team members and their teammates
|
[
"Team",
"Composition",
"Individual performance",
"Resource‐based view",
"Complementary resources",
"Best team members",
"Team performance",
"Individual behaviour",
"Resources"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Growing globalization and technical complexity are making teams common within organizations (Cross et al., 2008; Rico et al., 2007), and consequently, the attention of scholars on this issue has grown over recent decades (for a review see Mathieu et al., 2008). The main feature of teams that distinguishes them from other sorts of aggregations of individuals is the interdependence of their members (Katzenbach and Smith, 2005; Saavedra et al., 1993). This interdependence implies that one team member alone cannot accomplish the task by himself or herself, but all team members have to cooperate, that is, to \"engage with others in a mutually beneficial activity\" (Bowles and Gintis, 2011, p. 2). Consequently, team members may be considered as complementary resources because the value of each one depends on the value of the others (Teece, 1986).Although there are some studies based on the resource-based view (RBV), which consider how some firms' internal resources need to be complemented by others to gain a competitive advantage (e.g. Adegbesan, 2009; Christmann, 2000; Porter and Siggelkow, 2008; Powell and Dent-Micallef, 1997), until now, scarce attention has been paid to how the value of some human resources depends on the value of others. Although human resources have a great potential to become sources of competitive advantage (Barney and Wright, 1998; Hitt et al., 2001), within the team context, the analysis of this potential is more complex. That is, will have an individual who fulfills Barney's (1991) requirements of rareness, value, inimitability, and nonsubstitutability imply the gaining of a competitive advantage within a team? To answer this question, we focussed our current research on how the fit between team members in terms of their individual performance may improve team performance. In this highly interdependent context, it is necessary to know which performance distribution has a higher value for teams.Serious doubts may be highlighted about the potential of having one specific person with an extraordinary performance vs the existence of a group with more homogeneous members in terms of their performance. Team members tend to rely more on people with an outstanding individual performance, and consequently, these outstanding members usually have a growing participation in team activity offering a good potential to allow performance improvements (Baumann and Bonner, 2004; Bunderson, 2003). However, it is not clear if the contribution of these best members on team performance will depend on the performance of the other and whether a high performance of the rest of team members will increase or decrease their influence or value.The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, our results contribute to the team literature concerning the influence of team members' individual performance on team performance. To analyze how the influence of the best team member on team performance may depend on the rest, it is very important to determine the optimal team composition. This implies combining two configurations of team composition: disjunctive and additive (Barrick et al., 1998). Analyzing team composition from these two perspectives allows us to understand better the role of the best team member on team performance, given that the interdependent task also may require consideration of the performance of the rest of the members.Additionally, our paper contributes to the development of the RBV, which is asking for analysis of how to deal with situations in which resources may not generate competitive advantage by themselves (Armstrong and Shimizu, 2007). This paper shows the importance of studying the strategic value of internal resources in terms of their complementary as well as individual value. Despite some prior studies having analyzed how some resources and capabilities are required from others to become a source of competitive advantage (Ennen and Richter, 2010), we intend to focus on how within a team, the strategic value of an individual also may be contingent to the performance of the rest of the team members.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Team composition, complementarity, and the RBV\nMethod: Setting\nResults: We made different observations for each team in different seasons. However, we cannot use traditional pooled time series approaches as in other studies analyzing this kind of data (e.g. Berman et al., 2002) because we did not have balanced data. As we have stated previously, some teams did not have measures of performance for all the analyzed seasons (see Appendix). To solve this problem, we chose to calculate a multilevel hierarchical linear model (HLM), using the statistical program MLwiN 2.00. In this situation, level 1 is the set of measurement occasions for each team, and level 2 is each one of the 30 teams that formed the sample (Snijders, 1996). Similarly, this methodology allowed us to analyze hierarchical structures in the population and to control for the variation that can be produced for specific characteristics of teams. Table I shows the descriptive statistics and correlations between all the variables.As in other studies using HLM, first, we calculated a baseline model. This analysis showed the variance that resided within teams (79 percent) and the one that resided between teams (21 percent). Furthermore, the addition of other random components showed nonsignificant variation in the -2log-likelihood ratio, which implies that any variation in the coefficient of the independent variables is not expected because of specific characteristics of teams.Table II shows the results of the analysis. Model 1 contains the control variables. Both the coefficient for coaching experience within the team and the coefficient for previous team performance are statistically significant and positive. In model 2, we added best member performance and the rest of members' performance variables. H1 suggests a positive relation between best member performance and team performance. The result showing a statistically significant and positive relation between best member's performance and team performance (p<0.001) supports this hypothesis. Additionally, the results also show that the rest of the members' performance has a positive and direct effect on team performance (p<0.001). Both results are consistent with other work emphasizing the importance of forming teams with individuals with high levels of skills and abilities (Harris and McMahan, 2008). However, we can see how best members' performance has a positive effect on team performance (b=0.04). This confirms that the best team member has the most potential to make the difference within a team and consequently to become a source of competitive advantage.In H2, we argue that average ability level moderates the relation between best member performance and team performance. We tested this hypothesis by adding the interaction between best member performance and the rest of members' performance, obtaining model 3. To minimize problems of multicollinearity, we used standardized predictors (Janssen and Huang, 2008). The resulting coefficient is positive and significant (p<0.05). Additionally, to test the significance of this model we used the likelihood ratio test. This test compares the -2log likelihood of the different models. The difference between the -2log likelihood follows a kh2 distribution whose number of degrees of freedom is equal to the difference in the number of parameters to be estimated in the two models (Snijders, 1996). The difference between the -2log likelihood of models 2 and 3 is -5.9. This difference follows akh2 distribution with 1 degree of freedom. Thus, it is significant at 0.95.We plotted this interaction effect using procedures outlined in Aiken and West (1991). Figure 1 presents the resulting graph. As predicted by H2, the relation of best member performance and team performance was stronger when the rest of the members' performance was high rather than low. Additionally, we tested the significance of the simple slopes. The coefficients of the simple slope for high rest of members performance and low rest of members performance were 0.045 (t-value=6.759, p<0.001) and 0.027 (t-value=4.662, p<0.001), respectively. Thus, both were statistically significant.\nDiscussion: Contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how, within a team, the value of their best member depends critically on the performance of the rest. Analysis of the interdependent team members complements the traditional focus of resource-based-view analyses of isolated resources.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors used data from 584 National Basketball Association teams (30 teams collected over 21 seasons).\nFindings: - The authors find a positive relationship between best member performance and team performance that increases as the rest of the team members' performance improves.\nPractical implications: - Having team members with a high individual performance does not imply that the team will have a competitive advantage over the rest. To gain this advantage, it is also necessary that the rest of the team members also show a high individual performance.\nOriginality/value: - These results contribute to the team literature increasing our knowledge about the effect of complementary resources on gaining competitive advantage. Additionally, sports teams offer the possibility of using objective data to assess team members' individual value within a team.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Self-employment as a vehicle for labour market integration of immigrants and natives: The role of employment protection legislation
|
[
"Employment protection legislation",
"Immigrant self-employment",
"J81",
"J88",
"J38",
"J15"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The effect of labour market institutions on labour market outcomes has been the subject of extensive research and heated policy debates over the past decades. One of the most investigated[1] such institution has been employment protection legislation (EPL), and its consequences on labour market processes. This focal point is not surprising, as deciding on the degree of strictness of EPL is paramount to deciding between economic efficiency and employment protection. According to Pissarides (2001), the right degree of protection should strike a balance between the flexibility required by companies to adapt to changing labour demands and advances in technology and the need to protect the workers from unfair treatment by the employer. At the same time, there has been a renewed interest among policy makers in the role that self-employment can have in promoting job creation, enabling workers to secure an alternative form of employment, which is especially relevant if waged employment is not readily accessible for them[2].\n2. Employment protection legislation and self-employment: 2.1 Theoretical underpinnings\n3. The data and empirical model: We use the European Union Labour Force Survey (henceforth EU-LFS) to calculate our dependent variables, immigrant and native self-employment rates. The EU-LFS is a large household sample survey providing quarterly results on labour participation of people aged 15 and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. The EU-LFS covers the 28 EU member states and Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, from 1983 onwards. The survey uses the same concepts and definitions, follows the International Labour Organisation Guidelines, uses commons classifications (NACE, ISCED, NUTS, ISCO) and collects the same set of characteristics in each country, making it highly comparable across countries. We focus on the EU-15 countries and Iceland, Switzerland and Norway only, as the dynamic between intra-EU and non-EU immigration distinguishes them from other advanced capitalist countries. The EU-10[7], EU-2[8] and Croatia are also excluded from the analysis, as they have only a more recent experience with immigration, thus, a relatively small immigrant population and thus only imprecisely measurable immigrant self-employment rates. We calculate immigrant and native self-employment rates as the share of self-employed immigrants in the total immigrant active population, by country of birth, using the EU-LFS, from 1995 to 2013[9].\n4. Results: This section presents the results of the empirical analysis, investigating first the effect of EPL for regular contracts and then the effect of EPL for temporary contracts. We begin by exploring the (Pearson) correlation between immigrant self-employment with the variables used in our empirical specifications (Table I). Most notably, immigrant self-employment seems to be negatively correlated with GDP per capita and unemployment, and positively correlated with the native self-employment rates. The correlation with EPL seems to be relatively low, and not significant. Native self-employment rates on the other hand seem to be positively correlated with both types of EPL, the effect being rather significant. The variables in the correlation matrix are far from being perfectly collinear, thus, using the controls identified above at the same time should not constitute an issue[11].\n5. Conclusion: This paper investigated the relationship between self-employment rates and the strictness of EPL, comparing immigrants and natives, across 18 European countries, in a longitudinal analysis. We employed a random effects model, complemented by a country and time fixed effects model. We find that regulations governing regular contracts do not have an effect on immigrants' self-employment rates, but they affect self-employment rates for natives positively. We find, however, significant results on the effect of EPL for temporary contracts for immigrants' self-employment rates. While these results suggest that stricter regulation on temporary contracts makes them less attractive and pushes immigrants into self-employment, further analysis is required to investigate the behavioural aspects of this effect as well as the possible non-monotonicity or nonlinearity of the magnitude of this effect across different contexts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on self-employment in a comparative analysis between immigrants and natives. Specifically, it investigates whether, as a result of more stringent regulations, self-employment becomes a vehicle for better labour market integration for immigrants and natives, and for better matching between the supply and demand of labour and skills.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use OECD indicators on the strictness of EPL, self-employment rates calculated for natives and immigrants from the EU Labour Force Survey and a range of control variables, in a longitudinal study covering 18 European countries over the period 1995-2013. The analysis employs a panel regression with random effects as the baseline model, with country and time fixed effects models serving for robustness checks.\nFindings: The results indicate that EPL of regular contracts affects native self-employment positively, with some evidence of a negative effect for immigrants. On the other hand, EPL of temporary contracts positively affects immigrants' self-employment. These results indicate that a stricter EPL crowds out incumbent native workers from the prime employment segment of regular contracts into self-employment, whereas a similar effect exists for immigrant workers in the segment of temporary contracts. This is consistent with the hypothesis of segmentation of labour market opportunities between insiders and outsiders, with implications for immigration, employment and entrepreneurship policies.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to systematically study the effect of EPL on immigrant and native self-employment in a comparative framework. It elucidates to what extent self-employment serves as an alternative channel of labour market integration in response to less and more strict regulation of regular and temporary employment contracts. Distinguishing immigrant and native workers helps us understand how these effects may differ for outsiders and insiders in the labour market, as represented by the two groups.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Digital inequalities and social media: experiences of young people in Chile
|
[
"Social capital",
"Chile",
"Information-seeking",
"Social media",
"Digital divide",
"Social networking services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many commentators have made the case that the internet tends to reinforce social inequalities rather than act as a leveller (Golding, 1996; Norris, 2001; Wei and Hindman, 2011). While there is no single conception of the term \"digital divide\", the majority of definitions consider some or all of the following themes: attitudes towards technology, access, skills and types of usage. Historically, basic access was seen as the key measure of inequality (Benton Foundation, 1998; Strover, 1999). Over time, however, interest has moved away from access concerns to consider skills and the nature of internet use among different groups (DiMaggio et al., 2004; Zillien and Hargittai, 2009; Van Deursen and Van Dijk, 2014). As Schradie (2011, p. 146) argues, \"digital inequality scholarship has expanded from a divide based simply on computer ownership to a range of inequalities in access and use of various digital technologies\".\n2. Methods: A short online survey was conducted to capture data from secondary school students in Chile on their use of social media, in particular for information-seeking purposes (rather than for more general communication uses). Relatively few previous studies have focused on the use of social media for information-seeking among secondary school-age students (Grant, 2005; Willemse et al., 2014 being among the few examples as discussed in detail in Aillerie and McNicol, 2016). Our research sought to answer two research questions (RQs):\n3. Findings: 3.1 Use of social networking services\n4. Discussion: It is not unexpected to find that young people in Chile extensively use social media given the high level of engagement with social media in the country and the provision of digital technologies in schools. However, this research suggests that, despite good levels of access, there are notable differences in the ways in which SNSs are used, especially for information-seeking purposes. In particular, there appear to be differences between types of schools that characteristically attract students from different socio-economic backgrounds. To some extent, this might be expected, as the tendency for higher status individuals to make greater use of the internet for information purposes has been widely documented (Notten et al., 2009; Peter and Valkenburg, 2006). As Zillien and Hargittai (2009, p. 287) argue, \"those already in more privileged positions are reaping the benefits of their time spent online more than users from lower socioeconomic backgrounds\". In the case of Chile, Correa (2015, p. 9) found that \"more educated and skilful individuals tend to use Facebook in more expressive and potentially beneficial ways than lower educated and less skilful people\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to report the findings from a survey of secondary school students in Chile by exploring their use of social networking services for information-seeking purposes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was distributed via Chile's Ministry of Education and 12,354 responses were received.\nFindings: The results indicate that young people in Chile extensively use SNSs, but there are differences in the ways in which they use these services, specifically for information purposes. When considering school-related activities, there are differences in the use of SNSs by students in different types of schools. Those in academic-focussed institutions are more likely to use SNSs for school-related information purposes and are more likely to publish most types of information on SNSs than their counterparts in vocational schools.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample was self-selecting and excluded students without online access to the survey.\nPractical implications: The findings indicate more needs to be done in schools serving lower socio-economic communities to support students' use of SNSs for information-seeking, especially for academic purposes.\nSocial implications: The findings suggest that school-associated social capital may have a role in shaping students' use of SNSs for information and learning purposes and, potentially, in exacerbating digital inequalities.\nOriginality/value: The focus on the use of social media specifically for information-seeking distinguishes this research. The findings challenge possible assumptions about the links between social media use and social class and suggest that differences may be exacerbated by school practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) attitudes: perspective of travel and tourism managers at world heritage sites
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Heritage tourism",
"Heritage responsibility",
"Heritage value",
"Place attachment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, the number of studies focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has significantly increased. Most of those studies have concentrated on why companies should practice CSR (Cheng et al., 2014; Tang, 2011) and the relationship between CSR and corporate performance (Servaes and Tamayo, 2013; Tang and Tang, 2012). More recently, theoretical and empirical studies have started examining CSR from the perspectives of different stakeholders such as the company itself (Bridoux and Stoelhorst, 2014; Harrison et al., 2010), other companies in the supply chain (Xu and Gursoy, 2015a, 2015b), non-profit organizations (Arenas et al., 2009), consumers (Andrea et al., 2011), local communities (Tsoi, 2010) and employees (Lee et al., 2013).\n2. Theoretical framework and research: 2.1 Place attachment and CSR attitudes\n3. Methodology: 3.1 The research site\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive statistical analysis\n5. Discussions and conclusions: Using cross-sectional data from 202 managers at a world heritage site, this study explores how travel and tourism managers' attachment to the place they work at and their identification with the value of heritage resources influence their CSR attitudes. Previous CSR studies have focused on why company stakeholders participate in CSR activities and on the relationship between CSR practices and corporate performance. This study furthers the knowledge on the topic by examining various factors affecting travel and tourism managers' CSR attitudes. It is vital to see things from travel and tourism managers' point of view because they are instrumental in CSR policy implementation and actions, and thus play critical roles in the survival and sustainability of tourism sites (Stylos and Vassiliadis, 2015).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine how tourism impacts on local community, managers' attachment to the community and their identification with the value of heritage resources influence managers' corporate social responsibility (CSR) attitudes, utilizing the value identification and agency theories.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed hypotheses were tested utilizing cross-sectional data collected from 228 managers of a plethora of travel and tourism companies that operate at a UNESCO World Heritage site in China. A structured questionnaire was administered in person in managers' offices by a team of trained research assistants. A total of 202 valid surveys were included in the data analysis. A two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to first examine the psychometric properties of the measurement model, and then test the causal relationships proposed in the structural model.\nFindings: The findings indicate that managers' place attachment, their heritage value identification and their perceptions of positive tourism impacts affect their CSR attitudes. However, the negative effects of tourism do not significantly influence CSR attitudes. Data collected through open-ended questions incorporated in the structured survey have provided justification for the insignificant relationship.\nOriginality/value: CSR perceptions of managers, especially those at heritage sites, have not received much attention from tourism scholars. Because travel and tourism companies at heritage sites are integral in the preservation and conservation of heritage sites while managers of those companies are the ones who initiate and implement socially responsible policies and practices, it is important to understand the factors that may influence those managers' CSR attitudes and behaviors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Expatriate compensation: An exploratory review of salient contextual factors and common practices
|
[
"Expatriates",
"Remuneration",
"Pay"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The globalization of our world economy has evolved significantly over recent decades as organizations have sought opportunities to perpetuate and remain competitive (Lowe et al., 2002). One of the most obvious implications has been the tremendous increase in the number of US workers who are being transferred to foreign countries. In fact, current estimates suggest that over two million Americans are working abroad for US companies at any given time (McCallum and Olson, 2004; Peterson et al., 1996). Previously, being sent on an overseas assignment was an indicator of a career in decline. Currently, however, many organizations, particularly larger multinational corporations (MNCs), consider an overseas assignment a prerequisite for advancing one's career (Chen et al., 2002; Ioannou, 1995).\nExpatriate compensation: a closer look at the fundamental issues: Expatriate compensation has long been a source of frustration for organizations. Despite efforts to develop effective expatriate compensation plans, many organizations simply do not obtain the \"return on investment\" they expect from their plans. Some organizations may have dual and often conflicting goals with respect to expatriate compensation systems. For example, on one hand, the organization must seek to control the escalating costs often associated with expatriate compensation packages. However, on the other hand, the organization must be equitable to their current expatriates, while ensuring the organization offers a compensation package competitive enough to attract, retain, and motivate expatriates. Addressing this dilemma often requires a very complicated balancing act for organizations (Cryne, 2004; Gould, 1999). Yet, in order to attract, retain, and motivate qualified expatriates, organizations must find this coveted balance in order to remain competitive in their foreign operations.This contention is supported by Dwyer's (1999) research arguing that without expatriate professionals who know the business, professionals who are motivated to perform at the highest level, companies may not be able to compete adequately in distant markets. According to Dwyer, expatriate compensation packages are a key requirement for accomplishing success in the foreign operation. Wentland's (2003) research tends to support Dwyer's work in that Wentland focuses on the importance of the selection process in maintaining the viability of an organization's foreign operations. Again, this leads to a variety of pertinent questions that must be considered. Specifically: what factors affect how expatriate compensation is determined? How does the parent organization, in effect, keep the employee whole? How do local market conditions in the host country affect expatriate compensation? There are numerous factors to consider when developing expatriate compensation plans and many organizations are simply not \"getting it right\" as suggested by a number of studies (e.g. Chen et al., 2002; Wentland, 2003). Some of the most prominent contextual or situational factors identified from a synthesis of related literature are summarized below.\nSalient contextual factors affecting expatriate compensation: Ask any international human resource executive about the goal of expatriate compensation packages and they will probably use the word \"whole\" or the concept of wholeness in their answer: \"To keep employees whole\" (Oemig, 1999, p. 40). \"Wholeness\" may mean different things to different groups. In general, however, the concept of wholeness refers to the organization's desire to ensure that the expatriate does not experience an overt gain or loss when all elements of the compensation package are combined (Wentland, 2003). From the expatriate's perspective, however, wholeness may embody their desire to avoid spending a dollar more while abroad than they would at home for any given expense category. Expatriates may even take the concept of wholeness a step further by expecting some type of \"hardship\" or incentive pay for accepting the expatriate assignment (Oemig, 1999; Wentland, 2003). This may result in a dilemma - the organization's conceptualization of wholeness may not be congruent with the expatriate's expectations (Oemig, 1999; Wentland, 2003).How, exactly, does an organization accomplish \"wholeness\" considering the fact that many expatriates may be in locations characterized by a deficiency in infrastructure, modern conveniences, schools for children, shopping facilities, and even adequate healthcare? Even those expatriates located in developed countries may not be \"whole\" (or, perhaps even more importantly, perceive themselves as being kept whole) if simply provided their traditional compensation packages (Oemig, 1999; Wentland, 2003).As a result, many organizations find themselves in the position of having to offer expatriates a variety of alternative compensation elements in order to maintain their sense of \"wholeness.\" The following sections will more closely examine the primary factors associated with \"wholeness\" within the context of expatriate compensation.Host country market cost of living\nCommon approaches to developing expatriate compensation packages: The previous sections have been primarily devoted to reviewing the literature concerning the specific factors affecting expatriate compensation. An improved understanding of salient issues associated with expatriate compensation should not be limited, exclusively, to these factors. Specifically, attention should also be given to approaches commonly utilized by organizations in compensating their expatriates. Consequently, the following section is devoted to examining the different approaches to expatriate compensation.The balance-sheet approach\nConclusion: It is clear that issues related to expatriate compensation can be quite complicated. There are a variety of factors that can directly affect expatriate compensation, with three primary approaches an organization should consider. It is also likely that, for some organizations, the answer to the difficult expatriate compensation decision may be \"none of the above\" - in that some organizations may not utilize the typical or most common approaches to expatriate compensation. Some organizations may mix and match, developing a hybrid-type system for compensating their expatriates using some type of cafeteria approach (Wentland, 2003) or other type of flexible plan (Burns, 2003) in an attempt to be \"fair\" (Baruch, 2004).This article was intended to enhance our understanding of expatriate compensation by collectively examining not only the \"how\" (primary approaches) but also the \"why\" (salient contextual or situation factors) firms should consider when determining how to assemble an appropriate package. Given the implications of these considerations, it is apparent that the topic of expatriate compensation will be the focus of more research by the academic community, particularly with respect to systematic, empirical studies on expatriate compensation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to examine important situational factors impacting expatriate compensation and common practices utilized in compensating expatriates.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A synthesis of literature was reviewed, leading to the identification of numerous situational or contextual factors impacting expatriate compensation. A review of extant literature also identified several customary approaches to expatriate compensation.\nFindings: - A variety of factors can directly affect expatriate compensation, with three primary approaches an organization should consider. These factors include host-country cost of living, housing, dependent education, tax implications and health care - factors most often incorporated as a component of one of the primary approaches to compensation discussions: destination-based approach, the balance-sheet approach, and the international headquarters approach.\nPractical implications: - This article was intended to enhance understanding of expatriate compensation by collectively examining not only the \"how\" (primary approaches) but also the \"why\" (salient contextual or situation factors) firms should consider when determining how to assemble an appropriate package.\nOriginality/value: - Presenting the factors and practices together makes an important contribution to the literature on expatriate compensation by addressing not only the \"how\" (customary approaches) of expatriate compensation, but also the \"why\" (salient contextual factors).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
School autonomy, leadership and learning: a reconceptualisation
|
[
"Leadership",
"Self-management",
"School autonomy",
"Paradigm shift in education",
"Twenty-first century learning",
"School-based management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the last two decades, numerous education reforms have been initiated worldwide (Wang, 2013; Zajda, 2015). Increased school autonomy is one of the major reforms, affecting school-based management, site-based decision making, site-based budgeting, schools' self-management, local school management, etc. School autonomy is widely regarded as an important condition for the improvement of school practices to meet the changing expectations of stakeholders and the increasing demand for high-quality education in the modern era. Schools with greater autonomy are believed to adapt more quickly to changing educational circumstances, and to have sufficient capacity and self-ownership to make curricular and pedagogical changes that enhance students' learning (Abu-Duhou, 1999; Caldwell and Spinks, 2013; Cheng, 1996). Unfortunately, however, the cross-cultural validity of this assumption has not yet been confirmed, due to a lack of strong international evidence (Grattan Institute, 2013; Hanushek et al., 2013; Gorard, 2009; National Audit Office (UK), 2010).\nConceptual limitations: Various efforts to increase school autonomy have been made around the world since the late 1980s. However, the common aim of these movements is to decentralise authority by relocating power structures from central or regional offices to school sites to enable school stakeholders to make their own decisions about resource use and school operations in a rapidly changing academic environment (e.g. Caldwell and Spinks, 1992, 1998; Cheng, 1996; Fullan and Watson, 2000; Mohrman et al., 1994; US General Accounting Office, 1995). The strength of a school's autonomy is often reflected by the extent to which school people have the authority to make decisions about resource allocation and school operations.\nReconceptualisation framework: The conceptual limitations of traditional research on school autonomy and their implications are summarised in Table I. A comprehensive framework for reconceptualising research in this field is proposed and illustrated in Figure 1. The implications and the framework are discussed together in the subsequent paragraphs.\nConclusion: a typology of research strategies: Based on the proposed framework for reconceptualising school autonomy (Figure 1), the potential new strategies for investigating school autonomy in relation to leadership and performance can be summarised as follows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for reconceptualising research on school autonomy to redress the limitations of traditional research, strengthen the conceptual links between school autonomy and learning outcomes and offer a range of new strategies for studying the interplay of school autonomy, leadership and learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a review of international studies and the findings of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS), the conceptual limitations of and gaps in traditional research on school autonomy in relation to leadership and learning are discussed, and their implications for the development of a new framework are outlined.\nFindings: The conceptual limitations of traditional research on school autonomy are as follows: internal school autonomy is insufficiently differentiated; too little attention is paid to cultural autonomy and internal structural autonomy at individual and group levels; autonomy is measured only as perceived by principals, with no attention to the perspectives of other key stakeholders; and conceptual links between school autonomy and learning outcomes are missing, leading to inconsistent findings on the effects of school autonomy on student learning. To redress these limitations, a new framework for research is developed. School autonomy is reconceptualised as a combination of functional autonomy, structural autonomy and cultural autonomy. Leadership is also reconceptualised by categorising three types of leadership activity: leadership for functional initiatives, leadership for structural initiatives and leadership for cultural initiatives. This categorisation may help to strengthen conceptions of the relevance of leadership to autonomy and performance in future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: A typology of research strategies is developed to broaden the possibilities for implementing the reconceptualisation framework. A single-component strategy, a two-component strategy, an interaction strategy and a holistic case-study strategy are presented. Depending on the research purposes and the available resources, one or a combination of these strategies can be used to conceptualise the study of school autonomy, leadership and performance.\nOriginality/value: The new ideas and perspectives associated with the reconceptualisation framework will contribute to future research in this area on an international scale. Future PISA, TALIS and similar studies will also benefit from this reconceptualisation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Reflecting on future research concerning the added value of FM
|
[
"Strategic management",
"Sustainable development",
"Facilities management",
"Stakeholders",
"Value added",
"FM Value Map"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and background: During the past decades, the perception and application of facilities management (FM) has gradually shifted from primarily steering on cost reduction towards managing of facilities as a strategic resource to add value to the organization and its stakeholders and to contribute to its overall performance. Researchers and opinion makers have argued for the need for FM to add value for many years. Price et al. (2011), for instance, write:\nTopics for future FM research: When you ask 100 experts in FM or CREM to mention a top-ten list of most important research topics to work on in the near future, you will probably get 100 different answers. Even so, the lists will have much in common. Table I shows a top ten-list that is based on recommendations for further research by the contributors to the book \"The Added Value of Facilities Management\" (Jensen et al., 2012a), priorities that came to the fore in foresight studies that were mentioned in the introduction part of this paper, the research agenda of Facility Management Netherlands (Thijssen et al., 2012) and suggestions from various European FM conferences.\nA closer look at five topics: The following parts of the article will elaborate further on five topics:\nConclusion: This article shows that in spite of many available research findings, we still need to learn more about the added value of FM. There is still a strong need for conceptual models that connect the different types of value to FM interventions and to test if, how and when these values are or could be incorporated in decision-making processes on strategic, tactical and operational level, by whom, and how to cope with conflicting values and with the dilemma between what can be measured and what really matters. The FM Value Map was an important starting point for the collaborative research on which this paper builds on. It has been thoroughly evaluated and compared with other recent models. It turned out that there is a need to supplement the value map with a broader management concept for adding value of FM and a more action-oriented approach. Sustainability and CSR is an area where FM is expected to have great potential to contribute and thereby add value to corporations. Future research on sustainable FM should be taking more strategic focus and should identify practices and ways which provide the greatest sustainability value instead of sub-optimization or green-washing. The on-going shift from philanthropic towards more strategic CSR and CSV makes it more relevant for FM to contribute to the activities, and thereby play a more strategic role in their organization. Understanding and modelling the FM processes from the shared value perspective will be an interesting research topic for the future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to summarize recent research findings and reflections on The Added Value of Facilities Management (FM) and to outline perspectives for future research and development of the added value of FM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The article is based on reflections on contributions to the recently published book \"The Added Value of Facilities Management\" and related future studies, as well as further exploration of five main themes.\nFindings: Added value is expected to be central in the future development of FM, which is confirmed by recent foresight studies. There is a need for a better understanding of alignment between FM and core business, performance measurement methods and how models such as the FM Value Map can be of value to the involved stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability and branding have great potential to add value and to elevate FM to become a strategic partner with corporate top management. Management of stakeholders' perception of value and relationships are essential aspects as well and need further attention.\nResearch limitations/implications: The article is based on the conclusions of several studies that aimed to explore items for further research, on the ideas of all co-authors of \"The Added Value of Facilities Management\" anthology and on further exploration of five main themes, and not on an extensive review of recommendations for further research to be found in a huge number of research reports.\nPractical implications: The findings and ideas for further research on the added value of FM deliver input to further professionalization of FM.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides important input to the future research agenda on the added value of FM and sheds new light on five particular research topics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Explaining the enduring deficit of public ECEC services in the south of Italy: The case of Reggio di Calabria
|
[
"Southern Italy",
"Familism",
"Early childhood education and care",
"Social services",
"Urban and regional trajectories",
"Welfare models"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As with other care services, early childhood education and care (ECEC) services for children up to 36 months of age (henceforth ECEC or day care) [1] never reached in Italy the status of a full social right. They were established as a public service in 1971 with the national Law 1044, but their regulation and funding have wavered since. From the very beginning they were characterized by a multi-level governance system, with a vertical division of authority that oscillated between decentralization and re-centralization, with tensions among government tiers and often a lack of clarity about responsibilities. More importantly, despite the ostensible legislative efforts, the amount of national resources actually made available for ECEC was systematically inadequate to the task (Da Roit and Sabatinelli, 2013), while the co-funding capacity and implementing propensity of regional governments and municipalities varied significantly.A first consequence of this fuzzy regulatory and inadequate funding framework was the overall limited development of public ECEC services in the 45 years following their establishment. In the school year 2014-2015, Italy still lagged quite behind most other European countries, with a public ECEC coverage (of children aged 0-36 months) equal to 12.6% [2]. A second consequence was the very uneven development of public ECEC services across Italian regions. As shown in Figure 1, regional differences are quite staggering: in 2014-2015, the coverage of public ECEC services in Italy ranged between the maximum of 25.6% in the region Emilia Romagna and the minimum of 1.2% in Calabria, with most north-central regions above the national average and most Southern regions below.Why is Italy plagued by such staggering regional differences and why are southern regions so much behind their north-central counterparts? In what follows, the case of Reggio di Calabria - the largest city of Calabria, the poorest region in Southern Italy - will be presented and discussed. The aim is to illustrate how the complex interplay among structural, institutional and cultural factors - at both the local and national scales and on both the demand and the supply side - contributes to explain the enduring deficit of public ECEC in this city, despite the growth of the local demand for day care.The article is structured in three parts [3]. In the first section, the theoretical background and analytical framework are briefly presented, stressing the need for a time- and space-sensitive approach to understanding institutional trajectories. In the second section, the evolution of ECEC services in the city of Reggio di Calabria is traced in the context of the changing national and regional regulatory frameworks, the peculiar regional programming model and the specific economic, social and political trajectory of the city. In the last section, the described trajectory is interpreted in the light of the proposed analytical approach.\n2. Theoretical background and analytical framework: It is now widely recognized that ECEC services have a relevant impact not only on the reconciliation of family and work commitments - and hence on the participation of women to the labour market - but also in the development of cognitive and non-cognitive capabilities at a key stage in the learning cycle of individuals, especially in the case of disadvantaged children - hence contributing to reduce social disparities and increase human capital (Cunha and Heckman, 2010; Brilli et al., 2011; Del Boca et al., 2016). A key issue is then how ECEC services are regulated and how much they are publicly supported, as quality and affordability of childcare significantly affect the propensity of families to use such services (Hofferth and Wissoker, 1992; Del Boca et al., 2009; Zollino, 2008). This is also why ECEC is considered a key component of the \"Social investment\" strategy launched by the EU in the early 2000s (Jenson, 2012).Beyond these specificities, the topic lies at the crossroads of several broader theoretical debates: welfare models and types of familism; quality of governments and institutions; agency and change in urban and regional development trajectories. Most importantly, it involves the mobilization of a time- and space-sensitive approach (Martinelli and Novy, 2013), since history and geography matter a great deal when analysing institutional trajectories.Time, in the sense of historic periods, is important for defining the role of the state and policy approaches. Space affects trajectories in two capacities: place and scale. Places are characterized by historically determined structures, institutions and cultures, which condition local agency and change, making trajectories path-dependent. But places have a \"nested\" nature, that is, are inserted in broader regional, national, and supranational contexts and are thus also conditioned by complex inter-scalar relations. That is why the evolution of ECEC services in Reggio di Calabria will be examined within specific historical periods and in the broader regional and national contexts.In what concerns welfare models, the very rich debate that developed after Esping-Andersen's (1990) seminal work on the \"three worlds of welfare\" now identifies four main models: the Nordic or Social-Democratic, the Anglo-Saxon or Liberal, the Continental or Corporatist and the Mediterranean or Familistic (see, among others, Anttonen and Sipila, 1996; Ferrera, 1996; Arts and Gelissen, 2002). Italy is generally ascribed to the latter model (Ferrera, 1996; Bettio and Plantenga, 2004; Da Roit and Sabatinelli, 2005; Gal, 2010; Gough, 2010), together with Spain, Portugal, Greece and, according to some, also Cyprus and Malta (Gal, 2010). In a nutshell, countries belonging to the Mediterranean model are characterized by relatively recent industrialization and democratization processes, weak state traditions (with relatively inefficient, often clientelistic bureaucracies), in some cases a \"Bismarckian\" social insurance system, a historically residual role of the welfare state and - most importantly - a strong reliance on the family as main provider of care services (Leitner, 2003; Saraceno, 2004). Countries in this group are indeed \"latecomers\" in what concerns the public provision of universalistic social services (Ferrera, 1996), many of which were introduced in the 1980s and 1990s (Da Roit and Sabatinelli, 2013), although often underfunded because of the incipient budget difficulties of many a government. It is worth stressing that, despite differences in the timing of the \"catching up\" process observed among Mediterranean countries, the economic crisis of 2008 has severely hit all of them (Martinelli, 2017). Leon and Pavolini (2014) speak of a state of \"permanent strain\", as the budgetary cuts introduced after 2010 strongly affected care policies in these countries, especially those of most recent introduction (see also Petmesidou and Guillen, 2014).In what concerns the type of familism, in Saraceno and Keck's (2010) three-partite typology of care policy, Italy is assigned to the familism by default model, as ECEC services are publicly provided and supported only in a limited measure. In fact, even if the lack of demand - influenced by cultural traditions and social norms whereby \"children are best cared at home\" - may still play a role, we contend that a key explanatory factor is the lack of an affordable and good quality supply (Zollino, 2008).This said, a major trait of the Italian model is its conspicuous regional differentiation, especially between southern regions and the rest of the country (Costa, 2009; Martinelli and Sarlo, 2013), owing to historically determined, context-specific factors [4]. While some north-central regions are closer to the Continental model (e.g. Lombardy) - in some instances, even to the Nordic one (e.g. Emilia Romagna) - and exhibit some elements of supported familism or even de-familization because of their earlier industrialization processes, the strong presence of community organizations providing in-kind social services as a \"collective solidarity actor\" (Jenson, 2012) and/or pro-active local governments, southern regions exhibit all the characteristics of both the Mediterranean model and familism by default.The role and quality of government are another relevant theoretical reference (see Rothstein, 2013, for a review), which also engages the broader debate on institutions and regional development (see Rodriguez-Pose, 2013, for a review). The state - at its different territorial scales - is indeed a key actor in social policy. One of the salient features of the Italian state, after the unification of the country in 1861, was its failure to bring about a unitary administrative bureaucracy - in a Weberian sense (Paci, 1989; Fantozzi, 1993; Costabile, 2009). In Southern Italy, this weakness of the central state contributed to reproduce the pre-existing patronage practices (Sotiropoulos, 2004; Gal, 2010). The establishment of regional governments in 1970 further enhanced the existing differences in public administration traditions and strengthened the particularistic and clientelistic approach of many southern administrations (Costabile, 2009; see also Ferrera, 1996). A related aspect is inter-governmental relations, that is, relations among different scales of government. In Italy, the devolution of authority in social policy has been wavering and partial, without either full fiscal autonomy or a consistent transfer of central resources (Marano, 2011). Huge differences have thus remained in the capacity of regional governments to identify and respond to social needs, as well as in the propensity to involve local authorities and other social players (Cerase, 2012; Martinelli and Sarlo, 2014).Finally, in analysing institutional trajectories, special attention must be paid to the role of - and relations among - actors, as they are key drivers of agency and change. Besides the state and its institutions (see aforementioned), other actors, such as service users and private providers, must be considered. The mobilization capacity of these actors is strongly influenced by existing structures and institutions, including social norms (Martinelli and Novy, 2013), but they can in turn trigger and orient change. While some northern and central regions were in Italy characterized by significant industrialization processes, which involved - among other things - high rates of formal female employment, strong working-class organizations, as well as a militant civil society, the southern regions - and especially Calabria - were characterized by feudal agricultural structures (latifundia) and abysmal poverty among the illiterate landless peasants until WW2. Social modernization was exogenously engineered and was not sustained by the development of endogenous productive forces (Martinelli, 2013; Costabile, 2009). Mass political organizations did not take root and collective action was limited. In Reggio di Calabria, in particular, no strong actors emerged, neither from the entrepreneurial class nor from the working classes or the civil society (Barilla et al., 2013). These structural factors explain the dominant role taken by state institutions and the reproduction of clientelistic political relations and social regulation.\n3. ECEC services in Reggio di Calabria: In light of the time- and space-sensitive approach outlined earlier, the Reggio di Calabria case must be positioned within the national and regional ECEC trajectories. 3.1 The national trajectory\n4. Explaining a long-standing and enduring deficit: The question posed at the beginning of this article was \"why is the public supply - and/or public support - of ECEC services still so low in Calabria and Reggio di Calabria, compared to many other cities and regions in the country?\" After describing the socio-political trajectory of Reggio di Calabria in the context of the national and regional legislative and programming frameworks, some interpreting hypotheses are now offered. As argued earlier, the enduring deficit in the public provision of ECEC services in Calabria and Reggio di Calabria is explained - on both the demand and the supply side - by mutually reinforcing structural, institutional and cultural factors, mostly context-specific, but operating also at a broader scale, which have significantly conditioned local actors and their agency potential. 4.1 The demand side\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This article seeks to explain why the public provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in Reggio di Calabria - the largest city of the Calabria region in Southern Italy - has remained among the lowest in the country, failing to respond to the growing local demand for such services. Most of the limited formal supply of ECEC services currently available in the city is almost exclusively provided, for a fee, by private - until recently unregulated - day care centres, whereas households who cannot afford them must still rely on family care.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on original research findings, the article explains how such a supply configuration is the result of several concurrent factors - structural, institutional and cultural, on both the demand and the supply side of the service relation - and has been conditioned by both national and local specificities.\nFindings: The complex interplay of these factors accounts not only for the enduring absence of an adequate public provision of ECEC services in the city and its region but also for the reproduction of an \"unsupported\" familistic model of care, while a loosely regulated private supply answers the growing demand coming from the working women who can afford it.\nSocial implications: The lack of public ECEC, which was significantly aggravated by the 2008 financial crisis, represents a major constraint for women's emancipation and social justice in an already difficult socio-economic context.\nOriginality/value: The article provides in-depth knowledge on the enduring deficit of public ECEC services in a region and city that are little studied, together with a contextualized interpretation of its causes and implications.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Artificial intelligence: scope, players, markets and geography
|
[
"Artificial intelligence",
"Deep learning",
"AI markets",
"Applications and trends",
"Pioneers",
"Regional distribution of companies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Over the past few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has come to the fore and is now expected to be one of the most pervasive disruptive technologies. However, there is no real consensus on the definition of AI, which has changed over time. This paper first clarifies the phenomenon and then gives an overview of its present scope. It looks at the various applications of AI and assesses the markets, highlighting some of the leading industrial sectors in the field, complemented by the geographical distribution of AI companies. Finally, some of the main issues and challenges for policymakers are addressed.\n1. How can we define artificial intelligence?: AI is an umbrella term for the science of making machines smart. It refers to information systems inspired by biological systems. AI encompasses multiple technologies including machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), and machine reasoning. Definitions have changed over time and there is no real consensus on any one in particular. As stressed in the 2016 White House (National Science and Technology Council) Report: \"There is no single definition of AI that is universally accepted by practitioners\". Notions of AI involve multiple viewpoints and sometimes even contradictory ideas. AI began as a science and a set of computational technologies, but even among scientists, there is no established unifying theory or paradigm that guides AI research. However, research on AI focuses primarily on 4 key components of human intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem-solving and perception. It is about understanding the nature of intelligent thought and action using computers as experimental devices (Box 1).\n2. Market, sectors and players: Whatever the definition of AI, these technologies have use cases and applications in almost every industry. They can therefore be expected to significantly change existing business models, while simultaneously creating new ones. Consultancies consider we may be witnessing the early phase of a dramatic increase in AI development and that as a result we should be optimistic about the growth of the market. Some believe that it would not be exaggerated to state that, in the light of current technological and market trends, AI will be absolutely necessary to help people navigate a world of big data, and market shifts that could be too rapid for people to manage. Managing the complexity of the deployment of the Internet of Things is a good example of these challenges. Or, managing data and content, as stressed by A. Bordes[11] \"On Facebook, there is so much content, that it is impossible not to use AI\"[12] (quoted by Tual, 2018).\n3. The global distribution of companies: A look at investment from a regional perspective shows that it is dominated by the USA. Figure 6 illustrates the size and growth of investment in AI in Asia, North America and Europe. In Europe, pretty flat investment over the period 2010-2013 gives way to some growth in 2016.\n4. Conclusion: Even though most of the consulting firms we reviewed seem optimistic about future developments of AI, the range of applications, and the growth of the market; they remain cautious about the pace of the potential changes. They note that businesses are either reluctant to invest in these technologies, or they are rather careful in their approach. Fully fledged deployment may therefore take some time. On both business and consumer sides, demand appears uncertain. The scope of the announced disruption is not easy to assess.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to clarify the notion of artificial intelligence (AI), reviewing the present scope of the phenomenon through its main applications. It aims at describing the various applications while assessing the markets, highlighting some of the leading industrial sectors in the field. Therefore, it identifies pioneering companies and the geographical distribution of AI companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper builds upon an in-depth investigation of public initiatives focusing mostly on the EU. It is based on desk research, a comprehensive review of the main grey and scientific literature in this field.\nFindings: The paper notes that there is no real consensus on any definition for this umbrella term, that the definition does fluctuate over time but highlights some of the main changes and advances that took place over the past 60 years. It stresses that, in spite of the hype, on both the business and consumer sides, the demand appears uncertain. The scope of the announced disruptions is not easy to assess, technological innovation associated with AI may be modest or take some time to be fully deployed. However, some companies and regions are leading already in the field.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper, based on desk research, does not consider any expert opinions. Besides, the scientific literature on the phenomenon is still scarce (but not the technical one in the specific research sectors of AI). Most of the data come from consultancies or government publications which may introduce some bias, although the paper gathered various, often conflicting viewpoints.\nOriginality/value: The paper gives a thorough review of the available literature (consultancies, governments) stressing the limitations of the available research on economic and social aspects. It aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the major trends in the field. It gives a global overview of companies and regions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Preparing transformative leaders for diversity, immigration, and equitable expectations for school-wide excellence
|
[
"Demographic change",
"Transformative leadership",
"Critical race leadership studies",
"Educational leadership programmes",
"Race and racism",
"School expectations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: What is the role of school administrators in creating conditions of equity and high academic expectations in the context of demographic transformation? School administrators' ability to effectively respond to their changing context can seriously affect the schools they lead. Both historically and in the present context, Arizona is ground zero for diversity shaped by patterns of immigration, migration, and 22 American-Indian communities that represent all geographic areas in the state (Douglas et al., 2017). The United States Census (2017) reported that communities of color make up 45 percent of the state population compared to whites at 56 percent. Latina/os are the second largest racial group in the state at 31 percent, followed by African-Americans and American-Indians at 5 percent each, and Asian-Americans at 3 percent of the overall population. Totally, 14 percent of Arizona's population was born outside of the USA.\nLiterature review and theoretical framework: As racism and white supremacy continue to perpetuate racial inequities in Arizona classrooms, the role of educational leadership programs to bring about solutions remains under-theorized. From the literature, there are three interrelated aspects of schooling that affect school leaders' ability to create conditions of equity and high expectations for diverse populations: school structure, school culture, and agency for social justice leadership (Datnow et al., 2002).\nMethods: The SLA is a cohort-based, school leadership program that leads to a master's degree and qualifies the program's graduates for principal licensure in the state of Arizona. Through a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin, 2006), we studied SLA and how faculty prepares aspiring school leaders to meet the needs of Arizona's changing demographics. Since the literature often requires aspiring school leaders to be reflective and reflexive about their leadership practices, we as university faculty also expect that of ourselves as we critically reflected on our participation in SLA's program revision efforts over the last three years. During that time span, we participated in a series of discussions with the program faculty to make racial inequities central to the program purpose and curricular offerings. We want to describe the process in which the program engaged in the revision process as a way to contribute to the social justice literature from the perspectives of leadership preparation.\nTransforming the program: toward an ecological framework of transformative leadership: For the last three years, SLA has embarked on an ongoing program revisioning and restructuring process to respond to Arizona's diverse populations by centering race, equity, and excellence at the heart of leadership preparation. Historically, retired principals and superintendents with decades of experience operated SLA's principal preparation program. Most recently, the hiring of three new tenure-track faculty members with research agendas focusing on race and equity have contributed to the program's change in focus. The program's previous focus was very broad, and in that model, it was the individual faculty's decision whether or how to engage with issues concerning equity and diversity. As a result, issues of race and culture were largely addressed in a single course. In the revisioning and restructuring process, the faculty determined that this model was insufficient for providing aspiring school leaders with the understandings, dispositions, and skills to effectively support the success of Arizona's increasingly diverse student population.\nTransforming student dispositions and leadership practice: In the program's summer intensive, the students meet five days a week to simulate the actual challenges of the principalship. In these sessions, students learn about the history and contemporary practices of deficit thinking and the ways in which it is actualized in K-12 classrooms for students of color, immigrant students, and other marginalized student populations. These activities were designed for students to self-interrogate their personal and professional histories and the life experiences that often contribute to practices associated with implicit bias and lower expectations across various forms of diversity. To help students to effectively name the sources that negatively affect student learning, language about race and racism are central to class discussions. For example, students participated in activities such as a privilege walk and case studies in which they role played various leadership scenarios to elicit critical reflections about themselves, their school context, and the students they serve. Through this continuous process of problem posing and problem solving, students are able to learn the ways in which race is constructed and manifested in their local school. These pedagogical and curricular approaches have allowed students to tackle issues such as racial microaggressions, the racial disproportionality in school discipline and special education referrals, racist assumptions about the \"absent\" parent, among other important issues. Additionally, students are assigned to read about transformative leadership so they can adapt, situate, and apply these leadership concepts in their local setting. These activities were intentionally designed to develop students' systems thinking and sense of self as a transformative leader working across the structure and culture of the school.\nConnecting learning with agency: practicing transformative leadership: To culminate these multiple program experiences in the context and practice of transformative leadership, students are asked to conduct an action research project to address a specific school problem as a part of the internship requirement. At this stage of the program, students are expected to apply the theories they have learned from their coursework in the context of their school. In the process of developing the action research project, students are assigned to one program faculty and a school principal who oversee their project and provide feedback on their change initiatives. Students are expected to identify a problem of practice, learn how to put together a written research proposal that asks questions aligned with the program model, and conduct a literature review to ensure that their intervention is guided by research and the concept of transformative leadership. Throughout the internship, students consult with the faculty and the school principal on various aspects of the project through six semi-structured meetings, and use the appropriate research methods to implement a change initiative to address the problem they have identified. Throughout the various phases of action research, students have the opportunity to reflect on their leadership practices, and to learn how to apply asset-based theories in ways that help them to generate new understanding about the diverse populations in their school.\nConclusion: As the movement of peoples around the world continue to reshape communities and schools in the USA, the preparation of school leaders for this demographic imperative becomes more significant than ever before. This demographic shift is taking place in the context of global economic injustice, war, but also vast social inequities and strong anti-immigrant sentiment in receiving countries like the USA. Thus, conversations on this demographic imperative need to go beyond a simple accounting of K-12 student enrollment, the promotion the learning of English, or surface-level conversations about diversity that often contribute to reimagining immigrants and students of color as the racial other. In our own previous careers as school and district leaders, immigrant children often do not experience the same level of advocacy in the work of equity and school reform. However, the US educational system can no longer afford to have school leaders who are unable and unwilling to effectively work with this population to achieve educational equity and excellence.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze an Arizona university's educational leadership program and the revisioning/restructuring process that program faculty have engaged in to ensure that the program provides aspiring school leaders with the conceptual knowledge, dispositions, and skills necessary to transform their schools in ways that directly address the needs of Arizona's increasing diverse student population and ensures equitable and excellent educational opportunities for every student.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin, 2006), this study examined the Sonoran Leadership Academy and how the program faculty prepared aspiring school leaders to meet the needs of Arizona's changing demographics.\nFindings: The findings indicate that the program faculty have been able to work collaboratively to establish an ecological framework of transformative leadership to develop aspiring school principals' dispositions to tackle systemic racism and practices associated with deficit thinking and low expectations of diverse student populations. By more explicitly and seamlessly weaving concepts and skills related to race, racism, and the structures and cultures that can either perpetuate or disrupt inequitable treatment of diverse student populations throughout all of the courses and experiences of the program, the program faculty made substantial progress in supporting their students to meet the program outcomes around equity and excellence and transformative leadership.\nResearch limitations/implications: The knowledge generated from this study is limited to one specific educational leadership program in Arizona, but the conceptual framework emerged from the study has implications on how educational leadership programs can embark on a similar revision effort to ensure that leadership studies is responsive to the issues of race and racism in the context of schooling and demographic change.\nPractical implications: The results of this study will operationalize a new conceptual model to demonstrate concrete effective teaching practices on ways to prepare school leaders for diversity and demographic change.\nSocial implications: By the year 2050, it is estimated that white Americans will no longer make up the majority of the population in the USA. Since the school system has historically been envisioned as the bedrock of democracy, there is a pressing need for the educational system to respond to issues related to this demographic change and to prepare effective school leaders to establish conditions of equity and excellence for all children across multiple forms of diversity in their local schools.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to scholarship in several ways. First, it introduces the field of educational leadership to an antiracist framework for critical race leadership studies and principal preparation. Second, it methodologically contributes to educational studies by using narrative inquiry to understand the experiences of those who are situated in the research context. Third, the paper connects theory to practice by identifying specific strategies on how to revise a program to meet the needs of diverse K-12 student populations, and how these efforts are connected to the university classrooms in the ways school leaders are prepared for transformative leadership.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Does internal corporate governance mechanism control firm risk? Evidence from Indonesia's three high-risk sectors
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Firm risks",
"Idiosyncratic risk",
"Asset return risk",
"Total risk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Looking at high-risk industries in Indonesia; mining, agriculture and property industries are included in that category. They are very susceptible towards changes in the global macroeconomic (Indonesia Investments, 2018a, 2018b). Factors such as economics, politics, regulation changes, technology, market situation and nature can interfere with the business. The mining industry has been an essential sub-sector of industry since 1970 and has gained constant attention both domestically and internationally. Indonesia has been not only the biggest producer of coal, copper, gold, tin and nickel, but also the biggest exporter of palm oil in agriculture industry (Indonesia Investments, 2018a, 2018b). Generally, larger plantations produce goods like rubber and palm oil that are mainly for export, while smaller ones focus on satisfying the food demand on the locals. In Indonesia, the property industry has low share price due to a slow recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis in 2009 that causes the property demand less than the supply. Moreover, the purchasing power of buying a house in Indonesia is week (DBS Bank, 2016). Risk-taking is fundamental in running business. Following the financial crisis in 2008, firms have turned attention towards risk management. It is in line with ACCA (2012) which highlighted that the board is responsible for managing the risk. Further, the board has two critical roles: as a risk-taking decider and as an internal control mechanism. As a risk-taking decider, the board must comprehend the proper level of risk exposure to the company and be willing to take to accomplish the objectives. Whereas, the internal control mechanism is a part of corporate governance to ensure the risks managed adequately. After the crisis, a large number of investors lost confidence in investing in the companies. To cope with such situation, the companies have attempted to increase the confidence of investors by developing the corporate governance appliance, which comes along with risk governance. In terms of firm risk measurement, most of previous research studies used total risk and idiosyncratic risk (Alam and Shah, 2013; Haider and Fang, 2016; Lee et al., 2016; Lenard et al., 2014; Mathew et al., 2018; Pathan, 2009; Sila et al., 2016; Sun and Liu, 2014). Total risk is known to be a combination of systematic and idiosyncratic risks. This risk identifies the whole risk aspects from both external risk in systematic risk and inherent risk in the idiosyncratic. Meanwhile, asset return risk is another way to assess the firm risk that cover market capital ratio in the measurement. The market capital ratio is viewed as equity's market value to total assets' market value (Flanerry and Rangan, 2008). The ratio helps determine the percentage of shareholders' assets in the company and assess the ability of the company to sustain over a long period. Businesses such as agriculture, mining and property industry are better to have shareholders instead of debt holders due to uncertainties; therefore, using market value may represent the overall market perception about the equity and assets of the company. These two risks are hard to be controlled by the company; the company needs to minimise the risk from within. Idiosyncratic risk is a controllable risk and exclusive to the firm. It includes the corporate culture, operating strategy, financial policy and investment strategy. This risk is the risk that company can control. Furthermore, corporate governance has a strong bond with the internal mechanism as criteria by the board of directors (Li et al., 2012). The internal mechanism is known to be limited, yet the important dimension of corporate governance (Dedu and Chitan, 2013). The corporate boards have the role in supervising and in controlling the risk faced by the company properly for the sake of both the investor and stakeholders. Some possible ways to improve the function of the boards are by gaining the independence level, enhancing the oversight roles and applying practices that are more effective. Among the internal corporate governance attributes, the board composition, i.e. board size, independence and gender, as well as the board leadership structure like the board ownership, are the most affecting factors. This internal mechanism is useful to mitigate the idiosyncratic risk. Therefore, asset return risk and total risk can be controlled as well. Using the samples from agriculture, mining and property industries over the years 2013 to 2017, this study finds that the corporate governance components have mixed results of significant and insignificant impact toward measures of firm risk. Board size and board gender are giving insignificant influence to the firm risks. Board independence has significantly negative influence towards total risk, positive influence toward asset return risk and insignificant influence toward idiosyncratic risk. Board ownership has significant negative influence toward total risk and idiosyncratic risk, but insignificant towards asset return risk. This study notably becomes the first to investigate impact of board size, board independence, board gender and board ownership, which are the internal mechanism of corporate governance, towards firm risks in Indonesia. The firm risks are measured using three measurements, namely total risk, asset return risk, and idiosyncratic risk. The corporate governance used here is closer connection to internal than to external as internal is more suitable to measure the level of risk-taking.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis: 2.1 Corporate governance\n3. Hypothesis development: The board of directors in a company is in charge of appointing decisions to achieve company's goals, while some decisions contain inherent risk bearing (Zhu and Weyant, 2003; Mathew et al., 2016). Wood and Zaichkowsky (2004) stated that the board's decision must reveal the needs of the shareholders as the investors in the company who have different risk appetites. Therefore, mitigating the corporate risks is not the primary purpose of risk management, but it is more on how to pick the appropriate risk along with its level (Mathew et al., 2016). 3.1 Board size and firm risks\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Source of data and sample\n5. Research results and analysis: 5.1 Sample description\n6. Conclusion, suggestion and limitation: It is found that corporate governance has mixed results on firm risk. Board independence has a significant negative influence on total risk, positive effect on asset return risk and insignificant impact on idiosyncratic risk. Meanwhile, board ownership can force the mitigation of total risk and idiosyncratic risk, but it cannot control the asset return risk. Next, board size has an insignificant control towards the three types of firm risks. Although board size is perceived to be one of the considerations in determining good corporate governance practice, board size cannot indicate the significant influence in this study because personal quality is the key to determine board's corporate success and improve the firm risk-taking decision. These findings promote the study of Sambasivan et al. (2009) that explained that risk-taking attitude of board members related to personal quality. Board gender has insignificant control towards total risk, asset return risk, and idiosyncratic risk. These results might happen because Indonesia's regulator has not set the minimum number of gender diversity on the board. Overall, the average number of female on board is very small, as much as 7.9 per cent (Deloitte, 2017). According to the data obtained, the mean of board gender in this study is only 2.6 per cent. Of data observed, the small number of female on board may indicate a symbolic meaning only to get attention from the stakeholders (Wang and Clift, 2009). Moreover, there is no minimum figure of women directors in Financial Services Authority's report (2014). Independent board of commissioners can mitigate total risk. This implies that board independence is able to reduce both external and internal risks. However, board independence increases asset return risk. Independent board members' decisions depend on the quality and completeness of information. As the independent board obtains poor information, accurate decision regarding risk-taking may not be achieved. Hence, uncertainty becomes higher. Risk-seeker investors demand uncertainty, therefore, companies prefer to obtain funding from shareholders rather debtholders. While, from the business risk perspective, it shows that number of independent directors is not affecting the risk because every director has different enthusiasm in taking risk. Although bigger independent board of commissioners has a good monitoring of the company, but smaller board does not indicates the board has less effective monitoring. The results for board ownership are inconsistent with agency theory and past studies; instead, the negative impacts of board ownership towards total risk and idiosyncratic risk are in line with the stewardship theory. Board ownership in organisations encourages boards to control their opportunistic attitudes. The insignificant impact of board ownership on asset return risk may occur due to the small number of shares owned by the directors in the companies. The mean of board ownership in this study is only 2.6 per cent. Besides, there is no regulation about the minimum number of shares owned by the board. Risk-seeking investors tend to the high risk-taking, whereas risk-averse investors consider the low risk-taking. In conclusion, firms should be aware of the result that shows the negative influence of corporate governance on firm risk. Corporate governance is the system of how a company is managed; management discloses these governance activities in the annual report, so that it can communicate to all shareholders that the company has fulfilled the interests of stakeholders. In addition to achieving financial performance, the company's ability to meet corporate governance standards is a form of promotion that can increase public trust. Adequate governance performance is a form of company compliance to regulators in an effort to achieve company goals. However, of the four components in the internal mechanism of corporate governance used in this study, only board independence and board ownerships that have a significant role in controlling the firm risks. Board size and board gender are unable to influence the firm risks. It is essential for the company to pay more attention to the effectiveness of the number of members on the board, as well as the composition of female members on the board. It is not about the numbers, but it is more about the productive roles of all the members on the board in controlling the firm risks. This study is subjected to certain limitations. The values of adjusted R2 for each research model examined in this study are relatively low. It indicates that there are several factors, other than independent variables observed in this study, which can also affect the firm risks. This study focussed on the use of internal mechanism to explain corporate governance as the independent variable, especially limited to board size, board independence, board gender and board ownership. Along with the increasingly dynamic business development, further research studies may use other indicators to explain corporate governance related to corporate risk management and other measurements of firm risks. Aside from that, the observations in this study are limited to the agricultural, mining and property industries listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the period 2013-2015. Future studies can try to investigate the impact of corporate governance on firm risk in different industries and update the observed periods to provide new evidences.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the control of corporate governance towards firm risks for a sample of Indonesian firms in agriculture, mining and property industries. This study highlights the impact of four indicators of internal mechanism of corporate governance, i.e. board size, board independence, board gender and board ownership, on three measurements of firm risks, i.e. total risk, asset return risk and idiosyncratic risk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Panel data analysis is conducted using a sample of 62 companies of agriculture, mining and property industries listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2017. Pooled ordinary least square with hetero-corrected is the statistical approach conducted to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: The result indicates that board size and board gender insignificantly influence firm risks. While board independence gives varied impacts towards firm risks, it gives positive influence towards total asset return risk, insignificant towards idiosyncratic risk and negative towards total risk. Other interesting results are found in board ownership that has insignificant influence on asset return risk and negative influence on idiosyncratic and total risk.\nResearch limitations/implications: Firms should incorporate corporate governance, especially the impactful roles of board independence and board ownership as they serve as tools in reducing firm risk. Moreover, investors may have a better understanding of corporate governance and factors that are influencing firm risks. Therefore, this study can assist them to make the right investment decision.\nOriginality/value: This study is notably the first to use comprehensively three measurements of firm risks in Indonesia. Risks can come from internal and external, thus the company should understand the various types of risks facing the company. Total risk measures both the internal and external risks, while asset return risk gives another perspective using overall market perception about the equity and assets of the company. Finally, this study also measures internal risk, which is the only risk that can be controlled and minimised by the board of the company.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A new approach of social media analytics to predict service quality: evidence from the airline industry
|
[
"Text mining",
"Service quality",
"Sentiment analysis",
"Social media analytics",
"Emotional analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The use of social media platform (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter) has grown significantly among consumers or companies to communicate and share experiences online. According to the research conducted by IBM Big Data, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of social media data were generated daily in 2012 (Zikopoulos et al., 2012). By 2020, 1.7 mb data will be created per second for every person on the Earth (DOMO Report, 2018). Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms and has more than 326m monthly active users as reported in 2019 (Spisak, 2019). This trend has greatly motivated researchers and practitioners to adopt business analysis and big data mining approaches to extract insightful information from the collected large data (He et al., 2015; Shahzad et al., 2017; Hong et al., 2017). Moreover, as it is becoming easier for consumers to connect and interact with companies through social media to voice their opinions (e.g. \"like\" or \"comment\" companies on Facebook, \"follow\" or \"connect\" companies via LinkedIn), scholars also have recommended managers to use social media to communicate with their customers in order to identify prospective business partners in the distribution channel (Shih, 2009) and support the creation of brand communities (Kaplan, 2012; Leek and Christodoulides, 2011).\n2. Literature review and theoretical framework: Service quality assessment is an important multi-disciplinary research topic for both researchers and practitioners. Service quality has been studied in many disciplines such as operational management, marketing and management information systems over several decades (e.g. Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988; Ramanathan and Karpuzcu, 2011). Researchers have developed different tools and instruments to evaluate service quality. Ladhari (2009) reviewed most of the instruments of service quality and found that SERVQUAL proposed by Parasuranman and his colleagues (1985, 1988) has been most widely used.\n3. A proposed approach to studying service quality by using social media analytics: One of the major objectives of this study is to establish an approach to studying service quality basing on social media analytics. As discussed in the introduction section, traditional SERVEQUAL research is largely based on self-report measures, which are subjective to different response bias, such as acquiescence bias, social desirability bias and common method variances. For example, the survey instrument for SERVQUAL constrains the information set based on the constructs available in the survey instrument. It is hard to compare service qualities across companies due to non-publicly available data (Rajaguru, 2016). Furthermore, a survey instrument is prone to sampling issues and response style biases (Suki, 2014). Another common type of measurement is post-service feedback. It has the limited information set based on single-question attributes and the sampling issues (Liou et al., 2011). Since social media contain massive consumer-generated information, mining social media data may provide an effective and objective alternative approach to studying consumer behavior and service quality (Duan et al., 2013). For example, Bates et al. (2014) leveraged big data analytics to identify and manage high-risk and high-cost patients. Xiang et al. (2015) used a text analytical approach to analyzing a large quantity of consumer reviews extracted from Expedia.com and understanding the relationship between hotel guests' experience and satisfaction. However, there is a lack of research to use social media analytics to measure the service quality in service industries.\n4. Methodology: This study concentrates on social media data and textual data analysis. We analyze the data retrieved from Twitter and then compare the official DOT data to find if social media analysis result can be used to predict the service quality efficiently. Sentiment analysis and regression model are applied to this paper and the details of the methodology are as follow.\n5. Discussion: This paper introduces a research framework for assessing service quality through social media analytics and also validates service quality results from social media using official service quality reports in the airline industry. Having applied the SERVQUAL model to propose six dimensions of service quality in the airline industry, we have gathered and analyzed the social media data from Twitter by using sentiment analysis to confirm that the sentiment scores of tweets are aligned with the DOT Air Travel Consumer Report. By comparing the results from social media with official service quality report from the DOT, this study found that the proposed service quality metrics from social media are valid and can be used to estimate the service quality.\n6. Conclusion and implications: Customer complaints in business context have not been the focus of much research (Homburg and Rudolph, 2001; Rossomme, 2003). Business services tend to be technically more complex than consumer services (Dawes et al., 1993; Gordon et al., 1993) and include maintenance, repair and operation services (Jackson et al., 1995; Mathe and Shapiro, 1993). The lack of research focus is particularly intriguing given the high growth in business services currently (Brown, 2002; Fitzsimmons et al., 1998). This novel methodology can help service industry improve service quality by responding to the social media posts and interacting with their customers more quickly. As more and more organizations use social media to disseminate information and interact with their customers, our proposed methodology contributes to the society's efforts to harness the potential power of big social media. Our findings validate the value of social media-based service quality metrics and offer a foundation to make the social media ecosystem more efficient toward digital transformation and sustainable societies. Customers can post any complaints, compliments and suggestions on a business on social media at any time by using their mobile devices. This information posted on social media can be used as the real-time feedback from customers rather than soliciting customer feedback through self-reported surveys. Customer can get the rapid response from the business on social media and hopefully get the issues resolved in a timely manner. There are lots of challenges in service industry nowadays. Since word-of-mouth is important to businesses in today's competitive marketplace, online social media-based word-of-mouth is considered critical to brand reputation and is an important way to attract and retain customers.\n7. Limitations and further research: Some limitations of this study could be addressed in future research. First, this study used only one social media platform - Twitter. Some other popular social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram are not included in our analysis. Future research may employ multiple social media platforms to cross-validate the findings of this study. Second, the sentiment analysis used in this study was mainly based on two significant Lexicons (two dictionaries) to calculate the sentiment for each tweet. Sentiment analysis has applied the Lexicons and words may be evaluated out of context. Another advanced technology could be adapted to include the images posted by customers. Third, we analyzed the tweets in English. There are many other languages that have been used in Twitter. It might be helpful to include other languages such as Korean, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin into social media analysis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Research on how to use social media data to measure and evaluate service quality is still limited. To fill the research gap in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to open a new avenue for future work to measure the service quality in the service industry by developing a new analytical approach of using social media analytics to evaluate service quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses social media data to measure the service quality of the airline industry with the SERVQUAL metrics. A novel benchmark data set was created for each SERVQUAL metric. The data set was analyzed through text mining and sentiment analysis.\nFindings: By comparing the results from social media with official service quality report from the Department of Transportation, the authors found that the proposed service quality metrics from social media are valid and can be used to estimate the service quality.\nPractical implications: This paper presents service quality metrics and a methodology that can be easily adopted by other businesses to assess service quality. This study also provides guidance and suggestions to help businesses understand how to collect and analyze social media data for the purpose of evaluating service quality.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers a novel methodology that uses text mining and sentiment analysis to help the airline industry assess its service quality.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Information dependencies within product architecture: prospects of complexity reduction
|
[
"Product development",
"Product design",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: 1.1 Overview of the product development process\n2 Research scope and objectives: The focus of this research is to integrate the essential features of information flow with the PD process. This perspective includes specific research challenges and problems, which have been identified as the research outcomes.The aim of the research is to provide new insight into and enhance knowledge in the area of PD as part of a better design approach through managing information flow. Valuable information flow, basic configuration principle and different design approaches are presented in this research with a view to optimizing product variants for greater customer satisfaction. Therefore, this research has three objectives:1. to investigate design architecture and display the component dependencies or information flows in a matrix format;2. to examine the formation of suitable clusters/modules through clustering operation with a view to developing modular product architecture; and3. to identify the dependencies and clusters between internal resources (components) and external offerings/solutions (customer requirements) in order to investigate the critical components.\n3 Literature review: 3.1 Theories of information exchange and strategic perspective\n4 Empirical research: This section describes the empirical part of the paper, which was carried out in a case company and was formulated to justify the study and to present how it could be implemented for the benefit of the case company. The study method, deployment examples, experiences and research outcomes are discussed in the following sub-sections.4.1 Research methodology\n5 Discussion and conclusions: In this research, we have focused mainly on how information flow in the business environment iterates within PD processes in order to achieve customized product. To cope with today's trends towards customization or individualization, information flow is presented as a dynamic way to build relationships among designers, engineers and customers. From this research study, we have noticed that along with the information perspective, firms are also lagging behind with appropriate product design and development measures, which are the base requirements for enhancing productivity and customer satisfaction. Available measures such as modularity, product platform, product variants, etc. are widely implemented by firms, although there are limited rules or methodologies for applying these strategies efficiently.The basic scope and objective of this research was to understand the generic concept of information perspective among design architecture that affects the decision-making process of a company in terms of modular design, platform-based PD, and potential solutions for customers, etc. Throughout this study the analytical issues of product architecture and its consequences for PD strategies and customizations were investigated. The basic concepts of module formation and its usability and benefits for potential market growth were discussed. The modeling concept of product modularity, which is one of the basic strategies for developing customized product quickly and economically, was presented. This phenomenon enhances production flexibility, which influences business capability at a higher level. Through the presented case example, it was fairly easy to understand the basics of modular design approach. It is believed that organizational managers would benefit from adopting the presented approach of modularity with a view to scheduling their overall PD processes.This paper also contributes to making a balance between market potential and companies' design philosophy. It makes a tradeoff between firms' external pressures such as product variety, customer solutions, product costs, etc. with internal capabilities such as available resources, capacity constraints, production lead-time, etc. From the empirical study, we also investigated how dependencies or information flows between component architecture and solutions for valuable customers influence the case company's business environment. After a clustering operation, the developed clusters help designers to identify the company's most valuable components, which need to be carefully designed and implemented within the overall engine development process. These valuable or critical components demand special attention as they are used to satisfy most of the customers' requirements efficiently and economically.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to help organizational managers to keep track of the information management needed not only for product design and development but also to track between different organizational levels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research objectives are achieved through implementing the concept in a case company, where various measures of information management are taken into consideration. This empirical study is conducted with a view to formulating and validating the information flow among product development (PD) participants.\nFindings: - The strategic management of information exchange transforms the nature of competition through reducing complexities in product design and bringing flexibility into the production process. This achievement could orientate firms towards rapid and continuous growth of their PD strategies, which are essential for survival in a global business environment.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research was conducted through a single case study approach, which limits its scope for generalizing the concept. It would be more authentic if the approach was validated over multiple case studies.\nPractical implications: - Managing the information flow among PD participants has been considered to be an important issue in today's competitive business environment. It helps to formulate the design architecture, both at the product and organizational level.\nOriginality/value: - The strategic management of information exchange transforms the structure of product architecture, which helps to reduce the complexities in product design and bring flexibility into the production process. The presented approach shows the intrinsic relationships between firms' resources and customers' requirements, which could help product developers to improve their production flexibility, overcome bottlenecks and achieve product customization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Customer engagement in a Big Data world
|
[
"Big data",
"Value creation",
"Customer engagement",
"Data-driven engagement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past few years, \"Big Data\" has altered the business landscape, creating opportunities and challenges for companies. In comparison to traditional data, Big Data is different in the nature of volume, variety, velocity and veracity and has the potential to create substantial value (Wedel and Kannan, 2016). Navigating the potential of Big Data to enrich the process of creating, developing and nurturing deeper customer engagement has become a key business and research (MSI, 2016). Information and communication technologies provide immense opportunities for organizations to engage with customers, because of their capabilities to capture, analyse and exchange an enormous amount of customer intelligence through Big Data approaches. Moreover, these approaches open numerous opportunities to capture value resulting from customer engagement behaviours and, at the same time, lead to advanced competences, helping firms to sustain value creation over time.\n2. The new Big Data environment: The term used to describe the impact of the technologies and the nature of the new digital world is \"Big Data.\" Akter and Wamba (2016, p. 178) define it:\n3. Existing perspectives on customer engagement: The concept of \"engagement\" has been widely explored by scholars from different disciplines, including management, marketing and information systems. It is a phenomenon and a branding practice that stands at the crossroads of the relationship marketing (Brodie et al., 2011; Sashi, 2012) and the value co-creation paradigms (Brodie et al., 2011; Sawhney et al., 2005). However, there is no consensus in the current literature about the conceptualization and definition of customer engagement. The literature indicates that there are three main perspectives from which researchers have defined and studied the concept of \"customer engagement\" in prior studies: psychological process (Bowden, 2009), motivational psychology perspective (Brodie et al., 2011) and behavioural manifestation (Van Doorn et al., 2010).\n4. A dyadic framework of customer engagement: 4.1 Customer engagement as co-creation process\n5. Conclusions and future agenda: Customer engagement has emerged in the last years as a topic of great interest to managers across sectors and industries. With the rise of digital technologies and the diffusion of social media, many companies are attempting to use explicit strategies to foster customer engagement (Javornik and Mandelli, 2012). But customer engagement also entails that firms reassess the ways in which they view and manage the customers and their communities, the processes of creating value, the use and design of technology, the scope and focus of interactions and the customer insights. Similar to the reasons behind the failure of CRM systems (Rigby et al., 2002), much of the firm-driven customer engagement efforts have historically been focused solely on the value to the firm, ignoring the value it creates for the customer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the benefits of customer engagement to the firm and, to a large extent, ignored the customers' perspective. By drawing upon co-creation and other literature, this paper attempts to alleviate this gap by proposing a strategic framework that aligns both the customer and firm perspectives in successfully creating engagement that generates value for both the customer and the bottom line.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A strategic framework is proposed that includes the necessary firm resources, data, process, timeline and goals for engagement, and captures customers' motives, situational factors and preferred engagement styles.\nFindings: The authors argue that sustainability of data-driven customer engagement requires a dynamic and iterative value generation process involving customers recognizing the value of engagement behaviours and firm's ability to capture and passing value back to customers.\nOriginality/value: This paper proposes a dynamic strategic value-creation framework that comprehensively captures both the customer and firm perspectives to data-driven customer engagement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Integrated systems oriented student-centric learning environment: A framework for curriculum development
|
[
"Education",
"Framework",
"Systems theory",
"Assessment",
"Learning styles",
"Curriculum development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Transforming students into graduates who are prepared to work and to sustain their knowledge value-added capabilities in a very complex and changing global market for talent is \"job one\" for institutions of higher education. Each institution pursues this goal with a focus on maintaining high standards of quality in teaching, research, and service. The key to the successful achievement of job one for institutions of higher education is the robustness of the curriculum and the effectiveness and efficiency of academic programs in transforming students into well rounded and productive graduates who are able to make a positive and meaningful difference in their world.\nTheoretical background: The central focus of the framework that is proposed by this study is an integrated model for student to graduate transformation. To achieve job one, each institution of higher education must implement student to graduate transformation processes that are efficient and effective in engendering learning and meet the challenges of financial sustainable. Transformation effectiveness and efficiency depends importantly on three factors: student readiness to be transformed into productive graduates; the configuration of the learning environment; and program content and execution. Financial sustainability is an expected outcome if job one (attracting students, retaining students, and graduating students who are prepared to meet the requirements of the global talent market place) is achieved.\nStudent readiness to be transformed: Basically, student transformation readiness is a function of three factors: student readiness to learn or intrinsic motivation; extrinsic motivating factors (e.g. the attractiveness of the institution's physical, academic, and intangible attributes; the attractiveness of targeted careers; and job prospects); and the level of student academic preparation. These factors are in effect at each point of transition (e.g. high school to freshman, freshman to sophomores, sophomore to junior, and junior to senior; or prerequisites to advance courses) in the educational transformation process. Of the three factors, readiness to learn is arguably the most salient. It essentially involves the question of whether there is adequate intrinsic motivation and incentive for and benefit in making the level of commitment needed for successful transformation from student to graduate. Educational transformation ultimately occurs, other things equal, when students are motivated to learn and they have acquired the skills (creative and critical thinking, model development and application, decision making, and communication) required for a successful career. This is the standard that must be met if an institution of higher education seeks to achieve job one.\nThe configuration of the learning environment: The configuration of the learning environment affects the overall student learning experience. Much headway has been made in institutions of higher education in considering changes in the configuration of the learning environment with a particular focus on the way instruction or knowledge is delivered in the classroom. The awareness of the need to move from the \"sage on the stage\" model of instruction to the \"guide on the side\" model is palpable although there remain pockets of considerable resistance to this change. There is also growing recognition in higher education of the need to align classroom knowledge delivery with the distinct student thinking and learning styles. The work by Gardner (1999), who asserts there are eight components of intelligences that can be used to describe a person's learning style: bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial; and Sternberg (1985), who categorizes the construct of intelligence into three categories (analytical, creative, and practical) provide considerable insights for curriculum design and knowledge delivery in institutions of higher education. Other innovative approaches to instructional delivery that may have a meaningful impact on the student learning experience include: the flipped classroom; hybrid (online and face-to-face) courses; online courses; experiential and hands on learning; and massively open online courses (MOOCs).\nProgram content and execution: The content and execution of the student to graduate transformation process should be geared toward meeting the global talent markets performance expectations of a college or university's graduates. The global talent market place consists of employers, graduate programs, and professional schools who establish their expectations with respect to a college graduates future performance through direct observation of existing employees or program participants who are alumni, word of mouth, surveys, school rankings, advisory board membership, etc. Along with discipline-specific training, the global talent market expects college graduates to possess a level of knowledge value added (the ratio of the expected value added of a graduate's competencies to the expected total cost of their employment) that exceed dynamically increasing minimum performance requirements.\nProposed framework: The key determinants of the effectiveness and efficiency of the student to graduate transformation process (student readiness to be transformed into productive graduates; the configuration of the learning environment; and program content and execution) are actually systems. It is important to note, however, that these systems together form a large ecosystem. When these systems are addressed as separate systems, which is often the case, silos form and harden and coordination becomes a vexing challenge. When these systems are addressed as a system of interconnecting and interacting parts of a whole then the opportunities for insights that connect more broadly across the entire student to graduate transformation process can be developed. Ultimately the answers that address system integration across the organization's academic and non-academic programs and educational support operations will define each institution of higher education's job one value proposition - producing graduates with the level of knowledge value added that meets or exceeds the requirements of the global talent market place (Figure 1).\nInput sub-system of the proposed framework: The input sub-system provides the foundation for efficient and effective learning. According to Piaget learning involves the process of acquiring knowledge by the use of reasoning, intuition, and perception (Van der Maas and Molenaar, 1992). Efficient and effective learning both inside and outside the classroom is the principal job of college students. To be efficient and effective in learning, students: must possess a minimal level of intellectual capacity (IQ); must be motivated to learn; and must be empowered to learn.\nOperations sub-system of the proposed framework: The operations sub-system of the proposed framework is the central part of the student to graduate transformation process. It assumes that students are motivated and empowered to learn and are aware of the importance of learning. The operations sub-system involves two sets of value-added processes: learning program processes and student development and support systems (academic and career advising, mentoring, coaching, advocating, and networking). It is the learning program processes that are of interest in this study (Figure 5).\nOutput sub-system of the proposed framework: The output sub-system represents the results of the student to graduate transformation process. The principal result - students who are well prepared for their roles in the global talent market place - reflects the degree of success of the institution of higher education's value-added activities relative to market requirements in preparing their graduates. Consequently, the targets set with respect to the appropriate level of market valued skilled that an institution's graduates must possess is based on the segments of the global market place (employers) that is targeted by the institution. When an employer hires an institution's graduates they are recognizing the value-added contribution that the institution has made in transforming its students into professional talent. In addition to hiring graduates, this group supports the institution of higher education and its academic programming by serving on advisory boards and by sponsoring internships, cooperative education, and other experiential education for students and faculty.\nFeedback sub-system of the proposed framework: The feedback sub-system of the proposed framework centers on maintaining and improving the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the student to graduate transformation process. Typically institutions of higher education setup strategies and processes to transform students into graduates who are able to perform at a certain level of competency C\nSummary: This study presented a framework for the student to graduate transformation process in institutions of higher education based on fundamental premise that this process is an ecosystem consisting of several interlinked and interacting sub-systems. It is the belief of the authors that it is critical that first, the students are willing to learn and second they are ready to learn. Thus in the initial stage of the transformation process care must be taken to support student intrinsic motivation for learning and to provide students with strategies that empower them to learn. The authors also argue that a key driver of the transformation process should be a feasible set of expected competencies that the global market place for talent expects of college graduates. These market-valued competencies can be used to define the success of the curriculum, course design, and instructional techniques and can be used to determine the sufficiency of the resource allocation by the institution of higher education to specific academic and supporting programs. A pilot study can be done by implementing the suggested framework into one major field of study. The study then can be expanded over other areas of study depending upon the results of the pilot study. In conclusion, the framework proposed in this study is designed to provide an organized approach to achieving efficient and effective learning in institutions of higher education and to establish a systematic approach for implementing a strategy for continuous improvement in the educational process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that serves as a guide to develop a curriculum and instructional strategy that is systems oriented and student-centric.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The framework is based on the theories in the field of education by prominent researchers. The framework is divided into four sub-systems, input, process, output, and feedback. While the input, process, and output sections discuss basic elements critical in students' learning, the feedback section suggests how the learning environment can be controlled and corrected based on student learning outcomes.\nFindings: The paper presents a framework for the student to graduate transformation process in institutions of higher education based on fundamental premise that this process is an ecosystem consisting of several interlinked and interacting sub-systems. A key driver of the transformation process should be a feasible set of expected competencies that the global market place for talent expects of college graduates. These market-valued competencies can be used to define the success of the curriculum, course design, and instructional techniques and determine the sufficiency of the resource allocation by the institution of higher education to specific academic and supporting programs.\nOriginality/value: The framework that is based on integration of well-grounded theories in the field of education. Thus it adds value to the development of curriculum that is needed by the education institutions to excel and compete in the global and dynamic academic environment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cost-effective workforce planning: optimising the dental team skill-mix for England
|
[
"England",
"Public health",
"Dentistry",
"Health care",
"Cost effectiveness",
"Workforce modelling",
"Monte Carlo simulation",
"Optimisation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is an acute need to focus on the planning and provision of dental care for older people to meet their increasingly complex oral health needs (British Dental Association (BDA), 2003; National Working Group for Older People, 2005). England's ageing population coupled with trends in increased tooth retention will have a significant impact on the need and demand for dental treatment amongst older people in the future (Kelly et al., 2000; The Information Centre, 2011). Recent NHS reports reviewing and looking to modernise NHS dentistry highlights the NHS's commitment to workforce planning and their recognition of the potential benefits of optimising the skill mix of the dental team (Department of Health, 2000a, b, 2002, 2004b; National Audit Office, 2004; Medical Education England, 2011).In 2005, the Department of Health commissioned and funded a strategic review, Meeting the challenges of oral health for older people, which was published as a special issue of the journal Gerodontology (December 2005, Vol. 22, No. s1). The work built on an earlier paper published by the BDA (2003) entitled Oral Healthcare for Older People: 2020 Vision. Both reports highlight the acute need to focus on the planning and provision of dental care for older people to ensure that their oral health needs are met appropriately.Another document which provided impetus for change in NHS dentistry is the Department of Health's (2004a) Report of the Primary Care Dental Workforce Review. The review indicated a shortage of 1,850 dentists in England which led to the recruitment of 1,000 extra whole-time equivalent (WTE) dentists by October 2005 and a commitment to increase the number of dental training places (Department of Health, 2004b). Despite these positive steps, studies undertaken by the BDA (2005a) and Boulos and Phillipps (2004), found the shortfall to be significantly higher.Members of the dental team that provide direct patient care include dentists, dental hygienists, dental nurses and dental therapists. The separate roles of the dental hygienist and dental therapist have been combined to create a new role of dental hygienist/therapist (General Dental Council, 2005). Another important change to the dental team is the introduction of the entirely new position, clinical dental technician (General Dental Council, 2005). Clinical dental technicians perform examinations of edentate patients (an adult without any natural teeth) and provide patients with complete dentures. Given the concentration of these treatments amongst the older population, it is likely that clinical dental technicians will come to play a key role in the provision of dental care for older people.With the introduction of the new roles which have finally been confirmed in the General Dental Council's \"Scope of practice\" (General Dental Council, 2010), and concerns over the size of the dental workforce in England to cope with demands for care, there is an urgent need to model both supply and demand for dental treatments, with a focus on older people. Furthermore, there is a need to provide recommendations on the desirable skill mix of dental teams, and their cost-effectiveness, since no apparent guidance is being offered on numbers of dental technicians and dental hygienist/therapists required to help meet demand across England. Operational research (OR) tools are well suited to these types of problem, and of course have already found application in a vast array of healthcare modelling studies and in particular issues concerning workforce planning; for example, in nurse staffing and scheduling (Siferd and Benton, 1992; Dowsland and Thompson, 2000; Harper, 2002; Harper et al., 2010), intensive care staffing (Griffiths et al., 2005) and rostering ambulance staff (Ernst et al., 1999). Despite this vast literature, we are unaware of previous reported applications of recognised OR techniques to dentistry nationally, except that of previous collaboration between the authors though for a different topic of modelling for the geographical planning of dental facilities (Harper et al., 2005). There have, however, been some recent published studies on workforce planning in dentistry (details are provided in the next section), although these tend to be relatively simplistic in their aims and do not seek to address issues surrounding workforce configuration and optimal skill mix.\n2. Previous approaches to dental workforce modelling: A Dutch study, Future Scenarios on Dental Health Care (Burgersdijk et al., 1994), consisted of five sub models; population, pathology, dental attendance, workforce supply and treatment needs. This allowed various factors affecting these elements to be incorporated. For example, the dental attendance sub model considered factors such as price and level of dental healthcare, average quality of dentition and autonomous behaviour changes. A range of scenarios were evaluated including the substitution of activities from dentists to hygienists and the growth in incidence of dental caries, an infectious disease which damages the structures of teeth and leads to decay or cavities. Whilst the model is probably the most sophisticated example of a scenario workforce planning model in public dentistry, it does have some limitations. These include the lack of age specific data on dental treatments for the Dutch population and a failure to include dental staff other than dentists and hygienists which relates to the available skill mix at that point in time.NHS Education (NES) and Information Services Division (ISD) has published a series of reports on Workforce Planning for Dentistry in Scotland (NHS Education, 2004, 2008, 2010). The studies use a combination of trend and scenario modelling to predict the characteristics of the demand dynamics for dental services. Outputs of the supply and utilisation models were compared to obtain estimates of the projected workforce under supply or over supply in the future. The analysis showed trends in increased tooth retention to be a key factor influencing the projected rise in dentist requirements. These reports over time, give increasing recognition to dental care professionals as part of the workforce (NHS Education Scotland, 2004, 2008, 2010).Also in 2004, a similar model was developed by the UK Department of Health to obtain forecasts for supply and demand expressed in terms of clinical time (time spent administering care in direct contact with patients). The findings from this model led to the recruitment of an extra 1,000 WTEs dentists by October 2005 (Department of Health, 2004b). The model combined trend and scenario-based approaches to create individual models for demand and supply. Whilst the model attempts to include the contribution of hygienists, therapists and technicians, by estimating the extent to which their assistance increases a dentist's output, the issue of skill mix and the expansion of these roles are not explicitly considered. Critically, no guidance has been provided by the Department of Health study on the desirable skill mix to accommodate the introduction of the new clinical dental technician and hygienist/therapist roles, although at time of writing the Dental Programme Board for England is examining workforce supply (Medical Education England, 2011).\n3. Developed methodology: The aim of this research was to explore the required skill mix of the dental team to meet future need and demand of older people in England. We were given access to data extracted from the Dental Practice Board (DPB) treatments database. Since the introduction of the new dental fee system (Department of Health, 2005), such detailed treatment data are no longer being recorded at a national level. A more detailed analysis of DPB data resulting from our study is reported in Kleinman et al. (2009) and workforce skill-mix scenarios for dentistry by Gallagher et al. (2010); this paper goes further to report the cost-effectiveness of skill mix and describes the OR modelling in detail.The chosen methodology was to create a spreadsheet model consisting of three sub models for demand for dental treatment, workforce supply and optimisation of workforce skill mix. Figure 1 gives an overview of the entire model structure and how they interact. In summary, predictions on demand (expressed in costs and time) for various dental treatments and then compared to predicted workforce supply (which incorporates workforce competencies and skill mix) to forecast workforce shortages or surpluses. Finally an optimisation approach is used to provide guidance not only on the necessary size of the workforce but the optimal skill mix to meet future demand. Model inputs are discussed in more detail in the following sections.3.1 Demand model\n4. Results: 4.1 Demand model\n5. Recommendations: We make a series of recommendations in order to address the lack of provision of dental care, to promote the efficient use of resources and ultimately to ensure sufficient dental care provision up to 2028. Regardless of the uncertainty surrounding the level of NHS commitment and the WTE dental workforce, there was undeniably some degree of shortfall in dental workforce supply in the short term and under-utilisation of dental care professionals, both hygiene/therapists and clinical dental technicians. In order to meet the average shortfall we recommended the recruitment of additional NHS dental staff including 130 clinical dental technicians and as many extra hygienists/therapists as possible up to a maximum of 3,400 in NHS WTEs immediately as suggested by the baseline scenario. Whilst it is unlikely that it will be possible to recruit such numbers of hygienists/therapists in the short term, the results of the skill-mix optimisation clearly demonstrate the cost benefits of employing substantially more hygienists/therapists and also the introduction of clinical dental technicians to the publically funded dental workforce. This has implications for training and longer term workforce capacity, together with developing and extending their roles.Since this research was undertaken, the numbers of dentists in training have expanded, together with a modest expansion of hygiene/therapists in training. Professionally, the General Dental Council has defined and published the \"Scope of practice\" of each member of the dental team (General Dental Council, 2010). There has been no expansion of DCP roles to allow hygienist/therapists to see patients without the direction of a dentist, whereas clinical dental technicians can do so for patients requiring full dentures.The results of the optimisation suggest that if the skill mix of the dental team were to be exploited to the full, the most cost effective option in the future may be to focus on dramatically increasing the supply of hygienists/therapists and clinical dental technicians serving older people. At time of writing, the Dental Programme Board, the national body overseeing workforce are looking closely at dental workforce supply (Medical Education England, 2011), and a shift in skill-mix training numbers is expected because there is a view that dentist numbers have risen more dramatically than expected. General Dental Council statistics suggest that from 2005, dentist numbers in England have increased by net 7.6 per cent to 25,885 dentists in 2008 and 13.2 per cent in the five years to 2010. Thus clearly the undersupply is being met, mainly through movement of individuals from other European Economic Area countries, and international dentists taking the international qualifying exam. Furthermore, the additional numbers in education and training have begun to emerge from 2010. The question of to what extent the supply of hygienists/therapists should be expanded and the implications for training numbers and quality of care cannot be answered solely by this study. The medical complexity of patient management requiring a dentist's skills, for simple procedures, needs to be researched to inform planning. Furthermore, policy makers must also consider the ethical issues surrounding the overhaul of the way in which dental care is provided and by whom, including professional morale.Ultimately we conclude that policy makers need to weigh up the cost-benefits of implementing the optimal skill-mix workforce against the feasibility, practicality and ethics of dramatically increasing hygienist/therapist numbers, possibly at the expense of dentists. Nevertheless, the quantitative results from our study across a range of scenarios will be a highly useful resource and provide guidance in the decision-making process.\n6. Conclusions: With the introduction of the new dental team roles, and concerns over workforce capacity in England, there is an urgent need to model both supply and demand for dental treatments, with a focus on older people, together with suggestions of the desirable skill mix of dental teams. This is particularly acute since no formal guidelines on skill mix and numbers of necessary staff to help meet demand is being offered by the UK Government. Demand for treatment is certain to rise over the next 20 or more years. An ageing population coupled with trends in increased tooth retention will have a significant impact on the need and demand for dental care amongst older people in the future.In order to address this issue, a three-stage model has been constructed to predict demand for dental treatment, dental workforce supply and optimisation of the skill mix of the dental workforce team for a number of time points between 2005 and 2028. Each of the demand and supply components in our model is based on a comprehensive number of inputs derived from various data sources as well as necessary guidance from public dental health experts, in order to explore possible futures. Five such scenarios have been examined and compared, and a resulting series of recommendations made. The scenarios show that significant cost savings can be achieved through careful planning of the required skill mix and numbers of staff in the dental team, which is drawn from across a number of different dental professions. Our research clearly demonstrates the significant cost-benefits of employing substantially more hygienists/therapists and clinical dental technicians in the dental workforce.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - As increasing numbers of older people retain their teeth for longer, the result is a dramatic change in both the volume and type of dental treatment required. In response to the ageing population issues, changing dental needs, a shortage of NHS dentists, and the creation of new roles in the dental profession, both the UK Department of Health and British Dental Association have emphasised the importance of dental workforce planning and in particular to estimating the size and skill-mix of the dental team. The dental team includes such professions as dentists, hygienists, therapists and technicians. The purpose of this paper is to present collaborative work between operational researchers and dental public health researchers, and as such is the first academic project to utilise operational research (OR) techniques to address issues surrounding predictions on demand and supply of dental activities in England, with recommendations on the necessary skill-mix of the dental team.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A three-stage model has been constructed to predict demand for dental treatment, dental workforce supply and optimisation of the skill-mix of the dental workforce team over the next 20 years. A cost-benefit study is included and Monte Carlo simulation is used for sensitivity analysis.\nFindings: - The findings reveal a significant shortage in dental workforce supply, both currently and projected for the short-term future.\nSocial implications: - Demand for dental treatment is certain to rise over the next 20 or more years. An ageing population coupled with trends in increased tooth retention will have a significant impact on the need and demand for dental care amongst older people in the future. This research makes a series of recommendations in order to expand public care provision in a cost-effective manner.\nOriginality/value: - There is an urgent need to provide recommendations on the desirable skill-mix of dental teams, and their cost-effectiveness. This paper presents novel collaborative work between operational researchers and dental public health researchers, and as such is the first academic project to utilise OR techniques to address issues surrounding predictions on demand and supply of dental activities.\n",
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Exploring the urban consumer's perception of local food
|
[
"Barriers",
"Local food",
"Supermarkets",
"Drivers",
"Attitude-behaviour gap",
"Urban consumer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, UK consumer interest in locally sourced food has gained momentum. According to Mintel (2008), UK consumers were still supporting local food despite the economic downturn as they were keen to support local economies. Institute of Grocery Distribution (2010) reported that between 2006 and 2010 support for local food had almost doubled within the UK. Furthermore, food topic-related programmes television programmes and advertisements have continued to be a prominent media trend (Mintel, 2011). This has enabled UK consumers to gain a clearer understanding of the food supply chain and local food. Nevertheless, the growth of out of townshopping within the last three decades has subsequently seen the closure of independent stores who would typically stock local food (CPRE, 2012). Such fundamental changes to the way UK consumers shop for food can be seen as potential barriers to the purchase of local food.\nDefining \"local food\": A key issue which concerns local food is that there is no apparent single definition (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), 2003; Jones et al. (2004); Mintel, 2008). Adsearch (2009) define local food as approximately 30 miles from where a consumer lives, compared to 60 miles for regional food. It is therefore desirable to make a distinction between regional and local food in order to avoid confusion for consumers. Adsearch's definition can be further clarified by DEFRA (2003, p. 40) as \"[...] food produced, processed, traded and sold within a defined geographic radius, often 30 miles\". The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) (2006) also found that consumers in the Midlands region of the UK support this view and see local food as food produced within 30 miles of their residence.\nConsumer perceptions of local food: Socio-economic AB consumers are the most likely to purchase local food and demonstrate a keen interest towards it (Mintel, 2008; IGD, 2008). This is promising for local food purchases as this group is expected to increase by 13 per cent from the years 2008 to 2013 (Mintel, 2008). The over 65-year olds are most likely to be purchasers, followed by 45-65-year olds and again both groups are expected to grow in forthcoming years. The age group most adverse to purchasing local food are the 25-34 year olds (Mintel, 2008, 2011). Overall, older, wealthier and well educated females are the most likely purchasers of local food (Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), 2008; Mintel, 2008; Socio-Economic Research and Intelligence Observatory (SERIO), 2008).\nThe purchase of local food: Despite the existence of an attitude-behaviour gap for local food products, Mintel (2011) reported that between the years of 2004 and 2009, consumers increased their spending by 36 per cent and local food's share within the total UK food spend grew from 7.0 to 8.2 per cent. Mintel (2011) also found that nearly half the UK population (48 per cent) buy local food when possible and 45 per cent would like more availability at their supermarket, signalling a strong interest in this category. However, according to IGD (2006), the Midlands compared to other regions in the UK, has the lowest percentage of consumers buying or wanting to buy more local food. It was found that 32 per cent of consumers purchased local food, compared to 53 per cent of consumers in London. The Midlands also scored as the highest region for not buying, or not intending to buy local food (IGD, 2006). In Wales and Scotland, it was found that local food is more popular; with 45 and 41 per cent of consumers', respectively, purchasing local food. These findings also showed that local food is purchased more frequently in London. This can be accredited to the aspirational nature of the product, with London consumers wishing to lead a rural life and they appear to be buying into that way of life when purchasing local food (IGD, 2006).\nKey drivers for the purchase of local food: Improved taste, freshness and quality of produce are cited as key drivers for consumers when purchasing local food (Seyfang, 2006; Chambers et al., 2007; Murphy, 2011). IGD (2008) found that these factors were the main reasons for consumers purchasing local food, with 60 per cent of consumers stating \"freshness\" as their top motivational factor. In agreement with this view, Tippins et al. (2002) states that consumers believe that local produce will be \"fresher\" due to a shorter distribution channel which allows for fruit and vegetables to ripen more naturally.\nBarriers to the purchase of local food: While Adsearch (2009) reported that consumers view value for money as a key benefit of local food, they were concerned with paying a premium price for some local food products, as they believed that the prices should be congruent with mainstream products. However, according to IGD (2006) a premium price could be used providing that it was justified by improved quality, otherwise local food risks becoming only a premium-priced purchase and being seen as a special occasion purchase (IGD, 2006).\nMethod: For this study, four separate focus groups held at University College Birmingham were conducted to delve deeper into urban consumers' perceptions towards local food. These were held in a meeting room at University College Birmingham. Focus groups were chosen as the research method as they allow for multiple opinions to be generated from key consumer groups. Deeper understandings and new insights into participant's attitudes are more likely to be generated within the social environment of a focus group (Breen, 2006). Conversely, one to one interviews would have only probed individual opinions and ideas and therefore, would have provided less insightful data for this exploratory study.\nFindings: Key drivers\nLabelling issues: The groups were presented with four milk cartons and asked which one they would choose to purchase. The cartons were; St Ivel brand, Morrisons fresh milk supplied by British dairy farmers, Morrisons fresh milk from dairy farms in your region - Heart of England and Co-op brand - British milk with Union Jack picture clearly positioned on the front of the packaging. It became apparent that food purchases such as milk were habitual with little actual attention being paid to the labelling, with only the sell by date being of any interest. This was apparent for both male and female consumers. Some participants favoured branded items due to positive associations with them, demonstrating how they can prevent consumers from switching to local produce.\nDiscussion: The study demonstrated that a significant barrier to the purchase of local food for the urban consumer, is the convenience of the \"one-stop shop\" offered by the supermarket and the lack of availability of local food within the area which supports findings from earlier studies such as Lobb et al. (2005) and IGD (2008). It was evident from our findings that food shopping at the supermarket is almost habitual for the urban consumer and sourcing local food in Birmingham is time-consuming due to lack of access and availability which discourages the purchase of local food. This view is reinforced by Owen et al. (2007, p. 18) who asserts that \"supermarket shopping in particular often follows a routine and many participants buy similar products each time they do their main weekly, fortnightly or monthly shop\". Despite our findings demonstrating some interest in local food for the urban consumer, the lure of the supermarket for a \"one-stop shop\" is more appealing than alternatively visiting a range of outlets which is necessary due to lack of access to local food in Birmingham. Thus, for the urban consumer, supermarkets stocking higher levels of local produce would enable them to purchase local food in a convenient and accessible way, allowing for barriers such as time, convenience and availability to be reduced. Although, in accordance with the views of Jones et al. (2004) supermarkets need to demonstrate that their interest in local food is more than a marketing opportunity but that they are champions of local small scale producers. While supporting local producers was not found to be a strong key driver within our findings, those supermarkets sincerely supporting local economies may encourage greater interest and purchases of local food from the more ethically minded consumer.\nLimitations of the study and future research: The research is beneficial as it provides an investigation into the somewhat \"disconnected\" urban consumers' perceptions and attitudes towards local food which is previously lacking within the literature. Additionally, it has shown that while urban consumers demonstrate a positive attitude towards local food, the supermarket dominates their choice of food shopping and that this is a barrier to purchase behaviour. This research is useful to all those involved in the supply of local food but in particular it reveals how supermarkets would benefit by concentrating their efforts on increasing local food product lines and that the merchandising, signposting and promotion of these products needs to be improved to encourage consumer purchasing. Nevertheless, there are limitations to this study that affect the generalisability of it to all urban consumers within the UK. For instance, only urban consumers from the population of Birmingham were sampled and certain issues discussed within the focus groups may be specific to that of Birmingham, with perceptions and attitudes differing from those urban consumers habituated in other urban areas. The sample also consists mainly of older consumers (45 years+) and due to younger consumers (25-34 years old) being the most disengaged with local food (Mintel, 2008), it would have been insightful to uncover the reasons for this. However, focus group 3 consisted of students that were all under the age of 34 so the study was still able to gain some insights into this particular consumer group. Male urban consumers were also under represented within our sample as only 20 per cent of participants were male. These limitations were mainly due to sampling the four focus groups by social class grading and due to the accessibility of participants. The justification for this sample was to gain insights from those most likely to purchase local food which according to Mintel (2008) are older, wealthier, female, educated consumers. In addition, to gain an insight into consumer perceptions of food labels, only one food product was shown to participants within the focus groups. However, we believe that we gained an understanding of a cross-section of Birmingham urban consumers through our focus group method that identified key barriers and drivers and implications for the retailing of local food.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the perception and attitudes of urban consumers in the UK towards local food.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Four focus groups were conducted with participants from Birmingham, UK. A pre-focus group questionnaire was issued to participants to gather demographic data and to provide participants with the \"Making Local Food Work\" definition of local food. Following on from the focus groups, participants were e-mailed to enquire whether they had any additional comments to provide.\nFindings: The results of the study revealed that despite urban consumer interest in local food, this did not necessarily translate in to purchase behaviour. Convenience of the \"one-stop\" offered by supermarkets along with availability, price and food labelling were found to be key barriers to the purchase of local food. Alternatively, key drivers were identified as freshness, health benefits and improved quality.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings are limited with respect to the lack of male participants and younger consumers (pre 45 years old) within the sample whose perceptions of local food may differ from those studied.\nPractical implications: Findings support the need for supermarkets to increase their offering of local food for the urban consumer. In addition, supermarkets should improve merchandising, signposting and labelling of local food to encourage increased levels of purchase behaviour from the urban consumer.\nOriginality/value: The paper explores the somewhat \"disconnected\" urban consumers' perceptions and attitudes towards local food. On the whole, previous studies of local food have not specifically explored this particular group of consumers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Evaluation of production control strategies for negligible-setup, multi-product, serial lines with consideration for robustness
|
[
"Kanban‐like production control strategies",
"Shared and dedicated kanban allocation policies",
"Multi‐product systems",
"Negligible set‐up times",
"Optimization",
"Robustness",
"Stochastic dominance",
"Kanban",
"Optimization techniques"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Several studies, such as Geraghty and Heavey (2005), Liberopoulos and Dallery (2000), Marek et al. (2001) and Bonvik et al. (1997), have been conducted on lean production and inventory control strategies in single product manufacturing environments. Multi-product manufacturing environments, on the other hand, are usually more complicated to study. However, a study by Baynat et al. (2002) proposes two approaches for the control of multi-product, pull-based, production systems; shared and dedicated Kanban allocation policies. In a system operating a shared Kanban allocation policy product types share a common pool of Kanban cards, whereas in a system operating a dedicated Kanban allocation policy each product type is assigned a set of Kanban cards. These two Kanban allocation policies have been studied in both serial lines contexts (Deokar, 2004) and assembly line configurations (Khojasteh-Ghamari, 2009). Section 2 of this paper provides a more detailed literature review of prior research in this domain.In this study, the system under consideration is a multi-product, serial line, processing two product types, for which the performance of the dedicated and shared allocation policies of the GKCS and EKCS strategies as well as the dedicated allocation policies for CONWIP, BSCS and KCS strategies are compared. Baynat et al. (2002) refers to these strategies as Kanban-like control strategies and are, henceforth, similarly referenced in this paper. The negligible-setup, multi-product, serial line assumed for this study is based on the type of reconfigurable systems with rapid changeover described by Marek et al. (2001). Such reconfigurable systems allow swift changeover between the processing of different product types and are a feature of many modern, complex, flexible manufacturing environments.The numerous parameters involved in the design and optimisation of multi-product systems make them more complex to study and as a result a simulation modelling approach was used in conducting the study. Simulation-based optimisation using a genetic algorithm was used to determine the optimal Kanban and/or base stock settings for each strategy studied. Each of the strategies was initially optimised by minimising the level of work-in-process (WIP) inventory required to achieve a target service level (SL) of 95 per cent for each product type, simultaneously. The comparison was then based on the level of WIP used by each strategy to achieve the target SL. The details of the system studied, the model development and the optimisation approach are provided in Section 3.In Section 4 we explore the selection of a pull-based production control strategy for negligible-setup, multi-product, serial lines without consideration for risk in the estimation of the of the sources of instability in a manufacturing system. Findings in studies, such as Boonlertvanich (2005), Bonvik et al. (1997), Duri et al. (2000), Geraghty and Heavey (2004), Gupta et al. (1999) and Koulouriotis et al. (2010), have shown that the level of instability in manufacturing systems has a significant impact on the performance of pull production control strategies. In some cases, a high level of system instability can render some pull production control strategies inapplicable.Only a few studies on the shared and dedicated Kanban allocation policies have investigated how they will perform under varying levels of instability that might originate from variability in demand, processing time, setup time and/or breakdown and repair times. Deokar (2004) studied systems under varying levels of processing time variability and different number of production stages (3 and 6 stages) in a multi-product manufacturing system. Baynat et al. (2002) have already shown that the shared Kanban policy cannot be operated with a Kanban control strategy (KCS) and this was also shown in Olaitan (2011) to extend to the CONWIP and BSCS strategies.Industrial practitioners require solutions that are not only optimal but also robust to changes in the environment. Therefore, the robustness of the optimised parameters for each of the strategies and their different allocations policies is also investigated here in Section 5. The robustness tests are conducted in the presence of conditions such as changing demand rates, frequency of breakdown and duration of machine repair to understand the sensitivity of the strategies to these instabilities. Gaury and Kleijnen (1998) and Kleijnen and Gaury (2003) conducted similar robustness tests of production management systems in single product manufacturing systems. The outcome of the robustness test gives insight into the suitability of each of the strategies and card allocation policies under different conditions of instability. This can serve as a basis for combining different card allocation policies in a single system in a manner similar to the horizontally integrated hybrid production system used for combining push and pull production control strategies in studies such as Cochran and Kaylani (2008).\n2 Literature review: A primary objective of any organisation is to meet customer demands in the most profitable means achievable. Profitability depends on many factors surrounding the organisation such as the purchasing, marketing, supply chain management and production management programmes. In this study, the focus is on the production and inventory control aspects of managing manufacturing systems.2.1 Production control strategies\n3 Model development: The manufacturing system studied for the purpose of experimentation was a three stage, serial production system with negligible set-up times. The system was observed operating in a push-based mode in a health-care products manufacturer. Management wished to evaluate how to control the inventory in the system in order to meet customer service level agreements. We were, therefore, tasked to investigate the potential to operate a pull-based line capable of producing two or more similar products, with the assumption of negligible set-up times.Two different part types are produced in the system and Table I details the processing times for each product at each workstation. Based on the assumption of a corrective maintenance policy (the practice at the company), the MTBF and MTTR were modelled with exponential distributions with means of 90 and 10 hours, respectively, corresponding to 90 per cent availability of each of the workstations. In order to set a reasonable level of loading of the production capacity, ten pilot runs of the simulation were conducted in push mode, i.e. without Kanban restrictions and with an assumption of unlimited demand. During this set of runs, the throughput rate was obtained for each of the part types separately and averaged over the ten runs. This was then used to set the demand arrival rates for the two product types in the system under consideration as 90 per cent of the Push mode production capacity. This corresponded to a mean time between demands of 5.61 and 5.72 hours for part types 1 and 2, respectively.These values for mean time between demands are specified with a normal distribution because of its suitability for modelling distributions that represent a combination of events, and in this case the demand events can be said to emanate from different customer sources. Moreover, with a normal distribution the mean and standard deviation values can be easily combined to represent different levels of demand variability which is part of the aims of this study. It was aimed to experiment with the situation of having to cope with two products of highly disparate levels of demand variability. Therefore, the standard deviation for Products 1 and 2 were set to 2.805 and 0.572 hours corresponding to 50 and 10 per cent of their mean values, respectively. The final system has 90 per cent capacity loading level with the configurations presented in Table I.3.1 Model assumptions\n4 Experimental analysis without consideration of robustness: 4.1 Experimental setup\n5 Experimental analysis with consideration of robustness: The method of risk analysis, which has mostly been used in financial and investment-related analysis, has also been extended to carrying out robustness analysis of production control strategies. Kleijnen and Gaury (2003) conclude in their study that the traditional approach of optimising a strategy for a particular scenario may be too risky in making judgments about the performance and thereby conducted further analysis of the strategies over a range of environmental scenarios. The outcomes of their work, in which they used this approach on an existing initial work by Bonvik et al. (1997), show disparity between the conclusion derived from conducting the experiments on an optimised base scenario and when robustness of strategies to instability are considered.In this study, the same concept is applied in the context of multi-product environments where different Kanban allocation policies are also involved. First, experiments are conducted on the optimised base scenarios, followed by robustness tests for which the outcomes of the two approaches are compared. DOE, Taguchi Loss function and Monte Carlo methods are some of the methods that have been used in conducting similar studies, like it has been done with financial and investments analysis and the design of highly delicate and critical systems. Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) is the preferred method for conducting this study because of the possibility of achieving better coverage over the ranges of deviation of the factors. Gaury and Kleijnen (1998), state that a minimum of 100 samples are needed for a LHS. In this study, therefore, 100 samples are taken, over the range at which the factors are to be varied, followed by randomly combining them to form scenarios and then experimenting with the systems under these scenarios to record new realisations of the performance measures.Alternative strategies are compared by conducting stochastic dominance tests on the cumulative density function plots of their outcomes for the various scenarios. Stochastic dominance test results can be of first-degree, second-degree and some other higher degrees depending on the significance of the difference between the outputs. The first-degree of dominance is often recognisable by visual observation. Stochastic dominance is described as follows for two systems Y and Z with cumulative density functions FY(x) and FZ(x) where the objective is to maximise the value of x.System Y is said to first-degree stochastically dominate Z, if: Equation 5 System Y second-order stochastically dominates Z, if: Equation 6 In real life situations, there are usually other justifications for taking decisions about the suitability of systems based on the outcome of sensitivity analysis tests and as such the use of higher-order stochastic dominance tests is not always necessary.5.1 Robustness tests using LHS\n6 Insights for operations engineers: We have extended the approach of conducting Robustness tests on production control strategies to multi-product manufacturing systems and to identify the factors that have the most impact on the performance of different strategies. In addition to these, the two different Kanban allocation policies described by Baynat et al. (2002) were compared for a multi-product manufacturing environment.The approach of comparing systems by optimising PCSs for a particular base condition was used alongside the robustness approach, and the high level of discrepancy in the results further strengthen the need for performing robustness tests for PCS studies. The result of the initial study on the base scenario recommends the Shared GKCS as the best because it offers the lowest level of average WIP. Even though, shared GKCS still continues to offer the least average WIP during the robustness test, the other strategies now possess better service levels. Meanwhile, BSCS which was the worst in terms of the average WIP for the base scenario test, offered the best service level for the robustness test. KCS, CONWIP and the two EKCS strategies lie in between achieving the high service level at one extreme and keeping inventory tightly low at the other end. Out of these four strategies, the dedicated EKCS is recommended for manufacturing set-ups seeking a trade-off, because it clearly outshines KCS and CONWIP in terms of service levels and average total WIP. It is also a better option ahead of its shared policy counterpart whose dominance over CONWIP and KCS is not as clear.The outcome of this study has also succeeded in highlighting how the two Kanban allocation policies will perform when multiple products of disparate levels of demand fluctuations are involved. This is a very common scenario in modern multi-product manufacturing environments. The effect of system bottleneck location on the inventory accumulation behaviour of different strategies was also described, and this was observed to have a relationship to the nature of a PCS's Kanban information transmission. Furthermore, the importance of the level of interaction involved in the Kanban and Basestock settings of individual product types has been shown. Studies such as Deokar (2004) and Bhuvnaesh (2006) report the same Kanban and base stock settings for all the product types involved in the system, despite the fact that the base stock and Kanban levels for individual products strongly depend on factors such as their individual processing times and demand arrival rates.\n7 Opportunities for future work: In our opinion, while the system modelled is a theoretical, two product manufacturing environment with identical machines, the approach followed and proposed here for optimisation, robustness assessment, bottleneck analysis and selection of a production control strategy would be valid for real world applications in multi-product manufacturing environments. We are currently working with an industrial partner, a supplier of electronic components to the automotive sector, to verify the applicability of this methodology. This case study will enable us to assess the methodology in an environment that has a larger number of products, significant set-ups and non-identical machine processing and availability distributions.The poor performance of KCS relative to other PCS in this environment is a similar finding to most previous work on single product environments. The surprise was that CONWIP, which has generally been shown to outperform PCS such as EKCS and GKCS in single product environments, was not the best strategy in this two product environment. Further work is required in order to determine whether the relative performances of the various strategies are particular to the system and scenarios studied or generalizable to a class or classes of manufacturing systems. Another avenue for further research is in the area of investigating, more rigorously, the effects of bottleneck location, bottleneck severity (degree of difference in availability relative to other stages) and uncertainty of demand on the performance of the various PCS in terms of WIP and service level. Additionally, it would also be interesting to explore how these strategies would perform in a multi-product environment subject to unstable demand profiles.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aims of this paper is to investigate simulation-based optimisation and stochastic dominance testing while employing kanban-like production control strategies (PCS) operating dedicated and, where applicable, shared kanban card allocation policies in a multi-product system with negligible set-up times and with consideration for robustness to uncertainty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Discrete event simulation and a genetic algorithm were utilised to optimise the control parameters for dedicated kanban control strategy (KCS), CONWIP and base stock control strategy (BSCS), extended kanban control strategy (EKCS) and generalised kanban control strategy (GKCS) as well as the shared versions of EKCS and GKCS. All-pairwise comparisons and a ranking and selection technique were employed to compare the performances of the strategies and select the best strategy without consideration of robustness to uncertainty. A latin hypercube sampling experimental design and stochastic dominance testing were utilised to determine the preferred strategy when robustness to uncertainty is considered.\nFindings: - The findings of this work show that shared GKCS outperforms other strategies when robustness is not considered. However, when robustness of the strategies to uncertainty in the production environment is considered, the results of our research show that the dedicated EKCS is preferred. The effect of system bottleneck location on the inventory accumulation behaviour of different strategies is reported and this was also observed to have a relationship to the nature of a PCS's kanban information transmission.\nPractical implications: - The findings of this study are directly relevant to industry where increasing market pressures for product diversity require operating multi-product production lines with negligible set-up times. The optimization and robustness test approaches employed in this work can be extended to the analysis of more complicated system configurations and higher number of product types.\nOriginality/value: - This work involves further investigation into the performance of multi-product kanban-like PCS by examining their robustness to common sources of uncertainties after they have been initially optimized for base scenarios. The results of the robustness tests also provide new insights into how dedicated kanban card allocation policies might offer higher flexibility and robustness over shared policies under conditions of uncertainty.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bottom-up learning, organizational formalization, and ambidextrous innovation
|
[
"Learning organizations",
"Organizational innovation",
"Strategic management",
"Organizational structures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In face of dynamic environment, firms are challenged to establish strategic flexibility through innovation to cope with market or technological discontinuous change (Jansen et al., 2006; He and Wong, 2004; Cao et al., 2009). Furthermore, as the pace of change accelerates, top managers are often challenged to recognize potential opportunities for innovation unless they are near the frontline (Haynie et al., 2009). So, does bottom-up learning can enable firms to promote innovation and thus build flexibility for dynamic environment? Bottom-up learning refers to information gathering of managers from bottom-line employees with lower level. However, extant literatures offer conflict views regarding the bottom-up approach. According to information-processing theory, bottom-up learning can enable top managers to collect the information of new technological developments, unexpected problems, changing market competition and customer demands (Beer et al., 1990; Mom et al., 2007; Alexiev et al., 2010) and thus foster exploratory innovation which increases firm's strategic adaptability for future change. In contrast, another line of research rooted in organizational inertia theory suggests that although bottom-up information increases diversity, organizational specialization often foster employees' local search near their job. In this view, bottom-up learning may foster exploitative innovation, which may cause success trap and make firms obsolete (Leonard-Barton, 1992; Levinthal and March, 1993; Benner and Tushman, 2003). Therefore, whether bottom-up learning foster more exploitative innovation or exploratory innovation and thus establish bottom-up flexibility for future remains unclear.Although the two views are both insightful, either of them depicts part of the whole picture with their implicit either-or assumption. However, although position virtue of bottom employees enables them to notice the new immediate information of the customer demand, technological developments and competition, they may also filter the information far from their local responsibility (Aldrich and Herker, 1997). Thus, a both-and assumption is more appropriate and a combinative view of information processing and organizational inertia is necessary to resolve the existing controversy. Furthermore, organizational structure differs in effective information processing and therefore a matching organization design is necessary to leverage the potential of bottom-up learning for innovation. Does the role of bottom-up leaning is contingent on organizational structure? This question is far from being answered by extant research.This paper combines the information-processing and organizational inertia theories to investigate the effects of bottom-up learning on both exploitative and exploratory innovations, and also the moderating effect of organizational formalization. With this confluence of two views, we propose that the effects of bottom-up learning are curvilinear and differential across exploitative and exploratory innovations. Furthermore, the organizational formalization significantly moderates these effects. In this way, this paper extends both organizational inertia and information-processing views by bring a more complete picture on the bottom-up approach to build strategic flexibility through innovation. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the effectiveness of bottom-up approach is contingent on organizational formalization.\nTheoretical background: Exploratory and exploitative innovation\nHypothesis development: Bottom-up learning and exploratory innovation\nMethodology: Sample and data collection\nAnalysis and results: Table II reports the descriptive statistics and correlations of the variables used in the regression analyses. No interfactor correlations are above the 0.65 threshold, suggesting that our estimations are not likely to be biased by multicollinearity problems (Tabachnick and Fidell, 1996). In order to test our hypothesis, we employed a stepwise multivariate regression approach following previous research (Aiken and West, 1991; Baron and Kenny, 1986). Table III presents the steps performed, and the results for each steps. Before analysis, we mean-centered all the variables to minimize the threat of multicollinearity in equations where we included interaction terms (Aiken and West, 1991). Furthermore, we also calculated variance inflation factors (VIF) to assess multicollinearity. In all models, the VIFs are below 3, which are well below the cut-off of 10 (Neter et al., 1990).We first entered the control variables only and ran Model 1. H1 proposes an inverted U-shaped effect of bottom-up learning on exploratory innovation. The results of Model 2 show that bottom-up learning positively relates to exploratory innovation (b=0.324, p<0.001) while bottom-up learning square negatively relates to exploratory innovation (b=-0.202, p<0.001). Therefore, bottom-up learning has an inverted U-shaped effect on exploratory innovation, in support of H1. H2 proposes an accelerated positive effect of bottom-up learning on exploitative innovation. Model 6 shows that both bottom-up learning positively (b=0.458, p<0.001) and bottom-up learning square (b=0.204, p<0.001) positively relate to exploitative innovation. Therefore, bottom-up learning has a J-curved effect on exploitative innovation, in support of H2. Furthermore, Models 3 and 7 include a cubic term to examine whether a higher order relationships exists. As Models 3 and 7 show, cubic are both insignificant. The addition also does not increase the share of the variance with insignificant change of R2. To clarify these curvilinear relationships, we show the effects in Figures 2 and 3 following Aiken and West (1991). Figure 2 clearly shows that the positive effects decline after a certain point while Figure 3 shows an increasingly positive effect on exploitative innovation. These results fully support H1 and H2.Models 4 and 8 test the moderate effect of organizational formalization. Model 4 shows that the interaction of organizational formalization with bottom-up learning has insignificant effect on exploratory innovation while that with bottom-up learning square has significantly negative effect on exploratory innovation (Model 4: b=-0.157*, p<0.05). Thus, the positive effect of bottom-up learning is weakened, in support of H3a. Model 8 shows that the interaction of organizational formalization with bottom-up learning has insignificant effect on exploitative innovation while that with bottom-up learning square has significantly positive effect on exploitative innovation (Model 4: b=-0.157*, p<0.05). Thus, the effect of bottom-up learning increases with a high speed and the positive effects are strengthened, in support of H3b.Discussion and conclusion\nConclusion: Addressing the conflicting views on the role of bottom-up leaning, this research combines the information-processing and organizational inertia views to explore the effects of bottom-up learning on both exploratory and exploitative innovations. This paper also investigates the moderating effect of organizational formalization. Four hypotheses were proposed and tested by data from 213 firms. The findings show that bottom-up learning has accelerated positive effect on exploitative innovation while have an inverted U-shaped effect on explorative innovation. Furthermore, the organizational formalization strengthens the positive effect of bottom-up learning on exploitative innovation and the U-shaped effect on exploratory innovation. This research extends information-processing and organizational theories and provides a whole picture on how firms built innovation through bottom-up learning aligned with appropriate organizational structure.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to address the conflicting views on the role of bottom-up learning; this research combines the information-processing and organizational inertia views to explore how bottom-up learning affects both exploratory and exploitative innovations and if the effects are contingent on organizational formalization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data for this study are obtained through an interview survey instrument from 213 firms. The questionnaire is adopted from several previous studies on organizational learning, structure and innovation with minor translation adjust. A pilot test was conducted and necessary modifications were made to the questionnaire. Tests show that the sampling validity is not biased by non-response bias and the measure reliability and validity are acceptable. Furthermore, Harman one-factor and CFA tests show that the results should not be biased by common method bias. The multicollinearity is also tested and controlled during regression analysis.\nFindings: - The findings show that bottom-up learning has accelerated positive effect on exploitative innovation while having an inverted U-shaped effect on explorative innovation. Furthermore, the organizational formalization strengthens the positive effect of bottom-up learning on exploitative innovation and the U-shaped effect on exploratory innovation.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to organizational inertia and information-processing theories by providing a complete picture on how firms built exploitative and exploratory innovations through bottom-up learning aligned with appropriate organizational structure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Numerical analysis of reliability and availability of the serial processes in butter-oil processing plant
|
[
"Manufacturing systems",
"Modelling",
"Markov processes",
"Runge‐Katta methods",
"Maintenance reliability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The reliability and long run availability of the system can be increased by taking some of its components as standby using perfect switching. The analysis of the reliability and long run availability of an industry can help its management to understand the effects of increasing/decreasing the repair and failure rates of a particular component or sub-system on the overall reliability and long run availability of the system. These issues have been discussed in this paper for butter-oil processing plant. In the last 35 years, several research papers and books have been published that discuss various facts of reliability technology. The concept of reliability can also be applied in other fields using different techniques. Habchi (2002) discussed an improved method of reliability assessment for suspended tests and Gunes and Deveci (2002) have studied the reliability of service systems and its application in student office. Singh (1984, 1989a, b), suggested some applications of reliability technology such as fertilizer industry, sugar industry and biogas plant. Kumar et al. (1988a, b) discussed feeding systems in the sugar industry and paper industry. Dhillon and Natesan (1983) discussed power system in fluctuating environment. While Dayal and Singh (1992) studied reliability analysis of a system in a fluctuating environment. Goel and Singh (1995a, b) presented reliability analysis of a standby complex system having imperfect switch over device and availability analysis of butter manufacturing system in a dairy plant. Mahajan and Singh (1999) discussed the reliability analysis of utensils manufacturing plant. In these papers, authors used either Laplace transforms method or Lagrange's method to solve Chapman-Kolmogorov differential equations associated with a particular problem. It has been observed that these methods involve complex computations and it is very difficult to calculate reliability of the system by these methods. In fact, whereas the problem of determining long run availability of the system has been extensively studied in literature, the problem of finding the reliability of the system has not satisfactorily been tackled till now. This has motivated us to use numerical technique in order to calculate reliability of the system having several sub-systems.In this present paper, we propose to solve the governing differential equations of the system with the help of fourth order Runge-Kutta method to calculate reliability of the system. We use recursive method for calculating long run availability and MTBF per day is a calculated using numerical technique. Figure 1 gives the flow chart of the process of butter-oil manufacturing plant.This paper is organized in five sections. The present section is introductory in nature. In section 2, a brief description about system and its notations is presented. Certain assumptions on which the present analysis is based are also given in this section. The main differential equations governing reliability and long run availability are discussed in section 3. In section 4, effect of failure and repair rates of the sub-system on reliability and long run availability of the plant have been studied and section 5 gives the analysis of these results for the butter-oil.\n2. The system, notations and assumptions: Butter-oil manufacturing plant, discussed in this paper consists of eight sub-systems out of which pump and chiller are supported by stand-by units with perfect switch over devices. We have considered that these two systems never fail. The mathematical modeling is carried out for the remaining six sub-systems that are prone to failure:1. Sub-system A (separator): this part of the plant works on the principle of centrifugal force. Chilled milk from chiller is taken to the cream separator, where fats are separated from the milk in the form of cream containing 40-50 per cent fat and the remaining skimmed milk is stored in milk silos for preparing milk powder. It consists of three components in series, namely, motor, bearings and high-speed gearbox.2. Sub-system B (pasteuriser): cream from separator is pasteurised in this sub-system. Pasteurisation refers to the process of heating every particle of cream to not less than 71 degC. In practice it is heated up to 80 degC to 82 degC for no holding time. Its purpose is to destroy pathogenic organisms, to destroy undesirable organisms, to inactivate the enzymes present and to make possible removal of volatile flavours. This sub-system is also used to remove the tanning substances present in the cream. The pasteurised cream is stored in double-jacketed cream storage tank for further processing. When the pasteurised milk goes out of this sub-system, some particles (or residues) get stuck around the outlet and the flow gets affected. This effect gradually increases with the passage of time and sludge is formed at the out let. This sludge gradually increases in size and blocks the flow of milk, thus resulting in the failure of the sub-system. This sub-system consists of a motor and bearings in series.3. Sub-system C (continuous butter making): cream from the cream storage tank is pumped into the continuous butter making machine (CBM). The cream is churned in this machine in order to get butter granules. The buttermilk produced in this process is pumped back to raw milk silos and the butter granules are further processed in the machine so as to get homogeneous mass of butter. The homogeneous butter is taken out from machine into butter trolleys and shifted to melting vats. The CBM consists of gearbox, motor and bearings in series.4. Sub-system D (melting vats): this sub-system consists of a double-jacketed storage tank. Butter is melted in this section at about 107 degC very gently so that the water evaporates from the melting butter. The melted butter is then allowed to remain undisturbed for about half an hour. This sub-system consists of monoblock pumps, motors and bearings in series.5. Sub-system E (butter-oil clarifier): butter-oil from melting vats is taken out into butter-oil settling tanks where it is allowed to settle for a few hours. After this the fine particles of butter-oil residue are removed from the butter-oil and then butter-oil is stored in storage tanks. Now, it is cooled to a temperature of 28 degC to 30 degC suitable for storage of butter-oil. This sub-system consists of motor and gearbox in series.6. Sub-system F (packaging): in this sub-system the packets of processed butter-oil are created using a pouch-filling machine. It is a fill, flow and seal automatic machine. This sub-system consists of printed circuit board and pneumatic cylinder in series.In addition to the notations used for sub-systems, i.e. A, B, C, D, E and F, we have also used the following notations:* B- indicates that sub-system B is working in reduced state.* ai,i=1, 2, ... , 7, represents, respectively, the constant failure rates of sub-systems A,C,D,E,F,B- and B.* bi,i=1, 2, ... , 6, represents, respectively, the constant repair rates of sub-systems A,C,D,E,F and B.* We have also definedPj(t), j=1, 2, 3, ..., 13 as the probability that the system is in jth state at time t. Dash (') represents derivative with respect to t.* The symbols a,b,c,d,e and f represent the failed state of the sub-systems A,B,C,D,E and F, respectively.In the present analysis, it is assumed that:* Repair and failure rates are independent of each other and their unit is per day.* There are no simultaneous failures among the sub-systems.* Sub-system B fails through reduced state only.* Repaired components function like the new components.* The switchover devices used for standby systems are perfect.Based on the above notations and assumptions, the transition diagram of the system is given in Figure 2. This figure is used as the basis for applying the mnemonic rule that helps us in constructing the differential equations governing the butter-oil processing plant.\n3. Mathematical formulation of the system: To determine reliability and long run availability of a butter-oil manufacturing plant, the mathematical formulation of the model is carried out using mnemonic rule for six sub-systems. We have analysed two states of the system, namely transient state and steady state.Transient state\n4. Numerical illustrations: In this section, we calculate the long run availability for steady state and reliability for transient state of the system based on empirical values of failure and repair rates of sub-system.Steady state\n5. Analysis of results: Analysis of reliability, long run availability and mean time before failure of butter-oil manufacturing plant can help in increasing the production and quality of the butter-oil. Some of the earlier research workers, who tried to find out reliability of the processing systems by using Laplace transformation method or Lagrange's method, considering the long run availability of process industries only and the effects of failure and repair rates of sub-systems on reliability of the system could not be established. This is because these methods are not easily applicable when the systems are complex. The proposed method can be applied to complex systems that may be governed by a large system of differential equations as well. Using this method, we can easily study the effects of failure and repair rates of different sub-systems on reliability of the complete system. Detailed study of Tables I-X reveal that sub-systemA, namely, separator has maximum effect on the long run availability and reliability of complete system. Other sub-systems are almost equally effective. Hence, it is suggested that management should take utmost care of this sub-system to increase overall performance of the butter-oil manufacturing plant.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Proposes a method to compute reliability and long-run availability of the main parts of the butter-oil (melted butter) manufacturing plant. This manufacturing plant consists of eight sub-systems working in a series. Two sub-systems, namely pump and chiller, are supported by stand-by units with perfect switch-over devices and the remaining six sub-systems are prone to failure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Mathematical formulation of the model is carried out using mnemonic rule for these six sub-systems. Reliability, availability and MTBF of the serial process in the butter-oil processing plant have been computed for various choices of failure and repair rates of sub-systems of this plant.\nFindings: - Analysis of reliability, long-run availability and mean time before failure of the butter-oil manufacturing plant can help in increasing the production and quality of the butter-oil.\nOriginality/value: - Industrial implications of the results have also been briefly discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Towards higher maintenance effectiveness : Integrating maintenance management with reliability engineering
|
[
"Maintenance management",
"Effectiveness",
"Reliability engineering"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Maintenance management (MM) is important for manufacturing plants, electricity generation plants and distribution systems, airlines operations, for facilities as buildings, roads and bridges, and so on. Lack of effective MM would surely tell on financial performances. In addition, that may lead to safety hazards and loss of human lives. Arriving at an effective MM is a complex task. Maintenance deals with events, which are very much uncertain, irregular in nature. It is quite dependent on human expertise and skills, and mostly beyond automation. Without a thorough and systematic approach, it is hardly possible to carry out maintenance functions satisfactorily. There has been substantial discussion in the relevant literature on how MM should be approached. We would discuss a few of such important approaches in the following.\n2. Some important concepts of reliability engineering: Satisfactory maintenance of machines and equipment, undoubtedly, would depend on the knowledge how the machines deployed in the organization are designed, how these work, how these may fail and how such failures can be remedied. We highlight, in particular, the following points. MM decisions should have a cognizance of these. The suggestions made by us in the next section are based on these observations. Further discussions on the following points may be found in the texts by Anderson (1995) and Jensen (1995), among other sources.\n3. An actionable program for effective MM: In this section, we suggest some steps, which according to the preceding discussions, would be some logical steps to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in MM. Such steps can be implemented relatively easily. These proposed steps are called here as an Actionable Program for Maintenance (APM). We may describe these as in the following, a seven-point program.\n4. Concluding remarks: MM, which is an important function for any organization having a large number of machines and equipment, has been discussed in the relevant literature at length. There have been many proposals of approaches to deal with such functions satisfactorily. All such approaches have some positive points. But no approach is complete in itself and there is need of making a synthesis of these. We have proposed some steps, termed as an APM, for effective and efficient MM, synthesizing and adding to different approaches available. Some distinctive features of our proposal are that:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a few steps to enhance maintenance effectiveness in practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author reviews the strengths and limitations of different approaches to maintenance management (MM). Some relevant practical observations of reliability engineering are discussed. Based on these, and drawing on the research on MM in relevant literature, the author suggests a few steps, suitable for implementation, for effective MM.\nFindings: Review of available approaches to MM and some factors of reliability engineering points to some ways to improve maintenance effectiveness in the practical sense.\nPractical implications: Implementation of the steps, as suggested in the paper, should enhance the effectiveness of MM leading to higher machine uptimes with less of maintenance costs. In such steps, the ease of implementation in practical situations has been given due importance.\nOriginality/value: In the steps, called as an \"Actionable Program for Maintenance,\" that the author suggests, he has highlighted some issues, and has made some suggestions, which are new.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The bright side of social categorization: The role of global identity in reducing relational conflict in multicultural distributed teams
|
[
"Social identity",
"Social categorization",
"Global identity",
"Cross-cultural conflict",
"Multicultural distributed teams",
"Team interdependence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The interrelated trends of using team-based work structures and the growth of organizational heterogeneity, along with the far-reaching effects of globalization (Eisenberg and Mattarelli, 2016; van Knippenberg and Mell, 2016), have led many organizations to use multicultural distributed teams across broad geographical boundaries (Connaughton and Shuffler, 2007; Maznevski and Chui, 2013). Whereas global organizations aim to utilize the talent, diverse knowledge, and skills of professionals regardless of their location and cultural background (Gibson et al., 2014), the ensuing cultural diversity that such strategies create can frequently result in team conflicts and disagreements (Hinds et al., 2014; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt and Jonsen, 2010).\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Multicultural teams are comprised of unique characteristics that include both diversity and dispersion (Maznevski and Chui, 2013). The \"diversity\" aspect is an inherent trait found in multicultural teams because of the culturally diverse backgrounds of team members. Whereas national-local team members possess a shared meaning system based on their common cultural heritage, multicultural team members must overcome the obstacle of potentially disparate national perspectives regarding work expectations, procedures, and decision making, which can lead to misunderstandings and relational conflicts (Hinds and Mortensen, 2005; Nurmi and Hinds, 2016). The second aspect of dispersion denotes geographically distributed teams, which are often defined as virtual teams (Gilson et al., 2014; Martins et al., 2004). Although some multicultural teams are collocated, the nature of global work requires the increased prevalence of multicultural teams that perform activities extending beyond national borders. Indeed, the nature of this work design means that the geographical distribution aspect often coincides with diversity and multiculturalism (Gibson et al., 2014). These teams rely heavily on information and communications technology, and can potentially lack the experience of acquiring or having shared perceptions or context that would naturally materialize in a collocated setting (Cramton, 2001; Marlow et al., 2017). Past research has shown that when reliance on information and communications technology is high, information flow can be hindered (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2011) and team coordination is reduced (Penarroja et al., 2013), which contributes to team conflict (Furumo, 2009). Therefore, the work format that leads to the making of a multicultural distributed team environment has greater potential for relational conflict compared to that of collocated, culturally homogenous teams. This is due to the diverse cultural background of members and the virtual nature of the communication (Gibson and Gibbs, 2006; Gibson et al., 2014).\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Means, standard deviations, and correlations at the group level are provided in Table I. As evident from the correlation table, global identity was positively related to perceived proximity (r=0.34, p<0.01), and perceived proximity was negatively related to relational conflict (r=-0.30, p<0.05). Additionally, global identity was positively related to previous experience in global companies/multicultural teams (r=0.27, p<0.05), and to cultural intelligence (r=0.60, p<0.01). These relationships are consistent with previous studies on global identity (Erez et al., 2013; Shokef and Erez, 2008), which demonstrated that global identity is positively related to the level of cultural knowledge and experience working in global contexts that an individual possesses.\nDiscussion and conclusions: While organizations aim to utilize multicultural distributed teams to achieve better performance, the proverbial \"fly in the ointment\" of such strategies is that social categorization processes may render diversity a disadvantage as it increases the potential for relational conflicts that are detrimental to task performance (De Dreu and Weingart, 2003; Jehn et al., 1999; van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Indeed, during the last few decades, the bulk of team diversity literature uses the social categorization theory to articulate its disruptive effects on diverse team processes, and specifically as a dominant explanation for conflicts, faultlines, and ineffectiveness occurring within diverse teams (Stahl, Makela, Zander and Maznevski, 2010; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt and Jonsen, 2010; Stahl and Tung, 2015). Contrary to this aforementioned approach, the current study demonstrates how global identity - as a shared identity - allows multicultural distributed team members to self-categorize as part of a common global ingroup. Specifically, building upon the common ingroup identity model (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2010, 2012), we demonstrate how higher levels of global identity among multicultural team members are related to higher levels of perceived proximity, which is linked to lower levels of relational conflict under low, rather than high, levels of team interdependence.\nConclusion: This study contributes to the literature on conflict in multicultural distributed teams by demonstrating that global identity can indeed foster the perceived proximity of team members, which subsequently attenuates levels of relational conflict under low, rather than high, levels of team interdependence. This research provides new insights that will be valuable to practitioners in global organizations managing multicultural distributed teams.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using social categorization perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of global identity, perceived proximity, and team interdependence on relational conflict in multicultural distributed teams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants were 317 MBA students in 83 multicultural distributed project teams. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap methods were used to test the study model.\nFindings: The results demonstrate that the indirect effect of global identity on relational conflict, through the pathway of perceived proximity, is moderated by team interdependence. More specifically, global identity leads to higher perceived proximity and lower relational conflict levels under low, rather than high, interdependence levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: The particular study context (multicultural distributed MBA student project teams) may limit the extent of the generalization of the findings.\nPractical implications: The findings presented here can help practitioners in global organizations to defuse relational conflicts in multicultural distributed teams by embracing a global cultural approach and relying on shared global identity in team building, personnel selection, and development. Additionally, managers should be conscientious when they use the practice of facilitating interdependence between team members and assess the need for other interventions.\nOriginality/value: This study advances multicultural distributed team research by highlighting the role of global identity in reducing relational conflict, identifying the mediation mechanism of perceived proximity, and the boundary conditions of team interdependence levels under which this attenuation effect prevails.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Measuring supply chain visibility in the apparel industry
|
[
"Visibility",
"Supply chain management",
"Supply networks",
"Apparel",
"Textile",
"Benchmarking"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The apparel industry has attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners in the last decades because of the growing complexity of the supply chain. The competitive environment has become more and more hostile (Kilduff, 2000) because of the globalisation process, the market dynamicity, and the competitive pressure. As a matter of fact, this is a sector where the competition is fierce, especially within the retail environment (Newman and Cullen, 2002). To face the industry challenges, companies have been prompted to focus on their core competences, and therefore they have externalised an increasing amount of their activities (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). In the last decades, apparel companies have outsourced most of the production phases to complex networks of suppliers, sometimes located hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from the headquarters. Moreover, finished products are delivered worldwide through complex distribution networks, which typically include large retailers, mono-brand stores (owned by the company itself or managed by franchises), multi-brand stores, and corner shops in large shopping centres. Modern competition has therefore shifted from \"company vs company\" to \"supply chain vs supply chain\" (Christopher, 1998; Cox, 1999), and the commercial success or failure of a supply chain leader is largely determined by the ability to manage multiple relationships with its business partners. As a result, researchers have focused their attention on supply chain management, and specifically on achieving supply chain visibility which has the potential of improving both operational efficiency (Smaros et al., 2003) and planning capabilities (Petersen et al., 2005). Effective coordination along the supply chains helps to achieve innovation, flexibility and speed, which can be sources of competitive advantage (Lee, 2002).Literature presents numerous metrics to quantitatively assess the degree of visibility a focal company (i.e. a supply chain leader) has on its external supply chain. However, most of them focus on simplistic, two-tier or linear supply chains, which hardly represent the modern supply chain complexity. Structured metrics suitable to complex networks have been recently proposed (Caridi et al., 2010b), and can be used to build up benchmarks on the current level of supply chain visibility. However, they are focused only on the inbound supply chain, and in order to be usable in the apparel industry they should be extended to the outbound network. Indeed, apparel firms are interested in increasing their control over the sales network as well in order to build a demand-driven supply chain (Brun and Castelli, 2008).In this paper an original metric for measuring visibility on the outbound networks is proposed. The results of an empirical analysis in the apparel industry are presented, which shows the quantity and quality of visible information in 11 companies belonging to the apparel industry, and compares visibility on outbound supply chain vs inbound supply chain. The degree of visibility that best-in-the-class companies have along their supply chain could set the target for the other companies, and so indicate the priorities for a supply chain visibility improvement project (Caridi et al., 2010b). This preliminary study has been limited to Italy, where many of the prominent companies operating in the industry are based, but further research could easily extend the scope of the analysis to companies headquartered in other countries. In any case, most of the supply networks included in the study have a global scale.The paper is structured as follows. The next section analyses the importance of visibility in the apparel industry and provides a classification of the main scientific contributions regarding visibility measurement. Section 3 presents the research objectives and methodology. Section 4 deals with the visibility metric and the results of the case studies. Finally, some remarks and future research paths close the paper.\n2 Research background: 2.1 Supply chain visibility in the apparel industry\n3 Objectives and methodology: Consistently with the evidences of the literature review, this paper aims to provide a twofold contribution to the state-of-the-art.First, it attempts to extend the model to measure the level of visibility proposed by Caridi et al. (2010b) so that it can be applied to outbound complex networks, considering both internal (i.e. proprietary stores) and external (e.g. large retailers) nodes. The model proposed in this paper was originally conceived on the basis of an in-depth literature review, and then it was validated by means of brainstorming sessions (Osborn, 1963) with experts in logistics and supply chain management.Second, it presents an application of the proposed metric to build up a preliminary benchmark of the current degree of visibility in the apparel industry. A case study methodology was used (Yin, 2003), resorting to multiple sources of information, i.e. interviews, questionnaires, databases (Eisenhardt, 1989), to characterise the supply chain and measure the level of visibility. The analysis was organised in four phases. First, a sample of 35 leading companies having their headquarters or a subsidiary in Italy was selected. Then, an e-mail describing the research goals was sent to the operations/logistics/supply chain managers of the selected companies in order to invite them to participate in the research project. Managers who did not answer to the first e-mail were sent a second e-mail, and eventually called by phone. As a result, 11 companies joined the research project. Some of the companies' names are Gucci, Lotto, Dolce & Gabbana, Benetton, and Preca Brummel (the list is not exhaustive for confidentiality reasons). The third phase consisted in data collection, which was performed by means of semi-structured questionnaires and telephone or face-to-face interviews with the managers of the analysed companies. Specifically, the questionnaire was e-mailed to the managers before the interview and was organised in three main sections: the analysis of the supply chain structure, the collection of the visibility-related information, and some insights on the company visibility needs (see Appendix 1). Finally, the fourth phase was devoted to data analysis. A cross-case technique was used to analyse and compare the data.\n4 A metric for assessing visibility in the outbound supply chain: The first step to measure the visibility on a complex outbound supply chain is to evaluate the level of visibility the focal company has on each node. Basically, each node of the supply chain owns a set of information which may be shared with (i.e. may be visible to) the focal company. Visibility is measured on the basis of the amount and quality (i.e. freshness, accuracy) of information which the focal company \"views\" compared to the total information that could be visible (Caridi et al., 2010b).Four different types of information flows are considered by the metric: transactions, status information, master data, and operational plans. Table II reports a list of sample information items included in each class. Whereas the general four-class classification is taken from Caridi et al. (2010b), the example check-list is an original contribution of this paper.Quantity and quality judgements are collected for each type of information flow and for each supply chain node. The judgements are based on qualitative scales with four ordered response levels (from 1 - low rate to 4 - best rate) (see Appendix 1).The evaluation of the visibility index is structured in three steps (Caridi et al., 2010b). First, the 12 judgments for each node k (jk,x,y) have been collected by means of the three qualitative scales, where:* x[?]{q,a,f }, q = quantity, a=accuracy, f=freshness; and* y[?]{t,s,m,o}, t = transactions, s = status, m = master data, o =operational plans.For illustrative purposes, Table III reports the judgments collected for the outbound supply chain of company B, which distributes its products through both mono-brand and multi-brand stores. For the sake of simplicity, similar stores have been grouped, and therefore the outbound supply chain of company B has been modelled considering only two nodes, named as \"mono-brand stores\" and \"multi-brand stores\", respectively. The former account for about 80 per cent of the total sales, whereas 20 per cent of the products are sold to the latter. In general terms, different levels of detail can be adopted when grouping the stores in nodes, e.g. mono-brand stores could be distinguished in proprietary and franchising shops, and for each of them the geographical localisation and/or size can be considered. Similar considerations are valid for multi-brand stores as well. Of course, the higher the level of detail, the better the diagnostic capabilities, but the more expensive the analysis in terms of both time and costs.The collected judgements are then combined - using the geometric mean (Caridi et al., 2010a) - to have a synthetic evaluation of the visibility that the focal company has on each outbound node k (OUT_VISk). The quantity (OUT_VIS_Quantity) and quality (OUT_VIS_Quality) of the shared information are assessed separately, and then combined to evaluate the visibility index OUT_VISk on node k. For illustrative purposes, Table IV reports the results obtained for the outbound network of company B.Finally, the overall visibility that the focal company has on its outbound supply chain is assessed. Overall visibility is calculated as a weighted average of visibility on nodes k (OUT_VISk). The significance weight wsigk is calculated by considering the value of goods exchanged between the focal company and node k, as follows: Equation 1 where:* Pk is the amount of purchases of node k from the focal company;* D is the set of nodes belonging to the first tier of the distribution network; and* n is a node belonging to D.The more a node buys from the focal company, the higher the significance weight. This is consistent with the purposes of the developed metrics, because the focal company is supposed to be more interested in having visibility on these nodes. The global measure of the level of visibility on the outbound network is obtained as the weighted average of the metrics assessed for each node: Equation 2 For diagnostic purposes, the overall visibility index OUT_VIS can be split by information properties (OUT VIS Quantity, OUT VIS Quality), and type of information (OUT_VIS_Transactions, OUT_VIS_Status, OUT_VIS_MasterData, OUT_VIS_OperationalPlans). Tables V and VI report the results obtained for company B.\n5 Visibility in the apparel industry: a benchmark: The proposed metric was applied to measure the level of visibility on the outbound supply chain of a sample of prominent companies in the apparel sector. Moreover, visibility on inbound supply chain was assessed by means of Caridi et al. (2010b) metric.5.1 The sample\n6 Conclusions: In this paper the topic of visibility in the apparel industry has been discussed. The paper provides two main contributions to the subject. First, it extends a recently developed metric intended to measure the level of visibility in complex networks, so that it can be applied not only to inbound networks but also to outbound supply chains. The metric can be used to support benchmark analyses intended to measure the current level of visibility in companies belonging to the same industry (\"external benchmark\") or in different parts of the same company (\"internal benchmark\"). In this sense, some preliminary evidences for the apparel industry are provided. It is illustrated that while several companies already invested in improving upstream visibility, a variegated scenario still exists with regard to the downstream supply chain, with substantial room for improvement. The second contribution provided by the paper is a sound basis from which to develop tools for assessing the value of visibility improvements. The case of a company who used the provided results to evaluate and launch a project intended to improve the level of visibility has been illustrated.The results presented in this paper are interesting for both researchers and practitioners. As far as the researchers are concerned, this paper extends metrics already established in the scientific literature (Caridi et al., 2010b), and provides the basis for future benchmark analyses. Moreover, although still in an embryonic phase, the proposed approach could be formalised and extended to develop a methodology for visibility value assessment in modern complex networks, an aspect which is still missing. As for the relevance for practitioners, the paper illustrates how such a tool can be profitably used by a company. The ability of the metric to be adopted for both \"external\" and \"internal\" benchmarks has been showed; in both cases, the final goal is to compare the analysed supply network with other cases in order to detect current weaknesses, and suggest improvement paths. In the former (i.e. \"external benchmark\"), when benchmark analyses become available, managers can compare their companies to others operating in the same industry. For illustrative purposes, a company can compare its level of visibility to the average and/or to the best-in-the-class, and derive some hints not only on the visibility (positive or negative) gap, but also on the reasons explaining the gap itself (i.e. amount of information exchanged, information accuracy, timeliness, or a combination of them). These evidences support managers in understanding the most effective way to improve supply chain visibility, and thus supply chain performance. Similarly, such an analysis can be performed comparing multiple supply networks (e.g. different countries, different products, etc.) within the company itself (i.e. \"internal benchmark\"). In this case, it is the manager (or a consultant) who has to apply the metrics illustrated in the paper to the internal supply networks, in order to assess the level of visibility in the supply networks analysed.The proposed analysis has two main limitations. First, although the paper showed the usefulness of the proposed metrics in supporting value assessment, a tool to estimate the value of visibility in complex networks has yet to be developed. In this regard, the impacts that visibility improvements have on company performance should be investigated by future research. As a matter of fact, the measure of visibility is not an end in and of itself, but should be the starting point from which to identify the visibility needs and to assess the value of visibility improvements. In such evaluations, it is extremely important to properly consider context variables affecting the level of visibility. Among others, Caridi et al. (2010a) suggest that a critical role is played by complexity and virtuality, i.e. the extent to which a company relies on its supply chain for manufacturing products. In fact, in virtual and complex supply chains there is the need of higher levels of visibility, because the supply chain leader does not directly control \"its\" supply chain and/or has to manage a supply chain with many suppliers and tiers. The second limitation is related to the fact that the sample of companies considered in the paper is still limited, and therefore does not allow to gather strong evidences from the paper. Since the proposed metric is suitable for benchmark analyses, the sample should be enlarged by future studies in order to improve the diagnostic capabilities and to gather other interesting hints from the field. This would allow the construction of a more accurate benchmarking database. Moreover, since visibility and its value are strictly related to the industry, similar analyses could be performed in other sectors in which visibility is critical for supply chain performance.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to propose an innovative quantitative approach to measure visibility in outbound supply chains and to implement it in order to evaluate the current degree of visibility that focal companies operating in the apparel industry have on their supply chains.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is based on an in-depth literature review on supply chain visibility and on 11 case studies in the apparel industry.\nFindings: - The outcome of the paper is twofold. First, it proposes a metric for measuring visibility in complex outbound supply chains. Second, it analyses the quantity and quality of visible information in eleven companies belonging to the apparel industry, comparing visibility on outbound supply chains vs inbound supply chains.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although the paper shows the usefulness of the proposed metrics in supporting value assessment, a structured tool is still to be developed. Moreover, the visibility metric is suitable for benchmarking analyses, but the sample presented in the study is still limited and should be enlarged by further studies, also considering other industries.\nOriginality/value: - The metrics so far proposed by researchers to assess the level of visibility in complex supply networks are mainly focused on the upstream supply chain; this paper fills the gap by proposing a quantitative metric for assessing the degree of visibility on the outbound supply chain. Moreover, some interesting insights about visibility in the apparel industry have been found on the basis of 11 case studies.\n",
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Strategic adoption of logistics and supply chain management
|
[
"Logistics",
"Supply chain management",
"Strategic",
"Practitioner perspectives"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A plethora of logistics and supply chain management (SCM) definitions have been developed over the years evidencing different emphases and approaches among practitioners across different industrial sectors, geographical areas and functional backgrounds (Stock and Boyer, 2009). In addition, a range of often quite complex logistics and SCM language and terminology has evolved concomitantly (Croom et al., 2000; Tan, 2001; Cousins et al., 2006). Given that there are many bodies of literature associated with the field (e.g. operations, transport, purchasing and supply, operational research) this should not come as a major surprise (Zinn and Goldsby, 2014).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Evolution and definitions of logistics and SCM\n3. Research design: The nature of the three RQs required that a methodologically pluralist research design be used. This also responds to the many calls in the literature for the generation of fresh insights into phenomena associated with logistics and SCM through the use of research designs that incorporate strong qualitative components (Mangan et al., 2004; Seuring, 2005; Stock et al., 2010) thus facilitating the generation of deeper and richer insights into phenomena than would be possible using exclusively quantitative methodologies that view supply chains through primarily positivist prisms.\n4. Findings: 4.1 Phase I: focussed interviews\n5. Discussion: RQ1 asked how practitioners view logistics and SCM, as well as the relationship between them. The six interviews carried out by the authors during Phase I of the empirical research supported the four perspectives approach of Larson and Halldorsson (2004). All six informants identified clearly with one or more of these perspectives and no alternative perspectives emerged from the interviews. A similar situation was evident among the 28 participants across the three focus groups in Phase III. Furthermore, all survey respondents in Phase II were able to position their views in one of the four categories. That no other perspective emerged from any of the three phases of the empirical research supports the validity of the original construct. Another interesting feature that emerged from the qualitative work in Phases I and III was that perspectives most identified with by informants often differed from practice in their own firms. This appeared to be the case with Manufacturer 2 and Retailer 1 in Phase I (see Section 4.1) and with several of the participants in FG3 in Phase III. As noted in Section 4.3, many FG3 participants were able to recognise the strategic importance of SCM - a key feature of the intersectionist perspective - but felt a certain frustration that this was not the established practice. This supports what New (1997, p. 16) referred to as the \"normative tension\" between the is and the ought where \"the rhetoric of managerial folklore tells managers to feel that they should take a broad, integrative approach and 'manage the whole chain'\" in line with the current authors' working definition of SCM but where the practical reality is somewhat different.\n6. Conclusions: This study adopted a methodologically pluralist approach using focussed interviews, a questionnaire survey and focus groups, and allowed fresh insights into each of the three RQs generated thus building our understanding of the phenomena under investigation. In terms of implications for researchers, the expansion of the research design to incorporate a range of appropriate methodologies (including case studies, action research and grounded theory) has the potential to build upon the explanatory dimension of the authors' work. This is specifically the case in relation to RQ3 where the use of in-depth case study analysis has particular potential to generate deeper and richer insights. This type of analysis would allow the incorporation of specific measures to evaluate the relative importance of the various drivers and barriers. In terms of RQ1 and RQ2, the current research does provide a profile in relation to practitioner perspectives on logistics vis-a-vis SCM in Ireland at a particular point in time. It would be useful for longitudinal studies to be put into place so that a barometer of progress over time could be developed. Notwithstanding the appropriateness of Ireland as the context of this research (see Section 3) and the international scope and experience of most of the key informants, expanding the research into other geographical areas would facilitate further international comparisons. This is line with the suggestion of Halldorsson et al. (2008).\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a thorough understanding of the adoption of logistics and supply chain management (SCM) in practice, particularly at a strategic level, through an investigation of the four perspectives taxonomy of the relationship between logistics and SCM.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a comprehensive literature review, three specific research questions are proposed. The empirical work addresses these questions and comprised three phases: focussed interviews, a questionnaire survey and focus groups.\nFindings: The findings provide a usage profile of the four perspectives and indicate a divergence between the understanding and adoption of logistics and SCM principles and concepts at a strategic level in firms. The findings also identify the critical success factors (CSFs) and inhibitors to success in addressing this divergence.\nResearch limitations/implications: The insights generated using the authors' methodologically pluralist research design could be built upon to include case studies, grounded theory and action research. Replicating the research in other geographical areas could facilitate international comparisons.\nPractical implications: The findings allow practitioners to compare their perspectives on the relationship between logistics and SCM with those of their peers. The CSFs and inhibitors to success provide a rational basis for realising the strategic potential of logistics and SCM in practice.\nOriginality/value: New insights are generated into practitioner perspectives vis-a-vis logistics vs SCM. A fresh understanding of those factors which drive and hinder the adoption of strategic SCM is also developed and presented.\n",
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Benchmarking service quality in UK electricity distribution networks
|
[
"Electricity industry",
"Benchmarking",
"Customer services quality",
"Performance management",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The last decade has witnessed a growing number of consumer representation groups and regulatory bodies in UK. This has highlighted the increasing recognition of public interest concern (and even safety) in sectors which provide essential services and for which there is limited competition and little (or no) consumer choice. Clear examples are evident in the recent failure of the British Railtrack model of managing and in Transco's record fine of PS15 million for the culpable homicide of a family of four in Larkhall (Scotland, UK). A wealth of literature has discussed the state of UK privatized utilities (Cooper et al., 2001; Parker, 1998; Jones, 2000) after the Labour government came into power in 1997 and their attempt to modernise the regulatory framework (DTI, 1998). Now over a decade later, this paper looks specifically at the benchmarks for, and early impact of, one specific regulatory initiative that has recently (since 2002) been introduced in the UK electricity distribution network - the information and incentives project (IIP).The concept of benchmarking has long since been considered important in the management literature, particularly in operations management (Watson, 1993; Yasin and Zimmerer, 1995; Soltani and Lai, 2007), but it has yet to be settled in its application to governmental policy and practice (for a review of recent benchmarking literature, see Dattakumar and Jagadeesh, 2003; Kyro, 2003; Northcott and Llewellyn, 2005). The meaning of benchmarking in this paper is regarded as the comparison of practices inside and/or between organizations in order to identify best practices and areas for improvement. Benchmarking: An International Journal has reviewed extensively how benchmarking can be of use in the services sectors and the relation to overall firm performance (Anderson and McAdam, 2004; Bhutta and Huq, 1999; Carpinetti and de Melo, 2002; Dawkins et al., 2007; Kumar et al., 2006; Maire et al., 2005; Sharif, 2002; Yasin, 2002). These well-established principles have however long been omitted in understanding institutional relationships, so this begs the question of why that is so particularly when there are gains that can be sought from the principles of transferring good management practices to contexts that perhaps require these most. Given that service sectors, particularly those that are essential to consumption as well as carry health risks (such as essential household utilities), are probably in most need of continuous quality improvement, it is of value to explore how this can be so done (Saunders et al., 2007) and not just to evaluate performance data.This paper draws on a longitudinal research project on the strategic control implications of regulatory constraints for management in UK monopoly network utilities (for details, see Chau, 2006). The paper is principally in two halves:1. the first presents a story of the service standards in use prior to IIP's implementation; and2. the second, its consequences since it went live in April 2002 for an exemplar company.The latter part is particularly interested in the managerial/organizational responses of the teams managing regulatory constraint to externally imposed performance criteria. Hence, the paper begins by explaining the full methodology of this paper employed, then a discussion of issues relating to the regulation of service quality in UK utility industries, and how this was benchmarked to others. It then outlines the key components that make up the IIP scheme, with some details of the lessons it has gained from experiences elsewhere. The regulation project is then explained in relation to IIP's actual impact upon the company's management, and these issues are discussed. The paper ends with some views on IIP, with respect to its appropriateness of purpose as a regulatory tool, and implications for future developments. The value and contribution of this paper is in the presentation of the service standards pre- and post-IIP and their usefulness for benchmarking exercise, as well as the internal view of the organization that is not normally disclosed in more conventional and longstanding disciplinary studies (Chau and Witcher, 2005a).\n2 Methodology: 2.1 On service standards prior to IIP's implementation\n3 Service quality in monopoly network utilities: 3.1 The imperative for economic regulation\n4 OFGEM's information and incentives project (IIP): 4.1 Origins of IIP\n5 The regulation research project: implications of IIP: 5.1 Rationale for the research\n6 Conclusions: 6.1 Contribution and limitations\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution and development of customer service performance measures in the electricity sector since privatization in 1989, and then examine the impact of a specific recent energy regulatory requirement (known as information and incentives project (IIP)) on the organizational management of an exemplar electricity distribution company. Also discussed is how the sector has tried to learn from benchmarks from a number of such literary disciplines as economics, marketing service quality, and total quality management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research first presents a survey of the historical development of performance standards based on archival documentation. It is then augmented by the employment of a longitudinal \"tracer study\", involving the isolation and firsthand real time qualitative observations of a company's key strategic and operational activities, to understand how they related to the other organizational phenomena at large. This process spanned an investigative period of two years.\nFindings: - The paper finds that much of the early standards used in electricity immediately after the sector's privatization rested much on those in the water and gas safety sectors, which themselves were then admittedly inadequate in UK. The IIP, a complementary set of service quality standards, worked on these early problems, but the implementation of the new scheme proved problematic and warranted major organizational reengineering, as shown in the exemplar company, ElectriCo. IIP has impacted on organizational management mostly in the areas of: higher-level strategic change, causing noticeable internal confusion during strategic transitions, building a performance management system, improvements in performance data, and establishing more effective ways for management.\nResearch limitations/implications: - While the case example used in the research is a regional monopoly and is a good representation of the context in which the service standards operate, the findings are limited to the one company. It is a UK specific context without international comparison.\nOriginality/value: - The research has combined archival research with an innovative firsthand methodological approach (tracer studies). Its value is in how the story of service standards in electricity (and specifically distribution) has been augmented from the early customer service standards to the most recent IIP considerations. It also looks from within the company, which has been missing in longstanding research in the more traditional disciplines such as economics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Contextual problem detection and management during software execution in complex environments
|
[
"Problem solving",
"Software tools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Complexity of the software execution environment is increasing tremendously. Software should be able to execute even with more complexity particularly in ubiquitous computing environment (Seng and Yu, 2005; Iyer et al., 2005). A large number of environmental computing entities can have innumerable interactions with each other, and hence, software can hardly achieve robust execution. This new computing environment poses new challenges for developers (Chalasani and Barber, 2004). Software should adapt without human intervention to achieve, what Weiser termed, \"calm computing\" (Kindberg and Fox, 2002).The traditional development paradigm focuses on analyzing requirements assuming a well-defined and fixed execution environment. However, unpredicted situations could occur during software execution in a complex environment (Kim et al., 2004). More over, it is difficult to predict, analyze and design all such situations for contextual complexity and uncertainty. The system, which is developed to operate in a predefined environment, can easily fail (Laddaga, 1999). Especially, for embedded applications, the developers do not maintain the functionalities after deployment (Park et al., 2004). Hence, it is critical that these systems maintain their operation over time by themselves without human intervention.We need an innovative software paradigm to solve the above problem. One approach that has been discussed in the literature is self-adaptive software. Research on adaptive software began with DARPA's (1997) Broad Agency Announcement of \"self adaptive software\" in 1997. IBM also proposed the autonomic computing concept with a similar motivation in 2001 (Kephart and Chess, 2003). Autonomic computing comprises of several areas such as self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing and self-protecting. All of these research areas can be called as \"self-management\" techniques because the software manages itself at runtime.We have to solve several issues in order to successfully implement self-managed software (Garlan and Schmerl, 2002): monitoring, analysis, plan, and reconfiguration. This paper focuses on analysis issues. Monitoring and analysis are closely related concepts, however, there are many differences. Monitoring is important to determine how the software is functioning within the environment and a myriad of data collection techniques exist to gather appropriate data to keep track of the state of software execution. Analysis plays a more important role for self-managed software. We have to analyze the monitored data to detect what problems could happen. Software can diagnose the problem using the analysis result.We divide the software problems into two types - internal problem and contextual problem:1. Contextual problem. The problem's causes are found in the context domain. For example, a resource problem can make software's performance poor.2. Internal problem The problem's causes are found in the internals of the software such as design errors.We can monitor the software's runtime execution using behavior models such as statemachine. If the software does not follow the normal behavior routine in the software's statemachine, an internal problem can happen.Contextual problem can be identified in an indirect way. We can observe the software's contextual situation by monitoring the computing resources and checking the contextual constraints for software execution. If a particular situation does not satisfy the contextual constraints, a contextual problem can happen. However, this detection process may be slightly inaccurate relative to the internal problem detection.Both approaches complement each other. Especially, detecting the contextual problem can prevent catastrophic problems beforehand. This research focuses on developing a method for detecting and managing contextual problems.Software's complex execution environment has uncertainties (Norvig and Cohn, 1997) and poses issues for the contextual problem detection. Contextual uncertainty means that the bounds of the contextual constraint, e.g. b1 and b2 in a constraint \"b1 < contextvariable < b2,\" can vary at runtime. The environment is difficult to analyze thoroughly because of the hidden input and the complex interaction between contextual factors. Developers cannot define the precise bounds of contextual variables in a contextual constraint. More over, a fixed contextual constraint is not appropriate because the environment changes continuously. Therefore, it is difficult to design the contextual constraints with fixed bounds.The contextual uncertainty leads to difficulty in predicting all possible problems. A contextual problem not anticipated at design phase can occur at runtime. The contextual uncertainty makes it hard for developers to define the complete contextual problem set to detect all potential problems. To handle contextual unpredictability, we have to devise a method for extending the problem set with newly detected contextual problems.This paper proposes a contextual problem detection and management method to solve the above issues. Specifically, the objectives of this research are to:* develop a methodology for effective contextual problem detection; and* create a framework for extending the contextual problem set for handling unpredictable situations.Contextual problem detection would be better if we can analyze the relationships between the problems that occurred and the depth of problem seriousness. Various aspects of the problems that occurred have to be collected and integrated to diagnose the contextual problem effectively. In addition, the newly detected contextual problem should be added to the detection module at runtime in order to further detect unpredicted situations. This requires an overall representation model and a management method for contextual problems.We have developed a goal-based contextual problem detection and management (GCPDM) method to satisfy the above objective. The goal-based approach provides a natural way to represent, detect, and manage contextual problems. We can detect contextual problems based on goal. More over, we can easily add detectable contextual problems using the goal graph.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses related research. In Section 3, our GCPDM methodology is discussed. Section 4 describes the application of our methodology to a case study. Section 5 provides some discussion and Section 6 concludes the paper.\n2 Related research: Several works have been reported in the literature on context-aware computing, which can be helpful for monitoring contextual situation (Yau and Karim, 2004). The goal of context-aware computing is to provide rich interaction between users and the system (Dey and Abowd, 1999; Schilit et al., 1994). Context is defined as any information that can be used to characterize a situation of an entity. Checking the context for constraints produces information that can be used to provide proper services to a user. This approach can be useful for monitoring contextual situations, however, it cannot detect problems.Cobleigh proposed the notion of a containment unit (Cobleigh et al., 2002; Osterweil et al., 2001), which is a module that encapsulates functionality and constraints specification. Each containment unit has its specification, which is \"containment unit interface,\" specifying its requirements and constraints such as resource requirements and environmental constraints. When the evaluator within a containment unit implementation senses that the results of operation are out of limits that the containment unit guarantees, the evaluator signals an error to the adapter. Cobleigh's approach supports problem detection, but it lacks the means to diagnose the problem.Design by contract, a technique proposed by Meyer (1997) has been extended by Bartetzko et al. (2001). This technique, named Jass (Java with assertion), aims to check constraints specification at runtime. Assertions are written into the source code as specially formatted comments. The precompiler (the Jass tool) compiles them into Java code using Boolean expressions. It guarantees the constraints specification during runtime. This approach provides only detection, not the problem model.Neema's constraints-guided self-adaptation presents a model-based approach for checking constraints and determining a new configuration which aims to maintain the operational status (Neema and Ledeczi, 2001). Constraints are logical expressions over the operating parameters of the system and are checked to see whether constraints are violated. However, this approach does not provide a problem model to diagnose the contextual problem.Garlan has suggested an interpretation method using gauge, which monitors systems performance (Garlan et al., 2001; Cheng et al., 2004). Gauges interpret low-level measurements, which are collected from probes. The information collected at low-level system components by installing gauges on links within a distributed system will be interpreted. The detected problem is represented in an architectural form with performance data. The architectural form is useful for a planner to diagnose the problem and plan accordingly. However, the approach cannot support extendibility for the contextual problem because the contextual problems are not managed by a particular model designed for the problem detection. This method considers contextual problems related to only performance.We categorize related research into two groups according to whether interpretation is performed on monitored values prior to detection. Interpretation is necessary when a planner requires information in terms of higher level models such as architecture models in Garlan et al.'s (2001) work. The first group includes context-aware computing - Cobleigh's containment unit, Meyer's design by contract and Neema's constraints-guided self-adaptation. The second group includes Garlan's gauges.Detectors in the first group use monitored values directly. They do not manage higher level models. In this context, the detector produces only the primitive information which indicates whether the software can continue the operation or not. Detectors in the second group use the interpreted information. The planner requires information in terms of higher level properties and it is possible to perform qualitative analysis. Semantic analysis is not able to be performed since the information is not produced concerning organization of problems. In the second group, however, it might be able to perform semantic analysis with human intervention since they provide qualitative analysis.The overall limitation of the existing approaches is the extendability of contextual problems. New problems can be detected during runtime and they should be integrated into the existing set of problems automatically so that they can be used in future. A main reason for not supporting extendability is the fact that the current approaches are not concerned with the unpredictable problems.\n3 Goal-based contextual problem detection and management: The basic idea of GCPDM comes from the goal-based way of thinking. Humans act according to goals and determine whether the occurrences are positive or negative from a goals' perspective. Therefore, it is easy to represent, detect and manage problems based on goals.The goal-based approach originated from agent technology discussed in artificial intelligence. A goal from an agent's point of view is characterized as follows (Russel and Norvig, 1995): \"the agent needs some sort of goal information, which describes situations that are desirable.\" Many research areas, such as requirement engineering, have adopted this concept for various purposes. Some aspects of self-managed software are similar to an agent. The \"self\" features such as detection, planning, and reconfiguration are closely related to agent technology. Hence, we have adopted the goal-based approach to problem detection for self-managed software.The overall process of our contextual problem detection and management approach is shown in Figure 1. Our approach uses three main components, namely, the contextual situation monitor, situation analyzer, and contextual problem management. The software executes in the runtime environment or the software context which contains various computing resources. We call these resources as contextual factors. During the software's execution, the contextual situation monitor monitors the contextual factors and creates situation instances containing the values of contextual factors. The contextual situation monitor forwards these contextual situation instances to the contextual situation analyzer. The situation analyzer checks to see if the contextual situation instance has any problems. When checking the instances, the contextual situation analyzer refers the contextual problem model which is managed by the contextual problem management process. The management process extends the contextual problem model to represent the various types of detectable problems, thus improving the problem detection capability of the analyzer. After analyzing the contextual situation, the contextual situation analyzer forwards the detected problem to the planner, which identifies the appropriate strategy to handle the contextual problem. The planner directs the reconfigurator to reconfigure the software's execution. As a result, the behavior of the running software is changed in accordance with the reconfiguration plan.3.1 Goal-based contextual problem\n4 Case study: We introduce self-managed meeting application (SMA) as the case study. Assuming that the application runs in an uncertain environment, we have developed a simple application for validating the proposed method. SMA offers meeting services. A client program connects to other clients through the network and clients communicate based on textual messages. The main purpose of SMA is to accomplish a successful meeting. During the meeting session, users should not feel any inconvenience by the network traffic. The meeting process should not be interrupted by system failures, network problems, etc. In this paper, we focus on applying our methodology to SMA to demonstrate the proof-of-concept. Owing to space restrictions, we have not provided details of the implementation of the prototype.4.1 Implementation of goal-based contextual problem detection engine\n5 Discussion: The method proposed in this paper uses the goal graph as a basis for the contextual problem detection and management. The goal graph is useful to represent, detect, and manage the contextual problems.5.1 Detection concerns\n6 Conclusion: The complex environment makes software execution difficult in a robust manner. The contextual uncertainty is the main cause. There is great need for a method for detecting contextual problems, which is effective and facilitates extendability of the contextual problem set for dealing with unpredictable situations. In this paper, we have presented a GCPDM method. This method provides a natural way to represent, detect, and manage the contextual problems. We can detect the contextual problem based on goals and also manage the contextual problems based on a goal graph. Our future work involves experimental evaluation of our approach and the tool as well as extending our methodology for self-corrective software systems.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - From the point of view of computing environments, the paper aims to present a goal-based contextual problem detection and management (GCPDM) method whose core benefit in its extendability of detection capability to deal with unpredicted problems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Approaches the subject by designing a goal graph, designing actions, designing achievable relations between actions and goals, defining contextual factors of each action, defining CCGs and implementing the GCPD engine.\nFindings: - That self-managed, as opposed to traditional, software is designed to avoid runtime failures by adapting to unpredictable situations.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents a GCPDM method.\n",
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Improving safety in intravesical therapy for high-risk superficial bladder cancer
|
[
"Cancer",
"Safety",
"Urinary system",
"Medical care"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPurpose: In the UK alone 10,000 new cases of bladder cancer are diagnosed per annum, placing this disease second only to prostate cancer as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in terms of genitourinary malignancy. Primary treatment of superficial (Ta-pT1) tumours is based on endoscopic resection, however, seven in ten patients will experience disease recurrence with this strategy alone. Key therapeutic objectives include prevention of recurrence and reducing potential for progression to muscle invasion (T2-4). Intravesical therapy (IVeT) plays an important role in the contemporary management of patients diagnosed with \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer and carcinoma in situ (CIS). \"High-risk\" tumours demonstrate increased levels of recurrence/progression and characteristically exhibit combinations of high grade, sub-epithelial infiltration (T1), multifocality and synchronous CIS. Increasing evidence highlighting enhanced clinical benefits through use of intravesical agents and subsequent maintenance regimes (Lamm et al., 2000; Sylvester et al., 2002; van der Meijden et al., 2005) has escalated demand for effective administration of agents such as Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and Mitomycin C (MMC).We recognised that within the process of counselling, drug delivery and follow-up of patients selected to receive IVeT there existed strong potential for undesirable variations in clinical practice. Utilising the principles of clinical governance, we approached these concerns in a systematic and explicit fashion. Following implementation of local guidelines for administration of IVeT we used clinical audit to ensure patients received treatment as per agreed protocol. Using this information, we aimed to identify where improvements in quality of care could be made. The audit process was continuously evaluated using the \"clinical audit assessment framework\" (Walshe and Spurgeon, 1997). Based on our initial data we subsequently developed a novel, integrated patient-care pathway (ICP) to target areas of weakness. The impact of the ICP was then assessed with prospective re-audit. Variables of interest included documentation of patient awareness and understanding of IVeT, delays in initiation of treatment, patient compliance with therapy regimes, recorded side effects and completion of investigations following treatment within a standardised timeframe.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Between April-July 2004, 38 sets of hospital notes were assessed against agreed six audit criteria (see Table I). From this initial cohort complete clinical data were available for 30 patients. This group comprised 12 females, 18 males; median age 73 (range 54-96) years. Clinical data were available from the period 1983-2004 with median follow up 41.5 (range 6-256) months. Tumour stage/grade were described according to UICC TNM 2002, WHO 1973 classification systems and distributed as follows: Ta (19), T1 (9), Tx (2); G1 (14); G2 (10); G3 (4); Gx (2). Therapeutic IVeT courses included MMC: 10, BCG: 19, Epirubicin: 1. Over the complete follow-up period, 316 individual installations were administered. Recorded indications for IVeT were concurrent CIS: 3; large tumour burden at presentation: 1; multifocal recurrent disease: 15; superficially-invasive tumour (T1): 9; combination of CIS/multifocality: 2.Following our initial audit, the ICP was integrated into clinical use and a second cohort of patients examined prospectively between October 2004 and December 2005. In total 22 cases were examined with complete data available in 20. This second group comprised four females and 16 males; median age 76 (range 52-91) years; tumour stage and grade were Ta (7), T1 (12); CIS (1), G1 (3), G2 (4), G3 (12). The clinical follow up period spanned 1997-2005 with median follow up 14.5 (range 6-96) months. In this second group BCG was used in 17 patients and MMC in 3. In total 128 individual treatments were administered. Indications for therapy were CIS (1); multifocal recurrent disease: 5; superficially-invasive disease (T1): 12; \"high-risk\" superficial disease (TaG3): 2.\nFindings: Initial analysis highlighted that 36 per cent of patients received written information regarding their scheduled programme of IVeT. Documentation of patients' understanding of IVeT and confirmation that they had read written information where this had been provided was poor (0 per cent). Written evidence of the findings of urinalysis on each clinical visit to receive IVeT was found in 40 per cent. Once the decision by individual clinicians or via the Uro-Oncology multi-disciplinary team meeting had been made 28/30 (93 per cent) patients received their first dose of IVeT within a timeframe of 12 weeks (median 3; range 1-15 weeks). Compliance with treatment, judged by weekly attendance for IVeT until completion of therapy, was achieved in 20/30 (66 per cent). In total, 2 patients did not complete their scheduled therapy. A separate group of patients was identified which received intermittent MMC therapy in a non-weekly format (n=8). Following completion of IVeT 16/30 (53.3 per cent) patients underwent elective cystoscopy within 12 weeks. In the group of patients who waited >12 weeks for cystoscopy 2/14 refused further endoscopic investigation and one patient underwent a planned cystoscopy at 11 months post-IVeT. The remainder of this subgroup (11/14) underwent cystoscopy after a median period of 15 (range 13-25) weeks post-treatment. Complications of IVeT were recorded in 10/30 (33 per cent) cases and 2 patients failed to complete their scheduled treatment as a consequence (urethral irritation, cutaneous rash). Over the period of review, 17 patients remained disease free and 11 patients experienced tumour recurrence. In total, three patients underwent disease progression to muscle-invasion. One received radiotherapy, one developed metastatic disease and the remaining patient died from unrelated pathology. Through our initial case note review we identified three patients who had been lost to clinical follow up.Following the introduction of the ICP a second analysis of audit parameters was performed. Written information was provided to all patients (20/20) and documentation supporting that individuals had read and understood the contents of their information leaflet was identifiable (20/20). Urinalysis was performed and results recorded for every clinical episode. All patients commenced IVeT within 12 weeks from decision to treat (median 2.5, range 1-10 weeks). Compliance with weekly scheduled IVeT to completion was identified in 18/20 (90 per cent). In two cases where treatment was not fully delivered, urinary tract infection (1) and catheterisation problems (1) were the causative factors. During the post-IVeT treatment phase one patient with CIS elected for radical cystectomy and a further patient underwent a planned cystoscopy after an interval of 30 weeks. From the remaining patients 11/18 underwent cystoscopy within 12 (median 12, range 2-20) weeks. In this group there were no deaths attributable to bladder cancer. Recurrent disease post-IVeT was identified in six patients. There were no cases of disease progression. A complication rate of 4/20 (20 per cent) was identified. Maintenance BCG treatment schedules were used in 9/20 (45 per cent) (Table II).\nPractical implications: Programmes of primary IVeT and the evolution of maintenance therapy have resulted in increased demand for the administration of intravesical chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Units delivering care for patients diagnosed with \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer must ensure that the clinical service they provide is safe, efficient, robust and streamlined to deal with high volumes of clinical activity. We lack fundamental data that examine the performance and logistics of IVeT schedules. The general assumption is that this important area of patient care is well regulated and delivered to a high standard. Through clinical governance and audit we identified flaws in our own service.Our initial data suggested poor delivery of written information for patients about to embark on a programme of IVeT and even lower levels of confirmation that they had read and understood the booklet given to them. Also, routine clinical practice requires urinalysis prior to administration of intravesical agents to detect haematuria or possible urinary tract infection. Although this test may have been performed, documentation of relevant findings in our initial audit group was available in less than 50 per cent.Compliance with recognised treatment regimes appears to be acceptable with low levels of incomplete treatment schedules. However, we did identify variations between individual clinicians with IVeT prescribed in unconventional, non-weekly formats. Undesirable delays in performing cystoscopy following completion of IVeT should be avoided in patients with \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer and a significant number of patients waited beyond a 12 week timeframe before endoscopic assessment.After examination of our initial data a simple but comprehensive process of documentation was developed in an attempt to address the problems identified. The resulting integrated patient care pathway promoted consolidation of key patient information and offered a framework for comprehensive documentation, planning and delivery of IVeT. The impact of introducing the ICP was assessed through examination of the parameters reviewed in our initial audit process. Immediate and meaningful improvements were recorded in areas where poor performance had been identified. Enhanced delivery of information and documentation of patients' understanding of the concepts behind IVeT was evident in all cases. Urinalysis findings were available for every clinical episode, fewer patients experienced delays in the initiation of their treatment, no unrecognised treatment regimes were prescribed and compliance levels with weekly administration of intravesical agents were shown to improve. Also, our overall complication rate decreased and fewer patients experienced delays beyond 12 weeks for cystoscopy.\nOriginality/value: Through audit we aimed to identify deficiencies in the delivery of IVeT in a group of patients that demand high standards of clinical care. Once areas of weakness were highlighted we rapidly developed a simple clinical tool to address these problems. We have successfully demonstrated meaningful improvements in the delivery of IVeT. Through continued use of the ICP we aim to maintain and enhance standards in the treatment of urothelial malignancy. Through presentation of our findings at regular departmental governance meetings and regional audit groups we have disseminated awareness of the potential benefits derived from utilising the IVeT ICP at a local level and beyond. In the future we would advocate the development of electronic database systems to ensure that the potential for adverse variations in the delivery of IVeT is minimised. Units offering comprehensive care for patients with \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer should consider regular, critical evaluation of their IVeT service provision.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - Intravesical therapy (IVeT) plays an increasingly important role in contemporary management of \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer. Through audit this study aims to highlight points in patient care where improvements could be made. Based on preliminary audit data the authors developed a novel, integrated patient-care pathway (ICP) to target areas of weakness. The impact of ICP implementation was then assessed prospectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The clinical course of 60 patients receiving IVeT was examined (34 men, 16 women; mean age: 73 years, range 52-96). Complete data were available for 50 patients (mean follow-up 51 months, range 6-256; preliminary audit n=30, re-audit n=20). In total 444 instillations of IVeT were administered.\nFindings: - Initial data highlighted several areas of deficiency including poor communication, inadequate urinalysis, low treatment compliance, delayed cystoscopic re-evaluation and deficiencies in follow-up. After implementation of the ICP, re-audit confirmed marked improvements in all variables examined.\nPractical implications: - By rapid implementation of a simple, reproducible and comprehensive process of documentation the paper has demonstrated meaningful improvements in standards of care for this complex group of patients.\nOriginality/value: - Through rigorous audit the paper identified areas of poor performance in the management of patients receiving IVeT. Using these data the authors modified clinical practice and strengthened the authors service provision for patients with \"high-risk\" superficial bladder cancer.\n",
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Exploring the use of Gestalt's principles in improving the visualization, user experience and comprehension of COBie data extension
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Information systems",
"Building information modelling",
"Approach"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and facilities management (FM) industry, one of the central issues has been - how to structure digital information of a facility to enable data sharing among different disciplines throughout the project lifecycle. There is an increasing call to use building information modeling (BIM) data in FM (Yalcinkaya and Singh, 2014). The dependent facility information is created using numerous BIM and other FM-related computer aided facilities management (CAFM) applications throughout the project lifecycle. Industry foundation classes (IFC) provide an open data standard to structure and exchange the digital information and support interoperability across BIM software applications (Laakso and Kiviniemi, 2011). However, IFC is too generic and complex to implement directly for specific FM domain. Construction operations building information exchange (COBie) standard is one of the dominant, open and vendor neutral industry standards that describe the product and process of collecting and validating building lifecycle data during the different phases of project lifecycle (East, 2007; US General Services Administration, 2011). COBie is being widely promoted as an information exchange standard for BIM and FM. The spreadsheet representation of the COBie specification can be considered as a template in which the information structure and delivery format of COBie is planned to reduce inefficiencies in facility information handover.\n2. Research approach and methodology: This research is based on design thinking and agile software development (Meinel et al., 2010) methodologies. Design thinking is applied as an explorative research process to facilitate iterative formulation and reformulation of the research problem. Since the research outcomes manifest in software outcome, agile software development is applied. Agile development complements design thinking because both these methodologies support iterative practice, where the understanding of the problems and solutions are improved with iterations. However, as Lindberg et al. (2011) also point out, there are critical differences between design thinking and agile software development. While design thinking focuses on divergent thinking and wider exploration, agile encourages iterations by breaking down the problem into manageable smaller iterative sub-problems. Consequently, in our methodology, design thinking is used in the conceptual phases, until ideation, while agile development is applied in the detailing phases, prototyping and testing (Figure 1).\n3. Understanding the problem context - COBie spreadsheets: As the first step of design thinking process, a detailed review of COBie was conducted to understand the problem context. The initial understanding was built via literature review, which was then complemented through interviews with the relevant stakeholders in Finland.\n4. Defining the problem associated with usability of COBie spreadsheet: Earlier studies of the authors (Yalcinkaya and Singh, 2015) had revealed that effective facility management requires mapping data from various information sources, irrespective of a standard data structure or information exchange at the core. Consequently, different stakeholders will be required at the various stages of the facility lifecycle to understand and interact with the FM data, including COBie data for the later phases of the project lifecycle. Different users may need to interact with and use the COBie data in different ways. Therefore, the authors considered potential users of FM data, including inexperienced and/or non-FM people who have limited or no experience with COBie spreadsheet. At the same time, based on the discussions with the industry partners and collaborators, this study found that even seasoned FM professionals have difficulties in understanding and using the data set in the COBie spreadsheet. Therefore, the targeted usability enhancement should also increase the efficiency of experienced users while they interact with the COBie data. Based on the literature review and the interviews with the Finnish industry partners, the following problem statements (requirements) were formulated to define the problem:\n5. Ideation for improving usability of data from COBie spreadsheet: In the ideation phase, the aim was to generate the broadest range of possible solutions instead of coming up with the \"right\" solution. The authors tried to look beyond the obvious solutions and evaluated them with an open perspective. The research team also explored solutions such as dashboards, e.g. Figure 2.\n6. Validation and discussion for VisualCOBie approach: The design thinking methodology relies on co-evolution of problem and solution through an iterative process (Dorst and Cross, 2001; Poon and Maher, 1997). This approach reinforces the context of VisualCOBie research in terms of putting emphasis on an iterative process that is adaptive to feedbacks throughout. The initial feedback and discussions regarding the applied usability and visual cognition principles have been collected via a case study and focus group interviews (FGIs) that were conducted with a leading Finnish facility management software development company. Six FGIs were organized, distributed over a period of nine months, such that the first meeting presented the early prototype, focusing more on the concepts while the later meetings increasingly included development and implementation related feedbacks and requests. The FGIs included participants clustered as researcher team and company team. From the research team, there were three regular participants to include:\n7. Limitations and future studies: The following limitations of this research must be noted and accounted for in the future research plans. There was limited opportunity to gather first-hand COBie usability feedback directly from expert COBie users, because of very limited use of COBie in Finland. Hence, first-hand feedback from Finnish companies that indicated \"why COBie is not used\" was taken as starting point. To overcome this limitation, the authors reviewed industrial reports and existing academic studies on the user experience with large spreadsheet-based representations. The authors also obtained preliminary feedback through demonstrations with national/international research groups and meetings with industry participants in Finland.\n8. Conclusions: Several data standards and specifications for AEC-FM industry are being prescribed. COBie, as one of the information exchange standards, specifies information sources, structure and exchange formats that have the potential to improve the traditional practices of information handling throughout the different phases of a building lifecycle. Despite these standards and associated IT developments, the AEC-FM industry still suffers from inefficient information management. To date, most initiatives have focused on integration and utilization of the outputs with/from different IT solutions in terms of accuracy and completeness of the data defined in the standards. However, there has been a lack of investigations that endeavor to benchmark such outputs against the representation and usability of the outputs. This research is built on the premise that well-established standards such as COBie, and corresponding IT solutions are not merely technical issues, but it is equally important to understand how end-users cognitively perceive and process them; as well as what can be done from the user point of view to facilitate wider utilization of these standards in practice. Therefore, from the conceptual and theoretical point of view, this research aimed to address the gap in understanding and enhancing the usability aspects of such data outputs. This paper presents the conceptual discussion on VisualCOBie, and the implementation and technical aspects will be presented in a follow-up paper.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Until now, the usage and usability factors associated with AEC-FM standards have remained largely overlooked. This oversight could be a potentially significant factor in the adoption rates as well as effective utilization of such advanced solutions in the AEC-FM industry. Therefore, from a conceptual and theoretical viewpoint, the purpose of this paper is to address this gap in understanding and enhancing the usability aspects of standards such as construction operations building information exchange (COBie) over its spreadsheet representation. Besides, findings from this study and the proposed theoretical fundamentals to enhance the usability and functionality of COBie spreadsheet representation could potentially lay the foundation for a VisualCOBie approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The iterative steps of design thinking and agile development are harmonized to form the main research methodology. Design thinking is useful in problem (re)formulation, and agile development is useful in iterative software development. The approach aims to identify and understand the needs and requirements of the AEC-FM users from the standardized approaches and associated IT solutions; and formulate the main features and functionalities of the proposed solution. The methodology supports the aim of generating a broad range of possible solutions instead of coming up with the \"right\" solution.\nFindings: Despite the standards and associated IT developments, the AEC-FM industry still suffers from inefficient information management. To date, most initiatives have focused on utilization of the outputs from different IT solutions in terms of accuracy and completeness of the data defined in the standards. This research found that well-established standards such as COBie and corresponding IT solutions are not merely technical issues, but it is equally important to understand how the end-users cognitively perceive and process them. The developed solutions need to address user point of view to facilitate wider utilization of these standards in practice.\nResearch limitations/implications: In this research, Gestalt's visual perception principles have been used to evaluate the usability issues of COBie spreadsheet. Although Gestalt principles provide a valid and proven viewpoint, there can be other cognitive principles that could also be taken into consideration.\nOriginality/value: The usage and usability factors associated with AEC-FM standards have remained largely overlooked, indicating a gap in the literature. This gap was considered as a potentially significant factor in the adoption as well as effective utilization of such standards and advanced solutions in the AEC-FM industry. By grounding the research in cognitive and usability perspectives of information exchange standards, the authors demonstrate how such theoretical underpinning can lead to innovative solutions.\n",
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Regulating time commitments in healthcare organizations: Managers' boundary approaches at work and in life
|
[
"Managers",
"Boundary setting",
"Stress",
"Coping",
"Mixed method",
"Health care"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Managers are key persons in organizations, known to be exposed to high demands and work-related stress (Bernin et al., 2001; Skagert et al., 2008). Managerial practice in healthcare is associated with specific logics, roles, and stressors (e.g. Dellve and Wikstrom, 2009; Llewellyn, 2001; Mintzberg, 2002; Wikstrom and Dellve, 2009), each of them related to substantial time-commitment, if not limited. Little is known about healthcare managers' (HCMs') everyday strategies in handling their work load and their subsequent boundary-setting. The allostatic model of stress describes how physiological homeostasis is maintained by individuals' continuous adaptation to a challenging or stressful environment (McEwen, 1998). If allostatic systems cannot function normally, cumulative strain becomes a risk. In order to prevent and handle this it is important to identify managers' strategies to adapt to complex leadership assignments, if for no other reason than that the management of healthcare also affects subordinates' well-being and the quality of care delivery (e.g. Cummings et al., 2008; Nilsson et al., 2005; van Dierendonck et al., 2004). This study explores HCMs' boundary-setting in everyday activities and situations in their managerial practice.Complexities in managing healthcare\nMethods: Design\nFindings: Continuous recognition and negotiation of time commitment\nDiscussion: The findings presented are here discussed in relation to the concept of boundary work. People create, maintain or change boundaries in order to structure the world around them (Ashforth et al., 2000). By \"boundary work\" we refer to the process by which boundaries, demarcations or other divisions are constructed, negotiated, reinforced or redefined (Hernes, 2004) which may also include strategies, principles and practices (Ashforth et al., 2000). The managers' boundary work did not define time commitment boundaries once and for all; rather, defining boundaries can be described as a continuous process that every new manager had to learn from the beginning (conceptualized in Figure 1). Through negotiation strategies in everyday work, boundaries related to managers' competing areas of practice were negotiated (summarized in Table III). By \"boundary approaches\", we mean the consequences of the negotiations, i.e. the diverse ways of handling time commitments and inter-role strain that resulted in a boundary that were set or dissolved.Established expectations on pliable boundaries\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore managers' boundary setting in order to better understand their handling of time commitment to work activities, stress, and recovery during everyday work and at home.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper has qualitatively-driven, mixed method design including observational data, individual interviews, and focus group discussions. Data were analyzed according to Charmaz' view on constructivist grounded theory.\nFindings: - A first step in boundary setting was to recognize areas with conflicting expectations and inexhaustible needs. Second, strategies were formed through negotiating the handling of managerial time commitment, resulting in boundary-setting, but also boundary-dissolving, approaches. The continuous process of individual recognition and negotiation could work as a form of proactive coping, provided that it was acknowledged and questioned.\nResearch limitations/implications: - These findings suggest that recognition of perceived boundary challenges can affect stress and coping. It would therefore be interesting to more accurately assess stress, coping, and health status among managers by means of other methodologies (e.g. physiological assessments).\nPractical implications: - In regulating managers' work assignments, work-related stress and recovery, it seems important to: acknowledge boundary work as an ever-present dilemma requiring continuous negotiation; and encourage individuals and organizations to recognize conflicting perspectives inherent in the leadership assignment, in order to decrease harmful negotiations between them. Such awareness would benefit more sustainable management of healthcare practice.\nOriginality/value: - This paper highlights how managers can handle ever-present boundary dilemmas in the healthcare sector by regulating their time commitments in various ways.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Learning about loss within a health education program
|
[
"Bereavement",
"Loss",
"Health education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: My journey as a health educator began with the goal of making a difference in the lives of my students. The challenges have been many, including both the content of the academic discipline of health and the students themselves. Over the years, the dynamic nature of health education has offered me the profound challenge of staying current within a rapidly increasing knowledge base. The question of how to convey health education material to a diverse population of students in a rapidly changing world also offered opportunities for reflection, introspection and research. Although I have continuously taken courses to update my teaching practices, achieved advanced degrees, and read volumes of the latest findings in journals and reports, it has been the children themselves who have been my greatest teachers over the past two decades. They have taught me about their lives, the world in which they live, and the experiences in their lives that have made them who they are. They have taught me how they learn and do not learn, what they know and what they want to know.Over the course of my teaching experience, I have specifically observed drastic changes in the fabric of children's lives. Torn by violence, death, divorce, family transience, environmental concerns, natural disasters, terrorism within and outside of our country's borders, and most recently, threats of and acts of war, children's lives are continuously being affected quite adversely.Educators have consequently been forced to ask questions never before asked and to seek answers in an effort to guide students through the maze of events the students have witnessed or experienced. I wanted to pursue this research because, both personally and professionally, I agreed strongly with the daunting challenge expressed by Shalala (2002, p. 1) the former US Secretary of Health and Human Services, who stated \"The first, most enduring responsibility of any society is to ensure the health and well-being of its children.\"In my search for guidance and direction, I sought to find the common thread in the torn fabric before me. Is there a pervasive underlying theme which is beneath all of the changes our children are experiencing? Again, the answers came from my students. Time and time again, they spoke of the sadness and sense of loss they felt. They spoke of not knowing when to talk about loss, neither did they know what to do about loss or their feelings associated with loss.While health educators have been eager to address issues relating to violence, our professional training has neglected the issues around loss that children are experiencing or have experienced in their lives. This neglect has contributed to silence and confusion. Should they desire to do so, elementary school children need the permission, and the skills to talk about loss or losses in their lives in a safe, positive environment. Yet, educators are hesitant to teach something they have not been formally prepared to teach.\nBackground: Currently, elementary health education curricula do not have a comprehensive module which addresses the specific area of loss. An in-depth review of the related literature, Coleman (2005) clearly showed very little evidence of any formal programs that might be helpful to youth in this context and included the historical and current theories of loss. Research in loss, grief and bereavement over the past decade has attempted better to understand, make sense of, and categorize grief processes, events, and phenomenon, in order to more accurately predict the outcome of grief behavior (Silverman and Worden, 1993; Stroebe and Schut, 1999, 2001; Stroebe et al., 2001). Bereavement research has also invited debate and prompted the call for more empirical research (Bonanno and Wortman, 1999; Silver and Wortman, 1989). Much of the bereavement research has been around the issues of loss through death and divorce. However, these two circumstances represent but two of the losses of childhood. Siblings and friends die, teachers change each year, pets die from accidents, disease, or old age, school subjects are failed, relationships end, and a child is not chosen for the team (DeSpelder and Strickland, 2002; O'Toole and Cory, 1998; Schneider, 1984). While many of these losses may appear minor to adults, it is these losses that provide children with the opportunity to build coping skills as well as a framework with which to deal with suffering (Grollman, 1991; Kussmann, 1999). After interviewing hundreds of bereaved children in private counseling and public school settings, O'Toole (1999, p.33) recommended educators provide opportunities for bereaved children to express their pain and feelings of loss to allow them to \"gain mastery to accept the inevitable permanency of the separation.\" Yet, the dearth of professional support for educators through curricula is emphasized in a quote by Silin (1995, p. 40) who stated:Too much of the contemporary curriculum brings a deadly silence to the being of childhood and not enough of it speaks to the things that really matter in children's lives. The curriculum has too often become an injunction to desist rather than an invitation to explore our life world.Naierman (1997, p. 64) also expresses support of loss education, especially for those children who, for some reason, are in the process of grieving:Reaching out to grieving students by talking to them, offering them possible help and understanding the process of bereavement are important steps that teachers should take to help them. Students who have undergone traumatic events...in life are socially, psychologically and emotionally affected.However, research in the fields of child development and bereavement has reported the ability of children to describe their thoughts and feelings about loss issues (Oltjenbrun, 2001; Piaget, 1952; Silverman and Worden, 1993).This study was therefore designed to be a first step toward addressing this void in elementary education. It was begun with the hope that this investigation would serve as a starting point for other health education teachers, as well as possibly benefit their students, and that future research on this topic would be inspired. With deep respect, I hoped to let the children's voices be heard and encourage others to hear from their students concerning what they know and want to know about loss.It is my belief that the most powerful health lessons offered students are those that are relevant to their lives. Silences on issues not formally addressed within health education classrooms have opened doors into previously unknown areas in my classroom and as a health educator. The same sense of pervasive silence and the unknown faced health educators as the profession approached the possibility of teaching a human sexuality curriculum as well as a HIV/AIDS program in the schools. Choosing whether or not to cross the threshold of that silence has always been a challenging moment for educators, as it meant stepping into the unknown, a challenge on which all of science and education is based. I had observed that my students were willing and wanting to talk about something that, to date, had not been addressed in the health curricula. How would health educators know what to say and would there be professional support in class discussions? This study evolved from my choice to step into the void surrounding the experiences of loss.\nMethod: Population\nResults: Following administration of the surveys in the Spring of 2004, the number of completed surveys that could be used for data analyses was 97, representing a response rate of 84 per cent of the total eligible population (n=115). The 97 completed surveys yielded 290 responses, which represented 99.6 per cent of the potentially eligible responses. Of the 97 respondents, 42 were boys and 55 were girls; 50 were nine years of age and 47 were ten years of age.Through their 290 responses, the 97 nine- and ten-year-old participants of this study revealed their definitions of loss, their understandings of loss and their questions about loss. Through analysis of each of the children's responses, the topics generated led to the identification of 20 generalized categories with the three survey questions combined. In order of their apparent importance, as identified by the frequency of responses, only the key findings of this study are presented and include the loss of objects, relationships, and some aspect of themselves; the identification of loss as feelings and emotional reactions, causes and consequences, physical reactions, and value judgments; the children's curiosity about the existence of loss, emotional reactions, and future concerns. A sample of the children's responses obtained from each of the three survey questions is included. Verbatim quotations are in italics.Question 1. What does the word \"loss\" mean to you?\nDiscussion: The purpose of this section is to summarize and give significance to the key findings of this project on children's learning about loss within a health education program.Question 1. What does the word \"loss\" mean to you?\nImplications: The responses of the fourth grade students in this study confirmed a reasonable number are inquisitive, that they have thought about loss, and want to know more about loss than is provided for them in an existing health education program. The results of this study about the loss experience reveal the children's understandings and perceived needs to be many and multifaceted and that they were willing to express them in written form. There are several implications for the field of health education and school district practice as a result of this study. Although health educators play a critical part in facilitating the mental health and well-being of students, a void exists within health education around issues of loss, which is a well documented concern in today's rapidly changing world in medical, sociological and psychological disciplines, as well as government agencies.It is important for health education researchers and educators, to learn from those who have worked with childhood bereavement in the private sector, which supports the view that children should learn about their unique loss process in a supportive environment. Based on the perceptions of the children in this study, exploring their thoughts, feelings and reactions, as well as answering their many questions regarding the loss experience, seems to be supported. Considering the variations and complexity in children's responses to each of the survey questions, it becomes a possibility that the teacher's role would be that of a facilitator for the children and for what they know and want to know, rather than one who imparts his or her knowledge to the children.The children in this study have expressed their perceived understandings of the loss experience as well as what they knew and wanted to know about loss. With this in mind, issues around the loss experience might be explored with children in a similarly aged educational setting. In an environment which is conducive to conversation, students should be encouraged to use their own words in an attempt to understand, recognize and address their own concerns.This study has no precedent. To the author's knowledge, it was the first study that undertook the exploration of fourth grade children's understanding of and perceived needs in learning about loss within a public school health education setting. It symbolizes a beginning and may provide direction for subsequent research. Specifically, in the context of future curriculum development, this study has shown the potential feasibility of interviewing nine and ten-year-old children about loss. It is possible to do this by finding out what students already know, and by asking them what they want to know about health related topics, a time honored approach used in many academic disciplines.Exploration into the feasibility of developing a component of learning about loss within health education, however, must be based on further study. It is important to consider that discussions of the loss experience may potentially involve discomfort on the part of the researcher, educator, child, and parent or guardian. It is therefore imperative that those pursuing further development of this topic, take precautionary measures. These include, but are not limited to, prior knowledge of the topic of loss, awareness of family and community systems, coupled with respect for the unique circumstances, and abilities of children involved in such exploration. This can be accomplished by establishing a safe environment, ensuring personal and professional support, and networking with support personnel in identifying issues that surround loss.As even a most trivial loss may impact a child, we need to be cognizant of the implications of this. Grieving loss is considered a process and this study has developed the possibility of helping children with this, and in doing so to contribute to the mental health objective of Healthy People 2010. This study has revealed that a diverse population of American public school children studied can express their thoughts, ask their questions and discuss the topic of loss. By continuing the silence around the topic of loss in an elementary health education program, we may be systematically denying these and other children their right to do so.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to show how children's health and wellbeing are continuously influenced by violence, divorce, family transience, environmental concerns, terrorism within and outside the country's borders and, most recently, threats of and acts of war. This study investigates the perceived needs of fourth-grade elementary schoolchildren regarding selected questions concerning loss.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A three-question survey was developed to collect data gathered from children through written responses, and to identify common themes or individual responses about their understanding of, and perceived needs in learning about, loss. A total of 97 fourth-grade girls and boys at a suburban Long Island public school district participated in the study. The data were subject to qualitative data analysis.\nFindings: - Both girls and boys defined loss in many terms other than, and including, loss through death. Relationship loss and loss of objects that held meaning for the children were their most common responses. When asked what they knew about loss, the children first identified the emotions and feelings around loss, second the causes and consequences of loss, and third placed value judgments on loss. In responding to what they wanted to know about loss, the children asked: first, why it exists at all, second, more about the emotional reactions to loss, and third, the possibilities of future loss experiences.\nOriginality/value: - The study revealed a willingness on the part of the children to give voice to their many thoughts and questions surrounding issues of loss in a public school health education setting. Recommendations are made for a more in-depth study to facilitate understanding of the nature of loss and its correlates among nine-to-ten-year old children.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The shape of income distribution and decomposition of the changes in income inequality in India: 2005-2012
|
[
"India",
"Distribution",
"Income",
"Inequality",
"Gini coefficient",
"Income distribution",
"Isograph",
"Pro-poor growth",
"C16",
"C46",
"C31",
"D31",
"O15",
"P46"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last decades, the world has witnessed impressive average gains against multiple indicators of material prosperity. For instance, gross domestic product per capita in low- and middle-income countries has more than doubled in real terms since 1990. Today's globalization, like earlier globalizations, has seen growing prosperity alongside growing inequality. countries that were poor not long ago, like China, India, Korea and Taiwan, have taken advantage of globalization and grown rapidly, much faster than today's rich countries (Deaton, 2013).\n2. Methodology and data: 2.1 Methodology\n3. Results: 3.1 Levels, growth and facets in inequality of income distribution\n4. Summary and conclusions: India is no stranger to income inequality, but the gap is widening further. Last year's survey had showed that India's richest 1 percent held 58 percent of the country's total wealth, which was higher than the global figure of about 50 percent. According to the latest survey, the wealth of this elite group increased by over Rs 20.9 lakh crore during the period under review - an amount close to the total expenditure estimated in the union budget 2017. India's top 1 percent of the population now holds 73 percent of the wealth while 67 crore citizens, comprising the country's poorest half, saw their wealth rise by just 1 percent (Oxfam, 2018).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Though Indian economy since 1980s has expanded very rapidly, yet the benefits of growth remain very unequally distributed. The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence about the shape, intensity and decomposition of inequality change between 2005 and 2012. The authors find that Gini, as a measure of income inequality, has increased irrespective of geographic regions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a recent distribution analysis tool, \"ABG,\" the paper focuses on local inequality, and summarizes the shape of inequality in terms of three inequality parameters (a, b and g) to examine how the income distributions have changed over time. Here, the central coefficient (a) measures inequality at the median level, with adjustment parameters at the top (b) and bottom (g).\nFindings: The results reveal that at the middle of distribution (a), there is almost the same inequality in both the periods, but the coefficients on the curvature parameters b and g show that there is increasing inequality in the subsequent period. Finally, an analysis of decomposition of inequality change suggests that though income growth was progressive, however, this equalizing effect was more than offset by the disequalizing effect of income reranking.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper shows how it can be possible both for \"the poor\" to fare badly relatively to \"the rich\" and for income growth to be pro-poor.\nPractical implications: This paper stresses the significance of inequality reduction.\nSocial implications: Inequality reduction is very much imperative in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity.\nOriginality/value: Perhaps, this research work is first of its kind to examine the shape and decomposition of change in income inequality in India in recent years.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supply chain information flow strategies: an empirical taxonomy
|
[
"Manufacturing industries",
"Supply chain management",
"Strategic alliances",
"Information transfer",
"Communication technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information sharing and collaboration with trading partners is seen as a company's top logistic challenge according to a poll of Supply & Demand Chain Executive's readers (Supply & Demand Chain Executive, 2005). This is confirmed by academic researchers who identify inter-firm information flows as an important factor of supply chain management (Chen and Paulraj, 2004; Carr and Kaynak, 2007). An important reason for this growing attention towards inter-firm information flows is the increasing amount of externalized activities (Cagliano et al., 2005).While the literature describes different mechanisms for integrating supply chains, such as information sharing (Lee et al., 1997; Vereecke and Muylle, 2006) and structural coordination (Vereecke et al., 2006), the focus of this paper is on the information flow, which forms the foundation for some advanced mechanisms of integration (Zhou and Benton, 2007). There has been an extensive literature stream on the value of information sharing in general. Recently, this topic has received increased attention in the specific context of inter-firm relationships. For example, Lee and Whang (2000) provide some real life illustrations of information sharing in a supply chain. There is also an extensive amount of literature on theoretical models quantifying and analyzing the effect of information sharing between partners in the supply chain (Chen, 1998; Gavirneni et al., 1999; Chen et al., 2000). All of these papers report some benefits to sharing information. These potential benefits of information sharing include supply chain coordination, bullwhip effect reduction and decreased supply chain costs (Lee et al., 1997). However, the reported benefits vary substantially across specific numerical examples in the Operations Research literature; some studies show substantial value (e.g. Gavirneni et al., 1999; Lee et al., 2000) while others show negligible value of information sharing in supply chains (e.g. Cachon and Fisher, 2000; Raghunathan, 1999). While valuable, much of the cited work is stylistic in the sense that it is modeling theoretical supply chains. Therefore, our aim is to assess actual supply chain practices.Existing theory on information sharing in purchasing relationships has emerged from survey data explaining how frequently buyers and suppliers exchange information and what media are used to exchange this information (Carr and Kaynak, 2007). However, these studies do not distinguish between different contexts in which these relationships are formed. While there is general support for the relationship between information sharing, supply chain integration and performance improvement, there is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding the contingent nature of such relationships. The work of Ketzenberg et al. (2007) demonstrated that although technology has made the sharing of information easier, managers should not assume that more information automatically implies better performance. Therefore, they argue that future research should focus on the environment, coupled with the specific use of information, to determine the value of information sharing. Furthermore, most studies only look at the extent to which information is shared between partners, without looking at the quality of this information and the systems used to share it. In this study, we will include these multiple elements in order to examine information flow as opposed to the more uni-dimensional assessment of information sharing in prior research. In summary, the focus of the current work is to better understand the supply chain environment and the effects of contingencies on the information flow strategy.Figure 1 provides a model of the relationships tested in this paper. We start our analysis by looking at the foundations of supply chain integration, which we define as the information flow between partners. This is discussed in the next paragraph. Based on this classification, we empirically develop a taxonomy of supply chain information flow strategies. Next, we examine the choice of the information flow strategy. Finally, we examine performance factors which are believed to be improved by higher levels of information flows and thus influenced by the choice of the information flow strategy. These analyses will help us to better understand the impact of contingency factors on the link between supply chain integration and performance improvement.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Information flow strategies\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Data analysis: Our analysis consists of three steps. First, we analyse the characteristics of the information flows of the strategic alliances, by using cluster analysis. This enables us to test P1. The cluster analysis develops a taxonomy of strategies towards information flows in strategic alliances. In step two, we examine the relationship between the context and the information flow strategy to determine the extent to which they explain the differences in choosing different Information flow strategies. By doing so, we test P2. In the final step, we analyse the performance of the different information flow strategies. We examine how information flow strategies relate to facilitating strategies for integration such as Coordination, Information participation and Constructive conflict resolution techniques. We also test the link between information flow strategies and both the Operational capabilities and the level of overall satisfaction with the relationship. These are stated in P3.4.1 Information flow strategies\n5. Discussion: The study presented in this paper highlights the existence of different information flow strategies for integrating strategic alliances. A few studies have already proposed some contingencies of information flows, but they are generally based on conceptual thinking or case studies of best practices. The present work, instead, is based on survey data, enabling us to test some of the propositions. These strategies have been explored in terms of contextual factors and in their relationship with broader aspects of performance.The value of the study is twofold. It contributes to the current research on inter-firm information sharing and supply chain practices in strategic alliances and it provides insightful information for managers.Our study shows different information flow strategies for integrating strategic alliances, which are defined as long-term - going beyond traditional relationships in terms of benefits, and are beneficial for both parties. The results show that inter-organizational information integration in these strategic alliances is not well advanced despite the development of some advanced forms of supply chain integration. In addition, our study shows that many firms do not invest in technology to integrate the information flow and as such are not integrated in a structural way. A study of Carr and Kaynak (2007) showed that these advanced communication methods, such as IT supply chain applications, are not critical with respect to influencing inter-firm information flows and that partners still share a lot of information through non-integrative systems like fax, phone and e-mail. However, we find that a third of the strategic alliances do not even share information in a regular way. Although practitioners as well as academics advocate the use of strategic alliances and how these should be integrated, still few alliances really succeed in doing so. Furthermore, we see that strategic alliances with limited information flows are perceived as being less successful.A success factor for information flow strategies is the coherence with the context of the firm and the alliance. In the literature, IT supply chain applications are considered \"lean\" rather than \"rich\", as they are still predominantly written and numerical representations of data. In less ambiguous environments, communication can be managed using less rich media. However, Harland et al. (2007) found, based on interviews, that IT supply chain applications can enhance relationships by freeing up time from administrative tasks which can then be used to spend more time for building the relationship. Our data confirms this latter view and shows that IT supply chain applications are used in environments that are highly dynamic. Furthermore, it indicates that IT supply chain applications do not replace more traditional communication media such as phone, fax and e-mail. Rather, they are an additional medium for partners to communicate with. It also creates opportunities for advanced forms of integration such as joint planning activities and joint goal setting.Additionally, our results suggest that information flow strategies co-evolve with the creation of trust and interdependence in the strategic alliance. While high levels of trust seem to create an environment to share information, interdependence creates the willingness to invest in IT supply chain applications. The results also show that partners first need to invest in information sharing processes based on traditional media and to create trust, before evolving towards investing in IT supply chain applications.However, it is important to stress that not all strategic alliances need to develop towards IT intensive alliances. This statement is supported by previous research of Das et al. (2006) who argue that optimum supply chain performance will only be achieved through the appropriate, and not necessarily highest, level of supply chain integration. As mentioned above, this appropriate level depends on the business and relational environment of the strategic alliance.Based on these results, some managerial implications can be drawn.Despite the ideal that supply chain integration is always beneficial (e.g. Currie, 2000), the findings of our study suggest that a universal approach to inter-firm information flows could hinder effective communication. This finding is also supported by Harland et al. (2007), who suggest that managers should be smarter in their IT integration initiatives. One example involves promoting IT supply chain applications in all circumstances. While more advanced information flow strategies seem to pay off, this might not be the optimal strategy for every strategic alliance. Our study shows, for instance, that strategic alliances are more likely to invest in IT supply chain applications in more dynamic environments and in environments with higher levels of interdependence among partners. Consequently, these investments in IT should be in line with the overall integration strategy, the company's product portfolio and the supply chain configuration (Silveira and Cagliano, 2006) which also takes softer (e.g. relational characteristics), less technological forms (e.g. business characteristics) of integration into consideration.The study also shows that companies need to think about their supplier and customer management strategy in a systematic way before setting up strategic alliances. It often happens that companies decide to work more closely together, dazzled by the potential benefits, without a clear strategy or motivation. Some suppliers might be motivated, for instance, by seeing a strategic alliance as a way to secure the business, but not actually as a way to optimize and integrate supply chain processes. As such, a lot of strategic alliances are unsuccessful and even do not succeed in setting up information flows between the partners. A systematic approach towards supplier and customer management might hinder this rush into strategic alliances.Our study also shows that strategic alliances can only be successful in an environment with high levels of trust. Managers should thus first work on the level of trust before setting up strategic alliances. These higher levels of trust result from personal contacts with the partner.Finally, before investing in IT supply chain applications, managers need to think about which outcomes they hope to achieve and how these practices can help the company to reach these outcomes. Far too many companies hope to replace the traditional communication systems such as face-to-face contact and phone calls, by standardized IT supply chain applications. Since strategic alliances still build on trust, personal contact cannot be replaced by these IT supply chain applications. While IT supply chain applications might be successful in more traditional relationships, companies are often disappointed by the limited cost/benefit ratio of IT supply chain applications in strategic alliances.\n6. Conclusions and opportunities for future research: This study contributes to the literature on strategic alliances by examining the role of information flows in these strategic alliances. The results of the study show that the information flow strategy is highly dependent on the relational characteristics and the business context of the strategic alliance. Like most empirical work, this study has limitations that might be addressed by further research. First of all, this study is focused on strategic alliances, thus excluding traditional buy-sell relationships. Since we believe that relationships differ according to the specific context, we believe this approach to be insightful. Future studies, however, could focus on other types of relationships. In addition, alliances are measured by taking into account the view of only one of the parties. Generalizing these results towards the alliance may misrepresent the actual state of the alliance. Future research should address this issue by collecting dyadic data. Third, since we use cross-sectional data for our analysis, we can not prove causality. Instead, we infer that contextual factors may lead to certain strategic choices, while the information flow strategies may lead to differences in performance. However, we note that to definitively address this issue we need longitudinal data. Finally, our results are limited to strategic alliances of manufacturing firms. Service contexts are characterized by more ambiguity, uncertainty and variability and the use of different communication media (Ambrose et al., 2008), which may impact the information flow strategies. As such, we can not generalize our findings towards service companies. The same holds for the geographical context. The cases have been limited to Belgian firms to avoid cultural differences. Whether the conclusions still hold in other areas is unexplored and can be subject to future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify different information flow strategies to enhance integration in strategic alliances and studies these strategies with respect to contextual factors and the impact on performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper examines empirical data gathered from 56 manufacturing companies, describing 112 supply chain relationships. An empirical taxonomy is created based on cluster analysis.\nFindings: - Based on a parsimonious description of inter-firm information flows in the literature and this paper's empirical findings, three types of alliances are identified: Silent; Communicative; and IT intensive. While Silent alliances have the poorest overall performance, substantial similarities are found between Communicative and IT intensive alliances. In particular, the analysis suggests that IT intensive alliances, albeit performing better on operational capabilities, are not performing better on relationship satisfaction compared to Communicative alliances. Additional analyses indicate that partners of an IT intensive alliance are substantially more interdependent and larger in size.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research presents a taxonomy of information flow strategies in a supply chain context. This research is not describing causality, since the data are not longitudinal in nature.\nPractical implications: - Managers need to selectively invest in IT according to an overall supply chain integration strategy, which also takes softer, less technological forms of integration into consideration.\nOriginality/value: - This research provides insight into inter-firm information flows from a contingency perspective, recognizing heterogeneity of firms and supply chain practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigating the perceptions of Indian employees on logistics network and logistics cost on Indian steel sector
|
[
"Logistics operations and management",
"Logistics networking",
"Logistics process and logistics cost"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Steel is one of the most ubiquitous commodities to set the specifications and price. There is not a single global price for steel, since there are many different physical and chemical properties relating to steel. There are more than 3,500 finished steel products. This is primarily because steel is not an element on the periodic table, as is gold or copper, but an alloy of iron are designed to use the same.\nIndian steel sector at a glance: India has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the last two decades. This growth is majorly driven by service sector (62.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP)), while, in contrast, manufacturing has been less robust. The manufacturing sector's contribution to the GDP has stagnated at 16 percent, and India's share in world manufacturing is only 1.8 percent raising need to focus more in this area. These statistics clearly indicate that while manufacturing has not been the engine of growth for the Indian economy, therefore production of steel needs to grow to fill up the gap at a much faster rate.\nRole of inbound and outbound logistics in Indian steel industry: Both inbound and outbound logistics are the key factors for the successful of steel industry in India. The volumes of steel products are very large, with a high weight-to-volume ratio and shipments are regular. The steel industry is a major user of infrastructure resources like railways, roads and ports. Every one tons of steel produced involves approximately four tons of material movement across India; Source: (World Steel Association, Data). A growth in steel production will increase the burden of the country's already stretched logistics infrastructure. To meet the needs of a growing steel industry, major improvements in various infrastructure facilities are required (IMR News letter, 2015).\nLogistics cost in Indian steel industry: On the current scenario, the inbound material procurement cost is the major cost in Indian Steel Sector and the freight cost is about 19-23 percent of material cost. It varies in each supplier depending on four parameters: the distance; the delivery mode: sea freight or airfreight; delivery type (LCL or FCL) and the container size (20' or 40' container); and the freight forwarder/carrier used.\nResearch methodology: To address the research questions, a survey-based empirical study was carried out in a representative sample of 16 steel manufacturing organizations on south east part of India. The survey questionnaire contained several types of questions for respondents to answer some questions were open ended, which allowed the respondents to write in their own answers. Other question allowed respondents to note their answers on a scale of 1-5, with the ranges varying from disagree to agree. A few of the questionnaire asked respondents to check appropriate responses. It was mailed out to 16 organizations in Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata selected from organizations ranging from US$ 150,000 to US$ 300,000 having turnover per annum firms. The mailing had an 87 percent response rate (193 returned out of 226 surveys mailed). The survey was coded so that it was possible to determine job type a (management, sex, level of education and the company employment.) Several types of analysis are performed on the data, depending on the question types. Responses to the likert scale questions were averaged for each category of respondent. Open-ended responses were rank-ordered by frequency of response.\nConclusion and recommendation: This study showed through 89 percent of the respondents perceived the importance of logistics elements for the overall logistics cost but at the same time due to barriers and difficulties such as poor infrastructure and inadequate recourses which was ranked by respondents as the main barrier and about 50 percent of respondents comments on up gradation on high-skilled shipping and international logistics knowledge and functions. Also based on local social and cultural factors of the country that sturdy reveals that the female people as much more inclined to enhance their knowledge to understand and evaluate the logistics elements than male people. For successful evaluation of logistics process and cost elements for Indian steel sectors, the Indian government should provide to improve necessary infrastructures with adequate resources including good road condition which is the main tools for avoidance of rising in logistics cost for steel products.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the perception of Indian logistics managers and employees engaged on the steel sector having knowledge and exposure on the logistics network and logistics cost in Indian steel sector using descriptive analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To address the research questions, a survey-based empirical study was carried out in a representative sample of 226 from different levels like managers, senior managers, presidents and vice presidents and general managers at the operational levels at reputed steel industries having annual turnover of 250,000 dollars. All 226 responses received and analyzed descriptively and the results presented.\nFindings: The result showed that 83 percent of the respondents perceived the importance of network mapping and the elements of logistics cost with reference to the total overall logistics cost on the context of Indian steel industry. At the same time, poor infrastructure and port inefficiency were the main barriers for increasing the logistics cost as perceived by the respondents.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample is restricted to the logistics networking and the elements of logistics cost in Indian steel industry only. So caution needs to be exercised in generalizing the results\nPractical implications: In order to achieve the cost level at other developed and developing nations, the government of India should give focus on infrastructure development, improvising the exiting road condition and sea port development so that bigger size vessels can call to Indian ports for direct delivery of goods without any transshipment. Further, government of Indian needs to promote the multi modal logistics providers for timely evacuation of material as per the demand of industry requirements.\nSocial implications: In India, it is visualized that logistics company have an advantage of cheap availability of labor but on the other side have to manage high cost of logistics. Typically, the total cost on inbound logistics taken into consideration which is around 16-18 percent of the turnover whereas, the world average is around 7-8 percent.\nOriginality/value: To the best knowledge of the authors this study is the first attempt to survey the perception of logistics managers on logistics networking and cost elements on the overall logistics cost incurring on steel manufacturing companies in India.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Institution building and active labour market policies in Vienna since the 1990s
|
[
"Local government",
"Social policy",
"Labour market",
"Government policy",
"Austria"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cities are at the centre stage of recent economic and political changes (Jessop, 2002; Amin, 1994). These dynamics are linked to local reconfigurations of \"situated public action\" (Salais and Villeneuve, 2004), in which nationally specific logics of workfarist welfare reform (Peck, 2001; Handler, 2004) interact with local demands to embed economic changes and secure social cohesion in policies that enhance people's capabilities to cope with change (on the capability approach, see the Introductory paper to this special issue). Although in many countries the process of welfare reform is dominated by national variants of neoliberal projects of change, city councils may still try to draw on the more socially inclusive traditions which have prevailed in European varieties of capitalism (Hall and Soskice, 2001). Thus, an overemphasis of the \"neoliberalisation of space\" (Peck and Tickell, 2002; Jessop et al., 1999) might underestimate local path dependency and autonomy.By applying a wider concept of workfare and activation as a productivist reordering of welfare systems (Jessop, 2002), reconfigurations of social policies can thus be analysed as strategies to reorient welfare systems from a static conception of social rights and entitlements to a more dynamic conception of opportunity, mobility and adaptation in order to support economic growth and structural change and to reconcile social inclusion and competitiveness (Ferrera and Hemerijck, 2003). Thus, a focus on the creation of adequate measures to enhance individual capabilities for participation in gainful employment (particularly for women, migrants, youth and the low skilled) is a fundamental prerequisite for strengthening social cohesion at the local level (Bonvin and Farvaque, 2003). Faced with new labour market structures, high levels of persistent unemployment, growth of the \"working poor\" and processes of social exclusion, communities are striving for more local autonomy to adapt and create locally specific paths of development (H \"aussermann et al., 2008), which are contingent upon changes at the macro level. This means that conflicts between local demands (e.g. the reconciliation of economic restructuring and social cohesion) and national strategies (e.g. activation of welfare systems and flexibility of labour markets) can emerge and, depending on the country and local region, prompt a number of different responses (Gough, 2002). To shed some light on the variety of possible local reactions to macro level developments and the tensions which may emerge, I will present in this paper an analysis of active labour market policies (ALMP) in Vienna (Austria). There, the restructuring of labour market policies at the national level, growing labour market problems and changes in the economic environment have led to an interesting process of institution building. In 1995 the WAFF (\"Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnenforderungsfonds\" - Vienna employee support fund) was created to complement the activities of the AMS (\"Arbeitsmarktservice\" - the Austrian Public Employment Service) and to implement more preventative local labour market policies.In the first part of my article, I will develop some theoretical considerations about the role of cities in the process of economic change and the social embedding of recent labour market dynamics. Furthermore, I will try to widen the somewhat narrow concept of workfare, which is widely used to criticise recent welfare reforms, so as to be able to highlight the productivist reordering of labour market policies as developed by the WAFF. In the second part, I will give a short overview of recent economic and labour market changes in Vienna, followed by an analysis of the WAFF and its programmes for both the employed and the unemployed. An important focus will be on the conflicts (e.g. with the AMS) that emerged around the WAFF's activities. The analysis is based on extensive data research at the national and local level, analysis of documents and 12 interviews with experts and high level representatives of labour market policy institutions (WAFF, AMS) in Vienna.1.1 Cities and the evolution of welfare\n2. Economic and labour market developments in Vienna: Vienna's economy has experienced massive changes over recent decades. According to Josef Schmee and Andreas Weigl (Schmee and Weigl, 1999), in the period up to the late 1980s Vienna was mainly defined by its peripheral position close to the Iron Curtain, by its focus on national markets and by a high share of public sector employment. Due to an inadequate labour supply growth rates were lower than in the rest of Austria and the Viennese economy lost out compared to other parts of the country. The prolonged decline of the manufacturing sector (Schmee and Weigl, 1999, p. 72), which remained mainly orientated towards national markets, was for a long time not sufficiently compensated for by a corresponding growth of the service sector which, according to Mayerhofer (2000), showed long-term growth problems. Nevertheless, up to the 1970s Vienna experienced a considerable growth in employment because Austrokeynesian public investment and deficit spending strategies resulted in an expansion of public sector employment. Through this and by repatriating migrant workers it was possible to keep unemployment figures rather low in Vienna when the first signs of crisis of the Austrian post-war growth model began to emerge in the 1970s (Schmee and Weigl, 1999, p. 77).From the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the fall of the Iron Curtain and Austria's accession to the European Union in 1995 forced Vienna to abandon its orientation towards national markets and integrate into an internationalising economy. The growing competitive pressures resulted in an accelerating decline of manufacturing and a period of intense economic restructuring (Meissl, 1999) for which the expansion of the (private) service sector - in particular retailing but also banking and insurance - was crucial. According to Mayerhofer (2007a, b), Vienna can no longer be seen as a stagnating economic district today. It is at the core of Austria's strongest and most dynamic economic agglomeration (i.e. the Eastern Region), which produces about 45 per cent of the national gross domestic product (GDP). Even though the City of Vienna is still suffering from the relocation of businesses, growth rates are now more or less in line with the national average. The increasing specialisation of the Viennese economy is dominated by the growth of the service sector and a stronger focus on software and human capital-based economic activities relying on high-skilled employees. Sectors based on low-skilled work lose out, which creates severe problems for these groups in the labour market.However, the outlined economic changes have not been accompanied by a growth in employment. After peaking at 790,000 in the second half of the 1970s the number of employees dropped to 740,000 in 1987 - not least because of the repatriation of migrants. This was followed by a period of considerable growth until 1992, when the employment figures of the 1970s were reached again. Since then numbers have been more or less in decline over the business cycle, falling to about 755,000 in 2004 to recover in the next upswing to only 775,000 in 2007. These changes were accompanied by a massive restructuring of Viennese labour markets. Thus, in 2007, only 17.6 per cent of all employees in Vienna were working in the manufacturing industry, compared to about 82.1 per cent employed in the service sector (AMS, 2008). Male employment decreased from almost 430,000 in 1992 to less than 385,000 in 2004, while female employment grew more or less steadily, to peak at more than 380,000 in 2007. Of course the convergence of male and female employment conceals a higher share of part-time employment among Vienna's women (34.6 per cent according to Statistik Austria, 2008), meaning, among other things, that in Vienna employment in full-time equivalents is still lower than in the 1970s. Since 1987 the number of migrant workers has almost doubled again. Today about a third of Vienna's employees are from a migrant background (the national average is 18 per cent).2.1 Development of unemployment in Vienna since the late 1980s\n3. The WAFF: Before the creation of the WAFF, there were hardly any systematic ALMP at the city level, as this was obviously not seen as necessary. Vienna's City Council, which has been dominated by the Social Democrats since 1945, traditionally had good contacts with the relevant Federal Ministry of Employment and Social Security, which has been run by a trade unionist most of the time since 1945. The abandonment of the Austrokeynesian strategy and subsequent reforms of labour market policies, which were based on a radical restructuring of the institutional setting of labour market policies (contracting out of the AMS) and a slow shift towards workfare and activation, changed the situation since the second half of the 1980s. Social developments such as a growth in unemployment and precarious forms of employment accompanying the outlined economic trends, were most pronounced in Vienna.However, there seemed to be some denial about emerging social and labour market problems in \"Red Vienna\" at the top level of the administration in the early 1990s. Apparently, putting the idea of a local ALMP institution into practice was only possible after changes in the City Council. The immediate reason for the creation of the WAFF was the observation that Austrian provinces dominated by the conservative OEVP ( \"Osterreichische Volkspartei (Austrian people's party)) were more committed to ALMP than Vienna. Added to this, there was some dissatisfaction with the rather inflexible approach to ALMP of Vienna's regional AMS branch, whose structure still paralleled the branch organisation of the Austrian trade union movement. Thus, it was not surprising that, amongst others, the creation of the WAFF originated from within the Union of Private Sector Employees, which covers a range of service and manufacturing sectors, and the Chamber of Labour, a mandatory body representing all employees. A further reason for the creation of the WAFF was to have an institution to run Work Foundations. Work Foundations are high-quality labour market devices for employees which were created during the crisis of the nationalised industries. Work Foundations support occupational reorientation and retraining. The average length of participation in Work Foundations is one year, with a maximum duration of four years. The success rate (placements in new employment) of these measures is more than 70 per cent.The WAFF, which is attached to the City Council's economic and finance department, was finally created in 1995. It grew quickly over the following years and currently employs about 230 people. Through its status, which is based on the law on regional foundations and funds, it can run everyday activities independently of everyday politics. Its overall funds, however, have to be decided by the City Parliament every year. Nevertheless, critics have highlighted a lack of public accountability concerning the WAFF's activities (Becker and Novy, 1999).The self-understanding of the WAFF is dominated by an all-encompassing rhetoric of cooperation and partnership integrating all relevant actors in the field of labour market policies. Although it is controlled by the Social Democrat majority, all political parties, and the social partners as well as the Vienna branch of the AMS are part of the boards of the WAFF.3.1 Activities of the WAFF\n4. Conclusions: In this paper I have tried to highlight the key dynamics that fundamentally shape the institutional embedding of economic and labour market changes at the local level. Through the creation of the WAFF the Vienna City Council has tried to create a locally sensitive variant of ALMP to improve employees' capabilities to adapt to and cope with changes. For this the WAFF draws heavily on the Austrian tradition of social partnership and cooperation, which is quite remarkable as corporatist regulation has come under severe pressure at the national level over the last 10-15 years. However, the analysis reveals that for the successful and sustainable implementation of a new institution such as the WAFF the concept of partnership had to be expanded to other actors such as the regional branch of the AMS. At the same time, it becomes obvious that such a form of local governance cannot evolve without tensions and conflicts.Even though Vienna has to work with the dominant orientation of ALMP at the national level, which is increasingly moving towards workfare, the WAFF tries to arrive at a more inclusive and productivist orientation of employment related policies at the local level. Through this, the City Council wants to reconcile economic restructuring and social cohesion. Thus the WAFF is not only an important complement to ALMP in Vienna but gives the local level the opportunity to influence the strategic orientation of the (nationally controlled) AMS. This means that through the WAFF the City Council has an institution to influence local ALMP which would otherwise be more or less dominated by the nationally controlled AMS. Thus the significance of the WAFF might not only be found in the effectiveness of its programmes but rather in its political and conceptual impact on local ALMP in general, which would be a question for future research for example about the regional branch of the AMS.New collective \"capabilities\" of local ALMP seem to emerge through a reliance on preventative strategies to improve the adaptability and employability of employed and unemployed people in Vienna based on training and up-skilling (with a special focus on certain social groups, such as women, people with low skills and - albeit to a lesser extent - migrants).However, given the erosion of social partnership, the predominant shift towards activation and ever tighter limits to public budgets, the question of whether these emerging local strategies can represent an alternative to workfarist welfare reform has to remain open. A range of endogenous tensions and contradictions might undermine their potential. Thus the emerging form of local governance based on partnership is still geared towards elite cooperation and it seems easy to integrate into public sector restructuring, which is orientated towards New Public Management. Hence the question arises as to whether these policies really do connect to the everyday experiences of Vienna's inhabitants, many of whom are familiar with neither the activities of institutions such as the WAFF nor their social policy goals. As the programmes of the WAFF are organised on a voluntary basis there is the option not to participate. Given the strong reliance on individual counselling people certainly do have a voice concerning their interests and ambitions. So far, however, they have no voice in the creation and implementation of programmes and measures provided by the WAFF. Hence, the problems of social cohesion and inclusion are rather treated as problems of management and technocracy by a benevolent City Council than as a political project. Therefore, doubts have to be raised as to whether the outlined strategies are a sufficient response to tendencies of social polarisation, which lead to growing segregation and poverty at the local level, because they are not underpinned by a strategy to enlarge participation and public accountability.Opens in a new window.Figure 1\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of local institution building in active labour market policies (ALMP) in Vienna (Austria). The focus of the study is the WAFF (\"Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnenforderungsfonds\" - Vienna employee support fund) which was created in 1995.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This case study was conducted for the Capright-project (Resources, rights and capabilities). It is based on a documentary analysis, interviews with experts, policy makers and managers of the WAFF and the Public Employment Service.\nFindings: - While the national system of labour market policy is increasingly moving towards workfare, the analysis shows that the WAFF aims to implement a more inclusive approach to secure social cohesion through programmes and measures to help people to cope with economic restructuring - in particular through training and skill development but also measures to fight social exclusion. A strong reliance on Social Partnership and cooperation pervades the self-understanding of the WAFF even though institution building was not evolving without conflicts.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research sheds some light on social and economic developments in Vienna. Further research is needed to come to an in-depth analysis of the effects of the WAFF's labour market policy activities, e.g. in relation to the national Public Employment Service.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to the research about the evolution of labour market policies in cities in the context of recent economic, political and social changes.\n",
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Using human resource activities to implement sustainability in SMEs
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Small- and medium-sized enterprises",
"Human resource activities",
"Human resource functions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's society, it is easier than ever for media to publicise the damage business operations are having on the environment. Businesses are thus required to be more accountable and to rethink their operations (Epstein, 2008). This requires businesses of all sizes to analyse their current operations to determine how to be more sustainable. The word \"sustainability\" has numerous meanings. The definition from the Brundtland Report commissioned by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) is the most accepted definition and the one used in this research. They define sustainability as meeting the needs of people today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.\nSustainability in small and medium enterprises (SMEs): Totally, 90 per cent of worldwide businesses are categorised as SMEs (Jenkins, 2004) and SMEs are reported to be responsible for 70 per cent of global pollution (Tutterow, 2014). Yet the literature on both corporate sustainable development and innovation focuses mainly on large, often multinational, companies, while sustainability activities undertaken by SMEs are less understood and documented (Rodgers, 2010, p. 125). Large corporations are thought to have sufficient funds for green initiatives, but Lee and Rhee (2007) have argued that small- and medium-sized organisations lack the financial, human and other resources necessary to implement sustainability. Earlier research on the environmental practices of SMEs (Hillary, 2000) had portrayed small firm owner-managers as lacking conceptual knowledge and tools to assess and tackle environmental impacts, assuming that sustainability actions add costs.\nThe role of human resources (HRs) activities in sustainability: HR managers should be an integral part of implementing sustainability due to an arsenal of tools available for them to help embed sustainability into an organisation's culture (Garg, 2014). HR departments have the ability to communicate overall business goals, which is why they can be essential in helping implement change within an organisation (Wilkinson et al., 2001). Survey findings by SHRM et al. (2011) acknowledge that activities typically associated with the HR department are being utilised to some degree in order to implement sustainability, but the SHRM et al. (2011) report states that many HR professionals lack knowledge on sustainability initiatives as well as how these initiatives affect them.\nThe need for research on the role of HR in implementing sustainability in SMEs: Surveys conducted by various organisations show that HR activities play an integral part in helping to change the culture to become more sustainable. To date, the literature has focused on large organisations that have successfully implemented sustainability. No prior research has been reported regarding the role of HR in implementing sustainability in SMEs in the USA. There is a gap in the literature concerning how small and medium organisations are or are not using HR activities to implement sustainability. This study proposes to address this gap of knowledge through an initial exploratory study of how small organisations (organisations\nMethodology: The current study sought to understand the the role of HR activities in process of implementing sustainability in eight cases of SMEs who had been engaged in specific sustainability initiatives. According to Yin (2009), a qualitative study is appropriate when using case studies to determine how something was accomplished over a period of time. The primary method employed to collect information about each case was qualitative interviews, supported by review of available company documents. Malhortra and Birks (1999), state that the qualitative interview is a powerful tool for the researcher to use in gaining trust of the interviewees. The interviewer can then gain access to sensitive data about employee strategic alignment.\nFindings: Based on the data about the implementation process provided by each of the organisations, thematic cross-case analysis of findings was completed around the themes of each of the HR activities covered in the interviews. Table II summarises the findings from each case about the HR activities of communications, engagement, training, incentives and recruitment.\nDiscussion: Recent writers have espoused that HR managers should have a more active role in disseminating the information about sustainability initiatives in the organisation (Cohen et al., 2012; DuBois and DuBois, 2012; Jackson et al., 2011), however, from the SMEs that we studied, it seems they are only performing a peripheral role in this activity. This aligns with a study by Harris and Tregidga (2012), which asked 14 HR managers in New Zealand regarding their positions in helping to integrate sustainability. That study reported that HR managers are not a key driver in building sustainability within their organisations due to them viewing sustainability initiatives as \"non-priorities\" (p. 247). For example, at Premier Bank the HR manager sends out information on the community events they sponsor to the employees that states the details of the event (T. Link 2012, personal communication, 14 September).\nConclusion: The data collected offered a unique insight into how small- and medium-sized organisations in Iowa, USA are implementing sustainability initiatives. In particular, it has produced empirical data on how small- and medium-sized organisations have utilised HR activities in support of the implementation of sustainability in organisations. This exploratory study of eight SME cases found:\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how small- and medium-sized organisations that were already participating in recognised sustainability programmes in Iowa, USA, in how they were utilising activities normally associated with human resources (HRs) to implement sustainability - activities included communication, engagement, incentives and recruitment and retention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors were interested in how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were utilising HR functions to implement sustainability. This was an exploratory, qualitative research study utilised semi-structured interviews to obtain data.\nFindings: Based on the findings, some of the functions are being utilised more than others, with some activities not being implemented at all.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research offers empirical research on how sustainability is achieved in SMEs.\nPractical implications: This paper outlines some practical methods that any SME could utilise to help implement sustainability within an organisation.\nOriginality/value: This paper adds empirical research on how SMEs are implementing sustainable practices into their operations by using activities normally associated with the HR department.\n",
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] |
Personality maturation among emerging adults and future career success
|
[
"Emerging adulthood",
"Personality change",
"Reflectivity",
"Career adaptability",
"Career success",
"Longitudinal study"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, emerging adults' assumption of career- and family-related adult roles has been postponed to the late 20s or even later (Arnett, 2004). An increasing number of emerging adults have found it difficult to step into the adult world and, not surprisingly, many aspects of their lives are often unstable. For example, such instability can be seen in patterns where emerging adults find stable employment and commit to an occupation, eventually denounce it, then move onto learning a new skillset, and ultimately pursue a different occupation altogether. Stabilization is now more often attained at the end of the third decade of life. Specifically, reports suggest that most emerging adults have finally obtained long-term jobs and have become involved in stable relationships during these years (Cohen et al., 2003). As a whole, conceptualization and research on emerging adulthood, commonly defined as the ages between 18 and 29 (Arnett, 2011), have mostly documented these instabilities and fluctuations (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007); however, the specific mechanisms underlying how emerging adults eventually overcome these challenges and enter into stable and successful careers remain unclear.\nPersonality and career outcomes: Past research, though scarce, has examined the associations between positive personality attributes and better career outcomes. For example, emotional stability and conscientiousness are strong predictors of career success such as level of income, occupational status and satisfaction (Judge et al., 1999, 2002). Hudson et al. (2012) also showed that agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability explained better job involvement, greater organizational citizenship and fewer instances of counterproductive behaviors at work. The significant contribution of conscientiousness and agreeableness to career success can be understood as it represents an individual's degree of self-control, persistence and need for achievement as well as a tendency to cooperate with others (Judge et al., 1999).\nSelf-criticism, changes in self-criticism and career outcomes: To address these gaps, in the current study we focus on Blatt's (2008) theory of personality development and psychopathology because we believe that, given its emphasis on the self, it provides an appropriate conceptual framework for explaining successful coping within developmental changes or transitions. Central to this study is the attribute of self-definition, or the maintenance of a coherent, realistic and positive sense of self. Positive self-definition, such as high dispositional efficacy and confidence in oneself, fosters adaptive functioning. In contrast, negative self-definition, such as high self-criticism, leads to maladaptive functioning (Blatt, 2008). High self-criticism is characterized by a preoccupation with achievement and negative appraisals of the self, including guilt and fear of losing approval when failing to live up to certain standards.\nPersonality change and reflectivity: Positive changes in personality could be helpful not only for acquiring of new skills, but for reducing one's tendency to perceive events negatively, and for facilitating positive interaction with others and with the environment (Robins and Trzesniewski, 2005). For example, Parker et al. (2012) showed that positive changes in personality, such as decreases in neuroticism (also a negative personality attribute like self-criticism) associated with better relationship quality with parents, siblings and friends. By gaining exposure to different experiences and successfully navigating the demands of important figures, such as romantic partners or employers, emerging adults should gain a better understanding of others' perspectives, and learn to consider and balance their own needs as well as the needs of their partners (Shulman et al., 2006).\nThe current study: Guided by recent studies on personality (Roberts and Davis, 2016; Roberts et al., 2006) describing emerging adulthood as a period characterized by increasing personality maturation and greater capacity to reflect on and draw lessons from past experiences (Shulman et al., 2006), the current study aims to examine the effects of increasing personality maturation on future career-related outcomes. Past research within the framework of vocational psychology has shown significant associations between personality and work-related outcomes across life span. For example, higher level of conscientiousness predicted work-related outcomes such as level of income, and better job involvement or job satisfaction (Hudson et al., 2012; Judge et al., 2002). However, this body of research has mainly focused on Big Five personality attributes such as conscientiousness and has not yet fully considered the potential contributions of personality maturation during emerging adulthood and its effect on future work-related outcomes. In the current study, we intend to examine the extent to which personality maturation over emerging adulthood can explain future career outcomes above and beyond the initial level of self-criticism. We assessed personality maturation via two measures. In the first, we assessed mean changes in levels of participants' reported self-criticism from age 23 to 29. Given that age 23 fits well within the earlier stages of emerging adulthood and that the age of 29 is near its terminus, we hold that this timeframe is well positioned to capture the bulk of personality maturation over emerging adulthood. In the second, we measured reflectivity (i.e. learning from one's experiences) also at the age of 29 given that we expected that most participants will have fully established such notions about themselves by that time. Finally, outcomes were assessed at the age of 35 when participants were already expected to have completed the transition to adulthood.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Preliminary and descriptive analyses\nDiscussion: In line with our hypotheses, findings revealed that earlier level of self-criticism, as well as decrease in self-criticism, predicted greater objective and subjective career success. For example, greater decrease in self-criticism during the emerging adulthood years predicted lower likelihood to experience negative events at a workplace and holding fewer reservations about one's career. In addition, we also found that greater reflectivity, an additional marker of maturation, was also associated with future career success. This association was found both with objective career success such as level of income at the age of 35, and with subjective career success such as the perception of work as an avenue for self-expression.\nImplications for intervention and future research: The current study's findings point to two aspects that contributed to future career success. The first aspect is reductions in negative self-perceptions, and second is the attainment of greater reflectivity and the capacity to draw lessons from past experiences. We believe that these findings are relevant for tailoring possible future interventions with individuals seeking career counseling. Considering the inevitable changes and instabilities of the current economy (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007), it is important to help young adults become less critical about themselves, learn from their past experiences and identify which behaviors or attitudes led to their successes and failures. The ability to develop a more positive approach, and to draw important lessons, has the potential to facilitate successful investing in one's career endeavors and initiate a positive cycle of interaction with the work world (Lodi-Smith and Roberts, 2007).\nLimitations: Although we found impressive associations across a span of 12 years, the current study has a number of limitations. First, all our information was collected from one source, the young adults themselves. Information collected from partners or from employers is likely to provide a much richer picture of the precursors of career-related outcomes. Second, this study does not adequately address the issues of causality between personality change, reflectivity and future outcomes. In addition, self-criticism was assessed at two different points of time and it is correct to discuss changes in personality. However, because reflectivity was only assessed once - at the age of 29 - we must be cautious and not refer to reflectivity as a process of change or maturation. In line with social investment theory (Roberts and Wood, 2006), we cannot rule out the possibility that behavioral changes in one's career or other domains between the ages of 23 and 29 years precipitate the changes in personality. Due to several data limitations in the current study, we were unable to implement any rigorous statistical modeling techniques (i.e. cross-lagged panel analyses) which are required to test the directional predominance of either personality or future outcomes. Third, our sample consisted of young adults who originated mostly from lower-middle class families. Because young adults from privileged backgrounds probably have greater access to resources, their attitude toward work and career development might be different. Finally, our study was conducted on Israeli young adults. Israel is a Western culture and, when making the transition to adulthood, young Israelis face dilemmas and uncertainties similar to those of their counterparts in other Western countries (Mayseless and Scharf, 2003). However, young Israelis are subject to a military service of two or three years, which can be considered a major personal experience that could have led to personality change, reflectivity and ways to cope with assignments. Despite these limitations, this 12-year longitudinal study further highlights the processes connecting personality change, reflectivity and objective and subjective career outcomes across young adulthood and during a major developmental stage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of maturation processes - personality change and reflectivity as characterized by greater awareness to self and others - during emerging adulthood in predicting career success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 205 of Israeli emerging adults was followed over a 12-year period. Participants completed measures of self-criticism at age 23 and 29, reflectivity at the age of 29 and subjective and objective career outcomes such as satisfaction with work and level of income at the age of 35. Hierarchical regressions determined the extent that decreases in self-criticism as well as greater reflectivity that predicted future career success.\nFindings: The findings of this paper indicated that greater decreases in self-criticism were longitudinally associated with less frequent negative experiences at work and lesser tendency to have doubts about one's career. Greater reflective capacity was longitudinally associated with a future higher income, greater career satisfaction and a stronger perception of one's career as a means to implement inner interests.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results of this paper suggest that decreasing negative self-perception and enhancing awareness about self and others might facilitate a future career success.\nOriginality/value: This is among the first studies that demonstrate the role of personality maturation during emerging adulthood for future career success.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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An examination of factors that influence the number of information security policy violations in Qatari organizations
|
[
"Qatar",
"Information security",
"Trust",
"Hofstede’s cultural dimensions",
"Information security policy violations",
"Policy scope"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information systems today are a cornerstone of any company. Domestic and international companies need to understand and utilize the power of information and telecommunication if they want to survive the fierce competition and operate in the long-term. Along with the rapid advancements in information technology (IT), came a rising number of security risks and incidents that varied in severity, impact and nature. Information systems are becoming more open, distributed and exposed; therefore, having a strongly secured information system is not open to question anymore, it is a necessity. Customers would not approach a company that could not guarantee the safety of their information, and companies will not be able to withstand the costs and negative publicity that could occur if there is a security breach. Internal security incidents, whether deliberate or accidental, can be much costlier than an attack from external incidents, and are more likely to occur.\n2. Background: This section contains a brief review of related theories from the fields of criminology and behavioral psychology which were used in formulating the conceptual model of this study. A connection between the number of information security policy violations and the identified factors found later in the literature review is discussed too.\n3. Literature review: In this section, two components that affect the number of information security policy violations are discussed. The first component is the human element which includes awareness of information security policy and trust. The second component is the information policy which includes clarity of the policy scope and the effect of information security policy on work environment.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Survey development\n5. Data analysis: 5.1 Sample profile\n6. Results and discussion: Linear regression was used to analyze the relationship between the identified factors and the number of information security policy violations. The assumptions of the multiple regression models were examined before testing the hypotheses. For example multicollinearity was not a problem because the variance inflation factors were low (< 1.373). Autocorrelation was also not an issue because the Durbin-Watson value was 1.729. Finally, the plotted histograms of the data depicted a normal distribution. The regression model was significant (p = 0.000) with R2 = 0.145, as shown in Figure 2. The regression test revealed that there was a significant relationship between trust and the number of information security policy violations with standardized coefficient = 0.246 and significance = 0.002. Thus, H2 was supported. This finding is in accordance with the findings of Durgin (2007) and Boulder (2010). The results also revealed that there was a significant relationship between the effects of information security policy on work environment and the number of information security policy violations (significance = 0.017); in such a way that the positive effect of the information security policy on the work environment would reduce the number of information security policy violations. The same applies to scope of policy, as there was a significant relationship between it and the number of information security policy violations (significance = 0.045); the clearer the scope of policy is, the less the number of information security policy violations are likely to occur. Thus, H3 and H4 were supported. It should be noted that among the three significant factors, trust had the most significant impact on the number of information security policy violations with standardized coefficient = 0.246, followed by the impact of information security policy on work environment with standardized coefficient = -0.211. Thus, managers need to make sure that their employees are more vigilant when sharing information with others, and that they do not trust anyone when it comes to confidential information. Moreover, managers need to state the information security policy in such a way that it is not hard to follow and does not make the work environment uncomfortable by adding unnecessary restrictions.\n7. Conclusion: The primary objectives of this study were:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate factors that impact the number of information security policy violations in Qatari organizations and to examine the moderating effect of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on the relationships between the independent factors and the number of information security policy violations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Grounded in related theories from the fields of criminology, behavioral psychology and theory of planned behavior, two components that affect the number of information security policy violations were identified. A quantitative approach was used by developing a questionnaire survey to collect the data. The research model was tested using 234 employees from different Qatari organizations.\nFindings: The results of the study indicate that trust, the impact of implementing information security policy on work environment and the clarity of the scope of the information security policy were significant factors in predicting the number of information security policy violations. The findings also reveal that cultural dimensions such as uncertainty avoidance and collectivism moderate the relationships between trust, clarity of policy scope and impact of information security policy on work environment and the number information security policy violations.\nResearch limitations/implications: The generalizability of the results is limited because the sample of the study was drawn from only one developing country. Therefore, a plausible future research could be testing the proposed model in many developing and developed countries.\nPractical implications: The paper includes practical implications for developing and implementing security measures and policies in diversified work environments.\nOriginality/value: This study fulfils a gap in investigating the factors that influence the number of information security policy violations and the moderating effect of cultural dimensions in developing countries such as Qatar.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
High performance work systems in the tourism and hospitality industry: a critical review
|
[
"High performance work systems",
"Hospitality and tourism management",
"HPWS",
"Human resources",
"Human resource management",
"HRM",
"Review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: For the past three decades, researchers in the human resource management (HRM) literature have focused on the quest of finding the appropriate HRM practices that will contribute - as a system - to higher organizational performance (Messersmith and Guthrie, 2010). These systems of HRM practices, often called \"high performance work systems (HPWS)\", have been described as \"a specific combination of HRM practices, work structures and processes that maximizes employee knowledge, skill, commitment and flexibility\" (Bohlander and Snell, 2007, p. 690).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 High-performance work systems and the \"black-box\" issue\n3. Methods: 3.1 Study search and selection\n4. Results: As Table 1 reports, 11 of the 28 studies examined the overall \"black-box\" issue, 17 examined the process of the \"black-box\", whereas only 1 (Ruzic, 2015) incorporated both the \"black-box\" and the actual process. Moreover, 9 studies were based on single respondents, whereas the majority followed a \"cross-sectional\" research design. Last but not least, only 9 of the 28 studies were conducted in the European context (3 in Romania, 5 in Spain and 1 in Croatia). Finally, as Table 2 shows, it is not surprising that the majority of studies (18 out of 28) have been published by peer-reviewed journals relevant to the Tourism and Hospitality sector (International Journal of Cotemporary Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Tourism Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research and International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration) followed by \"employee relations\" (three studies) and \"International Journal of HRM\" (two studies).\n5. Discussion and conclusions: The review that was conducted concerned the development of the HPWS research in the area of Tourism and Hospitality sector for the past 14 years, resulting in 28 studies. In summary, Tables 1, 3 and 4 reveal a very alarming picture, highlighting the lack of research in the relevant area. It should be noted, however, that there is an increase in the HPWS research during the past two years (five studies published in 2018 and four in 2019). Overall, with few exceptions, there seems to be no consensus among these studies regarding the actual contribution of the findings to the generic HRM literature and specifically with regard to the \"black-box\" issue and/or the process of the \"black-box\". Moreover, the majority of these studies suffer from various methodological limitations that future studies should try to overcome (e.g. single vs multiple respondents; cross-sectional nature of research design; robustness of statistical analysis). On the basis of these findings, the next section highlights these issues in detail. In particular, a number of theoretical and methodological concerns are presented that have emerged from the analytical review and are central to the development of the HPWS research in the Tourism sector, along with remedies to these issues. Finally, this study provides recommendations for further research.\n6. Theoretical implications: Overall, it is evident that the present analytical review provides the wider academic community with a number of theoretical implications. First, this critical review clearly shows that the HPWS research in the Tourism and Hospitality sector lacks behind the general developments in other sectors with regard to the \"black-box\" and the actual process of the \"black-box\" (Garcia-Chas et al., 2016; Cooper et al., 2019), with few exceptions (Sun et al., 2007; Tang and Tang, 2012; Chen et al., 2017). Hence, this \"gap\" signals to researchers that additional theories need to be incorporated in the conceptual models (e.g. \"social identity theory\"; \"psychological empowerment perspective\") in deciphering the mechanism through which HPWS leads to employees' productivity and organizational performance in the specific sector. In doing so, there is a clear need to shift the HRM research toward employee attitudes and behaviors, as has been underscored by recent studies (Jiang and Messersmith, 2018; Peccei and van de Voorde, 2019). Moreover, the present review underscores the necessity in using the appropriate definition regarding the \"HPWS\" term to create consensus among researchers and practitioners. Similarly, more effort is needed not only toward adopting a less vague list of HRM practices in the HPWS construct but also by distinguishing the contribution of the system of HRM practices (i.e. HPWS) as opposed to the impact of the individual HRM practices. Last but not least, great attention should be paid not only to the benefits of using multiple sources of respondents (i.e. managers vs employees) but also to nature of the research design (cross-sectional vs time-lagged vs longitudinal).\n7. Practical implications: Overall, the present analytical review provides a roadmap for researchers aiming to further develop the HRM literature in the Tourism and Hospitality sector. Nevertheless, the present study offers additionally significant implications for society and practice. First, regarding the societal implications, the majority of the studies reviewed reveal the usefulness of HPWS not only in enhancing employees' work engagement but also in reducing their intentions of leaving their jobs, leading ultimately to increased productivity and extra-role behaviors. Hence, this analytical review confirms the crucial importance of the HRM with regard to the successful implementation of business strategies in the hospitality and tourism industries (Garcia-Lillo et al., 2018, p. 1742). For instance, following the Sun et al. (2007) and Tang and Tang (2012) studies, it is evident that HPWS has the ability to contribute to the creation of a justice and service climate, both of which help employees to exhibit positive attitudes and behaviors, leading to superior service quality and customers' satisfaction. Similarly, Karatepe (2013a) highlighted the direct effect of HPWS on employees' work engagement, which, in turn, affected job performance and extra-role customer service. Dhar (2015) underscored the significant role of organizational commitment in the relationship between HPWS and service innovative-behavior of employees, a relationship that can be moderated by the climate for innovation. Ruzic (2015) highlighted the crucial role of key HRM activities in enhancing employees' work engagement, skills, attitudes, behaviors, loyalty and ultimately hotels' financial performance. Moving a step further, Tuan (2018) indicated the moderating role that HPWS has the ability to play between paternalistic leadership behaviors and employee work engagement, affecting ultimately extra-role customer service. Last but not least, the study of Wong and others (2019) confirmed HPWS as a mechanism in reducing hotel employees' propensity to quit through lowering their emotional exhaustion.\n8. Limitations and future research: The aim of present study is to provide a systematic review with regard to the HPWS approach in the field of the Tourism and Hospitality management. In doing so, the relevant studies were classified based on their theoretical contribution to the wider HPWS literature. Moreover, the analytical review classified the studies between those that examine the general \"black-box\" issue (i.e. the HPWS - organizational performance relationship) and those that investigate the actual process of the \"black-box\" (i.e. the ways through which HPWS impacts employee attitudes). Overall, the research reviewed HPWS papers that were published in the 2004-2019 time period, with a focus on the tourism sector. Nevertheless, despite the contribution of the present analytical review to the HPWS research in the tourism and hospitality management, there are some limitations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to provide an up-to-date theoretically based qualitative review regarding the \"high-performance work systems\" (HPWS) approach in the area of the tourism and hospitality management. The aim is to classify the so-far studies between those that examine the general \"black-box\" issue and those that investigate the actual process of the \"black-box.\" Finally, this study identifies the \"gaps\" in the literature and provides avenues for further research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This review is based on a systematic critical analysis of the HPWS research that has been conducted explicitly on the tourism and hospitality industry during the years 2004-2019 (N = 28), published in core HRM and management journals.\nFindings: This study identifies a significant gap in the progress of the HPWS research in the tourism and hospitality sector, contrary to the so-far research in the generic human resource management (HRM) literature. Hence, recommendations and suggestions are provided for advancing the HPWS research in the particular sector, including the need for more advanced conceptual and statistical models by focusing specifically on the process of the \"black-box.\"\nPractical implications: The present review contributes considerably to the HPWS research in the tourism and hospitality sector and recommends avenues for further research in enhancing the overall HPWS literature.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that reviews the HPWS literature in the tourism and hospitality sector, in an effort to reconcile the differences between the present sector and the generic HRM literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Breaking-out-of-the-box in organizations: Structuring a positive climate for the development of creativity in the workplace
|
[
"Creative thinking",
"Workplace",
"Organizations",
"Organizational culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As individuals enter this world at birth and begin their development, they are taught about the \"boxes\" which are the traditional ways we define and act on our environments. We are shaped into accepting grass as green and cows as brown. At home, the parents' word is inviolate; in school, we learn that the teacher's approach to solving a problem is the only acceptable approach; and, as we enter the workforce, that the boss is \"always right\". These become conceptual \"boxes\" which define boundaries of acceptable alternatives and limit our creative approaches in acting on our environment. These \"boxes\" are the focal point of this article. What are the conventional barriers encountered in the work environment and how do we \"break-out-of-the-box\" to find more creative solutions to organizational problems? The authors would like to share the observations of a combined 70 years of consultation with organizations and input from tens of thousands of world-wide employees.\nThe psychological contract: helping employees to \"break-out-of-the-box\": The concept of the psychological contract was first introduced by Chris Arygris of Harvard University (Argyris, 1960). The psychological contract in the workplace implies unwritten expectations that employees have prior to employment and, likewise, expectations the company/organization has of its employees after they are hired. These expectations can have a powerful effect on the productivity of employees; however, they are seldom explicitly verbalized and almost never put in written form.\nCommitting the psychological contract to writing: case one: While producing substantial impact on organizations, the psychological contract has been a poorly understood concept to both employees and organizations (Cangemi et al., 2001). One of the authors, as a consultant, visited a facility of approximately 200 employees in the North Central part of the United States. He suggested to the organization's leadership that they conduct an procedure in which the management and employees would commit their unspoken workplace expectations to writing. The facility's leader decided to give it a try. The results were the development of a set of expectations by management and employees which were then reflected in signs which were printed and posted in key areas. Additionally, a handout was developed and distributed to each employee. The signs (and the handout) read as illustrated in Table I.After the psychological contracts of labor and management were committed to writing, a further series of meetings were held to develop a set of core values, by which both the employees and the leadership were to abide. The results are below:Our definition of leadership:... showing a greater genuine concern for others than for ourselves as we obtain our goals. We believe we get back what we give.Our definition of teamwork:... a team is not a team until each member of the group is aware of how his or her behavior affects the entire team.Our core values:*we will support each other;*we will be punctual;*we will be prepared for what we do;*we will follow through on what we say we're going to do;*we will be accountable for our actions or lack thereof;*we will be friendly to each other and to others;*we will allow others to give us feedback - both positive and negative;*we will guard against taking things personally;*we will be careful what we say and how we say it;*we will be open and honest with each other;*we will respect each other;*we must know where each other is coming from;*we must laugh - especially at ourselves;*we will do what we know to be right;*we will not let a team member get caught blind-sided;*we will praise what we want to see more often;*we will look for things to praise and to celebrate;*we will be considerate of each other's feelings;*we will learn to disagree without being disagreeable; and*we will be attentive and compassionate to the needs of others.This facility, which had been considered for closing, financially recovered and became a significant producer in the market of its product. The creative intuition of the leader made this production facility a vital component in its corporation. To move from a potential closing to becoming a significant contributor to its parent corporation never could have been accomplished without the creative climate created by the leadership. In reality, it was the creative initiative that brought about the successful turnaround.\nCommitting the psychological contract to writing: case two: On the advice of the same consultant, the same procedure was developed in a facility in 2001 in the Southern part of the United States. The results of this procedure are evident in the following release from the company's international corporate headquarters in Sweden:This plant in the USA has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. Everything is being done more efficiently and at lower cost than before. What is more, the company is now setting its sights on new and daring targets ... The dramatic transformation that has taken place at the plant since 2000 are: costs cut by 25 percent, productivity improved by 15 percent, and production increased by more than 50 percent, inventories lower by 40 percent ... This has been a challenging but necessary process, and it wouldn't have been possible without the wholehearted support and commitment of all our employees ... The level of confidence is in fact so high, other targets are also being set ... Within the next three years we are planning to win the prestigious North American Best Plants Award, which is presented by the business magazine Industry Week.How did all of this happen? Again, with the plant's leadership commitment to creative change, the following psychological contract was developed and posted for the employees:\nWhat you can expect from us as leaders: *A safe place to work: we believe everyone has a right to work in a safe environment, free of hazards and unsafe conditions. If there is an issue you believe is unsafe, bring it to the leader's attention so it can be investigated and fixed.*Trust and respect: we will respect you and trust that you will always want to do the right thing. We will create a culture where everyone mutually respects each other.*Openness and honesty: we will be open and honest and strive to communicate effectively, whether it is good news or bad news. We believe bad news does not get better with age and everyone wants to hear good news right away.*Coaching and mentoring: we will approach each situation as your coach and mentor, not as your boss. We want to empower individuals and teams to make decisions and help them in running their business.*Input into decisions: we will value your input into decisions that affect you, looking for your wisdom and experience to help the organization get better.*Teamwork: we will promote working together in the spirit of teamwork. We believe the best organizations are the ones that empower people to work together, creating a synergy that overcomes adversity.*Study the losses: every organization suffers setbacks. We will create an environment that allows failure to occur, as long as we study the reasons why in order to get better. Success comes with repeated effort that is not afraid of failure.*Celebrate the wins: we will take the time to publicly celebrate when individuals, teams or the company does well. We understand people want to be recognized when they do a good job. We want to catch people doing things right. As such, we believe everyone wants to be on a winning team.*Fairness and consistency: we will always make decisions with the intent to be fair to everyone and consistent so as not to play favorites. If something seems unfair, challenge us to explain why we believe it is fair. If it ends up not being fair, we will take actions to correct the problem as best as possible.*Seek to understand: we will always seek first to understand, then to be understood in communicating with everyone. We will ask questions to understand what is on your mind. Challenge us to make sure we understand your position on an issue, so that we may represent your needs going forward.*Open to feedback: we will always be open to receiving honest feedback. We cannot address a problem if we do not know about it. Don't be afraid to give us constructive feedback on how to improve. And remember, even leaders like to be praised when they deserve it.*Balance the needs: we will represent everyone's needs when we make decisions that affect them. We will always make decisions that balance the needs of the people with the needs of the business. To be a successful organization, we must find ways to create a desirable win-win situation, as that is truly the best way for all stakeholders.*Continuous improvement: we will lead the organization to continuously improve. If we are not getting better everyday, then we are falling behind the competition. We will create an environment of learning, where everyone has the opportunity to improve and advance their skill sets.*Work hard, play hard and have fun: we believe that it is important to work hard while having fun. It's okay to have fun at work while getting the job done. Our work can get boring and monotonous, so we need to create an environment where it can be enjoyable to come to work every day.\nLeadership's expectations of employees: *Be here every day: we have hired you because we need you. Your attendance is crucial if we are to meet our commitments to our customers.*Be here on time: to be as efficient as possible, it is necessary that we start the day as efficiently as possible.*Be friendly: smiling is contagious. So is frowning. Put on a happy face.*Be polite: the positive way to handle an issue is the polite way.*Be prepared: know and understand your work instructions to maximize the quality of your work.*Be a listener: understand the complete context of what is said. If you don't understand, ask questions.*Be a doer: utilize your time in a productive manner.*Be a worker: be efficient at your job. Always ask yourself, \"what can I do to help myself?\"*Be a positive risk taker: anything worth doing involves risk. Do the right thing.*Be a success: when the team succeeds, we all succeed. If you practice these expectations, you will succeed.*Be a team player: \"We\" comes before \"me.\" Put selfish things aside and do what's best for the team.*Be willing to help others: the ultimate team player will always lend a helping hand.*Be willing to accept change: change is inevitable. Those of us who adapt to change the quickest will be the most successful.\nA further observation: Dr Robert Angelloz of Nacogdoches State University in Texas provided yet another contribution to the understanding of the creation of an inspiring work environment. His research found a minimum of 80 percent of the behavior within an organization must be a positive experience for associates in order to free them to think, to contribute, to experiment, to create - in essence, to \"break-out-of-the-box\". If the negative experiences exceed 20 percent of the associates' work experiences, they will not find the work environment quite as fulfilling, and the creative returns will diminish as the negative experiences increase. (R. Angelloz, personal communication, June 12, 2002). These employees choose to remain \"in the box\", with little innovation and little job fulfillment. Combining Angelloz's observations and the profound need for associates to feel important, it seems clear creating an \"out-of-the-box\" environment that encourages creativity must first satisfy a basic human need ... the need to be valued. An important key to this development is an essentially positive environment (Dinkmeyer and Losoncy, 1980).The psychological contracts presented in this article give credibility to the idea that a creative environment can be fostered by identifying the psychological expectations of both employees and management, committing them to writing, and then living up to the agreed-upon provisions of the contracts. The results, as depicted in the two cases presented in this article, suggest an \"out-of-the-box\", creative environment can be successfully brought into the workplace.\nWhat employees want from work: Bill Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, has stated, \"Men and women want to do a good job, a creative job, and if they are provided the proper environment, they will do so\" (Nelson, 1996).Developing a climate that encourages freedom, creativity, and a \"breaking-out-of-the-box \" attitude requires some knowledge of the psychological needs of employees. A survey of more than 40,000 industrial employees is frequently cited to give some understanding of employee needs. The employees consistently ranked the following top three needs, in order of preference (Nelson, 1996; Miller and Cangemi, 2000):1. full appreciation for work done;2. feeling \"in\" on things; and3. sympathetic help with personal matters.When one observes these three preferences as one psychological unit (Cangemi, 2005), it becomes apparent there is a great need for the development of a climate conducive to freedom and creativity - a climate that satisfies the need to feel significant (Dinkmeyer and Losoncy, 1980), the need to be important, the need to \"be somebody\". These needs are in line with the teachings of the psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1969), who stated \"life is a search for significance - all human beings have a need to feel significant\".When the basic emotional needs of employees are understood by their leaders - essentially the need to be valued and treated with dignity, trust and respect - the verbalization and commitment to writing of the psychological contracts of both parties seems to offer a strong, solid foundation in the workplace for the development of an emotional climate conducive to generating creative, \"out-of-the-box\" thought and action. It follows that if employees feel important, are appreciated, are made to feel they are a vital part of the organization, and feel that their leaders are concerned about their personal welfare, then the seeds for developing an open, creative workplace will have been sown, encouraging employees to \"out-of-the-box\" in the thinking and contributions.\nConclusions: There is no doubt freedom of thought can be fostered in the workplace. However, certain behaviors must precede any attempts to create a fulfilling, stimulating, and freedom-to-think, creative work environment. Formulation and fulfillment of a psychological contract, especially on the part of the organization's leaders - but also including employees - seems to be an effective process for the development of an open, healthy climate which is encouraging and conducive to the development of creativity. In the larger view of the organization, such freedom which comes from clear understanding and expression of expectations within the company significantly increases its transparency. With increased clarity of understanding of the work environment and supportive leadership, employees will go beyond the job minimums and offer creative, \"out-of-the-box\" contributions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The authors share the observations of a combined 70 years of consultation with organizations, and input from tens of thousands of worldwide employees, to explore conventional barriers encountered in the work environment and how to \"break-out-of-the-box\" to find more creative solutions to organizational problems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Narrative based on over 70 years of consultation with organizations on a wide variety of related managerial subjects.\nFindings: - Certain behaviors must precede any attempts to create a fulfilling, stimulating, and freedom-to-think, creative work environment. Formulation and fulfillment of a psychological contract, especially on the part of the organization's leaders - but also including employees - seems to be an effective process for the development of an open, healthy climate which is encouraging and conducive to the development of creativity. In the larger view of the organization, such freedom which comes from clear understanding and expression of expectations within the company significantly increases its transparency. With increased clarity of understanding of the work environment and supportive leadership, employees will go beyond the job minimums and offer creative, \"out-of-the-box\" contributions.\nOriginality/value: - A creative new look at an old but very critical subject.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Perceptions of countries based on personality traits: a study in China
|
[
"Individual perception",
"Personality",
"China",
"National cultures",
"Country of origin"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As a result of China's opening-up policy, more and more Chinese people travel to foreign countries for the purpose of tourism, business, or education. The China National Tourism Association has estimated that 40.95 million Chinese went abroad in 2007, which represented an 18.6 percent increase from the preceding year (Ling, 2008). Considering that there were about one million overseas Chinese travelers in 1990 (Chen, 1998), this shows an impressive growth in international travel by the Chinese in less than 20 years. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, by 2020 the number of Chinese tourists will reach 100 million and China will become the fourth largest source country of tourists in the world (European Travel Commission, 2007). In addition, Chinese people have come to learn more about countries through the increasing influx of visiting tourists and also through the greater availability of foreign products. Whereas there were 51 million incoming tourists in China in 1996, the country hosted nearly 132 million foreign tourists in 2007 (Chinatour, 2009). As a consequence, it is fair to say that the Chinese know more about foreign countries than ever before and that, as a consequence, they have developed over time relatively well-organized mental representations of countries.Knowing about these mental representations is important. Multinational companies who wish to enter the Chinese market need to know how their country is perceived as a manufacturer of consumer goods and what country image dimensions drive these perceptions. This is because a great number of studies have shown that a product's country of origin has a significant impact on consumer product evaluations (see Ahmed and d'Astous, 2004; Pharr, 2006; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). Tourism companies and policy makers also need to know how their country is perceived and what factors impact on these perceptions in order to develop efficient strategies to persuade Chinese tourists to visit their country. The accession of China to the World Trade Organization in 2001 is a concrete illustration that the country wants to play an active role in the world economy and that it will likely become an increasingly significant voice in the conduct of international affairs. Within this context, it is important for international decision makers to know what the people of China think of their country and of other countries as well.The objective of this study is therefore to examine country images in China. The specific context in which these images are studied is that of personality. More precisely, in this study countries are seen as objects which can be positioned on personality traits, just like other commercial objects such as brands (Aaker, 1997; Batra et al., 1993) and stores (d'Astous and Levesque, 2003). In order to accomplish this objective, a survey was conducted in Beijing using a country personality scale which was adapted to the Chinese social context.\nPositioning countries on personality traits: Research on country images has been going on for well over 40 years. In social psychology, country image studies have centered on differentiating countries in terms of their level of economic development and their political regime (Robinson and Hefner, 1967) as well as on such dimensions as modernism and competitiveness (Jones and Ashmore, 1973). In marketing, an important stream of research has examined country images in relation to the perception of countries as producers of consumer goods (Nagashima, 1970; Narayana, 1981; Roth and Romeo, 1992). Other marketing researchers have adopted a broader view, looking at countries in terms of political, economic, cultural, and technological aspects (Allred et al., 1999; Martin and Eroglu, 1993) or, using a brand analogy, from the point of view of exports, governance, culture and heritage, people, tourism, and immigration and investment (Anholt-GfK Roper Nation, 2008).A different perspective on country images has recently been presented by d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) who have argued that countries, like other objects such as brands and stores, may be represented in people's minds in terms of personality dimensions. According to these authors and to other image researchers who have adopted a personality approach, forming impressions of people is a spontaneous and pervasive human activity that extends naturally to animals as well as inanimate objects. In the case of countries, d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) believe that the personality approach is relevant because countries are often presented in a human-like manner. As an example, they mention a newspaper article in which the United States are described as \"aggressive [sic], morally decadent, and racist\" (Hawley, 2005). The authors also argue that human traits are easily activated mental representations that are rich in meanings and that permit to make all sorts of inferences. Finally, they make the point that the personality approach to country image development is interesting from the point of view of self-image congruence theory which posits that people prefer objects (other people, advertisements, products, and brands, etc.) that have psychological characteristics congruent with theirs. Thus, studies have shown that consumers prefer products and brands that correspond to their actual or self-concept (Onkvisit and Shaw, 1987; Ross, 1971; Sirgy, 1982), that they better appreciate stores that have a personality that is congruent with theirs (d'Astous and Levesque, 2003; Martineau, 1958), and that they have more favourable attitudes toward products which are advertised with messages that are consistent with their self-image (Hong and Zinkhan, 1995). According to self-image congruence theory, people should evaluate more positively countries that they perceive as being psychologically similar to them. As d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) have noted, personality traits appear to be highly relevant constructs in the context of this theory.In their study of country personality, d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) have adopted the classical personality trait approach. They have assumed that countries can be positioned on a limited set of personality dimensions, just like human beings. Their aim was to identify the fundamental personality traits that people use when they think of countries. The six country personality dimensions that emerged in their study were labelled as follows: agreeableness, wickedness, assiduousness, snobbism, conformity, and unobtrusiveness. Using samples of French-speaking Canadian adults, d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) have developed and validated a multi-item scale that can be employed to position countries on these six personality dimensions. The scale comprises 37 items and has very good psychometric properties ( Table I).\nStudy objective: The objective of this study was to adapt d'Astous and Boujbel's (2007) country personality scale to the social context of China. As China is rapidly evolving as a major player in the world's economy, companies who wish to enter this huge market need to understand how the Chinese people perceive their country in order to orient the marketing of their products and services. Because products and services are associated with specific countries of origin - through their brand name or information about country of manufacture - consumer perceptions of market offerings are influenced by country images. In many cases, country-of-origin information may enhance these perceptions (e.g. German-engineered cars, Italian shoes), but in other cases country perceptions may affect negatively consumer attitudes toward and willingness to buy foreign products and services. For instance, Klein et al. (1998) have shown that consumer attitudes toward a country's products may be influenced by the animosity toward that country, independently of consumer judgements of product quality. The recent boycott of the French retailer Carrefour in several Chinese cities is a case in point (Wang, 2008). Following the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay boycott in France in April 2008, the pro-Tibet policy stance of the Paris government, as well as rumours that Carrefour had given money to the Dalai Lama, the front entrance of several Carrefour stores was blocked by Chinese nationalists in an unprecedented anti-French protest. Such consumer demonstrations in China attest to the importance that country perceptions play in shaping consumer attitudes toward as well as intention to buy products and services of foreign origin. Therefore, the development of a measuring instrument with good psychometric properties aimed at positioning countries on the basis of their personality in China is a highly relevant research goal.\nMethod: Preliminary studies\nResults and discussion: Sample description\nConclusion and managerial implications: People know more about countries today than 50 years ago. They learn about them through the mass media, through their consumption of imported products, and through their travel experiences and interactions with foreign people. The people of China are no exception. They too have had many opportunities to learn about countries, their products, their customs, and their people, and to develop stable and well-organized mental country representations, especially since China has adopted its opening-up policy. The research presented in this paper has examined the proposition that these mental representations in China may exist in the form of personality traits.The research results seem to concur with this proposition. First, the Chinese appear to have no difficulty in thinking of countries in terms of personality traits and to come up with appropriate personality adjectives. Second, these adjectives correspond overall to those that a sample of Canadians generated when asked to think of countries as having a personality (d'Astous and Boujbel, 2007). Third, a survey conducted among a sample of 184 residents of Beijing has shown that a personality structure roughly similar to the one obtained in Canada emerged from the respondents' responses. Fourth, a mapping of 11 countries, including China, using the estimated personality structure has resulted in an overall data pattern that is consistent and interpretable. Fifth, the collected country personality measures were shown to behave as predicted by self-image congruence theory. Finally, an estimation of the effects of these country personality perceptions on Chinese people's attitude toward countries in general, toward countries as producers of consumer goods, and toward countries as travel destinations has brought about a highly plausible pattern of data that reproduces almost exactly that obtained with the Canadian sample.This study represents a first attempt to adapt the d'Astous and Boujbel (2007) country personality scale to a different culture. The results are very encouraging and there is good reason to believe that the scale can be used in different countries as an instrument to study country personality images and their drivers and that it can serve as a useful tool for making cross-national comparisons. However, more work needs to be done to ensure that the scale is fully adapted to the social context of China. In particular, this study should be replicated with a more representative sample of Chinese people and a larger array of country stimuli.With these limitations in mind, it is useful to examine the strategic managerial implications of this study. Assuming that the country personality scale captures fundamental psychological dimensions that Chinese people use to mentally represent countries, it can serve as a relevant instrument to help multinational corporations define their strategic actions with respect to China. Country of origin is a piece of information that is an inherent part of a product bundle (Klein et al., 1998) and a great number of studies have shown that this information leads to evaluative and cognitive inferences about the quality of the product or the service (see e.g. Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). The country personality scale can be used to better understand how Chinese consumers think of a product's country of origin and suggest appropriate product positioning strategies. For instance, the results of this study have shown that the perceived assiduousness of a country has the strongest positive and statistically significant impact on attitude toward the country as a producer of consumer goods (Table IV) (see also d'Astous and Boujbel, 2007). A multinational corporation that wishes to do business in China would therefore be well advised to emphasize in its promotional program the quality of workmanship in the country where its products are made, particularly if that country is not well positioned on this personality dimension. To illustrate, in this study Mexico has obtained one of the worst scores on the assiduousness dimension (see Table III). Therefore, North American corporations that have transferred their production facilities in Mexico in order to export their products at competitive prices in countries such as China may opt to launch an integrated marketing communication program (i.e. public relations, advertising) aimed at demonstrating to Chinese consumers the important advances that have been made in Mexico in terms of sophistication of the work force and leading-edge production facilities.This is an over-simplified example inasmuch as the relative importance of personality dimensions as well as the perceived position of a country on these dimensions may vary across various segments of consumers. This seems to be particularly the case in China where studies have shown important differences among consumers from different regions of the country in terms of their education level, psychographics, media usage, and consumption patterns (Cui and Liu, 2000). More refined statistical analyses using larger and representative samples of consumers may therefore lead to marketing communication actions that are tailored to the specific segments targeted by the firm.Opens in a new window.Table I\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine country perceptions in China from the point of view of the personality concept.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A country personality scale developed in a Western country was adapted to the Chinese social context and used to position 11 different countries, including China, on six personality dimensions. This was accomplished by means of a survey of 184 adult Chinese people from the city of Beijing.\nFindings: - The results show that the adapted scale has good psychometric properties, that it behaves appropriately with respect to some theoretical expectations, and that it brings about results that are consistent with common sense and with previous country image research.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study should be replicated with a more representative sample of Chinese people and a larger array of country stimuli.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that the country personality scale can be used to better understand how Chinese consumers think of a product's country of origin and suggest appropriate product positioning strategies to help multinational corporations define their strategic actions with respect to China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Online decision aids: the role of decision-making styles and decision-making stages
|
[
"Online retail",
"Decision aids",
"Choice process",
"Maximizers",
"Satisficers",
"Content analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Access to unlimited information online has advanced the growth of online commerce (Pappas et al., 2014), with information search being an important element of consumer decision-making (Beatty and Smith, 1987; Xiao and Benbasat, 2007). Nevertheless, presence of information beyond consumers' cognitive capacity creates an overload during their purchase decision-making (Haubl and Trifts, 2000; Zhu and Zhang, 2010). This overload occurs particularly because consumers seek more information online, as this channel is deficient in providing sensory experiences (Peck and Childers, 2003) and it restricts the evaluation of products along tactile dimensions (Chang and Wu, 2012). Consequently, e-commerce websites provide multiple decision aids (DAs) on their web-interface to help consumers mitigate this cognitive overload (Aljukhadar et al., 2012; Haubl and Trifts, 2000) by facilitating information search and informed choices by consumers (Wang and Benbasat, 2009).Consumers construct their choice preferences and alter their purchase decision-making strategies in accordance to the decision environment (Bettman et al., 1998). In e-commerce websites, provision of the decision aids allows consumers to overcome the absence of consumer-salesperson face-to-face interactions (Islam et al., 2019) and increases interactivity of the decision environment (Jiang et al., 2010). Choice construction in the online interactive environment impacts the information pursued through specific decision aids and affects consumers' affective (Benlian et al., 2012) and cognitive (Haubl and Trifts, 2000) decision-making responses. Although many studies have looked at the use of individual decision aids and their influence on consumers and organizations, a comprehensive analysis of multiple decision aids in relation with individual decision-making style has not been studied earlier.In addition to the shopping environment and decision aids, individual factors (such as consumer's decision-making style) impact consumer's decision-making (Darley et al., 2010). A consumer's decision-making style (maximizers and satisficers) affects his/her motivation to assess information, and subsequently impacts his/her final decision (Karimi et al., 2018). The difference in information acquisition and processing by maximizers and satisficers is expected to impact their acceptance of decision aids (Chowdhury et al., 2009). The expected difference in the acceptance of decision aids by maximizers and satisficers forms the motivation for this study.In light of the above gaps, this paper presents two studies. Study 1 is an exploratory study that aims to understand the various decision aids used by online websites, and Study 2 is an observational study that aims to understand how consumers use these decision aids in an online choice process and whether this acceptance of decision aids varies across maximizers and satisficers in the choice process. In spite of the rich literature on online choice formation and individual decisions aids, there is a lack of research on the choice process in the presence of multiple decision aids used simultaneously.In the subsequent sections, we present Study 1 which discusses various online decision aids, along with a conceptual background to formulate the research questions, followed by the research methodology and results. Post that, we present Study 2 on consumer's acceptance of decision aids in online choice process. Then we present the general discussion and implications of online marketplace personalizations using multiple decision aids. We finally conclude with the limitations of this study and directions for future research.\n2. Study 1 - classification of online decision aids: 2.1 Conceptual background\n3. Study 2 - consumer acceptance of decision aids in online choice process: 3.1 Conceptual background\n4. General discussion and implications: This research examined the presence of decision aids in online websites and their influence on the consumer choice process. The results show that the preference of decision aids is impacted by the stage of choice formation and consumers' decision-making style. Personalization of web-interface benefits online retailers (Thirumalai et al., 2013), depending on the information presentation. The preferential control of consumers over the information accessible through decision aids reduces this self-selection effect, that is, personalization of information delivered to the consumers by the website rather than providing them with control. Perceived control influences consumers' affective and cognitive reaction towards the website and is expected to increase consumer stickiness (Vrechopoulos, 2010). Yet online retailers must be cognizant of providing decision aids on the web-interface as not all decision aids are equally employed by consumers in the two stages of choice formation. Excessive information elicitation using multiple interactive tools on the web-interface might lead to information overload for the consumers, defeating the purpose of providing decision aids.Personalization and customization of the web-interface should be based on consumers' maximizing ability and product in consideration. Maximizers put effort in evaluation of greater number of product alternatives and will benefit by using more decision aids on the interface for experience products. On the other hand, satisficers indulge in superficial search behaviour and would feel overwhelmed with excess information. Online marketplaces can provide customized web-interface for satisficers such that decision aids are provided only when asked by the consumers. The link to most decision aids should be provided as collapsible tabs that would lead to a cleaner interface and thereby fulfil satisficers' need to make better product choice.Extant literature indicates that while lack of trust restricts a consumer to purchase online (Cyr et al., 2005; Martinez-Lopez et al., 2010), transparency in explanation of product suggestions through decision aids can improve consumer trust (Kramer, 2007); we advocate that prudent explanation of the decision strategy behind the decision aids can increase their acceptance for both maximizers and satisficers, thereby increasing the decision quality.\n5. Limitations and directions of future research: Hall et al. (2017) found that with an increase in the time taken during decision journeys, there is a gradual increase in the use of technologies, particularly for memorizing product details. This study did not constraint the time taken by the participant, and the average time taken was around 30 min. Further, longitudinal study capturing consumer's decision journey could provide more in-depth insights on the use of online and offline decision aids.This study gives insights into consumers' acceptance of decision aids. While Davis (1989) attributes perceived usefulness of the system to its actual use, this study does not measure the usefulness of the decision aids. Future research may use the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the theoretical basis to particularly test the reasons stated in this model for acceptance of certain decision aids - interactive as well as passive more than others. Moreover, as this is an observational study, it is more exploratory in nature. Further experimental studies on acceptance of decision aids in a choice process can provide conclusive results on the effect of decision-making styles and stages of choice formation on acceptance of multiple decision aids.Participant's recent purchase or prospective intention to purchase a product could impact his/her search behaviour and might have affected the use of decision aids. Also, this study does not consider the effects of other consumer factors like expertise and trust on acceptance of decision aids. Expertise impacts consumer's satisfaction towards certain decision aids (like recommendation agents) (Su et al., 2008), and this could have a moderating effect on the use of other decision aids too. Along with expertise, the level of trust in certain decision aids (for example, interactive tools like recommendation agents) affects their adoption Komiak and Benbasat (2006); Urban et al., (2009). Moreover, trust itself gets evolved with greater consumer-technology interactions (Wang and Benbasat, 2008). Future studies can identify the moderating effect of expertise and trust on the acceptance of multiple decision aids in an e-commerce website.While students have more experience of online shopping and are more competent participants in online shopping-based studies (Khare and Rakesh, 2011), extending this study to a wider sample would increase its generalizability.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Decision aids (DAs) in online retail stores ease consumers' information processing. However, online consumers do not use all decision aids in purchase decision-making. While the literature has documented the effects of individual decision aids or two decision aids at a time, no study has compared the efficacy of multiple decision aids simultaneously. Also, very few studies have looked at the use of decision aids for consumers with maximizing and satisficing tendencies. Hence, this study aims to understand the preferences of maximizers and satisficers towards online decision aids during the choice-making process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is an observational study with 60 individuals who were asked to purchase either a search-based or an experience-based product online. Participants' browsing actions and verbalizations during online shopping, were recorded and analysed using NVivo, and later the use of decision aids was mapped along their choice process.\nFindings: Consumer's preference of decision aids varies across the two stages of the choice process (that is, consideration set formation and evaluation & choice). In their choice formation, maximizers use different decision aids in both stages, that is, filter tool and in-website search tool for search products, and collaborative filtering-based recommender systems and eWOM for experience products. Satisficers used more decision aids as compared to maximizers across the two stages for both product types.\nOriginality/value: This study is an exploratory attempt to understand how consumers use multiple decision aids present on e-commerce websites.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The relationship between attitude toward using and customer satisfaction with mobile application services: An empirical study from the life insurance industry
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Perceived playfulness",
"Technology acceptance model",
"Compatibility",
"Life insurance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The development of modern wireless communication technology, coupled with the increasingly high penetration rate of the internet, is promoting mobile commerce (MC) as a significant application for both enterprises and customers (Rupp and Smith, 2002). In a dynamic environment, many insurers seek new strategies that facilitate online information sharing and transactions. Linking insurance businesses to customers through mobile application (app) services are one of these competitive strategies. An app provides clients with access to insurance information, communication, and transactions, such as policy wording, premium payments, and other insurance products and claim services from anywhere, at any time. As mobile devices are becoming popular access points, an app service has many emergent benefits for both insurers and customers. To attract customers, the services provided through apps are diverse, including customer service, policy loans, advertising, insurance information or transactions, health management, claim handling, wealth management, and simple games. Therefore, characteristics of life insurance app services include insurance information and perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, compatibility, and emotional factors.\nLiterature review: TAM\nResearch hypotheses and model: Relationship between perceived usefulness, attitude toward using, and satisfaction\nMethodology: The study is to investigate the effects of life insurers' app services attitude toward using on customer satisfaction. Due to the purpose of this study is relatively simple, and which the problem of variables co-linearity are unable to deal with in Structure Equation Modelling (SEM), but multiple regression analysis to provide a diagnostic message of co-linearity in this study. Therefore, we do not consider the SEM to deal with the intricacies of those relationships, and we follow some researchers such as Venkatesh and Davis (2000), Shih (2004), Yu and Tao (2009), Sipior et al. (2011), Al-Jabri and Sohail (2012), and Feng et al. (2014) in using multiple regression and path analysis to explore TAM and IDT in this study. Further analysis is as follow:\nEmpirical analysis and results: Variation analysis of demographic variables, usage attitude, and customer satisfaction\nDiscussion, conclusions, and managerial implications: Discussion, conclusions, and future research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The methodology of mobile commerce as a significant application for both enterprises and customers are becoming crucial, but few studies discuss the usage attitude toward and customer satisfaction with mobile application (app) services in the life insurance industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of attitude toward using life insurers' mobile app services on customer satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on a questionnaire survey of 538 respondents in Taiwan. The data are analyzed through ANOVA, multiple regression, and path analysis.\nFindings: The results indicate that all variables significantly and positively affected usage attitude. Among them, compatibility had the most significant influence. In addition, consumers' perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use positively affected customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the path analysis result demonstrates that usage attitude is the most significant factor for customer satisfaction, and the second-most important factor is the cognition of compatibility's indirect effect on usage attitude.\nOriginality/value: The paper extends our understanding of the insured's usage attitude toward and satisfaction with life insurers' app services by integrating the technology acceptance model and innovation diffusion theory. The results have practical implications for reinforcing customer relationship management and contribute to fulfilling the need for marketing evidence in life insurance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The influence of team psychological safety on team knowledge creation: a study with French and American engineering teams
|
[
"Team knowledge",
"Team psychological safety",
"Team learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of team psychological safety was first introduced by Edmondson (1999). In her paper, she described it as \"a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking\" and demonstrated its impact on team learning. This paper extends the original research of Amy Edmondson by looking at how team psychological safety leads to the creation of team knowledge.\nLiterature on team knowledge: Defining team knowledge\nLiterature on team learning: The importance of team learning\nLiterature on team psychological safety: Defining team psychological safety\nResearch model, design and method: This research evaluates how team psychological safety in the context of team learning affects the creation of team knowledge (Figure 1).\nResults and discussion: The results of the research are shown in Table II. This section describes the results and confirms that the proposed model and hypotheses are valid, namely that team psychological safety and team learning positively impact team knowledge creation, both for task- and team-related knowledge\nConclusion: The findings confirm the proposed model and hypotheses, namely that team psychological safety and team learning positively impact team knowledge creation, both for task- and team-related knowledge (Figure 2): teams with higher team psychological safety engage in more team learning behavior than teams with lower team psychological safety (H0) (Edmondson, 1999, 2004), teams that display more learning behaviors create more team knowledge than teams that display fewer learning behaviors (H1) and teams with higher team psychological safety create more team knowledge than teams with lower team psychological safety (H2). These links had not yet been validated by earlier researchers (Choo et al., 2007; Gabelica et al., 2016; Newman et al., 2017). The relationships between the research variables were established by combining results from the quantitative and qualitative instruments. This research used intact engineering teams rather than ad hoc graduate student teams (Mohammed and Dumville, 2001) and evaluated learning from the actual dynamic interactions between the team members instead of their perceptions captured in interviews or questionnaires (Raes et al., 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact of team psychological safety and team learning on the creation of team knowledge. When teams engage in learning, their interactions contribute to improved performance. Very little research evaluates whether the learning also creates new knowledge related to the task or the team itself.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed model is evaluated through a mixed method research design around a team problem-solving experiment. Task- and team-related team mental models are elicited using concept mapping and questionnaires and are measured before and after the experiment. The model is evaluated in engineering teams from the USA and France.\nFindings: The findings confirm the proposed model; team psychological safety and team learning positively impact team knowledge creation for both task- and team-related knowledge.\nOriginality/value: This research has theoretical, methodological and practical implications. The team psychological safety model is expanded, team learning is evaluated from the team interactions instead of members' self-assessments and team knowledge is measured dynamically. Developing team psychological safety and creating team learning opportunities positively impacts the team's knowledge.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The co-creation of social ventures through bricolage, for the displaced, by the displaced
|
[
"Entrepreneurship",
"Social entrepreneurship"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Internally displaced persons are those that have a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, and have moved from one part of the country to a new host location, as \"they cannot return home or are afraid to do so\" (UNHCR, 2017, p. 1). With social enterprises being praised for their ability to develop bottom-up, demand-driven approaches in reaching their target groups in a financially sustainable manner (Di Domenico et al., 2010), they can potentially be an alternative to the top-down relief approach for solving complex economic and social problems of internally displaced populations in war and conflict zones (Paresashvili and Erkomaishvili, 2016; Dzunic et al., 2018; Milovanovic and Maksimovic, 2018). Recent developments in social entrepreneurship literature suggest that, despite operating in a resource-poor environment, social entrepreneurs can still develop entrepreneurial zeal by adopting a social bricolage resource utilisation strategy (henceforth, \"social bricolage\") (Di Domenico et al., 2010; Desa, 2012; Desa and Basu, 2013; Kwong et al., 2017). The term \"bricolage\" was first coined by Levi-Strauss as \"making do with whatever is at hand\", to contrast with the strategy of optimisation involving the acquisition of high quality resources that have proven capabilities for the specific application for which the resources are intended (Desa and Basu, 2013). It involves the deployment and \"redeployment of discarded, disused, or unwanted resources-at-hand, including physical artefacts, skills, and knowledge, in ways different from those for which they were originally intended\" (Jayawarna et al., 2014). The term \"at hand\" has been expanded in previous studies to include resources that are readily available, internally or externally (Baker and Nelson, 2005). This could mean that bricolage is also the utilisation of hidden or untapped local resources that other parties fail to recognise, value or adequately use, and allows an organisation to thereby acquire them cheaply (Di Domenico et al., 2010), and the utilisation of the resources obtained from collaborations and partnerships (Duymedjian and Ruling, 2010; Baker and Nelson, 2005; Kwong et al., 2017). Previous studies in the context of social entrepreneurship have highlighted the importance of social bricolage in the resource mobilisation process of social enterprises (Di Domenico et al., 2010).\nLiterature review: In the context of resource constraints, bricolage emerges as one of the most viable resource mobilisation strategies (Fisher, 2012). The term \"bricolage\" was first coined by Levi-Strauss as \"making do with whatever is at hand\". In the context of entrepreneurship, bricolage is generally defined as the making-do with resources-at-hand to create new entrepreneurial challenges for which the resources were not originally intended (Baker and Nelson, 2005). The utilisation of the \"resources at hand\" is the centre of the bricolage strategy. This could involve the utilisation of hidden or untapped local resources that other parties fail to recognise, value or adequately use, and allow the organisation to thereby acquire them cheaply (Di Domenico et al., 2010). Bricolage thus involves the \"redeployment of discarded, disused, or unwanted resources-at-hand, be it physical artefacts, skills or knowledge, in ways different from those for which they were originally intended\" (Jayawarna et al., 2014). Similar to effectuation, the process of bricolage places great emphasis on the cognitive framework of the bricoleurs in the opportunity recognition and pursuance process (Fisher, 2012; Desa and Basu, 2013; Tracey and Phillips, 2007; Desa, 2012). In effectuation, under conditions of uncertainty, entrepreneurs adopt a decision logic that involves first an assessment of the environmental contingencies that they could bring under their control, before exploring, through experimentation, the entrepreneurial opportunities out there that they could best capture (Sarasvathy et al., 2003). Perry et al. (2011) summarise it as: \"given who I am, what I know, and whom I know, what kind of entrepreneurial activities could I pursue and what kind of enterprise could I create?\" (p. 842). The contingencies include not only the financial, physical and human resources that the entrepreneurs possessed, or could get hold of, but also personal skills, experience and networks (Fisher, 2012). In bricolage, the process is similar, but the emphasis is on ways in which entrepreneurs challenge limitations set out by existing resource constraints and industry standards, practices and regulations (Desa, 2012; Weick, 1998), and \"creatively reinvent\" (Rice and Rogers, 1980), through the repackaging, transposing and recombining of undervalued, slack or discarded resources, be it materials, labour, skills, practices, assets or networks that are either at-hand or can be cheaply acquired (Baker and Nelson, 2005) from collaborations with others (Kwong et al., 2017). A summary of the different types of bricolage can be found in Table I. According to Baker and Nelson (2005), these resources-at-hand can be categorised into different domains, including the inputs of physical capital such as material and infrastructure, human capital including skills, knowledge, competencies, as well as the customers and regulatory and institutional domains. These different domains will be the focus of the analysis. As with effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2008), bricoleurs starts with the means to establish the end, as opposed to the more traditional logic of causation, where the path of an entrepreneur is derived through meticulous planning to identify the most relevant product(s) and customer clientele(s).\nMethodology: The research questions highlighted in the literature review are practice-orientated in nature, intending to give voice to the practitioner regarding their issues and challenges that many suggested were often neglected in academic research (Garman, 2011). Bartunek and Rynes (2014) suggest that it would be important for academics to understand the point of view of the practitioners, because of the prevailing logic, communication and inquiry time gaps between the 2. Therefore, it is necessary for us to understand not only how a concept such as bricolage operates as a theoretical framework, but also their pragmatic implementations in order for people in the context of displacement to thrive or even to simply survive. Therefore, our role is to examine, from the implementation point of view, how practitioners utilise different resources in starting a business, and, in turn, how their patterns can be fed into the existing academic discussions of bricolage as a theoretical construct. While there has been a question in terms of rigour of practitioner or practice-orientated research, Tranfield and Starkey (1998) suggest that research problems framed in the context of application can remain relevant and yet be rigorous, although according to Garman (2011), it requires academics to widen their self-identification, by embracing practitioners as people who can help to define and frame the dilemma and decisions in ways that lend themselves to scholarly inquiry. Through such an approach, we found that there are similarities, but also, notable differences, between entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs operating in a generally resource constrained environment, and those that operated under the conditions of displacement. This allows us to propose changes to the existing theories of bricolage, thus making a theoretical contribution.\nFindings: Internal resources utilisation in the development of social bricolage by the displaced social entrepreneurs\nConcluding comments: Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although scholars have investigated how social entrepreneurs create and develop social enterprises in the penurious stable environment, how they are created in the penurious unstable environment has yet been overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by exploring how internally displaced individuals, despite the lack of resources, create and develop a social enterprise to serve the other displaced population in the war and conflict zones.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Underpinned by a biographical research design, in-depth interviews with internally displaced individuals who have created social enterprises in the war and conflict zones were undertaken. Three social entrepreneurs were chosen for this study from three different social enterprises that are created by internally displaced individuals to serve the other internally displaced people of three different countries, namely, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria.\nFindings: The single and cross-case analysis found that internally displaced individuals deploy bricolage strategy, for example, reconfiguration of pre-existing resources and competencies (both internal and external), to start up a social venture in the war and conflict zones. They utilise pre-existing internal resources, mainly human capital, and external resources, through a frugal approach towards resources acquisitions. The authors also found that the displaced social entrepreneurs utilise resources of other displaced individuals, for example, networks, volunteers, local knowledge and financial supports mainly from older arrivals, and develop their own enterprise ecosystem within the host location to co-create and co-develop social enterprise and social values for all of them.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings show that internally displaced individuals utilise bricolage strategies to create and develop socially entrepreneurial venture to serve other internally displaced individuals in the war and conflict zones. As the findings are based on three case studies, for confirmatory approach, a quantitative study with a large sample size is necessary. Furthermore, as the differences in economic, cultural and linguistic in between the home and host locations can have impact on the creation and the development of a social venture, they should be considered in the future studies.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the limited literature and studies on social entrepreneurship, specifically, to the context of unstable penurious environment. It also contributes to the literature on bricolage by extending its application from penurious stable environment to the penurious unstable environment. By exploring what and how internal and external resources are utilised to create and develop a socially entrepreneurial venture in a war and conflict zones, this study has added value to the literature on not only bricolage but also entrepreneurship in war and conflict zones.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What makes consumers believe: the impacts of priming and sequential service experiences on consumer emotions and willingness to pay
|
[
"Emotions",
"Willingness to pay",
"Prospect theory",
"Priming effect"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: You and I are no strangers to this observation: \"What kind of customer service was that? It is a well-established business, but that service didn't do its name justice!\" or, \"I expected better customer service from a reputable provider, but boy was I wrong!\" At times, we might hear from a delighted friend about unexpected good service from a relatively unknown business. In light of the fact that consumers are easily influenced by insignificant details (Wheeler and Berger, 2007), a growing number of scholars have begun to investigate how to influence consumers' thinking and behavior subtly and indirectly. Among those studies, priming effects have moved to the forefront as a focus of research (Cheema and Patrick, 2008; Gross, 2004; Wheeler and Berger, 2007).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Sequential transactions and prospect theory\n3. Method: The hospital visit was chosen as the service context in this study for two reasons. First, the issue of medical service and reform is a matter of urgent concern in China because of the insufficiency and imbalanced distribution of medical resources. Second, we had conducted a survey to investigate the occurrence of hospital service failure and found that almost half of the participants encountered service failure in hospitals. Therefore, the hospital service context is appropriate for studying sequential service experiences.\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample and manipulation checks\n5. Conclusion and discussions: To sum up, without priming information, no significant emotional differences were detected under the opposite order of service experiences, whereas willingness to pay differed. When priming information is included, as in the failure-success scenario, priming information between two services increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions, raising willingness to pay. In the success-failure scenario, priming information decreases positive emotions and increases negative emotions, thus lowering willingness to pay. These results corroborate our hypotheses: differences in service experiences alter the influence of priming information. Additionally, in previous studies involving multiple services, especially those of service recovery, satisfaction is used as the major dependent variable (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002a, 2002b). By measuring emotions and willingness to pay, this study further explores consumers' dynamic perceptions occurring in sequential services and extends the research scope in this field.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of priming on consumer emotions and willingness to pay as consumers experience two services with two opposite valences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A 2 (service experience sequence: failure-success, success-failure) x 3(priming: positive, negative, no priming) between-subject experiment was conducted with 230 college students in China.\nFindings: Results indicate that when priming information is included, people give greater decision weight to the second service. Specifically, in the failure-success scenario, priming information between two services increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions, raising willingness to pay. In the success-failure scenario, priming information decreases positive emotions and increases negative emotions, thus lowering willingness to pay.\nPractical implications: First, if businesses discover the possibility of a service failure, then disclosing negative information is better than whitewashing the truth. Second, services following a campaign of positively framed messages should be carefully rendered. The damage of pre-failure positive priming is most certainly irreparable. Finally, in terms of communication, businesses and service providers should cater to consumers exposed to different levels of information accordingly.\nOriginality/value: Previous investigations focusing on a single purchase have argued that priming effects should cause consumers of varying tastes to react in a more unified manner to a service. This study extends the research scope to more realistic situations \"sequential service experiences with opposite valences\" and asserts that differences in service experiences alter the influence of priming information.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cross-cultural training of managers: An evaluation of a management development programme for Chinese managers
|
[
"Management development",
"Cross‐cultural studies",
"Training",
"Managers",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the 1980s and 1990s, a number of management development programmes for Chinese managers were commissioned from Western academics and management developers in order to consolidate the liberalization process of economic reforms. One of these programmes, in which the author of this paper was involved, was a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which was to provide an opportunity to Chinese managers to understand how Western management ideas had been developed and implemented in capitalist economies, and to think about how those ideas might be applied, presumably after modification, within Chinese organizations. The training programme involved 45 senior managers (12 female and 33 male) and 105 middle managers (23 female and 82 male) selected from 20 state-owned enterprises. The average age of the senior managers was 47 and that of the middle managers was 34. More than 65 per cent of the senior managers had no university education but their average work experience was 28 years. By contrast, more than 55 per cent of the middle managers (most of them were personnel managers) had university education. By attending the programme, the managers were expected to develop an understanding of the wider management concepts relevant to international operations, and then to undertake a project of relevance to their organizations that incorporated ideas stimulated by participation in the training programme. The programme lasted for three years and each year a cohort of 15 senior managers and 35 middle managers attended four two-week residential sessions delivered by an international team of faculty members (academics) from British, Canadian and US universities. All teaching was through Chinese interpreters who spoke fluent English and were very competent in simultaneous translation.A key feature of the UNDP project was the commitment to enhance the managerial competency of managers within state-owned enterprises. The managers were required to attend a series of taught module courses in strategic management, human resource management, international finance and international marketing, and to work on projects focusing on recent change initiatives that had been undertaken in their organizations. After the training programme was completed, and the individual projects submitted, a selected number of organizations were visited for further in-depth interviewing of senior managers who had participated in the training programme. Eight senior managers (five male and three female) were interviewed. The experience of being involved in the programme and the analysis of data collected from interviews led to an enhanced understanding of how training was perceived by Chinese managers, and how the need for management development was met with a high demand for Western-designed management development programmes. This paper is based on the evaluation of that experience, and on the feedback received later from managers who attended the programme. It starts by explaining the conditions that necessitated the introduction of Western-developed management knowledge and skills to China, and then describes how the programme was delivered and how Chinese managers responded to it. The reasons for the problems that were encountered are discussed, and some suggestions for the future introduction of cross-cultural training programmes in China and other developing countries are made.\nThe need for management training and development in China: Economic reforms that followed the open door policy of 1978 created a fast-growing economy that have led to an unusual, uncertain and uncomfortable working environment for many Chinese managers who have found themselves in the unprecedented position of having to \"think business\", to improve the quality of their products and services, to compete for better jobs and/or higher positions, and to face the possibility of losing their employment. This new managerial context is different from what they had been used to before the reforms, when the government controlled every aspect of employment, finance, production and distribution through a bureaucratic web of authoritarian management. Then, there were very few incentives for improving individual performance because an employee's efficiency and achievement had limited effect on his/her personal rewards, as everybody was guaranteed an income under the \"iron rice bowl\" policy (Warner, 1985). State-owned enterprises had a monopoly in the production of goods and provision of services, and there was very limited competition between firms. The issue of quality was never a major problem and there was no pressure on management or workers to improve the quality of their products or services. It was simply a case of supply creating demand. Therefore training and management development were not seen as a priority for organizational performance. It was not until the mid-1980s, when a raft of economic reforms was under way, that it was realised that the training and development of all employees was important and that the transfer of management knowledge and skills from Western countries was necessary for China's economic development and sustainable competitive economic growth.Consequently, the need for management education and training became apparent at all levels because there was an acute shortage of sufficiently qualified managers to meet the demands of economic reforms. Warner (1986) estimated that when the reforms were initiated, around two-thirds of the Chinese managers had no professional qualifications beyond high-school level. Also, a study of state-owned enterprises by Chow and Shenkar (1989) found that the managers who had completed trade or technical training varied from zero in a services enterprise to only as high as 35 per cent in manufacturing. In describing the need for training in order to improve the competencies of Chinese employees in the late 1980s, Child (1991, p. 104) wrote:The training of staff is an inevitable requirement for developing their technical competence to work with new methods and technologies. It can also be a very important means of showing recognition of individual worth and engendering a pride in the job, neither of which were much encouraged in the typical Chinese enterprise.There was an apparent need for managers who understand market-based and capitalist-oriented management techniques. This need led the Chinese authorities to introduce the middle and senior management of state-owned enterprises to Western management education. Consequently, one of the first Western management training co-operation ventures in mainland China was the establishment of the National Centre for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development just after the visit of Deng Xiaoping to the USA in 1979. Subsequently, the Chinese commitment to the adoption of Western management was given formal approval at the 12th Congress of the Communist Party in 1982, but it was not until the 14th Congress in 1984 that the go-ahead to transfer management knowledge and skills from Western countries was made explicit (Borgonjon and Vanhonacker, 1994, p. 14). Chinese authorities realized that it was management knowledge and skills, and not just finance and raw material, which had kept the wheels of industrialization and technological supremacy running in Western Europe, North America and Japan. The Chinese became eager to train as many employees as possible, and Western management became \"an acceptable means of introducing elements of a foreign managerial approach into the Chinese situation\" (Child, 1991, p. 104).Throughout the years of a fast growing economy, especially between 1985 and 1995, there was an increasingly acute shortage of qualified managers. In response to such shortages, a variety of management education and training programmes was introduced. As a result, the whole of China witnessed an eruption of colleges and universities offering a wide range of management and business courses. For example, in the ten years between 1981 and 1991, the number of universities that offered Master's level programmes in business and management doubled (Chan, 1994). Most management courses, however, had to be transferred from the West and that led to \"increasingly importing management education from the West\" (Newell, 1999, p. 287). In order to understand the extent to which such initiatives have been successful in transferring Western management knowledge and skills to Chinese managers it is important to explain first how the Chinese managers responded to Western-designed and -delivered management development programmes by describing the experience of one of the UNDP projects in China.\nDelivering Western management development programmes in China: Chinese managers' perceptions and experiences: There have been a number of attempts to answer the question of how Chinese managers learn (see, for example, Warner, 1992; Child, 1994; Chan, 1994). Most of them seem to agree that the Chinese managers' approach to learning and training is characterised by the way and the conditions in which the Chinese, in general, learn their \"characteristics\", and by how they perceive the teacher-student and leader-subordinate relationship. Learning is a process by which thinking and ways of acting and interacting with others are changed. However that change may never happen unless knowledge and experience are reflected upon and internalised by the learner (Kolb et al., 1984; Honey and Mumford, 1989). In this paper, it is assumed that the way the Chinese managers responded to, and participated in, the UNDP classes provides an example of how they learn in a structured learning environment that is designed and delivered by Western scholars and management developers. The managers' response to the programme is indicative of how they perceived management knowledge, learning and management training methods, and the teacher-student relationship.Managers' perception of management knowledge\nDiscussion: evaluating the experience: The foregoing description of how Chinese managers responded to the programme cannot be understood without analysing the economic, political and cultural context in which Chinese organizations operate. It is important for Western academics and managers to try to understand the conditions in which the Chinese managers are expected to manage, before telling them how to manage their organizations \"properly\". The context in which the managers operate and learn new skills and knowledge is characterised by the following cultural aspects.Culture of learning through rote and memorising\nProspects of Western management development in China: The foregoing analysis of the Chinese managers' response to, and perception of, Western designed and delivered management development programmes confirms some of the doubts raised by many studies about the transferability of management knowledge from Western to non-Western countries (Hofstede, 1980; Trompenaars, 1993). For example, Hofstede (1980) argued that cross-cultural teaching and learning situations are fraught with problems because training methods are likely to be culture-specific. However, in his definition of Chinese management as a philosophy, Fukuda (1989, p. 49) argued that the attitudes of the Chinese towards external agents had been changing due to economic reforms because foreign investments had come to be seen as a means of increasing the financial strength of the economy and the transfer of technology for further economic growth. He also argued that foreign involvement in resource extraction and foreign trade in China had become a necessity for the success of economic reforms and therefore had to be accepted and encouraged by the Chinese. He concluded that the Chinese had to import, learn and implement management models that had been successfully introduced in Western organizations.It should be noted, however, that Fukuda (1989) was making his predictions on the basis of the much-admired economic growth and the good relations between China and the Western countries in the 1980s. The Chinese authorities took a number of restrictive measures in their dealings with the West after the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Academic and professional contributions from the West to China continued but were treated with greater scepticism until the end of 1992, when attempts to encourage the adoption of Western management methods were renewed with the launch of the Enterprise Management Modernization Programme (EMMP). The programme was introduced in order to establish an integrative system for the management of human resources, including the spread of the labour contract system to all state-owned enterprises, the promotion of training and management development, and the introduction of databases in personnel management. In the late 1990s, the reforms programme was strengthened with the introduction of new laws regulating employment, investment and trade. These new laws, such as the Labour Law of 1995, strengthened the liberalization of the economy and the openness of China further to the West. Closer cooperation between Chinese and Western academics became important for the development of an awareness of the need for Western management knowledge and skills for Chinese managers. The challenges posed for both Western trainers and Chinese managers are embedded in the answers to the following questions.How to move from a trainer-centred to a learner centred approach?\nConclusion: In the People's Republic of China, the liberalization of the economy required managers to make market-based decisions and to have management knowledge and skills that are acquired mainly through learning from Western-based management development programmes. It has become apparent, however, that the main obstacles to the implementation of western management training programmes in China are related to the difficulty in understanding Chinese managers' approach to learning and perception of management as a discipline. The Chinese approach to learning and management development is teacher-centred and culturally and politically orientated because of the status bestowed on teachers and the way Chinese learn their language. In China, teachers and trainers are expected to dominate the process of learning and have a significant power in influencing the learning environment. The learning is generally passive rather than active, and based on taking notes and memorising them. This passive and trainer-centred approach has created a number of obstacles to the transfer of management knowledge and skills from the West to China. This paper has suggested ways of how to move from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred stage in the Chinese context. It has been argued that the teacher-centred stage is a process of adopting Western management knowledge and skills while the learner-centred stage is the next level of adapting what had been learnt to their working environment and organizational needs. This process is facilitated by the increasing number of managers taking business and management courses inside and outside China, the interaction of Chinese managers with their Western partners in joint ventures, and the settlement of an increasing number of Western educated overseas Chinese in China as managers, experts and entrepreneurs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The main purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of how Chinese managers perceive and respond to training and management development programmes that have been designed and delivered by Western experts, and of the extent to which such programmes have been successful in achieving their learning outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data have been collected from experience of a management development programme for Chinese managers in 20 state-owned enterprises, and from interviews with 45 senior Chinese managers and officials who had been involved in a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the training of Chinese managers.\nFindings: - It was found that although considerable efforts had been made to train the largest possible number of managers, there was still a gap between what Chinese managers could do and what they had been expected to do in order to meet the demands of increasing economic reforms. Limited resources, inadequate means, traditional ways of learning, power relationships, and political restrictions are examples of some of the apparent obstacles to the efficient implementation of Western-designed and delivered programmes of management development in China.\nPractical implications: - Management development programmes that do not take into consideration the cultural context in which managers were brought up and taught to think and operate may not be successful. It is only when Western providers of management education understand the culturally and politically bound learning habits of the Chinese they may be able to introduce some change in management and contribute to the development of China's economic reform process.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is a further contribution to the ongoing debate on cross-cultural training and could spark a useful discussion on the relevance of Western-designed management development programmes in less developed countries in general and in China in particular.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The cultural and religious animosity model: evidence from the United States
|
[
"Culture",
"Animosity",
"Religion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A man told his grandson:\nIntroduction: Research over the past 10 years has highlighted the complex interplay of attitudes and evaluations informing product evaluations based on country of origin. Critical among these are consumer ethnocentrism and attitudes of animosity toward specific countries of origin (Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Klein et al., 1998; Leong et al., 2008). This animosity influences evaluation of products from these countries, which combine with other cultural beliefs and attitudes related to the superiority of the country's products, to form country-of-origin effects that influence perceptions of the suitability of these products and intentions to buy them. As shown by Klein et al. (1998), long-held feelings of animosity affect consumers' buying intentions, even when they are not directly affected by the actions perpetrated by the people or government in the country of product origin. Expanding on this concept, Nijssen and Douglas (2004) found the effect is associated with a specific product-country combination, not only through the level and type of animosity engendered, but through less affective factors, such as the availability of alternatives and general level of imports into the country.\nEvidence of cultural and religious animosity on purchase intentions: Recent events demonstrate the pervasiveness and negative consequences of these country-of-origin effects on a company's ability to export products to a given country. For instance, on February 6, Fox News (2006) reported that Iran had cut all trade ties with Denmark in protest of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in images offensive to Muslims. Following suit, many Muslim countries announced similar boycotts. Fox News (2006) announced that Danish companies in many Muslim countries were losing millions of dollars a day as a result of the boycotts and the violence that had erupted in protest to the cartoons. On September 24, BBC News (2010) reported that the state of Texas adopted a decree rejecting \"pro-Islam\" textbooks in a move that may prohibit their use in the states' public schools and significantly impact textbook publishing firms in the USA. This phenomenon of religiously motivated boycotts is extending itself to local levels, as well (i.e. small towns). According to a recent website post (Lakshman, 2010), the city of Kerala's influential Catholic Church has planned a silent boycott of Muslim-run shops in the Indian cities of Muvattupuzha, Kothamangalam and Thodupuzha following the amputation of Professor T D Joseph's hand by alleged Popular Front activists. In 2007, CBS News reported on Muslim discontent regarding Great Britain's awarding of knighthood to controversial writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. On October 19, Al-Arabiya News (2009a, 2009b, 2009c) reported that the Israeli chain of coffee shops, Elan, has stopped serving Turkish coffee to its customers as a response to a Turkish TV series showing an Israeli soldier firing at a young Palestinian girl. The coffee chain called for a boycott of Turkish coffee in Israel.\nBackground: In this section, we discuss differences between the religious and cultural animosity model presented in this research and previous studies including only subsets of these constructs. Klein et al. (1998, p. 90) defined animosity (war and economic) as the \"remnants of antipathy related to previous or ongoing military, political or economic events\". The animosity model focused on past or existing war or economic animosity and was tested in Nanjing, China, where there is war animosity toward Japan. The study finds that consumer animosity toward a country led consumers to reject products identified with that country, despite their evaluations of the product itself; however, the evaluations of animosity were limited to war and economic animosity. Certainly, other types of animosity exist between countries, and these have yet to be evaluated for their impact on product evaluations and purchase intentions.\nThe cultural and religious animosity model: This model includes economic animosity and the new constructs of cultural and religious animosity. As with earlier studies, we present animosity as directly influencing purchase intentions which are also influenced by consumer ethnocentrism, which we include as a control variable. We propose that the construct of religious animosity - defined as one's intolerance of and antipathy toward another person, country or nation because of religious differences - and cultural animosity - defined as one's intolerance of and antipathy toward another person, country or nation because of cultural differences - will affect consumers' purchase behavior in the international marketplace. There are crucial differences between the war and economic animosity construct developed by Klein et al. (1998), and later supported by other researchers (Nijssen and Douglas, 2004; Shin, 2001), and the religious and cultural animosity constructs developed in this study. Specifically, there are two types of animosity: situational and stable (Kwon et al., 2002). Situational animosity can be sparked by a particular episode such as war, while stable animosity tends to accumulate over time, evolving into a long-lasting and deeper hostility that is ingrained. Thus, war and economic animosity likely resemble situational animosity, while religious and cultural animosities are more stable. Cultural and religious animosity are not simply extensions of those studied earlier; they are core elements of our definition of self (Huntington, 1993). Huntington (1993) argues that this characteristic makes these types of animosity fundamental in conflicts between nations. Arguably, cultural and religious animosities are deeper and longer lasting compared to war or economic animosity, as countries that may have been economically competing with one another can form a type of economic integration that is likely to eliminate economic animosity.\nMethod: Qualitative data collection\nResults: Exploratory factor analysis results supported the two-factor solution obtained in Study 1. The two factors accounted for 54.8 per cent of the explained variance. The resulting scales (Table I) contained 9 religious animosity items and 19 cultural animosity items. All loadings exceeded the 0.3 cutoff (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Reliability was again assessed by Cronbach's alpha, resulting in acceptable reliability for both constructs (0.83 for religious animosity and 0.96 for cultural animosity). Next, item-to-total correlations were computed for each scale, and all items revealed acceptable values.\nConclusion: This research presents support of the existence of cultural and religious animosity between individuals from different cultural and religious backgrounds. The recent conflict between the West and the Muslim world manifested in the reaction of Muslims to the Innocence of Muslims movie (2011) trailer that was put on YouTube, where it was viewed to be so offensive to Muslims that a few people lost their lives because of it. Another example is what happened between Denmark and the Muslim world and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as recent reminders of these animosities. Some researchers (Huntington, 1993) suggest that cultural and religious animosities are likely to increase in the future due to increase in civilization-consciousness. The research extended the Klein et al. (1998) animosity model by adding two more constructs (religious and cultural animosity) and to create a scale that would allow us to measure religious and cultural animosity. We collected data for different populations to develop and purify the scales.\nManagerial implication: There are several managerial implications that result from this study. First, this study brings to light the issue of cultural and religious animosity in the context of foreign product purchase. Although war and economic but especially war animosity are usually obvious because they are tight to historical events, cultural and religious animosity are usually not. Thus, while these animosities may exist at a high level and their impact damaging, they are often hidden and, therefore, ignored. Companies around the world have fallen victims due to not paying attention to this, as we discuss below.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: to extend the animosity model developed by Klein et al. (1998) by adding cultural and religious animosity constructs, to provide a tool with which to measure the cultural and religious constructs and to provide explanations, and thus an understanding, of how cultural and religious differences impact consumer intention to purchase.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to test the model.\nFindings: The cultural and religion animosity scale is created.\nOriginality/value: This fills a gap in the literature where there is not currently a scale to measure cultural or religious animosity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effect of health expenditure on selected maternal and child health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa
|
[
"Political economics",
"Health policy",
"Fixed effects",
"Governance",
"Health expenditure",
"Under-five mortality",
"Maternal mortality",
"E62",
"I15",
"I18"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The global quest to improve health outcomes such as life expectancy, maternal and child mortalities has necessitated a consistent increase in total health expenditures in most countries including Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)[1]. For instance, health expenditure in SSA increased from $79.22 per capita (PPP, constant 2005 international $) in the year 2000 to $147.14 in 2010. Similarly, that of the OECD and North America increased from $2,393.29 and $4,488.69 to $4,177.39 and $7,856.29, respectively, within the same period (World Bank, 2012). In spite of the consistent increases in health expenditure, it constitutes only a small proportion of GDP, especially in low-income and resource-constrained countries (WHO, 2010). In 2010, whereas health expenditure as a proportion of GDP was 13 percent and 17 percent in the OECD and North America, respectively, it constituted only 6 percent of GDP in SSA. Besides, health expenditure has witnessed different trends across the various regions of the world. Even though health expenditure in SSA has increased over the period, SSA is still the region that spends least on health compared to the other regions of the world (see Table I).\n2. Methodology and data: This paper is based on the theory of \"demand for health\" propounded by Grossman (1972) and later extended and simplified by Wagstaff (1986). Under this theory, an individual views \"good health\" (i.e. health) as a desirable commodity as well as \"other things in life\" (i.e. consumption) from which pleasure is derived. The health production function expresses the idea that people produce their health by utilizing health inputs such as exercise, healthcare, nutritious food and medical care. The idea is that utilizing more health inputs results in improved health, but successive additions to the quantity of health inputs utilized results in successively smaller improvements in health (i.e. diminishing returns to scale). Hence, the quantity of health inputs and consumption an individual can acquire depends on his limited income and the prices of the health inputs and consumption goods.\n3. Results and discussion: The level of correlation among the independent variables in the study is minimal, suggesting that there is no problem of multicollinearity (see Table AIII for correlation matrix). The F-statistics of the FE of the U5MR and IMR regression estimates indicate that at least one of the coefficients in the model is significantly different from zero and the R2 shows that about 59 and 62 percent of variations in U5MR and IMR, respectively, are explained by changes in the explanatory variables used in the study. Similarly, the R2 of the FE regression implies that about 47 percent of the variations in MMR is explained by changes in the explanatory variables and the F-statistic affirms that all the regressors are jointly significant in explaining child and maternal health outcomes.\n4. Conclusions and policy implications: This paper sought to investigate the independent effects of private and public health expenditures on child and maternal health in SSA, while controlling for other socioeconomic variables. The results indicate that public health expenditure is inversely and significantly related to U5MR and IMR. Though public health expenditure has the a priori negative sign, it has no significant effect on MMR in SSA. Other covariates that consistently and significantly explain U5MR, IMR and MMR are per capita income and female literacy. Yet the proportion of the population with access to improved water source has a significant and negative association with U5MR and IMR. Of the significant covariates, the proportion of the population with access to improved water source has the largest effect on child health. The results further reveal that per capita income, female literacy rate and government effectiveness have negative and significant effects on MMR in the region.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of public and private health expenditures on selected maternal-child health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilizes panel data on 40 SSA countries spanning the period 2000-2010. The data are analyzed using the fixed effects estimation technique.\nFindings: The results indicate that public health expenditure is inversely and significantly related to infant (IMRR) and under-five (U5MR) mortalities in SSA. Though public health expenditure has the a priori negative sign, it has no significant effect on maternal mortality (MMR) in SSA. Further, private health expenditure did not prove to be significant in improving maternal-child health outcomes (IMRR, U5MR and MMR) in SSA.\nPractical implications: The implication of the findings is that a percentage point increase in public health expenditure (as a share of GDP) across the region will result in saving the lives of about 7,040 children every year. Hence, it is important for governments in SSA to increase their shares of health expenditure (public health expenditure) in order to achieve improved health outcomes.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies have not adequately explored the effect of various components of health expenditures - public and private - on health outcomes in the context of SSA. In addition to the focus on maternal-child health variables such as infant, under-five and maternal mortalities, the study accounts for the possibility of a non-linear and non-monotonic relationship between healthcare expenditures and health outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
To insist or to concede? Contractors' behavioural strategies when handling disputed claims
|
[
"Construction projects",
"Construction",
"Project management",
"Questionnaire survey",
"Disputed claims",
"Contractual approach",
"Relational approach"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Claim-related disputes occur when contractors do not accept owners' decisions about claims (Kumaraswamy, 1997). Reasons accounting for disputes include inconsistent viewpoints on rights and responsibilities, incomplete contracts, opportunistic behaviours, etc. (Cheung and Pang, 2013; Awwad et al., 2016). The increasing complexity and uncertainty of construction projects are accompanied by a growth in the number of disputes (Haugen and Singh, 2015). In a construction project observed by the authors, a Chinese international contractor negotiated with an owner about a large claim amount due but failed to get an approval. The claim was valid under the contract and would have been awarded at arbitration or litigation. However, the contractor chose to give up mainly because it wished to undertake more projects from this owner in the future. This case motivates the authors' probe into contractors' behavioural strategies when handling disputed claims, i.e. to insist or to concede?\nTheoretical background: Contractors' behavioural strategies are defined as their planned actions based on goals during the process of claim-related dispute resolution. Behavioural strategies of dispute resolution are classified into a contractual approach and a relational approach (Wang et al., 2016). The contractual approach pertains to heavy reliance upon contracts to claim rights and unilaterally enforce position (Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Wang et al., 2016). Contractors adopting it argue their demands as legitimate to maximise their benefits, while portraying owners' position is not supported by contracts (Lumineau and Malhotra, 2011). The relational approach is defined as ignorance of contract contents and reliance on cooperative behaviours in the form of adjusting to the other party' position or finding a mutually acceptable solution (Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Wang et al., 2016). Contractors adopting it set aside the right and make concessions. The degree of concessions varies from obliging (satisfying the other party's concern) to compromising (give-and-take to achieve a mutually acceptable settlement) (Rahim, 2002). These two approaches show contractors' rigid and flexible contract application to solve problems, respectively.\nResearch methodology: Research design, sampling and data collection procedures\nOpen-ended questionnaire survey and hypotheses development: Factors identified from the literature and hypotheses development\nStructured questionnaire survey and data analyses: Measures of variables, questionnaire design and data collection\nDiscussions: Unexpected findings - how do procedural fairness and occurrence time of the dispute play a role?\nConclusion: This study identifies 11 factors that significantly affect contractors' behavioural strategies when dealing with disputed claims. A high disputed amount, high favourability of evidence, low trust and low cost of pursuing the disputed claim are causes of contractors' contractual approach. High time pressure, high trust, late occurrence time of the dispute, high expectation about future cooperation, high cost of pursuing the disputed claim, low disputed amount, procedural unfairness, low favourability of evidence and contractors' good cash flow account for contractors' obliging behaviours. High time pressure, the existence of other ongoing project(s), high expectation about future cooperation, high concern about reputation and low disputed amount are reasons for contractors' compromising behaviours.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse factors that affect contractors' behavioural strategies in resolving disputed claims.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Factors were explored by a literature review and an open-ended questionnaire survey. In total, 9 hypotheses involving 12 factors were developed accordingly. Then a structured questionnaire survey was conducted, and 248 valid questionnaires were received from Chinese contractors. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Factors that have the largest impacts on the contractual approach and the relational approach regarding obliging and compromising are favourability of evidence, time pressure and reputation, respectively. Unexpected results show that obliging behaviours are negatively correlated with procedural fairness but positively correlated with occurrence time of the dispute.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results are based on correlation, although the research design improves the internal validity. Furthermore, this study belongs to single-level research. In the future, researchers can conduct multilevel research to enrich theories.\nPractical implications: The findings not only enhance practitioners' understanding of the factors influencing contractors' behavioural strategies when dealing with disputed claims, but also offer insights into both parties' ex ante focus of attention on specific factors to facilitate the subsequent dispute resolution.\nOriginality/value: This study furnishes a nuanced picture of multiple factors' impacts on contractors' behavioural strategies of claim-related dispute resolution, and thus supplements the relevant construction dispute management literature. From the perspective of contractual governance, it is one of those exploring drivers of contract application in problem situations. It extends the body of knowledge on this topic and hopefully will encourage more research on contractual governance from the reactive perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sport hunting and tourism in the twenty-second century: humans as the ultimate trophy
|
[
"Tourism",
"Sport",
"Humans",
"Animals",
"Hunting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Is sport beneficial or harmful for society and its members? (Wann et al., 2001, p. 1).\n2. Research epistemology method and approach: The application of scenario planning to the wider literature of sport tourism is a somewhat novel approach. The conventional practices of research epistemologies and methodologies are not commonly applied, and arguably, rightly so. As predicting the future and offering a scenario of what the future might look like, requires alternative methods of researching, writing and presentation of data, analysis and findings. Consequently, this paper for some will be provocative and contested; while for others, it will be welcomed and original. By provocation, this paper could arguably encourage its readers to move beyond their normal patterns of thinking. It is suggested, that we seldomly venture beyond our established knowledge, based on past experiences and the logical extension of those experiences. Thus, to provoke an idea could unsettle the mind of the reader, consequently, increasing the potential that the audience will generate new ideas (de Bono, 1995) potentially, even new behaviours. It is stressed that the application of scenario methodologies opens up a new field of research for the sport tourism field and one that should be accepted and explored further to understand its benefits for industry and academic purposes, thus, offering original research to the sport tourism literature.\n3. Hunting since the dawn of time: The word hunt (noun) and hunting (verb) refers to the pursuit and killing of wild game for sport or food, and or the search for someone or something and also includes the associated act: \"to be on a hunt\" (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017a). Hunting is a practice whose roots can be located back to pre Homo sapiens (Gaudzinski, 2004; Rabinovich et al., 2008), and evidence from research conducted by Wong (2014) in a paper entitled, \"how hunting made us human\", suggests that hunting has taken place for more than 2 million years. Early hunting practices lent themselves more to the subsistence elements, such as survival and maintenance (food and control). Hunting was seen as a central element of hunter-gatherer societies (beginning about 11,000 years ago) before the domestication of livestock and the emergence of agriculture and evidence puts the earliest known mammoth hunting in Asia, with spears, to approximately 16,200 years ago (Zenin et al., 2003). Some tribal communities have (or at least until recently) and continue to preserve paleolithic hunting-gathering, such as indigenous peoples of the Amazonas (Ache), Central and Southern African tribes (San peole), peoples of New Guinea (Fayu), the Mlabri of Thailand and Laos, and the Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Moreover, there is a likelihood that uncontacted tribes continue hunting practices (Lindsay, 2009; Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017). Hunting is a phenomenon that is practiced around the globe and a mixture of personal motives drives its participants. The activity of hunting is reported in all inhabited regions of the world and is often described and associated as a means to source food for inhabitants of rural areas (Nasi et al., 2011). The consumption of bushmeat by local populations is recognised as a key source to obtaining protein (Redford, 1992). Human population growth, the increased accessibility of remote areas, and improvement in hunting techniques in the last decades have resulted in a remarkable intensification of the harvest rate of wild animals for consumption and trade (Fa and Garcia Yuste, 2001; Nasi et al., 2008).\n4. Sport tourism and hunting: Sports are timeless, yet with each generation, new technology and social dynamics have changed and intensified how we experience sports [...].\n5. Future scenario: hunting humans as a sport tourism activity: As noted, scenario planning often presents a narrative that helps the reader envisage the potential future, which is now presented. Following this is an exploration of current trends, exploring environmental and social patterns and changes, offering evidence from various research and knowledge disciplines, as justification to the potential scenario becoming a reality.\n6. Future society: From here on in, the article will offer exploration and justification of trends that are potentially driving the future scenario. As noted above by Larson (2002, p. 7), negative scenarios, ones that may present themselves as dystopian to us, are arguably easier to express because researchers find it more simplistic to offer future realities based on current trends, such as population growth and resource depletion; all of which will lead to an inevitable crisis. Difficult or simplistic does not need to be the issue of debate in this case. What is necessary is to consider expert views on population growth as greater numbers of people are living on planet earth. With it, based on current patterns, greater levels of consumptions (natural environment) are likely, putting great strain of natural resources. Thus, there is a correlation between resource depletion and population growth and significantly the potential result on our social and environmental outlooks; therefore, the character and essence of future societies will be different as a result.\n7. Reduction in animals to hunt: hunting animals to hunting humans: Unless we act now, wildlife populations will decline by 67 per cent by 2020 (Living Planet Report, 2016)\n8. Creating better futures: It is stressed that the future scenario presented is proposed to be a manifestation of current trends and developments in society. In a previous paper where Wright (2016) explored the potential for hunting humans in the year 2200 for tourism, driven by entertainment, in this case the focus is on sport in a hunting context. While the previous publication by Wright (2016) grabbed the tabloid media's attention, much of the focus was on the future scenario and as a headline seizing opportunity:\n9. Conclusion: This research paper set out to explore the future of tourism from a sport hunting context. More specifically, it can be seen as a prequel to a paper by Wright (2016) in which he suggests that in the future, hunting humans will form part of the tourism entertainment industry. Wright (2016) offered a brief insight into what the future might look like in the year 2100 before focussing his narrative, his future scenario in the year 2200. This paper took the thematic basis that, if hunting humans were to become a sport-tourism based activity of the future, then sport hunting, along with other current trends, would have a significant role in driving such a reality. Trends considered, where the diminishing level of animal populations globally and the growing animosity towards sport hunting as a pastime activity often undertaken by aristocrats and elite members of society. Additionally, the influence of repeated productions of dystopian futures displayed across various artistic mediums, especially movies, TV and fictional narratives, and significantly, how these could inadvertently create the futures they are portraying. An area that has not been explored in detail in this research is the role of the sport fan, and that of sport fandom. Previous sport tourism research has examined how sports fans are entertained by violent conduct (Bryant, 1989; Bryant et al., 1981; Bryant and Zillmann, 1983; Kaelin, 1968). The phrase, \"violence sells\" is not new, and in producing violent programming media powers are said to be delivering what the public, spectators' desire (Wann et al., 2001); just as rulers did during the Roman Gladiatorial games. Further research in the field of sport tourism with a futures approach could continue to explore the role of violent behaviour in spectators - what does a future of fans thirsty for violence look like?\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to address the potential of hunting humans as sport tourism activity in the twenty-second century. The paper explores past and current trends related to sport hunting, animal extinction, human violence and the normalisation of violence via fictional media. This paper paints a provocative picture of society with the aim of encouraging dialogue across the wider community regarding the challenges facing society in relation to practices related to sport hunting and tourism.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper takes a scenario narrative approach in presenting potential discussion on the future of sport hunting as a tourism activity. The importance of narrative writing as a method to research is its ability in telling a story to the reader. By embracing diverse philosophical methods, this research draws on past and current trends via secondary data sources to justify the future scenario narrative.\nFindings: This paper presents interesting insights into the future of sport hunting and its potential relationship to tourism. However, considering the following quote, \"Yet another uncertainty is that predictions themselves can alter the future - which, of course, is part of the motivation behind futurism\" (Larson, 2002, p. 5), this paper concludes with a sobering message, if previous research as well as the ideas presented here are to become a future reality, one where humans hunt each other for sport, are we content to allow this to happen? Or do we want to encourage debate to ensure we create better futures?\nOriginality/value: This paper offers original and novel research within the sport-tourism literature by taking a futures perspective and applying a scenario narrative approach. The paper offers original insight into attitudes towards sport hunting and its future potential, moving away from its traditions of hunting animals to hunting humans. This paper encourages debate around a taboo-subject, by drawing on a popular past-time, sport. Death is also universal, and by aligning the topic with sport and as a hunting activity, this paper is offering original approaches to addressing difficult questions that need to be asked.\n",
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Strategies for developing third stream activity in new university business schools
|
[
"Business schools",
"Financing",
"Educational funding",
"Educational administration",
"Partnership",
"Knowledge transfer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is increasing public criticism of business schools for their lack of engagement and partnership working with the wider business community (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Bennis and O'Toole, 2005; Advanced Institute of Management Research, 2006). There is also increasing financial pressure on business schools due to increasing competition for students (at home and internationally), and tighter and more targeted government funding of students and research (Watling et al., 2003; Slack and Francis, 2005; AIM, 2006). It is not unnatural therefore that business schools are under increasing pressure to engage with the business community to develop third stream activity, as both a strategic priority and as an increasingly important source of additional funding (Prince and Reynolds, 2005; Osbaldeston, 2007).This paper draws upon primary case study research to examine the nature and context of third stream activity in new university business schools. The study is limited to new university business schools, partly to reflect the interests of the author as someone heavily involved in income generation activity in a new university; and partly to reflect the difficulty in making direct comparisons between new and traditional universities due to their historical development and differing cultures, missions, objectives and resources (Watling et al., 2003; AIM, 2006; Osbaldeston, 2007). The objective of the research presented in this paper is to identify the factors which are likely to influence the strategies adopted by new university business schools seeking to grow third stream activity. The paper will develop the argument that the resources, capabilities and constraints under which business schools operate, limit and shape the strategic options that are open to them.\nDefining third stream activity: Problems relating to defining third stream activity have been raised by a number of researchers (Watling et al., 2003; Slack and Francis, 2005; Thomson, 2007). At its most general, a comprehensive definition of third stream activity (ABS, 2006) would include activities such as training, consultancy, contract research, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), accreditation, short courses, executive development, award-bearing programmes, enterprise development and SME support. In short, such a definition encompasses all income generating activities except mainstream HEFCE funded undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research activity funded by the research councils. Within this broad definition any of the above mentioned activities could be supported by external funding from for example, regional development agencies, learning and skills councils, business links and the European Union. As the research will highlight, funded third stream activity forms a very important element in the third stream activity for many schools (see Table I).\nResearch methodology: The research conducted for this paper was based upon Yin's (2003) multiple case design research methodology. Yin (2003) argues that rather than seeking statistical generalisation (based on survey research using sample and population criteria), case studies should rely on analytical generalisation which can be tested using replication logic. The rationale for using replication logic (Hersen and Barlow, 1976) rather than sampling logic is that it is analogous to that used in multiple experiments. Thus each case is selected so that it either predicts similar results (literal replication) or predicts contrasting results but for predicable reasons (theoretical replication). To that end, six new university business schools were identified by the author (which is in line with Yin's (2003) view that six to ten cases should be used), where two cases would be literal replications (large schools with large portfolios of third stream activity (L1 and L2), and four cases designed to pursue different patterns of theoretical replication (large schools with small levels of third stream activity (L3 and L4), and two small schools (S1 and S2)). The choice of schools for the research was based upon the author's detailed knowledge of the sector, consultation with \"expert\" third parties and the results of an earlier unpublished survey of new university business schools. A high level breakdown of third stream income for the six schools is set out in Table I.Information for the case studies was gathered from a number of sources. The most important source was semi-structured interviews which were conducted with the Dean of each business school and the individual or individuals responsible third stream activity within the school (a total of 14 interviews were carried out for this research project). In addition, supplementary information was gathered from business school and university strategic plans and other relevant documents as well as information held on university and business school web sites.Before progressing further it is useful to identify some potential limitations to this study. Though Yin's (2003) replication logic is well known and respected, as Fisher (2004) points out, interpretation of data is a complex matter. Therefore it is important to be mindful from a critical realist position (Bhaskar, 1989), that though one may view facts as concrete, it is important to recognise that these facts cannot be accessed directly - they are socially constructed. Much of the analysis that follows in this paper has to be understood within this context, and therefore the interpretation of experiences and events by the author and those being interviewed, may be subject to bias. Attempts have been made to minimise such bias through using Winter's (1989) techniques of reflexive and dialectical critique. Where schools were asked to rate or describe their position on an issue, if disagreement was found between respondents, those interviewed were asked by the author to clarify their position, so that a consensus from the school was reached. The author used the data available to make a judgement on each of the schools. This judgement was based upon his extensive knowledge of the sector and of the leading providers of third stream activity.As stated earlier, the main objective of the research was to identify the resources, capabilities and development strategies open to new university business schools. To that end, a resource based view (RBV) of the firm was used as the conceptual framework to structure the research. The term RBV was originally coined by Wernerfelt (1984), and in essence, the resource based view of the firm broadly sees the resource endowment of a firm as the principal source of its strategic options and potential strategic advantage.\nResource-based view of the firm: One of the principal insights of RBV is that not all resources are of equal importance or possess the potential to be a source of sustainable competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Fahy, 2000). The purpose of this section of the paper will be to define the various types of resources and capabilities that can be found within organisations. The label resources will be used to describe tangible, intangible and human resources. The term capability will be used to describe \"... the firm's capacity for undertaking a particular productive activity\" (Grant, 2002, p. 145).Tangible resources\nCase study findings: Breakdown of third stream activity\nStrategies for developing third stream activity: Two strong themes emerge from the case study research with regard to strategies for developing third stream activity. First, it can be argued that the market for third stream activity is in effect a number of heterogeneous sub-markets, each with different resource and capability requirements necessary for success. The second major theme is the clear distinction between the size of the school, its focus on either funded or commercially-based third stream activity, and the degree of autonomy and control schools have in managing key organisational processes and organisational routines. Each of these themes will be discussed in turn.Third stream activity resource and capability requirements\nImplications for schools developing third stream activity: Drawing together many of the findings from the research, a number of implications for schools seeking to develop third stream activity can be identified. These have been classified under internal and external factors.External factors\nConclusions: From the research presented in this paper, there is evidence to suggest that institutions are managing third stream activity in an increasingly strategic, proactive and professional manner. Five year strategic plans and annual planning processes appear to be the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, the picture that emerges is one in which schools are seeking to grow third stream activity within tight financial and resource constraints, often in spite of the institutional systems and processes that are in the main designed to support undergraduate provision. Given these severe constraints it is not surprising that the strategy adopted by many business schools tends to be incremental and emergent, building on existing strengths, with resources following the acquisition of new business. Indeed for all the rhetoric of senior university staff supporting the development of third stream activity identified throughout the interview process, there is little evidence of investment taking place to turn this desire into a reality.Therefore the overall picture that emerges from this analysis is of a complex market that is for the most part local and regional in nature. The ability of individual schools to develop a coherent strategy towards growing third stream activity in a range of sub-markets is constrained by their resources, capabilities and organisational arrangements, as well as market opportunities in their region. Two potential strategies for business schools seeking to develop third stream activity has been identified in Figure 1. One strategy that is being adopted by some of the larger schools is based upon developing commercially-focused activities such as award-bearing programmes, accreditation and contract research. This is based upon their superior resource base, devolved organisational routines and reputation. The second strategy is based upon developing mainly regionally-based funded activity, and this strategy is being implemented by both larger and small schools. However, one may argue that this strategy is possibly the only one open to small schools, given their lack of resources, highly centralised organisational routines and relatively weak brands.The role and importance of product champions should not be underestimated in shaping school strategy. First, they are crucial in establishing an initial market presence and often as a consequence, influence the shape and scope of the activities undertaken. Second, as third stream activity expands and develops, the individual becomes to some extent, a magnet around which like minded individuals and activity gravitate. This is vital in creating a critical mass of third stream activity which then provides the financial basis (in many instances) for the creation of a separate unit or centre.From a strategic perspective, a key factor which has been identified as a major constraint on third stream development focuses around the capabilities of the organisation, more specifically its organisational routines. Paradoxically, it would appear that the internal organisation of many universities and business schools create many of the barriers to growing third stream activity in a systematic and strategic manner. Again it appears on the surface that many of these factors are within the control of the school or the university to resolve, given the commitment and resources.A possible answer as to why such internal barriers continue to exist may lie in the relatively low levels of third stream income that the majority of business schools are currently generating. Therefore it could be argued that a Catch22 situation may have developed. Thus while the principal source of funding is HEFCE based, organisational structures and investment priorities will reflect this reality, and may constrain the development of third stream activity. Equally, while third stream activity generates relatively small amounts of income, the case for investment will remain marginal. Indeed, with little investment in resources to support third stream activity, and processes and systems geared to support mainstream activity, then third stream activity may well continue to struggle to grow in many institutions. For many schools, it is likely that the quest for ever increasing levels of third stream income will be stifled by the university's more immediate requirement of generating income to balance its budget.Therefore it is within this complex organisational context that business schools will have to make decisions and develop strategies about which types of third stream activity to grow based in part on understanding their own resource and capability mix, and the market opportunities of their region. What this research suggests is that third stream activity is highly dependent upon key individuals and developing organisational routines which support their activities. What is also clear is that growing third stream activity is a relatively long-term and incremental process, based upon developing staff expertise, organisational routines, networks and building a track record of success, and as such, third stream income may not be the short-term answer to a Dean or a Vice Chancellor's financial problems!\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Developing third stream activity is becoming increasingly important for business schools as they come under increasing financial pressure. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the strategies adopted by new university business schools and highlight the resources, capabilities and constraints under which they are operating.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research conducted for this paper is based upon Yin's multiple case design methodology using replication logic. Six new university business schools were identified, where two cases would be literal replications (large schools with a large portfolio of third stream activity) and four cases designed to pursue different patterns of theoretical replication (large schools with small levels of third stream activity, and two small schools). In total 14 senior staff were interviewed in the six schools.\nFindings: - The overall picture that emerges from the research is of a complex market that is for the most part local and regional in nature, where the ability of individual schools to develop a coherent strategy towards growing third stream activity in a range of sub-markets is constrained by their resources, capabilities and organisational arrangements, as well as market opportunities in their region. From the analysis it is possible to identify two distinct development paths. One where schools focus on delivering funded activity (funded for example by EU, regional development agencies, learning and skills councils and SSP's) and one where schools focus on more \"commercially\" based activity (in-company programmes, accreditation, contract research for public and private sector organisations).\nPractical implications: - The paper is one of the first to highlight the resources and capabilities necessary to compete in this increasingly important market.\nOriginality/value: - There is little hard evidence available highlighting the development of third stream activity in new university business schools.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Environmental social work: Implications for accelerating the implementation of sustainable development in social work curricula
|
[
"Critical theory",
"Discourse analysis",
"Critical reflection",
"Sustainable development",
"Environmental social work",
"Transformative and emancipatory pedagogy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Background\n2. Description of the study areas and methodology: 2.1 Study site and area\n3. Results and discussion: The analytical network generated from ATLAS-ti v8.4 is shown in Figure 2.\n4. Conclusion: ESW within the social work curricula has remained at the margin in many countries, including in Sweden (Bowles et al., 2016; Drolet et al., 2015; Gray et al., 2013). Within the context of SD, there is a global call for social work education to incorporate ESW. Within this context, this study analysed some students' reflective tasks using a CDA methodology to report some of the main challenges for ESW education and practice. Based on the results, this study argues for TEP in accelerating the implementation of SD in the curricula.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: Environmental social work (ESW) is an approach and a perspective in social work focusing on ecological and environmental sustainability and justice within the context of sustainable development (SD). This study aims to analyse students' reflective tasks on challenges for ESW education and practice from a critical theory perspective. The purpose of this study is to discuss the implications of the findings for accelerating the implementation of SD in social work curricula.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research participants comprised 49 master level students from four different cohorts studying the course \"Social Work and Sustainable Development\" at the University of Gavle, Sweden. The sample comprised only those students who had completed at least one of the three non-mandatory reflective tasks that were set within the course. The reflective tasks of the research participants were gathered as data for this study. A qualitative methodological approach with the help of ATLAS-ti V8.4 was used to analyse the gathered data.\nFindings: This study discusses three primary results, which are categorised as \"Being Boxed\", \"Safe and Saviour Sweden\" and \"Politics and Power\". Based on the results, this study argues for a transformative and emancipatory pedagogy (TEP) in the teaching and learning of ESW to accelerate the implementation of holistic SD within the social work curriculum.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is mainly based on the analysis of \"problematic\" discourses of some of the students. The majority of the students and their respective discourses are not considered. Moreover, it would have been interesting, and probably enlightening to explore the background of the students (such as gender, ethnicity and religion) and any concomitant beliefs or prejudices (whether consciously held or otherwise) that would need to be addressed for an effective social work outcome. For ethical reasons, the background of the students was not recorded and analysed in this study.\nPractical implications: Based on the results, this study argues for TEP in catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.\nSocial implications: Social workers have a political mandate from their professional ethics to work for the protection of the planet and for the well-being of all - including non-humans. This study therefore argues for ESW education within social work curricula in promoting SD through social work practice.\nOriginality/value: Within the context of SD, there is a global call for social work education to shift from an anthropocentric to an eco-centric paradigm. However, ESW education is still in its infancy stage and very few universities are focusing in this particular area. This study therefore brings an important and well-needed layer of empirical evidence in considering the implications for catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.\n",
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Collaborative knowledge sharing strategy to enhance organizational learning
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Learning organizations",
"Universities",
"Information technology",
"Academic institutions",
"Collaboration",
"Organizational learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Organizational learning\n2. Problem statement: Many current day applications of knowledge sharing are happening on the corporate sector. So, it is necessary to assess and enhance knowledge sharing culture in academic institutions which are non-corporate structures and instrumental in achievement of objectives of socio-economic development of any nation. It is observed that in the academic institutions, knowledge sharing does not take place. Therefore the researcher defined the following problem statement: effective knowledge sharing does not take place in academic institutes. So, it is necessary to assess the existing culture pertaining to knowledge sharing and develop collaborative knowledge sharing strategy to enhance organizational learning in the academic institutions. Hence the main problem is to assess and suggest the ways and means to enhance collaborative knowledge sharing culture in academic institutions. Therefore with this problem statement in mind the researcher, decided to formulate the following objectives.Objectives of research\n3. Outline of the research: The study comprises of four phases:(1) Observation: of knowledge sharing culture in academic institutes since research demands accurate observation and description. The main question at this stage was whether collaborative knowledge sharing takes place in academic institutes?(2) Field research: the second phase of research is field research, which consisted of two parts:\n4. Hypothesis of the study: H1. Willingness to share knowledge is highly dependent on work culture.Test statistics\n5. Findings of the study: (1) The identification and study of five performance indicators which influence collaborative knowledge sharing culture in an academic institute. These include work culture, interaction, willingness to share, recognition and IT.(2) In order to provide effective training to the faculty members, it is important for the academic institutions to understand the reasons because of which, the new knowledge is gained through attending the FDPs. The analysis of the reasons helped to analyse how useful and to what extent the FDPs are helping the faculty members. The reasons are as follows:\n6. Recommendations: (1) Development of collaborative knowledge sharing culture in academic institutes: The collaborative knowledge sharing culture is required to be imbibed within academic institutes to enhance organizational learning. For achievement of successful implementation of collaborative knowledge sharing culture in academic institutes, the following are the requirements:\n7. Scope for future research: The recommendations in this study focus on factors influencing collaborative knowledge sharing culture and also the practices of collaborative knowledge sharing to enhance organizational learning in an academic institute. Further, it is also important to study the following: how and to what extent collaborative knowledge improves the performance of the academic institutes; and the impact of collaborative knowledge sharing on the quality of higher education.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: - The main purpose of the paper is to assess and suggest the ways and means to enhance a collaborative knowledge sharing culture in academic institutions, with special reference to information technology (IT)-related education in the Management Faculty of the University of Pune.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research is descriptive and empirical in nature because the primary data were collected using the survey method through fact finding techniques such as questionnaire and interview. The main purpose of this research is to obtain information concerning the current status of the phenomena to describe \"what exists\" with respect to variables or conditions in a situation.\nFindings: - The sustainability of any industry is closely linked to the manpower talent made available by the academic institutions. Therefore in order to service the needs of the industry in tune with rapidly changing trends, academic institutions have to implement innovative learning systems and be able to match up to the expectations of the industry for knowledge support. Collaborative knowledge sharing links the learning and knowledge processes to enhance organizational learning. The knowledge grows more with communication, sharing of ideas and transfer of knowledge through face-to-face communication, discussions, faculty development programs, industry-institute interactions. Academic institutions should align their human resource strategies, practices and processes in such a way that collaborative knowledge sharing becomes a part of the work culture and overcome the barriers to knowledge sharing. There is need to develop systems that can recognize and reward the efforts of employees who share their knowledge. This can empower collaborative knowledge sharing culture in an academic institute.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In the same context as the practical implications of the paper, it is also appropriate and important to study further how, and to what extent collaborative knowledge improves the performance of the academic institutes. Also, the impact of collaborative knowledge sharing on the quality of higher education.\nPractical implications: - The recommendations in this paper focus on factors influencing collaborative knowledge sharing culture and also the practices of collaborative knowledge sharing to enhance organizational learning in an academic institute.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes original empirical data on the collaborative knowledge sharing strategy to enhance organizational learning.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Habitual accountability routines in the boardroom: how boards balance control and collaboration
|
[
"Accountability",
"Boards of directors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The global financial crisis sparked an international effort to understand how accountability failures in the finance and banking system led to the largest economic disruption since the Great Depression. The UK's Walker Review (2009) was one such effort that investigated the UK banking system's contribution to the crisis. Its findings highlighted that non-executive directors' (NEDs') behaviours, rather than their independence, were systemically flawed. NEDs failed to hold executives to account, instead focussing on the routine aspects of governance. There was a \"failure of individuals or of NEDs as a group to challenge the executive on substantive issues as distinct from (adopting) a conventional relatively box-ticking focus on process\" (Walker, 2009, p. 53).\nLiterature: Increasing boardroom accountability and transparency expectations are part of a broader systemic trend towards an \"audit society\" (Power, 1991). Less than forty years ago, boards of directors were seen as largely ineffectual and symbolic: \"ornaments on the corporate Christmas tree\" (Mace, 1971, p. 90) or \"[...] parsley on the fish [of the corporation]\" (Fleischer et al., 1988, p. 7). Much has changed. Boards of directors are increasingly held responsible for corporate failure (e.g. ASIC v. Healey & Ors [2011] FCA 717), leading some policy advocates to argue that expectations of a group of essentially part-time outsiders[1] are too high (e.g. see Cole, 2012).\nMethods: Given few direct studies of boardroom accountability, we employed an inductive research design (Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan, 2007). The cross-level nature of our research questions (i.e. routines of boards, and the actions of individuals within those routines) suggested a case study methodology. In addition to enabling both individual and group-level analyses, the case method is a classic approach for capturing the interactions and dynamics central to our questions (Yin, 1994).\nAnalysis: We used an inductive approach to discern repeated patterns from the thick, rich data we collected. Following Suddaby's (2006) advice, we commenced with a broad view of accountability based on Bovens's (2007) definition, and gradually narrowed our focus through iteration between data and literature on accountability and routines. This occurred in five distinct stages where we gradually narrowed from a broad understanding of boardroom accountability to a coding regime to an emergent model that was triangulated with the literature and reviewed by practitioners for face validity.\nResults: Findings are presented in two stages. First, the recurring complex behaviours recorded on video are presented in a series of quantified tables to communicate the comprehensive nature of our findings by demonstrating the scale and scope of accountability patterns. Our aim is not to claim external generalizability but rather to allow the reader to gauge the trustworthiness of the findings. These quantified summaries and relationships are then recast as a generalized illustrative diagram representing the routines of boardroom accountability. Vignettes and examples provide additional insights into the patterns and mechanisms outlined.\nDiscussion: As accountability continues to seep further into all aspects of our life (Power, 1997), research is increasingly questioning the universal application of a standard agency perspective. This is particularly so in the context of organizational life where accountability involves reconciling multiple, complex processes. One emerging view gaining traction both academically (e.g. Roberts, 2001) and normatively (e.g. Walker, 2009) holds that understanding the social processes of accountability is critical for furthering the field. In this paper, we have sought to advance our understanding of accountability in organizational life by documenting the habitual routines of a firm's peak internal corporate accountability body, the board of directors. Direct observation of the board meeting forum (Bovens, 2007) reveals clear group-level routines that guide the giving and receiving of accounts. Within these stable routines, individual directors and managers engage in complex and dynamic roles.\nConclusion: As the Walker (2009) review and numerous researchers highlight (e.g. Roberts, 2001; Sonnenfeld, 2002), accountability requires more than form. What people do matters. Rather than viewing accountability as a monotonic and distant power relationship, this research has provided a lens for viewing boardroom accountability as reliant on routinized behaviours that allow management and board to develop the norms that support effective accountability. We hope to stimulate further research, discussion and practice that acknowledge the importance of group work to effective accountability in our society.\n",
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},
{
"content": "Purpose: Corporate accountability is a complex chain of reporting that reaches from external stakeholders into the organization's management structure. The transition from external to internal accountability mechanisms primarily occurs at the board of directors. Yet outside of incentive mechanisms, we know surprisingly little about how internal actors (management) are held to account by the representatives of external shareholders (the board). The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of accountability at this transition point by documenting the routines used by boards to hold the firm's management to account. In doing so, we develop the understanding of the important transition between internal and external firm accountability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An inductive, case-based approach identifies recurrent behaviour patterns in two matched boards over three video-taped meetings. Sequential analysis of coded group and individual behaviours provides insight into boards' accountability routines.\nFindings: The boards engaged in clear, recurrent accountability routines. Individuals on the boards play different roles in these routines depending on the issue before the board, allowing both directors and managers to hold each other to account. The outsiders (directors) both challenge and support the insiders (managers) during board discussions, switching their behaviours with different agenda items but maintaining a consistent group level of support and scepticism across the meeting. This allows for the simultaneous development of trust and verification at the group level, a necessary condition for effective accountability.\nResearch limitations/implications: As board relationships and organisational context are highly variable, future research should concentrate on testing the generalizability of the results across different board and shareholder structures.\nPractical implications: The results call into question the current governance focus on the independence of the individual director, as the authors identify that all directors appear to act as agents at one time or another in a meeting. Accountability at the boardroom level requires an effective group process not usually addressed in governance recommendations or regulation.\nOriginality/value: This study provides unique insights into board dynamics, documenting the accountability implications of group behaviours. By focussing on the group process, the authors highlight the potential mismatch of monotonic, individual-level approaches to governance and accountability prevalent in current agency approaches.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The elderly's internet usage: an updated look
|
[
"Elderly people",
"Internet",
"Nostalgia",
"Risk management",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: Although the marketplace has been largely youth-driven, it is becoming increasingly focused on older consumers. Americans are living longer than ever before, causing a senior boom. Many researchers and organizations define senior citizens as those 65 years of age and older (Eastman and Iyer, 2005; Miller et al., 1998). In the USA, the number of people age 65 and older is 35 million and is projected to increase to 50 million by 2010 (Lambert-Pandraud et al., 2005), or one out of seven people, compared to one in ten in 1970 (Oumlil and Williams, 2000). In the aggregate, they are the most rapidly expanding group in the United States (Jones, 2001) and the 85-plus population is the fastest growing subset of this group (Jones, 2001; Schewe and Noble, 2000).The purchasing power of the elderly is also significant. It is estimated that those people age 65 or over account for up to $200 billion of spending a year (Oumlil and Williams, 2000) and seniors control 70 percent of the net worth of USA households (Age Wave, LLC, 2000). The 65 through 75 age bracket has the highest percentage of discretionary income of any ten-year age bracket (Weaver, 1997). Thus, the size and buying power of the segment justifies the need for research.In terms of using the internet, \"older consumers comprise a growing but under-represented segment of internet users\" (Trocchia and Janda, 2000, p. 605). McMellon and Schiffman (2000) state that internet activities (such as personal communication, financial matters, entertainment and information) offer opportunities that could be beneficial for seniors limited in mobility. Additionally, internet sales have grown tremendously in recent years as \"annual online spending has surpassed $100 billion for the first time\" (Kopytoff, 2006, C1). The internet is an increasingly important segment of the retail market, estimated to be anywhere from approximately three percent (per the US Commerce Department) to seven percent (per comScore) of overall USA retail sales (Kopytoff, 2006). Thus, seniors are a vitally new and rapidly growing segment of the ever-increasing internet economy (Trocchia and Janda, 2000).Purpose of the study\nLiterature review: In this literature review, the experience of seniors online and issues that impact seniors' use of the internet is described. Then, literature on nostalgia, innovativeness, and risk aversion is presented along with relevant hypotheses.The experience of seniors online\nMethodology: Sample\nResults: In this study, elderly internet usage results will reported and followed parenthetically by the Iyer and Eastman (2006) study results. Internet usage by the elderly was 52.8 percent (83 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006). Mean usage of the internet by the elderly was less than 5 hours per week (9 hours per week, Iyer and Eastman, 2006) and approximately 15 percent (46 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006) of the respondents spent more than 10 hours per week on the internet. In terms of how the internet was used, approximately 40 percent (67 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006) of the respondents used the internet to stay in touch with friends and relatives; about 26 percent (37 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006) used the internet to stay current with the news and events; and other major reasons why the elderly used the internet were for shopping (23 percent) (35 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006), entertainment (11 percent) (22 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006), access health/medical information (24 percent) (31 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006), and research topics other than health (21 percent) (38 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006). Fifty-four percent (55 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006) of the elderly respondents indicated that they had used the internet for more than 12 months.Finally, while the elderly consumers were fairly neutral in their feelings about satisfaction with their current skills of using the internet (23 percent), there were more respondents who were satisfied with their current skills to use the internet (31 percent) than those who were not satisfied (22 percent) (50 percent, Iyer and Eastman, 2006). Additionally, of those respondents who made internet purchases, the largest group of purchasers (18 percent of the sample) made purchases only once or twice a year. For those with internet experience, the majority (27 percent of the sample) considered themselves novices using the technology.Sampling differences could be the reason for the differences in internet use between Iyer and Eastman (2006) and the current study. Iyer and Eastman (2006) used a national random sample; perhaps there was a self-selection bias, in which those seniors who were online or who were more interested in the internet were more likely to respond. In the current study, trained student researchers selected the respondents and chose those seniors they could more conveniently survey rather than those they thought would be more interested in the survey topics. These results suggest the need for continued research in this area to better determine seniors' use of the internet.Hypotheses results\nManagerial implications: This study found that nostalgia proneness had a significant impact on seniors' use of and feelings about the internet. Those seniors with higher levels of nostalgia proneness used the internet less (in terms of hours of use per week), accessed it less (in terms of frequency of use), purchased less online, had less online experience and felt less comfortable using the internet than those seniors with lower levels of nostalgia proneness. These findings make sense, given that those seniors who yearn for the \"good old days\" (Stern, 1992) would not welcome the changes the internet has brought about. Likewise, given that seniors are generally not satisfied with their online skills (Iyer and Eastman, 2006), it makes sense that one's level of nostalgia proneness would not impact their level of satisfaction with the internet. Seniors' satisfaction with the internet would probably be more linked with their ability to use it, rather than the fact that it exists. The results contribute to the literature by suggesting that marketers targeting mature consumers online need to address their need for nostalgia. Marketers could illustrate the use of the internet to relate to the past through looking up old acquaintances, remembering loved ones, or to find vintage products not currently available in traditional retail outlets. A number of internet firms are involved in the online remembrance business, allowing individuals to post memories and photos of deceased spouses. For example, Hollywood Forever Cemetery has created a number of \"life stories,\" which can be viewed at a touch-screen at the cemetery or at their web site (Zaslow, 2003).This study also found support for the impact of innovativeness (measured in terms of innovativeness in buying and shopping online) on mature consumers' internet use (in term of use), frequency of use, online purchases, experience, comfort level with the internet, and satisfaction with the internet. These results conflict with those of Eastman and Iyer (2004), who found a negative relationship between internet use (in terms of hours) and innovativeness, despite using similar measures. The reason for the different results in this study may be due to the growth of the internet. Now that the internet has become more commonplace, seniors may be more willing to try buying online and view that as being innovative, despite online shopping's availability for over a decade. Furthermore, those seniors who view themselves as innovative online shoppers tend to use the internet more (both in terms of hours and frequency), have more experience online, and feel more comfortable and more satisfied using the internet than seniors have previously. These results suggest that the innovation of online shopping is progressing through the adoption curve (Goldsmith and Flynn, 2005) compared to earlier research. For marketers, the results suggest that previous views of the elderly being pessimistic about technology (Modahl, 2000) and viewing the internet as dangerous (Lenhart, 2000) may no longer hold as there are now innovative senior consumers willing to shop online. Thus, online marketers should now strongly consider the innovative mature consumer target market.Furthermore, the results suggest that as seniors are online more hours and more frequently, they are becoming more comfortable online and more likely to buy online; as seniors gain experience online, they are more likely to buy online. Thus, the results found by Kuhlmeier and Knight (2005) may now be generalized to the senior market. This suggests that the mature consumer market is becoming an increasingly more viable segment for marketers to consider and that those marketers who may have dismissed this segment in the past, may want to reconsider it as seniors gain more online experience.Finally, in terms of risk aversion, the results revealed that seniors with more online experience (based on time of adoption, hours per week use, and frequency of use) report a lower level of risk aversion to the internet than other mature consumers. Furthermore, those mature consumers who are high in risk aversion make fewer internet purchases than those mature consumers lower in risk aversion. Per the literature, as people feel more comfortable with a stimulus, the less they associate risk with that stimulus (Mitchell and Vassos, 1997; Shimp and Bearden, 1982; Roselius, 1971; Sood and Adams, 1984; Tan, 1999). These findings can now be extended to seniors and their use of the internet. These results suggest that marketers need to encourage seniors' experience and use with the internet as a means to lower their risk aversion. This is vital, because high levels of risk aversion are associated with fewer internet purchases. Thus, some of the concerns that seniors have with the internet that have been previously discussed in the literature (Eastman and Iyer, 2004; Lenhart, 2000; Pastore, 2001) may still exist; but with increased experience and use, these concerns may be satisfactorily addressed and not hinder internet purchases.There are some limitations to this study, however, that future research can address. For example, future research needs to determine if these results can be replicated with a national random sample. Additionally, research is needed to determine what factors increase seniors' experience with the internet. For example, is there a relationship between how seniors learned to use the internet and their future online experiences? Finally, future research needs to address what seniors now see as the risks that impact their online use and purchases. Given the growth and financial power of the internet as well as the senior market, this topic is vital for marketers to continue to study and hopefully this paper encourages additional research and discussion on these topics.In conclusion, this study contributes to the literature by showing the relationship between nostalgia proneness, innovativeness, and risk aversion with internet use and purchase. Additionally, this study demonstrates that seniors are becoming an increasingly more viable segment for internet marketers. For internet marketers wanting to attract this segment, they need to understand the role that innovativeness and internet experience play as those seniors who see themselves as being innovative and who have more experience online may be the most attractive target within the mature consumer segment for internet marketers. Thus, marketers may want to first try to reach innovative seniors. Then, to attract additional seniors, marketers may want to tap into nostalgia themes and how the internet can meet seniors' needs for nostalgia. Finally, internet marketers cannot dismiss the concerns or risks seniors may feel with the internet, but instead focus on how positive online experiences can address those concerns.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to extend earlier research on mature consumers and their internet use by examining how mature consumers' use of the internet is impacted by their nostalgia proneness, innovativeness, and risk aversion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected using a convenience sample (n=374) of respondents who were 65 years of age or older. Several scales were used to measure the constructs of interest to the research, all of which have been used in earlier research.\nFindings: - Results revealed that those seniors with higher levels of nostalgia proneness used and accessed the internet less, purchased less online, had less online experience and felt less comfortable using the internet. There is also support for the impact of innovativeness on mature consumers' internet use, frequency, online purchases, experience, comfort level with the internet, and satisfaction with the internet. In terms of risk aversion, seniors with more online experience report a lower level of risk aversion to the internet than other mature consumers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research needs to determine if these results can be replicated with a national random sample. Additionally, research is needed to determine what factors increase seniors' experience with the internet.\nOriginality/value: - This study demonstrates that seniors are becoming an increasingly more viable segment for internet marketers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Mavens' price and non-price on-pack extrinsic cue search behaviours: Implications for store brands
|
[
"Extrinsic cue",
"Maven",
"Opportunity cost of time",
"Price search",
"Store brands"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The growth of store brands continues unabated with sales gaining further ground across global food markets (Reklaite, 2015). At the same time, we observe the premiumisation of store brands as the more generalised price conscious component of the market becomes saturated (Euromonitor, 2015). At the heart of this premiumisation strategy has been retailers' attempt to shift consumers' price focus to quality through a greater use of enhanced packaging and labelling (Witham, 2013) within the context of the three tiered store brand hierarchy. However, there is consistent evidence indicating that retailers have not yet succeeded in aligning consumers' evaluation of the extrinsic quality cues on their store brand products with the products' intrinsic quality resulting in an extrinsic cue deficit (Fugate, 1986; Richardson et al., 1994; Rossi et al., 2015). In short, consumers' use of extrinsic cues when considering store brands have led shoppers to infer lower quality than the products actually possess and in the process frustrate retailers' premiumisation attempts.\nLiterature review: Cues and store brands\nHypotheses: In the following sections, we will establish a set of hypotheses to explore the relationships between our two forms of mavenism and store brand proneness, mediated through search processes. Following earlier work, we define store brand proneness as the propensity to purchase store brand products (Richardson et al., 1996). As mavens exercise search across the market, we will extend our analysis beyond the maven's regular store to include alternative stores that the shopper frequents. The development of our hypotheses will be presented as follows. First, we will focus on the direct effects between our forms of mavenism on both price and non-price on-pack cue search. This will be followed by an exposition of the mediating effect of the opportunity cost of time in the determination of search activities before progressing to our consideration of store brand proneness across one's own store, defined as where the majority of one's grocery shopping is completed, and alternative stores frequented by the shopper.\nMethod: Data collection\nResults: The direct paths from the structural model and hypothesised signs, coefficient values and significance levels are presented in Figure 2. Following earlier recommendations (Preacher and Hayes, 2004; Preacher and Hayes, 2008), the 5,000 samples bootstrapped indirect effects (Table V) and total effects (Table VI) between our dependent and independent variables are also presented. The resultant model fit, kh2=465.460, df=214, p=0.000, GFI=0.92, AGFI=0.90, CFI=96, TLI=0.95, RMSEA=0.051 enables us to progress to examine our hypotheses.\nDiscussion, conclusion and managerial implications: The chief theoretical contribution of this work is that by recognising the maven as having domain specific competencies or interests (O'Sullivan, 2015) and linking these to specific search behaviours we established a clearer understanding of their purchase behaviours in a particular market context. As such we have responded positively to Williams and Slama (1995) who called for researchers to establish a much clearer understanding of mavens' purchase and consumption behaviour, and in the process we revealed one of the limitations of existing research that uses the original broadly based measure of mavenism as established by Feick and Price (1987). By contrast our measures conceptualising mavenism around two specific search and dissemination domains (price and non-price product related) within the store brand market and have proven fruitful. By adopting this domain specific perspective, we have demonstrated that different domains can lead to conflicting forces on both purchasing behaviours and the nature of dissemination.\nLimitations and implications for future research: The first limitation associated with this work is that we inferred that the kinds of store brand information disseminated by mavens are related to the kinds of information sought during their store brand purchasing decisions. Consequently, we argued that because price-related mavenism was found to be positively related to their own-store brand purchasing behaviour, that they would be more disposed to spreading positive price information throughout the market. However, this is an assumption which, while we believe to be plausible and is embedded in earlier work (Gauri et al., 2016), merits further testing - what kinds of information do mavens actively communicate about store brands? To shed greater insight into this question was beyond the scope of this work and its underlying methodology. Second, in our model we restricted our analysis to on-pack extrinsic cues and did not incorporate either the store name or store image (Calvo-Porral and Levy-Mangin, 2014; Diallo et al., 2013) which can serve as important extrinsic cues used in the purchasing decision. Third, the work was completed using US data. This market has been shown to be somewhat behind other, most notably European markets (Sethuraman and Gielens, 2014). Consequently, it is suggested that a similar study completed in the UK market for instance might reveal different results. Finally, while every effort was made to reduce sampling error through the commissioning of a reputable market research agency, the research is based on an online sample which may be subject to some error based on access to IT facilities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not mavens' dissemination activities are likely to promote or hinder retailers' store brand premiumisation attempts, by revealing the relationship between mavens' price and non-price on-pack extrinsic cue search and their store brand purchasing behaviours.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a hypothetic-deductive approach and develops a model of mavens' store brand purchasing behaviour. The model is tested using SEM on a US data set containing 457 respondents. A full discussion of the direct, indirect and total effects is provided.\nFindings: Mavens' store brand purchasing behaviours are strongly linked to their price search activities and negatively related to their use of non-price on-pack extrinsic cues. This indicates that their dissemination activities are likely to stress lower prices and hence price competition rather than promote other cues used to infer quality. Thus, mavens are likely to inhibit retailers' store brand premiumisation attempts. Mavens' investments in time engaged in search activities are strongly linked to social returns rather than private financial savings.\nResearch limitations/implications: The work is based on data collected using an online survey in one region of the USA where store brands are not as prevalent in other countries such as the UK.\nPractical implications: The investigation of non-price on-pack extrinsic cues reduces mavens' store brand purchasing behaviours while the use of price cues increases them. This suggests that even with mavens' market expertise that a non-price extrinsic cue deficit continues to exist for these products. Consequently, retailers need to re-examine and rework the cues contained on pack to convey more positive consumption-related information if mavens are to become store brand advocates.\nOriginality/value: Rather than conceptualising the maven as possessing market wide knowledge, this research adopts a domain specific perspective arguing that price mavenism can be distinguished from product-related mavenism with consequences for the set of extrinsic cues used as part of the maven's search process. In doing so, it reveals the conflicting effects that these maven dimensions have on purchasing behaviours and the likely effects on mavens' dissemination activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Reliability estimation in a multicomponent stress-strength based on unit-Gompertz distribution
|
[
"Maximum likelihood estimation",
"Bayes estimator",
"Highest posterior density interval",
"Multicomponent reliability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the traditional reliability theory, the stress-strength model, in its simplest form, defines the reliability of a component as the probability that the strength of the unit X is greater than the stress Y imposed on it, or, R=P (X>Y). This main idea was introduced by Birnbaum (1956). The estimation of R=P (X>Y) was studied by many authors and readers may refer to Kundu and Gupta (2005) for the generalized exponential distribution and Nadar and Kizilaslan (2014) for the Kumaraswamy distribution and the references cited therein. Stress-strength models have also been considered when a system consists of several components. A system having more than one component is called a multicomponent system. The reliability of a multicomponent stress-strength (MSS) model was first developed by Bhattacharyya and Johnson (1974) under the assumption that k identically independent strength component X1, ..., Xk were subjected to a common stress Y which is independent of the X's variables. The system with k identical components, functions if s(1sk) or more of the components operate simultaneously. The s out of k system structure is a very popular type of redundancy in failure system. In this paper, we follow the configuration of Bhattacharyya and Johnson (1974). Its practical application ranges from communication and industrial systems to logistic and military systems. Many examples can be given of multicomponent systems. For example, a solar panel comprising k identical solar cells provides an adequate power supply if at least s cells are operating at a particular duration of time. Similarly, a data processing system consisting of five video displays is on full data display if a minimum of three displays are operable. Such a display subsystem is referred as a 3-out-of-5:G system. Further, a communication system consisting of three transmitters will successfully transmit message if at least two transmitters are operational at all times. Such a transmission subsystem is referred as a 2-out-of-3:G system. Another example is a suspension bridge with k pairs of vertical cables that survive when at least s number of vertical cables work.\n2. Model descriptions and the reliability of the system: Let Y be a nonnegative random variable with Gompertz distribution, then its probability density function (pdf) is given by:(1)\n3. Estimation of Rs,k when b is unknown: 3.1 MLE of Rs,k\n4. Estimation of Rs,k when b is known: In this section, we drive the maximum likelihood estimator, UMVUE and Bayes estimator of Rs,k under the assumption that common parameter b is a known, say b1. Since Rs,k is independent of the parameter b, the Rs,k is same as in the b is unknown case.\n5. Simulation study: In this section, we carry out a Monte Carlo simulation study to assess the performance of the estimates of Rs,k using different methods of estimation as discussed in the previous sections for different sample sizes, and for different parameter and hyper-parameter values. The performances of the point estimates are compared in terms of their estimated risks (ERs). The performances of the asymptotic confidence and credible intervals are assessed by using average confidence lengths and coverage probabilities (CPs). Two separate cases are considered to draw inference on Rs,k, namely, when b is unknown and b is known. When the common scale parameter b is unknown, strength and stress populations are generated for (l1, l2, b)=(2, 3, 2.5) and (4, 3, 1.5). The corresponding true values of Rs,k with the given combinations for (s, k)=(1, 3) and (2, 4) when (l1, l2, b)=(2, 3, 2.5) are 0.66667 and 0.48485 as well as when (l1, l2, b)=(4, 3, 1.5) are 0.67368 and 0.80, respectively. In both cases, we study the following small sample sizes: n=10, 15, 20, ..., 50. In Bayesian case, the following pairs of hyperparameters a1=4; b1=2; a2=3; b2=1; a3=5; b3=2 and a1=4; b1=1; a2=3; b2=1; a3=3; b3=2 for parameters (l1, l2, b)=(2, 3, 2.5) and parameters (l1, l2, b)=(4, 3, 1.5) values are used, respectively.\n6. Data analysis: In this section, we present a real data analysis for comparing the considered estimation methods of the MSS model based on UG distribution. The data set represents time-between-failures (time unit in seconds). The data set is available in the book by Lyu (1996) and also in the link https://appsrv-cse-cuhk-edu-hk.pitt.idm.oclc.org/lyu/book/reliability/DATA/CH7/SYS3.DAT. Here we consider s=1 and k=4 which suggests that it is a 1-out-of-4:G system. Let Y1 denotes the 2nd failure time and X1k, k=1, 2, ..., 4, be the failure times of observations numbered 3-6. Similarly, let Y2 be the failure time of the seventh observation and X2k, k=1, 2, ..., 4, be the failure times of observations lying between 8 and 11. When we carry on these data process up to 36th failure, then we get n=7 data for Y. One may also refer to Nadar and Kizilaslan (2014) for further discussion in this regard. The obtained data (X, Y) are as follows:\n7. Conclusions: In this paper, we have studied the MSS reliability for UG distribution when both stress and strength variates follow the same population. The frequentist and Bayesian approaches have been used to obtain the reliability of the system when scale parameter b is known and unknown. Further, when this scale parameter b is known or unknown, the Bayes estimates of Rs,k are obtained by using both Lindley's approximation and M-H method. The EB estimate and the UMVUE of Rs,k are also obtained when this scale parameter b is known. Based on our simulation results, we observe that Bayes method provides better estimation results compared to MLE. We also observed that proposed asymptotic and HPD intervals show satisfactory CP. However, AL of HPD intervals tend to remain shorter than the corresponding asymptotic interval. Overall we have observed that better estimates of the reliability may be achieved when the common scale parameter Rs,k is known.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to estimate the multicomponent reliability by assuming the unit-Gompertz (UG) distribution. Both stress and strength are assumed to have an UG distribution with common scale parameter.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The reliability of a multicomponent stress-strength system is obtained by the maximum likelihood (MLE) and Bayesian method of estimation. Bayes estimates of system reliability are obtained by using Lindley's approximation and Metropolis-Hastings (M-H) algorithm methods when all the parameters are unknown. The highest posterior density credible interval is obtained by using M-H algorithm method. Besides, uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator and exact Bayes estimates of system reliability have been obtained when the common scale parameter is known and the results are compared for both small and large samples.\nFindings: Based on the simulation results, the authors observe that Bayes method provides better estimation results as compared to MLE. Proposed asymptotic and HPD intervals show satisfactory coverage probabilities. However, average length of HPD intervals tends to remain shorter than the corresponding asymptotic interval. Overall the authors have observed that better estimates of the reliability may be achieved when the common scale parameter is known.\nOriginality/value: Most of the lifetime distributions used in reliability analysis, such as exponential, Lindley, gamma, lognormal, Weibull and Chen, only exhibit constant, monotonically increasing, decreasing and bathtub-shaped hazard rates. However, in many applications in reliability and survival analysis, the most realistic hazard rates are upside-down bathtub and bathtub-shaped, which are found in the unit-Gompertz distribution. Furthermore, when reliability is measured as percentage or ratio, it is important to have models defined on the unit interval in order to have plausible results. Therefore, the authors have studied the multicomponent stress-strength reliability under the unit-Gompertz distribution by comparing the MLEs, Bayes estimators and UMVUEs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leader self-enhancement values: curvilinear and congruence effects
|
[
"Leader values",
"Self-enhancement",
"Leader-member exchange",
"Interpersonal justice",
"Person-supervisor fit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Strong leader-follower relationships play a critical role in numerous important work-related follower outcomes, including job satisfaction (Erdogan and Enders, 2007), job performance (Gerstner and Day, 1997; Harris et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2016), organizational citizenship behaviors (Martin, et al., 2016) and turnover (Gerstner and Day, 1997; Harris et al., 2009). Research has focused on several leader behaviors (Bao et al., 2018; Kuo et al., 2018) and characteristics (Gkorezis et al., 2014; Kahya and Sahin, 2018; Yoon and Bono, 2016) as predictors of leader-follower relationship quality. One important stream of research investigates the effect of leader values on leader-follower relationships (e.g. Byza et al., 2019; Case et al., 2018). Values encompass one's belief about what is important (Schwartz, 1994; Rokeach, 1973); thus, leader values should influence followers' perceptions of their leaders.\nTheoretical underpinnings and hypothesis development: Extending Rokeach's (1973) seminal research, Schwartz (1994, p. 20) proposed that values: (1) are beliefs; (2) focus on desirable end states or modes of conduct that transcend specific situations and (3) guide selection or evaluation of behavior, people, and events (emphasis added; Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz and Bilsky, 1987). Schwartz (1992, 1994) argued that values represent responses to fundamental questions related to living in an ordered society. We focus on self-enhancement values, which include self-promotion and concern with self-image and are associated with factors such as gaining respect, obtaining status and being looked up to by others (Cable and Edwards, 2004). We utilize Schwartz's (1992, 1994) value definitions with a measure that was adapted by Cables and Edwards (2004) for the workplace context.One way leaders gain power and influence is by earning the trust and respect of subordinates through the demonstration of expertise and making good decisions (i.e. a prestige strategy: Case et al., 2018; Maner and Case, 2016). Thus, when leaders place increased importance on garnering prestige, they have a heightened incentive to do respected work in ways that are visible to their followers and constituents, as well as those above the leader. Self-promotion focused leaders are also more likely to identify with organizations that offer them status and recognition, resulting in greater investments in their organizational relationships (Fuller et al., 2006). In support, prior work suggests that leaders' prestige-oriented strategies are related to several positive outcomes, including higher quality leader-member relationships (Case and Maner, 2014; Case et al., 2018; Vatanen, 2003).This positive relationship between leader self-enhancement values and employees' perceptions of a high-quality leader-follower relationship, however, may not hold at extreme levels of leader self-enhancement. At very high levels of self-enhancement, the leaders' incentive to do highly visible work for the sake of garnering respect may have negative effects on their relationships with their subordinates. Leaders with extreme levels of self-enhancement values are more likely to exude self-importance (Campbell et al., 2011), talk down to subordinates (Mast and Hall, 2003) and take credit for the work of others (Graham and Cooper, 2013). Followers of such leaders are likely to view these actions as degrading or unfair, resulting in less satisfying interactions with the leader and lower quality relationships. We therefore hypothesize the following:H1. Leader self-enhancement values have an inverted-U shaped relationship with (a) LMX and (b) interpersonal justice.Interpersonal interaction theory (Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1983; 1996; Leary, 1957; Sadler et al., 2011) suggests that self-enhancement values may be related to positive supervisor-subordinate outcomes when the supervisor and subordinate share self-focused values. The theory suggests that individuals tend to have more positive interactions with individuals with whom they share values. Further, the theory proposes that the effects are strongest when one person has a clear dominant position within the dyad, which is a central aspect of supervisor-subordinate relationships (Leary, 1957; Kiesler, 1983). The presence of shared values sets forth a series of automatic and reflexive psychological processes from the less dominant individual that result in behaviors designed to strengthen the relationship. According to Kesler (1983), \"at mostly unaware and automatic levels, our actions are designed to push or force others to respond in ways that are complementary to our acts and that confirm our self-definitions\" (p. 198). This perspective is also consistent with social identity theory (Ashforth and Mael, 1989; Stryker and Serpe, 1982) which suggests that we tend to seek stronger relationships with those that share our values because it reinforces one's identity and sends social signals to others regarding our values and identity. Extending these perspectives to self-focused leadership values we argue that the effects of self-enhancement leadership values on leader subordinate relationships will be stronger when both the leader and subordinate have similar levels of self-enhancement values.When both the leader and the subordinate have high self-enhancement values, the follower will see the leader as strong and deserving of respect. He/she will see the leader's actions as consistent with those of a strong leader. The follower will perceive a stronger relationship with the leader, as the leader is seen as a role model, and someone providing a path to the outcomes desired by the subordinate. Similarly, when both have low self-focused values, the shared view of the world results in a stronger leader-follower relationship. Lower self-enhancement values are seen as a positive trait by the follower, strengthening the extent to which the leader is seen as a trusted and respected role model that is not simply looking out for their advancement. Conversely, when the leader has high self-focused values, and the follower has low self-focused values, the follower may see the leader as placing a higher value on their own success than on follower and organization development and well-being. Similarly, when the leader has low self-focused values and the follower has high self-focused values, the follower will see the leader as lacking important leadership qualities that the follower seeks to obtain, resulting in a lower quality relationship. Following this logic, we offer the following hypothesis:H2. (a) LMX and (b) interpersonal justice increase (decrease) as leader and follower self-enhancement values become more congruent (incongruent).\nMethods: Sample and procedure\nResults: Confirmatory factor analyses suggest that the hypothesized four-factor model fit the data well (kh2(113) = 206.28, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.08, RMSEA = 0.07) and was superior to several alternative models [1]. Table 1 summarizes the means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and intercorrelations of the study variables.Hypothesis 1 predicts a curvilinear relationship between leader self-enhancement values and LMX (H1a) and interpersonal justice (H1b). After accounting for the control variable, the coefficient for the linear effect of leader self-enhancement values on LMX was positive (b = 0.36, p = 0.020) and the coefficient for the squared term was negative (b = -0.17, p = 0.010; see Table 2, Model 2). Therefore, Hypothesis 1a was supported. Similarly, the coefficient for the linear effect of leader self-enhancement values on interpersonal justice was positive (b = 0.39, p = 0.015) and the coefficient for the squared term was negative, but only approaching traditional statistical significance thresholds (b = -0.13, p = 0.052; see Table 3, Model 2). Hypothesis 1b was therefore considered marginally supported.Hypothesis 2 predicts a congruence effect, such that LMX (H2a) and interpersonal justice (H2b) increase as leader and follower self-enhancement values converge. Specific to LMX, the addition of the three high-order polynomial terms into the model was statistically significant (DF = 3.78, p = 0.011; see Table 2, Model 4), suggesting that it is appropriate to evaluate the joint effects. Next, although the curvature along the line of incongruence was going in the correct direction (see Figure 1), it did not reach statistical significance (a4 = -0.240, 95% CI [-0.580, 0.120]). Hypothesis 2a was therefore not supported. Instead, findings illustrate that there was a negative and significant slope along the line of incongruence (a3 = -0.510, 95% CI [-1.030, -0.150]). As illustrated in the plot, LMX was lower when follower self-enhancement values were higher than leader self-enhancement values, compared to when leader self-enhancement values were higher than follower self-enhancement values. This suggests that only one form of incongruence--when followers value self-enhancement more than their leaders--is associated with reductions in LMX.Specific to interpersonal justice, the addition of the three high-order polynomial terms into the model was statistically significant (DF = 5.36, p = 0.001; see Table 3, Model 4), suggesting that it is appropriate to evaluate the joint effects. As expected, the curvature along the line of incongruence was negative and statistically significant (a4 = -0.700, 95% CI [-1.080, -0.290]). Figure 2 reveals that interpersonal justice decreased when moving from congruence toward areas of incongruence (from the center to the left and right sides of the surface plot). Hypothesis 2b was therefore supported.\nDiscussion: We examined potential non-linear relationships between leader self-enhancement values and two indicators of leader-subordinate relationship quality; LMX and interpersonal justice. We found that the relationship between leader self-enhancement values and both LMX and interpersonal justice is curvilinear, such that the positive relationship eventually turns negative. Additionally, we found that interpersonal justice decreased as leader and follower self-enhancement values became more discrepant. Similar effects were observed for LMX when followers valued self-enhancement more than their leaders, but not when leaders had higher self-enhancement values than their followers.Theoretical implications\nConclusion: Notwithstanding these limitations, this study goes beyond examining linear effects and to theorize and investigate the nuanced effects of leader self-enhancement values on leader-follower relationships. We found support for arguments that leader self-enhancement values can have both positive and detrimental effects on leader-member relationships, depending on the level of the value and the congruence between the leaders' and followers' self-enhancement values. Overall, given the continued focus on values in today's business world, this research has significant potential for increasing understandings of leadership processes and leader-follower relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Assumptions regarding the effect of leader self-enhancement values on leader-follower relationships are oversimplified. To advance this conversation, we test non-linear and congruence effects. We hypothesize that leader self-enhancement values (via prestige) have an inverted U-shaped relationship with employee perceptions of leader-member exchange (LMX) and leader interpersonal justice, and that leader-follower incongruence is negatively related to LMX and interpersonal justice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To evaluate our hypotheses we use hierarchical regression, polynomial regression, and surface plot analysis. Our sample consists of 193 leader-follower dyads from a variety of organizations.\nFindings: LMX and interpersonal justice increase as leader self-enhancement increases, but begin to decrease at higher levels of self-enhancement values. Additionally, leader-follower self-enhancement incongruence is negatively related to interpersonal justice. Finally, LMX is lowest when leaders are higher than followers in self-enhancement values compared to when followers are higher than leaders.\nPractical implications: It is critical to evaluate the level of leader self-enhancement values and/or the joint influence of the follower values (self-enhancement) to fully understand the effect of leader values on follower perceptions of the dyadic relationship. Organizations interested in facilitating high-quality leader-follower relationships should focus on the levels of the values and on mechanisms that facilitate leader-follower value alignment.\nOriginality/value: This work extends prior research assuming a direct, linear effect of leader self-enhancement values on follower outcomes. To fully understand the influence of leader values it is important to consider curvilinear and congruence effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Government.com? Multifunctional cabinet portfolio analysis of 201 national governments
|
[
"Social systems",
"Functional differentiation",
"Cabinet portfolios",
"Governments",
"Polyphonic organization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In office since March 2018, the 24rd Federal Cabinet of Germany consists of - at least - four ministries for economic issues[1], one ministry of health and one for both education and research. Economic issues are certainly important. Even if we trust that the German government does not actually mean to say that economy is four times more important than health and eight times more than either education or research, however, there is little doubt that this bias to economic policy issues does say something about how the German government defines the role of the German state and observes the German society; and there is no doubt that the German gaze on economy is not necessarily typical of all governments in the rest of the World.\n2. Theoretical background: governments as multifunctional organizations: In organization theory, governments belong to the foundational examples of organizations (Selznick, 1948), and there is also little doubt that governments are political organizations. Although otherwise known for his often-counterintuitive approach to society in general and organizations in particular, Niklas Luhmann also held governments to be organizations of the political subsystem of society.\n3. Operationalization: a multifunctional spyhole to 201 governments: In view of the large number of governments worldwide, as a first approximation to the above multifunctional scanning of governments, we decided to focus on national governments and to use the design of cabinet portfolios as a first proxy for the function system preferences or biases featured by individual governments.\n4. Results: the business of governance worldwide: The absolute distribution of the number of ministries by the main government functions\n5. Discussion: society as national economy?: Our multifunctional cabinet portfolio analysis clearly suggests that the sample of 201 investigated national governments does not treat the actually incommensurable function systems - politics, economy, science, art, religion, law, sport, health, education and mass media - as equally important.\n6. Conclusions: outlook to governance beyond political economy: One major result of the research reported in this paper is that our sample of 201 governments apparently takes economic issues as 5-6 times more important than educational, legal, mass media-related or health issues and ten more important than sport or science. Religion and art are apparently completely unimportant to the governments of the world unless we suspect the latter system to hide under the cover of ministries for culture, in which case art would be again roughly as (un)important as sport or science. Particularly the low value governments place on science thereby contradicts political soap-box oratories as much as research that highlight at critical role of science for national competitiveness in a global innovation and knowledge society. Even deliberately political economy-oriented governments would therefore be well-advised to reconsider their valuation of science.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how much value national governments worldwide place on political, economic, scientific, artistic, religious, legal, sportive, health-related, educational and mass media-related issues. This knowledge is critical as governments and policies are typically expected to be congruent with the importance these issues have for society.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on theories of polyphonic and multifunctional organization, the authors recoded and analyzed a US Central Intelligence Agency directory to test the cabinet portfolio of a total of 201 national governments for significant biases to the above issues.\nFindings: The results suggest that governments worldwide massively over-allocate their attention to economic issues.\nOriginality/value: The authors conclude that this strong pro-economic governance-bias likely translates into dysfunctional governance and development at both the national and supra-national level.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Experiencing institutionalization: the development of new budgets in the UK devolved bodies
|
[
"Government",
"Accounting",
"Budgetary control",
"Organizations",
"Business planning",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Although the process of devolution in the UK has a long history of at least 120 years (Bogdanor, 1999), it was not until the election of the Labour Government of 1997 that a major devolution program was enacted as part of its political reform agenda. Following referendums in 1997 (Scotland, Wales) and 1998 (Northern Ireland), support for devolution was expressed by the electorate, to a stronger degree in Scotland and Northern Ireland and a much weaker degree in Wales. Scotland was granted a Parliament with tax raising powers and Northern Ireland and Wales were granted Assemblies with no such tax raising powers, and all began to function in 1999. This recent experience of devolution in the UK is part of an international trend that varies in the extent of devolution, for example from the highly consensual model of Norway at one extreme to the much more centralized model of New Zealand at the other extreme (Ezzamel et al., 2004); hence, the implications of these developments go far beyond the UK.\nTheoretical framing, research questions and data: In order to address the above research issues, we have drawn upon neo-institutional sociology as a theoretical framework. Our interest in neo-institutional theory is motivated by its focus upon the construction and functioning of knowledge and rule systems (such as budgets) in organizations. As Scott (1995, p. 136) has noted: \"All organizations are institutionalized organizations\". Organizations are socially constituted and are subject to regulative pressures from constituencies such as government and the public. They are also \"the subject of institutionalized processes that define what forms they can assume and how they may operate legitimately\" (Scott, 1995, p. 136). Institutions are conventions that exhibit rule-like characteristics that operate between and within organization (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). Organizational structures are assumed to embody the myths of institutional environments more than the demands of their activities. As Meyer and Rowan (1977, pp. 343-344) have argued, such myths are \"highly institutionalized, rationalized and impersonal prescriptions\" that specify in a rule-like manner avenues for pursuing social purposes that are subsequently constructed rationally as technical purposes.Organizations operate within organizational fields that reflect similar characteristics such as product/service line or size, but also competitors, suppliers, distributors and owners (Fligstein, 1993). Organizational action is constrained to a greater or lesser extent by the actions of other organizations in the field, including the state through its regulative power. As Fligstein (1993, p. 6) has observed, organizational fields are \"the basic mechanisms of control of the external environment available to managers and entrepreneurs\". Much of the extant literature on institutional theory has tended to focus more upon practices that have already become institutionalized; that is upon conformity, or isomorphism, to institutionalized myths and beliefs. Conformity with such myths/beliefs is assumed to bring the organization resources that are necessary to its survival and legitimacy. Hence, the main focus has been on explaining observed structural similarities between organizations, and upon revealing which mode of isomorphic behaviour was pursued: coercive, normative and mimetic (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Scott, 1995).Whilst earlier formulations of institutional sociology incorporated some limiting assumptions, these have been subsequently questioned and addressed: the presumed decoupling of organizational external claims of pursuing rational practices, in order to gain legitimacy, from internal operating systems (Mezias, 1990); failure to account for power (Covaleski et al., 1993; Fligstein, 1993); and the unwarranted assumption that human agency is passive (Scott, 1991, 1995). These corrections have improved considerably the attractiveness of institutional sociology. It is now recognized that declared intentions and actual practices are not always decoupled; that power relations are endemic in organizations; that agency is frequently proactive and that in the face of pressure for conformity, organizations are capable of pursuing different responses to similar institutional isomorphic pressures. Yet there remains a major concern that previous research has given little attention to understanding processes of organizational change as much of the previous work has focused upon practices that had already become institutionalized. The theory tells little of how new practices unfold, how they gradually become institutionalized, and how, if at all, they displace previous practices. This concern has been raised by most recently by researchers who pointed to the lack of attention given to organizational micro-practices (Hirsch and Lounsbury, 1997; Hirsch, 1997; Dacin et al., 2002; Greenwood et al., 2002).Accounting and budgeting systems in organizations are institutionalized practices. Accounting and budgeting information are frequently susceptible to differing interpretations depending upon the cognitions and interests of organizational participants. Accounting and budgeting practices can be viewed as myths that underpin, sustain, and even form belief systems concerning ideals such as rationality, efficiency, effectiveness, and value for money. Meyer (1983, p. 235) has noted \"Accounting structures are myths... they describe the organization as bounded and unified, as rational in technology, as well controlled and as attaining clear purposes\". Conformity to certain accounting and budgeting practices can endow an organization with external legitimacy by creating an impression that the organization is well managed.The myth of rationality has a powerful appeal particularly to government bodies (Meyer, 1986). Indeed, rationality has been one of the key guiding principles stated in UK government publications that relate to planning and control (e.g. HM Government, 1982; HM Treasury, 1992; HM Government, 1999), and this is also reflected in the traditional literature on accounting and budgeting in government; an argument consistent with the quest for legitimacy under institutional theory. Ansoff (1979) has suggested that in pursuing their objectives, organizations need to follow a rational management approach in order to cope with environmental uncertainty. Further, it has been suggested that there is a need for specific and quantifiable objectives to guide action in the public sector towards ultimate goals (Drucker, 1980; Anthony and Young, 1999). Johnsen (1999) also stressed the usefulness of ambiguity and decoupling associated with rational management models when implementing and using contestable management control models such as performance measures. Further, Czarniawska-Jorges and Jacobsson (1989) have argued that public sector budgets are \"rituals of reason\", and hence have a key role to play in constructing reason and order in organizations. We will therefore examine the planning and budgeting documentations produced by the devolved bodies as statements of their declared, if not necessarily always practised, rational pronouncements.Accounting as a technology of calculation converts qualities, such as social welfare, into quantities in terms of specific targets and performance indicators. This conversion of qualities into quantities renders them visible. Such visibility is a double edge sword; for while it plays into the hands of those wishing to claim credit for performance, such as politicians, as they construct numbers that show them in favourable light; yet it also renders such numbers susceptible to verification by those who can generate alternative numbers or place different interpretations on the same numbers. Further, what accounting and budgeting systems fail to quantify can be made less visible, or even invisible, thereby escaping serious accountability (Morgan and Willmott, 1993).Given this theoretical framing, we articulate our research questions as follows. First, we are concerned to examine the translation process through which vision and mission statements issued by the UK devolved bodies are ultimately translated into budgetary targets. Such a process of translation is intriguing, in that as translations cascade through different layers there is scope for agency and interest to impact on what is being translated (Latour, 1987). It is therefore relevant to examine the extent to which budget targets and vision statements issued by each devolved body are aligned with each other. Failure to achieve such alignment, if it becomes the subject of scrutiny in the external environment, could threaten the legitimacy of devolved bodies. Second, the UK devolved bodies share some similarities but also exhibit many differences. We wish to examine the extent to which thematic differences or similarities occurred in the construction of budgets. At the heart of this concern is the presence of political and institutional norms that impact on the budgetary process. Thus, within the context of our theoretical framing, the question is: to what extent has the expected pressure for conformity in the face of similar institutional isomorphic pressures resulted in similar responses. Third, we seek to explore the cognition of politicians concerning the degree of their understanding of budgets and the impact of such an understanding on political deliberations that take place in the relevant parliament/assembly and on political accountability. This should offer insights concerning the extent to which differences in actor cognition and interest, as well as their position within the networks of power, impact upon the process of institutionalizing new accounting and budgeting practices.Data collection\nProgramme for government documents: This section examines plans for education and health in each of the devolved bodies' overall planning documents. These plans and their detailed breakdown (see below) are determined by the executive and civil servants in each devolved body. First, we attempt to identify the degree of alignment between the individual visions (missions), aims and objectives of each devolved body for education and health. Second, some examples of education and health objectives are matched with targets deemed important in the pursuit of achieving these objectives. Because of space limitations, we restrict our analysis of these documents to the first year of government in each devolved institution. Our argument is that the quest for gaining external legitimacy may be a driving force for each devolved institution to demonstrate an element of internal consistency that links visions (missions) to aims to objectives to targets. We call this series of alignments \"nested translations\" owing to the seemingly hierarchical and logical nature of attempting to establish such an orderly link. We use the term \"translations\" to emphasize the understanding that any such linking process inadvertently involves a cognitive exercise by those involved in forging the link.Northern Ireland\nBudgetary practices: education and health: In this section we examine in some detail budget practices for education and health in the three devolved bodies. We draw upon both formal budget documents and interviews to examine how aims were translated into key objectives and then into spending plans as contained in the budget, and we also examine budget format (narrative vs. numbers), quality of information provided, information overload, and cognition of budget numbers by politicians and its impact on political deliberations.Formal budget documents\nDiscussion and conclusions: In this paper, we have examined the planning and budgeting documents of the three UK devolved national governments and supplemented these texts with semi-structured interviews. We have drawn upon neo-institutional theory to guide our collection and analysis of the data. Based on our theoretical framing, we have identified three key issues that form the basis of discussion in this section: nesting translations; homogeneities/heterogeneities in responding to institutional pressures, and number cognition and political deliberations.Nesting translations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine an early stage of the institutionalization of accounting practices in devolved UK governments, concentrating on: the construction by devolved bodies of a \"rational\" set of planning and budgeting documents; the extent of homogeneity/heterogeneity in organizational response to seemingly similar institutional pressures; and politicians' cognition of accounting numbers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper uses neo-institutional theory to examine the planning and budgeting documents of the devolved bodies and material gathered from semi-structured interviews.\nFindings: - The findings point to a process of nested translations, from mission through aims and objectives to targets, with accounting numbers present only in the last stage whereby time-bounded targets are formulated and used to assess achievements. Because of the negotiations around the diverging interests of actors, the translation process is neither linear nor stable.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to the literature by: examining the emergence and use of new accounting and budgeting systems in political organizations; understanding the experience of institutionalization of accounting practices; and exploring the impact of accounting reform on political deliberation and joined-up government.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A counting history
|
[
"Accounting history",
"South Asia",
"Sri Lanka"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nA counting history: Beyond a thousand yearsSomewhere in the far away EastPeople had carved on stonesTheir earnings, taxes, expensesLying long under the earthQuadrant pillars and slabsSaved and secured imprintsSurvived like gold and gemsProud West tossed into the binBy Enrons and WorldcomsPacioli wasn't brawny enoughTo make those barons liableThe wind has started blowingIn the opposite directionAwakened spirits in shrinesUnearthed the inscribed stonesScholars in developed nationsAmaze with ancient hymnsSend those slabs to the museumsEnglish wasn't enough to read them.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the historical evidence of accounting practices in the ancient Asia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The work is a philosophical poem.\nFindings: - Accounting and auditing had been used in Asia, especially in ancient Ceylon and India before \"double-entry accounting\" emerged in the Europe. Archaeological evidence proves that rulers in the ancient era were accountable to the people.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Though Sri Lankan history is more than 2,600 years old, the significance of the archaeological findings in terms of accounting history has not been much investigated. This poem draws researchers' attention to that area of study.\nOriginality/value: - The work raises, in poetic form, the matter of unexplored, ancient accounting practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Justice perceptions, leader-member exchange, and upward influence tactics
|
[
"Justice",
"Leader-member exchange",
"Influence tactics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The exchange relationship between supervisor and subordinate determines the role that a subordinate assumes in the work unit (Graen and Scandura, 1987). Fairness is an important factor associated with the nature of supervisor-subordinate relationships (Masterson et al., 2000). As noted by Scandura (1999), high-quality leader-member exchange (LMX) development relies on each party viewing the exchange as fair. Justice perceptions thus have important implications for how subordinates react to their role in relation to supervisors.\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables in the study are presented in Table I - the coefficient a of reliability for each measure is reported along the diagonal. We examined the correlations between the variables of interest and the background variables and found negative correlations between sex and LMX (higher for females), and between age and procedural justice. We found positive correlations for level with LMX and procedural justice, and between supervisory status and coalition tactics. In testing the path model there was one significant finding for the background variables, with a positive association between level in the organization and LMX (unstandardized effect of 0.07 at p<0.05). Because LMX, procedural justice, and interactional justice were highly correlated confirmatory factor analysis was performed using MPlus 7.2 (Muthen and Muthen, 1998-2012) on the item-level raw data. The results indicate support for the five-factor structure for procedural and interactional justice variables, LMX, and coalition and rational influence tactics variables (kh2 (df)=988.09 (314); AIC=27,452.69; RMSEA=0.070 (0.060-0.070); CFI=0.910; TLI=0.900; SRMR=0.040).\nDiscussion: The current study extends existing knowledge by integrating three important streams of research. Subordinates who perceived less interactional justice as manifested through communications with managers, reported lower quality LMX with their supervisors. This result is consistent with research on LMX which suggests that a lack of effective communication between the leader and member about organizational justice will raise questions regarding the leader's actions and may retard the development of higher quality LMX (Scandura, 1999). Research has recognized the utility of increasing proportions of high-quality LMX relationships within work units (Martin et al., 2016). This research emphasizes the role of LMX in understanding the way that perceptions of justice relate to influence tactics; with LMX associated with the use of coalition or rationality as upward influence strategies. LMX was positively associated with the use of rationality and negatively associated with the use coalition; and LMX was important for understanding the indirect effects of interactional justice on coalition and rational tactics. We did not find an association between procedural justice and LMX in the current study and no indirect effect of procedural justice on influence tactics (these effects might be suppressed by the high correlation of LMX with interactional justice, Colquitt et al., 2001).\nConclusion: Theory and research on organizational justice, LMX, and subordinate influence strategies have progressed considerably, but they have been largely independent areas of inquiry. The present study is a step toward blending these three streams of research and demonstrating the importance of examining the role of interactional justice in LMX and the associated influence tactics employed by subordinates. We emphasize that organizational justice perceptions are related to rational and coalition tactics through LMX. This reinforces the important roles that justice processes and relationship quality play in employee reports about influence strategies. Future research is needed to test similar models to determine the extent to which LMX mediates the relationship between perceptions of justice and the variety of tactics selected by subordinates to influence their leaders.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The authors examine the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and the selection of upward influence tactics. The purpose of this paper is to integrate research on perceptions of justice, LMX, and influence tactics in order to empirically test an integrative model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaires were administered to n=407 employed Masters of Business Administration students at a private Southeastern University in the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to test the statistical significance of paths specified in the models.\nFindings: Results indicate that perceptions of organizational justice have indirect effects on upward influence tactics reported. LMX had mediating effects on the relationship between interactional justice and the use of rational and coalition tactics.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data are cross-sectional and were collected using self-reports, which limits the conclusions that can be drawn. The findings however, suggest that perceptions of interactional justice are associated with LMX, whose effects in turn are associated with the use of influence tactics.\nPractical implications: Coalition strategies were used more when subordinates experienced poor LMX. The research suggests that perhaps for individuals experiencing poor relationships with the supervisor, coalition strategies might present an alternative to \"rational\" influence tactics (which are used more in high-quality relationships).\nOriginality/value: The current study extends LMX research by examining differing subordinate influence strategies in high- and low-quality relationships. It also extends organizational justice research by examining the effects of the interpersonal implementation of fair procedures on the dynamics between leadership and upward influence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Effectiveness of nutrition education accompanied by cooking demonstration
|
[
"Health promotion",
"Food and drink",
"Diet",
"Cooking",
"Nutrition education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The World Health Organization states that an unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors for a range of chronic and non-communicable disease (WHO, 2016a). Specific recommendations for a healthy diet include eating more fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts and grains, and cutting down on salt, sugar and fats (WHO, 2016a). Additionally, in order to reduce the overweight and obesity burden, people need to have access to a healthy lifestyle (WHO, 2016b). More than 1.9 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight and of these 600 million were obese in 2014. Being overweight and obese increases the rate of type 2 diabetes. There are 415 million people with diabetes (1 in 11 adults) in 2015 and the number of people with diabetes is expected to increase to 642 million (1 in 10 adults) by 2040 (International Diabetes Federation, 2015).\nHypothesis: There are several methods to deliver health information and education but current conventional health promotion initiatives have been static and passive (wall murals, floor and staircase stickers with health messages, posters, and messages around the clinics). A previous needs assessment from surveys and focus groups had found that they were often missed and lacked effectiveness due to language and literacy barriers, especially with the older adults. The needs assessment found the need for a more interactive and engaging method to educate patients, as awareness of our current health promotion initiatives through the use of posters and displays were low and often overlooked. We postulated that these findings were due to the lack of interaction and engagement for behaviour modification.\nMethods: Sample and setting\nResults: Evaluation of questionnaires during the visit\nDiscussion: The results showed overwhelming support for the HC. The HC provided a comfortable and meaningful set-up with educational posters and a kitchen for \"live\" cooking demonstrations which may have attracted patients and their families who were in the waiting area. The participants reported that the HC was informative and provided useful information and a large number had reported that they were willing to make healthier food choices. A lot of positive feedback was received from those who gathered at the HC to learn about healthy eating and many hoped that more HCs such as this would be built.\nStrengths: The strengths of this study include the relatively large sample size. This study is also the first locally to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based nutrition education accompanied by cooking demonstration and food tasting. There was also opportunity to do an outcome evaluation through follow-up six months later with the same group of participants. This allowed us to evaluate whether the intervention programme was effective in changing behaviour on top of improving their knowledge, awareness, and attitudes towards healthy food and healthy eating practices in the short term.\nLimitations: The results of the study may not be representative of the general population as the setting was conducted in primary care clinics. We need to replicate the study in other settings such as schools and public places to evaluate the effectiveness of this initiative in other settings. Due to resource constraints, we did not contact all the participants in the follow-up study but chose to randomly select some of the participants. There may be recall bias and social desirability bias as the information was self-reported. However, as the participants were contacted by a neutral party, they were not pressured to say the right things. As for the recall bias, we may like to incorporate a food diary as part of the follow-up cohort in future studies. Also, we may have to think of ways to verify their actual behaviour change. Finally, the follow-up period was only six months and we were unable to determine lasting behaviour change.\nConclusion: Incorporating cooking demonstrations alongside nutrition education was effective in inculcating healthy eating practices and changing self-reported eating habits at least in the short term as seen at six-month follow-up. There is potential to develop this mode of health promotion in other polyclinics, or even as a nationwide health promotion programme to help prevent or manage chronic diseases through lifestyle behavioural changes. Future research is needed to determine if this change is sustainable in the long run and to discover the most effective approaches to promote long-term dietary changes (Plate 1).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of delivering healthy eating messages through an interactive health corner (HC) on improving healthy dietary habits in participants.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Self-administered questionnaires were administered to participants after the education session. In total, 5,292 valid questionnaires were obtained, yielding a response rate of 93.3 per cent. In the last three months of the pilot study, a random sample of 305 from 1,493 participants was chosen and followed up six months later. Bivariate analysis was used to study the association of knowledge gained and attitude. Behavioural change was measured in terms of whether participants had reported an increase in their consumption of healthier food.\nFindings: Majority (>98 per cent) of participants reported that the HC corner was useful, and had helped increase their awareness and knowledge of creating healthier meals and making healthier food choices. 95.7 per cent were willing to make changes after visiting the HC. At six months follow-up, 84 per cent of the participants reported positive changes in their dietary habits. Those who made positive changes were younger (mean age: 58.0 years) compared with those who did not (mean age 61.0 years, p=0.035).\nResearch limitations/implications: Incorporating cooking demonstrations as part of nutrition education is effective in inculcating healthy eating practices and changing self-reported eating habits in the short term. Further research is needed to verify actual change in eating habits and to determine if this change is sustainable in the long run.\nOriginality/value: Currently, no similar initiative has been implemented and studied to evaluate the effectiveness of this mode of health promotion in a primary care setting. This study will help the authors to evaluate if the intervention was effective in changing attitudes and behaviours after an education session at the HC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Social isolation: development and validation of measures
|
[
"Loneliness",
"Well-being",
"Social isolation",
"Extraversion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social isolation is a major factor contributing to anxiety (Mora-Gallegos and Fornaguera, 2019), psychological distress (Taylor et al., 2018) and depression (Ge et al., 2017; Mishra et al., 2018) and perseverance of poverty (Samuel et al., 2018). It has been defined as attributes of circumstances and lack of relationship (Jong-Gierveld et al., 2006). Furthermore, Poscia et al. (2018) defined social isolation as inadequacy in the severe and reliable communication of the individual with other members of the society.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Defining social isolation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection and sampling method\n4. Results: 4.1 Demographic profile\n5. Discussions: The study attempted to enhance the understanding on social isolation in Indian context. The extant literature suggested lack of empirical validation of scales on social isolation. Hence, the authors developed and validated a scale on social isolation in Indian context. Some of the items of scales are \"I feel isolated from other people\" and \"I don't feel part of a group of friends.\" The complete scale is presented in Table III.\n6. Theoretical contribution: In the present study, authors have contributed to the literature on social isolation by conceptualizing and empirically validating the same in eastern context. The research will help in generating the external validity of the scale on social isolation.\n7. Managerial implications: In the line of theory of resource-based view of human resource management, members of an organization are valuable, rare, inimitable and organized (Barney and Arikan, 2001). Since individuals add to the performance of the organization (Almatrooshi et al., 2016; Singh, 2018), their better well-being is highly needed in an organization. Hence, there is a need for employers to assist, support and nurture all human resources in an organization.\n8. Limitations and suggestions for future research: Although our study contributes to the existing literature, there are certain limitations, which are required to be noticed and addressed in the near future. We focused on extraversion and well-being as criterion variables to examine the external quality of the scale. The understanding of external criterion validity of the developed social isolation scale can be given an extension if future research could consider other criterion variables such as EI other possible.\n9. Conclusion: By developing and empirically testing our items, we concluded with the social isolation scale of ten items in the present study. The scale is found to be having great reliability, convergent validity and criterion validity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically validate items on social isolation. The comprehensive literature review of existing studies on the measures of social isolation, loneliness and the related construct was conducted. The paper seeks to conceptualize, validate and present items to measure social isolation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on theoretical and empirical investigation of the measures of social isolation, loneliness and related constructs such as social others, social loneliness and feeling of sociability. The items were generated through theoretical exploration of previous literature and later modified. The author examined the items through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and further checked for external criterion validity. Data collected from 128 individuals, in India, were examined to design and validate the scale.\nFindings: The finding of the paper is a ten-item social isolation scale. Using structural equation modeling, we have found extraversion and well-being significantly associated with final items in the present study, confirming the external quality of the scale.\nPractical implications: Organizations may benefit by close examination of the presence of social isolation in employees along with providing support and assistance to employees so as to reduce negative consequences of social isolation and can address the well-being of the employee.\nOriginality/value: There is a dearth of developed and validated measures of social isolation in the literature. The study reveals the conceptualization and empirical validation of measures of social isolation in the Indian context so that researchers can move forward to develop theories on social isolation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A Maslow's hierarchy of needs analysis of social networking services continuance
|
[
"Social networking sites",
"China",
"Customer loyalty",
"Customer retention",
"Individual behaviour",
"Information systems",
"Information services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Social networking services (SNSs) have seen rapid diffusion around the world. A recent survey by comScore found that as of October 2011, the SNS usage rate has reached 82 percent of the world's online population and is expected to continue to increase (comScore, 2011). However, it was also found that the rate of SNS usage in China has dropped from 51.4 to 46.6 percent (CNNIC, 2012). This finding reveals the trend that some Chinese users have stopped using a particular SNS after initial trial usage. Therefore, it is useful to understand the factors that affect users' continuance intention in the context of Chinese SNSs, considering that the Chinese internet market has significant growth potential.SNSs offer users a variety of online services (e.g. personal page creation, information sharing, and \"friends\" connections) to communicate with others (Brandtz and Heim, 2009; Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Moreover, SNSs can also provide services for sellers or companies to engage, for example, in word-of-mouth marketing (Brock et al., 2011; Trusov et al., 2009), brand marketing (Jahn and Kunz, 2012), new product diffusion, advertising, and customer relationship management (Shih, 2009). The success of companies that use SNSs as online service delivery platforms depends on the continuance usage of SNSs by individual users. Therefore, ensuring continuance usage of SNSs is the premise for the development of e-commerce based on SNSs.Some research efforts have focused on studying continuance intention of SNSs, and the majority of existing empirical studies related to SNS continuance intention are based on the expectation-confirmation model of the information systems continuance model (ECM-IS). These studies have extended the ECM-IS with social exchange theory, social capital theory, flow theory (Hu and Kettinger, 2008), self-image congruity and regret (Kang et al., 2009), and motivation theory (Lin and Lu, 2011) to examine factors of SNS continuance intention. However, these studies are primarily concerned with users' attitudes and cognitions, without considering emotional and social factors of SNSs.Hence, this paper takes a psychological perspective and adopts Maslow's hierarchy of needs framework to capture motivations of SNS continuance intention. We use the ECM-IS (Bhattacherjee, 2001) as a base model because of its ability to accurately explain the continuance intention of information systems (IS). This study departs from earlier works and makes the following two main contributions:1. specifying a systematic classification of SNS user motivations based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs; and2. building an integrated ECM-IS based on the proposed motivation classification to better explain continuance intention of SNSs from a psychological-needs perspective.We believe that our findings can provide insights for companies using SNS as a platform to support their operational needs and to provide online services.\n2 Theoretical background: 2.1 Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory\n3 Research model and hypotheses: The preceding discussions have highlighted the fact that the construct of perceived usefulness cannot fully capture the motives of continuing to use SNSs. With respect to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, we found that social needs and self-actualization needs are particularly relevant in capturing the motivations of SNSs. Specifically, social needs consist of seeking social presence and emotional belonging. Seeking social presence mainly reflects the interpersonal relationship aspect and social interaction motivation of SNSs. Emotional belonging reflects acquaintance interactions and emotional support motivations of SNSs. Self-actualization needs include self-expression and seeking happiness. Self-expression is mainly reflected as a self-disclosure aspect and self-expression behavior motivation of SNSs. Happiness is mainly reflected as an entertaining aspect and enjoying frequent immersive experiences in SNSs.The fulfillment of needs from using interactive technology can influence the subsequent actions towards and the affect of the technology (Hassenzahl et al., 2010; Sheldon et al., 2001). Contextualizing the continuance intention of SNS usage, we use fulfillment of needs to replace perceived usefulness in the original ECM-IS, as shown in Figure 2. Integrating Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and the U&G paradigm and considering the specific features of SNSs, the antecedents of SNS continuance intention are divided into two groups: fulfillment of social needs and fulfillment of self-actualization needs. Fulfillment of social needs is a second-order factor comprised of fulfillment of social presence and fulfillment of emotional belonging, while fulfillment of self-actualization needs is a second-order factor comprised of fulfillment of self-expression and fulfillment of happiness.3.1 Outcomes of fulfillment of social needs and fulfillment of self-actualization needs\n4 Research method: 4.1 Measurement and data collection\n5 Empirical analysis: 5.1 Structural model assessment\n6 Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Main findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to apply Maslow's hierarchy of needs to extend the expectation-confirmation model of information systems continuance (ECM-IS) to analyze users' continuance intention of social networking services (SNSs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey is conducted on 202 users of social networking services in China.\nFindings: - Fulfillment of self-actualization needs has a significant impact on continuance intention; however, the direct impact of fulfillment of social needs on continuance intention is not significant but fully mediated by satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The first limitation is that the participants in the sample are undergraduates. Second, this study has used cross-sectional survey data to empirically test the model. Third, the survey is conducted in a single country.\nPractical implications: - The results of this paper provide several marketing implications to better manage SNSs. First, SNS managers should enhance instant communication functions, develop a platform that is convenient for users to express themselves and provide more entertainment functions. Second, SNS managers should focus on users' expectations and experiences about website functions and adjust or update website functions accordingly.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the research on continuance intention of social networking services from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to capture motivations of continuance intention. The authors believe their conceptualizations of fulfillment of self-actualization needs and fulfillment of social needs, as well as their substantial findings, would be useful to researchers and practitioners alike to better study and manage continuance intention of socially-oriented online services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The difference between Partners and Strangers designs in public goods experiments
|
[
"Experiment",
"Public goods",
"Partners",
"Conditional cooperation",
"Strangers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many previous studies of linear public goods experiments have compared two matching designs: \"Partners design\" (Partners), which is a repeated game, and \"Strangers design\" (Strangers), which is a repeated single-shot design. For example, Andreoni (1988) found that Strangers contribute more than Partners. However, subsequent works have found it difficult to replicate this result, with the majority of researchers reporting inconclusive evidence in this regard (see, Andreoni and Croson, 2008). Our study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on this topic by explaining the mixed evidence in the literature on Partner vs Stranger comparisons.\n2. Experimental design: The experiments were conducted in the Economics Department computer laboratory of Osaka University in Japan. Our subjects were 40 Osaka university students from various disciplines.\n3. Results: Although most previous linear public goods experiments were conducted with over two players (typically four), we used a two-player game. However, we believe that our results are not unusual and can be compared with the results in existing linear public goods experiments with over two players. This is because Isaac et al. (1994) showed that there was no group size effect in setting the MPCR at 0.75 (our MPCR is 0.70). Moreover, our results are consistent with the typical transitional change for average contributions, as mentioned in Holt and Laury (2008).\n4. Discussion: In this section, we discuss the reasons behind the difference in contribution levels for the two treatments. The behavior of the subjects was based on conditional cooperation in both treatments; hence, higher belief leads to higher contribution. Since belief in Partners is higher than it is in Strangers, it is questionable whether contributions in the Partners treatment are higher than they are in Strangers. In other words, we can assume that the same level of belief leads to the same level of contribution, regardless of the matching design. To investigate this assumption, we used simulation methods. In both treatments, we used the actual beliefs in Partners in each period and simulated the estimation model for contributions described in Section 3.2. Specifically, we simulated the following estimation models:\n5. Conclusion: In this study, we focussed on conditional cooperation and investigated whether the difference in contributions between Partners and Strangers can be explained by the difference in belief level. Our study results provided four primary findings. First, contributions and beliefs in Partners were higher than those in Strangers. Second, the behavior of subjects was based on conditional cooperation in both treatments; however, the marginal contribution to belief in Partners was larger than that in Strangers. Third, in both treatments, belief was formed by others' observed behavior and subjects' own belief in previous periods, while there was no difference in belief formation between Partners and Strangers. Fourth, 79.7 percent of contributions in Partners were motivated by conditional cooperation compared with only 39.3 percent in Strangers. Moreover, the subjects tended to converge toward conditional cooperation in Partners, whereas conditional cooperation tended to diminish in Strangers. Finally, the results of our simulation analyses show that the differences in contributions between Partners and Strangers are caused by the difference in the marginal contribution to belief rather than that in the belief level.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on conditional cooperation and investigate whether the difference in contributions between Partners and Strangers designs in linear public goods experiments can be explained by differences in beliefs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author conducted linear public goods experiments by using Partners and Strangers designs with belief eliciting their group member's contributions.\nFindings: The author shows that the difference in the magnitude of the responsiveness of contribution to belief (i.e. the marginal contribution to belief) creates different contribution levels in Partners and Strangers designs.\nResearch limitations/implications: The presented results imply that having a strategic motive increases contributions by increasing the magnitude of the responsiveness of contribution to belief rather than by raising belief level.\nOriginality/value: The main claim of this paper is that \"marginal contribution to belief\" rather than \"belief level\" causes the difference in contribution levels between Partners and Strangers. This is the first proven evidence of a difference in belief between Partners and Strangers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The development and deploymentof electronic personal health records: A strategic positioning perspective
|
[
"Electronic personal health records",
"Innovation",
"Healthcare ecosystem",
"Strategic positioning",
"Case studies",
"Personal health",
"Health services",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: flattening the cost curve with ePHRs: Exploding healthcare costs in the USA are projected to double in the next decade, reaching nearly $4.4 trillion by 2018 (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2009). Study after study confirms that an overwhelming percentage of total healthcare costs are actually preventable, as they are often attributed to the treatment of preventable chronic conditions, such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes that can result from lifestyle choices (Miller et al., 2009). In a continuous search for interventions that may encourage preventive behaviors and thereby flatten ballooning cost curves, most people who are trying to fix the healthcare crisis look towards health information technology, in general (Lemire, 2010; Chaudhry et al., 2006), and electronic personal health records (ePHRs), more specifically, as a means for supporting prevention and early detection programs (Loeppke, 2008; Miller et al., 2009). ePHRs build on the ideas of electronic health records (EHR), which are designed to track patients' interactions within the healthcare ecosystem, containing physicians, hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, etc. (Miller et al., 2009). In the most elementary sense, ePHRs are tools that allow individual patients to manage their health information (Detmer and Steen, 2006). Thus, ePHRs foster individuals' active role in managing their health (Tang et al., 2006) so that they \"become partners in maintaining their health and treating their own illnesses\". However, to achieve such outcomes a key dependency for a successful ePHR is that it aggregates patient data across a fragmented landscape of doctors, laboratories, clinics, and hospitals that inhabit the healthcare ecosystem (see the Appendix). Unfortunately, it seems that fragmentation in the USA is at an even higher level than other developed countries, as the private sector and market forces play more significant roles than other countries (Detmer and Steen, 2006). As a result, the USA lags significantly behind many of the developed countries in the adoption of health information technology (Detmer and Steen, 2006). Expectedly, the development and deployment of an ePHR within such a context is no easy task. The purpose of this study is to understand more fully some of the challenges and opportunities that exist in doing so.\nTheoretical lens: industry infrastructure and strategic positioning: Van de Ven (2005) proposes that firms be aware of a broad framework of key resource dependencies and activities and develop political savvy, since firms rarely possess all of the resources and capabilities that are required to develop and deploy technical innovations. Van de Ven (2005) describes critical aspects of the development and commercialization of such innovations in four subsystems:\nMethodology: longitudinal case study: As Greenhalgh et al. (2009) mention in their meta-analysis of existing ePHR research, a systematic study of how ePHRs are co-created in practice is sorely needed. This research project was designed to fill such a gap, by deeply immersing ourselves in the context to understand how an ePHR is developed in a real life context. The study took place over a multi-year period and continues as part of a broad initiative to deepen our understanding of how IT can be developed and deployed to reduce costs and improve the quality of healthcare in the USA. We leveraged our inside access with key stakeholders of the focal firm, XYZ Health (based in the Southeastern USA), to follow the development and deployment of Insight, an ePHR system. XYZ was a small entrepreneurial firm that consisted of a core nucleus of nine employees, a monthly operating budget of approximately $40,000, and monthly revenues that averaged around $20,000.\nFindings: three strategic positions: Strategic position 1: Targeting self-insured employers\nDiscussion: We have presented findings from an in-depth case study that explores how a start-up firm adjusts its strategic position within its pack to facilitate the development and deployment of Insight, an ePHR. XYZ has successfully developed the innovation through multiple versions and deployed it across a range of customer types. However, despite some early success, they continue to struggle with the most effective strategic position for deploying the innovation. Each strategic position they have chosen (i.e. direct, indirect, and multi-channel) has come with unanticipated trade-offs that challenge the viability of their business model. To further understand why, we coupled the industry infrastructure framework (Van de Ven, 2005) with core concepts from the strategic positioning school to interpret how XYZ's proprietary activities impact the structure of their pack, and, in turn, impact their ability to develop and deploy Insight in this complex context. In light of these findings, our study makes important contributions to theory and practice.\nLimitations: Clearly, the biggest trade-off of this study is the ability to generalize outside of its current context so that we could focus more specifically on ePHR development and deployment for self-insured employers. However, we believe the inductive and engaged approach applied here could be used in future research to determine the types of temporal patterns associated with small firms in other domains that are attempting to simultaneously develop and deploy knowledge-intense technologies. Another fruitful area for future research involves gathering the insights from other pack players directly (e.g. TPA, human resource managers of employers, etc.) and looking more broadly at the development of ePHRs outside of the self-insured employer market. In this study, our approach explicitly focused on how a start-up firm, XYZ, interpreted their strategy and activities relative to other pack players, and how this interacted with their changing development and deployment activities. Given that running in packs assumes that firms will simultaneously cooperate and compete with other pack members, our exploration reveals how a single firm can interpret and act according to how they make sense of their environment and actions (Weick, 1995). This perspective is important when coupled with the dynamic nature of juxtaposing the rapid nature of start-up firms with the changing landscape of healthcare and IT.\nConclusion: Generally, there are three ways that ePHRs develop in the marketplace to achieve the aggregation of clinical data and healthcare knowledge. First, consumer-driven applications like Google Health[4] and Microsoft HealthVault provide digital platforms for storing personal healthcare information. These services depend upon individuals to take responsibility for the aggregation of their own healthcare data. Second, self-contained eco-systems such as managed care organizations (Kaiser Permanente) or government-sponsored programs (Veterans' administration) develop proprietary systems for their own use. Third, in what is largely driven by entrepreneurial ventures, employer-driven applications take data aggregation out of the hands of the individual, acting as electronic data aggregators by pulling healthcare data from many disparate sources and using it to populate ePHRs for each employee. From this latter perspective, our findings illustrate the benefits of a small, nimble firm seeking to quickly adapt to meet perceived market needs as well as the drawbacks that exist within a complex network of multiple interdependencies. Approaching these networks from a systems orientation should enable entrepreneurs to consider a wider variety of potential patterns and feedback that may stem from strategic positioning choices. These findings also underscore the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from the trade-offs that exist between distinct strategic positions. Often, healthcare entrepreneurs come from a healthcare background and are able to clearly identify where inefficiencies and improvement opportunities exist. However, they may have not stopped to consider the complex ecosystem of companies that exists within the healthcare industry and the interdependencies that exist between constituents. As our study shows, doing so is crucial. Table I of this study is an excellent starting point for anticipating and assessing the relational consequences of operating within a network such as the one illustrated in the case. We would anticipate that for various start-up activities some of the categories noted may be inconsequential while others may need to be added. For those conducting additional research in these topics we suggest that exploring this issue may lend itself to the development of more robust mid-range theoretical views that are sensitive to issues pertaining to entrepreneurship in the healthcare domain. Clearly, due to regulatory and political reasons the complexity of each healthcare ecosystem will vary as well. Research would benefit by isolating the commonalities as well as differences across different countries and their systems, and as we have indicated already, the differences are abundant. In addition to illuminating the contextual factors that impact the development and deployment of ePHRs, our study provides three core contributions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of strategic position on the ability of an entrepreneurial firm to successfully develop and deploy electronic personal health records technology within the US healthcare industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses an in-depth longitudinal case study methodology.\nFindings: The study contributes by juxtaposing a longitudinal view of how the focal firm proposed and acted on different strategic positions in an attempt to achieve development and deployment success. In doing so, the study also elaborates on Porter's recognition that firms need to make trade-offs when choosing a strategic position, as the purposeful limitation of service offerings can protect against the degradation of existing value creating activities.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors' study highlights the enormous challenge of facilitating the adoption and diffusion of technology enabled interventions in the US healthcare ecosystem. Future research that combines both interdisciplinary and multi-level investigation and analysis is sorely needed to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the phenomenon and to encourage the development and deployment of useful technology enabled interventions within the US healthcare industry.\nPractical implications: While the fragmented nature of the healthcare industry provides opportunities for entrepreneurial firms, such complexity within the ecosystem should not be underestimated as a reason for concern for small firms.\nSocial implications: Total economic burden due to chronic diseases and other healthcare-related expenses is massive for the USA. Consequently, prevention and early detection of future disease states has become a core component of the current healthcare reform debate. EPHRs are considered one core component of a broader healthcare strategy to improve health outcomes and lower costs. By deepening our understanding of how best to develop and deploy such interventions, society will surely benefit.\nOriginality/value: The longitudinal nature of the authors' study provides a unique opportunity to understand the dynamic interrelationships between context, position, and performance within the US healthcare industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Measuring the innovation capability of micro enterprises in India: Construct development and validation
|
[
"India",
"Scale development",
"Micro-enterprises",
"Innovation capability (IC)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Advancements in technology, communication and transportation have led to rapid growth in global business activity (Dunning, 2014; McCann, 2008; Passaris, 2006; Rennen and Martens, 2003; Frankel 2000). Reduced trade barriers as a result of globalization have considerably facilitated the selling of services and goods to other countries. Nevertheless, globalization has also given rise to various challenges for indigenous businesses (Dreher and Gaston, 2008), the most conspicuous being a tremendous increase in competition between domestic and foreign firms (Teece, 2007). Domestic companies have faced a stiff challenge, especially where the quality of foreign products is better than that of indigenous ones. Furthermore, advancements in technology have decreased the need for human labor, resulting in loss of jobs for many people. Such impact of globalization has made firms around the world look for ways to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness (Aggarwal, 1999). Organizations were forced to devise new practices, processes and managerial approaches to cut down costs and raise productivity for offering better products and services (Lee and Vivarelli, 2006). Increased competition also led to greater customer expectations, and they demanded better products and services at lower costs. Easy access to information enabled consumers further as they could make informed and intelligent decisions regarding what to buy and from where to buy. Thus, innovation became a necessity for businesses to survive in the global competitive market (Chadha, 2009).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theoretical background\n3. Methodology: This section explains the procedure that has been used to ascertain the dimensions of IC and to validate the scale theoretically and psychometrically. For developing the multiple-item constructs, the conventional approach of Churchill (1979) has been followed and is in line with the approach taken by other authors who have developed the capability scale (Ngo and O'Cass, 2009). The steps as mentioned in Figure 1 were followed.\n4. Results: EFA and CFA have been performed to check the reliability and validity of the construct (Mani et al., 2016; Churchill, 1979).\n5. Theoretical contributions and implications: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n6. Conclusion: This paper acknowledged, demonstrated and verified IC dimensions and measures relevant to micro-firms, based on the experiences and responses of Indian entrepreneurs, and a 20-item IC scale (shown in Appendix 3) has emerged. We contribute to the literature on IC in that we recommend, assess and validate four distinct dimensions and measures that provide a better understanding of IC within emerging economies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The development of innovation capability (IC) is a central issue for both practitioners and academicians. However, studies that investigate the dimension of IC in the context of micro-enterprises are absent. Based on capability-based view, the purpose of this paper is to identify important dimensions to build a scale to measure IC in micro-enterprises.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on focus group discussions for item generation and questionnaire survey on a sample of 379 micro-enterprises in India. The scale is developed with the help of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Statistical tests demonstrate that the scale presents composite reliability as well as discriminant and convergent validity.\nFindings: The findings show that four dimensions form IC in micro-enterprises: resources, networking, risk taking and involvement.\nOriginality/value: This study develops a new scale, which is a measure of IC of micro-enterprises. The implications have been recommended, which focus upon entrepreneurs, academicians and policymakers interested in developing the IC of micro-enterprises in India.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Transformational leadership, career adaptability, job embeddedness and perceived career success: a serial mediation model
|
[
"Transformational leadership",
"Career success",
"Career adaptability",
"Job embeddedness",
"Career satisfaction",
"Organizational embeddedness",
"Nurses",
"Hospitals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: What is the best way to ensure career success in the modern workforce? We contend that to be managed effectively, leadership plays an important role in employee's perceived career success. The study of career success in the workplace has aroused researchers' interest because understanding antecedents of employee's career success is crucial for developing a competent workforce (Ballout, 2009), and it also helps to attain organizational success (Ng et al., 2005). There has been an increase in research studies on determinants of career success in a variety of professions and nursing is no exception (Liu et al., 2015). To reduce attrition rate among nurses, it is important to explore the factors that can contribute toward their career success (Laschinger, 2012). In an effort to examine the factors affecting career success of nurses, this study is going to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived career success.It is important for employees to achieve career success because it improves professional, on-the-job behaviors, such as enhancing quality of work and job performance (Dyess et al., 2015). This is especially relevant for nurses whose role is to provide quality care to patients. Greater perceived career success is also found to enhance retention of nurses (Li et al., 2014), and motivation to sustain their jobs (Zamanzadeh et al., 2019). Career success is defined as \"the accomplishment of desirable work-related outcomes at any point in a person's work experiences over time\" (Arthur et al., 2005, p. 179). Research studies have identified various antecedents of nurses' perceived career success such as psychological empowerment (Joo and Lim, 2013), innovative behaviors (Dan et al., 2018) and organization socialization (Wei and Taormina, 2014). Moran et al. (2011) that hospitals failed to achieve nurses' career success despite incorporating career competency model into their systems. They implied that development of leadership styles can help to attain career success. Among different leadership styles, transformational leadership because of its emphasis on inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration is considered to be most effective in enhancing career success of employees (Joo and Nam, 2019). The challenging environment created by transformational leader increases employees' willingness to advance their careers by exerting efforts in their jobs and feeling fulfilled and satisfied (Xanthopoulou et al., 2008).Transformational leaders have characteristics such as inspiring to strive beyond call of duty, excelling to challenge status quo, developing a higher sense of purpose, fulfillment and meaningfulness, and creating a vision that aligns individual and organizational goals (Afsar et al., 2014), and these characteristics promote employee well-being (Arnold et al., 2007), work-family balance (Jiang, 2012), life satisfaction (Lin et al., 2015) and job meaningfulness (Frieder et al., 2018). However, to date, minimal research has been made to empirically investigate the effect of transformational leadership on employee's perceived career success. This is somewhat surprising because transformational leadership because of its traits helps employees to develop careers and become satisfied (Ahmad and Saad, 2020). There is a need to clarify how transformational leaders affect their employees' career success? We suppose that employees' career adaptability and job embeddedness are important prerequisites for sustainable career success. Career adaptability has recently gained importance in both research and practice due to the fact that the focus of career development and success has shifted to an individual's ability to develop, look ahead, and make suitable and viable choices that can reflect on his/her personal meaningfulness. The reason to select career adaptability as a mediator is because people in today's globalized world make frequent transitions across countries, professions, organizations and functional areas (Chudzikowski, 2012), therefore, it is important that we understand how career adaptability influences career success. Transformational leaders inspire and persuade their subordinates to perform better in the organizations (Afsar et al., 2014) which is the focal goal in organizational setting. Transformational leaders push employees to show positive attitude (e.g. Caniels et al., 2018; Joo and Lim, 2013). This positive attitude could be manifested as higher level of career adaptability. Career adaptability is undoubtedly an essential positive attitude for organizational success (Guan et al., 2015). It has been defined as \"a psychosocial construct that denotes an individual's resources for coping with current and anticipated tasks, transitions, traumas in their occupational roles\" (Savickas and Porfeli, 2012, p. 662). Career adaptability includes competencies (concern, control, curiosity and confidence) allowing employees to successfully handle complicated problems or tasks during their careers (Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). According to Savickas and Porfeli (2012), the adaptable individual is the one who is \" becoming concerned about the vocational future, taking control of trying to prepare for one's vocational future, displaying curiosity by exploring possible selves and future scenarios, and strengthening the confidence to pursue one's aspirations\" (p. 663). Managers should attempt to retain adaptable employees because they are really effective in improving organizational processes and contribute substantially in organizational success (Safavi and Bouzari, 2019).Job embeddedness is a construct that represents the degree to which employees are embedded in their job or organization (Sekiguchi et al., 2008). Individuals perceive their careers to be more successful when they are attached to the job, location, organization, people and issues at work. Job embeddedness refers to \"the combined forces that keep a person from leaving his or her job\" (Yao et al., 2004, p. 159). It helps individuals to integrate themselves into the fabric of their jobs, firms and communities. Transformational leaders do inspire followers to find meaning in their careers and to foresee the future prospects of their careers but this effect is dependent on one's level of job embeddedness because strong linkages incline individuals to stay where they are (Ng and Feldman, 2007). Specifically, career adaptability constitutes a notable social influence on job embeddedness and, promotes objective and subjective career success (Zhang et al., 2020). Therefore, it is reasonable to propose that job embeddedness would mediate the link between career adaptability and career success.This study contributes to the advancement of research on career construction theory (CCT) by examining the theorized yet untested relationship between transformational leadership, career adaptability and career success. This study adds to the leadership and career development literatures by highlighting the importance of transformational leadership in promoting career success. More precisely, it examines the link between transformational leadership, career adaptability, job embeddedness and career success. Specifically, this study proposes that career adaptability and job embeddedness will act as mediators in the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived career success. This study addresses Zhang et al. (2020) and Caniels et al. (2018) call for future research into the mediating effect of job embeddedness on individual's career adaptability-career success link. Figure 1 shows the proposed model of the current study.\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Transformational leadership and perceived career success\nMethods: Sample and procedures\nMeasurement: Perceived career success\nData analysis and results: Preliminary analysis\nDiscussion and conclusion: This study has six important findings. First, transformational leadership can promote the perception of career success among nurses. This is in line with Vincent-Hoper et al.'s (2012) finding that transformational leadership positively affected subjective career success. Second finding of this study is the positive association between transformational leadership and career adaptability. As mentioned earlier, transformational leaders enhance work engagement of their followers through inspiring them to cope effectively with changes (Tims et al., 2011). The traits of transformational leader prepare employees to embrace change with openness and become adaptable to handle ambiguous, uncertain and complex problems in their organization. Transformational leaders consider needs of individuals and stimulate them intellectually to plan better futures. They provide confidence so that individuals can make decisions on their own and ensure that necessary resources are given to them to explore new opportunities (Caniels et al., 2018).Third finding of the study is that employees' favorable perceptions of career adaptability lead these individuals to be embedded in their jobs. Adaptability provides individuals to connect strongly with the organization, community and coworkers (Ferreira et al., 2013; Yao et al., 2004). Embedded employees are compatible with organizational systems and they work well with all others who are around them (Mitchell et al., 2001). Fourth, this study found that embedded employees think of their careers as going in the right direction and hence they are satisfied with their achievements toward their careers. When an employee has greater compatibility or match between his/her values and that of his/her organization's values, he/she achieves a balance in work-life conflicts and sees prospects of career in long term as satisfying. This finding is supported by Stumpf (2014) who found that employees with greater job embeddedness were less likely to switch jobs or organizations and they were more successful in developing their careers. Fifth, the study found career adaptability to mediate the effect of transformational leadership on job embeddedness. By emphasizing on inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation, and being a role model of change, transformational leadership positively affects career adaptability. In turn, career adaptability increases the level of attachment, connectivity and embeddedness. Employees who are adaptable develop better links with superiors, coworkers, subordinates, community, jobs and organization. The last finding of this study confirmed mediating effect of job embeddedness on career adaptability-perceived career success relationship. Afsar and Badir (2016) found that job embeddedness (job retention-related factor) acted as a mediator in the relationship between employee's perceived organizational support (on-the-job factor) and organizational citizenship behavior (employee behavior). More specifically, employees with a high level of control, curiosity, confidence, and concern feel more attached and connected to their organizations and perceive their careers as successful.\nTheoretical implications: This study adds to the existing literature in following ways. First, due to the fact that leaders play a vital role in any organization to motivate and push the subordinates to expand their ultimate capacity, more research is required to understand the effect of transformational leadership on employee's perceived career success (Joo and Nam, 2019). This study addressed this call for research by investigating the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived career success. Second, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the underlying process through which transformational leadership might impact employees' perceived career success (Sosik et al., 2004). This study examined the mediating effect of career adaptability and job embeddedness to give a better understanding of the mechanism through which transformational leaders promote career success. Third, an observation made in the current literature shows that our understanding about the antecedents and consequences of career adaptability is limited and scarce (Karatepe and Olugbade, 2017; Safavi and Karatepe, 2018). Fourth, although there are quite number of investigations regarding job embeddedness, factors influencing job embeddedness need more examination (Ferreira et al., 2017). Fifth, due to its importance, it has been suggested that understanding the factors influencing perceived career success in the organization is essential (Joo and Nam, 2019). This research study integrated the elements of transformational leadership and career literatures for the first time and as a consequence provided new insights into these significant areas.\nManagerial implications: This study has several managerial implications. In order to retain nurses, improving their perceived career success is pivotal. It is therefore important to identify ways in which the career success of nurses can be supported in a sustainable manner. One of the most effective ways that can enhance a nurse's perceived career success is to emphasize on leadership styles of their immediate supervisors and head nurses. The nursing profession in Saudi Arabia has been significantly influenced by traditional, cultural and socio-political factors due to which nurses have shown greater levels of job dissatisfaction (Gazzaz, 2009), turnover intentions (Falatah and Conway, 2019) and lower levels of career satisfaction (Alsayed and West, 2019). Recently, the ministry of health has put a plan to attract more people to nursing field by enhancing and improving the work environment and focusing on factors that can help in building nursing as a career (Alsayed and West, 2019). To address these challenges, the policymakers should focus on strategies that might make nursing an attractive career to pursue. In this regard, the leadership style of the nursing managers and other administrators in hospitals can prove to be effective. Nurses face too many stressors and their jobs are often exhausting emotionally, mentally and psychically (Alsayed and West, 2019). They might become pessimist about the meaningfulness and success associated with their careers. This is especially relevant to Saudi context since nursing is not considered to be an attractive career by locals (Alsayed and West, 2019). In such situation, the role of leaders become extremely critical because they can provide the motivation, meaningfulness and inspiration to their employees' career building resources. It is the responsibility of transformational leaders to take followers into confidence and assure them that the leaders always support them. Hence, employees have less panic and anxiety and have more sense of security which leads them to be more adaptable.\nLimitation and future research directions: This study has few limitations to report. First, the data for this research are cross-sectional, which does not allow us to draw strong inferences about causality. Therefore, to get a better idea about causality, future studies should focus on experimental and/or longitudinal research design. Second, we used a sample drawn from nurses working in Saudi Arabia, which restricts the generalizability of the study results. Therefore, there is need to reassess and reconfirm the generalizability of our study findings in other countries, organizational and cultural backgrounds, and different work contexts. A cross-cultural comparison study, particularly focusing on some cultural dimensions (e.g. individualism vs collectivism, power distance etc.), may yield interesting results. Third, data were obtained from the same source (subordinates). Therefore, there can be the possibility that the study findings may have been influenced by common method bias. However, we empirically assessed this issue in our study, and we believe this is not a serious problem such as, all the measures used in this study are widely studied in previous empirical research studies. Moreover, the results of CFA also proposed that the study variables were empirically distinct. We also performed the Harman's single factor test to assess the effects of common method variance, and results for the test indicate that common method variance is not a major issue for our study model. However, future studies should attempt to take measures to address these possible problems linked to common method variance. Third, several characteristics of participants, such as participant's experience and age, may act as confounders but have not been investigated in the present study. Further studies should explore these effects as well. Finally, personality can impact the effect of transformational leadership on perceived career success. Therefore, future studies should try to assess the moderating role of follower's personality type on the effect of transformational leadership on perceived career success.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: Based on career construction theory and job embeddedness theory, the aim of the present study is to give insights into the interplay between transformational leadership and perceived career success by examining the indirect effects through serial mediation of career adaptability and job embeddedness, respectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach was used for this study. Data were gathered from 469 nurses working in government hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results show that transformational leaders enhance perceived career success. Moreover, the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived career success is serially mediated by career adaptability and job embeddedness.\nOriginality/value: The role of leadership in promoting employee's perceived career success has been seldom studied in the literature. This is the first study of its kind to examine the effect of transformational leadership on nurses' perceived career success along with the mediating roles of career adaptability and job embeddedness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The role of innovation and institutions in entrepreneurship and economic growth in two groups of countries
|
[
"Innovation",
"Economic growth",
"Entrepreneurship",
"Institutions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Economic growth is one of the most relevant economic objectives for policy makers, especially due to the important social benefits derived from a higher level of economic growth, including employment and welfare. As a consequence of these beneficial effects derived from economic growth, a great deal of literature has been devoted to establishing the determinants of growth, especially after the publication of the Solow-Swan model (Solow, 1956; Swan, 1956). Solow marked the start of the modern era of economic growth analysis. Solow developed an exogenous growth model that implies that the variables are exogenously determined. The exogenous technological changes are the necessary condition to improve growth. Economic policy would have effects in the short-term but not over the long-term. However, the situation changed dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s with the appearance of endogenous growth models (Romer, 1986, 1987; Aghion and Howitt, 1998). In opposition to exogenous growth models these models stated that the variables are endogenously determined and questioned the convergence hypothesis. Therefore, from the endogenous model perspective, it would be possible to include new variables in the model apart from traditional variables such as labour and physical capital. From this new perspective, other types of growth determinants have been considered, including public capital (Romp and de Haan, 2007) and institutions (North, 1990, 2005). For this reason, policy makers have become interested in designing adequate economic policy to achieve this objective using two different types of actions (Rodrik, 2005): measures to ignite economic growth (mainly social reforms) and measures to sustain economic growth (mainly, long-term institutional policy to maintain productive mechanisms in time of economic shock).\n2. Innovation and institutional effects on entrepreneurship and economic growth: Economic growth brings countless benefits to the welfare of society, unsurprisingly making it a highly targeted area of research. Determining the variables that can enhance it are critical in adopting corresponding measures.\n3. Empirical analysis: The empirical analysis includes 31 countries that exhibit different levels of growth and development and that can be classified into two groups: innovation-driven economies and efficiency-driven economies, following GEM classification based on the phases established by the World Economic Forum (Kelley et al., 2012, p. 14):\n4. Conclusions: Economic growth is one of the important economic policy objectives due to the beneficial effects in terms of social welfare. Therefore, it is important to determine the variables that enhance economic growth. Two types of actions can be considered: policies that stimulate economic growth and policies that sustain economic growth. To stimulate economic growth, an adequate behavioural environment in which innovations play an important role is necessary to take advantage of the beneficial effects inherent to that environment. To sustain economic growth, institutions play an important role because an adequate rule of law, defence of property rights and so on facilitate and improve market activity.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: Economic growth is one the most relevant economic objectives for policy makers. In order to determine the variables that enhance such an objective it is important to consider different types of entrepreneurial activity. It is also necessary to consider the level of development and growth of a country to design the proper economic policy measures, given that entrepreneurship motivations and circumstances vary from country to country. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, including the role played by institutions and innovation considering two types of entrepreneurship (necessity and opportunity) and countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data analysis of 31 countries with varying levels of growth and development yielded two large groups - either innovation-driven economies or efficiency-driven economies - following GEM classification based on the phases set out by the World Economic Forum. In order to test the hypotheses, a partial least squares analysis is carried out to show the existing relationships between the different variables, specifically: innovation, institutions, entrepreneurship and economic growth.\nFindings: The empirical analysis used demonstrates that innovation positively affects economic growth and entrepreneurship. In addition, adequate functioning of institutions is shown to enhance economic growth and opportunity entrepreneurship. Finally, there is a positive relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth.\nOriginality/value: Unlike other studies, different types of entrepreneurship (by necessity and opportunity) are essential to this analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth. The country sample was divided considering some country-specific structural circumstances. Neither aspect is considered in the literature and should be considered relevant for designing measures to enhance economic activity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Big data academic and learning analytics: Connecting the dots for academic excellence in higher education
|
[
"Business value",
"Big data analytics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: We are living in the era of Big data, flooded with \"raw\" data captured by billions of devices which further is \"processed\" to information useful for decision making. Big data is the hottest buzzword in industry (Waller and Fawcett, 2013). Some scholars suggested Big data as to be the \"the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity\" (Manyika et al., 2011) and career as data scientist as \"sexiest job of the 21st century\" (Davenport and Patil, 2012). The word \"Big data\" is defined as gigantic, complex and real-time data that necessitates robust management of information and analytical techniques to extract meaningful insights (Daniel, 2015). Though there is no unanimous agreement on the characteristics and definition of Big data, the term \"Big data\" was primarily coined to manage, process and analyze the 5Vs of data-linked dimensions and deliver sustained value by measuring performance and establishing competitive advantages (FossoWamba et al., 2015). In conjunction with \"Volume,\" 5Vs consists of variety (i.e. unstructured or structured formats of data), velocity (i.e. the speed at which data is created), veracity (i.e. disorderliness of data) and value (i.e. the earlier unknown insights) (Davenport, 2014; Lee, 2017).\n2. Theoretical foundation for deriving Big data academic and learning analytics enabled value creation model: BDA architecture can be considered as a specific technical IT resource characterized by a set of components that leads to sustainable competitive advantage (Goes, 2014; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012). Each BDA architectural component is used to transform higher education data from various sources into meaningful insights through BDA tools. BDA architecture is loosely encompassed of five main architectural layers: data; data aggregation; analytics; information exploration; and data governance (Wang and Hajli, 2017).\n3. The constructs of big data academic and learning analytics enabled value creation model: 3.1 BDA architecture\n4. Research design: For this exploratory study, a qualitative research design was employed. The \"inquiry process\" expedited by a qualitative research approach provided an opportunity to triangulate primary and secondary source materials from the literature review. Native category approach is used as our research methodology as it avoids investigator historical bias by successively and gradually eliminating the investigator from the direction of the interview process. The methodology is intended to force respondents into open-ended deliberations with the investigator, fixing future inquiry by questioning key comments made by the respondent. This technique of qualitative research proves particularly appropriate when the phenomena to be researched are not accurately understood, and researcher desires to get perspective from respondents experiencing the phenomena (Strauss and Corbin, 1990).\n5. Data analysis: Data collected were analyzed through a pattern matching technique (Yin, 2009). Data were organized around topics (Hartley, 2004) corresponding to the four main subsections of our Big data academic and learning analytics enabled business value model (i.e. reporting and compliance, analysis and visualization, risk, and security; predictive analysis) along with one additional dimension of business value. An initial division was made between describing how traditionally data are utilized across these broad dimensions, i.e., four broad application areas and Big data capability and business value, and data regarding the change, i.e., changing dynamics of use of data in HEIs. This is based on the assumption that the four main categories of our Big data application matrix lead to a positive change in HEIs and create value.\n6. Findings: Our study provides several indications of current underutilization and potential use of Big data academic and learning analytics in HEIs. From the study, it is evident that most of the HEIs are utilizing their current tools and infrastructure for mainly reporting and compliance and analysis and visualization. There is limited use of data for maintaining security and risk. Use of predictive analysis in teaching and learning is almost missing for all cases. The study suggests potential use across all four main categories of our Big data academic and learning analytics model leading to create enhanced business value for HEI.\n7. Discussion and conclusion: Research in innovations related to Big data-related technologies has been majorly concentrated on the technical side, rather than the managerial and strategic understandings, which had further hindered the development of BDA research. A distinctive theoretical contribution of this study is its conceptualization of understanding business value from BDA in the typical setting of higher education. Our study developed a big generic data academic and learning analytics enabled business model as a research base and then validated it empirically in the context of higher education. The model methodically captured the complex relations such as BDA architecture, its applications and the related business value. Compared to previous proposed of BDA process model (Seddon et al., 2017; Tamm et al., 2013), our theoretical model illuminates how four BDA capabilities were formed making a trade-off with data complexity and competitive advantage, and how these application matrix lead to business value creation. The findings could be a beginning idea to understand how BDA lead to business value in practice and propose an empirical foundation to encourage a further comprehensive examination of BDA implementation.\n8. Limitations and future research directions: With the increasing number of research on academic and learning analytics, more cases can be included to validate our theoretical model. Future research may consider a supplementary analysis of theoretical model on other variables such as university size and institution type or status (public/private, internationally accredited/non-accredited). Second, different organizations may have different needs or goals for using BDA solutions. This study targeted HEIs. Hence, the results are specific to higher education domain. Future research can be extended to use the logic of the proposed theoretical model to other specific industries. New insight may surface for BDA capabilities for a different sector. The concluding limitation may be the coder bias. To address any such bias, the study well-defined the constructs in our theoretical model based on the literature and followed Strauss and Corbin's (1998) coding process to confirm reliability. Even though we have wisely analyzed and interpreted the data to explore the patterns, the coding process can be still improved upon by putting additional rigor in the coding process. Investigating the interactions in the model with a quantitative analysis method could offer more robust empirical evidence.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although big data analytics (BDA) have great benefits for higher education institutions (HEIs), due to lack of sufficient evidence on how BDA investment can pay off, it is tough for HEIs practitioners to realize value from such adoption. The purpose of this paper is to propose a big data academic and learning analytics enabled business value model to explain BDA potential benefits and business value which can be obtained by developing such analytics capabilities in HEIs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study examined 47 case descriptions from 26 HEIs to investigate the causal association between the BDA current and potential benefits and business value creation path for big data academic and learning analytics success in HEIs.\nFindings: The pressure of compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements and competition had pushed HEIs hard to adopt BDA tools. However, the study found out that application of risk and security and predictive analytics to higher education fields is still in its infancy. Using this theoretical model, the results provide new insights to higher education administrators on ways to create BDA capabilities for HEIs transformation and suggest an empirical foundation that can lead to more thorough analysis of BDA implementation.\nOriginality/value: A distinctive theoretical contribution of this study is its conceptualization of understanding business value from BDA in the typical setting of higher education. The study provides HEIs with an all-inclusive understanding of BDA and gives insights on how it helps to transform HEIs. The new perspectives associated with the big data academic and learning analytics enabled business value model will contribute to future research in this area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
No one rides for free! Three styles of collaborative consumption
|
[
"Access-based consumption",
"Collaborative consumption",
"Practice theory",
"Ridesharing",
"Sharing economy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The \"sharing economy\" phenomenon exhibits diverse practices departing from traditional consumption. First, there has been a rise of anti-consumption practices such as swapping, redistribution or foodsharing driven by strong community ideals and generalized reciprocity (e.g. Albinson and Perera, 2012; Gollnhofer et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2015). Second, within the paradigm shift from ownership to access-based consumption, service firms (e.g. Zipcar) offer the temporary utilization of commercial goods to customers mostly driven by utilitarianism and self-interest (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012; Hazee et al., 2017; Lamberton and Rose, 2012; Schaefers et al., 2016b). Third, collaborative consumption is facilitated by online platforms (e.g. BlaBlaCar, Airbnb) that enable the peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange of privately owned underutilized assets (e.g. seats and accommodation) with no employees involved (e.g. Benoit et al., 2017; Hamari et al., 2016; Zervas et al., 2017). Most empirical research on the sharing economy is concerned with the traditional business-to-customer (B2C) facets of the phenomena, whereas this paper focuses on the P2P collaborative consumption practices that deserve more academic attention (Kumar et al., 2018; Oyedele and Simpson, 2017; Perren and Kozinets, 2018).\n2. Practice theory: Practice theory derives from sociology (e.g. De Certeau, 1984; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996), has been introduced to consumer research (e.g. Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Warde, 2005) and is commonly used in market studies (e.g. Araujo et al., 2010). This study follows Warde (2005, p. 150), who sought to understand practices rather than consumption. Through practices, consumers (or peers) are not conceptualized as passive actors, but as active producers of a culture. As community members or market actors, they re-appropriate rituals, symbols, language and other \"arts of doing\" by participating in each other's practices and, in doing so, influence one another (De Certeau, 1984; Geiger et al., 2014; Schau et al., 2009).\n3. Sharing economy practices: The sharing economy has fundamentally reworked existing consumption practices toward new socio-material assemblages and relationships (Stabrowski, 2017; Zervas et al., 2017). Table I and the following digests the most relevant concepts and practices related to the sharing economy with representative references: (A) true sharing practices (i.e. socially mediated and community-oriented), (B) access practices (B2C market-mediated exchanges, dominated by utilitarian motives) and (C) collaborative consumption practices (P2P market-mediated exchanges and social norms are emphasized).\n4. Method: Rudmin (2016) called for consumer researchers to observe what previous studies have overlooked in their descriptions of the various practices in the sharing economy. This study used a qualitative research design that facilitates the exploration of responses in context and the obtention of in-depth information on new phenomena (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). Data were collected using a netnographic study, participant observation and ethnographic interviews - phenomenological techniques that facilitate a better understanding of the lived experience of the informants (Van Maanen, 2011).\n5. Findings: 5.1 The ridesharing practice\n6. Discussion: Previous research showed that sharing economy platforms vary in their degrees of market mediation, collaborative consumption practices diverge on a sharing-exchange continuum and practice styles differ on commercialization and socialization dimensions (Davidson et al., 2018; Habibi et al., 2016; Herbert and Collin-Lachaud, 2017). That is, the ridesharing practice depicted in the study is embedded in both market exchange and social norms, from which three styles of collaborative consumption emerged based on the participants' perception of the practice and the activities performed: communal style, consumerist style and opportunistic style. This is in line with the conceptualization of a market as continuously evolving, where actors extricate economic exchange from the social realm (cf. Araujo et al., 2010), and particularly \"concerned markets\", where \"the economic and the social writ large are intricately entwined\" (Geiger et al., 2014, p. 2) such as in the collaborative consumption context. Perren and Kozinets (2018) also argued that P2P markets are embedded with \"consociality\" and market norms, which can lead to social but commoditized, opportunistic and ephemeral relationships.\n7. Conclusion: This study has shown that the old practice of hitchhiking can be partly found in the contemporary ridesharing practice. \"Hitchhikers 2.0\" use online platforms such as BlaBlaCar to organize P2P exchanges offline. As its name and visual identity indicate, BlaBlaCar aims to facilitate a form of social exchange rather than a mobility service. However, ridesharing participants also assimilate the practice to a form of market exchange; that is, no one rides for free. As such, collaborative consumption practices are embedded in the access paradigm, but distinct from true sharing practices and B2C access-based services. Participants integrate various facets of the ideological tensions between a logic of economic exchange with profit maximization and a logic of social exchange within a community according to three styles of collaborative consumption: communal, consumerist and opportunistic.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to focus on collaborative consumption, that is, the peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange of goods and services facilitated by online platforms. Anchored in the access paradigm, collaborative consumption (e.g. accommodation rental and ridesharing services) differs from commercial services offered by firms (e.g. business-to-customer [B2C] carsharing). The aim of this study is to examine the nuanced styles of collaborative consumption in relation to market-mediated access practices and socially mediated sharing practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following the general research trend on mobility services, the context of long-distance ridesharing is chosen. Data collection was conducted using participant observation as peer service provider, 11 ethnographic interviews of consumers and a netnographic study of digital artifacts.\nFindings: Using practice theory, ten ridesharing activities were identified. These activities and the nuances in the procedures, understandings and engagements in the ridesharing practice led to the distinction of three styles of collaborative consumption: communal collaborative consumption, which is when participants seek pro-social relationships in belonging to a community; consumerist collaborative consumption, performed by participants who seek status and convenience in the access lifestyle; and opportunistic collaborative consumption, when participants seek to achieve monetary gain or personal benefits from abusive activities.\nOriginality/value: By taking a phenomenological approach on collaborative consumption, this study adds to the understanding of the sharing economy as embedded in both a utilitarian/commercial economic system and a non-market/communal social system. The three styles of collaborative consumption propose a framework for future studies differentiating P2P exchanges from other practices (i.e. B2C access-based services and sharing).\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Improving consumers' willingness to pay using social media activities
|
[
"Banking",
"Social media",
"Electronic word-of-mouth",
"Consumer-brand identification",
"Willingness to pay a premium price"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Within the services sector, the banking sector is uniquely challenged in building brand relationships, and building stronger ties with customers. The banking industry is highly competitive, complex and dynamic (Beerli et al., 2004), yet the level of differentiation in financial services and products is very low (Ferguson and Hlavinka, 2007; Foo et al., 2008). Therefore, banks have long faced the challenge of a lack of perceived differentiation between competing brands (O'Loughlin and Szmigin, 2005). Compounding this, the whole industry has also been challenged by the financial crisis with banks facing restructuring actions to restore their operating profitability, while striving to overcome customer scepticism (Tuskej et al., 2013). As a consequence, banks need to increase service charges (PwC, 2014). However, customers have considerable aversion to price increases and there is always a risk that customers would switch banks if fees are increased (Deloitte, 2013a). In this landscape, the brand plays a central role to enhancing banks' value (PwC, 2014). The more a customer values a brand, the more they will be willing to accept a price increase (Aaker, 1991). When consumers feel a strong bond with a brand, their willingness to pay a higher price is enhanced (Horvath and van Birgelen, 2015).\nBackground and hypotheses: The banking industry, social media and consumer-brand identification\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Measurement model\nDiscussion: This study sought to measure the influence of SMME and eWOM on consumers' WTPp in the banking sector, and to explore the mediating effect of CBI on the relationships between SMME and eWOM on WTPp. The results of the structural model show that SMME has a positive impact on CBI (supporting H1), which implies that SMME can positively influence consumers' belief that the brand has personal meaning for them. Results also reveal a positive impact of eWOM on CBI (supporting H2). The power of the brand also lies in what customers have heard about the brand (Keller, 2008) and eWOM amplifies this effect, providing a stronger effect on CBI. Our results indicate that CBI clearly influences WTPp (supporting H3), thereby suggesting that it is important for banks to create meaningful brand associations related to customers' self-identity. Furthermore, CBI fully mediates the effect of SMME and eWOM on WTPp (supporting H4).\nConclusion: This paper investigates the impact of SMME and eWOM on customers' WTPp through CBI in the banking industry. The results support the proposed conceptual model. CBI fully mediates the effect of SMME and eWOM on CBI, meaning that banks should use social networks to communicate their brand identity and enhance CBI, to leverage the impact of SMME and eWOM, and achieve marketing desired outcomes, such as WTPp. To stay competitive and differentiate themselves, banks should build their brands and develop their social media presence, enabling customer interaction and providing social benefits to its customers. In sum, CBI is the missing link that enables the transformation of social interactions into WTPp. Thus, the relationships created and developed through social networks may increase the value of banks' offerings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study examines the impact of social media activities on consumers' willingness to pay a premium price (WTPp) in the banking industry, and investigates the role of consumer-brand identification (CBI) on this relationship. For the first time, the effect of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is considered separately from other social media marketing efforts (SMME).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from a sample of 145 banking customers that follow bank social networks was analysed using structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to test a proposed structural model.\nFindings: Findings indicate that the effect of eWOM and SMME on WTPp is fully mediated by CBI. The results uncover a viable path to achieve WTPp in the banking industry, which includes the joint presence of SMME, eWOM and CBI.\nResearch/limitations implications: The study was conducted on the banking sector of Portugal. It is advocated that further research would investigate the results in other service sectors, across different countries.\nPractical implications: Findings highlight the importance of social media marketing in banking. Results reveal opportunities for managers in the banking sector to enhance CBI and ultimately WTPp, through SMME and eWOM.\nOriginality/value: The study is the first to consider the influence of SMME and eWOM as separate antecedents of WTPp. The findings indicate that the effect of eWOM and SMME on WTPp is fully mediated by CBI. In particular, the results of the fsQCA indicate that the combined presence of SMME, eWOM and CBI, is sufficient to obtain WTPp.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Customer activity in service
|
[
"Customer activity",
"Customer activity networks",
"Customer-dominant logic",
"Service"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Customer centricity has long been propagated as the most important approach to understanding what businesses should do to succeed (Drucker, 1954; Levitt, 1960). However, scholars have argued that the dominating theoretical frameworks in marketing have - despite their customer-centric intent - a provider-centric core (Osborne and Ballantyne, 2012). In service research, the analytical focus has traditionally been on the firm and its processes, not on the customers' processes (Heinonen et al., 2010).\nCustomer activity in service: The following section reviews the concepts used by some of the main research streams in service marketing to approach customer activity, focusing especially on from what perspective activity is understood and how it is characterized.\nCustomer activity from a customer-dominant perspective: The lack of a definition of the concept of \"activity\" is a core problem when discussing customer activity in service research and even in marketing overall. Authors in all of the mentioned research streams frequently use terms such as \"activity\" and \"action\" or \"behaviour\" without defining how the terms should be understood. The literature review suggests that the reason for this may be that service research has a strong tradition of focusing on interaction and relationships. Service is usually seen through the lens of interaction between two or more parties, not through how one party applies the outcomes of interaction. However, a customer-dominant approach requires service to be seen from the customer's point of view (Heinonen et al., 2010, 2013). In line with Edvardsson et al. (2005) CDL understands service as a customer-centric perspective on value creation. Consequently, Heinonen et al. (2010) suggest that to understand service from the customer's perspective, the focus should not be limited only to the interactions between customer and service provider, but also take into account the customer's other activities relevant to the emergence of customer value. To highlight this, Heinonen et al. (2010) divided the customer's spheres of activity into:\nCharacterising customer activity: As a response to the challenge of defining activity from a customer-dominant point of view, this paper draws on another, less well-known stream of research: activity theory. Activity theory analyses human behaviour in terms of activity that is driven by motives, and consists of a set of goal-directed actions (Leont'ev, 1978; Engestrom, 1999, 2000; Wilson, 2009). The central analytical unit in activity theory is \"activity\", a process where subjects employ tools and skills on objects to achieve outcomes (Engestrom, 1987; Holt and Morris, 1993). Leont'ev (1977, p. 182) describes \"activity\" as \"[...] a unit of life, mediated by mental reflection, by an image, whose real function is to orientate the subject in the objective world\". From this point of view, activities can be seen as distinct units of behaviour that are given boundaries by human understandings. If we apply activity theory thinking to a service setting, we can define a \"customer activity\" as \"a discrete sequence of behaviour that through its outcomes aims at creating or supporting some type of value in the customer's life or business\". Value is here assumed to be experiential and socially informed (Helkkula and Kelleher, 2010; Helkkula et al., 2012)[1]. Customers are seen to be striving for valuable experiences within the confines of bounded rationality (Kahneman, 2003). Thus, in a service context, an example of an activity could be \"going to the grocery store\". \"Going to the grocery store\" can be categorised as an activity, because it forms a discrete sequence of behaviour that supports one (or many) value-creating process(es) in the customer's life - household work, for example. The outcomes of going to the store can then be used within other activities that the customer is likely to initiate later. Thus, one can expect activities to have different kinds of relationships with one another, forming sequences or networks of behaviour, where service interactions are combined with other types of customer activity.\nEmpirical study: One way to illustrate how customer-dominant activity differs from traditional approaches is to conduct a study that contrasts customer activity from a firm-centric interaction point of view with customer activity from a customer-centric one. However, such a study would require two types of data: information on how customers interact with a provider's service elements, as well as data on other, related activities. Gaining access to such data poses challenges. Furthermore, service from a customer-dominated activity point of view has not been explored empirically before. Due to these reasons, an exploratory single-case study design was adopted for the empirical study (Eisenhardt, 1989; Flyvbjerg, 2006).\nDiscussion: The following section summarizes and discusses the results of the empirical study, highlighting the paper's contribution by contrasting the presented approach to previous research.\nConclusion: This paper clarified the concept of customer activity, defining it as a discrete sequence of behaviour that through its outcomes aims at creating or supporting some type of value in the customer's life or business. A customer activity perspective on service opens up new possibilities for analysis in service research. By regarding activities as discrete units of behaviour, activities can be seen as having non-sequential relationships with each other. This allows researchers to analyse customer activity from a systemic point of view. Combined with a customer-dominant perspective on service, the presented approach allows researchers to understand the role of offered service elements as ingredients in the customer's life or business, reflected by the linkages between customers' independently maintained activities.\nLimitations and further research: The survey measures self-reported behaviour, which introduces the risk of self-report bias: research has found that respondents tend to underreport behaviours deemed inappropriate, while over reporting appropriate behaviour (Nancarrow et al., 2001; Donaldson and Grant-Vallone, 2002). However, in the context of gambling research, evidence suggests that social desirability bias has an effect on self-report data about problem gambling, but not on self-reported gambling behaviour such as the frequency of gambling (Kuentzel et al., 2008). This indicates that problem gambling is a more sensitive subject for respondents than frequency of gambling. A more critical limitation is that it may be difficult for respondents to accurately assess the frequency of their own behaviour. However, as the study only aimed to correlate activities with each other, an approximation of frequency is sufficient.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Customer activity in service has mainly been understood within the boundaries of interactions with service providers. This paper goes beyond this view to focus on the customer's independent activity, of which interaction is only a part. Moreover, the concept of customer activity remains largely unexplored and undefined. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to develop the concept of customer activity and to show how it can be applied in an empirical study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews the concept of customer activity in service marketing. It then goes on to characterise and operationalise the concept, and finally apply it to an explorative study. The study contrasts customer activity from the provider's interaction-centric point of view with customer activity from the customer's own point of view.\nFindings: This paper defines customer activities as discrete sequences of behaviour that aim at creating or supporting some types of value in the customer's life or business. A customer-dominant perspective on customer activity allows companies to understand the role of their service in the various activities of different types of customers.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to service research by bringing attention to the concept of customer activity and contrasting it with alternative concepts. The paper is the first to show how customers combine different activities (where service interaction is only one type) into systems, which they maintain to create value for themselves. By profiling customers according to activity systems, providers can understand their own role in the customer's network of value-creating activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Efficiency, internationalization and market positioning in textiles fast fashion: The Inditex case
|
[
"Supply chain",
"Efficiency",
"Internalization",
"Fast-fashion",
"Inditex"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The rapid effects of globalization of the economy along with the deregulation of the textile industry have changed the competitive environment of companies operating in it (Calvo-Dopico and Calvo Porral, 2012). The potential to expand into international markets competitive for new customers' scope, incorporating new technologies, organizational forms (especially the supply chain) and search for new suppliers offer great potential for business growth. The removal of restrictions on textiles and clothing from January 2005 generated a new scenario creating opportunities for major exporters like China and India have substantially increased their market share, while at the same time have created challenges for Member states of the European Union in order to remain competitive.\n2. Review of the literature and methodology: The study of Inditex business model has been approached from different perspectives. In Table I, a list of authors who have studied the company and to consider some features shown.\n3. Results: In this section the results from the three stages of analysis are shown. Figure 1 shows the different stages. First, we present the analysis of Inditex in its sector. Second, we show the analysis of Inditex in its international competitive environment. In Section 3.1 we present the results. Third, we show Inditex individualized analysis. In Section 3.2 one gives results.\n4. Conclusions: This paper investigates the competitive position of the company Inditex in the period 1990-2013 as a case study, identified by academics and professionals as a successful company. The analysis has focussed on the comparison of Inditex with its competitive environment as well as the evolution of the company in terms of their efficiency and their explanatory factors. The limitations involving the methodology, in terms of representativeness, possible generalizations and type of secondary information used, can be offset by the ability to provide good vision and establish alternatives for possible studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the competitive position of the company Inditex in the period 1990-2013 as a case study, identified by academics and professionals as a successful company. The analysis has focussed on the comparison of Inditex with its competitive environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology used to achieve the objectives was: data envelopment analysis for the analysis of efficiency and for the second the Tobit regression to determine the factors explaining efficiency. The authors have used additional methodologies such as social networks or cluster analysis.\nFindings: The individual company analysis reveals that the average efficiency level by years for the period 1990-2013, is relatively high 88.8 percent. The determinants of efficiency have been; the resources of the company in terms of assets whose relationship with is U-shaped curvilinear, where the minimum value (trend change) is produced between years 2002 and 2003. The degree of internationalization of the firm, is positively related to efficiency. As the company increases its expansion, experience and skills, increases efficiency. Finally, the effect of liberalization of textile trade in 2005 had no influence on the efficiency levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitations involving the methodology, in terms of representativeness, possible generalizations and type of secondary information used, can be offset by the ability to provide good vision and establish alternatives for possible studies.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the fast-fashion retail industry literature by emphasizing the importance of the case study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The perceived advantages and disadvantages of regional audit: a qualitative study
|
[
"Auditing",
"Hospitals",
"Regional government",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Audit, \"the systematic, critical analysis of the quality of medical care\" (Department of Health, 1989), has become an integral and compulsory component of modern clinical practice. Strengthened audit programmes have the potential to lead to improvements in quality in health care as envisaged in the recent Darzi report (Darzi, 2008), as well as facilitating appraisal of staff including consultant revalidation (Department of Health, 2008).In 1998, the Department of Health commissioned the Clinical Evaluation and Effectiveness Unit (CEEu) to perform national audit concerned with priorities identified by the National Service Frameworks (NSF), e.g. stroke medicine (Mason, 2002). National audit addresses some of the commonly-cited problems with local audit, e.g. small numbers of patients, results being retained locally with lack of external pressure for change and infrequent reaudit to \"close the loop\" (Mason, 2002). In addition, national audits may also tackle some of the barriers to audit shown in Table I, such as lack of resources and expertise (Johnston et al., 2000). National re-audits have shown considerable improvement in care (Pearson and Ingham, 2005), although some have also reported a great degree of regional variation (O'Dowd, 2009). However, national audits incur significant costs in reporting and analysing data, may be limited to specialties with relevant NSFs and importantly, will not give junior doctors the experience or educational opportunities afforded from designing and leading an audit project themselves.Mindful of such factors, in 2000, the West Midlands Rheumatology Service and Training Committee (WMRSTC) started an annual programme of regional audit, with no external funding. Each audit was led by a consultant member of the WMRSTC, coordinated by a group of trainees (Specialist Registrars (SpRs)) and had information technology support to design proformas and collate data from a clinical audit department within the region. Audits were based on national specialty guidelines and each involved approximately 2,000 patients across ten to 13 units (Table II). Each unit received details of its individual performance with anonymised results from other units; results of each audit have been presented regionally and nationally and published in peer-reviewed journals (Erb et al., 2002; Yee et al., 2003; Price-Forbes et al., 2005; Paskins et al., 2006; Sandhu et al., 2007; John et al., 2009).The Cochrane Review of Audit and Feedback concluded that the effect of audit and feedback on improving professional practice was generally small to modest, and suggested that process evaluations in audit research were important to try and gain insight into causes of the variable effectiveness of audit programmes (Jamtvedt et al., 2006). Furthermore a previous review in this area highlighted the importance of seeking clinicians' views on the actual process of audit to enhance its impact on clinical governance (Johnston et al., 2000).Our annual programme of regional audit has so far relied on the good will of the participants to enable such a large-scale project to be achievable with no additional funding. The aim therefore of this study was to explore participants' views of the regional audit in order that we could ensure the programme's sustainability. Identification of the strengths and difficulties with regional audit is crucial to inform future planning of our programme and may also be of use to other specialties and regions planning similar audit. In addition we sought to evaluate if the perceived benefits of regional audit were similar to those conventionally perceived to be the benefits of local audit, or if regional audit has a specific role as a clinical governance tool.\nMethods: A qualitative approach was adopted in order to explore participants' attitudes in-depth, and to allow new ideas, both positive and negative, to emerge (Ong and Coady, 2006).Participants\nResults: Nine themes were identified, including five representing the stages of the audit cycle. These are demonstrated graphically in Figure 1 and described with supporting quotes below.1. The audit cycle\nDiscussion: As recommended (Johnston et al., 2000), this study has sought the opinions of clinicians on the actual process of a new audit scheme. Exploring participants' views of the value of regional audit has revealed that it is thought to be an efficient use of resources, with unforeseen benefits, including generic skills training for trainees and fostering regional networks. Specifically, the core curriculum for rheumatology trainees identifies both generic and speciality skills to be acquired during training (Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board, 2003). Our regional audit programme provides many opportunities for SpRs to develop these generic skills, as listed above. A previous survey of 255 junior doctors' experiences reported a modest rating of educational usefulness of audit (mean 3.2 on a Likert of 1-5); interestingly several doctors requested audits that were specifically designed for doctors in training (Firth-Cozens and Storer, 1992).Regional collaborative networks that have developed between units are also perceived to be an important strength of the programme. Like clinical audit, research studies and guideline provision are currently both provided locally and nationally. However, the partnerships that have been fostered through this regional programme may provide the foundations for further regional research collaborations.A novel audit programme needs to ensure it addresses any possible barriers to successful audit as well as incorporates factors, which will promote successful audit. This study provides evidence that this regional audit scheme overcomes some of the barriers listed in Table I. The structure of the scheme provided dedicated staff, sound leadership and structured IT programmes. Lack of resources was not perceived to be a problem among our interviewees; in addition the expertise of the organising panel was commented on favourably, with two participants using the word \"trust\" in this context. Interestingly, this small study did not identify many of the perceived disadvantages with audit such as professional isolation or fear of litigation (Johnston et al., 2000).However, communication between the organising committee and participants was identified as a potential area for improvement in the audit programme, underpinning issues of stakeholder ownership; this has previously been identified as an important stumbling block in audit (Johnston et al., 2000). Further areas for improvement include the need for wider involvement of the multidisciplinary team and more efforts to \"close the audit loop\", possibly by encouraging local re-audit. This would in turn increase the educational value for trainees, who have previously identified that seeing change in practice enhances learning from audit (Firth-Cozens and Storer, 1992).The other aim of this study related to the value of a regional audit, including strengths and challenges, as compared to local audit. The opportunity, with a regional audit, to benchmark services and facilities against other local units (as well as the audit standard) was particularly valuable and participants described examples where this had occurred. In addition, its potential value as a powerful political tool in influencing future resource allocation has been described. The increased number of patients audited regionally was perceived to be valuable, although this benefit has not been exploited by regional audits elsewhere (Teir et al., 2008).The strengths of this study include its qualitative design, which is appropriate to explore an innovative topic (Ong and Coady, 2006). Theoretical sampling of participants ensured a broad range of experiences of regional audit was canvassed. The sample size was necessarily small but generated a rich body of data, with many perceptions not anticipated by the researchers. We could have strengthened the data by eliciting respondent validation, although this alone has limitations as a validity measure (Pope et al., 2000; Barbour, 2005). As previous authors of published regional audits we may be perceived as regional audit \"enthusiasts\" and this may represent a limitation to this study. However, the interviews identified a wide range of positive and negative experiences. A further limitation is that this is a single region study, and some comments may relate to specific local logistical issues; however we feel the results are of wider interest and may inform regional audit design in other specialities and regions.The findings of this study have informed the development of a questionnaire to measure agreement to the breadth of perceptions identified, to gain clarity on areas where there was variance in opinion, and to survey change of practice occurring as a result of previous regional audits (John et al., 2009).In conclusion, our regional audit programme was thought to be valuable with unforeseen educational and organisational benefits, and in fostering positive relations across the region. Increased communication between the organisers and participants and engaging stakeholders in regional audit development may increase ownership and ensure sustainability of this unfunded programme. Regional audit appears to overcome some of the problems with local audit and we conclude that regional audit offers a useful and cost-effective adjunct to national audits.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an annual rheumatology regional audit programme that has been running since 2000 in the West Midlands with no additional funding. Specifically it seeks to identify the strengths of, and difficulties with, regional audit and establish if, and how, regional audit differs from local audit.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative approach was adopted and theoretical sampling used to select seven individuals with a range of experiences of the audit process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed, and analysed using thematic analysis.\nFindings: - The programme was thought to be valuable with unforeseen educational benefits for trainees and in fostering positive relations across the region. Regional audit appears to overcome some of the problems with local audit by utilising resources effectively and having sound leadership. Barriers to regional audit included problems with communication between the organising panel and data collecting units, fostering ownership and ensuring closure of the \"audit loop\".\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings are limited by the small sample and the single region nature of the study. The findings have informed a questionnaire to measure agreement to the perceptions identified and survey change of practice occurring as a result of previous regional audits.\nPractical implications: - The findings will inform future planning and hopefully ensure sustainability of this large unfunded programme; the findings will also be of use to other regions and specialties looking to adopt regional audit.\nOriginality/value: - Regional audit offers a useful and feasible adjunct to national audit and this paper describes an evaluation of an innovative scheme.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The episodic spiral model: a new approach to organizational processes
|
[
"Time",
"Change",
"Nonlinearity",
"Spiral"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: How can the field of organizational studies cultivate nonlinear models of processes? More academic scholars are now \"favoring conceptions of change and pluralism that are more consistent with nonlinear notions like chaos and complexity, as opposed to a more Newtonian view of the world\" (Eisenhardt, 2000, p. 703). The spiral is an increasingly popular way to model nonlinear organizational activities. However, many accounts privilege either an upward or downward direction (Nonaka, 1994; Lindsley et al., 1995), clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation (Minahen, 1992), or amplifying or counteracting turn (Minahen, 1992) to model organizational activity. Could it be that spiral processes are nonlinear and multi-directional?\nGLR assumptions: For the past century, organizational studies literature has been dominated by what Andrew Abbott (1981, 1988, 1990, 2001) defines as a set of six \"GLR\" assumptions:\nSpirals to date: a consideration of two types: Spiral theories have the ability to make significant strides toward overcoming the GLR assumptions identified by Abbott (1988). To date, however, spirals found in the organizational science literatures have been distinctly dualistic, either upward or downward. We demonstrate this notion through the exploration of two specific types of spirals: knowledge creation and efficacy spirals, each of which are uni-directional spirals. We also recognize that while our focus will be on these two spiral types, many other uni-directional spirals exist in the literature for a variety of topics. For example, Andersson and Pearson (1999) and Brett et al. (1998) consider downward spirals in addition to those of knowledge creation. More recently, Ferguson and Peterson (2015) considered downward trust spirals occurring in small groups. Examples of wholly downward spirals also exist in the strategy literatures (i.e. Hambrick and D'Aveni, 1988; Hambrick et al., 2001). Wholly upward spirals are also theorized in the literature. For example, Brousseau et al. (1996) and Carson and Carson (1997) consider upward career spirals, while Halbesleben and Wheeler (2015) more recently used an upward spiral to conceptualize their research on the cyclical relationships among support, trust, and resource investment among co-workers.\nThe ESM: Components of the ESM\nESM: new perspectives on space, time, and change in organization studies: The alternative hypothesis presented here is that there is one collective process of spiraling, where a confluence of forces is encountered at each episodic choice point, constituting subsequent directionality. A significant gap remains to be filled before nonlinear thought can be integrated in a way that provides sufficient richness to the understanding of social processes in organizations. We propose to fill this gap through use of the ESM illustrated in Figure 1.\nConclusion and extensions: Based on a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the argument we have constructed throughout this paper is that by overcoming common problems of GLR, scholars can more clearly recognize organizations as moving through a dynamic (rather than static) environment, impacted by space, time, and change. Also, by studying available choices in this environment, we hope to provide scholars with the means to identify a wider range of alternatives available to organizations at any given point in time, as well as the pluralistic spiral processes that develop within organizations over time.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for depicting organizational processes: the episodic spiral model (ESM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the authors demonstrate the need for the ESM by discussing the shortcomings of two specific spiral types in the organizational literature - the knowledge creation spiral and the efficacy spiral.\nFindings: A review of each spiral type through the lens of nonlinear assumptions reveals the treatment to date of organizational spirals as uni-directional and insufficient for understanding organizations. The authors propose that managers must undertake a paradigm shift in order to gain a greater awareness of both the environment in which they operate, as well as their process actions. To facilitate this shift, the ESM depicts choice points, chosen and rejected trajectories, and upward and downward environmental drafts, as well as a multi-dimensional environment, as a way of re-conceptualizing approaches to space, time, and change in organization studies.\nOriginality/value: The authors propose that the model provides a way for scholars to enhance the study of organizations by understanding that organizations exist in a more dynamic environment than previously studied; recognizing that the organization has a wider range of choices available, and acknowledging the long-lasting ramifications of both choices made and choices discarded; and obtaining a more comprehensive look at the way the organization moves through space and time at any given moment. Taken together, the authors hope that these contributions allow organizational scholars a new approach to theorizing, exploring, and writing about the organizations they study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sensory characteristics, proximate composition, dietary fibre content and storage stability of barley, wheat and chickpea composite flour biscuits
|
[
"Food crops",
"Product development",
"Nutrition",
"Sensory perception",
"Cereal foods",
"Storage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The bakery industry in India has been in existence for a long time; contributing factors, such as urbanization, has resulted in increased demand for ready-to-eat, convenient food products, such as bread or biscuits. Biscuits, cookies, cakes are now widely consumed that have relatively long shelf life and good eating qualities. In India, biscuit Industry is the largest among all the food industries and has a turnover of around Rs.3000 crores. The biscuit industry is estimated to grow over 15-17 per cent in the next few years. India is ranked second after US amongst the global biscuits producers. The per capita consumption of biscuits in India is 2 kg and these are usually eaten with tea. In earlier days, biscuits were assumed as sick-man's diet. But now, it has become one of the most loved fast food product for every age group in Indian diets. They are also used as weaning food for infants. The primary ingredients of simple biscuits include wheat flour, water, sugar, fat and eggs. The white flour used for the production of biscuits is deficient in several nutrients including some vitamins, mineral elements as well dietary fibre. Wheat flour by itself lacks certain essential amino acids such as lysine, tryptophan and threonin.Baked products are considered as excellent vehicle for fortification, value addition and feeding at mass scale. Fortification of biscuits is of current interest because of nutritional awareness of consumers. These can be easily fortified (Mishra et al., 1991) with protein rich flours like legume flour and fibre rich source to provide convenient food in order to supplement protein and soluble fibre in the food. The supplementation of chick pea flour at 15-20 per cent level in wheat flour biscuits has been reported to not only improve protein quality but also improve dough texture and sensory attributes in the final product (Masur et al., 2009). Addition of barley flour, a good source of b-glucan fibre can have beneficial effects on health too as soluble fibre has been well documented in controlling chronic disorders like bowel cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc. Therefore, the biscuits prepared from composite flour of wheat, barley and chickpea if used in biscuits, shall not only be nutritious but can have added therapeutic value too. Keeping it in view, the present study was conducted to improve the nutritional quality of wheat based biscuits by incorporating chick pea and barley flour as these are rich source of protein and fibre.\nMaterials and methods: Procurement of raw material\nResults and discussion: Sensory characteristics of biscuits\nConclusions: The results of the study showed that type-III biscuits were most acceptable having highest overall acceptability scores. Chemical analysis of biscuits revealed that all the composite flour biscuits having wheat, chickpea and barley flour contained significantly higher amount of protein, dietary fiber and ash content than the biscuits prepared from wheat flour also A non-significant difference was found in fat content of all the biscuits. Composite flour biscuits contained significantly high amount of total, soluble and insoluble dietary fibre as compared to control biscuits. Shelf-life study of biscuits revealed that composite flour biscuits could be stored up to 45 days at room temperature (35degC) safely of storage without significantly altering the sensory attributes, free fatty acids and fat acidity. By keeping the storage temperature low i.e. 20-25degC packed under vacuum in air tight containers and use of good quality fat can further extend the shelf life of these nutritious value added biscuits which can be served in Mid Day Meal Programme and to children of Integrated Child Development Service Scheme (formerly initiated by UNICEF) safely for improvement of nutritional status of children and ameliorating Protein Energy Malnutrition.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study sensory characteristics, proximate composition, dietary fibre content and storage stability of barley, wheat and chickpea composite flour biscuits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In total, four types of composite flour biscuits were prepared using barley, wheat, and chickpea flour in various proportions. Wheat biscuits served as a control. Sensory characteristics of biscuits were studied by carrying out organoleptic evaluation using a nine point hedonic scale. Standard methods were used to estimate nutrient composition of biscuits. Biscuits were stored in glass jars to study their storage stability. Changes in sensory characteristics, fat acidity and free fatty acids were studied using standard methods during the storage period.\nFindings: - Results of the study revealed that type-III biscuits had highest score for their colour, appearance, aroma, taste, texture and overall acceptability and were \"liked very much\" by the judges. The results showed that crude protein content of all types of composite flour biscuits was significantly higher than that of the control biscuits. A non-significant difference was observed in the fat content of composite flour biscuits. The mean crude fibre and ash content of composite flour biscuits was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than the control biscuits. The composite flour biscuits had a significantly lower amount of total carbohydrate and energy than the control biscuits. Type-I biscuits contained higher total, soluble and insoluble dietary fibre as compared to other types of biscuits. The most acceptable type-III biscuits were stored in glass jars for a period of two months. The shelf-life study of biscuits revealed that for up to 60 days of storage the overall acceptability of biscuits was in the category of \"like moderately\". Chemical analysis of biscuits during storage showed that fat acidity and free fatty acid content of stored biscuits increased with the advancement of the storage period.\nOriginality/value: - This research paper is original.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Evaluation and selection of suppliers considering green perspectives: Comparative analysis on application of FMLMCDM and fuzzy-TOPSIS
|
[
"Decision support systems",
"Supplier evaluation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Green supply chain management (GSCM) is basically a systematic and integrated management philosophy for the companies to maintain their sustainability and competitiveness in the recent global market. In GSCM, supplier selection is an important issue for improving a firm's environmental performance. This is because a good supplier helps supply materials that comply with the regulations and further assists in green design, affecting the performance of the entire supply chain (Tsui and Wen, 2012).\n2. State of art: Traditionally, when evaluating supplier performance, companies used to consider factors such as price, quality, flexibility, etc. However, with increased environmental pressures, many companies have begun to consider environmental issues into traditional supply chain construct and the measurement of their suppliers' environmental performance (Humphreys et al., 2003). A performance evaluation system for green suppliers is thus necessary to determine the suitability of suppliers to cooperate with the firm. While the works on the evaluation and/or selection of suppliers are abundant, those that concern environmental issues are rather limited (Lee et al., 2009).\n3. FST: As computational part of the current work explores a fuzzy-based MLMCDM approach in comparison with fuzzy-TOPSIS; clear understanding on basics of fuzzy numbers set theory, fuzzy mathematics in combination with MLMCDM approach and elements of TOPSIS is indeed required. Hence, the following sections deal with theories of fuzzy sets, definition of fuzzy numbers, linguistic values, defuzzification formula, FMLMCDM model and fuzzy-TOPSIS.\n4. Defuzzifying TFNs with COA: The following formulas are developed to defuzzify TFNs based on dividing the area under the membership function in half. The defuzzification formulas for fuzzy number A in Equation (1) by using COA, i.e. I\n5. FMLMCDM approach: model development: 5.1. Notations\n6. Fuzzy-TOPSIS: The procedural steps of fuzzy-TOPSIS using TFNs have been presented below (Ding, 2011; Liao and Kao, 2011; Haldar et al., 2014).\n7. Case empirical research: In the present reporting, a double-layer hierarchical green supplier evaluation platform has been adapted as depicted in Table II. It has been aimed to evaluate (select) and benchmark suppliers' performance in view of three candidate green suppliers such as A\n8. Managerial implication: Today's business environment has forced the industries to focus on effective supply chain management in order to gain competitive advantage. With the growing worldwide awareness of environmental protection and the corresponding increase in legislation and regulations, green supplier selection has become an important issue for the companies to gain environmental sustainability. A firm's environmental performance is not only related to the firm's inner environmental efforts, but also it is greatly affected by the suppliers' environmental performance as well as \"green image.\" During recent years, how to determine an appropriate supplier in the GSC has become a key strategic consideration. Apart from objective criteria there exist a number of subjective criteria to be taken under consideration while selecting a potential supplier in GSCM. Subjectivity of evaluation information often invites vagueness and ambiguity in the decision making and hence, exploration of FST may be proved fruitful. However, the choice of an efficient decision support module is of utmost important. To this end present work exhibits application potential of FMLMCDM approach in comparison with fuzzy-TOPSIS. Similar ranking order has been obtained from both FMLMCDM as well as fuzzy-TOPSIS which indicates that both the methods are competent. However, working principles of FMLMCDM differs to that of fuzzy-TOPSIS (Table XIX). Industry management may explore these fuzzy-based decision support modules in suitable circumstances to promote effective supplier selection considering green perspectives.\n9. Conclusion: Present study highlights application feasibility of fuzzy-based MLMCDM module (in comparison with fuzzy-TOPSIS) toward appraisement and selection of green suppliers in GSCM. The aforesaid module is capable of working under multi-level integrated criteria hierarchy of green supplier performance appraisement index system. It can further be extended to consider subjective as well as objective performance criterions both. Exploration of FST efficiently overcomes ambiguity as well as vagueness associated with subjective (linguistic) human judgment. Effectiveness of the said fuzzy embedded MLMCDM has been empirically tested in comparison with fuzzy-TOPSIS and illustrated in detail for better understanding of the procedural steps as well as computational part of data analysis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to adapt integrated hierarchical evaluation platform (associated with \"green\" performance indices) toward evaluation and selection of alternative suppliers under green supply chain (GSC) philosophy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this context, incompleteness, vagueness, imprecision, as well as inconsistency associated with subjective evaluation information aligned with ill-defined suppliers' assessment indices has been tackled through logical exploration of fuzzy set theory. A fuzzy-based multi-level multi-criteria decision-making (FMLMCDM) approach as proposed by Chu and Varma (2012), has been case empirically studied in the context of green suppliers selection.\nFindings: Result obtained thereof, has been compared to that of fuzzy-TOPSIS to validate application potential of the aforementioned FMLMCDM approach.\nOriginality/value: The proposed method has been found fruitful from managerial implication viewpoint.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
University brand equity: an empirical investigation of its dimensions
|
[
"Higher education",
"Branding",
"Brand equity",
"Student experience",
"Brand equity scale",
"University branding"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's global marketplace, the role of brand management has been elevated to a new level of importance. Brands as powerful assets represent the essence of a company; therefore, they must be carefully developed and managed. As one of a company's most valuable intangible assets, a brand functions as a powerful differentiator for the business and as a decision-making tool for customers (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller, 1993, 2013). Because brands represent consumers' perceptions and feelings about a product and its performance (Kotler and Keller, 2006), the real value of a strong brand is its ability to capture customer preference and loyalty. At their best, brands represent promises kept, and build loyalty through trust which in turn maintain profitable customer relationships (Kotler and Armstrong, 2012; Reichheld, 2001, 2006). Branding efforts are no longer limited to \"consumer products.\" Firms and organizations in various service industries have been trying to utilize branding strategies to build stronger brands. In this regard, higher education and universities are not exceptions; they have also begun to realize the need to develop sustainable brand strategies. In fact, branding has increasingly become a strategic imperative for universities and other post-compulsory educational institutions in order to develop meaningfully differentiated brands to communicate their strengths (Jevons, 2006).\nBackground: Brand equity\nMethodology: Survey and measurement scales\nAnalyses and results: Discriminant and convergent validity\nImplications and Conclusions: The purpose of this study was to review the relevant literature to identify the factors important for university branding, develop and test the discriminant and convergent validity of measurement scales for university brand equity dimensions, and investigate the relative importance of these brand equity dimensions in creating a strong university brand. Through a review of the literature, we identified brand equity dimensions for university branding, which were classified as core and supporting (Ng and Forbes, 2009; Pinar et al., 2011). The core value-creation dimensions identified are brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand association, organizational association, emotional environment, learning environment, and brand reputation. The supporting value-creation dimensions identified are student living (residence and dining services), library services, career services, and physical facilities. These supporting brand equity dimensions are consistent with the discoveries and findings of the limited prior research regarding brand positioning of higher educational institutions (Gray et al., 2003; Gatfield et al., 1999).\nLimitations: The results identified the factors important for developing a strong university brand and brand equity. However, some caution must be exercised in interpreting the results. The first limitation is that the survey was administered to students at one university. Administering surveys to students at different universities and comparing the results would improve the reliability of the brand equity scales. The second limitation is that the results reflect only students' perceptions. Future studies may include the perceptions of other stakeholders, such as faculty and staff, alumni, recruiters, and other community stakeholders, thus improving the richness of understanding of university brand equity. A third limitation is that the survey was conducted in the USA. Similar studies conducted in other countries could improve the university brand equity scale. Improving on these limitations can improve the generalizability of the scale developed in this study.\nFuture research: This paper was aimed at developing a brand equity scale for university brands and investigating the importance of the contributing brand equity dimensions. However, given the simultaneousness of production and consumption, and the process nature of education as a service (Berry, 2000; Ostrom et al., 2005; Zeithaml et al., 2006), the effects of the various brand equity dimensions could be empirically tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). This model is supported by the brand ecosystem framework (Pinar and Trapp, 2008; Pinar et al., 2011) where core and supporting elements of the education experience are presented as on-going interactions, indicating that student expectations and perceived outcomes are continually updated and revised through direct and indirect experiences with the university environment (Ostrom et al., 2005). The results of SEM could help to identify the specific areas of core and supporting brand equity dimension interaction that are significantly important for creating a strong university brand. This will be the next phase of our research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In today's complex and highly competitive marketplace, universities and colleges, realizing a need to develop sustainable strategies, have turned to branding as a solution. However, because of unique service characteristics, universities' branding attempts may not always result in success. The purpose of this paper, utilizing the concept of brand equity as a foundation of understanding, is to present a framework and scale measurements of university brand equity and its dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Because no prior measurement scales for university branding have existed, the scale measures for this study are compiled from the literature on brand equity measurements identifying the core and supporting value-creation factors for higher education. For this exploratory study, several pretests and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to ensure that the scale items are comprehensible and clearly measure the intended constructs. Students are considered as the target population for this study. Data for the main study were collected at a comprehensive university in the Midwestern USA. A total of 30 classes with varying sizes provided 439 usable surveys.\nFindings: Empirical results from the survey research suggest that some of the brand equity dimensions are more important in developing strong university brands. Of the core dimensions, perceived quality of faculty is the most important brand equity dimension, followed by university reputation and emotional environment, brand loyalty, and brand awareness dimensions for creating a strong university brand. Among the supporting brand equity dimensions, library services was the most important for creating a strong university brand, followed by student living (residence halls and dining services), career development, and physical facilities (e.g. gym, classrooms, labs).\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the target population was students, as a first step, the survey was administered to students at one university. Administering surveys to students at different universities and comparing the results would improve the reliability of the brand equity scales. The significant correlations found among the brand equity dimensions suggest the interconnectedness of these dimensions. The findings have implications for developing and implementing university brand strategies. The authors suggest serious consideration to be given to a holistic approach to branding efforts.\nOriginality/value: The branding literature offers no prior research that develops and tests a scale or examines the issues and factors that are important for developing strong university brands and brand equity for higher education institutions. This study develops the scale measurements through a comprehensive literature review, tests the validity of the measurements, and takes the brand equity theory one step further by identifying the core and supporting-value creation factors suggested sporadically in the literature. The framework suggests that both core and supporting value-creating activities are dynamically interrelated and work jointly in creating student learning experiences, and ultimately, a strong university brand.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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