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Consumer information search and credence services: implications for service providers
|
[
"Credence services",
"Consumer information",
"Involvement",
"Information searches",
"Information sources",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"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.\n1. Introduction: \"Credence goods\" are goods and services characterised by high levels of information asymmetry where it is the seller who often determines the customer\n2. Methodology: 2.1 Research design and measurement\n3. Findings: 3.1 Involvement\n4. Discussion: credence services and consumers' information search processes: The purpose of the present study was to provide greater understanding of consumers\n5. Conclusion and implications: This study has examined the purchase decision process with reference to credence services. Credence services are the most difficult service offerings for consumers to evaluate, before and after purchase, and therefore a better understanding of the main influencers on this process is crucial to service providers and academics in this area. This study has provided a detailed overview of this process and examined specific types of information.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement levels and the information search activity of consumers purchasing credence services, in terms of the extent of the search and the information sources used.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was undertaken (n=400) examining consumers\nFindings: Involvement in the search process is high in terms of importance but not interest. Somewhat surprisingly, consumers of credence services do not undertake a more comprehensive information search than non-credence service purchasers in terms of the use of external sources of information. They do, however, depend more on the opinion of salespeople, the experience of friends and the content of consumer reports.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results of this study differ from similar work that was previously undertaken with students and also in the USA. It would be useful to establish more strongly whether age and culture have an impact on information search.\nOriginality/value: This is the first time that the information search patterns of consumers of credence services have been undertaken for a wide range of common purchases in the UK. It is also original in this area of research in that it utilises a cross section of the population and not students. Its findings are important to the providers of credence services when considering their marketing communications campaigns because it reveals which marketing communication tools are considered by the consumer to be influential.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Understanding effects of salesperson locus of control
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Structural equation modelling",
"Emotional exhaustion",
"Locus of control",
"Role stress",
"Sales force"
] |
[
{
"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.\n1. Introduction: While the linkage between role stress and job satisfaction among salespeople has been studied widely, less attention has been paid to the effect of a salesperson's external locus of control, both directly on job satisfaction and indirectly on turnover through its influence on job satisfaction. Knowing how much control a salesperson feels they have over the events that occur in their life and work could play a significant role in predicting satisfaction with his/her work setting. It also could determine how a salesperson will attribute the causes of negative outcomes, which research has shown occur frequently in sales (Roberts et al., 1997). Will the salesperson feel as if he/she has control over things that occur in his/her life and work, hence attributing a negative outcome to something internal or personal? Or, will the salesperson feel as if he/she has no control over the environment and attribute the cause externally? If employees believe negative job outcomes are caused by forces beyond their control, satisfaction with the employment situation is likely to decrease.\n2. Literature review: To develop hypotheses for this study, previous work on external locus of control has been examined. Rahim (1996) found that external locus of control had a direct effect on two constructs that are often found to cause negative job outcomes in sales:\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Analysis and results: Data were analyzed using LISREL 8.7. First, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. The resulting measurement model showed adequate fit according to Hu and Bentler (1999), with a kh2 value of 612.36 with 479 degrees of freedom (p<0.00), SRMR=0.072, CFI=0.96 and RMSEA=0.057. The average variance extracted for each item was above the recommended level of 0.05 (role conflict=0.56, emotional exhaustion=0.60, job satisfaction=0.58, locus of control=0.54) according to Hair et al. (2010) with the exception of role ambiguity, which was only 0.36. This result is expected, however, as role ambiguity and role conflict have been shown to have a lot of overlap in variance (Carlson and Perrewe, 1999). Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the variance extracted estimates for each pair of constructs with the squared correlation for that construct. The variance extracted estimates should be greater than the squared multiple correlations. All constructs met these criteria except for role ambiguity, which again could be explained by an overlap in variance, indicating that the model meets the criteria for discriminant validity. This overlap in variance is explored further in the Discussion section.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Findings\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of external locus of control on different job characteristic variables - i.e. role conflict, role ambiguity and emotional exhaustion, in addition to the outcome variable, job satisfaction - in a business-to-business sales setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from B2B salespeople were used to test the proposed model using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results indicate that a more external locus of control will be: positively related to role stress factors; indirectly and positively related to emotional exhaustion; and negatively related to job satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: This study provides a managerially actionable foundation for influencing locus of control to increase a salesperson's satisfaction with his/her position.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Potential of blockchain technology in supply chain management: a literature review
|
[
"Blockchain",
"Smart contract",
"E-commerce",
"Global sourcing",
"Supply-chain management",
"Logistics management",
"Disruptive technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper reviews the existing literature on blockchain technology, present some trends and consider its potential in supply chain management (SCM). Blockchain technology is claimed to be one of the most important and innovative technologies developed in recent years (Peters and Panayi, 2015; Pilkington, 2016; PWC, 2015; Swan, 2015). Blockchain is evolving from a secure monetary transaction system into a part of an ecosystem of emerging technologies that include artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics and crowdsourcing, among others. Together, these technologies represent the technical foundation of the future of business activities (Deloitte, 2016; Dorri et al., 2016; Ferrer, 2016; Omohundro, 2014).\nLiterature review: The literature review is divided into six sub-sections. The first talks about the genesis of blockchain technology, the second covers blockchain technology itself. The third sub-section discusses the significance of blockchain technology and the fourth discusses the applications of blockchain technology. The fifth sub-section explains the smart contract and the last sub-section illuminates the key role of blockchain technology in SCM, and its importance and usefulness in business.\nResearch design: From a methodological point of view, literature reviews can be considered content analyses, where quantitative and qualitative aspects are combined to assess structural as well as content criteria (Brewerton and Millward, 2001). The methodology used in this research is based on the work of Seuring and Muller (2008). It consists of five steps:\nAnalysis and discussions: The total number of documents published in peer-reviewed journals, in the English language, that used \"blockchain\" in their titles, keywords or abstracts in the EBSCO Premium database was 357. However, 58 documents were not research papers (Table I). These were dropped from further study leaving 299 papers. The growth in research on blockchain technology has been very rapid, from four papers in 2015 to 181 papers in 2018.\nImplications for SCM professionals: Supply chains have evolved from networks of OEMs and suppliers to a vast ecosystem of multiple parties trying to coordinate and work together efficiently. From connected manufacturing equipment to digital shipping notices and RFID scanning, products are tracked on computerized systems from their earliest origins, often all the way to the recycling bin. The user interface and business processes remain the same. However, information on inventory along the entire supply chain can be shared without the risk of a data breach.\nConclusion: This paper is a review of the existing literature on blockchain technology and an exploration of its suitability in SCM. Some of the advantages of using blockchain are data security, reduction in finance and banking risk and the potential to address fraudulent and manipulative activities. There are many projects underway to apply blockchain technology in global logistics by adding value in supply chain transparency and digitalizing administrative operations. For instance, the Blockchain in Transport Alliance started in 2017 and has an annual turnover of more than $1 trillion. Its members include freight, transportation, and logistics organizations, and affiliated industries. The company provides training on blockchain applications and distributed ledger technology and encourages the use and adoption of new solutions. It has acquired 500 members across 25 nations and has become the largest commercial blockchain alliance in the world. Blockchain technology is adaptable and provides better operational efficiency. It tracks ownership throughout the chain and maintains the integrity of quantity and ownership. Most of the significant investors in blockchain startups are in the USA, including Digital Currency Group, Blockchain Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures (Werbach, 2018).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on blockchain technology, present some trends and consider its potential value in supply chain management (SCM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Papers that contained the word \"blockchain\" in their titles, keywords or abstracts were selected for conducting trend analyses.\nFindings: The blockchain technology is rapidly making inroads in many industries and there is tremendous potential to eliminate intermediaries and to make SCM more efficient.\nResearch limitations/implications: This analysis is limited to 299 papers from the EBSCO database through December 2018.\nPractical implications: This paper highlights the imperative role of blockchain technology that has created a discourse in the world of innovation and technology. This work will help academics to further the understanding of blockchain technology.\nSocial implications: Blockchain technology will provide transparency to consumers.\nOriginality/value: This paper presents the first review of blockchain technology and delves into its value in SCM. This work will help researchers in identifying the areas where blockchain is the most desirable and can be implemented.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Relative measures in service research
|
[
"Loyalty",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Share of wallet",
"Relative metrics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWhy use relative measures?: Customer loyalty has been identified as one of the most important determinants of company growth. Since measures such as customer satisfaction, repurchase intent, brand preference or likelihood to recommend have been found to link to loyalty behaviors, these measures are widely used in the management of consumer loyalty by firms (Aksoy, 2013; Zeithaml et al., 2006). An examination into the research regarding some of these measures and loyalty behaviors however reveals that while the relationship is positive, it tends to be very weak (Keiningham et al., 2011; Hofmeyr et al., 2008; Magi, 2003). This has resulted in difficulty connecting efforts to improve satisfaction with tangible financial outcomes (Aksoy, 2013; Keiningham et al., 2014).\nRelevance of the relative measures approach to the service context: The role of relative measures appears particularly salient in the case of services. Services can be defined as direct (i.e. non-mediated by physical goods) applications of mutual resources in an exchange (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In this case, the essence of a service relationship lies in the absence of \"standardized\" medium that connects the parties involved in the exchange, with the consequence that the service outcomes are inevitably co-created by service customers and service companies (Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011). Therefore, services outcomes are by definition highly subjective and contextual. As such relying on absolute conceptualizations of performance which do not take into account the heterogeneity that characterizes service outcomes can lead both researchers and practitioners to get distorted insights.\nApplications of the relative approach to other constructs: As the example in the preceding section suggests, a relative measures approach could be equally applicable and valuable to a variety of different constructs. Satisfaction with respect to interpersonal quality, technical quality, environment quality and administrative quality (e.g. Dagger et al., 2007), different types of switching barriers (Jones et al., 2000), experiential value (Mathwick et al., 2001), trust, convenience, customer commitment dimensions (Lariviere et al., 2014), etc. are just a few constructs that could also be compared across different providers. For instance, it is plausible that a particular retailer (e.g. characterized by a big assortment, low prices, but not nearby) is preferred in some situations and/or for specific products, but not in other circumstances (e.g. a retailer that is conveniently nearby for last-minute purchases). Furthermore, relative measures can also be valuable in understanding employee commitment. Employees play a crucial role in the service delivery (Bowen and Schneider, 2014), and as such recruiting and retaining employees continues to be a key challenge for many firms. Therefore, organizational behavior research into employee turnover intentions and its drivers could benefit from understanding how employees compare their current employer with alternatives. Employing relative metrics for the above constructs and investigating their link to share-of-wallet and other outcomes of interest can provide managers more actionable insights into how a firm can become the preferred supplier and employer.\nWhat is next? Possible applications of the relative approach to theories in future service research: In conclusion, we propose that the idea of relative measures can transcend simply the measurement of customer service experience by enriching service research outcomes in other domains. Relative measures may be used to provide a deeper understanding of some of the most widely accepted concepts and theories used in service research. Relative measures can potentially enhance the measurement of service quality, might help to streamline processes based on service blueprints, might be a means to establish the satisfaction-profit link within the internal as well as external part of the service-profit chain (SPC) or might reconsider the effects of service recovery actions on consumer behavior. In the following, we refer to two concepts (i.e. the SPC, the service recovery actions) to briefly explain how relative measures might strengthen service research and provide fruitful areas for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce an alternative novel approach to measurement of customer perceptions of the service experience that links closely with customer loyalty outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper draws upon prior theory and empirical research to investigate the relevance of using relative metrics compared to absolute metrics in service research.\nFindings: The findings upon which this paper draws upon show that measuring customer satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, brand preference using absolute metrics explain a very small per cent of the variance in key customer outcome measures such as share of wallet. Instead, a relative approach to these and other measures in service research is proposed.\nPractical implications: Although business practice has embraced relative measurement much more extensively than has scientific research, the vast majority of customer experience measurement programs today continue to employ absolute measures resulting in suboptimal allocation of firm resources. This paper is a call to rethink these current measurement practices.\nOriginality/value: It is one of the first papers to argue for changing the widely employed use of absolute metrics in theory and practice in favor of relative metrics. Application to other service research theories is discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Emerging themes and theories in the sharing economy: a critical note for hospitality and tourism
|
[
"Sharing economy",
"Hospitality and tourism",
"Theories",
"Themes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the global economic downturn and increasing consumer trust in e-commerce and online payments, there has been a major shift towards sharing and collaborative consumption. Belk (2007, p.126) argues that sharing in any given consumption scenario involves \"the act and process of distributing what is ours to others for their use and/or the act and process of receiving or taking something from others for our use\". Sharing is \"the most universal form of human economic behavior\" (Price, 1975, p.1). This established social practice has been extended and reformulated in the shape of \"crowd-based capitalism\" across the business world by both for-profit to non-profit enterprises (Kannisto, 2017; Sundararajan, 2016), for example, unused spare bedrooms can be marketed for either a small fee (Airbnb) or free (Couchsurfing) (Karlsson and Dolnicar, 2016). Led by the shift in customer desire and the appearance of sustainable micro-entrepreneurs, the \"sharing economy\" can be defined as integrated collaboration and ability for human interaction, peer-to-peer (P2P) commercial exchange (e.g. underutilised inventory via fee-based sharing) (Abrate and Viglia, 2017; Acquier et al., 2017; Belk, 2014; Cheng, 2016a; Davidson et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2018; Sundararajan, 2016; Zervas et al., 2017).\n2. The sharing economy in hospitality and tourism services: Recent studies have unearthed a shift in hospitality and tourism field, with scholars dedicating a significant amount of research to issues related to the sharing economy (Abrate and Viglia, 2017; Camilleri and Neuhofer, 2017; Xie and Chen, 2017; Gursoy et al., 2017; Gunter, 2018; Neuhofer and Johnson, 2017; Kreeger and Smith, 2017; Mao and Lyu, 2017; Mody et al., 2017; Pappas, 2017; Priporas et al., 2017; Poon and Huang, 2017; Williams and Horodnic, 2017; Wiles and Crawford, 2017; Xie and Mao, 2017; Zhu et al., 2017). Cheng (2016a) also found that there are 302 news articles from 47 leading newspaper from 2011 and 2015 regarding the sharing economy in tourism. Using the Leximancer software, he highlighted key four areas within these news articles:\n3. Sharing economy, some current themes and related overarching theories in hospitality and tourism research: There are several papers in top-tier hospitality and tourism journals including Tourism Management (TM), Annals of Tourism Research (ATR), Journal of Travel Research (JTR), International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (IJCHM) and International Journal of Hospitality Management (IJHM) covering wide range of topics and themes in relation to the sharing economy. Many of these studies are undertaken in different geographical contexts and employ different methodological approaches.\n4. Concluding remarks: This study provides a variety of definitions with regard to the sharing economy phenomena in the domain of services marketing management in general, with particular focus on the hospitality and tourism industry. It demonstrates how the sharing economy platforms and strategic frameworks for profitable service enabler performance can be applied to P2P services throughout the sector. It highlights the shift from traditional business models to multi-sided platforms and the models inherent within the sharing economy (i.e. chaperones, franchisers, gardeners and principals). Each of these models offers a different value proposition and strategic approach, which may result in specific competitive advantages but can also aid service providers in achieving a more comprehensive understanding of the sharing economy (Constantiou et al., 2017). In addition, the study suggests that meticulous CLV and CEV play an important role in achieving a comprehensive, sustainable and profitable business model (Kumar et al., 2018). Similar to other service-related studies, hospitality and tourism research can benefit by drawing upon both the strategic framework for profitable service enabler performance and the sharing economy models (Figures 1 and 2).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review and synthesise recent studies in the sharing economy literature and identify the knowledge gap and future opportunities for hospitality and tourism researchers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study commences by introducing sharing economy models and strategic frameworks for profitable service enabler performance. Following this, it identifies emerging overarching theories (e.g. complexity theory, social exchange theory, norm activation model, and value co-creation) and some emerging themes (i.e. trust and reputation, disruptive behaviour, choice and segmentation, pricing strategies, socially excluded consumers, personality and satisfaction) in current hospitality and tourism studies from top-tier journals.\nFindings: The findings of the study suggest new paths for advancing theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and tourism studies.\nPractical implications: The themes, models and overarching theories reviewed in this study are relevant and insightful across the fulcrum of hospitality and tourism research. It offers several useful guides for practitioners and academics to trace relevant literature on different aspects of sharing economy and perceptibly highlight the gaps in existing studies.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides new directions to broaden interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches undertaken by scholars within both the field of hospitality and tourism management and beyond.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Understanding the determinants of mobile banking continuance usage intention
|
[
"Malaysia",
"Mobile banking",
"Continuance intention",
"Technology continuance theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, self-service technologies (SSTs) reshape the relationships between organisations and customers and are widely used by firms in order to better serve their customers and inherently gain a competitive edge (Vakulenko et al., 2018). The banking industry is the leading sector in providing SST (Chaouali and El Hedhli, 2019) and offers various SSTs such as automated teller machines (ATMs) and online banking, and more recently mobile banking (m-banking). Particularly, banks have started to provide m-banking to enable customers to perform banking services - including transferring money, making transactions and checking bank accounts - at anytime and place via portable technologies such as smartphones and tablets (Arcand et al., 2017; Baabdullah et al., 2019). M-banking has considerable value for both banks and customers. It benefits banks by reducing their operating costs and improving service quality (Giovanis et al., 2019; Malaquias and Hwang, 2019) and it also benefits customers through great convenience and interactivity, instant connectivity, immediate information and time optimisation (Malaquias and Hwang, 2016; Yuan et al., 2016; Zhou, 2012).\n2. Literature review and theoretical background: 2.1 Technology continuance theory\n3. Model conceptualization and hypotheses development: Using TCT (Liao et al., 2009), current research investigates the factors influencing the continuance usage intention of m-banking services in Malaysia (Figure 1). According to TCT, PU, satisfaction and attitude are the predictors of continuance intention. PEU, PU and satisfaction are the drivers of attitude. Satisfaction is influenced by confirmation and PU. Self-efficacy and channel preference were added to the model to extend its explanatory power.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Measurement of constructs\n5. Results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion and conclusion: Founded by TCT, the present study investigated the determinants of users' continuance intention in the context of m-banking services. The findings indicated that satisfaction, attitude, PU, self-efficacy and channel preferences had the power to explain 67.1 per cent of the variance in continuance intention, thus providing evidence that the extended model of TCT has a high explanatory power to explain the continuance intention to use m-banking system. The results demonstrated that all the proposed hypotheses were accepted, except for the impacts of PEU on attitude and PU.\n7. Theoretical and managerial implications: The present study has several theoretical implications. First, to the best of the authors knowledge, this study was the first attempt in using TCT in explain users' continuance intention to use m-banking. The results indicate that TCT is a powerful model in explaining not only m-banking users' continuance intention, but also users' attitude, satisfaction and PU. Second, the insignificant effect of PEU on both PU and attitude towards m-banking supports the ideas that PEU will lose its importance in the case that the users have experience with the system and consequently become familiar with it. Third, self-efficacy and channel preference were two additional identified constructs relevant to m-banking continuance intention. The two constructs are absent in TCT model. It was found that both factors significantly increased the variance in continuance intention towards m-banking.\n8. Limitations and future research: Although this study successfully accomplished its objectives, its limitations should be considered before generalising the results. First, the majority of respondents in this research (67.8 per cent) were aged between 20 and 40 years old, so the findings might be biased and have limitations in explaining the continuance behaviour of users older than 40 years. Although the distribution of the respondents' ages is representative of the Malaysian population, future studies should test the model of this study among older individuals to shed light on the determinants of their intention to continue to use m-banking systems. Second, the study proposed a number of practices including, communicating security and new features to customers, providing training videos and frequently asked questions, and integration with customers and vendors, in order to enhance m-banking users' intention to use m-banking. Future empirical research is needed to test the impacts of these practices on continuance intention to use m-banking.\n9. Conclusions: Users' continuance intention is important for the further and full success of an m-banking system. In this study, an extended version of the TCT incorporating self-efficacy and channel preference was used to investigate the drivers of m-banking continuance intention. The findings of this study demonstrated that self-efficacy, channel performance, attitude, satisfaction and PU had an important influence on continuance use intention. Satisfaction and PU played significant roles in shaping customers' attitudes towards m-banking. Furthermore, the results demonstrated the impacts of confirmation and PU on customers' satisfaction with m-banking systems. Finally, the relationship between confirmation and PU was confirmed. However, the results indicated that PEU is not a predictor of attitude and PU in the post-adoption stage. The findings of this research not only contribute to the literature on m-banking, but also provide valuable information to enable banks and their marketing managers to understand the factors that may motivate m-banking users to continue to use this system.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The quality of people life and efficiency of banks can be improved by mobile banking (m-banking). The long-term success of m-banking depends on its constant use. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of m-banking continuance intention to use, using the technology continuance theory (TCT) by including the self-efficacy and channel preference.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical data from 369 Malaysian users who had prior experience with mobile banking were analysed, using partial least squares technique.\nFindings: The results confirmed that the TCT model had a high exploratory power in explaining users' perceived usefulness (PU), satisfaction, attitude and intentions to continue to use m-banking. Furthermore, self-efficacy and channel importance were important drivers of continuance intention in the context of m-banking. According to the results, perceived ease of use has no effect on PU and attitude in the post-adoption stage.\nPractical implications: The findings help bank managers to understand the importance of meeting customers' needs and expectations as a prerequisite in enhancing their satisfaction and favourable attitude towards m-banking and consequently their continuance intention.\nOriginality/value: Based on the TCT model, this study contributes to the limited body of research on continuance intention to use m-banking. Furthermore, self-efficacy and channel preferences were added to the TCT model and the results confirmed the importance of enriching the TCT model to explain continuance intention to use information systems by adding contextual factors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The impact of restaurant patrons' flow experience on SNS satisfaction and offline purchase intentions
|
[
"Restaurant",
"Flow experience",
"SNS",
"Offline purchase intention",
"SNS satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to a recent survey, approximately 96 per cent of marketers indicated that they engage in social networking site (SNS) marketing and 92 per cent regard SNSs as important for businesses (Stelzner, 2015). SNS is an internet-based application, which allows individuals to construct a profile within a bounded system and build relationships with other users by sharing various types of information (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).\nLiterature review: The role of social networking sites in marketing\nMethodology: Research design and data collection\nResults: Profiles of respondents\nDiscussion: Conclusions\nLimitations and future research: This study has several limitations. First, the online survey might cause a biased sample. As Wright (2006) indicated, online surveys could be accessed by particular populations of an online survey firm's sample frame that might have special characteristics or demographics, such as technology expertise. Future researchers should carefully consider all the strengths and weaknesses of online and traditional surveys to reduce bias when they select a sample. Second, given that response rates for online surveys are generally at least 16.2 per cent (Medway and Fulton, 2012), an 18.2 per cent response rate could be considered acceptable. However, it does not exclude the possibility of non-response bias. Third, restaurant could be classified as quick service restaurants, family restaurants, fine dining and coffee shops according to their own special characteristics. Likewise, there are many types of SNSs, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and blogs. Each type of SNS has distinguishing traits and management strategies. Thus, consumers' expectations would differ based on each restaurant type and SNS type. Therefore, we recommend that future researchers explore whether the results change according to the type of restaurant, such as ethnic restaurant and fine dining restaurant or type of SNS. Another possible limitation is that the results may reveal differences based on a series of moderators such as SNS involvement, frequency of using SNSs or passive/active usage of SNSs. Therefore, future researchers need to include these variables and expand our knowledge of restaurant consumers' SNS flow experience.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It is important for restaurants' social networking sites (SNSs) to provide a flow experience because it encourages positive brand responses and attracts consumers. However, there is a paucity of research on SNS flow experience in the restaurant industry, and more importantly, most of the research is focused only on online behavior. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how SNS flow antecedents (skill, challenge, telepresence and time distortion) influence overall flow, SNS satisfaction and offline restaurant purchase intentions. In addition, this study examined the mediating role of SNS satisfaction between flow and offline purchase intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was carried out to examine the patron's flow experiences. 517 valid responses were analyzed to test hypotheses using structural equation model.\nFindings: The results indicated that four antecedents of SNS flow positively influenced overall flow. Specifically, time distortion was the most influential antecedent. Overall flow positively influenced SNS satisfaction and offline purchase intentions. Furthermore, SNS satisfaction acted as a mediator between overall flow and offline purchase intentions.\nPractical implications: The findings provide not only new insights for restaurant managers to implement SNS marketing but also several strategies to encourage consumer's flow on restaurant SNS.\nOriginality/value: This study investigated the theoretical framework of flow experience more in depth than previous research as dealing with four dimensions of SNS flow antecedents: skill, challenge, telepresence and time distortion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Deconstructing Candy Crush: what instructional design can learn from game design
|
[
"Online learning",
"Instructional design",
"Universal Design for Learning",
"Candy Crush",
"Course design",
"Game design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2013 it was estimated that Candy Crush Saga, released in 2012 by King Digital Entertainment, had over 100 million daily active users (Sinclair, 2013) and that it was the most downloaded game on the Google Play Store chart (Kim, 2013). Players of this game plow through level after level, and when more levels are added they move through those, too. Why is Candy Crush as addictive as the worst kind of real life candy habit? When retention in online courses is perceived as a growing problem by chief academic officers (Allen and Seaman, 2014, p. 18), what is Candy Crush doing right that can encourage such devotion, and what can instructional design learn from it?\nUDL: The term \"universal design\" was introduced by architect Ron Mace (2008) to describe \"the design of products and environments to be usable by all people\" so as to eliminate barriers and decrease the need for individual accommodations. While originally applied to physical environments, this concept was extended to learning by Rose and Meyer (2002), with the goal of encouraging educators to design learning environments that will accommodate all students and maximize their opportunities for success, as much as possible without the need for individual accommodations. They argue \"barriers to learning are not, in fact, inherent in the capacities of learners, but instead arise in learners' interactions with inflexible educational materials and methods\" (p.vi). The framework has since been updated and expanded further in Meyer et al. (2014).\nDeconstructing Candy Crush Saga: Walsh (2014b) notes \"these days it seems [...] that you're never more than a few feet away from someone playing Candy Crush Saga\" (p. 430) and explains that the game appeals as a result of the \"complex underpinnings to the seemingly simple puzzle\" (p. 430). This section attempts to \"deconstruct\" the design of the game and then offers a \"Course design takeaway\" for each game feature that could be incorporated into instructional design. UDL suggests areas where flexibility is paramount - multiple means of presentation so learners can access content in a variety ways, multiple means of the demonstration of mastery, and multiple means of encouraging engagement. The current analysis expands these three areas to four by examining structural features (analogous to presentation), social features (a component of engagement), cognitive features (analogous to demonstration), and emotional features (a second component of engagement).\nConclusion: Candy Crush can be seen to incorporate the principles of UDL by successfully combining structural, social, cognitive, and emotional design elements into a popular game that is entertaining, challenging, and, many would say, worthless. As Walsh (2014a) muses, \"Many millions of hours have been spent solving Candy Crush. Perhaps we can put this to even better use by hiding some practical NP-hard problems within these puzzles?\" (p. 9). If individuals are willing to spend millions of hours playing a game, how can they be motivated instead to focus their time on educational activities that will help them solve real problems in the real-world? The answer might lie in providing choices that enable learners, like game players, to achieve a sense of \"flow,\" a state in which they are focussed, feel in control, and are intrinsically rewarded by their activity (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002, p. 90). According to this theory, being \"in flow\" is facilitated when challenges \"stretch (neither overmatching nor underutilizing) existing skills\"; when there are \"clear proximal goals,\" and when there is \"immediate feedback.\" All of these are included in the principles of UDL and characteristics of Candy Crush, and all have been suggested here as course design takeaways. The authors argue that \"staying in flow\" requires the right level of challenge and skill, as too low a challenge leads to apathy or boredom and too high a challenge can create anxiety (p. 92). On the other hand, being in flow \"fosters the growth of skills over time\" (pp. 95-96).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore four general design features of King Digital Entertainment's game \"Candy Crush Saga\" - structural, social, cognitive, and emotional - that reflect the principles of Universal Design for Learning and discusses how these features can be applied to course design in order to motivate learner persistence and increase student success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Both authors are casual Candy Crush game players intrigued by how the game motivates users to continue. The methodology began with participant observation and expanded to \"deconstruction\" of game features and application of research findings in multiple disciplines to build the argument that game design strategies can be applied to course design to enhance learning outcomes.\nFindings: Many factors influence game play, but it is crucial for each level to provide increasing challenges that motivate increased mastery but do not frustrate a player to the point of quitting. Similarly, course design that provides the opportunity for learners to achieve a sense of \"flow\" through the opportunity to identify goals, meet challenges, and receive feedback may encourage them to persist even when they are working autonomously as in some online environments.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is based on an analysis of the design of a single game and has not been formally tested on course design. Some suggestions may be easier to implement in courses than others.\nPractical implications: The paper offers 14 structural, three social, four cognitive, and six social design strategies that can be implemented in course design as a way to potentially enhance learner engagement and learning outcomes.\nOriginality/value: No published research exists that connects game design and course design in this fashion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Mix flexibility and volume flexibility in a build-to-order environment: Synergies and trade-offs
|
[
"Bespoke production",
"Mass customization",
"Response flexibility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: From consumer electronics (Trommer and Robertson, 1997) to automobile (Howard et al., 2001) to apparel (Aichlmayr, 2001), firms in these and many more industries are striving to adopt what has been dubbed a \"build-to-order\" (BTO) strategy. A BTO strategy, literally, reflects the idea that value-adding activities - be they distribution, assembly, manufacturing and/or even design - are triggered by customer orders, rather than by forecasts. By performing these value-adding activities to order, a company would accordingly be able to avoid incurring the risks of forecasting uncertain events, which may ultimately lead to excess inventory and poor-service levels (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2005).A BTO strategy is evidently more attractive when forecasting is difficult and forecast errors are large, i.e. when the market served by a firm is turbulent (Anderson, 2004). Market turbulence, from an operational perspective, leads to volume variability and mix variability in the output of the firm. Whereas, volume variability refers to the gross fluctuation of orders for a certain class of products across time, mix variability refers to the fluctuation of the mix of ordered items across time.A BTO strategy, therefore, requires a supply chain that is both:1. volume-flexible., i.e. It can rapidly change its gross output while maintaining cost-effectiveness (Sethi and Sethi, 1990; Khouja, 1997; Jack and Raturi, 2002); and2. mix-flexible., i.e. It can rapidly change the mix of items being delivered to the market while maintaining cost-effectiveness (Berry and Cooper, 1999; Zhang et al., 2003).Mix flexibility, in turn, requires both process flexibility and product flexibility. Process flexibility \"refers to the speed at which the company can make decisions, alter schedules or amend existing orders to meet customer needs\" (Holweg and Pil, 2001, p. 76). Product flexibility, on the other hand, \"relates to how well a company adapts the product to the customer's specifications and how much it is able to delay or reduce the degree of product tailoring\" (Holweg and Pil, 2001, p. 79).But what does it take to implement a BTO strategy? Undoubtedly, insights into the implementation of a BTO strategy can be found in past research on how manufacturing firms can successfully achieve mix flexibility (Ho and Tang, 1998) or volume flexibility (Khouja, 1997; Jack and Raturi, 2002). Yet, understanding how mix flexibility or volume flexibility can be increased may not be sufficient, since the pursuit of a BTO strategy fundamentally forces a firm to strive to simultaneously achieve both volume flexibility and mix flexibility. From both a theoretical and a pragmatic standpoint, it becomes important, therefore, to address the following research questions:RQ1. Are there any interactions between principles and/or practices supporting volume flexibility and those supporting mix flexibility?RQ2. If so, when are these principles and/or practices in trade-off and when do they work synergistically?By seeking answers to these two research questions, we should be able to pinpoint more specifically the extent to which, and the conditions under which, volume flexibility and mix flexibility can be simultaneously pursued within a manufacturing plant and its supply chain. These answers should, in turn, lead to identification of theoretically and pragmatically relevant insights that ultimately would support the implementation of a BTO strategy, especially in terms of volume flexibility, mix flexibility and their interactions.To provide insights into our research questions, we engaged in an in-depth case study to investigate the factors enabling and hindering the simultaneous pursuit of volume flexibility and mix flexibility within a manufacturing plant and its supply chain. The manufacturing plant under scrutiny manufactures equipment for the Lawn & Garden market. In Section 2, we outline the research methodology applied in this study. Then, in Section 3, we describe the research setting, emphasizing the requirements of the research setting as to the volume variability and the mix variability facing this particular manufacturing plant and its supply chain. In Section 4, we report and discuss speculative insights provided by various informants within the manufacturing plant - speculative insights as to actions and initiatives that may be undertaken as part of implementing a BTO strategy. We propose a synthesis of the findings of the study and sketch future research directions in Section 5.\n2 Method: From the outset, a qualitative research approach appeared to be most appropriate in order to address the research questions focusing on the implementation of a BTO strategy. Such an approach would unveil not only what interactions might possibly take place between the principles enabling volume flexibility and those supporting mix flexibility but also \"how\" such interactions might come about (Creswell, 2002).The manufacturing plant selected for this exploratory empirical inquiry offered an ideal research setting, given the corporate decision to pursue a BTO strategy. We timed the collection of interview and archival data to occur after the decision had been made to pursue implementation of a BTO strategy. The decision itself was made after key informants within the manufacturing plant had had sufficient time to review issues and opportunities presented by a BTO strategy. By doing so, we were able to jointly explore with the key informants all the hypothetical options supporting volume flexibility and/or mix flexibility, as well as their interactions, regardless of eventual constraints to the feasibility of each option.In selecting the key informants, we deliberately tried to allow for multiple and divergent perspectives with respect to issues related to implementing a BTO strategy within the manufacturing plant. We identified and targeted the plant manager, the accounting manager, relevant product design engineers, relevant manufacturing process engineers and relevant supply management specialists for interview data collection. Interviews were conducted onsite by two or more members of the research team and were tape-recorded to avoid loss of information or distortion of meaning and to allow for an assessment and verification of content validity after transcription (Rubin and Rubin, 1998; Kvale, 1996). We developed an interview protocol consisting of a set of open-ended questions, exploring what solutions the key informants considered in order to implement a BTO strategy, as well as what obstacles they foresaw in the pursuit of such solutions. We asked, to the extent possible, the same questions of multiple informants in order to increase the reliability of the collected interview data (Jick, 1979). Moreover, we also collected data from a second-fundamental source of information, namely archival documents, internal presentations, internal and official reports, etc. We triangulated the interview data from key informants with the data from the secondary information sources, so as to further strengthen the reliability of the collected data (Scandura and Williams, 2000).When data collection had concluded, we performed intra-case analyses adopting the coding techniques recommended by Strauss (1987). We first clustered interview data into large conceptual categories (open coding) and subsequently identified sub-categories (axial coding), according to an indented coding scheme (Rubin and Rubin, 1998). The coding scheme included a description of the current architecture of the product, as well as of the current configuration of the supply chain. An additional part of the codes covered the reasons why the company had chosen to pursue a BTO strategy, the possible options for implementing a BTO strategy, and the obstacles to the implementations of these options, all according to the key informants.\n3 The research setting: 3.1 Market trends\n4 Implementing a BTO strategy: insights from LawnWorks for flexing volume and/or flexing mix: During the interviews with the various plant informants, the interviewees were prompted to discuss potential solutions - i.e. principles and/or practices - that they thought should be adopted in order to implement a BTO strategy. As part of this discussion, the plant informants also offered up their perspectives on factors that would hinder efforts at implementing a BTO strategy. Subsequent analyses of both the interview data and the various secondary data sources not only identified common solutions discussed by plant informants but also highlighted a number of interactions, both positive and negative, between solutions for increasing volume flexibility and those for increasing mix flexibility.4.1 Product flexibility\n5 Managerial implications: Our findings indicate that meeting the joint requirements for mix and volume flexibility is a demanding objective, as multiple trade-offs do exist between practices aimed at improving mix flexibility vis-a-vis those aimed at improving volume flexibility. In our specific research site, \"focused factories,\" \"Design-For-Assembly/Manufacturing,\" \"three-shift production,\" \"chase approaches to capacity addition,\" and \"workers training programs\" appeared to improve volume flexibility at the expense of mix flexibility. The awareness of these trade-offs prompted many managers to stress the risk of \"blindly pursuing\" a BTO strategy. Accordingly, multiple informants proposed to reduce the requests for flexibility by leaving part of the ideal flexibility unmatched by the supply chain. This would entail such approaches as \"rank forecasts based on their reliability, and then build to order only those items whose forecasts are more uncertain,\" \"increase forecast reliability for certain items though demand management initiatives,\" and \"time-phase product changes outside seasonal peak.\"Nevertheless, our study highlights potentially important synergies between volume and mix flexibility as well. Practices supporting mix flexibility, in fact, may support volume flexibility too, thus offering to manufacturing companies the attractive possibility of \"killing two birds with one stone.\" This is because mix flexibility implies less time is wasted in switching production from an item to a different one. The reduction of set-up times would automatically free up time for production, so that increased mix flexibility would also imply increased maximum theoretical output and - potentially - increased volume flexibility. Of course, such potential increase of volume flexibility would materialize to the extent that significant fixed costs are not incurred to improve mix flexibility. \"Component standardization\" and \"components-process interface standardization\" have been consistently stressed by our informants as approaches to simultaneously increase not only mix flexibility - as everybody knows - but also volume flexibility.The insights provided by our informants suggest that a contingency approach should be taken towards the formulation of BTO strategic plans. Such a contingency approach postulates that different practices would differently support volume and mix flexibility improvements. Likewise, different companies face different volume flexibility and mix flexibility strategic requirements. Therefore, different mixes of BTO practices are needed by different companies to implement a BTO strategy appropriate to prosper in their environment. Unfortunately, the trade-offs existing between mix flexibility and volume flexibility constrain the capacity of a company to implement the BTO strategy perfectly fitting its environment. Consequently, a company may have to decide whether:* it should prioritise volume flexibility or mix flexibility;* it can alter the requirements for volume and mix flexibility in its environment; and* it can move to a new environment where the requests for mix and volume flexibility can be more easily met.\n6 Conclusions, limitations, and future research: The present research explores and formalizes some of the operational challenges and opportunities a firm may face when implementing a BTO strategy. Taking a strictly operational perspective, we framed BTO strategy implementation as the simultaneous achievement of volume flexibility and mix flexibility. This framing allowed us not only to theoretically and empirically juxtapose BTO within the well established Operations management concepts of mix flexibility and volume flexibility but, more importantly, to take advantage of the concepts of performance trade-off and performance compatibility (Skinner, 1974; Mapes et al., 1997; Filippini et al., 1998) in understanding possible synergies and constraints in the implementation of BTO.According to Yin (1984), the legitimacy of case studies stems from the opportunity to pursue analytical generalization as opposed to statistical generalization. Therefore, rather than trying to select a \"representative\" case or set of cases, we strived to generalize our study's results by explaining the logic that justifies the discovered insights. Nonetheless, we are cognisant of the fact that the validity of these insights is not set a priori but must be further strengthened through subsequent scientific inquiry (Whetten, 1989).Clearly, the same phenomenon should be studied in other research settings as well, so that other significant independent or contextual variables can be unearthed and included in subsequent theorizing efforts. Moreover, any eventual theory of BTO strategy implementation in terms of the joint pursuit of volume flexibility and mix flexibility within a supply chain would necessarily have to undergo a large-scale empirical test. Research focusing on the organizational factors that drive firms' decisions with respect to how to implement a BTO strategy would be highly relevant. Finally, organizational theories, such as trade-off theory (Campbell and Kelly, 1994), may complement a pure operations management perspective and lead to enriched descriptions, explanations, and predictions about the implementation of a BTO strategy within a manufacturing plant and its supply chain.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to investigate the factors enabling or hindering the simultaneous pursuit of volume flexibility and mix flexibility within a supply chain through the lens of a manufacturing plant seeking to implement a build-to-order (BTO) strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To accomplish this empirical investigation, an in-depth case study involving a manufacturing plant and its supply chain was designed. Prior to primary and secondary data collection, this research setting had already decided to implement a BTO strategy and had, moreover, carefully assessed several practices for BTO strategy implementation, as well as their interactions.\nFindings: - The studied case suggests that a number of approaches typically used to increase volume flexibility, actually negatively affect mix flexibility and vice versa. The existence of such trade-offs may ultimately inhibit the implementation of a BTO strategy and this was the case in the studied company. Nevertheless, empirical evidence also suggests that, to some extent, volume flexibility and mix flexibility may be achieved synergistically, as initiatives such as component standardization or component-process interface standardization would improve both volume flexibility and mix flexibility.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The pursuit of volume flexibility and mix flexibility in implementing a BTO strategy in a specific setting and from primarily an operations management perspective was investigated. As such, the findings can be complemented by viewing the case study results through the lens of other established general management theories or by replicating the study in different research settings.\nOriginality/value: - While past research informs us about how manufacturing firms can successfully achieve mix flexibility or volume flexibility, there are few insights for understanding how volume flexibility and mix flexibility can both be simultaneously achieved within a manufacturing plant and its supply chain. This research fills this gap in the literature and contributes to the development of a theory of BTO strategy implementation, especially in terms of volume flexibility, mix flexibility and their interactions.\n",
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] |
Spatial convenience: bridging the gap between shopping malls and shopping strips
|
[
"Convenience",
"Shopping",
"Patronage",
"Malls",
"Retail centres"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Despite the emergence of various hybrid versions, shopping malls and shopping strips (also referred to as the downtown area, central business district, Main Street or the High Street) still serve as the two predominant retail centre formats in most developed nations. Since its inception, the shopping mall has competed with the shopping strip for market share and in many markets has emerged as consumers' preferred shopping destination (Damian et al., 2011; Gorter et al., 2003; Hall, 2011; Hernandez and Jones, 2005; Kuruvilla and Joshi, 2010; Shen et al., 2011). Despite the significance of this trend, it has been largely overlooked in the retail literature (Teller, 2008; Teller et al., 2008).\n2. Intra-centre spatial convenience: why is it of potential importance?: A key reason behind the potential importance of intra-centre spatial convenience is the physical limitations that many consumers must endure due to aging, declining fitness levels (Knuth and Hallal, 2009) and physical disabilities (Kaufman, 1995). For example, the worldwide population of consumers aged over 65 will more than double from its current estimate of 180 million to an estimated 370 million by 2050 (United Nations, 2010). In Australia, the number of consumers aged over 65 is forecast to mirror this trend, jumping from its current level of 13 per cent of the total population to 25 per cent by 2056 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008). The aging of the population highlights the need for senior-specific marketing strategies, not only in terms of convenience in general (Pettigrew et al., 2005), but intra-centre spatial convenience specifically. However, very few retail centres as they currently stand, are regarded as being well placed to serve the needs of an aging population (Myers and Lumbers, 2008). If this proposition is correct, it has ramifications for both strips and malls.\n3. The four attributes of intra-centre spatial convenience: As highlighted in Section 1, intra-centre spatial convenience comprises retail concentration, the size of a centre, its layout and its store compatibility. Retail concentration refers to the segregation of retail and non-retail firms so as to create a dedicated, compact shopping environment. By doing so, retailers provide spatial convenience through their relative proximity to other retailers. This proximity is enhanced when retailers are concentrated in the centre's core. The greater the proportion of stores in the retail core, the greater its concentration. Conversely, a retail centre with stores dispersed throughout its confines, adds to the spatial costs of shopping. In spite of its potential importance, just one study on retail concentration - to the best of the authours' knowledge-has ever been undertaken (Reimers and Clulow, 2004). While that study found that the mall offers a greater degree of retail concentration than the strip, the importance consumers assign it was never established via empirical research.\n4. Method: Multiple approaches were used to address the research questions. In order to address the first four questions, a demand-side analysis of consumer attitudes was used. A supply-side analysis was then used to address the fifth research question by comparing malls and strips in their provision of the attributes of intra-centre spatial convenience.\n5. Results: 5.1. Demand-side results\n6. Conclusion: 6.1. Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: Due to rising obesity levels, declining fitness levels, an aging population, and shopper lethargy, retail planners must give serious consideration to the physical demands retail centres place on their patrons. The purpose of this paper is to determine the importance consumers assign to spatial convenience, measure how consumers perceive shopping malls and shopping strips (also referred to as the downtown area, central business district, Main Street or the High Street) in relation to it, and compare them in their provision of it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study utilises a household survey of consumers and as well as a retail audit. The survey was used to identify the importance consumers assign to spatial convenience, while the retail audit was used to establish how malls and strips compare in their provision of it.\nFindings: The results of the survey indicate that consumers regard spatial convenience as important and believe that malls are superior in providing it. The retail audit confirmed the accuracy of these perceptions, with the mall providing greater store compatibility, and a more compact shopping environment.\nOriginality/value: The influence of spatial convenience on shopping behaviour has been largely overlooked at the level of the retail centre. Moreover, those studies that have focused on this topic, have typically done so from the singular focus of either malls or strips. This study incorporates both, and does so via an empirical analysis of consumer attitudes and a spatial comparison of both retail formats.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Parallelization and analysis of selected numerical algorithms using OpenMP and Pluto on symmetric multiprocessing machine
|
[
"Algorithms",
"OpenMP",
"Auto parallelization",
"Code parallelization",
"Hand parallelization",
"Pluto"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Parallelization is the act of designing a computer program to process data in parallel. Without parallelization, computer programs compute data serially, they solve one problem and then move to the next. If a computer program is parallelized, it breaks a problem down into smaller pieces that can each independently be solved at the same time by discrete computing resources (Thakkar et al., 2017). The parallel machines are being built to satisfy the increasing demand of higher performance for numerous applications. Multi and many-core architectures are becoming a hot topic in the fields of computer architecture and high-performance computing (Culler et al., 1999). The availability of multicore processor has made the programmer to change their way of computing. While creating a new application, the programmer prefers parallel computing to obtain the efficient performance in valuable time and to utilize the available cores. There is a need to either re-write them or convert them to parallel using some tools.\n2. Literature survey: 2.1 Automatic parallelization tools\n3. Methodology: The methodology we proposed here should be able to scan the input file and produce the output for sequence code and parallel code for the specific classified problem used.\n4. Execution and result analysis: The execution of the work is accomplished using the C language, OpenMP and Pluto-0.11.4 automatic parallelization tool on Ubuntu 14.04 operating system. The execution is performed with care by keeping only selected process running and suspending others. The experiments are conducted several times before we come to the conclusion. The implementation process is explained in the following steps.\n5. Conclusion and future work: Auto parallelization tool is not matured enough to handle deskill to desk programs. Automatic parallelization tool is effective to certain type of problems and types of constructs. As we have observed that Pluto can parallelize numeric, dense, affine and regular problems, it cannot handle loop-carried dependencies. Main aspect of our project was to classify the problems based on numeric, dense, affine and regular. Based on the above classification, we have done serialization, hand parallelization and auto parallelization after selecting the tool as discussed. We analyzed that parallelization is better than serialization for the study. The classified programs will help the user to choose the suitable approaches on shared memory architecture. Classified problems are successfully executed on the platform Linux and fed into automatic parallelization tool. The result is showed in tabular and graphical forms. Execution time for automatic parallelization tool and hand parallelization is noted down and bar graph is plotted. From the above study, we recommend users to choose matrix multiplication, Dijkstra's algorithm and Floyd's algorithm to parallelize using Pluto tool and matrix vector multiplication and matrix addition to be used in OpenMP. User can select the classified problem and establish the ease for migration of the application on the shared memory architecture using auto parallel tool and hand parallelization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In recent years, there is a gradual shift from sequential computing to parallel computing. Nowadays, nearly all computers are of multicore processors. To exploit the available cores, parallel computing becomes necessary. It increases speed by processing huge amount of data in real time. The purpose of this paper is to parallelize a set of well-known programs using different techniques to determine best way to parallelize a program experimented.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A set of numeric algorithms are parallelized using hand parallelization using OpenMP and auto parallelization using Pluto tool.\nFindings: The work discovers that few of the algorithms are well suited in auto parallelization using Pluto tool but many of the algorithms execute more efficiently using OpenMP hand parallelization.\nOriginality/value: The work provides an original work on parallelization using OpenMP programming paradigm and Pluto tool.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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"Fact" and "fiction": enlivening health care education
|
[
"Popular culture",
"Health care education",
"New public management",
"Health care",
"Education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: When faced with the prospect of delivering a leadership program for health care professionals, we were looking for some types of workplace incidents that could be used both to simulate these and stimulate the students' imaginative and critical engagement. Together we had written quite extensively on the use of popular cultural texts, usually film and television narratives, to engage and educate undergraduate students (Sheridan and O'Sullivan, 2003; O'Sullivan and Sheridan, 2005), and were familiar with similar work in the area (Hassard and Holliday, 1998; Rhodes and Westwood, 2008). Recently, faced with delivering a postgraduate program to health care professionals already functioning in leadership roles, we wanted to achieve a similar level of imaginative engagement but also extend the learning outcomes to include an understanding of our decision to incorporate narratives from popular culture. In essence, we wanted to increase the students' awareness of the impact cultural narratives can have on their own expectations and understandings and those of the people they variously lead, manage or work alongside in their organizations. For them to acquire such awareness it appeared necessary that we also engage them in a wider critical exploration of the nature and operations of ideology, including the effects of ideologically installed hierarchies of knowledge such as those constructed as \"high\" and \"low\" cultural texts in terms of how they are valued and have the capacity to shape perceptions. With an eye to this, we selected as our teaching texts the British hospital based television series, Bodies (2005-2006), and a government inquiry into an Australian state based public health system, the Garling Report (Garling, 2008), for critical comparison.\nEnlivening health management education: Following the spate of corporate scandals experienced over the past decade and the fallout from the global financial crisis, questions have been raised about the role of management education and its apparent failure to educate socially responsible managers (Chia and Holt, 2008; Giacalone, 2004; McAuley and Sims, 2009; Mintzberg, 2004). Health management education has also attracted considerable critical attention, with unease expressed by many about the capacity of health management programs to produce graduates equipped for the challenges of the real world (Calhoun et al., 2008; Mecklenberg, 2001).\nThe invisibility of ideology: Bodies is a medical drama set within the Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) wards of South Central Infirmary, a large British public hospital at a time when new public management (NPM) is clearly influencing organizational practice (Oliver, 2005; Storey, 2011). The drama operates within the conventions of narrative realism, in that it employs the various technologies of television to \"naturalize\" its settings, characters and events. This seemingly \"real\" quality in the drama serves to disguise the extent to which that \"reality\" is constructed within and inflected by the ideological contexts within which it is produced and viewed (Sheridan and O'Sullivan, 2003, p. 301). In essence, ideology is used here to connote a set of cultural values and associated practices that are accepted as \"self-evident\" or \"common sense\". Bodies, and for that matter, the Garling Report, \"like any other cultural report or creation carries, implicitly or explicitly, ideas about how the world is or should be seen and how men and women should see each other in it\", and such representations \"are never innocent visions of the world\" and are therefore in need of close analysis (Corrigan, 1994, p. 87). However, it must be noted that the operations of ideology are not always readily identifiable or easily resisted. Indeed, as Buchbinder (1998, p. 4) observes:\nNew public management (NPM): For the public sectors in many Western industrialized nations, the past two decades can be characterized as the ascendancy of the managerial prerogative. The public sectors of the UK, Australia and New Zealand, in particular, were subject to criticism about their outmoded practices, and experienced significant change as policy makers sought to \"roll back\" the state (Newman and McKee, 2005) and inject market forces into government-owned enterprises (Barzelay, 2001; Currie and Learmonth, 2010; Gauld and Derret, 2000). Public-sector organizations were forced to provide evidence of greater financial accountability, measures of efficiency and a changing relationship between service providers and customers (or greater client responsiveness). Key performance indicators (KPIs) (or more recently Key Result Areas; KRAs) were reified and embedded in performance management systems. A key component of NPM in its nascent stages was the promotion within the public sector of \"new attitudes\" towards profit center management, performance management, quality management, business planning and \"culture management\".\nThe two texts: Bodies and the Garling Report are two narratives that are very different in genre; one is a television drama, and received as overtly fiction, while the other is a government-commissioned report, and received as ostensibly fact. However, each constructs a narrative through its processes of interpretation, and together they provide an interesting depiction of NPM in public health systems. In both of our selected narratives, we find vivid examples of organizational experiences through which the implementation of NPM in the health systems of the UK and Australia can be critiqued.\nIdeology and Garling's recommendations: What is most disturbing about the Garling Report is that despite the criticism Garling directs to the misguided approach taken by the health system, ultimately the report's recommendations reinforce the NPM hegemony. While the report appears quite \"objective\" in its acknowledgement and enumeration of problems within the health system, in its recommendations it seems unable to step outside of the particular frames and assumptions of NPM. The solution to NPM-induced health system problems is to do NPM better - critiquing the details of the implementation but not the underlying priorities. The report is unable to free itself from the pervasiveness of the paradigm of NPM.\nConclusion: Our use of cultural texts allows us to offset the tactical reductionism (textbook theory and functional case studies) evident in much of the more mainstream management education. In this paper we have illustrated how we have employed two such texts, the television drama Bodies and the government-sponsored Garling Report, in a postgraduate program. Through a critical reading of these two narratives, we have demonstrated how such texts can be used to challenge mainstream management preoccupations - in this case NPM - for the purposes of developing creative and productive relations. These understandings emerge from an approach that offers something novel to the health management curriculum. The comparative analysis of these two texts opens up discussion and learning possibilities about the always already constructed nature of all narratives, be they framed as \"fact\" or \"fiction\" and how these function in the wider ideological climate. In so doing, they provide a platform for more closely integrating the political and social dimensions of managing. Participants in this process of learning are alerted to the ideological workings, and while we are not claiming all will be able to exercise emancipatory change, the honing of their critical skills in the manner we have described may enable a change in the material ways in which they act in their workplaces, through opening a framework for contestation and allowing for an exploration of alternatives.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to demonstrate how close analysis of cultural narratives can be employed as effective pedagogical tools in the explication and critique of specific workplace issues relevant to health management education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two narratives have been selected to illustrate this point: the apparently \"fictional\" UK-based medical television drama series Bodies (2005-2006) and the apparently \"factual\" report of an Australian state government public inquiry into acute health care, the Garling Report.\nFindings: Through their demonstration of how analyses of selected segments of these texts can be used in health management education, the authors conclude that the comparative analyses of ostensibly \"fictional\" and \"factual\" narratives allow for analysis and critique of the inadequacies of new public management (NPM) applied to the health care industry, leading to a greater understanding of wider ideological effects on public perceptions.\nPractical implications: The authors argue that these understandings enliven students' learning experiences, and that such comparative analyses should be applied more widely across health management education to develop students' critical skills and openness to exploring alternative models.\nOriginality/value: Comparative analysis of cultural texts is novel in health care education, and allows for the interrogation of ideology and its effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of the Greek economic recession on workplace learning
|
[
"Informal learning",
"Human resource development",
"Workplace learning",
"E-learning",
"Strategic communication",
"Formal training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: On August 21, 2018, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, announced the end of almost ten years of bailout agreements with the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that totaled EUR288.7bn - the world's most substantial financial rescue ever undertaken (Rankin, 2018). Among all the member states of the EU, Greece has the highest long-term unemployment rate (20.3 per cent in Q1-2018) and the second highest in the world after South Africa (27.6 per cent) (Amadeo, 2018).\nLiterature review: Workplace learning is a process of acquiring new knowledge, professional behaviors, skills, values, preferences, or understanding (Eraut, 2004). According to Becket and Hager (2002, p. 244) learning \"resides in individual minds, not bodies; is propositional (true, false, more satisfied, or less specific); can be expressed verbally and written down in books\". Workplace learning is a critical element of human resource development and lies at the heart of productivity (Sparr et al., 2017). Being prepared and proactive is essential for businesses to come out of a state of uncertainty (Syrett and Devine, 2012). Problematic companies usually resort to selective layoffs or, to use a current business term, aim to rightsize the human capital (Bloemen et al., 2018). Employees are constant learners who acquire new knowledge and skills by \"observing and experiencing work practices\" (Pillay et al., 2003, p. 109).\nMethodology: The decision to collect data by adopting a qualitative research approach relies on phenomenology, which pursues sound subjective knowledge by exploring people's actions and interpretations of social phenomena (Bryman, 2004). Since the impact of the Greek economic recession on workplace learning has not been studied thoroughly (Mitsakis, 2014), the existing literature may not be able to support significant findings. Qualitative methods are suitable for exploring relatively new topics. These methods allow researchers to dive into the topic and find out the subtle themes within the data. Qualitative methods are also appropriate for discovering the meaning behind social phenomena (Bryman, 2004).\nFindings and discussion: The paper explores the need for and the impact of workplace learning on people's working skills. Through a series of ten semi-structured interviews, the paper investigates the effects of the Greek economic recession on workplace learning. This study identifies three patterns within the data. The first is the views of Greek professionals concerning the impact of the Greek economic recession on local business. The second pattern explores whether formal learning at work is worth the investment in both financial and human resources. The third pattern discusses whether workplace learning is seen as a competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining the best talent (Sparr et al., 2017).\nConclusions: As a result of this study, the following claims can be made:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to examine the impact of the Greek economic recession on workplace learning. Specifically, it surveys the views of Greek business professionals regarding whether workplace learning could be used as a competitive advantage in achieving business success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper follows a qualitative research method and discusses the findings of semi-structured interviews with professionals in various industries in Greece.\nFindings: This study provides evidence of an overall reluctance to adopt formal learning strategies. Although hiring and retaining the best talent at work is seen as a competitive advantage, Greek professionals do not attribute success to formal workplace learning. Instead, digitalization of informal learning becomes essential for acquiring new knowledge.\nSocial implications: In the first few years of Greece's economic recovery, companies aim to keep their budgets low in anything that seems luxurious and ultimately unnecessary. The paper discusses some implications of the implementation of digitalized informal learning in business.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to explore how Greek professionals from various business sectors and managerial levels view workplace learning during the initial years of the country's economic recovery.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
"Power to the workers": Empowering shop floor workers with worker-centric digital designs
|
[
"Innovation",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Changing demands in the global markets lead manufacturing companies to increasingly transform previously mass-produced items into individualized products (Koren, 2010), thereby making the flexibility of production practices a key success factor of the twenty-first century (Nahmias and Olsen, 2015). To guarantee this flexibility, shop floor workers' problem solving and decision-making capabilities become increasingly important (Secchi and Camuffo, 2016). In order to enable such capabilities, companies need to empower employees by providing adequate structural conditions (Hirzel et al., 2017).\n2. Theoretical background: We conducted an extensive literature review as a starting point for our empirical research. With regards to scientific publications, we followed a structured approach (Webster and Watson, 2002) by searching leading journals using the keyword filters that the online databases EBSCO and IEEE Xplore, the ACM Digital Library and Google Scholar offer. Our search covered but was not restricted to the terms \"empowerment\" OR \"empowerment theory\" OR \"structural empowerment\" AND \"ICT\" or \"digitalization\" OR \"smart factory\" OR \"industry 4.0.\" Conference proceedings were also considered in order to complete the list of articles. Forward and reverse searches provided us with additional relevant articles for our study.\n3. Methodology: To understand how organizations can provide shop floor workers with empowerment structures, we conducted a case study at a large worldwide operating producer of high-quality raw material. We carried out an in-depth analysis of this single case in order to gain insight into empowerment structures that could be observed in a particular team within the company (Flyvbjerg, 2006), and to be able to study these complex situations in their specific context (Gibbert et al., 2008). Subjectivity plays an important role in the cognitive processing of our data. So, instead of claiming objectivity, we rely on intersubjectivity (Dube and Pare, 2003) by involving a team of researchers in the data collection and analysis. Whereas single case studies usually do not allow for statistical generalization, we accept \"analytical generalization\" (Gibbert et al., 2008) from our results to theory, rather than relying on a population to justify findings.\n4. As-is situation in the case company: 4.1 A typical day of the maintenance team (Problem scenario)\n5. Intervention: Building on the practical problem situation described above, as well as the theoretical considerations about workplace empowerment, we created an activity scenario (further referred to as ICSE.me) that demonstrates the potential improvements an ICT solution could effect in supporting the employees in their daily work. This activity scenario serves as a unit in the following analysis.\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Toward a framework for ICT-supported structural empowerment\n7. Conclusion, limitations and future work: Many companies see the need for increasing their production flexibility in order to stay competitive. In this context, a specific aim is to assist their shop floor workers in problem solving and decision making, thereby empowering them. We studied the mobile maintenance team of an international industrial organization, and found that their current work situation can be improved in a number of ways by implementing an ICT solution which extends the scope of their problem solving and decision making. We implemented an ICT solution giving them better access to information, to resources, to support and to opportunities, thus structurally empowering them. Beyond applying structural empowerment theory, we were able to give rich insights into the situations before and after the deployment of the solution by using a scenario-based design approach.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reveal how information and communication technology (ICT) can empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors gather data from a mobile maintenance department of a steel manufacturing company and apply the method of a scenario-based design. The authors use data from interviews, observations and company documents to create problem and activity scenarios. The authors also demonstrate the development of a worker-centric digital design in multiple demonstration and evaluation cycles.\nFindings: The authors find that ICT can be used to ensure that empowerment is not only a concept, but can sustainably empower daily operations.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors contribute to theory by showing how structural empowerment can be used as a guiding theoretical lens to design ICT for shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing work environments. These implications are limited to findings from a single case study.\nPractical implications: The results provide an overview of different empowerment dimensions, namely, the access to information, resources, support and opportunities, that can support employees in collaborative manufacturing environments.\nOriginality/value: This paper is first in suggesting a framework of how ICT designs can be used to empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Compromise is so ... compromised: Goldilocks, go home
|
[
"Research",
"Gap analysis",
"Marketing",
"Consumers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: I read recently about a cat burglar who snuck into a luxurious house one night at about 3:00 am, got confused in the dark, tripped on a child's toy, hurt himself, and successfully sued the homeowner for medical damages. Presumably, our sympathies in this case lie not with the injured robber - guilty as sin - but rather with the innocent homeowner, just minding his own business and trying to get a good night's sleep.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to discuss issues concerning the desirability of finding ways to close the gap between academic research and management practice - especially in the case of marketing and consumer research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The issues are addressed by means of a personal essay.\nFindings: - The discussion adopts the extreme viewpoint that achieving a reconciliation or resolution of the differences between scholarly inquiry and managerial relevance in either research or teaching constitutes an undesirable or even deplorable form of compromise.\nOriginality/value: - The essay concludes that - contrary to the wisdom of Goldilocks - compromise between academic scholarship and practical relevance merits opprobrium rather than approbation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Visitors' use of corridors in internal medicine wards: Modalities of territoriality, proxemics, and privacy while waiting
|
[
"Healthcare",
"Privacy",
"Post occupancy evaluation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study analyzes visitors' waiting behavior in corridors of an internal medicine ward in Israel. Inpatient hospital corridors present unique challenges for spatial planning, as different users with conflicting needs share the same space (Ulrich, 1991).\nMethods: direct naturalistic observations and behavior mapping: This study was guided by the exploratory question of how different locations in internal medicine corridors attract different types of activities that visitors engage in while waiting. After initial visits, the analysis presented in this paper was narrowed down to examining the ways in which personal space and territoriality are manifested in relation to the architectural character of the internal medicine wards, as these concepts are expected to operate differently in internal medicine wards compared to other settings. An internal medicine ward at Beilinson Hospital in Rabin Medical Center, Petah Tikva, Israel, served as case study. The research received approval (#2016-42) from the Institutional Review Board/Ethics (IRB) Committee of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Because observations focused on visitor behavior only, without requiring identifiable information, and took place in public hospital corridors, consent forms were not required by the IRB. The hospital's CEO approved the research in writing.\nFindings: Counts from the 66 behavior maps in resulted in records of 147 visitors and 285 instances of waiting while standing/sitting still, that are categorized (Figure 2). In total, 47 instances were eliminated from the counts because of the lack of clarity of the information that was recorded.\nDiscussion: This project examined the environmental needs of visitors while waiting in corridors of an internal medicine ward in Israel through observations and behavioral mapping. The research design was shaped with two main goals in mind. One of these goals was to further examine personal space theories in the context of health-care activities and performance. The other goal was to explore a wide range of behavioral information for the further development of the simulation tool that predicts building performance through analyzing movement.\nLimitations, future research and design implication: This research paper was based on the idea that crowding in internal medicine corridors, as perceived by the medical staff, is a source of disturbance influencing the efficiency of the ward. This is the first study that investigated visitors' waiting behavior in corridors in a non-Western culture, which was conducted in a single building with two different kinds of architectural layout. Future studies that will analyze multiple layout types with greater sample sizes and longer duration of observations may yield to more generalizable results.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze visitors' waiting behavior in corridors of an internal medicine ward in relation to concepts of territoriality and privacy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Waiting activities, visitors' room numbers and duration of activities were recorded on a floor plan. Results were tallied according to behavioral and architectural zones in which the activity took place.\nFindings: Locations that are near patient rooms that provide visual and auditory access are largely used as territorial areas for non-privacy-required activities. Ends of corridors, secondary corridors and staircases were mainly used for activities that required some level of privacy such as grieving.\nResearch limitations/implications: As is true with post-occupancy evaluations in other single buildings, this research may not be generalizable to all internal medicine wards. Future research could measure whether responding to visitors' spatial needs could result in lower density and sense of crowding in the corridors, as well as reduce stress and task interruptions and increase efficiency of patient-check rounds.\nPractical implications: The findings indicate that internal medicine wards should include waiting areas near the patient rooms for visitors to be able to keep visual and auditory connection with their patients, as well as areas that provide privacy. This may help lower density, sense of crowding, distraction of medical staff, stress and burn-out and errors, as well as increase the efficiency of patient checks.\nOriginality/value: The ways in which architectural design of internal medicine corridors can support visitors' activities and environmental needs such as territoriality and privacy is an issue that is rarely examined. This paper also adds an example from a non-Western culture, to a literature that is dominated by examples from Western cultures.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Applying IT governance balanced scorecard and importance-performance analysis for providing IT governance strategy in university
|
[
"IT governance",
"IT governance balanced scorecard",
"Importance-performance analysis",
"Thai universities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Information technology (IT) has become a vital and integral part of many business activities. The pervasive use of IT in many organizations brings IT governance to become a more significant issue. After the concept of IT governance emerged in the early 1990s, specialists and academics have attempted to clarify how to ensure the value of aggressive action on IT governance (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2010). This curious question has been examined in a series of research projects during the period 1999-2003 by Weill and Ross (2004). They have found a relationship between corporate performance and proactive tuning for IT governance. The finding also revealed that when the organizations performed proactive support for IT governance, they could generate up to 20 percent more profit than organizations with poor support. Van Grembergen and De Haes (2010) also clearly illustrated that IT governance should be an integral part of corporate governance.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Principles of IT governance\n3 Research methodology: In the first step of this research, we conducted a preliminary investigation with 40 articles on IT governance research to identify critical concerns of IT governance implementation from a global perspective. In the second step, we conducted a quantitative survey to identify the current state of IT governance for Thai universities. A self-assessment was developed based on the metrics from IT governance BSC introduced by Abu-Musa (2007). The questionnaire consists of 23 items within four dimensions, as shown in Figure 3. According to these metrics (Abu-Musa, 2007), we used three-point Likert scale to measure the importance (1=not important to 3=very important) and performance (1=not monitoring to 3=always monitoring). The questionnaires were distributed to 117 IT executives from 117 universities in Thailand. They were asked to capture the perceived importance and performance for each attribute. A total of 64 out of 117 IT executives completed the questionnaire over the three month period in 2011, representing a response rate of 54.7 percent. The reliability analysis was carried out by calculating the Cronbach's a coefficient. The result showed a high internal consistency as shown in Table II.\n4 Research results: This section presents the main results related to IT executives' perception on the importance of IT governance performance measures taken in their universities. The result of IPA with IT governance BSC attributes is summarized in Table III. The graphical plotting of the IPA is also shown in Figure 5. In addition, the implication of the obtained results is also discussed.\n5 Discussion: In this study, we applied IPA analysis with IT governance BSC to capture IT executives' perception on the importance of IT governance performance measures that performed in their universities. Original IPA identifies that the attributes for quadrants III and IV are considered to be low priority and over emphasized, respectively. When applying the IPA to a strategic tool like IT governance BSC, the results should be interpreted carefully in order to avoid being misleading. The obtained results should be reshaped from original IPA analysis, because the metrics from IT governance BSC is demonstrated in the cause and effect form. We cannot identify that the attributes in quadrants III and IV are unnecessary metrics, but it can be interpreted in a way that IT executives should pay close attention for reconsidering on the outcomes and consequences of these metrics. If they confirm that the existing metrics are not important, then the unnecessary metrics should be rejected. After getting rid of unnecessary indicators, IT executives can follow up the three strategic actions to lift up their capability for governing IT in their universities, as shown in Figure 5.\n6 Conclusions: There have been a few research studies conducted on the topic of IT governance in developing countries, especially in Thailand. Therefore, this research aims to provide the strategic action of IT governance for organizations in this region. In this case, we have limited our scope to choose only universities in Thailand as the subjects of this study. In order to answer the research questions, our conclusions are presented in the following order.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the current situation and the future improvement for IT governance and controls in developing country like Thailand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Thai universities were selected and used as subjects for capturing the perception of IT executives on IT governance performance measures. In the first step, a global IT governance perspective was drawn from the literature review. In the second step, the important-performance analysis was applied to the metrics of IT governance balanced scorecard with collected survey data from 64 IT executives.\nFindings: From a global perspective, the critical points that need to be concerned before implementing IT governance have been illustrated. From a regional perspective, the paper generated the strategic IT governance guidance for Thai universities.\nPractical implications: This paper is beneficial for chief information officers, executive managers, IT managers, and academics. They will gain more knowledge and understanding about the mixed method of using metrics in IT governance balanced scorecard and importance-performance analysis in order to identify the current situation of IT governance and controls in their organizations. Additionally, the practical idea with this method can be applied to draw IT governance strategy in their contexts.\nOriginality/value: This paper specifies the critical points and directions of IT governance for Thai universities. The analysis covers global and regional viewpoints. This paper also provides the method for applying IT governance balanced scorecard metrics and importance-performance analysis to contribute IT governance strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Food insecurity among college students in West Texas
|
[
"Determinants",
"Food security",
"College students",
"Food insecurity",
"Texas"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Food insecurity is a growing challenge among developed (Taylor and Loopstra, 2016; Loopstra et al., 2015) and developing countries (Melgar-Quinonez et al., 2006). Households in developing countries, however, seem to be more affected (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2017). Nonetheless, developed countries have experienced an increase in food insecurity levels in recent years. A survey in 2014 indicated that 7-13 percent of people 15 years in the United Kingdom (UK) were food insecure. Varying levels (3-20 percent) of food insecurity have also been reported in 27 other European countries (Taylor and Loopstra, 2016; Loopstra et al., 2015). In the United States of America (USA), 14 percent of households are food insecure, although individual state counts may vary. In 2017, 17.2 percent of households in Texas were food insecure, indicating a higher prevalence rate than what is reported at the national level (Meade and Thome, 2017; USDA, 2017). More Recent reports indicate that the national food insecurity levels decreased slightly to 11.8 percent (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2018). Many physiological groups are reported to have varying vulnerabilities to limited and/or uncertain access to food (Meade and Thome, 2017; USDA, 2017). College students are one of the groups with increased need for adequate nutrition and good nutrition practices. Many college students are away from home for the first time and have the responsibility of cooking or choosing foods for themselves.\nMethods: Study population\nResults: As indicated in Table I, although almost a fifth of the students did not complete the food security section, of the remaining students (n=173), 40.5 percent were food secure while 59.5 percent of the students had varying levels of food insecurity. According to the distribution of food insecurity, 19.9 percent were mildly food insecure, 14.4 percent were moderately food insecure and 13.4 percent were severely food insecure. The median and IQR age was 22 years (20.0, 27.0) and monthly income among students was reported to be $1,000 (0.0, 1,500). The food secure group had significantly (p<0.05) higher incomes and food budgets compared to food insecure students. An average of a fifth of reported students' monthly income was spent on food. The highest number of times students ate-out in a restaurant was four times a week and the median being once in a week (p = 0.234). Students usually spent about $2.0 on a meal, although food insecure students reported they spent slightly more ($3.0). More students who worked were food insecure (38.6 percent) compared to a fifth of students who were not working and yet were food insecure. Furthermore, students with food insecurity worked longer hours (20 hours/week) compared to students who were food secure (15.0 hours/week) (p = 0.011).\nDiscussion: Food insecurity on college campuses is a growing problem in both developed and developing countries. From this sample of students in West Texas, we identified 40.0 percent of students were food secure and 60.0 percent with varying levels of food insecurity. The major factors influencing food insecurity status were students' monthly income, budget for food, students working/employment status, numbers of hours students worked, priority expenses when students received their income, whether they had children or not, as well as ethnicity (p<0.05). Upon further analysis to identify the strength of the association, the main indicator of food insecurity was students' monthly budget for food, where students with a monthly budget $200 had a 3.2 times higher odds of being food insecure compared to students with higher food budgets. Only one student in the food secure group experienced worry about not having food to eat. Students employed all the other coping strategies stated in the HFIAS tool, in the 30 days prior to the survey. The severity of coping strategies practiced increased as the level of food insecurity increased among students.\nConclusions and implications for further research: In this population of 37,000 college students, from the 173 (representing 0.5 percent of the student population) who responded to the survey the prevalence of food insecurity was 59.5 percent. Food insecurity was associated with ethnicity, students' income and budget for food. However, other competing expenses such as housing and transportation cost were reported as some of the factors affecting access to food. The reported coping strategies included both food secure and food insecure students who worried about having access to food. Some of the students experienced severe food insecurity and indicated they were reducing the number and sizes of meals, and going to bed hungry. In this study, we found students' food budget of equal or less than $200 was the strongest determinant of food insecurity status. Campus-based programs such as food banks (Chaparro et al., 2009) and food-labeling replacement in dining halls (Christoph et al., 2016) have been implemented in other college settings. Food banks in the German public health system were an important supplement to improving household food security. However, food banks have the challenge of sustainability and reaching everyone who needs help (Simmet et al., 2018). From our findings, programs on budgeting, money management skills and improving self-efficacy in planning healthy meals with limited budgets, could be key strategies that can be implemented to improve food insecurity and access to healthy meals to individual and students groups. However, all food insecurity programs on campuses should be sensitive to possible stigma, which may reduce participation. On an individual student level, food banks could serve as immediate solutions to food insecurity. Universities campuses should provide information, increase access to community and state funded safety network programs such as SNAP (United States Government Accountability Office, 2018). University management could address food insecurity through academic support and policy revisions, where they create bridges to assist food insecure students in a more holistic manner. An example of collaboration among students and university governance teams at the University of Kentucky has shown promise (The UK food and housing security workgroup, 2018). University policies addressing food insecurity should include components on improving students' income, subsidized housing on-campus, transportation and/or improving availability of healthy whole foods on-campus, since these are key competing expenses with food. University administration should recognize and leverage the fact that addressing campus food insecurity contributes to addressing food insecurity in the larger community. Students are part of communities, thus innovative funding approaches should involve public and private community partners.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Food insecurity is an evolving nutrition issue affecting both developed and underdeveloped college campuses. The purpose of this paper is to assess food insecurity and related coping strategies among Texas Tech University students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This was a cross-sectional online survey in Lubbock, Texas, among college students (n=173). The outcome measures, socio-demographic factors, household food insecurity access) and dietary diversity were assessed using validated tools. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software. Socio-demographic differences in food security status were examined using kh2, and means testing. Risks of student food insecurity were assessed using odds ratios (ORs).\nFindings: Respondents were mostly female (70 percent), non-Hispanic white (58 percent) and young adults' (median age: 22.0 (20.0, 27.0)), with a median monthly income of $1,000 (0.0, 1,500) and spent about a fifth of their income on food. More students were food insecure (59.5 percent) compared to those who experienced food security (40.5 percent) (p<0.001). Some of the severe food insecure students (16.7 percent) reported going to bed without food (6.9 percent) in the prior 30 days. Students with monthly food budgets of $200 were 3.2 times more likely to be food insecure (OR=3.231: CI: 1.353-7.714; p=0.010) compared to those with higher food budgets. A students' choice of priority monthly expenses was significantly associated with food security status; however, further risk assessment of dichotomous \"prioritized food\" and \"prioritized other expenses\" was not statistically significant.\nOriginality/value: Student's food budget of $200 was the strongest determinant of food insecurity. Individual training on money management and meal planning are recommended. University policies should recognize and develop academic support policies addressing competing expenses with food.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Supply chain risk mitigation: modeling the enablers
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Risk management",
"Modelling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today the key issues in supply chain management (SCM) are the formation of the supply chain and its efficient coordination with objectives of customer satisfaction and sustaining competency. This requires complex flow of information, materials, and funds across multiple functional areas both within and among companies. To achieve this company must identify, evaluate, rank, and manage its supply chain risks. The leaner and more integrated supply chains get the more likely uncertainties, dynamics and accidents in one link affect the other links in the chain. Companies' obsession with speed and costs also causes supply chains to break down particularly during the launch of new products (Lee, 2004). Also coordinating actions across firms is tough because organizations have different cultures and companies cannot count on shared beliefs or loyalty to motivate their partners (Narayanan and Raman, 2004).Risk is defined in terms of a consumer's perceptions of the uncertainty and adverse consequences of buying a product or service (Dowling and Staelin, 1994). According to Knight (1921) risk entails uncertain outcomes of known probabilities and it differs from uncertainty which entails uncertain outcomes of unknown probabilities. Risk sources are the environmental, organizational or supply chain related variables that cannot be predicted with certainty and that affect the supply chain-outcome variables. Risk management process is focused on understanding the risks, and minimizing their impact by addressing, e.g. probability and direct impact. The stages of the risk management process can vary from risk identification/analysis (or estimation) via risk assessment (or evaluation) to different ways of risk management (Norrman and Jansson, 2004). Generally, organizations plan to protect against recurrent, low-impact risks in their supply chains but ignore high-impact, low-likelihood risks. But in recent time's disasters, both natural and man-made has made organizations to rethink their risk management approaches in context of supply chain as now organizations rely on their partners spanning several nations and continents. Disasters like SARS outbreak and Tsunami had a big impact on the economy of the regions where they occurred but their impact was also felt by the organizations in Europe and USA as their suppliers exists in countries like China, India or South East Asia. On the other hand 9/11 terrorist attack had an impact on those supply chains whose partners (suppliers or customers) existed in the USA. The sources of supply chain risks are many, as different links of a supply chain are exposed to different types of risks. Also in a quest to become more agile and lean, organizations are becoming more dependent on outside support which also adds to the overall risk vulnerability. Although it is impossible to completely eliminate risks from a supply chain it can be reduced or we can say organizations can better prepare themselves to neutralize them and this can be done if there is a shared understanding among supply chain partners of the variables that could impact the risks and the mitigation strategies.After liberalization and globalization of the economy, Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are under intense pressure since the markets are now facing competition from countries like China, Taiwan, and Korea which have emerged as low cost manufacturing destinations, a distinction earlier enjoyed for long by Indian SMEs. Although the information and communication technology revolution of the 1990s and the rapid proliferation of internet has to a large extent leveled the playing field by uninhibited flow of information regardless of the geographical boundaries and opened new vistas of opportunities, SMEs are finding that these new markets and commercial opportunities also generate a new dimension of uncertainties and risks in the supply chains (Ritchie and Brindley, 2000). The risks in the supply chains can be mitigated if SMEs can understand the variables having an impact on risk management in the supply chains. Some of the variables that enable risk mitigation are information sharing, aligning incentives, risk sharing, corporate social responsibility (Chopra and Sodhi, 2004; Speckman and Davis, 2004). So managers in small- and medium-sized organizations now need to be equipped to identify, analyze and manage risks and crises from a more diverse range of sources and contexts and this involves an understanding as to how various enablers of risk mitigation interact with each other.Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) can be used for identifying and summarizing relationships among specific variables, which define a problem or an issue (Warfield, 1974; Sage, 1977). It provides us a means by which order can be imposed on the complexity of such variables (Jharkharia and Shankar, 2004; Jharkharia and Shankar, 2005; Ravi and Shankar, 2005). Therefore, in this paper, the enablers of the risk mitigation in supply chains have been analyzed using the ISM methodology, which shows the interrelationships of the enablers and their levels. These enablers are also categorized depending on their driving power and dependence.The main objectives of this paper are:* to identify and rank the enablers of risk mitigation in supply chains;* to find out the interaction among identified enablers using ISM; and* to discuss the managerial implications of this research.\nEnablers of risk mitigation: Though SCM has matured much as a discipline, risk management in an overall context of supply chain is still in its nascent stage. In this paper, 11 variables that can impact risk management in the supply chain are selected based on literature review and through discussion with supply chain experts for SMEs.Information sharing\nISM methodology and model development: ISM methodology helps to impose order and direction on the complex relationships among elements of a system (Sage, 1977). ISM is an interactive learning process whereby a set of different directly and indirectly related elements are structured into a comprehensive systemic model. The model so formed portrays the structure of a complex issue, a system of a field of study, in a carefully designed pattern employing graphics as well as words. For complex problems, like the one under consideration, a number of enablers may be affecting the risk management of supply chains. However, the direct and indirect relationships between the enablers describe the situation far more accurately than the individual factor taken into isolation. Therefore, ISM develops insights into collective understandings of these relationships. ISM is used by a number of researchers (Mandal and Deshmukh, 1994; Jharkharia and Shankar, 2004; Jharkharia and Shankar, 2005; Ravi and Shankar, 2005) to develop a better understanding of the systems under consideration.The ISM methodology is interpretive from the fact that as the judgment of the group decides whether and how the variables are related. It is structural too, as on the basis of relationship; an overall structure is extracted from the complex set of variables. It is a modeling technique in which the specific relationships of the variables and the overall structure of the system under consideration are portrayed in a digraph model. ISM is primarily intended as a group learning process, but it can also be used individually. The various steps involved in the ISM methodology are as follows:1. Variables affecting the system under consideration are listed, which can be objectives, actions, and individuals, etc.2. From the variables identified in first step, a contextual relationship is established among variables with respect to which pairs of variables would be examined.3. A structural self-interaction matrix (SSIM) is developed for variables, which indicates pairwise relationships among variables of the system under consideration.4. Reachability matrix is developed from the SSIM and the matrix is checked for transitivity. The transitivity of the contextual relation is a basic assumption made in ISM. It states that if a variable A is related to B and B is related to C, then A is necessarily related to C.5. The reachability matrix obtained in fourth step is partitioned into different levels.6. Based on the relationships given above in the reachability matrix, a directed graph is drawn and the transitive links are removed.7. The resultant digraph is converted into an ISM, by replacing variable nodes with statements.8. The ISM model developed in seventh step is reviewed to check for conceptual inconsistency and necessary modifications are made.Structural self-interaction matrix\nDiscussion and conclusions: The objective of the ISM model in this research was to develop a hierarchy of variables that would help to mitigate risks in Indian manufacturing SMEs supply chain. These variables assumes importance because today it is not individual organizations that are competing rather it is the supply chains and consequently it is not individuals organizations that are at a risk rather all the constituents of a supply chain have a bearing on managing risks. A supply chain can counter the risks in an effective manner when all the partners in that chain trust each other and frequently share information which is facilitated by collaborative relationships among the supply chain members, this can serve as an eye opener for the manufacturing SMEs in India as information sharing and collaborative relationships among supply chain partners is an exception.The driver dependence diagram helps to classify various enablers of risk mitigation. There are no variables in the autonomous cluster, which indicates no variable can be considered as disconnected from the whole system and the management has to pay an attention to all the identified enablers of risk mitigation. In the next cluster we have independent variables like trust among supply chain partners, collaborative relationships among supply chain members, information sharing in the supply chain and knowledge about risks which have high driving power but little dependence. These enablers play a key role to counter risks in a supply chain. Generally, risk analysis in SMEs has a single organization perspective but knowledge about risks expands when the whole supply chain is considered because new partners and new markets bring with them new forms of risks previously never been considered by the SMEs but may be very important for overall risk mitigation strategy.The next cluster consists of those variables that are termed as linkage variables and include strategic risk planning, corporate social responsibility and aligning incentives and revenue sharing policies which is influenced by lower level variables and in turn impacts other variables in the model. This is quite expected as strategic plans for managing risk will impact issues like risk sharing, continual risk assessment and information security. Strategic planning for risk requires that partners in supply chains should develop a shared understanding of the risks faced by the supply chain as a whole and as these plans have a bearing on all the partners, they must be discussed and debated extensively. Corporate social responsibility is an important issue in the new economy and generally SMEs who are partners (tier I, tier II suppliers) for larger organizations are being educated to understand their responsibilities towards issues like sustainable development, wage regulations, working standards, etc. else SMEs are least concerned as they believe that these issues have little bearing on their performance and profitability but the ISM model shows that in a supply chain, corporate social responsibility issues impact the overall supply chain risk mitigation and so they have to give ample consideration to them.The last cluster includes variables like continual risk assessment, agility, risk sharing, and information security. In this particular cluster, variable 11 and variable 2 clearly have the least driving power and have highest dependence and form the topmost level in the ISM hierarchy. They represent those variables that are resultant actions for effective risk mitigation in a supply chain. Their strong dependence indicates that they require all the other enablers to come together so as to enable them counter risks. But they are important as it these enablers that are finally required by the supply chain to effectively mitigate risk in the supply chain.SMEs tend to think that to counter risk in the supply chain the only need is some sort of plan that would be put into place once their supply chains are posed with that risk, but ISM model shows that to develop these plans from a supply chain perspective would require a careful consideration of issues like trust, collaborative relationships, information sharing which are of strategic nature and for plans to finally succeed in mitigating risk it is required that the supply chain continually monitors the risks and is agile so as to adapt itself for the changed scenarios.Although in developing the model only few sectors of Indian manufacturing SMEs were considered but the model can be generalized to other sectors of Indian manufacturing SMEs in India as the overall environment and setting in which Indian SMEs operate is relatively same. But the model would require some modifications as experts for other SMEs may slightly differ in their opinion about the contextual relationships among the variables. A major contribution of the research lies in imposing direction to various enablers of risk mitigation which would help the decision makers in SMEs to better utilize their scarce resources for risk minimization in the supply chains.At the end, we examine the scope of further research. In this research, using the ISM methodology, a relationship model among the enablers of risk mitigation in the supply chains of Indian manufacturing SMEs has been developed. But this model has not been statistically validated. Structural equation modeling (SEM), also referred to as linear structural relationship approach, has the capability of testing the validity of such hypothetical models. Thus, this approach can be applied in the future research to test the validity of this model. It is worth mentioning here that while comparing ISM and SEM, although SEM has the capability of statistically testing an already developed theoretical model, it cannot develop an initial model for testing. ISM, on the other hand, has the capability to develop an initial model through managerial techniques such as brain storming, nominal group techniques, etc. So ISM is a supportive analytic tool for this situation. However, it may be suggested that due to complimentary nature of both of these techniques, the future research may be directed in first developing an initial model using ISM and then testing it using SEM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Supply chain risk management assumes importance in the wake of organizations understanding that their risk susceptibility is dependent on other constituents of their supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to effective supply chain risk mitigation by understanding the dynamics between various enablers that help to mitigate risk in a supply chain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using interpretive structural modeling the research presents a hierarchy-based model and the mutual relationships among the enablers of risk mitigation.\nFindings: - The research shows that there exists a group of enablers having a high driving power and low dependence requiring maximum attention and of strategic importance while another group consists of those variables which have high dependence and are the resultant actions.\nPractical implications: - This classification provides a useful tool to supply chain managers to differentiate between independent and dependent variables and their mutual relationships which would help them to focus on those key variables that are most important for effective risk minimization in a supply chain.\nOriginality/value: - Presentation of enablers in a hierarchy and the classification into driver and dependent categories is unique effort in the area of supply chain risk management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
New product development best practice in SME and large organisations: theory vs practice
|
[
"United Kingdom",
"Ireland",
"Product development",
"Best practice",
"Large enterprises",
"Small enterprises"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99 per cent of the total enterprises in the (European Union Commission, 2003). The ability of SMEs to innovate and successfully develop new products is crucial for both the recovery and the continued development of European economies. Despite the current global economic climate, opportunities exist for new business creation, the release of innovative new products and the strengthening of customer loyalty (Razeghi, 2008). Companies must innovate in order to expand into new markets, to arrest margin erosion and to protect their current market share.Excellence in new product development (NPD) is vital for new product success (Dooley et al., 2002). Forward-thinking companies aim to continually improve their product development processes by benchmarking their current development practices against those of other companies. NPD improvements can accrue by understanding what best practices should be adopted for the product development process, and subsequently adopting these practices to replicate the success and the process maturity of the best performing companies (Paulk et al., 1993).A large body of research has been completed on best practices in NPD, however, the majority of this research focuses on the best practices of large organisations (Adams-Bigelow, 2004; Cooper et al., 2002, 2004a, b; Griffin, 1997). The applicability of this research to SMEs may be questioned due to inherent differences between the management and structure of SMEs and large firms (Ghobadian and Gallear, 1997; Gray and Mabey, 2005).While existing studies designate contemporary practices that distinguish the best performing companies, it is unclear whether and to what extent NPD practitioners, from both SMEs and large companies are knowledgeable about what constitutes a NPD best practice. Investigating this issue furthers the understanding of how NPD practitioners translate existing NPD knowledge into actual NPD practice, thereby reflecting the diffusion of NPD best practice knowledge among NPD practitioners and revealing gaps between prescribed and actual practice.The research presented in this paper describes a study of the attitudes of NPD practitioners in both SMEs and large organisations towards the management of NPD exploring key issues including the practitioners' actual awareness of currently accepted NPD best practice and practitioners' opinion of the relative importance of the different best practices for NPD success. This paper begins by defining NPD best practice. Key concepts are then discussed including currently accepted NPD best practices and the differences between SMEs and large companies in terms of NPD. Potential research instruments are discussed and an existing model is chosen for the study. The methodology and results are then presented, providing new insights and perspectives on NPD best practices while also reaffirming various observations from previous studies. This paper concludes with managerial and research implications.\nKey concepts: Best practice\nResearch methodology: Questionnaire development\nResults: Relative importance\nDiscussion: Relative importance\nConclusion: This study has contributed to the ongoing work on benchmarking by applying an emerging framework to a new context, namely SMEs and large organisations in the UK and Ireland. Best practice studies frequently cite researchers' observation of the practices used by the best performing companies. This paper adopts the NPD practitioners' perspective in attempt to understand the divide that exists between prescribed best practice and actual practice according to practitioners.Focussing on the seven dimensions of NPD practice, results indicate that strategy is viewed as the most crucial NPD dimension. This finding reinforces Cooper et al. (2002) contention that strategy is important to guiding NPD activities. Regardless of company size, practitioners rank the NPD dimensions in the same order of descending importance:* High importance: strategy.* Medium importance: research, process, commercialisation, project climate.* Low importance: company culture, metrics and performance evaluation.Despite the significant structural, cultural and behavioural differences that exist between SMEs and large organisations, the outlook regarding the relative importance of NPD best practices is similar. Practitioners recommend the primary focus is placed on developing and implementing an effective NPD strategy to guide development efforts. With an effective NPD strategy in place, the next most important step is to ensure a quality NPD process is being utilised, encompassing high-quality market research and launch activities, carried out by a competent cross-functional team. The final consideration is the use of metrics and performance evaluation to measure performance and the fostering of a innovation friendly company culture.SMEs and large company respondents were able to identify many best practices associated with NPD, with the exception of the metrics and performance evaluation and research dimensions. This correlates with findings from previous research (Cooper et al., 2002) that demonstrate that these are weak areas of activity within NPD. There is thus a need for additional study to strengthen and deepen the knowledge of best practice within these areas.While there is a high level of consistency between the practices considered to be best practices by both SMEs and large organisations, there were also significant differences in the management of strategy, metrics and performance evaluation and commercialisation. The opinion regarding the relative importance of the seven dimensions is similar regardless of organisational size, however, the specific implementation of best practices within each dimension for successful NPD varies in accordance with organisational size. SMEs have a more limited view of best practices relating to strategy and commercialisation, while large firms were unable to identify any best practices associated with NPD metrics and performance evaluation. These results suggest that at a high level both SMEs and large firms have a common view of NPD but that there are significant differences in how they implement and manage NPD projects.For NPD managers and practitioners these results have a number of important implications. Evidently, there are best practices that companies need to adopt in order to excel at NPD. Equally there are poor practices that companies should strive to avoid. Companies must ensure that they are not stifling their innovation process through over formalised routines. Simultaneously, they must ensure that they have sufficient routines in place to drive development forward. Balance and flexibility is clearly the key driver of success. Regardless of company size, the primary concern for practitioners should be to develop and articulate a clear and appropriate strategy for their NPD efforts. NPD strategy is the foundation of successful NPD.These findings provide a useful insight for researchers about the areas of NPD management that are considered to be most important by both SMEs and large company managers. Despite the attention paid to company culture and metrics and performance evaluation within the NPD literature neither of these dimensions are considered to be important by NPD practitioners. The managers surveyed take a far more strategic view than had been expected ranking NPD strategy as being significantly more important than any of the other six dimensions. The gaps between what researchers understand to be best practice and what practitioners companies consider to be best practice presents a challenge to researchers. A \"one-size-fits-all\" approach to NPD may not be appropriate. While there was a large convergence in best and poor practice identification there were also subtle differences to be noted between SMEs and large company practitioner opinions. Researchers need to continue to identify what best practice really means for NPD in different contexts. The convergence of opinion regarding best practice/relative importance between SMEs and large company practitioners suggest there maybe core practices applicable to all circumstances. Therefore, a core model of NPD excellence may be possible with further optional practices designed to accommodate companies with different circumstances and situations.The results presented in this paper suggest that there is much to be gained by strengthening the links between researchers and NPD practitioners. There is limited value in developing theories and frameworks about the best ways to manage NPD unless these frameworks and theories can be made useful to NPD practitioners. Additionally, researchers can learn a lot from practitioners about the day to day reality of managing NPD projects and the relative importance of the different areas of NPD management.There are also a number of limitations of the research to be considered. A major assumption in this study is that best practices are equally applicable to different industry sectors, which may not be the case. The best practices identified in this research are largely nonspecific and applicable to most firms regardless of industry sector. However, specific implementation may differ according to sector. For example, the NPD process documentation requirement for a new medical device product would differ greatly from that for a product from the electrical industry. But the underling best practice of having a system in place to ensure the process is documented applies in both cases. The research is all limited in that it assumes that all new products are equal. Radical and incremental product development projects can be very different in-terms of project execution. It is likely that there would be differences in terms of the relative importance of best practices and the best practices themselves in both types of projects. Whilst this issue was briefly touched upon through the discussion of formalisation of the best practices it remains a potential avenue for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore new product development (NPD) best practice from a practitioner's perspective. A large body of research has been completed on best practices in NPD. However, there is a limited knowledge of the extent to which practitioners are aware of what constitutes a NPD best practice and are aware of the relative importance of different NPD best practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using an established framework, this research investigates NPD practitioners' views of best practices. Data were collected through a survey using a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions from 70 SMEs and 74 large companies in Ireland and the UK.\nFindings: - The results show that practitioners assign different levels of importance to the various NPD best practices. Regardless of company size, strategy is viewed as the most importance best practice for NPD, while metrics and performance evaluation is seen as the least important. This does not support previous research, which has shown that excellence in NPD process is the primary driver of NPD success. Additionally, there were differences between the specific practices that NPD practitioners from SMEs and large companies considered to be best practice.\nOriginality/value: - This paper identifies a gap between what researchers and practitioners understand to be NPD best practice. The results further our understanding of how NPD practitioners translate existing NPD knowledge into actual NPD practice. The results presented in this paper suggest that there is much to be gained by strengthening the links between researchers and NPD practitioners. There is limited value in developing theories and models about the \"best\" ways to manage NPD unless these model and theories are fully diffused and can be made useful to NPD practitioners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving resilience in high-risk organizations: principles for the design of innovative training situations
|
[
"Training",
"Resilience",
"Sensemaking",
"Risk management",
"Safety",
"Enaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Safety is a major challenge in high-risk organizations, which are characterized by a critical vulnerability to specific hazards, combined with the likelihood and probability of them occurring. Hollnagel (2014) proposed a compelling distinction between two paradigms in safety science that he called Safety I and Safety II. Safety I pertains to defense. It focuses on what goes wrong, attempting to eliminate failures, considering safety as a nonevent, establishing material or organizational barriers, and \"trapping safety into rules\" (Bieder and Bourrier, 2013). Safety II pertains to resilience. It differs from Safety I in that it gives priority to what goes right, focusing on the ability to succeed under various conditions, treating failures as situated cases, and considering safety as embedded in everyday work practices. As such, resilience is viewed as the ability of the organization to adjust its functioning prior to, during, and/or following a shock or disturbance, so that this system can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions (Hollnagel, 2014).\nAn enactive approach of activity and training: Our studies are conducted within an enactive approach of activity based on two main theoretical assumptions (Maturana and Varela, 1980):\nFour resilience-oriented principles for the design of training situations: Recent results obtained in past and current studies (see the FOResilience project: www.foncsi.org/fr/blog/professionnalisation-decouvrez-projet-universite-geneve) allow one to identify four robust principles for training design likely to improve individual, collective, and organizational resilience, as promoted by the Safety II paradigm.\nConclusion: The present paper provides a foundation for the design of training situations operationalizing the Safety II paradigm. Such situations are not limited to the training examples we provided (simulation, virtual visualization, crisis management exercise, and crew resource management). The four principles are independent but complementary. They cannot be hierarchized, but they can be locally prioritized according to a thorough diagnosis of organizational strengths and weaknesses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Safety and organizational research indicates that fostering resilience in organizations is a promising way for improving safety, albeit concrete means to implement resilience are still lacking, especially in the educational field. The purpose of this paper is to propose four principles for training design derived from past and current studies the authors conduct in high-risk organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Training for resilience is considered within an enactive approach of human activity building on its properties of autonomy, structural coupling, self-organization, emergence, sensemaking, and metastability.\nFindings: The article describes four educational design principles aiming at improving individual, collective, and organizational resilience: encourage mimetic experiences; pay attention to attention and concernedness; perturb and turn into an event; support participatory-sensemaking and collective sensemaking.\nResearch limitations/implications: The training program the authors propose may be challenging to assess. Besides, the most durable solutions to improve safety through resilience are to be found at the crossroad between organizational design and training/development policies. Future research should determine the implementability criteria which are likely to support the use of the principles the authors propose, and contribute to enrich this educational foundation.\nOriginality/value: Education and training are conceived herein as high-order means to improve safety through resilience in high-risk organizations, fostering the capacity of the operators and organization to develop efficiently and in the long run. We provide independent but complementary training principles that cannot be hierarchized, but that can be locally prioritized in organizations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Internal elements that hinder a better industrial service offering
|
[
"Marketing",
"Innovation",
"Services",
"Organizational processes",
"Value added"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Industrial services are strategic for manufacturers (Araujo and Spring, 2006; Gebauer et al., 2007; Kumar and Kumar, 2004; Mathieu, 2001; Spreng et al., 2009; Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and are a trend in the industry (Kowalkowski et al., 2011a). Such services constitute a source of differentiation in the market (Kowalkowski et al., 2013; Raddats and Easingwood, 2010); an alternative to exploit the commercial opportunities of servicing an installed base of equipment and to maintain competitiveness in the face of commoditization, slower growth and declining profitability in core product markets (Salonen, 2011); and a source of profit and competitive advantage (Kohtamaki et al., 2013a). The service options include installation, training, maintenance and provision of spare parts (Kowalkowski et al., 2013; Rabetino et al., 2015). Other authors include in this list administrative services, consulting services, customer services, financial services, operational/outsourcing services, optimization services, research and development services, recycling services and supply management and warehousing services (Rabetino et al., 2015).\n2. Service management: 2.1 Internal elements\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research design\n4. Findings: This section presents a brief description of the internal elements that hinder the offer of better services. Such elements emerged from the cases' analyses.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Processes and indicators\n6. Conclusion: This study investigated the internal elements that influence the offer of service by the manufacturers. In this study, 12 global manufacturers that sell products and services to automotive or chemical supply chains were investigated. Five managers from each company were interviewed. The findings were divided on the basis of the lack of processes and indicators to manage the service offer, service professionals' profiles, service professionals' isolation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the internal elements that influence service offering. A better understanding of these elements can improve interaction between organizational structure, corporate culture and human resource management, and can leverage interdepartmental collaboration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 12 global manufacturers that sell products and services to the automotive or to the chemical supply chains were investigated on multiple case studies.\nFindings: The lack of interdepartmental processes and indicators may induce other departments to not prioritize the demands of the service department, thus lowering the service level. Service professionals who do not combine technical and commercial skills may hinder sales increase (product + service). The isolation of service professionals prevents the dissemination of knowledge among departments, thus reducing manufacturer's innovativeness.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research must focus on how to manage/redesign processes to improve sales and innovativeness; how to hire, qualify and motivate service professionals who possess commercial skills; and how to mitigate the isolation of service professionals.\nOriginality/value: New interdepartmental processes and indicators can turn on new and better organizational structures, improve the service management and reduce internal conflicts. Service professionals who possess and use only technical skills can hamper the incorporation of the new demands presented by the customers. Isolated professionals may negatively affect the efficacy of the market strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Intangible resources influencing the international performance of professional service SMEs in an emerging market: Evidence from India
|
[
"International marketing",
"Internationalization",
"Entrepreneurialism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last few decades, liberalization of markets along with advances in information and communication technologies has spurred the rise of emerging economies, where strong economic growth patterns above the world average persist (UNCTAD, 2015). In contrast to the perception that emerging markets offer only low-cost outsourcing options, emerging market firms successfully offer high value, professional services (Milberg and Winkler, 2013) in highly competitive developed markets, as evidenced by global service trade patterns (UNCTAD, 2015). In particular, professional services have become one of the faster growing sectors of the world economy (Dotzel et al., 2013; Javalgi et al., 2011). Despite their prevalence and success, professional services pose a challenge to researchers in comparison to traditional services because they possess ambiguity, credence qualities, high customization, and uncertainty; all of which increase complexity (Jackson and Cooper, 1988; Zeithaml, 1981).\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Resources, capabilities, and international entrepreneurship: SME internationalization\nResearch methodology: Sampling and data collection\nResults: Analysis of competing models\nDiscussion: This empirical study examined entrepreneurial professional service SMEs in the emerging market of India to understand the impact of key resources and capabilities on IP. The results show that an EO, RC, and the ability to leverage HC directly influence the IP of Indian SMEs. Today the success of a firm, especially a professional service SME, depends upon HC characterized as the combined knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees. Therefore, training and investments in service employees would likely have a positive performance impact; yet, the benefits of investments in human resources are complex and further research is needed.\nManagerial implications: What has been learned from the current study? As the strongest predictor, an EO influences not only the way that a firm is organized for the discovery and exploitation of opportunities but also how the SME acquires and orchestrates the deployment of resources for growth, which can create a unique organizational capability.\nLimitations and future research: Generalization of this study's findings is limited due to the cross-sectional industry sampling methodology and unidimensional measure of EO, which does not capture the multidimensional, differential influences of innovativeness, risk taking, and pro-activeness on firm performance. Equally important is the definition of a small firm, which varies across emerging countries, and the nature of professional service firms, which are different in their knowledge bases, skills, and social reach. An examination of institutional factors also warrants attention as a driver of entrepreneurial activity (Simon-Moya et al., 2014) and resource development (Tan and Meyer, 2010), since the strategic choices of firms reflect the institutional and regulatory framework that entrepreneurs face. Lastly, refinement of the benefits of various types of relationship partners would also be insightful. These factors all serve as a rationale for replication of this study in other emerging markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationships between the drivers of economic growth in emerging markets to include entrepreneurial orientation (EO), human capital (HC), relational capital (RC), and international performance (IP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 199 small- to medium-sized Indian professional service entrepreneurs that employ less than 500 employees and engage in international business. Given the multidimensional nature of IP, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the measurement and substantive models.\nFindings: SEM and mediation tests confirmed significant relationships among the constructs in the model and indicated that HC can be leveraged for international growth using RC to deliver new professional services across borders. EO, the strongest predictor, along with HC and RC, directly influenced IP. The effect of HC is mediated by an EO and RC.\nResearch limitations/implications: By design, only successful professional service firms in India were studied, which limited generalizability.\nPractical implications: Entrepreneurs can enhance the likelihood of international expansion success by utilizing highly skilled HC and developing strong network relationships. Entrepreneurial managers should leverage their professional service resources through judicious investments in personnel and relationship-building skills to develop RC.\nOriginality/value: This study examined entrepreneurial professional HC and RC as related to international entrepreneurship emerging market research. Data collection in India contributes to empirical research on internationalization from emerging markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Determinants of user behaviour and recommendation in social networks : An integrative approach from the uses and gratifications perspective
|
[
"Loyalty",
"Attitude",
"Social networks",
"Theory of Planned Behaviour",
"Uses and Gratifications Theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Constant innovation in the information and communication industry has contributed to the development of new social communication platforms known as friend social networks. Friend social networks are spaces for exchanging information and generating relationships. They are becoming increasingly important as they enable individuals with common interests to interact by sharing and exchanging information, knowledge, experience, interests and/or needs (Chiang, 2013; Lin and Lu, 2011a, b).\n2. Literature review: Below is the literature review of Uses and Gratifications Theory and the TPB (subjective norm, attitude and perceived control). The relations in the proposed conceptual model are then justified on the basis of the literature review.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Research design\n4. Results and discussion: Table VI shows the values of the standardised coefficients for the structural relations and the respective levels of significance for their associated t statistic.\n5. Conclusions, limitations and future lines of research: Despite the significant growth of friend social networks in recent years, the research into factors determining social network use behaviour is still insufficient. Determinants of use behaviour are a particularly important area for research as social networks have become the most popular means of online communication, maintaining and creating social relations among users.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of social network use behaviour using Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Uses and Gratifications Theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative study was carried out with data gathered by personal interview using a structured questionnaire. Relationships proposed in the theoretical model were estimated through structural equation models. In total, 811 users of social networks over 14 and residents in Spain were part of the sample.\nFindings: Results indicate that use attitude and the subjective norm, both TPB variables, directly and significantly influence social network loyalty. Thus, network loyalty can be achieved if the individual shows a favourable attitude towards use and receives positive feed-back (comments, opinions, etc.) from friends, acquaintances and other individuals in their environment. Perceived control has no influence on social network loyalty. Finally, this research highlights the importance of socialisation and entertainment as antecedents of social network attitude.\nResearch limitations/implications: Social network use has been analysed globally and database includes users with very different profiles (e.g. Facebook and Tuenti) what may skew the results.\nPractical implications: Individuals access social networks to establish social links with friends/family/acquaintances, seeking entertainment and fun, but they are never used to be fashionable or up-to-date. Given the importance of social relations, companies should motivate participation elements in their social networks profiles.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents a model that explains the formation of loyal social network customers, integrating TPB and Uses and Gratifications Theory to enable understanding of the role of these networks in individuals' lives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Questioning: a path to student learning experience
|
[
"Dialogue",
"Motivation",
"Educational objectives",
"Knowledge and beliefs",
"Learning and achievement",
"Questioning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Contemporary literature indicates that tutors' questions are of little value unless they have some impact on the performance of students (Beyer, 1997; Dantonio and Besienherz, 2001; Collay, 2011; McDonald, 2010). For example, Hunkins (1995) suggests that effective tutor questioning is believed to focus the attention of students on understanding learning outcomes, arousing their curiosity, stimulating their imagination and motivating them to seek out new knowledge. Implicit in this assertion is that effective questioning and dialogue are invariably essential tools for formative assessment. Formative assessment aids learning by generating information that is of benefit to students and to tutors. Questioning and effective dialogue in class or work-based settings enables students to restructure their understanding/skills and build more powerful ideas and capabilities. However, extant literature indicates that feedback information is not the sole province of teachers (Ecclestone, 2005). He notes that teaching in higher education is considered to be substantially different from teaching in primary and secondary education classrooms. Teachers' questions establish ways of operating in the classrooms and provide a means by which knowledge, particularly traditionally \"accepted\" knowledge is contested. In addition, teachers' questions can help students to make connections between classroom knowledge and their individual experiences.\n2. Theoretical framework and context: It is a truism that a tutor's questions play an important role in shaping classroom interaction and learning; however, it is a complex area of study. The complexity of the concept has undeniably made it difficult for researchers to agree on what classroom questioning is. Research indicates that questioning is second only to lecturing in popularity as a teaching method and that classroom teachers spend anywhere from 35 to 50 per cent of their teaching time facilitating question and answer sessions (Dillon, 1988; Hunkins, 1995; Kerry, 2002; Wilen, 1992) defines a question as \"a specialised sentence possessing either an interrogative form or function. When raised by teachers, questions are instructional cues suggesting to students content and elements to be learned and ways of learning or experiencing said content\" (p. 3). Hyman (1979) argues that when students employ questions, they serve as guides to particular actions, and as sentences that invite thinking and behaving along particular lines. Similarly, Aqvist (1979) classifies questions as special types of commands in which the questioner's desire for knowledge can be met. People ask questions so they can obtain information and satisfy their desire for knowledge. Implicit in questions as is the acceptance of the belief that what is questioned is known or can be discovered.\n3. Methodology: Denzin and Lincoln (2000) summarised the use of qualitative research strategies thus: \"the province of qualitative research accordingly, is the world of lived experience, for this is where individual belief and action intersect with culture. Under this model there is no preoccupation with discourse and method as material interpretive practices that constitute representation and description\" (p. 8). The key point in their argument is that qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. One of the aims of this project has been to \"explore the level of classroom questioning between students and teachers\" and this was implemented through collection and analysis of empirical materials. A research strategy was explored that was best suited for examining and meeting the underlying aims and objectives. Understanding questioning between teachers and students requires an in-depth understanding of the context in which learning takes place. In this way, teachers and students shape and are shaped by their particular learning environment. The primary focus of this study was on the business department of academic staff and their students and how learning is developed and nurtured within the department.\n4. Teachers' post-observation interviews: Nine teaching observations were conducted, which were followed by an individual interview session. The underlying aim and objective of this section is to answer the question:\n5. Conclusion and implications: Findings indicate that questioning and dialogue in the classroom imply responsibility on the part of the tutors and learners to be actively reflexive in their thinking and to challenge some taken-for-granted assumptions in the classroom learning environment. Tutors should allow space for learners to ask questions and enough time should be given to learners to think and digest issues related to the questions. Learners need to be motivated to ask questions and be encouraged to get involved in discussions. Teachers should consider \"think-pair share strategy\" in their classroom delivery (Tienken et al., 2009, p. 43). After each question, tutors should allow their learners time to think about their responses. To this extent, students should be allowed to interact and exchange ideas during classes.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate connections between questioning, learning, achievement and conscious knowledge and beliefs held by tutors and how these are applied in a teaching/learning situation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The design of this study involved the authors listening to, but not participating in, classroom teaching sessions followed by individual in-depth discussions with tutors and students to ascertain how best to advance learning and achievement.\nFindings: Responses generated from questioning and dialogue helps tutors realign their teaching in response to the needs of learners including comprehending life issues and solving problems. Tutors should consider \"think-pair share strategy\" in their delivery.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research was limited to one specific location, the sample was self-selected and limited to tutors who volunteered to take part in the investigation. A greater number of experimental locations with 100 per cent participation would have enhanced the validity of the findings.\nPractical implications: Learners need to be motivated to ask questions and be encouraged to become involved in discussions. Questioning and dialogue provide a framework for sharing educational objectives with students and charting their progress and this can lead to a better framework for delivery and understanding.\nSocial implications: If tutors can better realign their teaching in response to the needs of learners including comprehending life issues and solving problems then this can lead to a more focused learning experience.\nOriginality/value: The work was based on empirical investigations of tutors and learners in group and individual situations and the findings have been reported.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative: education, advocacy and inspiration for libraries
|
[
"Interlending",
"Document delivery",
"Resource sharing",
"Future of libraries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nMission: Libraries and librarians enjoy an established role and an accepted place in society - to connect people with information. Despite any and all other changes in the information world, or in the world at large, that purpose remains a vital and consequential one. However, the challenges in meeting it are now taking on new dimensions. Enormous technological advances are pushing the boundaries of the information landscape and providing information seekers with new ways to find and access information. Information needs now are met not only by libraries, but also by commercial content suppliers and free online information.Still, guided by a public service ethos, libraries can and should also strive to remain a major conduit through which all people can connect to reliable and meaningful information at no direct cost - other than taxes or tuition - for education, research, and recreation. Given this, there are two essential questions at the heart of the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative (RRSI). How will library resource sharing services help support the mission of libraries in a rapidly changing world and how can resource sharing practitioners help develop new roles for librarians in better connecting people with information?Interlending and document supply is an essential library service because patron demand for information regularly exceeds what any local library owns. Indeed, no library can afford to collect everything. In addition, the cost of what libraries do collect can be mitigated and further justified the more that information is used, whether by local patrons or those of other libraries. Such services offer a successful solution for patrons who need locally unavailable books or articles, in print or online, and the librarians and departments that provide them also serve as demonstrations of the potential of cooperation and the power of information.Still, although library resource sharing is an integral and long standing service in many libraries, it is not offered by all libraries to all patrons, nor do all libraries always follow, or even agree on, best practices. While interlending, or inter-library loan (ILL) as it is called in the USA, is growing in many large research libraries there (Mak, 2011), there are also news reports of delivery services being threatened in several US state library systems and library resource sharing is still not offered in all libraries to all patrons in all parts of the world. Much depends on library size, staffing and budget levels, on whether the library is a net borrower or a net lender, on the perceived or actual demand for locally unavailable material, and on systems support. Many cannot afford to use all available technology or all best practices, such as automated ILL management systems or authorizing policies that open collections for use by all. Many librarians are also understandably confounded by the legalities of copyright restrictions, particularly but not exclusively in an international context, leaving them afraid to share even what fair use or fair dealing exceptions allow. Others remain philosophically averse to lending material that might ever be needed locally.In response to these issues, the RRSI has been working since 2005 (Wanner et al., 2007) to educate, advocate and inspire library resource sharing practitioners and others who can help them improve their services. The concern is that if libraries do not emulate the technical advances and the level of customer service offered by other successful information suppliers then they will not remain information providers of choice. Of course, many librarians already offer excellent patron support and this is something that an advocate like the RRSI needs to let library users, potential users and funders know. Meanwhile, librarians may also be understandably concerned about doing more, as the RRSI calls for them to do, particularly at a time when they are also facing financial and/or staff shortfalls. However, the alternative to demonstrating their value and garnering increasing support is further reductions in budget and library services. This, in turn, is likely to force library users to make do with limited information or turn to more costly or less reliable sources. This also explains why the call for libraries to provide quicker, more efficient and more open resource sharing services is so strong at this time.In response to the realities of today's information world, the RRSI redefines resource sharing to broadly encompass many aspects of library service, and they see its future as crucial in keeping libraries relevant and strong. They use the term resource sharing, rather than interlending and document supply or interlibrary loans, in order to indicate that such services include more than just the traditional method of one library sending a book to another. Indeed, resource sharing is a more dynamic, rapidly changing, user-centered, technically innovative, and growing area of librarianship, playing a prominent role in shaping many of the library services utilized by information seekers. \"It is much broader than traditional ILL and includes a range of services including direct consortial borrowing, shared print repositories, purchase on demand programs and new relationships with acquisitions, eReserves and shared reference models,\" says Anne Beaubien, a founding member of the RRSI and Director, MLibrary Document Delivery, at the University of Michigan.As for the term rethinking, it represents a philosophical approach that calls for continual evaluation and improvement of policies and procedures within traditional interlending in light of new user needs and technical possibilities. \"Traditionally, the library world has been slow to adapt to and implement new technology,\" says Lyrasis Instructor Russell Palmer, who chairs the RRSI Delivery Committee. \"I think that resource sharing is an arena that will, by necessity, need to learn and implement new and exciting technology more quickly in order to keep up with user demands.\"While the concepts of resource sharing and rethinking are both simple ones, their implications are profound. This is especially true as the discovery-to-delivery loop is becoming more complex and the information universe is expanding. \"Resource sharing in the electronic age [...] [is] a whole new challenge,\" says Steering Committee member Pat Boze, Associate Director of the Lincoln Trail Libraries System. It seems widely recognized in today's libraries that, as Gina Persichini, Chair of the RRSI Steering Committee and Consultant with the Idaho Commission for Libraries explains, \"Resource sharing is evolving from a focus on getting physical items from place to place to getting information to individuals who need it.\" In this new paradigm, resource sharing services can and do play an increasingly integral role in helping users understand how to search, identify, evaluate, request, access, and utilize information resources and systems, thus revolutionizing the journey from discovery to delivery. According to Boze, \"The library voice needs to be loud and strong to continue the vision of allowing materials to be shared among library patrons even though the media is changing.\"The work of the RSSI certainly focuses on enhancing cooperation among libraries but RSSI members also posit that how interlending departments function within their own libraries needs to be rethought. Although technological changes in the information landscape and the processes information seekers use to discover and access resources are transforming the world of resource sharing, many ILDS departments that successfully work with other libraries, remain ironically siloed within their own, feeling undervalued and marginalized. Therefore, the RSSI also advocates and helps these departments to become resource sharing hubs through which a myriad of information services and systems can converge.The expanded and exciting roles that interlending librarians and staff can contribute to include reference, instruction, collection management and development, cataloging, e-resource and serials management, special collections, digitization, acquisitions, and library systems and technology. As they find catalog or e-serial list inaccuracies they can report them and lobby to have inaccurate national and local bibiographic and holdings records corrected and maintained. They can keep track of and champion copyright laws and negotiate licensing language that recognizes fair use of information. They can advocate for user initiated digitization of requests that they receive so that previously little known or hidden library collections can gain publicity and use. They can recommend items for purchase as they see what local patrons request through their service. And, they can teach their patrons how to use catalogs and databases at the point of need, when they make requests for items that actually are locally available.This is not to imply that ILDS practitioners can do it all, but also their unique perspective does allow them to see all the many moving parts of library service at once and their devotion to direct customer service keeps that perspective user-centric. From their vantage point, resource sharing practitioners can and should advocate for progress and change, where appropriate, in all areas that affect their work, as well as offer ideas about how libraries can truly integrate all service areas to better serve existing and potential patrons.To this end, the mission of the RRSI is: \"To foster an updated framework of cooperation and collaboration,\" as well as to:* rethink resource sharing for the 2twenty-first century;* be a catalyst movement for systematic change;* become an influential \"think tank\" - define and promote best practices;* inspire a change in attitude in providing services; and* encourage libraries to open up to find new ways to serve, not just their patrons, but all potential users (www.rethinkingresourcesharing.org/charter.html).In other words, to educate, advocate and inspire.Strategies\nConclusion: The vision of the RRSI is to help information access and resource sharing evolve through inspiration, education, and advocacy. To truly rethink resource sharing interested librarians need inspiration and new perspectives on its potential. They need to communicate their ideas, and share them with the broader library community and information world. And, as librarians are inspired to grapple with the challenges facing their institutions and the potential for resource sharing they require education to learn more about best practices and innovations in the field.The same technological breakthroughs that challenge libraries to envision a new role, also often foster fears of obsolescence. Such fears can be assuaged, however, if librarians take advantage of the opportunities they have to make access to information easier and more efficient for their communities. As Palmer points out, \"Sometimes the best ideas, policy changes, innovations come from necessary or even forced change.\" Since traditional ILDS operations can be considered as extra or peripheral services, they are particularly vulnerable targets in times of financial stress. However, as collection budgets shrink, and library material remains on library shelves, it is equally arguable that resource sharing should be increased during economic crises so that resources are not wasted and the library community shares the costs of information access.The traditional importance of the \"library as place\" also remains important, as a concept and in practice, in meeting new challenges. Physical library spaces used for teaching, learning, and scholarship need to continually develop and evolve. However, a library's ability to deliver content and services to the virtual spaces (e.g., desktop, web browser, etc.) where teaching, learning, and scholarship are happening and to the physical places where library users now expect services be provided (e.g. at home or abroad) is equally as important. All this is resource sharing.Especially in times of economic turmoil, the idea of advocacy is also important, and core to the vision of the RRSI. Armed with broad perspectives and the right information, resource sharing practitioners need to advocate with their administrators as well as the larger world about the important place of library resource sharing and the enormous opportunities it provides libraries in their ability to serve users and connect them with information. Such advocacy also needs to evolve into activism as librarians face more challenges to their ability to meet user needs. While resource sharing is not the only answer to the challenges libraries face, these services have a vital role to play in keeping information flowing and users connected and must be maintained and developed.The projects and activities undertaken by the RRSI also provides a compelling example of how any organization can inspire innovation, communicate vision, educate, and advocate for change, in general. Such catch phrases are chosen not to oversimplify the issues that libraries and library resource sharing face, but rather to clearly encapsulate and communicate the RRSI philosophy of information sharing, one that puts users at its center and makes the process of sharing information more open, easy and available to all.Notwithstanding the challenges librarians face, these are heady and ultimately heartening times for everyone devoted to information access. Around the world, technological advances enabling more open information sharing are also contributing to real world change. This clearly identifiable theme of the early twenty-first century is not only playing out on the global political stage. It is also evident in local libraries where the steadily growing interests of individuals and society, coupled with the ongoing explosion of print and online publications, are fueling the demand for and use of information.These are also uncertain times for the world and for information, which may one day consist of open access to scholarly publishing and completely new pay schemes for popular culture material. However, remaining inclusive, broadly defined and flexible should allow the RRSI to remain relevant, attract interest from a diverse pool of members and secure a seat at relevant tables. The Initiative's broad focus on best practices and awareness of the role innovative technologies can play in improving information services extends from helping librarians navigate the current landscape into shaping the future of library resource sharing. And, if resource sharing touches on every aspect of librarianship, then the future of resource sharing is the future of libraries and everyone who needs access to the information that librarians continue to devote their careers to providing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to communicate the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative's goals and activities to an international audience of librarians concerned with using best practices and technology to make library resource sharing more responsive to user needs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper provides a descriptive analysis explaining the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative's mission and the activities it employs to fulfill it.\nFindings: - The paper explains how the activities of the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative contribute to improving the delivery of library information services.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides examples of innovative strategies, programs and activities designed to advocate for, inspire, and enable successful resource sharing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sustainable healthcare design: Existing challenges and future directions for an environmental, economic, and social approach to sustainability
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Healthcare",
"Energy saving",
"Sustainable buildings",
"Evidence-based design",
"LEED certification"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The healthcare industry strives to promote high-quality, safe services (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2008). At the same time, the healthcare industry - a US$2.8 trillon industry in the USA (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2013) - is challenged to reduce costs and minimize its negative impact on the natural environment (Sena, 2016.; Fitzpatrick, 2010). However, improved quality and safety are usually accompanied by increased costs and consumption of natural resources (Finkler and Ward, 1999; Elsevier Clinical Decision Support, 2013).\n2. Methods: 2.1 Historical data\n3. Results: 3.1 The state of sustainability in the healthcare industry\n4. Discussion: 4.1 Historical data\n5. Conclusion: Our analysis of historical national data shows that current trends in energy consumption indicate a major need to accelerate the sustainability movement in healthcare. Effective and practical approaches to accelerate sustainability in healthcare were solicited from the first group of stakeholders, the planning and design industry (Figure 5). This in-depth discussion, which resulted in several potential solutions, should be continued with the participation of the key stakeholders in construction, operations and management, in addition to users (i.e. caregivers and clients/patients), community partners, organization leadership, donors and insurers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Healthcare projects face multiple obstacles in achieving sustainability. This paper aims to provide information regarding the energy consumption of healthcare facilities, to identify barriers to sustainability and to suggest methods to improve the effectiveness of these buildings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study investigates sustainability in healthcare buildings by examining national databases about energy use and energy savings. The authors then initiate a dialogue on this topic by interviewing experts in healthcare planning and design regarding the implications of this data, challenges to sustainability and potential solutions to these challenges.\nFindings: An analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration revealed that healthcare facilities rank second among building types in the USA in energy use per square foot and rank fourth in total energy use. Data from the US Green Building Council showed that only 1 per cent of healthcare buildings are registered with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, and 0.4 per cent have achieved certification, which is low compared with other building types.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research and discussion must continue engaging all stakeholders to interpret the data and identify transformative solutions to facilitate sustainable healthcare design construction and operation.\nPractical implications: It is important to approach sustainability in healthcare from social, economic, environmental and health-related perspectives. The authors identify five major barriers to sustainable healthcare design and construction and discuss 12 practical solutions.\nOriginality/value: Given the energy demands of healthcare buildings, facilitating their sustainability has the potential to make a significant difference in national energy use. Empirical research and evidence-based design can potentially help to accelerate sustainability by clarifying impacts and documenting the economic and operational returns on investment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Financial applications of ARMA models with GARCH errors
|
[
"Volatility",
"Forecasting",
"Estimation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recently there has been growing interest in the use of non-linear time series models in finance and economics (see Granger, 1998; Thavaneswaran et al., 2005a). Many financial series, such as returns on stocks and foreign exchange rates, exhibit leptokurtosis and time-varying volatility. These two features have been the subject of extensive studies ever since Nicholls and Quinn (1982), Engle (1982), and Engle and Gonzalez-Rivera (1991) reported them. Random coeffcient autoregressive (RCA) models (Nicholls and Quinn, 1982), the autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) model, Engle (1982), Engle and Gonzalez-Rivera (1991) and its generalization, the GARCH model, Bollerslev (1986) provides a convenient framework for the study of time-varying volatility in financial markets. Financial time series models for intra-day trading are a typical example of random coeffcient GARCH models.In practice, a common assumption in applying GARCH models to financial data is that the return series is conditionally normally distributed. We shall refer to this as the normal GARCH model, which is well known as part of the volatility clustering patterns typically exhibited in financial and economic time series. However, the kurtosis implied by the normal GARCH model tends to be far less than the sample kurtosis observed for most financial return series. For example, Bollerslev (1986) found evidence of conditional leptokurtosis in monthly S&P 500 Composite Index returns and advocates the use of the t-distribution. Thus, the non-normal GARCH model is more appropriate for the case of large leptokurtosis typically observed in asset returns.Andersen and Bollerslev (1998) and Tsay (2001) have fitted ARMA models with GARCH(1, 1) errors to Deutsche-Mark US dollar exchange rates return data and the S&P 500 Composite Index of returns, respectively. Thavaneswaran et al. (2005b) derived the kurtosis for zero-mean Random Coefficient GARCH models and also studied the correlation of the squared observed process for identifying the models. In this paper, we extend the results of Thavaneswaran et al. (2005b) to stationary ARMA (p, q) processes with GARCH(P, Q) errors. We also study the forecasting and hypothesis testing problem for stationary ARMA(p, q) financial time series with errors having GARCH errors. Closed form expressions for the l-steps ahead forecast error variances in terms of weights (psPs) are derived. Test statistics based on estimating functions are also proposed as in Baswa (1991), Thavaneswaran (1991) and Thavaneswaran and Peiris (1998). The superiority of the the estimating function approach is also demonstrated through simulation studies.\n2. GARCH Models: Consider the general class of GARCH (P, Q) model for the time series yt, where: Equation 1 Equation 2 and Zt is a sequence of independent, identically distributed random variables with zero mean and unit variance. Let ut=et2-ht be the martingale difference and let su2 be the variance of ut; then, (2.1) and (2.2) can be written as: Equation 3 Equation 4 Equation 5 where: Equation 6 We shall make the following stationarity assumptions for et2 which has an ARMA(R, Q) representation:(A.1) All zeroes of the polynomial Ph(B) lie outside of the unit circle.\n3. Simulation study: A total of 1,000 samples of size 500 were generated from an AR(1) model with t-distribution GARCH(1,1) (n=4), t-distribution GARCH(1,1) (n=5) and normal GARCH(1,1) errors, respectively. The power of the test based on the optimal estimating function method (pow^eropt) was shown to be at least as large as the power of the test based on the least squares estimating function (pow^erLS) (see Tables I-IX).\nConclusions: Identification of stationary series with GARCH errors based on kurtosis is proposed. The variance as well as the fourth moment of the l-steps ahead forecast error have been derived for ARMA(p, q) models with GARCH(P, Q) errors. Our results extend the results on forecasting volatility for the class of zero-mean GARCH models derived in Thavaneswaran et al. (2005b). Moreover, we have demonstrated the superiority of the AR model with GARCH errors over the usual linear AR model using two financial time series. We have also introduced test statistics and studied the power for ARMA models with heteroscedastic errors via estimating function methodology.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Financial returns are often modeled as stationary time series with innovations having heteroscedastic conditional variances. This paper seeks to derive the kurtosis of stationary processes with GARCH errors. The problem of hypothesis testing for stationary ARMA(p, q) processes with GARCH errors is studied. Forecasting of ARMA(p, q) processes with GARCH errors is also discussed in some detail.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Estimating-function methodology was the principal method used for the research. The results were also illustrated using examples and simulation studies. Volatility modeling is the subject of the paper.\nFindings: - The kurtosis of stationary processes with GARCH errors is derived in terms of the model parameters (ps), Ps-weights, and the kurtosis of the innovation process. Hypothesis testing for stationary ARMA(p, q) processes with GARCH errors based on the estimating-function approach is shown to be superior to the least-squares approach. The fourth moment of the l-steps-ahead forecast error is related to the model parameters and the kurtosis of the innovation process.\nOriginality/value: - This paper will be of value to econometricians and to anyone with an interest in the statistical properties of volatility modeling.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Perceived organizational culture and engagement: the mediating role of authenticity
|
[
"Authenticity",
"Organizational culture",
"Engagement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Senior executives are starting to recognize the potential implications of authentic behaviors at work as they relate to motivation and productivity. Authenticity can be defined as a consistency between one's external expressions and internal experiences (Roberts et al., 2009). Behaving and interacting in authentic ways have positive consequences for psychological well-being (Menard and Brunet, 2011). However, individuals tend to be less authentic at work than in other contexts (Robinson et al., 2013). Therefore, understanding how authenticity can be fostered at work is very important. Few studies to date have looked at how organizations may nurture authentic behaviors (Roberts et al., 2009) or the advantages individuals gain by behaving authentically at work (Cable et al., 2013).\nOrganizational culture and authenticity: In the last decade growing importance has been given to the authenticity construct in the work environment. Overall, authenticity has been linked with increased well-being and self-esteem as well as decreased levels of stress and depression (Neff and Harter, 2002; Goldman and Kernis, 2002; Wood et al., 2008). In addition to its positive effect on employee well-being, though, authenticity has also been linked with work role performance (Leroy et al., 2015), team productivity (Hannah et al., 2011), and reduced employee turnover (Goodwin et al., 2011). A few empirical studies have examined authenticity in organizations, mainly focussing on authentic leadership (Avolio and Gardner, 2005), strategy making (Liedtka, 2008), and more recently, from an employees' perspective (Menard and Brunet, 2011; Yagil and Medler-Liraz, 2013). Therefore, facilitating ways in which employees may feel that they can be consistent with their own values and beliefs, as well as feeling free to behave and stand up for what they believe in, is important.\nAuthenticity and engagement: There are numerous definitions of engagement, but they all share a psychological and behavioral facet involving energy, enthusiasm, and focussed effort (Macey and Schneider, 2008). Macey et al. (2009) note that feelings of engagement include urgency, focus, intensity, and enthusiasm and associated behaviors involve persistence, proactivity, role expansion, and adaptability. In this study we define and measure work engagement as a persistent, pervasive, and positive affective-motivational state of fulfillment in employees (Schaufeli and Salanova, 2007).\nThe mediating effects of authenticity: Engagement antecedents involve mainly job and personal resources (Christian et al., 2011). These resources can be more \"distal\" as they are related to organizational culture (Schein, 2004) such as leadership patterns and organizational climate (Schneider et al., 2013). However, \"proximal\" resources such as coaching, role clarity, autonomy, and career development have a stronger relationship with engagement than more distal organizational resources. We believe that one mechanism that explains how these distal organizational resources can translate into work engagement is via authenticity.\nMethodology: Sample and procedure\nDiscussion: The results indicate that individual ratings of perceived control-oriented organizational cultures (i.e. hierarchy and market) are negatively associated with authenticity at work. We also found that authenticity was positively associated with work engagement, and that it mediated the relationship between individual ratings of perceived market and hierarchy cultures and work engagement. We did not find support, though, for the positive influence of individual ratings of perceived organizational cultures emphasizing flexibility such as clan and adhocracy on authenticity. These results suggest that while perceptions of organizational culture profiles per se may not increase the presence of authenticity at work, it can nonetheless negatively influence work authenticity, and consequently, work engagement.\nConclusion: This study tested whether ratings of perceived organizational culture (e.g. adhocracy, market, clan, and hierarchical) are related to employee authenticity at work and whether employees who behave more authentically are also more engaged in their jobs. Our findings suggest that while some ratings of cultures (i.e. adhocracy and clan) neither nurture nor inhibit authentic behaviors, others (i.e. market and hierarchical) may constrain them. Authenticity in turn is related to the level of employees' work engagement. Authenticity also mediated the relationship between ratings of perceived hierarchy and market cultures and work engagement. Given that hierarchical and market cultures are the most commonly encountered organizational culture types (Cardador and Rupp, 2011), our findings have important practical implications and alert us to some of the negative consequences (i.e. reduced authenticity and engagement) that control-oriented cultures may have for both individuals and organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The idea of being authentic at work is gaining traction in both academia and organizations. The purpose of this paper is to test whether four types of perceived organizational culture (hierarchical, clan, market, and adhocracy) influence employees' authenticity and whether behaving more authentically at work influences the extent to which employees are engaged with their jobs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample includes 208 professionals working in a variety of industries in Brazil. Hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Results indicate that environments that are perceived to be more inclusive and participative, and that incentivize autonomy (i.e. clan and adhocracy cultures) neither nurture nor inhibit authenticity. On the other hand, cultures perceived to emphasize stability, order, and control (i.e. hierarchy and market cultures) are negatively related to authenticity. In addition, employees who behave more authentically at work are more engaged with their jobs. Authenticity at work also mediates the relationship between hierarchical and market cultures and work engagement.\nOriginality/value: The authors address the call of Roberts et al. (2009) for more research associated with the role that the organizational context plays in the development of authenticity. With the focus on authenticity the authors broaden the range of work engagement antecedents already discussed in the literature (Christian et al., 2011).\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The place of leadership in turnaround schools: Insights from organizational recovery in the public and private sectors
|
[
"Leadership",
"Turnarounds",
"Schools",
"Public sector organizations",
"Private sector organizations",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last decade, the notion of turning around failing schools has burst onto the educational landscape in various countries throughout the world. Powered by government accountability systems and a growing body of knowledge about productive schooling for all youngsters, educators, policymakers, and actors in the general community have been calling for dramatic action to turnaround schools that fail to effectively educate large numbers of students (Chapman, 2002a; Hassel and Steiner, 2003; Levin, 2006; Malen and Rice, 2004; Wong and Shen, 2003). Beginning with this reality, I have undertaken the assignment to explore the meaning of organizational turnaround in general and the place of leadership in that work in particular.There are two paths to pursue to achieve this objective. First, the emerging body of empirical work on turning around failing schools can be explored. While considerably less deep than research on organizational recovery in the corporate sector, over the last decade some important analyses of turnaround in schools have been completed. In Great Britain, for example, noteworthy work has been undertaken by, among others, Chapman and his colleagues (Chapman, 2002b; Potter et al., 2002); Harris and her associates (Harris et al., 2006; Reynolds et al., 2006); Reynolds (1995) (see previous); and Stoll (see previous, also Stoll and Myers, 1998). In the USA, initial research investigating the power of specific turnarounds strategies such as school improvement planning (Mintrop and MacLellan, 2002); the provision of expert assistance (Duke, 2007; McColskey and Monrad (2004); Mintrop and Trujillo, 2005); adoption of comprehensive reform models (Brady, 2003; Wang and Manning, 2000); and reconstitution and related takeover strategies, including privatization (Borman et al., 2000; Cibulka, 2003; Kowal and Hassel, 2005; Phenix et al., 2005) is underway.Second, one can complete the assignment by examining the concept of turnaround leadership outside of the Pk-12 educational sector. Specifically, a large and growing body of empirical literature is now available that helps us see how churches, hospitals, universities, government entities, for-profit firms, and not-for-profit organizations have successfully and unsuccessfully engaged recovery efforts. Elsewhere I provide a narrative following the first pathway. In this article I follow the second pathway. That is, I cull through the deeper body of non-educational literature and develop a grounded narrative of turnaround leadership; one that I believe has considerable applicability to organizational reintegration in schools. I note that I am not alone in this effort. Over the last few years, other investigators have begun to examine the implications of corporate turnarounds for the recovery of public sector agencies (Boyne, 2006; Paton and Mordaunt, 2004; Walshe et al., 2004), although to date very few have focused specifically on applications to schooling (for an exception see Murphy and Meyers (2008)).I complete this introductory section with a brief description of turnaround as a concept and a review of the stages of organizational turnaround. In the second section, I describe the procedures used to conduct my review of this extensive body of empirical and theoretical scholarship. In the final section, I present an analysis of leadership in turnaround organizations.The turnaround framework: an overview\nMethods: Data sources\nFindings and discussion: The central factor [in a sharpbend] is \"leadership\" for without it the potential of the people in the company is unlikely to be released, sustained, and directed effectively (Grinyer et al., 1988, p. 139).In this section, I discuss three defining themes about leadership for turnaround schools that flow from our analysis of organizational recovery (and failure) in the larger literature on firms and public agencies:1. leadership as the critical variable in the turnaround equation;2. change of leadership as a generally essential element in organizational recovery; and3. type of leadership, but not style, as important in organizational reintegration work.Leadership as a key to reintegration\nConclusion: The objective of this article was to distill critical insights about leadership for turnarounds from a broad body of research on organizational failure and recovery - lessons I suggest that might productively be examined by educators and policy makers concerned with recovery in schools. While it is beyond my capacity here to tease out the specific tasks and actions of turnaround leaders, I was able to cull out three extremely visible leadership patterns in the mosaic of organizational rejuvenation. Specifically, I reported that leadership is the most critical element in the narrative of organizational recovery. I also observed that for a variety of reasons a change in top-level leadership is often-to-generally required for organizations to recover. Finally, I reported that certain dimensions of leadership, but not styles, consistently define turnaround managers.While I believe that much of the architecture for understanding leadership for failing school is visible in the narrative presented above, I isolate a few issues of special significance for educators and educational policy makers here. To begin with, because it appears that leadership is often the essential element in the recovery algorithm, one should be less than sanguine about turnaround strategies that attempt to \"work around\" school leaders. That is, \"leader proof\" recovery efforts are about as likely to be effective as \"teacher proof\" curriculum programs have been over the last 40 years.In a related vein, the adoption of strategies that do not pay explicit attention to leadership in their designs would appear to be questionable. For example, in the USA comprehensive school reform designs often neglect consideration of leadership (Murphy and Datnow, 2003). Yet the adoption of comprehensive school reform models is a not uncommon turnaround strategy. My assessment is that this absence of attention to leadership is likely to hamper the ability of some of these models to power school turnaround.Although less troublesome than the cautions just explored, given what was reported above about the importance of leadership change in turnaround organizations, recovery efforts that attempt to prop up the existing leaders of failing schools merit scrutiny. Indeed, \"inspection\" strategies designed to lay visible the facts of school problems and \"leader helper\" strategies intended to support principals/heads may prove too weak to produce the aggressive changes needed in failing schools. Reading of the turnaround literature outside of education tells us that the recovery plan should begin with the assumption of leadership change. The replacement of the head may not be inevitable, but the case for evidence should fall to those who argue against leader change.Relatedly, because as I reported above \"context\" is an essential theme in the turnaround chronicle, efforts to identify or produce generic agents of recovery may be less helpful than some reformers might believe (for an excellent treatment of this point in education see Harris et al., 2006 and Reynolds et al., 2006).While I was able to address the issue only briefly above, it is possible that more than one change in top leadership may be required in school turnarounds. Specifically, the efficiency stage of recovery may necessitate one type of administrator while the entrepreneurial phase may call for another type of leader. Similarly, there is a period in the timeline of decline and failure after which leadership replacement will likely be ineffective. Once it is determined that a school is in a non-viable position, a change in leadership might help lessen the pain of demise, or permanent failure, but will not spark organizational recovery.Finally, while being sensitive to the warning about the appropriateness of a single, context free model of turnaround leadership, there are patterns of skills and dispositions that should be privileged in the search for agents of school recovery. In particular, since failing organizations are marked by a plethora of organizational dysfunctions and often characterized by a prevailing sense of gloom, it is helpful for turnaround leaders to have unusual supplies of optimism and persistence and a penchant for enjoying the risks needed to break a school's pernicious cycle of decline.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review the literature from the organizational sciences to develop a grounded narrative of turnaround leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is a review of literature, which employs a ten-step process to explore and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. The paper relies on strategies appropriate for document analysis, and borrows analytic strategies (e.g. memoing, coding) employed with interview data.\nFindings: - The paper finds three defining themes that flow from the review of empirical and theoretical work on organizational recovery in firms, non-educational public agencies, and not-for-profit organizations: leadership as the critical variable in the turnaround equation; change of leadership as a generally essential element in organizational recovery; and type of leadership, but not style, as important in organizational reintegration work.\nPractical implications: - The paper posits that the literature on turning around failing organizations in sectors outside of education provides blueprints for recovery activity in failing schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly strong.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is the first systematic effort to mine research in the corporate, not-for-profit, and public sectors to develop insights for leadership in failing schools.\n",
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] |
An analysis of critical information technology issues facing organizations
|
[
"Information systems",
"Information technology success variables",
"Longitudinal",
"Organization size",
"Critical",
"Important",
"Information technology issues",
"Critical issues",
"Company size",
"Longitudinal analysis",
"Information technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Information technology (IT) continues to have a mixed record with regard to performance and user satisfaction. Trading Economics (2011) estimated that nearly 9 percent of our gross national product is spent on IT (Trading Economics, 2011). Very sizable monies are spent on information systems and processes. The productivity paradox may not be as much in the news, but Krigsman (2008) still estimated that 68 percent of IT projects fail. As a result, it is important to understand what problems still exist in IT and also measure our progress with regard to these issues. Understanding what are the most important IT issues will allow for improvements in IT success due to focused efforts to address these problems.One of the areas reviewed is key IT issues. One of the organizations that recognizes the importance of key IT issues is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA, 2011). The AICPA annually surveys members on their views on the top IT issues. They publish an annual report of the top ten technology initiatives, which suggests areas that need attention (Table I). By studying critical issues, it is hoped that failures can be reduced and increased productivity can be gained from the large economic investments in IT. The Financial Executives International Organization also surveys their members and yearly reviews the critical issues among their members. Our study explores their data from two separate time periods to determine whether size of an organization plays a role in the identification of what issues are critical, important, or not important, and performs factorial ANOVA analysis to determine whether the issues differ by size of an organization. In addition, we explore whether and how these issues may have varied over the time period 2006-2010. By understanding the issues, the trends as well as the impact of size, we hope to gain a better understanding of the management of IT, and to suggest key areas to focus on over the next several years. Our study, thus, will focus on the importance of nine key technology issues, as well as how these issues vary with regard to company size, and how they have varied over the past four years.IT continues to play a vital role in business organizations. The critical IT issues that are important to organizations, however, are varied, and range from strategic fit to replacement of legacy systems. Our study reviews nine commonly expressed IT issues and measures their importance based on the size of an organization over the last four years. Our factorial ANOVA study finds both main effects and interaction effects. Specifically, company size as measured by sales volume does affect what IT issues are critical to an organization; issues have varied in importance over the past four years; and there are some statistically significant interaction effects between company size and critical issues.1.1 Size\n2 Research questions: The prior review establishes the study of critical IT issues, as well as the use of company size and longitudinal trend as key independent variables for social science research studies. Our study, thus, explores four major research questions in an attempt to better understand problems facing IT managers today. The background and review for each question is noted below for each question and is not duplicated here:RQ1. What are the important issues facing IT professionals in 2010?RQ2. Do critical information technology issues, as identified by financial executives, differ with regard to importance based on organizational size?RQ3. Have critical information technology issues, as identified by financial executives, varied significantly over time?RQ4. Have critical information technology issues, as identified by financial executives, been subjected to interaction effects between company size and time?\n3 Survey source and methodology: In order to explore critical issues, specific corporate data were required. We found a rich data set that was available from Financial Executives International. Financial Executives International is \"the preeminent association for CFOs and other senior finance executives.\" It has [...] CFOs, VPs of Finance, Treasurers, Controllers, Tax Executives, Academics, Audit Committee members [in] companies large and small, public and private, cross-industry (FEI, 2006a). The FEI, each year, commissions a large-scale study of \"technology issues for Financial Executives\". The survey instructions follow:FEI's Committee on Finance and information Technology (CFIT) and Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF), in partnership with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), are conducting the eighth annual survey of Technology Issues for Financial Executives. This initiative explores and reports on information technology from the perspective of the Financial Executive. Last year we set another record for survey participation with nearly 800 responses, continuing our unbroken streak of year-over-year increases since the survey's inception. As part of this year's effort, we are targeting another significant increase in response volume so that we can expand the resulting publication to include more analyses by industry and company size (FEI, 2006a, b).As a part of this study, specific information was obtained from top financial executives on critical issues facing IT. These questions and responses were sufficiently detailed and pertinent to our research questions. The main advantages are the large data set and the independent collection from a private membership trade group. All data has been collected and furnished by the Financial Executives International and remains their property. Use for academic and research purposes was obtained by the author. The author wishes to sincerely thank the organizations for their cooperation.The overall questionnaire included 44 questions in the noted categories but sub-questions and ranked responses raised the overall individual data points to more than 220. Details of response rate were unavailable but total number of respondents was 483 in 2010 and 709 in 2006. From this overall report a small subsection was used to analyze the relevant research areas. Selected responses from the demographics section were included as well. Our study reviews the 2006 and 2010 studies which were obtained with permission from the organization. The specific questions used to review the research questions are listed in Appendix 1. The first nine questions in the 2010 survey were used in both the 2006 and 2010 survey and will be used for the longitudinal study.\n4 Critical issue topics background, results, and discussion: The following are the critical issues that were extracted and tested from the survey. There is literature support for each area followed by the analysis of the actual question used in the survey. Statistical analyses were used to study each of these potential key issues facing IT organizations today. This section will focus on research questions 1-4 by reviewing possible key IT issues as presented in prior research, review their relevance and importance in 2010. In addition, it will examine potential significant differences in the importance of these issues based on size of organization as well as differences between how these issues are viewed between 2006 and 2010.A. Identifying the appropriate level of technology investment\n5 Discussion and conclusion: One of the overall objectives of the manuscript was to determine if and whether size mattered in the recognition and prioritization of critical and important IT issues. Table XXI shows the significant levels for the variables by size and industry. Over the nine issues, our analysis has determined that in 2010 only one in nine did have significant differences at p<0.10 based on company size.Over the nine issues, our analysis has determined that from 2006 to 2010, four in nine did have significant differences at p<0.10. The issues which showed significant difference were identifying the appropriate level of technology investment, identifying the appropriate level of security for information and electronic applications, identifying how IT can improve or influence business processes, and developing disaster recovery capabilities. Identifying the appropriate level of technology investment has seen a dramatic decrease from 2006 to 2010. This would suggest that companies have perhaps developed stronger processes to identify and measure returns on IT investment and have successfully implemented these policies. Identifying the appropriate level of security likewise, has shown strong increase over the four year period with organizations fully realizing the importance of protecting their systems and data. Conversely, Identifying how IT can improve business processes has dramatically increased suggesting that businesses now fully appreciate the importance of inter-functional business process and the importance of optimizing process for peak business performance. Disaster recovery has shown a significant decline over the past four years. This has important implications for practitioners and the industry suggesting that this is now a mature area that is now being addressed by many IT departments. For IT issues, importance of issues has changed over the last four years. Security and business process have come to the forefront of critical technology issues. Management should review these areas for potential improvement and for the continued success of the organization. For interaction effects of size and year, only upgrading of legacy systems shows a significant difference. For small and medium sized companies, a significant decline in importance was seen. A possible explanation for this is that larger companies have more complexity and more legacy systems and thus still see this as a more critical issue than smaller companies.The purpose of the study was to identify and analyze major IT issues facing organizations today. As a general rule, we have confirmed nine issues that are critical or important and generally their importance does not vary based on size. There is some difference however over time with security and business process rising in importance and determining the appropriate level of IT investment and disaster recovery declining in importance. As noted, the productivity paradox may not be as much in the news, but Krigsman (2008) still estimated that 68 percent of IT projects fail. As a result, it is important to understand what problems still exist in IT and also measure our progress with regard to these issues. Understanding what the most important IT issues are will allow for improvements in IT success due to focused efforts to address these problems. This article describes those issues and measures their importance over time. They are explored based on both time and company size variance and can provide very important insight to allow company focus on the MOST important IT issues. This contribution can aid significantly in improving productivity and IT focus. This can be used by researchers for further study and modeling and practitioners to establish priority level of IT investment in organizations. The study can be used as a basis for further exploration on critical IT issues as well as the influences on company size on criticality of issues. It can also serve as a preliminary model to analyze firm information systems over time. Limitations of the study include that the only group included in the survey were financial executives. Further work should be undertaken to confirm these results among IT executives as well as general management. In addition, the survey is relatively US-biased. Further study needs to be undertaken to confirm these results in other countries. Finally, the article is an exploratory study that can be used as a springboard for numerous academic studies. In addition, this study can also serve as an immediate aid in assisting in identification of key technology issues that practitioners can immediately address in order of priority.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the views of top financial executives on the information systems (IS) in their organizations and to study the critical information technology issues facing organizations. Specifically, it aims to study critical issues over the period 2006 to 2010, as well as the effect of company size on the criticality of issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper uses an analysis of secondary data obtained from the 2006 and 2010 Financial Executives International (FEI) comprehensive survey-based research on technology issues for financial executives. The study was conducted by the FEI and in conjunction with Computer Sciences Corporation in 2006. Factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical methods are used.\nFindings: - The findings confirm critical issues that are facing organizations today. The study also finds that company size generally does not play a significant role in the criticality of information technology (IT) issues and that generally, there has been variation in the relative importance of issues between 2006 and 2010.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study can be used as a basis for further exploration on critical IT issues, as well as the influences on company size on criticality of issues. It can also serve as a preliminary model to analyze firm IS over time. Limitations of the study include that the only group included in the survey were financial executives and the study is primarily based on US company responses.\nPractical implications: - The findings can be used to guide management teams in emphasizing areas that need attention and are of critical importance to all organizations. The article is extremely topical and useful for practitioners in understanding what are the major issues facing IT today. The longitudinal analysis and size study are particularly important in confirming the importance of the relevant IT issues.\nOriginality/value: - The paper analyzes a large current sample set which empirically reviews a cross-section of major corporations, IS departments and their returns. In addition, it begins to explore longitudinal and size effects on critical IT issues\n",
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Digital transformation: harnessing digital technologies for the next generation of services
|
[
"Big Data",
"Strategy",
"Customer value",
"Customer service",
"Service encounters",
"Business model",
"Digital",
"Service",
"Customer experience",
"Digital economy",
"Digital transformation strategy",
"Data-driven business models",
"Machine learning",
"AI",
"Digital technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Customer expectations in both the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) worlds are being ramped up as market entrants endlessly innovate to enhance their services. However, companies can also see the opportunities that are being created in this new experience and platform-led economy. At the same time, the fear of new competition emerging from unexpected quarters is very real. Ultimately, firms are terrified of the Kodak and Toys R Us scenarios: eyes fixed on a game-changing technology as it comes over the horizon but unable to make the organisational changes that would allow them to embrace it. However, the Kodak example is instructive in lots of ways. It is very difficult for large companies to achieve the kind of shift from product to service transformation demanded of them in the new digital era. Equally, they cannot opt out.\nDigital technology trajectory: Arguably, the nature of digital technologies is a fundamental key difference causing the dramatic shift within organisations and in the competitive landscape. Today, we are reaching an inflection point, where the effect of these digital technologies' manifests with \"full force\" and enables \"unprecedented things\" (Brynjolfsson and Mcfee, 2014). A convergence of multiple technologies, such as mobile, location-based, virtual reality, digital twins, blockchains, artificial intelligence (AI), wearable technologies, chatbots, neuroscience and business process automation, as well as machine-to-machine interactions through the Internet of Things (IoT) are happening today. The innovations build on and amplify one another in a fusion of multiple technologies across the physical, digital and social realms (Bolton et al., 2018). In addition, digital technologies have mobility and ubiquitous connectivity features, which provide immediate interaction and access to a wide range of data and computing power; these features are also reflected in today's products and services and enable a wider reach (of people), regardless of geographical location (Schwab, 2016; Lanzolla and Anderson, 2008; Lanzolla and Giudici, 2017).\nDigital strategy trajectory: It became clear that digital service transformation would be a strategic focus for firms in different industry sectors. Even if a business or a sector has yet to experience the full force of digitalisation's disruptive consequences, it is playing out in other industries. In addition, it can mean bad news for the incumbents as new market entrants come in and move the goal posts. However, how do the big multinationals approach digitalisation when the scale and complexity of organisation-wide transformation is so challenging?\nCustomer experience trajectory: Being able to see your firm through the eyes of your customer is fundamental to successful service delivery. We are already seeing many examples of firms competing on customer experience, whether it is Lenovo's quick response time policy or Disney personalising its customer interactions or omnichannel retail. Recently, the Coca-Cola Company has launched a new vending machine in China where consumers can purchase beverages, as well as return and recycle used bottles and cans. The vending machine uses AI technology such as facial recognition and sound interaction to provide an interactive experience to the consumers. Consumers who buy a beverage bottle may receive a reminder along the lines of \"you owe me a bottle, don't forget to pay back,\" via their mobile devices, consumers can also earn credits by recycling more. These credits can be used to send e-vouchers to friends for drinks or to purchase items made from recycled plastic (Haigh, 2018).\nData-driven Business Models trajectory: Capitalizing on the data explosion from different systems and service encounters is increasingly becoming a necessity for businesses who wish to remain competitive. As a consequence, many firms are looking to develop new business models - effectively data-driven business models (Hartmann et al., 2016). The challenges are threefold:\nConclusion: Digital transformation has gained global attention in various service industries, due to the pervasive nature and proliferation of recent digital technologies. The world is undergoing a technological revolution. Technologies such as AI will transform the way we live and work, from the way we diagnose and treat cancer to the security of online transactions. This fourth industrial revolution is of a scale, speed and complexity that is unprecedented. These technologies become critical for companies to respond to market dynamics accurately and quickly. It is changing consumer behaviour, changing the way companies are organised and changing the role of \"humans\" in the marketplace. The degree of complexity in digital transformations exceeds that of other previous transformations, such as IT-enabled transformation. Thus, companies are experimenting with digital technologies and they build a digital service strategy to enhance their competitive positioning which does not solely depend on the technologies they adopt, but more importantly builds on the strategy they deploy. Companies have to design the right experience for their customers and also deal with digital transformation challenges and obstacles (e.g. leadership, culture, institutional, etc.) that might stand in the way of a successful implementation. Finally, companies are looking to rewrite their business models to be more of a data-driven business model.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss digital transformation and its four trajectories - digital technology, digital strategy, customer experience and data-driven business models - that could shape the next generation of services. This includes a discussion on whether both the market and organizations are all ready for the digital change and what are the opportunities that will enable firms to create and capture value though new business models.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Providing services is a proven and effective way to secure a competitive position, deliver long-term stable revenues and open up new market opportunities. However, it is also clear that some organisations are struggling to digitally transform. Therefore, the commentary provides a brief insight into how firms explore the possibilities of digital transformation and navigate these uncharted waters.\nFindings: Today's digital technologies affect the organisation outside and in, enabling the creation of new business models and transforming the customer experience. The incumbents are acutely aware that they need to transform strategically - to build new networks and value chains.\nOriginality/value: This commentary extends earlier work exploring the digital disruption within services to highlight a number of connected areas: the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation at a strategic level, as well as understanding and enhancing the customer experience and seeing how new data-driven business models can underpin service transformation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Accounting without accounting: Informational proxies and the construction of organisational discourses
|
[
"Management accounting",
"Business discourses",
"Discourse theory",
"Rhetoric analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organisations are complex networks of interconnected discourses. Sets of complementary and conflicting discursive articulations operate within an organisation, including growth, entrepreneurship, strategy, management, production and sales. We concentrate on the construction of these discursive articulations, particularly the use of discursive artefacts. Traditionally, management accounting artefacts support, facilitate, enable, and constrain competing and conflicting organisational discourses (Chapman, 1998; Puxty, 1993; Hines, 1988; Morgan, 1988). We situate this paper within literatures concerning accounting generally, and management accounting and management control specifically. This includes literature recognising the discursive effects of how accounting is used (e.g. Arrington and Francis, 1989; Cooper and Sherer, 1984; Hines, 1988, 1989, 1991; Mitchell et al., 1998; Morgan, 1988; Puxty, 1993), literature illustrating that accounting operates to sustain diverse organisational discourses (e.g. Ahrens and Chapman, 2004; Covaleski et al., 2003; Knights and Collinson, 1987; Major and Hopper, 2005), and literature acknowledging the \"linguistic turn\" in accounting (e.g. Arnold et al., 1994; Macintosh, 2002; Macintosh et al., 2000). While the focus of these literatures considers the direct impact of the use of management accounting information systems (MAIS) within an organisation (a \"positive, what is\" focus), this study addresses the organisational impact and consequent managerial dynamics of the absence of MAIS (in illustrating what does this \"absence\" do, it is crucial that we stress that there was MAIS previously in the studied organisation); we illustrate that, in the absence of the discursive artefacts of MAIS, managerial intuition becomes increasingly important, which has the effect of centralising power in the organisation, and the organisation conjures up informational proxies to replace the management information traditionally provided by accounting artefacts. These intuitions and informational proxies prove to be unsatisfactory, short-term oriented, and difficult to defend, due to the historical pervasive culture of accounting (Morgan, 1988).\n2. Accounting and discourse: Following a movement to a constructionist inquiry, accounting literature increasingly recognises the inherent social, political and cultural contestability of accounting. For instance, as Hines (1988, 1989) and Morgan (1988) illustrate, this suggests that accounting and organisational discourses can be \"reconstructed\", \"reinterpreted\" and \"rearticulated\" based on diverse social, political, and cultural positions. This is central to our discussion in examining how accounting artefacts operate within the organisation, and that accounting is perceived to have a central role in organisational discursive articulations:\n3. Methodological approach: This paper is grounded in post-structural ontology (Czarniawska, 2000). Consequently, in order to \"understand\" the positions of our research subjects and consider the implications of power structures, we use interpretive, ethnographic tools to inform our post-structuralist intervention (Gioia and Pitre, 1990; Glynos, 1999; Mol and Law, 2004). This perspective, methodologically, helps us to understand the way managers and executives construct organisational discourses, and what MAIS or other artefacts do in rhetorically constructing organisational discourses as \"knowledge\". We situate this research within an organisation that, for a time (approximately two years) produced no internal MAI[5].\n4. Analysing data - the discourses: This combination of data collection methods, focusing on the ontological construction of discourses and of discursive artefacts provided a terrain of contestability over relevant organisational discourses. We discuss the construction of these discourses in turn. The analysis focused on identifying and understanding how discourses were sustained and constructed, when many of these discourses were previously constructed with reference to the MAI produced within the organisation. As an analysis of rhetoric, our intent was the identification of the rhetorical mechanisms used by the people in the organisation in attempts to hegemonise alternative discourses. Considering the ontological presuppositions acknowledged under Laclau and Mouffe's (2001) discourse theory, this intent means identifying the contestable nodal points raised by organisational members in order to construct and present a particular view about organisational performance over other alternative views. In line with Suddaby and Greenwood's (2005) \"theorisations of change\", we developed \"theorisations of the organisation\" (or, the \"organisational discourses\" as we call them), as rhetorically articulated by the people interviewed.\n5. Case study - discussion: This establishes two parallel discussions that are the subject of the analysis of the paper: first, the organisation cannot escape its previous use of accounting; in that, the use of accounting created a need for measurement, as this is integral to the culture of accounting (Morgan, 1988). The case study is unique. It is not a situation of an organisation without accounting, but it is an organisation that has abandoned accounting. In that sense, it is akin to the notions of accountability discussed by Messner (2009). This organisation is, in a way, haunted by its previous accounting history. In examining the company's abandonment of accounting, multiple explanations are provided: the responsible person left the company, the new manager was not necessarily up to speed with the accounting requirements, the company went through rapid expansion, and the company moved from a monthly strategic meeting to a daily operational meeting. In all of this, the previous accounting conversation was lost. However, the company cannot escape the need for measurement. This is not to suggest that accounting is always present in the organisation, but that in any results-driven environment, there is a need for a discussion about results. Accounting, in its own peculiar way, lends its support to this \"results\" discussion. Thus, in not using accounting, we argue that this organisation is still \"accounting\". By recognising the absence of accounting, recognising that it is helpful, and recognising that the organisation is results-driven, it is still engaged in a form of accounting conversation. This first section of the discussion addresses this part. Secondly, though, the conversation examines how the organisational discourses, despite the loss of accounting information, exist and function within the company, through the invocation of different measurement proxies. This destabilises the centrality accorded to accounting as the language of business and is an illustration of what accounting does and does not do within an organisation. This organisation drew upon a set of inventive measures to support its discourse; these are reasonably unstable proxies, but the discourses still flourished.\n6. Final comments: This paper contributes to a range of discussions in the accounting literature. In particular, it contributes to complex debates concerning the materiality of accounting in a post-structural, ontologically-informed world. What we argue for, in a space where accounting does not exist a priori, where there are epistemological challenges around positing what accounting is, and where, as Hopwood (1987) would argue, the employment (or non-employment) of accounting within an organisation can lead to unexpected results or even the opposite of what was intended is that we should focus, theoretically, on what accounting \"does\" or \"does not do\" within an organisation. This is a new post-structural objectivity developed in an accounting context (Mol and Law, 2004). This case study constitutes, consequently, an analysis of what the absence of accounting does within the organisation. What is interesting for us in this case study is the complex psychological question of what convinces people to act in a certain manner. Predictive models like economic rationalism are too simplistic. Actors within the organisation take a range of information into account, including intuition, and take a decision. One thing that people within an organisation will try to do is promote a consistent internal discourse. Information helps in this process: consequently, an organisation with a history of previous MAIS is still thirsty for information and this organisation has a complex network of interrelated information proxies to support and sustain its internal discourses, controlled by the managing partners.\nAcknowledgements: The Brazilian National Council of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq) and the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) supported the development of the research project which was the basis for this paper. The authors want also to acknowledge the rich and challenging reviews received from the two anonymous referees, as well as from the editor of AAAJ.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: An effective management accounting information system (MAIS), as well as the accounting discourse related to it, can support, facilitate, enable, and constrain diverse business discourses. This paper aims to examine the discursive and organisational effects of an organisation accounting upon absent accounting artefacts, i.e. accounting without accounting. Situated within the discursive literature, this paper examines the construction of competing articulations of the organisation by focusing on what accounting does or does not do within an organisation. In particular, the paper acknowledges the fundamental importance of the accounting discourse in supporting, facilitating, enabling, and constraining competing organisational discourses, as it illustrates how the absence of accounting centralises power within the organisation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: From a rhetorical, discursive perspective, the authors develop an in-depth qualitative case study in a manufacturing organisation where MAIS has been abandoned for approximately two years. Interpretive research approaches, from a post-structural perspective, provided the base for the structure of the research. The authors studied how other organisational discourses (such as entrepreneurship and growth), which are traditionally constructed with reference to accounting and other artefacts, continued to be produced and sustained. The non-use and non-availability of management accounting information created a vacuum that needed to be filled. The lack of discursive counterpoints and counter-evidence provided by MAIS created a vacuum of information, allowing powerful, proxy discourses to prevail in the organisation, increasing risks to business management.\nFindings: The absence of MAIS to support an accounting discourse requires that contingent discourses \"fill in the discursive gap\". Despite appearances, they are no substitute for the accounting discourse. Thus, over time, the entrepreneurial, growth and partners' discourses lose credibility, without the corresponding use of management accounting information and its associated discourse.\nOriginality/value: There are at least two main contributions from the case study and the findings presented in this paper: first, they provide a new perspective for studying MAIS, as a specific organisational discourse among other discourses that shape people relationship within the organisation as an examination of accounting without accounting. Second, this discussion reinforces the relevance of accounting discourse for other organisational discourses, supporting, facilitating, enabling, and constraining them, by demonstrating the effects of its absence.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of forecast information quality on supply chain performance
|
[
"Forecasting",
"Information",
"Quality",
"Supply chain management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Several studies and authors have emphasized the importance of sharing information between customers and suppliers in supply chains, especially point-of-sale (POS) and forecast data (Stank et al., 1996; Kelle and Akbulut, 2005; Christopher and Towill, 2000; Cachon and Fisher, 2000; Lee et al., 1997). However, while most studies discuss the general importance of having access to forecast information along the supply chain, they do not explain the impact of the available forecast information on supply chain performance, how available forecast information may have quality deficiencies, or how different information quality deficiencies may impact the usefulness of forecasts.Supply chain performance is typically related to metrics reflecting cost, tied-up capital and customer service (Brewer and Speh, 2000). The supplier might need to use internal actions to compensate for poor customer service. Corrective actions, such as rush orders and overtime, are mainly related to costs for the supplier. Preventive actions, for example, safety stocks and extra capacity, are mainly related to tied-up capital, but also to costs. The use of corrective and preventive actions could allow for good customer service performance even if the demand is uncertain, for example, as a result of lack of access to customer forecasts. The importance of forecast data also depends on how it is used in the manufacturing planning and control processes. Long-term capacity forecasts may, for example, be considered most important for firms applying make-to-order (MTO) strategies, while short-term material forecasts could be expected to be more important when applying make-to-stock (MTS) strategies.As a supplier, it may, however, not suffice to only have access to customers' forecasts. The interpretation and possible use of the forecast also depends on the quality of the forecast information, i.e. to what extent the supplier perceives the customer's forecast information as fulfilling expectations. The forecast could, for example, be available too late to be used in the planning process, be changed so often that the supplier does not trust it, or exchanged in an inappropriate format, for example, as a faxed document that needs much further processing before the supplier can make use of it, etc.More rigorous empirical research on the performance effects of inter-organizational forecast information exchange is scarce. Several authors have emphasized the importance of conducting empirical studies on the performance impact of collaboration and the sharing of forecasts (McCarthy and Golicic, 2002). Consequently, we lack empirical studies on the performance impact of access to customer forecast and forecast information quality (hereafter denoted FIQ) discussed above. Empirical studies describing the present extent of forecast information sharing in supply chains are lacking. For example, to what extent is forecast information exchanged between companies? Does the exchange of forecast information and the quality of the forecast information differ further upstream in the supply chain (e.g. between 1st and 2nd tier suppliers and between 2nd and 3rd tier suppliers) compared to down-stream (e.g. between retailers and OEMs and between OEMs and 1st tier suppliers)? Does the exchange and perceived FIQ differ between companies with different supply strategies, for example, between suppliers using MTS compared to MTO strategies?This paper deals with these research issues. It contains two sub-objectives. The first is to describe the extent of supplier access to customer forecast information and its perceived information quality. The second is to explain the performance impact of forecast information access and FIQ on supply chain performance. Not all types of forecast information are studied; only demand information important for supply chain performance. This means future demand expressed as product content, order quantity and delivery time. Firstly, the theoretical framework is described and hypotheses related to the second explanatory sub-objective are developed. Then, the data collection conducted through a mailed survey is discussed, and findings of the empirical analysis are presented and discussed.\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses generation: The issue of sharing forecasts in the supply chain has been studied from some different perspectives, for example, the collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) approach and modeling-based approaches. No identified study has looked at the FIQ, but the concept of information quality has been studied in other disciplines. Here, a framework for describing and analyzing the FIQ is defined and developed. The definitions and measures of supply chain performance are also presented, along with a generation of hypotheses.Sharing forecast information\nMethodology: A dyadic research approach was necessary to describe the cooperation between suppliers and certain customers. Surveys were selected as the empirical data generating method, as recommended by McCarthy and Golicic (2002). Surveys fit into a desire to conduct objective, deductive research with little interviewer bias. A larger number of respondents can be addressed with surveys, which makes it possible to use statistical analysis techniques such as factor analysis (Hair et al., 1998).Survey instrument\nFindings: State-of-the-art description of forecast access and its perceived information quality\nDiscussion: A large proportion of the suppliers were receiving customer forecasts. One reason for this may be that the suppliers are all rated as the customers' most important supplier, and a deeper cooperation than the average can be expected. If random suppliers had been chosen the proportion might have been lower. Still, the extent of exchange identified in this study is similar to other studies (Sandberg, 2005). The forecasting type or how frequently forecasts are exchanged were not studied either.Quality deficiencies were found for all FIQ variables. The accurate variable is, however, significantly higher than the other variables, which implies that suppliers perceive that forecasts are rather free from obvious mistakes. This could be expected since important and established customer/supplier dyads were studied, and accuracy should have been discussed and dealt with. Reliability was rated significantly lower. The reliability of FIQ, i.e. the probability that a forecast will remain unchanged, could be interpreted as the forecast error. Convenient to access and in time were also rated significantly lower. No identified study measured the information quality of forecasts. However, Closs et al. (1997) found convenient to access to be the variable with the lowest quality when measuring order information quality. This result might be related to how forecasts are communicated between customer and supplier. Forecasts might arrive on fax or in an excel spread sheet, which implies that the customer needs to do a considerable amount of work to be able to use it. The aggregation level might also be unadapted to the customer's needs, for example, be on product group level where a product level would have been preferred.The study indicated that there are large quality deficiencies among 2nd tier suppliers as compared to 1st tier suppliers and OEMs. However, the differences are not significant, partly due to the low number of OEMs and 2nd tier suppliers in the study. The quality variable in time was considered significantly lower for MTO compared to MTS suppliers. Forecasts are an important input to capacity planning in MTO companies and to priority planning and execution in MTS companies. The lack of timely forecasts in MTO companies may, consequently, impact their capacity planning processes.When testing H1, the only significant difference in supply chain performance between suppliers with and without access to forecasts, was related to the use of safety stock in finished goods inventory. The customer service did not differ between the groups. Consequently, it seems to be necessary for all suppliers to provide high customer service. Here, they were all selected as the customers' most important supplier, which may further explain this focus. The conclusion that exchange of forecast information has a positive performance impact is logical and in line with previous research (Fliedner, 2003; Thonemann, 2002; Aviv, 2001; Zhao et al., 2002; McCarthy and Golicic, 2002).H2 was not verified. Nonetheless, it is important to ask whether or not FIQ matters in this context. This study was characterized by a large spread in the supplier sample; it consisted of both large and small suppliers in ten industries. It is possible that customer demand is predictable, an aspect that was not measured. Information quality is perhaps not so important when demand is predictable, as claimed by Cachon and Fisher (2000). Smaros (2003) found that the single most important obstacle for collaborative forecasting was the customer's lack of forecasting processes. Research on the managerial side of forecasting, i.e. how forecasts are handled, was called for by Wacker and Lummus (2002).Our study has not revealed information about the customer's own forecasting process. It is also worth repeating that this study was not focused on collaborative forecasting, but merely asked if forecast information was transferred or not. This study was a first attempt to measure the performance impact of FIQ but it was limited, especially in terms of the number of surveyed companies of similar types.The study reveals the need for more studies in the area of FIQ. One potential area of research should deal with explaining the causes of high or low perceived FIQ. Another should be about the performance impact of FIQ. More detailed research questions in these two areas could be related to the conditions of the actual demand pattern and the processes related to actual forecasting at the customer, transmission of the information from the customer to the supplier, registration of the data at the supplier and the characteristics of the processes and actors using the forecast data. The following are issues for such further studies:* Customer's demand pattern. The predictability of the demand influences the need for forecasts and, consequently, impacts the need for exchange and the potential performance impact of forecast exchange and its information quality. Forecast information could thus be expected to have different performance impacts in different demand situations.* Customer's forecast design. The customer's decisions about how to present the forecasts should have an information quality impact (e.g. the aggregation level and the exchange frequency). Different FIQ could, for example, be expected between situations where the supplier is involved in the design or if a CPFR-style collaboration is established compared to when that is not the case.* Customer's forecasting process. The way the process of generating forecasts is performed and how well it is functioning should impact the exchange of forecasts and the perceived information quality. Differences could, for example, be expected between situations where the supplier, in a consensus forecasting manner, is involved in the data collection and manual evaluation and adjustment of forecasts or if a CPFR-style collaboration is established compared to when that is not the case.* Customer's forecast transferring method. The interface between customer and supplier, for example, the use of information and communication technology, could impact the exchange frequency and the information quality. It could, for example, be expected that using EDI or web-EDI results in the exchange of more timely but also more accurate forecasts.* Registration of customer forecasts at the suppliers. The registration of received forecasts could impact the information quality, for example, if it is automatically registered through EDI, electronically transferred from an Excel sheet or manually typed into the ERP system.* Supplier's manufacturing process where the forecast is used. The forecast could be used in situations with different supply strategies (e.g. MTS or MTO), in different planning processes (e.g. with a priority or capacity planning perspective), on different levels of detail (e.g. master planning or more detailed material planning based on material requirements planning or re-order point systems), and on different planning horizons. The different users place different requirements on the forecast and could consequently interpret the same forecast as having different information quality.* Who is the forecast information customer? Not only the specific process at the supplier where the forecast is used as input judges the information quality of the forecast, but also the actor operating the process and his/her support. Issues such as user position, knowledge, experience and software support impact the perceived information quality, how well the supplier may utilize the forecast information received from the customer, and consequently also the supply chain performance effects related to forecast information.* The performance impact. Here, supply chain performance impact was measured as the perceived customer service and the extent of using preventive and corrective actions. The performance impact could be more tightly linked to the supplying company's materials planning or manufacturing process and be measured as the inventory turnover rate, inventory days on hand or the perceived overall performance of manufacturing. Also the user satisfaction among the supplier's planning personnel could be a relevant and interesting measure.\nConclusions: The study contains two types of conclusions, those developed from the conceptual discussion in the theoretical framework and those of the empirical study. In the theoretical framework, measurement instruments for FIQ and supply chain performance - the combined effect of corrective actions, preventive actions and customer service performance were developed. FIQ was measured as the four individual variables: in time, reliable, accurate and convenient to access, and as an index of the four variables. The measures were tested and used with reliable results in the empirical study. The empirical findings indicated that a large proportion of the suppliers receive customer forecasts, but that the FIQ is lower further upstream in the supply chain. It also showed that the quality variable in time was considered significantly lower for MTO suppliers compared to MTS suppliers, which emphasized the importance for MTO companies to receive good forecasts for supply and capacity planning. The only significant difference in supply chain performance found between suppliers with and without access to forecast information was related to the use of safety stock in finished goods inventory. The hypothesis testing only considered MTS companies, which may explain why the finished good inventory was the most important safety mechanisms against forecast uncertainty.Research on supply chain information quality is very scarce. Further research is needed to develop the understanding of the performance impact of supply chain information quality, especially FIQ. This study identified several relationships, but it was conducted on a sample with a large spread and in a limited number of companies. Only one of the two hypotheses generated was verified. Therefore, it would be valuable to replicate the study in other empirical settings and for companies with other supply strategies than MTS. Case studies focusing on the actual demand pattern and the processes related to actual forecasting at the customer, transmission of the information from the customer to the supplier, registration of the data at the supplier and the characteristics of the processes and actors using the forecast data could further develop the understanding of the usability of customer forecasts and the perceived performance impact of FIQ.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe the extent of supplier access to customer forecast information and the perceived quality of such information and also to explain the impact of forecast information access and forecast information quality (FIQ) on supply chain performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - FIQ is defined, and a measurement instrument is developed from theory. The analysis is based on a survey of the most important suppliers of 136 Swedish companies.\nFindings: - Findings show that a large proportion of the suppliers receive customer forecasts, but that the FIQ is lower further upstream in the supply chain and, in some variables, lower for make-to-order suppliers. The greatest information quality deficiency of the forecast was that it was considered unreliable. The only significant difference in supply chain performance found between make-to-stock suppliers with and without access to forecast was related to the use of safety stock in finished goods inventory.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study contains two types of conclusions: those developed from the conceptual discussion in the theoretical framework and those of the empirical study. In the theoretical framework, measurement instruments for FIQ and supply chain performance (corrective actions, preventive actions and customer service performance) were developed. The study identified several empirical relationships, but it was conducted on a sample with a lot of variation.\nPractical implications: - The understanding of the performance impact of FIQ. FIQ shows quality deficiencies on all variables, which indicates room for improvement.\nOriginality/value: - Research on supply chain information quality as well as dyadic research approaches are rare.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An investigational analysis on forecasting intraday values
|
[
"Forecasting",
"Intraday",
"Neural network",
"Support vector regression",
"MARSPlines",
"High frequency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is a belief that the stock market is the vibrant place of investing for good returns. To get a good return, the individual should know about the operations of the stock market, movements of the stock price and other factors. Generally, the stock market is noisy in nature which shatters the investors' confident (Das et al., 2015). Due to numerous underlying factors (Weckman et al., 2008), stock market data are considered to be the complex time series data, and the prediction is viewed as the most difficult task due to its inconsistent nature. Along with micro and macroeconomic factors, investor/traders sentiments are also affecting the price (Mathur and Rastogi, 2018). Finding the best technique in forecasting the stock market is crucial for traders, investors and portfolio managers for investment decisions (Weckman et al., 2008). Precise forecasting in the share market is essential to reduce the risk.\n2. Theoretical background: This section discusses the background of the techniques used in this study in brief.\n3. Methodology: The one-step-ahead values of four indices, namely FTSE 100, ASX 50, NIFTY and SSE, were predicted with MARSplines, BPNN, SVR and AR (1) models. These indices were chosen based on convenience. Every minute's closing value of indices was collected from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018 on full working days from Google Finance (Refer Weblink 1-4). From the collected data, every 60th minute was used for analysis. The market time (local time) and the number of observations are mentioned in Table I, and the sample stocks taken from each index for the analysis are listed in Table II. The timing of the day was considered in hours to simplify data processing. For example, trading time of FTSE 100 is considered between 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., to not to lose the last minute value of the index. A similar procedure is followed for the used indices.\n4. Analysis and interpretation: This section explains how the analysis is done using BPNN, SVR and MARSplines. Also, this section provides the result of comparisons between the used models in the four stock indices. Sections 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 present the framework and the result of BPNN, SVR and Marsplines, respectively. Section 4.4 presents the comparison of the performance of the models on indices and stocks; Section 4.5 presents the virtual trading performance of the models on indices and Section 4.6 presents the robustness evaluation of the models on indices.\n5. Conclusion and future works: Predicting stock price and stock price index is potentially profitable yet is a challenging task due to the high level of uncertainty. The ability to predict the movement of the stock market is viewed as a crucial factor in investing. In spite of the fact that predicting equity markets and stock movements are difficult, the analysts utilize numerous techniques to predict market movements. It guides investors/traders to take proactive and knowledge-driven choices so as to attain more returns with less risk to provide an ideal environment for international portfolio diversification. Since it is the era of algorithmic trading, the intraday movements are highly volatile. In such a situation if we consider intraday trading, it is found that 80 percent of the traders lose money and 20 percent of the remaining traders are taking negligible profit (Jordan and Diltz, 2003). This is because of the fact that they are unaware of how to take a decision, i.e., unable to predict the stock price at a different time. This study helps traders in predicting different stock markets. They can utilize this investigation as an approach to decide the best strategy for stock market prediction in different markets and use the same for forecasting.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The algorithmic trading has advanced exponentially and necessitates the evaluation of intraday stock market forecasting on the grounds that any stock market series are foreseen to follow the random walk hypothesis. The purpose of this paper is to forecast the intraday values of stock indices using data mining techniques and compare the techniques' performance in different markets to accomplish the best results.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study investigates the intraday values (every 60th-minute closing value) of four different markets (namely, UK, Australia, India and China) spanning from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018. The forecasting performance of multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARSplines), support vector regression (SVR), backpropagation neural network (BPNN) and autoregression (1) are compared using statistical measures. Robustness evaluation is done to check the performance of the models on the relative ratios of the data.\nFindings: MARSplines produces better results than the compared models in forecasting every 60th minute of selected stocks and stock indices. Next to MARSplines, SVR outperforms neural network and autoregression (1) models. The MARSplines proved to be more robust than the other models.\nPractical implications: Forecasting provides a substantial benchmark for companies, which entails long-run operations. Significant profit can be earned by successfully predicting the stock's future price. The traders have to outperform the market using techniques. Policy makers need to estimate the future prices/trends in the stock market to identify the link between the financial instruments and monetary policy which gives higher insights about the mechanism of existing policy and to know the role of financial assets in many channels. Thus, this study expects that the proposed model can create significant profits for traders by more precisely forecasting the stock market.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the high-frequency forecasting literature using MARSplines, SVR and BPNN. Finding the most effective way of forecasting the stock market is imperative for traders and portfolio managers for investment decisions. This study reveals the changing levels of trends in investing and expectation of significant gains in a short time through intraday trading.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
BYOD-related innovations and organizational change for entrepreneurs and their employees in SMEs: The identification of a twofold security paradox
|
[
"Change",
"Innovation",
"SME",
"Entrepreneur",
"BYOD",
"Security paradox"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The development of mobile technologies is an important driver of organizational change (Bayerl et al., 2013) that disrupts work practices and is increasingly blurring the boundaries between private and professional lives. However, this phenomenon is not new and tends to develop due to the ease of use of these tools combined with their associated technological innovations (Koffer et al., 2015; Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2015b; Cook et al., 2013). Entrepreneurs (Messeghem and Sammut, 2011) and their employees are increasingly using their personal mobile devices for work. Allowing employees to use personal mobile tools for work is referred to as \"bring your own device\" (BYOD); these devices include personal laptops, tablets, and mobile phones (Hovav and Putri, 2016; Weeger et al., 2016; Magruder et al., 2015; Singh, 2012). This is a strong tendency: \"BYOD is no longer an option for most organizations; rather it's the standard for business in the digital era\" (Astani et al., 2013, p. 195).\n2. Benefits stemming from BYOD in an SME context: This section is divided into two parts: the first is dedicated to BYOD-related technological innovations, mainly the mobility capabilities provided by such devices, and the second concerns the benefits of new BYOD-related corporate practices.\n3. Potential risks stemming from BYOD in an SME context: This section is divided into two parts: the first details the risks for entrepreneurs and those more specific to SMEs, and the second highlights BYOD-specific risks for employees and organizations by introducing the twofold \"security paradox.\"\n4. Conclusion: This paper addressed the benefits and risks stemming from organizational change due to the new BYOD practices in SMEs. Two security paradoxes have been successively examined: one for entrepreneurs and their organizations, and another for their employees. This led to the definition of a twofold security paradox. This work is all the more topical because the BYOD phenomenon is developing strongly and neither individuals nor organizations perceive precisely the various growing dangers of BYOD-related practices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the benefits and potential dangers of \"bring your own device\" (BYOD)-related practices. The paper aims to highlight new risks stemming from BYOD adoption and identifies different security paradoxes arising for entrepreneurs and their employees in the context of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical approach is proposed in this paper. As technology is an important driver of organizational change, technological innovations entail new work practices and in turn lead to a twofold \"security paradox.\"\nFindings: This paper introduces the stakes and issues associated with BYOD-related mobile technologies. Evidence is provided that this phenomenon must be cautiously addressed to not only seize related benefits but also reduce related risks. Avenues for future research are offered to complement this work.\nPractical implications: The main practical interest is to make entrepreneurs of SMEs and their employees aware of the BYOD phenomenon and its related risks and benefits.\nOriginality/value: From a theoretical perspective, very little work has been published in the field of management sciences about the benefits and dangers associated with the introduction of BYOD among entrepreneurs and employees in SMEs. Moreover, this study identifies a twofold \"security paradox\" related to information security that has never been studied in work settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Benchmarking success of building maintenance projects
|
[
"Buildings",
"Critical success factors",
"Maintenance programmes",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Buildings have been considered as one of the most valuable assets of a nation to provide people with shelter and facilities for work and leisure. As time passes by, maintenance of buildings becomes an invaluable process in retaining the value and quality of a building (Vijverberg, 2002). Building maintenance accounts for over half of the total output of the building industry (Wordsworth, 2001). In Britain, building maintenance activities have reached a level of 50 per cent of all annual construction activities (Kherun et al., 2002; Shohet, 2002). In Hong Kong, the gross value of general trades such as decoration, repair and maintenance, and construction work at minor work locations has increased over the past five years. Governments all over the world have considerable expenditure directed toward maintenance and operation projects (Al-Arjani, 2002).The maintenance of buildings plays an integral role in the whole design and construction process of buildings (Shabha, 2003). Recent research efforts have been put on the study of performance management, which is actually a core element of maintenance management (Zhu et al., 2002). In fact, maintenance management requires a variety of skills, technical knowledge and site experience in order to identify and satisfy maintenance needs (CIOB, 1990). Study for maintenance projects using the performance approach can provide opportunities to improve cost, risk and quality management of the properties concerned in the long run (Straub, 2002b).Benchmarking is defined by construction best practice programme (CBPP) as a systematic process of comparing and measuring the performance of the companies (business activities) against others, and using lessons learned from the best to make targeted improvements (Takim and Akintoye, 2002). Previous researchers have subsequently made use of the concept of benchmarking and develop a set of success criteria or key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure project performance (Lam et al., 2007; Magd, 2008). Yeung et al. (2007) further classified KPIs into four categories, including:1. result-oriented objective KPIs;2. result-oriented subjective KPIs;3. relationship-oriented objective KPIs; and4. relationship-oriented subjective KPIs.They argued that there should exist a comprehensive, objective, reliable and practical performance evaluation model for construction partnering projects. However, measuring project success is a complex task and there is a lack of common base for comparison. While most research has focused on managing new construction, Wood (2005) claimed that building maintenance is even under-researched and an investigation into the project success for building maintenance projects can help set a benchmark for future projects.This paper is divided into four parts. It first provides a review of literature on benchmarking the performance of construction projects, with particular emphasis on developing KPIs for building maintenance projects. More information on conducting the empirical study with building maintenance participants in the construction industry of Hong Kong will be given. The results of generating an equation to compute the success index for building maintenance projects will also be presented to demonstrate how the objectives of benchmarking can be achieved with real-life projects.\nBenchmarking excellence for construction projects: Benchmarking is about comparison with a best practice with a view to increasing output performance and hence value to the organization (Wauters, 2005). When it is not possible to obtain a precise measurement, it is usual to refer to performance indicators. Cox et al. (2003) defined key performance indicators (KPIs) as compilations of data measures used to evaluate the performance of a construction operation. Many companies consider that it is the search for \"best practice\", and many initiatives were launched to count, classify and propose best practices. Takim and Akintoye (2002) considered KPIs from result-orientated to process-orientated thinking. The former involves measurement on results, such as the achievement of objectives, users' satisfaction and the use of the project; whereas the latter concerns measurement on process: getting the project out on time, on budget and meeting a quality threshold. Chan and Chan (2004) further conducted research on the key performance indicators for measuring construction success and concluded that KPIs can be both objective and subjective measures, including the satisfaction level of the project team.In fact, the definition of success often changes from project to project but Parfitt and Sanvido (1993) claimed that the criteria for success can commonly be developed to assess the performance of a project. They can be interpreted as the dimensions or measures on which the success of the project is judged (Diallo and Thuillier, 2005). While Parfitt and Sanvido (1993) viewed success from different perspectives of goals related to technical, financial, educational, social and professional issues, Lim and Mohamed (1999) defined criteria as the set of principles or standards by which judgement is made. Chan et al. (2002) further summarized the different views of previous researchers on project performance into three main areas focusing on meeting objectives, taking a global approach and considerations beyond the project.Traditionally, success is defined as the degree to which project goals and expectations are met. However, there is still ambiguity in determining whether a project is a success or failure. A conceptually coherent set of project success criteria can potentially help project participants to channel their efforts to achieving successful projects (Yu et al., 2005).Assessing success for construction projects\nMethodology and data collection: The current research aims to solicit views from industry participants on the key performance indicators (KPIs) for building maintenance projects from ranking the criteria of success reported in literature. It adopted similar approach as Lam et al. (2007) in developing project success index for design-build projects. A set of questionnaire was prepared to request industry participants with managing building maintenance project experience for their personal views on the success criteria for building maintenance projects. The major success criteria identified from reported literature can be divided into six components, namely:1. time;2. cost;3. quality;4. functionality;5. safety; and6. environmental friendliness,and the respondents were invited to suggest other success criteria for building maintenance projects. One respondent suggested \"minimum disturbance to operations\" as one success criterion, which is in line with the KPI of time as identified from literature. Another respondent suggested \"making profit\" as the other success criterion, which can be included as the KPI of cost for building maintenance projects. Data from the ranking exercise were synthesized by principal components analysis to generate an equation. The targets of the research were those participants in the construction industry of Hong Kong who have gained abundant experience in running at least one building maintenance project so that the results obtained can be suitably applied to the building maintenance projects generated from the hands-on experience of project participants.The research questionnaires were sent to 253 participants with experience in building maintenance and property management in the construction industry of Hong Kong and a total of 110 valid responses were received and analysed with a response rate of 44 per cent. All the respondents represented major stakeholders in building maintenance projects. More than one-third respondents (39 per cent) work for contractor organizations while some are sub-contractors (3 per cent). As the property management companies were engaged by building clients, they can be considered as representing the clients' opinion, totaling near to one-third of the respondents (32 per cent) working for client organizations. Almost one third of the respondents (26 per cent) were from consultancies, with 7 per cent from architectural firms, 4 per cent from engineering consultancy firms and 4 per cent from project management consultancy firms since the \"Others\" category include those from surveying consultancy firms (Figure 1). The respondents were asked to rate each attribute for the construct of the KPIs for building maintenance projects on a five-point Likert scale to indicate the level of importance, ranging from \"1\" equal to \"Highly unimportant\" to \"5\" equal to \"Highly important\". The data were input into SAS for statistical analysis to compute a project success index for building maintenance projects.\nKey performance indicators for building maintenance projects in Hong Kong: A KPI is the measure of the performance of the process that is critical to its success (Takim and Akintoye, 2002). Despite the complexities involved in measuring project success, a measurement can be developed based on the subjective perceptions of project participants towards project success. In the questionnaire, the five-point Likert scale was used to measure the perceptions of the project participants on the relative importance of indicators for the success of building maintenance projects. A review of literature considers time, cost, quality, functionality, safety and environmental friendliness as the KPIs for building maintenance projects (Figure 2). Although KPIs can be used to measure project performance, each KPI serves to measure a particular aspect of outcomes only and their respective importance may differ for different project types. There is a need to develop an index to indicate the success level of a project in terms of the KPIs identified. The idea was echoed by Mrinalini and Nath (2006) who believe that the task of benchmarking should involve comparing certain yardsticks based on some indices that will measure the relative efficiency of relevant practices. To better indicate the overall success level of building maintenance projects from a number of KPIs, a project success index for building maintenance projects (PSI-Mains) was developed with the use of principal components analysis, and the results of the PSI-Mains in Hong Kong are presented and discussed.\nDetermining success index for building maintenance projects (PSI-Mains): In reality, some KPIs are more influential than others in assessing the successful performance of a building maintenance project and so it is necessary to apply different weightings to different KPIs in developing a single index. This was accomplished by the technique of principal components analysis, which merges the various KPIs into a single index. As a result, a new variable (index) was formed, which are linear composites of the original variables (KPIs). Therefore, the computation of an index can help in comparing the degree of success among different building maintenance projects.Principal components analysis\nConclusions: Maintaining existing building projects has been put as the top agenda item of most client organizations in their project planning. While project success is an abstract concept, the identification of key performance indicators enables project performance to be improved and the quantification of the perceptions towards success even sets a benchmark for construction excellence. This paper provides a review of success criteria for construction projects with a view to developing a framework of key performance indicators (KPIs) for building maintenance projects. An empirical study has also been conducted with the practitioners in the Hong Kong construction industry, who consider time, cost, quality, functionality, safety and environmental friendliness as the KPIs for building maintenance projects. The concept of project success has also been quantified by establishing a success index for building maintenance projects (PSI-Mains) from the perceptions of project participants. Benchmarking practice and performance measures indeed provide a reasonable indication of the adequacy of a management system (Stevanovic et al., 2005). The concept of benchmarking has been applied by the Construction Industry Institute, Texas, based in the United States as a diagnostic tool to support continuous improvement (http://cii-benchmarking.org/). Such benchmarking analysis has established a reliable and practical performance evaluation tool for project participants to consider. Project stakeholders can make use of the index as an indicator to know their relative position and compare the overall performance level with other building maintenance projects.The research enhances better understanding of clients, contractors and consultants to run a build maintenance project successfully and provides constructive insights into the knowledge of construction performance measurement. It should be useful for project stakeholders to communicate among themselves about the abstract concept of \"success\" for building maintenance projects and compare the success level with other maintenance projects scientifically. It should also help in developing a solid base for further research, which can further be extended to other geographical locations to facilitate international comparisons. More research efforts can be put on the objective measurements on the KPIs for building maintenance projects in future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to develop a project success index (PSI) to benchmark the performance of building maintenance projects from a number of key performance indicators (KPIs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research collected 110 responses from project participants with managing building maintenance project experience of the Hong Kong construction industry via ordinary postal mail. In addition, a project success equation was formulated from the principal components analysis to generate a composite score so as to indicate the level of success of building maintenance projects.\nFindings: - Industry participants believe that time, cost, quality, functionality, safety and environmental friendliness can be considered as KPIs for building maintenance projects. A single index can also be computed from the project success equation to apply different weightings to the respective KPI with different significance such that the performance of building maintenance projects can be compared.\nPractical implications: - The concept of success remains vague among project participants, which makes it difficult to assess whether the performance of a project is a success or failure. The development of PSI can indicate the overall performance of a building maintenance project and quantify the success concept in a scientific manner.\nOriginality/value: - PSI-Mains indicates the success level of a building maintenance project for benchmarking purposes. It also enables project stakeholders to measure the success of a building maintenance project and to compare the relative success level among different building maintenance projects in a scientific manner.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Multiple criteria decision-making techniques in higher education
|
[
"Higher education",
"Resource allocation",
"Performance measurement (quality)",
"Decision making"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Intellectual capital is the major ingredient of successful companies or nations. The more intellectual capital a company or a nation possesses, the more competitiveness it has. In order to achieve this goal, a company may recruit experts from markets or train up its staff as professionals. Similarly, a nation may attract immigration of skilled personnel or allocate more resources to the education sector. Comparatively, university-level or higher education has been found to be more beneficial to the nations' growth than primary or secondary education (DePillis and DePillis, 2001). In higher education, students not only can become equipped with skills and knowledge through direct teaching (e.g. lecture) and indirect teaching (e.g. e-learning system), but also they can build up analytical and problem-solving skills through doing research projects. Nevertheless, resources allocated by governments for higher education have been reduced over the last 30 years due to the public pressure (Lee and Clayton, 1972). According to Liefner (2003), this continuous budget cutting makes universities such as in the UK, the USA, and The Netherlands change from traditional state-coordinated systems; that is, teaching and research programmes in universities are highly managed by government directives to market-oriented systems. This means that funding for universities mainly comes from the private sector rather than government. Universities have, therefore, to manage their systems optimally and keep up their performance so that enough funding can be raised to cover necessary expenses (Jongbloed and Vossensteyn, 2001). In the other words, the funding scheme is gradually changed from direct government support to performance-related.Process management in the market-oriented system, as illustrated in Figure 1, is extremely important nowadays. The input or resources include public funding from government, private and public research grants and contracts from funding and research councils, tuition fees from students, and other income from the private sector, such as endowment income and gift. The university then needs to manage the processes, which include resource allocation, performance measurement, budgeting, scheduling, and so on, so that the performance in terms of teaching and research can be improved. In the market-oriented system, the funding is directly proportional to a university's performance or output. One can collect more funding provided that one's performance is superior to other competitors. For instance, teaching quality, entry quality, number of bachelor degree awarded, non-completion rate, and employment rate are amongst the performance indicators for teaching. To measure the performance of research, some indicators like research quality and quantity, numbers of MPhil and PhD awarded, numbers of research contracts and grants, and award or reward from society can be applied. This can be regarded as a closed-loop system in which every part is interrelated and must be managed optimally. Under this performance-related funding scheme, teaching and research quality can definitely be increased to a certain extent. Consequently, the nations can be contributed as explained earlier. This scheme has a drawback, however, that faculties or staff members may not be willing to diversify their research fields especially those with high risk. In order to meet the research quality and particularly quantity, they may prefer investigating familiar research areas instead of exploring state-of-the-art topics.Once the amount of input or the financial resources assigned to the system are known, the decision makers of a university have to optimize their choices with respect to the objectives, which are normally diverse and conflicting. For example, the university aims at increasing the teaching and research quality by employing experienced professors, while at the same time, aims at minimizing expenditure. For this reason, the multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques should be adopted. Although it is difficult to handle the multiple conflicting objectives simultaneously, this approach coincides with the real situation faced by the university. Janis and Mann (1977) also stated that it is very difficult to determine how well a decision has worked out if there is only a single objective. This is the reason why this paper focuses on MCDM techniques. In this paper, the authors find whether MCDM techniques are commonly used to aid the process management in higher education throughout the period from 1996 to 2005 by surveying the publications in referred journals during this period. On completion of this survey, which MCDM techniques are commonly applied to which management process, and the inadequacies of the approaches adopted by previous researches can be known. Finally, some possible future research areas can be suggested based on the result findings.This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains which databases and what searching criteria were used for finding the relevant journal articles. Section 3 describes the categories of MCDM techniques including multiple objective decision making (MODM) and multiple attribute decision making (MADM), and distinguishes their differences. Section 4 analyzes the results of the survey, and finds out the trends of the researches carried out in the past ten years. Section 5 discusses the improvements on approaches proposed by previous researchers, and suggests some possible future work. Section 6 concludes the paper.\n2. Methodology: One objective of this paper is to survey the application of MCDM techniques to higher education management process through a literature review and classification of international journal articles from 1996 to 2005. The reason for selecting this period is that Mustafa and Goh (1996) provided a detailed report on similar issues from 1972 to 1995. Nevertheless, they did not study the application of other quantitative techniques such as the mathematical modeling in operations research. These types of techniques are also considered in this paper because a quantitative analysis is extremely useful to decision makers, especially if the decision makers have little experience with similar problems or the problem is very sophisticated (Anderson et al., 2005).Mustafa and Goh (1996) found that 62 articles including journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and PhD theses proposed to use the MCDM techniques. It was observed that the MODM techniques (60 per cent) such as goal programming (GP) are more commonly adopted than MADM techniques (40 per cent) such as the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Moreover, it was noticed that the most significant studied management process in higher education was resource allocation.In this paper, we focus on international journal articles specifically. Therefore, Emerald, Ingenta, MetaPress, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and SwetsWise can be used for searching because these are large and comprehensive databases. In order to ensure the relevance of the journal papers, only title, abstract, and keywords fields in each of the above databases are filtered rather than the full-text searching. In addition to the query \"higher education\", each of the following keywords is searched simultaneously:* resource allocation;* performance measurement;* budgeting;* scheduling;* multiple criteria (or multi-criteria) decision making;* multiple objective (or multi-objective) decision making;* goal programming;* multiple attribute (or multi-attribute) decision making;* analytic hierarchy process;* operations research; and* mathematical model (or modeling).After topic filtering, there were 25 internationally refereed journal articles meeting the above criteria. The scope of these journal articles includes resource allocation, performance measurement, budgeting, and scheduling. Qualitative, quantitative, and both MCDM techniques including MODM and MADM have been applied in these journal articles based on our searching criteria.\n3. Multiple criteria decision making: A wide variety of quantitative approaches are available for making decisions. For example, the travelling salesman problem in the form of integer linear programming model can be constructed to determine the travelling sequence of a salesperson in which the salesperson cannot visit each city more than once, with an objective of minimizing the overall travelling distance/time. Besides, the quadratic assignment problem in the form of integer nonlinear programming model can be formulated to determine the assignment of which facility to which location so that the travelling distance/time of material flow is minimized. These kinds of quantitative approaches have been paid much attention to because they can be widely adopted to many situations like logistics scheduling, manufacturing facility location planning, and so on (Williams, 1999). The scheduling problem arising in higher education can also be tackled using these approaches (Johnson, 2001). Nevertheless, a single criterion or objective is considered in these prevalent approaches. Therefore, they may not suitable for managing some decision problems with multiple and conflicting criteria. To better describe such situations, MCDM techniques should be used.MCDM techniques are generally divided into two categories which are MODM and MADM. MODM techniques are a special extension of linear programming. A model is defined as a linear programming when the single objective function and the constraints involve linear expressions, and the decision variables are continuous. But, in MODM techniques, multiple objective functions are incorporated into the model simultaneously. On the other hand, MADM techniques aim at selecting from a population of feasible alternatives which characterized by multiple attributes.3.1 Multiple objective decision making\n4. Result analysis: In this paper, 25 journal articles, which appeared in the period from 1996 to 2005, studying the resource allocation, performance measurement, budgeting, and scheduling in higher education were collected. The classification of these articles and the techniques used in each of four major decision problems are summarized in Table I. In the following sub-sections, three issues related to the relevant articles are examined including:1. What kind of decision problems was paid most attention to?2. Were the MCDM techniques prevalently adopted?3. What are the inadequacies of these approaches?4.1 Higher education decision problems\n5. Discussions: After the detailed description of the approaches in the previous section, two major possible future research areas can be recommended. First, it is noticed that nearly half of the journal articles studied performance measurement. Only a few journal articles, however, investigated resource allocation. Resource allocation is definitely a dominant attribute of performance. A system's performance can be enhanced provided that sufficient resource is allocated to it. Because of gradual cuts in higher education budgeting, resource allocation should be optimized so that the performance of a university can be at least maintained or even superior to its competitors. To accomplish this goal, a resource allocation model in the hierarchical form as illustrated in Figure 4 is proposed. The resource is mainly divided into three groups: manpower, \"hardware\", and \"software\". They can be regarded as criteria in each of which there are multiple attributes. Manpower includes all university members who can directly or indirectly contribute to teaching and research including academic, research, and administrative staff. \"Hardware\" refers to the university's infrastructures. For example, an industrial centre is established for students especially studying the subjects of engineering and hotel management in order to acquire knowledge and experience through extensive hands-on training. \"Software\" refers to the intangible effects that can be beneficial to the university, its members, and its students. For instance, increasing the subsidy for university's members to attend national or international conferences can motivate them to participate actively in those knowledge intensive events. These events provide opportunities for university members to acquire new knowledge, share their own knowledge, and generate new knowledge through integration or collaboration with other researchers at the conferences. Based on the resource allocation model, the decision makers not only can determine the priority level of these three criteria and their attributes, but also how much amount of money should be assigned to them while satisfying multiple and conflicting goals of the university.Second, GP is found to be the most prevalent technique in dealing with the decision problems with multiple criteria. It can be applied to all four major decision problems. Nevertheless, it is noticed that there is a drawback of GP technique. Since the judgment is determined subjectively by the decision makers, there may be some inconsistencies. To avoid such problems and to improve the performance of GP further, it is desirable to incorporate both priority analysis and consistency verification operations of AHP into the GP development process, as shown in Figure 5. In determining the priority level of the goals, the decision makers are required to compare the criteria and the attributes of each unique criterion in a pairwise manner. Following that, the consistency test is carried out in order to examine whether the judgments made by the decision makers are consistent. Once the consistency test is satisfied, the goal equations and objective function of the GP model can then be formulated. Since some knowledge-based agents are hybridized in the original GP technique, we call this as knowledge-based goal programming (KBGP) technique. In the immediate future, KBGP can be used to tackle the resource allocation problem or model, as shown in Figure 4.\n6. Conclusions: This paper mainly reviewed the application of the multiple criteria decision-making techniques to four major higher education decision problems, namely resource allocation, performance measurement, budgeting, and scheduling. Since many universities, particularly in the UK and the USA have changed to a market-oriented system, in which the funding is heavily dependent on the performance, it was found that 11 out of 25 international journal articles collected in the past decade (1996 to 2005) studied performance measurement. The previous researchers preferred measuring performance of universities, departments, or faculty members using the data envelopment analysis. However, this quantitative technique is not suitable for other decision problems with multiple criteria or objectives like resource allocation.Facing gradual decreases in higher education funding, resource allocation plays a crucial role in maintaining or even improving the performance of a university. Generally, this issue involves multiple and conflicting objectives. For instance, the decision makers of the university plan to employ more qualified scholars to improve the performance in terms of both quality and quantity in teaching and research, while at the same time, aim at minimizing expenditure. In order to aid the decision makers, a resource allocation model was introduced in this paper. The model in the form of hierarchy consists of a couple of levels. The first level is the criteria of resource allocation including manpower, \"hardware\" (university's infrastructure), and \"software\" (intangible factors that are beneficial to university, its members, and its students), whereas the second level refers to multiple attributes of each criterion. Besides formulating a comprehensive resource allocation model, a new KBGP technique was also suggested to tackle the model intelligently. The KBGP technique is very similar to GP, except that some operations of AHP are hybridized so as to guarantee that the determination or judgment on priority level of the goals is consistent. This hybridization is absolutely a significant contribution because consistency is an important ingredient of good decision making.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review the literature which focuses on four major higher education decision problems. These are: resource allocation; performance measurement; budgeting; and scheduling.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Related articles appearing in the international journals from 1996 to 2005 are gathered and analyzed so that the following three questions can be answered: \"What kind of decision problems were paid most attention to?\"; \"Were the multiple criteria decision-making techniques prevalently adopted?\"; and \"What are the inadequacies of these approaches?\"\nFindings: - Based on the inadequacies, some improvements and possible future work are recommended, and a comprehensive resource allocation model is developed taking account of these factors. Finally, a new knowledge-based goal programming technique which integrates some operations of analytic hierarchy process is proposed to tackle the model intelligently.\nOriginality/value: - Higher education has faced the problem of budget cuts or constrained budgets for the past 30 years. Managing the process of the higher education system is, therefore, a crucial and urgent task for the decision makers of universities in order to improve their performance or competitiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Incorporation of health consciousness into the technology readiness and acceptance model to predict app download and usage intentions
|
[
"Technology readiness",
"Mobile apps",
"Technology readiness and acceptance model",
"MHealth",
"Health consciousness",
"Dietary and fitness apps"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Increasing rates of smartphone ownership and the high penetration of internet access have led to the pervasiveness of various smartphone apps using mainly either Android or Apple platforms (Carter and Yeo, 2016). West et al. (2012) found that apps related to healthy eating, physical activity, and personal health and wellness were more common than other apps. Smartphones can build customized interventions to produce optimal outcomes by using inferences from sensory data streams as triggers for information delivery (Lathia et al., 2013). Mobile and wireless technology have the potential to deliver health-related information and interventions for the prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) with potentially greater reach and lower long-term costs than traditional interventions (Klasnja and Pratt, 2012; Steinhubl et al., 2013). A great upsurge in the development of health apps for smart devices (Bender et al., 2013; Fox and Duggan, 2012; Froisland et al., 2012) and increasing evidence of the use of mobile technology and mobile health (mHealth) have caught the attention of practitioners, researchers, and policymakers worldwide (Free et al., 2011; Leslie et al., 2011; Waegemann, 2010; Webb et al., 2010).\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development: A research framework of the proposed HC-TRAM for dietary and fitness apps and the corresponding hypotheses had been provided in Figure 1. The theoretical background and hypotheses development are described in Sections 2.1 and 2.2.\n3. Method: 3.1 Data collection and sampling\n4. Data analysis and results: SEM is an analytical technique that can be used to statistically test a hypothesized model to determine the model's consistency with the sample data. The Statistical Analysis System program by PROC CALIS procedure for SEM was used for estimating parameters (Hatcher, 1994). SEM was conducted to test the appropriateness of the proposed HC-TRAM. According to the two-step analysis (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988), the first step was to conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to ensure the adequacy and effectiveness of the model. The second step was to conduct SEM to confirm the causal paths of the proposed structural model. kh2 difference testing was further conducted to compare the predictive capabilities of the proposed HC-TRAM and TRAM.\n5. Discussions and conclusions: 5.1 Research findings and discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend the technology readiness and acceptance model (TRAM) to consider an individual's health consciousness (HC), thereby improving the capability of the model to predict an individual's attitude toward and intention to download and use dietary and fitness apps.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 994 participants completed a self-reported online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and kh2 difference testing were conducted to compare the predictive capability of the proposed health consciousness TRAM (HC-TRAM) and the TRAM. The comparison of the proposed HC-TRAM in terms of potential and actual users of dietary and fitness apps was also discussed.\nFindings: The results obtained from the HC-TRAM and the TRAM indicate that in addition to technology readiness, HC exerts a positive effect on the perceived ease of use and usefulness of dietary and fitness apps. kh2 difference test results indicated that the predictive capability of the proposed HC-TRAM is higher than that of the TRAM.\nPractical implications: The drivers and inhibitors of a person's readiness to embrace modern information technology play roles when predicting his or her intention to download and use dietary and fitness apps. HC should be promoted by encouraging people to eat right and regularly perform appropriate exercise to prevent obesity and overweight, thereby maintaining a healthy lifestyle.\nOriginality/value: This study incorporated individual cognitive factors and HC into the TRAM to fill the literature gap and deepen and broaden existing theoretical frameworks of the TRAM in the public health sector.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Assessment of efficiency of manual and non-manual human resources for tourist hotel industry: An application of the hybrid DEA model
|
[
"Performance measurement",
"Human resource management",
"Hotel industry",
"Labour utilization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the wake of a more lax and open tourism policy toward visitors from mainland China, Taiwan's tourist hotel industry has boomed over the years to accommodate the new influx of eager travelers. According to public statistics from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau (http://admin.taiwan.net.tw/index.aspx), the average growth rate of inbound travelers in the past decade has been 8.94 per cent annually. However, more than 10 per cent of tourist hotels have closed their businesses over the same period due to unfavorable operating conditions, even in such a rising market. The hotel industry is a labor-intensive industry, and effective human resource utilization is regarded as a challenge, especially as it affects hotel performance (Solnet and Hood, 2008). There is a causal relationship linking human resource management and performance (Alleyne et al., 2006), and therefore, effective and efficient human resource utilization can be considered an essential ingredient for a successful hotel operation.\n2. Literature: Human resource management and organizational performance are closely connected (Yu et al., 2013). Huselid (1995) indicated that human resource practice can affect performance on the aspects of productivity and financial outcome. Gibbs et al. (2015) and McPhail et al. (2015) discussed the significances of employee hiring and job satisfaction, respectively, to hotel management. Chen and Huang (2009) found that the appropriate allocation of human resource is beneficial to organizational performance. Guest et al. (2003) also indicated that human resource competence characterizes an important factor in performance. The DEA model belongs to the methodology of efficiency assessment and can be used in various analyses relating to human resource management. Thomas et al. (1998) used it to evidence that human resource skills are necessary for enhancing retail store performance. Al-Subhi Al-Harbi (2000) applied the DEA model to estimate the optimal number of staff members for petrochemical firms. Hu et al. (2009a) investigated operations and human resource performance at financial holding companies. Tuo (2012) evaluated human resource performance in construction projects. The DEA model has also been used by Lan et al. (2007) to measure the efficiency of human resource in public fire departments. Yu et al. (2013) used the DEA model to discuss human resource rightsizing at airports.\n3. Methodology and empirical data: 3.1 Hybrid DEA model\n4. Empirical results: Because research studies that specifically evidence the difference between manual and non-manual labors are very seldom seen in literatures, I first use the regression approach, which refers to Huang et al. (2012a), to determine whether the assumptions for two labor types are appropriate. To confirm that a non-proportionate relationship exists between the radial and non-radial inputs, I examined the empirical data with a multiple regression model by using the statistics software IBM SPSS (v20) and present the results in Table II. The two independent variables, radial and non-radial labors, have been examined by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test beforehand. The results show the statistics as 0.183 and 0.151, respectively, which means the independent variables follow a statistical normal distribution. In Regression 1, manual employee (i.e. radial input) is assumed as a dependent variable and other radial inputs (expense and fixed asset) are used as independent variables. The coefficients of expenses and rooms are estimated to be significant at the 99 per cent statistical level, and catering space is significant at the 95 per cent level. Regression 2 assumes non-manual employee as the dependent variable in the estimation, and the estimated coefficients show that the coefficients of fixed assets are not significant. The test results show that there is a high degree of proportionate correlation existing between manual employee and other radial inputs, but there is no proportionate correlation between non-manual employee and radial inputs. Therefore, the result verifies that the radial inputs (manual employee, expenses and fixed assets) are subject to change proportionally, while the non-radial input (non-manual employee) is subject to change non-proportionally.\n5. Conclusion: This study used the hybrid DEA model in which non-manual and manual labor are assumed as non-radial and radial inputs to evaluate efficiency for 67 tourist hotels in Taiwan. The analysis also assesses the inefficiency indicators for the non-radial and radial inputs and examines the external influence on the performance indicators. Through the empirical evaluation, the study concludes several results as follows. First, more than 32 per cent of the tourist hotels are evaluated as efficient and more than half the hotels have an efficiency score lower than the average. Second, the study evaluated the inefficiency caused by radial inputs that have a greater influence on efficiency rather than the inefficiency caused by non-radial inputs. This finding indicates that most hotels are efficient in their utilization of non-manual labor. Third, the investigation of external factors shows that excessive utilization of non-manual labor results in a slight influence on operational efficiency across many non-chain hotels. Fourth, the study finds the efficiency of non-manual labor utilization to be lower at hotels located in resort areas.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In past literature, employee has been extensively utilized as input in most data envelopment analysis (DEA) studies, but different labor types are identically defined to be the same input factor without a specific assumption for their heterogeneity. The influence of manual and non-manual labor utilization on performance also has not been investigated in hotel efficiency analyses. The purpose of this study is to assess inefficiency indices derived from manual and non-manual labor, and analyze the influence of labor utilization on hotel's operational efficiency.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the different features of the two labor types, performance indicators are evaluated through the hybrid DEA model.\nFindings: More than 32 per cent of tourist hotels are evaluated as efficient and more than half the hotels have an efficiency score lower than the average. The author evaluated the inefficiency caused by radial inputs that have a greater influence on efficiency. This finding indicates that most hotels are efficient in their utilization of non-manual labor. The investigation of external factors shows that excessive utilization of non-manual labor results in a slight influence on operational efficiency across many non-chain hotels. The author also found the efficiency of non-manual labor utilization to be lower at hotels located in resort areas.\nOriginality/value: This study used the hybrid DEA model, in which non-manual and manual labors are assumed as non-radial and radial inputs, respectively, to evaluate efficiency. Finding the significance of heterogeneous assumptions for manual and non-manual labor types is the main contribution to the theory of hotel efficiency measurement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The development of school autonomy and accountability in Hong Kong: Multiple changes in governance, work, curriculum, and learning
|
[
"Accountability",
"Education reform",
"School autonomy",
"School-based management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The government, which provides huge funding to aided schools, has a right to regulate the management of aided schools for the purpose of accountability [...] Autonomy cannot therefore be an absolute right\nThe development of SBM: four stages: The development of SBM in Hong Kong may be divided into four stages, demarcated by the publication of two policy documents and one legal document on SBM. These documents are the School Management Initiative (SMI) (Education and Manpower Branch and Education Department, 1991), the Education Commission Report No. 7 (ECR7) (Education Commission, 1997) and the Education Ordinance Amendment 2004 (Legislative Council, HKSAR, 2004).\nChanges in school governance and management: Enhanced transparency and participation in school governance\nChanges in teachers' work: Autonomy in SBM is commonly assumed to help reduce the tension and constraints created by the rules imposed on schools from the district or the state (Beck and Murphy, 1998). However, teachers may also find that such autonomy is helpful in facing the increased workloads and hidden responsibilities induced by the implementation of SBM. Evidence from the schools that piloted the SMI showed that teacher participation in administration tended to enhance the teachers' positive responses to the initiative (Wong, 1995). Many teachers, however, were hesitant about taking up posts as teacher managers in the IMCs, because of the unpredictable workload and the legal liability incurred (Cheung and Kan, 2009). In practice, SBM increased the level of pressure on the staff (Woods et al., 1997), because the frontline teachers felt that they were held accountable for their decisions, causing them greater anxiety and dissonance. Although some teachers enjoyed participation and were willing to make an extra effort in the work of the SMC, a majority of them could not derive much job satisfaction from such participation (Tong, 2000).\nChange in school-based curriculum: The school-based curriculum is a salient aspect of SBM, because its successful implementation determines the extent to which teachers can take full advantage of their autonomy over curricular and pedagogical matters. The policymakers have assumed that increased management flexibility in general leads to greater curriculum flexibility in particular. The teachers, however, have been commonly frustrated, because when the SMI was implemented in their schools, none of the recommendations in this scheme addressed curriculum issues (Wong, 1995). School autonomy is therefore often regarded a necessary but insufficient condition for bringing about a school-based curriculum, and for making SBM fruitful for teaching and learning (e.g. Glickman, 1990; Sackney and Dibski, 1995). International case studies have indicated that the successful development of a school-based curriculum depends on three prominent factors: the motivations of stakeholders, the level of interest in innovative approaches and ownership of the process (Marsh et al., 1990). These factors suggest a greater necessity for teachers' professional autonomy than for school autonomy in an administrative sense. Although the immediate linkage between professional autonomy and school autonomy is not always obvious, these kinds of autonomy are expected to complement rather than contradict each other. To strengthen such a complimentary linkage, it is strategically important to concurrently introduce both SBM and policies that promote curriculum innovation.\nChange in student learning: One of the major challenges to SBM has been the lack of conclusive empirical evidence that SBM per se can contribute to students' educational outcomes (e.g. Bullock and Thomas, 1995; Cheng, 1992; Ho, 2005; Smyth, 2011; Wong, 1995). The practices of SBM in general and of the IMCs in particular often appear to benefit school management rather than the students' learning outcomes, which are the actual results of the teachers' work (Cheng, 1992; Cheung and Kan, 2009; Wong, 1995). As pointed out by Cheng et al. (2016), international investigations have yielded inconsistent and unclear findings on the influence that autonomy has on school performance and student learning across countries. The influence of school autonomy has been found to be contingent on the nature and level of autonomy, on the school's existing accountability structures and on the school's level of development (e.g. PISA in Focus, 2011; Hanushek et al., 2013).\nAn illustrative case: a self-transforming school: To further understand the complex interplay of school autonomy and accountability, along with their effects on school performance and student learning, the Sea Horn School (a pseudo name) was select for an in-depth case study. This case school is serving a territory-wide group of academically bottom-ranking students in an at-risk community with low-socio-economic status in Hong Kong. Before the value-added data were available, this school would be regarded as an under-performing school due to its low attainment results in public examinations. However, as Sea Horn School has achieved positive value-added in many subjects, the practitioners there can take pride in their work despite the lower academic achievements of their students. In addition, the school has actively engaged in external relations with local primary schools to promote a positive image for their students. Sea Horn School is a typical case of an academically weak school, where the teaching staff works hard on enhancing the students' sense of belonging to the school and on other types of learning experiences. Under SBM, the practitioners have become more conscious of the alternative strategies available for them to serve the local community. The teachers have become more innovative, as they can actively participate in the decision making.\nConclusions: implications for four broad areas: In considering the above discussion, we would like to draw out the implications from local and international research and practice. We see four broad areas of implications - in school governance, school improvement, the professional growth of teachers and in policy making.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of school autonomy and accountability and related multiple changes and impacts in key areas of school education in Hong Kong since implementing school-based management (SBM) from 1990s.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To explore the evolution and the uniqueness of autonomy and accountability in the Hong Kong school system, the paper begins with an historical account, followed by an evaluation of the effects of SBM as shown in policy documents, local research, international reviews and illustrative findings from a case study. The local and international implications of SBM for research and practice are then discussed.\nFindings: This paper shows the links between school autonomy and accountability by exploring the potential effects of both of these factors on educational management and student achievement, which are increasingly emphasised in educational policies. The investigation shows that the assumed links and effects are not always consistent or empirically supported. The positive effects that school autonomy has on school governance and management, teachers' work, school-based curriculums and student learning are all significant when there is also strong leadership, comprehensive continuous professional development and a positive, collaborative school climate. These key elements work alongside school autonomy to facilitate positive change.\nResearch limitations/implications: School autonomy and accountability should be viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for school improvement and development. Further characterisation of the processes happening in schools is needed to explore the different realisations of school autonomy and accountability.\nOriginality/value: This investigation of school autonomy and accountability in Hong Kong provides the international audience with a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in the development of SBM.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Depression affecting work performance: gender differentials across occupations
|
[
"Gender",
"Occupations",
"Depression affecting work performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The prevalence of mental health problems such as depression, bad nerves, stress and anxiety, among workers is of increasing concern in industrialized countries (ILO, 2000). These afflictions are a major cause of sickness absence from work, reduced productivity and staff turnover, while boosting costs of medical services (Marchand et al., 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) (2005) predicts that by 2020 depression will be the second most important occupational cause of disability. Furthermore, according to the same report, 120 million persons are depressed at any given time, being work or career-related problems one of the driving causes of the mental health problem. Depression-related problems are therefore unequivocally tied to the workplace, as most causes and important consequences are related with work and employment.\nDepression, gender and occupation: A large body of evidence shows that women are significantly more affected by mental health problems than men. Thus, Culbertson (1997) reviews the international literature on gender and depressive disorders and reports that the ratio of women to men for depression is about 2:1 in developed countries, though for developing countries the ratios vary, with most reporting no differences in ratios. Klerman and Weissman (1989) also report a persistent gender effect, with the risk of depression consistently two to three times higher among women than men across all adult ages. Rosenfield (1989) found that gender differences on the prevalence of depression are consistent across cultures, age groups and countries. More recently the World Health Organization (WHO, 2005) report shows that 9.5 percent of women against 5.8 percent of men will have a depressive episode in any 12-month period.\nEmpirical analysis: data and variables: Our empirical analysis draws on micro data from the UK LFS for the first quarter of 2007. The LFS is carried out under a European Union Directive and uses internationally agreed concepts and definitions (EC, 2003). The survey includes more than 100 questions, providing information on respondents' personal circumstances and their labor market status.\nDecomposing DAW incidence rates: The incidence rate of DAW\nThe likelihood of depression incidence at work: This section further analyzes the variables that explain female-male differentials in DAW by means of a number of logit regressions. Particularly, we ran three separate regressions for the full sample, females-only and males-only. For the full sample, the benchmark or reference individual is a man, working as (SOC1) manager, in the private sector, in a permanent and full time basis, is over 55, single, white, and living in England. All the coefficients therefore measure differences relative to this benchmark. Table IV shows the estimates of the three logit models. Figures in Table IV show the marginal effects at the mean for the likelihood of DAW performance. That is, the marginal effects indicate the percent change on the likelihood of suffering DAW (the dependent variable) induced by a unit change on the explanatory variable[3]. For instance, for the full sample, the marginal effect shows that work by a married employee is 16.2 percent less likely to be affected by depression than the work performed by the single benchmark employee.\nDiscussion and managerial implications: This paper has investigated the gender differential in DAW performance . Our results show that differences in the incidence of DAW between men and women are related to occupational and contractual conditions rather than to sex differences. The decomposition of the aggregate DAW rate shows that females' rate is higher mainly because their employment is concentrated in occupations where the average DAW rate (including both men and women) is higher. This evidence suggests that segregation of females into some occupations plays the most important role in explaining the aggregate higher incidence rate of females. Results from the decomposition analysis are reinforced by the regression results, where gender does not significantly increase the likelihood of DAW. In particular, the analysis of interactive effects between gender and occupations shows that gender is not significant across occupations, with the sole exception of (SOC 8) process and plant occupations, where women's performance is notably more distressed by depression.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the incidence of depression affecting work (DAW) performance and estimates gender differences across occupations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using Labor Force Survey data from the UK in 2007, the authors first decompose the differential on the aggregate incidence rate of DAW between men and women into two components: the gender effect and the occupational effect. Then, the authors identify the stressors of DAW by means of a logit regression analysis.\nFindings: The empirical results show that gender is not a significant explanatory variable of DAW. Further, when differences are analyzed for each gender separately, results show that the effect of occupations is stronger within females than within males.\nOriginality/value: Most of previous studies focus on occupational causes of depression. By contrast, this paper investigates the effect of depression on work performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Multidimensional impact of food security on household welfare: evidences from a household survey in three Indian states
|
[
"Endogenous switching regression",
"Household welfare",
"Food consumption score",
"Income transfer",
"National Food Security Act"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The basic objective of any public welfare policy is to improve the welfare of the intended beneficiaries while creating capabilities towards exercising entitlements (Sen, 1985). It carries critical significance particularly for the developing countries, thanks to their high incidence of abject poverty and deprivation emanating from several unmet needs (FAO, 2002). Public welfare policies, if suitably formulated and effectively implemented, can act as catalysts to such challenges. India's food subsidy programme is one such intervention, which has the potential to enhance welfare while ensuring food to all as their basic entitlements.India with the goal of eradicating abject poverty, malnutrition, inferior consumption and lack of access to basic food (Dev and Sharma, 2010; Swaminathan, 2008) introduced the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013. This flagship programme with a target to cover 67% of the total population is intended to provide food grains to the eligible households with uniform entitlement of 5 kg per person per month. Food grains are available at subsidized prices of INR 3/2/1 per kg for rice, wheat and coarse grains, respectively. The households covered under this programme are the below poverty line (BPL) or priority households and those falling under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY). The latter are primarily the poorest among the BPL households (GoI, 2013).In India, although the food security policy had been in place in some form or the other, with the introduction of the new act, the characteristics of its coverage and implementation mechanism seem to have witnessed a phenomenal change. From mere provision of food to the fulfilment of nutritional requirement, there has been a paradigm shift in the approach from the need-based to the right-based domain having thrust on welfare maximization (Pingali et al., 2016). Needless to say, how far these goals have been achieved may necessitate investigation. The earlier studies on the impact of food security programme have focussed primarily on the nutritional gain (Abafita and Kim, 2014). Although the direct impact of food subsidy can be reflected in the form of nutritional gain and improved health conditions, a comprehensive study to understand its possible impacts on household well-being from a multidimensional perspective carries critical significance.Going beyond the limited monetary measures of welfare, this study aims to assess the impact of the current food security programme on household well-being from a multidimensional perspective. The assessment involves a comparison of the treated households with the counterfactual comprising the untreated. Following Pradhan and Ravallion (2000) and Filmer and Pritchett (2001), we measure welfare outcomes of the beneficiary households considering four subjective parameters, namely food consumption behaviour (FCB), income transfer (IT), social status and empowerment (SSE) and educational outcomes (EO). Evidently, the non-income characteristics of welfare can be better measured by observations and self-assessment (Coates et al., 2003). One objective parameter, that is, the food consumption score (FCS) is used to measure the food consumption on the basis of standard weights.Nevertheless, it may not be that easy to identify the welfare impacts of such a programme. The welfare one derives may depend upon a host of factors in addition to the programme itself, which essentially suggests that other factors must be controlled for while estimating the impacts. Besides, inclusion of the households under the programme may not follow a random process. The households may self-select themselves or certain households are targeted. Hence, the inclusion is considered potentially endogenous. We try to address such selection and endogeneity problems by employing endogenous switching regression (ESR) model (Tesfaye and Tirivayi, 2018). Accordingly, the rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines data and methodology. Section 3 discusses the results and offers implications. Section 4 concludes the findings.\nData and methodology: Data\nResults and discussion: Table 2 presents the profile of the sample households along with the mean values of the welfare gains. The beneficiaries' welfare gains seem to be significantly different from the non-beneficiaries'. The mean values of FCB, IT, SSE and EO for the beneficiaries stand at 2.54, 2.25, 1.83 and 2.97, while that for the non-beneficiaries stand at 1.57, 1.43, 1.40 and 2.15, respectively. The FCS for both the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries stands at an average of 35 points. The mean comparison test between the non-beneficiaries and beneficiaries on the subjective outcome parameters reveals that the beneficiaries are relatively better off than their counterparts, while the objective parameter of FCS does not show any difference. The mean comparison test further reveals that before matching, non-beneficiary households' average land holding, dependency ratio and years of schooling are relatively higher than their counterparts. The non-beneficiary households are also relatively better off in terms of house types. Compared to the non-beneficiaries, the beneficiaries characterize relatively larger family size, represent more SCs and STs and a larger proportion of them have casual labour as their main occupation. The access to extension services, radio and neighbourhood information and participation in SHG and gram sabha are greater among the beneficiaries than the non-beneficiaries. Interestingly, both the categories of sample households have relatively younger population. Both, on the average, earn around INR 6000 as the total monthly incomes.Determinants of inclusion of the beneficiaries into the food security programme\nConclusion: The introduction of NFSA in India is mandated to enhance not only food and nutrition security but also several other unmet needs. Employing sample primary data, this study attempted to examine the impact of India's food security programme on five key welfare indicators, namely FCB, IT, SSE, EO and FCS across three different states of India. While most of the earlier studies looked at the nutrition security only, this study made an addition by making as assessment of the impact from a multidimensional perspective using subjective measurement tools of self-assessment by the households. The impact of the programme on the beneficiaries was assessed by comparing them with the non-beneficiaries in counterfactual scenarios. We employed ESR technique to account for unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection bias. The results of the ESR were further compared with KBM, NNM and IPW methods.Our study, however, did not consider monetary gains as an additional measure, nor did it compare across various food security scales. Moreover, as the study was based on self-assessment, one may not completely rule out the possibilities of subjective biases. In order to capture diverse aspects in an integrated way, in the future, one may undertake a comprehensive assessment of welfare incorporating both monetary and non-monetary measures while employing various scales of food security.Nonetheless, it is evident from the results that the households included under the NFSA have, by and large, different characteristics compared to the excluded ones. It may be revealing to note that the current scheme seems to be more pro-poor in its outreach. This is evident from the fact that there are overt preferences for households which are socially and economically more vulnerable such as SCs and STs, casual workers, residing in katcha houses and having greater family size and so on. The awareness building seems to be critical towards getting access to the benefits and so is the participation in SHGs and democratic spaces.The findings prove that the ongoing food security programme provides immense benefit to the intended beneficiaries while more or less meeting the intended outcomes as it improves their well-being from the perspective of enhanced food consumption. As a consequence of this intervention, the beneficiaries are able to achieve incidences of ITs to alternative uses other than food, be it higher health spending, higher expenditure on transport and communication, higher savings and investment in income-generating activities. There seems to be improvement in social status and perceived empowerment among women. The scheme is also able to generate positive outcomes on education front for the children in terms of increased spending on education and improved educational attainment. In essence, India's current food security measure has the ability to create a positive income and substitution effect through FCB and IT, a positive social effect through improved social status, women's empowerment and educational achievements and improved food intake presented through FCS.It is interesting to note that the welfare of the non-beneficiary households could have increased if they had been covered under the programme. It may thus be pertinent to reassess if any needy households have been left out of the food subsidy net. It gains significance especially for the poorer states, as any exclusion of intended beneficiaries in these states may result in unpleasant sufferings. Nonetheless, in an unequal economy like India with high incidence of hunger and malnutrition, to the extent that this flagship programme has been able to enhance welfare of a larger mass, it stands out to be a game changer. Nevertheless, the battle to eradicate poverty and hunger is far from over. Given the heterogeneous effects of the household characteristics on the welfare outcomes, efforts to ensure enhanced benefits may necessitate more inclusive and proactive measures towards creating level playing fields especially for the disadvantages and marginalized sections of people. The institutions responsible for awareness building and promotion of participation in democratic spaces have possibly to further revamp their efforts towards achieving the desired goals.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The welfare impacts of the food security on the beneficiaries can be understood from multiple dimensions. This paper, thus, examines the impact of the India's National Food Security Act (NFSA) on the welfare of the beneficiary households from a multidimensional perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on a sample household survey covering three different states of India. The stratified random sampling technique was used to select the states, districts and blocks. Sample villages and households were selected purposively. A total of 1,523 households comprising 1,069 beneficiary and 454 non-beneficiary households constituted the sample. In order to find out the impact of the programme on different dimensions of welfare, the endogenous switching regression model is employed as it helps control for any absence of randomization and the unobserved heterogeneity bias. Propensity score matching is also employed to supplement the results.\nFindings: The substitution effect and income effect of the food subsidy policy combined improve the overall welfare of the households presented through the subjective measures of food consumption behaviour, income transfer and educational achievements. The bargaining effect of the food subsidy programme is reflected in the enhanced social status and women's empowerment. The food security programme seems to augment the food consumption of the beneficiaries as observed from the food consumption score.\nResearch limitations/implications: The food security policy has improved the overall welfare of the households and can play a major role in enhancing household welfare even further. The non-beneficiaries' welfare could have increased if they would have been included in the food security programme. The subjective assessment may, however, be subjected to personal biases, and there is also absence of a common reference point. Hence, the implications of the findings may be generalized with caution.\nOriginality/value: This study provides evidences of the impacts of food subsidy from a multidimensional standpoint considering both subjective and objective dimensions of household welfare.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Beyond traditional word-of-mouth: An expanded model of customer-driven influence
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer‐driven influence",
"Word‐of‐mouth",
"Goal theory",
"Customer‐to‐customer interactions",
"Dual processing",
"Impulsive behavior",
"Reflective behavior"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Companies are increasingly aware that their communications with customers about their brands, products, and services are often disrupted by customer-to-customer interactions. Customers exchange information about their experiences and influence each others' attitudes and behaviors. This development threatens established firm-customer communication channels. Instead, customers increasingly pay attention to the cognitive insights and the consumption patterns of their fellow customers (Berger and Schwartz, 2011; Hinz et al., 2011).Customers make decisions seldom only based on their own judgment. Even though they might not always be aware, other people can influence their decision process and their final decision. On the one hand, consumer choices are influenced through verbal interactions by, for example, seeking advice from other product users (Cialdini, 2009). On the other hand, they might mimic other shoppers and hence be influenced by other people's actions without a direct interaction. Thus, many consumer decisions are made in a social environment (Tanner et al., 2007). This creates opportunities and challenges for companies who need to gain a better understanding into the process of customer-driven influence (CDI). They also want to be able to see and assess the impact of CDI on customers' purchase decisions and further recommendation behavior.We define CDI as the impact of customers' verbal and non-verbal communication on other customers' attitudes and behaviors. This definition is in line with the broader concept of customer social influence. While in former definitions customer influence was often restricted to verbal word of mouth behavior, newer conceptualizations take a broader view and also include non-verbal communication (Libai et al., 2010). Broadening the concepts seems important as non-verbal communication has become more important due to the rise of social media, where it is common to non-verbally express consumption related attitudes, for example, by posing together with a favorite brand on a Facebook page or in a YouTube video.The importance of studying CDI is manifested by three developments. First, consumers have reached a new level of connectedness. Informational and social exchange between customers in online networking sites, customer communities, status update services, video sharing, recommendation sites, blogs, and wikis have fundamentally changed how customers interact with each other and also led to changes in the relationship between customers and firms (Libai et al., 2010). Computer-mediated communication can be included in the electronic word of mouth definition by Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004, p. 39):[...] any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet.Also, Generation Y is known to have a very frequent use of social media and will increase in importance for marketers as their share in the current workforce increases (Bolton et al., 2013). In summary, the sheer possibility for CDI is large.The increased exposure to and influence by CDI results in opportunities and challenges for firms to interact and communicate with their customers and to monitor and react to customer-to-customer interactions. Second, consumers have much more information available when pursuing their purchase decisions. As they are connected to more people - even strangers - their access to information has increased. At the same time, the likelihood of conflicting information and information overload has enlarged. Therefore, consumers are more exposed to and thus more susceptible to social influences from other customers that help them to navigate the decision process. Third, recent research has shown that purchase decisions are not always based on a relatively slow, rational process, but can also be made in a fast, intuitive (Arens and Rust, 2012) or automatic way through the use of heuristics (Kahneman et al., 1982). CDI and its inherent access to environmental stimuli might play a pivotal role in determining the decision route for either process.The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive model of CDI that provides an overview of the process and its determinants, and suggests future research areas. We use goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002; Shah et al., 2003), as it addresses fundamental self-regulatory issues, such as the impact of implicit goal activation and essential contextual factors on preference formation and choice. Self-regulation can play a pivotal role in examining CDI. With this model, we want to develop a broader understanding of the dynamics, process steps, and impact of CDI. Our objective is to identify current knowledge gaps to guide future marketing thought for studying customer interactions with their environment. Hence, we will highlight areas of significant research interests in this domain.\nTheoretical setting: Consumer behavior theory has considered information sharing (sender) and searching (receiver) as goal oriented behaviors (Huffman and Houston, 1993). The goal oriented behavior conceptualization has been used in many areas of consumer behavior to understand consumers' preferences (Ratneshwar et al., 2001; Bettman et al., 2008) and decision-making (Fischbach and Dhar, 2005), loyalty (Wood and Neal, 2009), as well as response to advertising (Pieters and Wedel, 2007). Therefore, we argue that investigating senders' behavior and their motives that lead to the experience sharing should start with the exploration of the goal concepts and the manner in which those goals operate in driving the senders' intentions. Similarly, information search and reception by the receiver is influenced and determined by goal activation. At the reception of a message, goal activation is also relevant. If a specific goal is active, receivers are expected to look for the different means that will help to attain their goals. Hence, goal activation can lead to different processes toward goal attainment compared to the absence of a conscious goal. Previous literature defined goals as desirable end states that are attainable through action (Kruglanski et al., 2002). As the goal concept designates a desired state, its activation implies a motivation of the person to pursue it (Huffman and Houston, 1993; Kruglanski et al., 2002). In sum, we expect goal pursuit by both sender and receiver to influence the process and dynamics of CDI.\nA comprehensive model of CDI: The relationship between sender experience and sender's intention\nConclusion: Customer-driven influence is an important topic within service marketing, as sharing experiences with other consumers is a universal human activity (Moore, 2012). We have suggested a process model for how CDI influences consumption and recommendation behavior, taking into account consumer's goals and their social environment. The exploration of CDI dynamics is an exciting research area and has also an essential impact on managing and measuring the impact of customer-to-customer interactions on a firm's performance. It is a topic with ongoing debates and a vibrant research community. Future research can gain important additional insights. We will now outline a number of directions for future research, which are connected to our model of CDI.Future research agenda\nAcknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge the editorial comments and advice of Lerzan M. Aksoy, Jay Kandampully and Allard Van Riel, as well as the reviewers. They also thank the participants of the Thought Leadership Conference on \"Connections, Communities, and Collaboration: Service Sustainability in the Digital Age\" hosted by Radboud University, in Nijmegen, The Netherlands during June 2012.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Business and academia alike have become aware of the crucial role of customer-to-customer interactions. Facilitated by the increasing customer connectedness through online media possibilities, companies need to understand how customers influence each other and how to manage these customer interactions. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize an expanded model of customer-driven influence (CDI) that presents an overview of the influence process and its determinants. The model covers important issues, such as deliberate versus unintentional sender actions, verbal and non-verbal communication, and reflective and impulsive receiver reactions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This article is the result of the first Thought Leadership Conference on Service Marketing, held in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, June 2012.\nFindings: - The model shows the importance of considering goal theory in studying customer-driven influence. Both sender and receiver can act and react in deliberate and unintentional ways. The mechanisms for customer-driven influence are then contingent upon which particular goal (combination) is activated. Message reception is either verbal or non-verbal. Furthermore, the receiver can react either by reflective processing or by impulsive processing leading to liking a particular product or wanting the product (respectively). Accordingly, the receiver builds behavioral intentions of purchasing and further talking about the particular product.\nOriginality/value: - This paper synthesizes insights from the extant literature on word-of-mouth, social influence, and dual processing of information to develop a comprehensive model customer-driven influence. The authors' framework is embedded in goal system theory, as it addresses fundamental self-regulatory issues, such as the impact of implicit goal activation and essential contextual factors on preference formation and choice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
International comparisons of patients' views on quality of care
|
[
"Patient care",
"National cultures",
"Surveys"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality of care is considered a multidimensional concept that has been given different meanings in the literature. Patients' opinion on the care received may be seen as one aspect of quality of care and an endpoint in quality evaluation (Cleary and McNeal, 1988; Davies and Ware, 1988; Carr-Hill, 1992; Bruster et al., 1994; Gerteis, 1999; Bredart et al., 2003). Patients' satisfaction with care may be important not only as an outcome variable in its own right, but also as a mediating variable which may influence illness behaviour, treatment adherence, health status, and medical outcomes (Calnan et al. 1994).The present study addresses the question whether patients in different countries evaluate care similarly or differently. Several studies have shown that at least part of observed differences in satisfaction rates can be attributed to the diversity of the expectations of populations in different countries (Kersnik and Ropret, 2002). However, it seems that several potential alternative explanations have not been thoroughly examined. Beaulieu (2000, p. 861) claims that \"without a good understanding of the specific contexts from which the data are drawn, the hypothesis put forward to explain the different observations can only be superficial and risks reflecting the prevailing biases in the environment\".Different health care systems within and between countries may have a confounding effect on patients' opinions. Different systems, for instance public or private, may have differences in the socio-economic resourcefulness of patients, the reimbursement system, the gate-keeper role of the general practitioner, the continuity of care, the size of practices, etc (Wensing et al., 1996; Grol et al., 1999; Young et al., 2000).Differences in patients' views on the quality of care can also, of course, be ascribed to a number of patient characteristics. Comparing patients with different kinds of health problems may be misleading. Differences may also be attributed to gender, age, and socio-economic factors (Hall and Dornan, 1990; Wilde Larsson, 1999; Wilde Larsson and Larsson, 1999; Wilde Larsson et al., 1999).Another validity-related individual characteristic is the question of whether patients' responses to questionnaires on quality of care reflect their opinions on this matter, or, if these responses rather reflect the patients' personality dispositions and subjective well-being. This methodological problem has received considerable attention in other research areas; in particular, health psychology where the person often makes ratings of him- or herself rather than of an external issue such as care. The concept of negative and positive affectivity, which deals with the impact of mood state on a person's responses to questions, is frequently taken into account in this research (Watson and Pennebaker, 1989; Burke et al., 1993).From a still another validity point of view, criticism has been raised against various scales designed to measure patients' satisfaction with, or perceptions of, quality of care (Calnan, 1988; Rubin, 1990; Rubin et al., 1990; van Campen et al., 1995; Sitzia and Wood, 1997). While several of these scales may be creatively designed, a major criticism against most of them is their lack of theoretical foundation. The selection of indicators has generally not been related to empirically based models of patients' conceptions of the area (Hall and Dornan, 1988; Bond and Thomas, 1992). Consequently, one cannot be sure that the attributes chosen in the scales are those most important to quality of care. In the present study, the assessment of quality of care was based on a patient-centred theoretical model that is summarized below (Wilde et al., 1993).To further our knowledge of potential differences in opinion between patients from different countries, assessments have to deal with the methodological difficulties mentioned above. The purpose of this study was to compare patients' views on quality of care in different countries using a theory-based instrument, while at the same time controlling for the following potential confounders: type of care system (private vs public), type of care (kind of health problem), gender, age, and subjective well-being.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Characteristics of the national samples\nDiscussion: The aim was to compare patients' views on quality of care in different countries using a theory-based instrument and controlling for a number of specified potential confounders. Considerable differences were observed regarding perceived reality evaluations, as well as subjective importance ratings, between English, French, Norwegian, and Swedish patients. One possible explanation is, of course, that the observed differences reflect profound cultural differences among the different nations.In the absence of additional data, we can only speculate on this and other non-methodological reasons. The higher scores (both perceived reality and subjective importance) among English and French patients could be related to the fact that England has a highly demanding law on information to patients and patients' rights to participate in their own care. It is mandatory in England to inform patients about all possible complications with all treatments, and all patients must sign an informed consent form, something that is not mandatory or even common in Norway or Sweden. In France, the area of pain and pain relief has been given high priority with the establishment pain committees in all hospitals, as well as staff specially trained of pain relief. Possibly, such objective care characteristics may influence the quality of care provided and its subjective evaluation.It should also be noted that in England and France patients generally seek a specific physician, while they only seek a specific care unit in Norway and Sweden. In France in particular, it is also more common that the physician has met the patient before surgery. These practice differences may result in differences in the perception of the relationships and in the evaluations of the quality of care.Another difference between the English and French care units on the one hand, and the Norwegian and Swedish on the other, is that a long tradition of patient satisfaction measurements exists in the former two. Thus, they could be assumed to be more accustomed to continuous improvement efforts based on regular assessments.We will now address some methodological aspects of the results. For Swedish patients, we have numerous comparison samples. The mean scores on the QPP items correspond fairly well to those obtained previously. This suggests that the Swedish raw data in the present study may be generalized to a broader Swedish patient population. No relevant comparison groups with QPP data exist in the other countries.A conventional forward-backward procedure was used for translating the QPP (Steiner and Norman 1995). However, there may still be a lack of semantic, idiomatic, and/or conceptual equivalence (Guillemin et al., 1993). Subtle differences in these areas may have affected the results.A crude estimation of the response rate shows that it was approximately 70-80 per cent in all four countries. This is comparable to the average noted in a meta-analysis covering 210 studies by Sitzia and Wood (1998). Thus, it seems less likely that the results should be caused by a systematic drop-out bias, although the possibility can not be ruled out.A strength of the study was the consistency of type of care system (same private corporation in all four countries) and type of care (patients with similar kind of health problems). Methodologically, however, it would be interesting to study different types of care within the same care system, as well as different care systems among patients with similar health problems.Some additional methodological shortcomings need to be mentioned. First, in order to protect the integrity of the patients we were not able to ask any questions dealing with their socio-economic background. Second, probably due to the reduction of items in the modified version of the QPP, modest reliability coefficients (Cronbach alpha) were obtained on the items designed to measure the medical-technical competence of the caregivers. Following from this, it was decided to report single item score rather than quality dimension scale scores. Third, we could only use an indirect measure of psychological mood state (a single-item score on self-rated subjective well-being). Although this kind of rating tends to be strongly, positively correlated with mood scale results, a broader spectrum of psychological characteristics such as personality, and instruments specifically designed to measure negative and positive affectivity, would have been desirable (Wilde Larsson and Larsson, 1999; Wilde Larsson et al., 1999). Fourth, although the patients had similar kinds of health problems, the average length of stay at the hospital ranged from two days (Norway) to five days (France) among the ward patients. The impact of this difference on the patients' assessments is not known.Fifth, since varying methods of data collection ware used (touch screens and paper questionnaires), it cannot be ruled out that this might have influenced the results. However, it should be noted that equivalent results were obtained in two studies where quality of life was assessing using both touch screens and paper questionnaires (Taenzer et al., 1997; Velikova et al., 1999).Sixth, the inclusion of individual-level outcome measures such as treatment adherence and health status after the care episode would also have been a strength.\nConclusion: From a practical quality improvement perspective in a narrow sense, it could be argued that the results obtained have limited value. Conditions in each country are unique and need to be dealt with accordingly. A possible lesson to be learned, particularly for future cross-national studies of patents' opinions, is the desirability of using patient-centred and theory-based instruments, context-specific selection of type of health care system and type of care, and consideration of potential confounding effects of variables such as gender, age, and subjective well-being. Only then may observed differences serve as guidance for quality enhancing measures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To compare patients' views on quality of care in different countries using a theory-based instrument, while at the same time controlling for the following potential confounders: type of care system (private vs public), type of care (kind of health problem), gender, age, and subjective wellbeing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Patients capable of communicating in wards (medical and surgical departments) and day surgery departments in England, France, Norway, and Sweden were recruited consecutively, to participate in a programme run by the health-care company Capio. Ward patients: England (n =1,236), France (n =1,051), Norway (n =226), and Sweden (n =428). Day surgery patients: England (n =887), France (n =544), Norway (n =101), and Sweden (n =742). Average response rate across settings: approximately 75 per cent. Patients evaluated the quality of the care they actually received and the subjective importance they ascribed to different aspects of care. The questionnaire \"Quality from the patient's perspective\" (QPP) was used (modified short version).\nFindings: - Cross-national comparisons were made within each of the two care contexts (wards and day surgery) separately for men and women. Quality of care evaluations were adjusted for age and subjective wellbeing. English and French patients scored significantly higher than Norwegian and Swedish on both kinds of ratings (perceived reality and subjective importance), in both kinds of care contexts, and in both sexes.\nOriginality/value: - Cross-national comparisons of patients' views on care can give meaningful guidance for practitioners only if they are context-specific and if well-known confounders are controlled for.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The differentiated effects of CSR actions in the service industry
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Event study",
"Market value",
"Services firms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has received considerable scholarly attention over the decades, becoming an integral part of business practice (Mattila and Hanks, 2012). Behind the expansion of CSR activities, we can find many reasons, such as the growing pressure from civil society actors or the firm's profit strategy has pushed it to be socially responsible because of an anticipated benefit (e.g. reputation enhancement) from these actions (McWilliams and Siegel, 2000). Accordingly, this topic has received considerable attention in the marketing and management literature. One primary stream of research has focused on the effects of CSR on the financial outcomes of the firm, such as its market value, although the results of these studies remain mixed (Orlitzky et al., 2003). One of the explanations offered for these inconsistent results is that much of the research does not consider the influence of other related variables but only CSR (Barnett and Salomon, 2006). There have been claims to introduce more variables that relate to industry, culture, national systems and context into this genre of research (Simpson and Kohers, 2002). More specifically, Arendt and Brettel (2010) and Halme and Laurila (2009) argued that the financial performance outcomes of responsible corporate behavior might vary depending on firm-specific and industry-related factors. However, studies on CSR have mostly focused on the product-based industry (Sen et al., 2006) rather than the service industry (Vlachos et al., 2009).\nTheoretical foundations: CSR in the study context\nMethod: The event study technique\nResults: Table II shows the estimation of the average AR in several event windows of the 583 announcements (of which 288 belong to service companies). We have tested these different windows strategically, so that we make sure the analysis covers the whole range of days, starting from (-5,-4), (-5,-3) [...] so that the pre-announcement period is examined, then we focus on the full-length window (-5,+5) and finally we analyze the post-announcement windows (+1,+5), (+2,+5) and so on. The results obtained demonstrate that, on average, CSR announcements are associated with positive excess returns on the post-event days, thus showing, as expected, that CSR activities undertaken by firms will positively affect their performance. In particular, both tests - Brown and Warner and Boehmer et al. - present significant positive values over the windows (+1,+5), (+2,+5), (+3,+5) and (+4,+5). This means that, on average, firms announcing CSR activities undergo a gain between 0.18 and 0.26 per cent on the five days after the announcement. Note, however, that no reaction appears to exist before the announcement day. This outcome implies that there does not seem to be any significant information leakage prior to the information becoming publicly available, or if there happens to be, investors seem to wait for the official announcement before reacting.\nDiscussion: Theoretical and managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to attempt to explain why the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives may be different and/or more important in service firms compared to manufacturing firms. CSR is becoming a common strategy, hence its extensive research. Central to it is the analysis of the effect of CSR on a firm's performance, whose outcome depends on firm-specific and industry-related factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The event study methodology is applied to all the 248 companies that have ever traded on the Spanish Stock Market between 1990 and 2007. A regression analysis examines potential different effects of CSR on service and goods firms.\nFindings: The results show that CSR activities have a positive impact on firm performance that is higher for service firms than for manufacturing firms. Actions related to the environment, responsible labor relationships and good corporate governance are especially important in the service context.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research is focused on shareholders' performance, but it does not consider other stakeholders, such as real consumer behavior or employees' commitment and productivity.\nPractical implications: Service firms are likely to gain from focusing on some CSR activities (environment, employees and good corporate governance) and should use their responsible behavior as a valuable tool for public relations and differentiation in the market.\nOriginality/value: This article is the first attempt to empirically test and explain why the relationship between CSR and firm performance may be different (more positive) for service vs manufacturing firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
What does healthy eating mean? Australian teachers' perceptions of healthy eating in secondary school curricula
|
[
"Curriculum",
"Qualitative methods",
"Teachers",
"Food and nutrition",
"School health promotion",
"Dietary behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is renewed interest in secondary school food and nutrition education in many countries because of the impact that adolescent food behaviours have on their cognitive performance, diet quality, and health trajectories (Colatruglio and Slater, 2014; Engler-Stringer, 2010; Lichtenstein and Ludwig, 2010; Nanayakkara et al., 2018; Pendergast and Dewhurst, 2012; Rathi et al., 2018). Secondary school food and nutrition curricula offer an accessible means to communicate healthy eating messages with widespread reach among adolescents and their families (Burton and Worsley, 2012; Lloyd et al., 2012; Perez-Rodrigo et al., 2001). The recent conceptualisation of food literacy by Vidgen and Gallegos (2014) frames the \"inter-related knowledge, skills and behaviours\" that are necessary to manage dietary quality. In many countries, adolescents can develop these food literacy capabilities and essential skills for a healthy life in secondary school courses, such as home economics, food education, and family and consumer sciences (Ballam, 2018; Fordyce-Voorham, 2011; McCloat and Caraher, 2016; McGowan et al., 2017; Ovrebo, 2014; Pendergast and Dewhurst, 2012; Slater, 2013).\nMethods: Research design\nResults: Participants' demographic and professional characteristics\nDiscussion: The experiences of the teachers offered insights into their knowledge precepts, motivations, influences and priorities when teaching healthy eating including the selection of classroom resources. The theme of teacher career goals revealed some variation of teachers' concerns about the apparent contradiction between classroom learning and the broader school food policies and environment. For example, some schools have policies and practices that promote the availability of sweetened drinks, and commercial energy dense products. The teachers believed that the school food environment does not support the health promotion messages in food and nutrition classes. Similar findings that described teachers' views on the challenges and barriers to teaching healthy eating were reported by Ronto et al. (2017a), suggesting that these views are a common concern of home economics teachers.\nConclusion: Secondary school food and nutrition teachers' views of healthy eating in the curriculum were shaped using the food selection model, \"Australian Guide to Healthy Eating\" and skills-based lessons. The hierarchical curriculum structures imposed by statutory curriculum authorities, who set school priorities and distribute limited resources, appear to compromise the effectiveness of food and nutrition education in Australia and elsewhere.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Teachers disseminate food knowledge and skills in secondary school curricula that provide essential skills for a healthy life. The purpose of this paper is to explore Australian secondary school teachers' views of healthy eating and their sources of information in planning their food, nutrition and health curriculum.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Secondary school teachers' perceptions were explored through semi-structured, in-depth interviews that were de-identified and transcribed verbatim. Codes were ascribed to sections of the transcripts and throughout the process of inductive thematic analysis. The teachers' responses were grouped into five main themes: approaches to teaching healthy eating, sources of food and nutrition information, curriculum planning, teaching goals and teacher career influences.\nFindings: The teachers were clear about the aims and importance of teaching healthy eating in an experiential curriculum. They reported that teaching healthy eating assists the health and well--being of adolescents and their families. The effectiveness of current teaching in Australian secondary schools may be compromised by the positioning of food, nutrition and health topics in two separate curriculum areas: technologies and health and physical education, and competing school priorities and resources that limit the students' exposures to food curricula. The teachers sourced food information from online websites, popular culture and social media. Their knowledge and views of healthy eating appeared to be associated with their interests, life experiences, education and employment histories.\nPractical implications: These findings can assist with health promotion and education policy development. They can assist the design of healthy eating curriculum approaches for secondary schools and professional development courses for teachers, which will foster healthy food habits for adolescents, and their families in the future.\nOriginality/value: Secondary school teacher perceptions of the place of healthy eating in food, and nutrition curricula have been under examined.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Store managers - the seismographs in shopping centres
|
[
"Boundary spanning",
"Location",
"Shopping centre",
"Store manager",
"Retail environment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Store managers and shopping centres\nTheoretical framework: A transposition of Brass et al.'s (2004) view on networks to the context of shopping centres emphasises that actors (or nodes), that is, stores as a representation of retail and service organisations, are embedded in a network of interconnected relationships. As such, the network theory supports understanding of the contribution of stores within the context of a shopping centre. In an inter-organisational context the network theory describes nodes in relation to their roles, positions and relationships within networks and their resource (Moller, 2010). This view emphasises that a network is more than just a sum of its parts - a set of stores in the case of shopping centres (Teller and Schnedlitz, 2012). To understand and to manage networks effectively, it is crucial to consider the various interdependencies and relationships between the nodes and actors of a network (Hakansson and Ford, 2002a). For networks in general and shopping centres, in particular, the sought-after benefit for a firm (represented by a store) of being part of a network is to maximise efficiencies and synergies, and to promote opportunities for organisational learning by sharing resources (Chetty and Wilson, 2003). Based on the notions of Tax et al. (2013), shopping centres qualify as service delivery networks. That is to say, they are a set of independent operations that - in the view of consumers - provide a holistic service experience. In a retail/service context the network view emphasises the importance of appreciating that each network actor and node contributes to a combined overall service provision and experience for customers. In other words, service delivery networks, in general, and shopping centres, in particular, represent quasi-organisations, are perceived by customers as a single entity, and deliver combined services and overall customer experiences (Haytko, 2004; Gallouj and Savona, 2009).\nResearch hypotheses and conceptual model: Links between the evaluations of shopping centre customers and store managers\nMethodology: Survey design and sample characteristics\nDiscussion: The conceptual model underpinning the empirical study and the findings can be contextualised in terms of Lichtenstein et al.'s (2010) concept of the \"chain of influence\" that we transfer from a retail organisation towards a shopping centre setting. The discussions of the literature and of the empirical findings reveal the retail store manager to be an informational link between his/her retail organisation, the customers and the management of the shopping centre. Before discussing the core contributions of this paper and our study, we want to emphasise that - given the insignificant impact of our control variables on our model - our findings are homogenous across different shopping centres as well as stores of different sizes, varying power to generate footfall in their centres and industry affiliation.\nPractical implications: Boundary spanning potential: The discussion in this paper clearly suggests that given the amount of managed space, e.g. shopping malls, and the heightened competition that they face from other channels, increasing the understanding and the utilisation of boundary spanning potential of store managers is important. Thus, store managers should be considered as a powerful asset for shopping centre and retail management due to their privileged position on the boundaries of organisations and customers.\nLimitations and outlook for further research: As with all empirical research, the study presented in this paper has some limitations that can stimulate future research endeavours:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the link between store managers' evaluation of how customers assess a shopping centre and their own evaluation of the centre and, based on that, the relevance of store managers in reflecting on and informing the management and marketing practices of the local shopping centre management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A conceptual model is developed based on the network and boundary-spanning theories. The model is tested using a Web-based survey of 217 managers, representing stores located in shopping malls, and by applying covariance-based structural equation modelling.\nFindings: The study reveals store managers to be engaging in a significant information-processing pathway, from customers' evaluation of the shopping centre (as perceived by the store manager) to their own evaluation of the centre in terms of managerial satisfaction and loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical study focuses exclusively on shopping malls and thus does not consider other shopping centre forms such as town centres and retail parks.\nPractical implications: This paper concludes that store managers have the potential to be informational boundary spanners and, thus, valuable resources to inform and give feedback to shopping centre management.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this paper is to provide a more complete understanding of the role of the store manager as an integral actor in the shopping centre in terms of informational boundary spanning between the retail organisation, the customers and local shopping centre management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Revisiting native speaking teachers of English in Hong Kong: An interpretivist policy study of change over time
|
[
"Hong Kong",
"Educational reform",
"Language education policy",
"Native-speaking teachers",
"Non-native-speaking teachers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 1997, Joseph Boyle wrote in the pages of Language and Education his critique of the Hong Kong Government's ten year-old policy of recruiting native-speaking teachers (NSTs) of English language into secondary schools Boyle explored non-native-speaking teachers' (NNSTs) responses to NSTs deployment and the government's perspective as exhibited in policy documents. Boyle (1997, p. 163) concluded that the scheme was \"largely ineffective\" in large measure because of its implicit lack of trust in NNSTs' capacities and the consequent undermining of their confidence. Partly on that basis, he predicted that proposed efforts to expand the scheme would likely fail. However, 15 years later the scheme has expanded in scale and scope: from less than 50 NSTs in 1997 to approximately 900 deployed across almost all primary and secondary schools in 2012. The Finance Committee of Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in its estimate of expenditure report for 2015-2016, has stated that the scheme will cost approximately HK$800 million, mainly comprising high salaries for native speakers (NSs). Finances were questioned, however, in the report and the administration has been asked to critically examine whether the intended purpose of the scheme (i.e. to address the declining standard of English among students) could be better achieved by strengthening the English training of NNSTs instead (Finance Committee, 2015).\nNSTs and NNSTs: Much of Boyle's criticism surrounding the role of NSTs in English language teaching (ELT) turns on the construct of the NS in relationship to that of the non-native speaker (NNS). Boyle delimitates several criteria that distinguish NSs from NNSs. He observes that Chomskian perspectives of NSs as authoritative informants of language use have contributed to the idealisation of NSs. Boyle argues that the great variation in dialect amongst NSs and the internationalisation of English blurs the NS-NNS dichotomy. Socio-linguists studying world Englishes have articulated how such distinctions are increasingly problematic in an era of globalisation given the growing use of English as a lingua franca among NNSs (Jenkins, 2003) with British and American English upheld as the most widely acceptable models for ELT (Sung, 2013). Its indigenisation in countries such as Singapore and India (Kachru, 1985; Kirkpatrick, 2007b), and socio-cultural shifts have been brought about by migration (Leung et al., 1997). In Hong Kong, for instance, the argument has been debated in the local press that English classes would be served better by deploying proficient multilingual Asians in classrooms and that such teachers would provide more apt models of the sort of English that Asian students are likely to encounter later in the workforce: increasingly with other Asians as opposed to Anglo-American English speakers (Kirkpatrick, 2007a).\nMethodology: In this paper, I approached the analysis from an interpretivist framework showing how various stakeholders' understanding of policy in turn shapes its implementation. From this vantage, policy may be understood as part of \"a social world characterised by multiple interpretations\" (Yanow, 2000, p. 5) viewed through the perspectives of participants. My analytical approach provides perspectives on NST related policy through the analysis of policy documents and the perspectives of key informants, reflecting retrospectively on their involvement in NST schemes. The long-term vantage serves to uncover systemic and enduring factors that influence a phenomena (Verma and Mallick, 1998) and serves as an antidote to the fallacy of \"temporal proximity\" in which greater significance is attached to factors \"that have occurred more recently\" and \"earlier associations (or dissociations) [are] discounted\" (Schmitter, 2008, p. 292).\nImages of the NST in Hong Kong: Everybody needs perhaps to be reminded that [the NST] scheme is not new. Hong Kong like other colonial (and ex-colonial) territories is accustomed to having expatriate teachers in the secondary system teaching English (British Council, 1988, p. 5).\nNSTs and curriculum change (1981-1996): It is not an easy task to incorporate meaningful use of the language into the teaching of general English in a linguistically homogeneous society like Hong Kong where English has no social role for the vast majority of pupils while they are at school and where virtually all of their acts of real communication are effected through the medium of the mother-tongue (Curriculum Development Committee, 1981, pp. 5-6).\nNSTs and MOI policy (1997-2000): By 1998, converging forces led to a rapid expansion of the scheme to all secondary schools. Following Hong Kong's political retrocession to China, the government mandated a shift of many secondary schools to CMI. Legislators noted that deploying hundreds of NSTs into all secondary schools could \"alleviate resistance from schools and parents to the use of mother tongue teaching\" (Provisional Legislative Council, 1997, para 17). In this context, the scheme was touted as a strategy to bring about rapid improvement in students' spoken English whilst providing general education through CMI (Tung, 1997). CMI schools could employ four additional English teachers, two of whom could be NSTs (Tung, 1998). The scheme was therefore reinvigorated to support the introduction of the new CMI policy. Several participants interpreted this as symbolic action to make a statement that the government was committed to the English language, and to demonstrate action in equipping students with the English language. In order to recruit NSTs in such large numbers, recruitment was expanded to include a broader range of English \"centre\" countries, with most recruited in Australia and New Zealand, followed by Canada and the UK. Arguably, revitalising the scheme served to compensate for a quickly and chaotically implemented CMI policy (Hopkins, 2006) by drawing on the cultural capital of the NST image, which had been structurally and historically embedded into the local educational context.\nNNST and internationalist reforms (2000-2012): In 2000, the government introduced a new wave of reforms that emphasised the importance of language in a global marketplace (Education Commission, 2000). A new English curriculum aimed \"to enhance language proficiency of our young people\" for the purposes of maintaining Hong Kong's status as \"an international business centre\", helping students to \"develop a worldwide outlook\", and using English for \"effective interaction in different cultural environments\" (Curriculum Development Council, 2002, p. 1). A language policy review placed prior curriculum reform failure at the feet of NNSTs:\nDiscussion: Historic and internationalist images have contributed to shifts in NSTs' deployment. Originally NSTs worked as subject teachers in elite schools. With the requirement of mass education, the role shifted to teachers of English language as a subject (1970s) to props for English language curricular change (late-1980s), to symbolic support for the shift in MOI (cf. 1998), and finally to experts in a range of instruction and assessment innovations (2000 onwards). These shifts point to two observations. First, the trajectory of changing NST roles in relationship to policy is one that rhetorically, idealistically, and progressively inflates NETs' anticipated capacities. Second, although the policy of recruiting NSTs to work in public schools has been at play since 1987, it is frequently reconstituted to suit new purposes and agendas in response to changes in the broader policy context.\nConclusion: In 1997, Joseph Boyle anticipated that attempts to expand NST scheme would whither away, just as the 1987 attempt did. Much of Boyle's criticism has a foundation in later research that points to the negative impact on NNSTs self-efficacy and consequent tensions between NSTs and NNSTs. However, over the subsequent years the scheme has expanded dramatically in number of NSTs recruited and into the primary sector. Exploring the antecedents of the scheme and its development over time from a policy perspective point to reasons for this shift.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In 1997, Joseph Boyle critiqued the Hong Kong Government's policy of recruiting native-speaking teachers (NSTs) of English into secondary schools. Boyle examined NSTs from a post-colonial and socio-linguistic stance. He concluded that the scheme was \"largely ineffective\" and that efforts to expand the scheme would likely fail due to the government's implicit lack of trust in the capacities of non-native-speaking teachers' (NNSTs) of English. However, almost two decades later the scheme has expanded across the primary and secondary sectors. The purpose of this paper is to explore how changing educational contexts and reform efforts have influenced conceptions of NSTs as articulated in Hong Kong policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is approached retrospectively through an interpretivist paradigm, analysing policy documents, implementation materials, evaluation reports, and interview transcripts. Over 41 scheme stakeholders participated in the interviews, inclusive of policy makers, government officials, academics, teacher educators, principals and teachers, who were active over different phases of the scheme.\nFindings: The intended role and perceived competencies of the NSTs have been impacted by imported education reforms leading to new rationales for maintaining and expanding NST deployment. These shifts, however, lead to new tensions among idealised images of NSTs, their capacities, and the aims of policy makers and scheme implementers.\nOriginality/value: The value of this paper lies in its reconsideration of the role of NSTs in light of educational reform efforts influenced by global change. This perspective varies from conventional critiques that focus on NSTs' and NNSTs' differing capacities as English language teachers by considering the impact of historic developments on later policies, and the tendency of policy makers to legitimise reform by importing international innovations. Second, it demonstrates how idealised images of NSTs simultaneously justify policies and pose challenges to effective implementation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Engaging m-commerce adopters in India: Exploring the two ends of the adoption continuum across four m-commerce categories
|
[
"India",
"Content delivery m-commerce"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: M-commerce services have permeated both the business and personal lives of consumers across the globe, with the Asian countries leading the track (Bina and Giaglis, 2007; Okazaki, 2006). M-commerce not only impacts the marketers of m-commerce applications, but also businesses which utilize it as a channel for delivery of their goods and services. M-commerce services encompass a variety of activities such as banking, electronic payments, shopping, news, sports, weather and maps, offers/advertisements, gaming, music that people do using their web-enabled mobile devices (Venkatesh et al., 2003; Mahatanankoon et al., 2005). The adoption and usage of these m-commerce services may differ across countries, driven by the differences in facilitating conditions like telecommunications infrastructure, culture, the diversity of m-commerce services on offer and the marketing strategies utilized by the firms (Williams et al., 2015; Shankar and Balasubramanian, 2009; Dai and Palvi, 2009).\n2. Review of literature and research hypothesis: 2.1 M-commerce services\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Instrument development\n4. Research implications and conclusions: This study addresses the potential limitations of previous studies which have focused on intention to adopt and not actual adoption or usage level (Yang et al., 2012; Chong, 2013a, b). Further, it advances the extant knowledge on m-commerce adoption in India by expanding the m-commerce scoping beyond just banking, shopping and payments to areas such as location-based, content delivery and entertainment-related m-commerce.\n5. Limitations and future suggestions: Several limitations of the study need to be acknowledged. First, the study limits the findings to the Indian context. Hence, future studies can validate the findings in context of other countries which may have a differing impact of various factors (Ashraf et al., 2017). Second, the study collected data using online survey and social media channels. This could have potentially excluded the elderly, less computer literature population and people residing in rural India. However, there was an effort made to collect data from all age groups and all regions of India (Chopdar et al., 2018), which, to some extent, mitigated the impact of sampling bias using the survey method. Third, the study utilized various behavioral, social and personal variables. However, as some key variables may have been missed out, future research can explore the impact of other variables like habit (Ashraf et al., 2017) and type of smartphone used (Natarajan et al., 2017). Fourth, the study may have a limitation in terms of its bias toward a consumer-based estimate of usage. Future studies can therefore address these lacunae through other options like actual smartphone measurement to triangulate the obtained data. Researchers may also conduct longitudinal studies on the impact of various factors, given that the effect of some variables may be temporal, varying over time. Fifth, while this study combined four categories of m-commerce, future studies may want to validate the study through category-wise finding.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of factors derived from the unified theory of user acceptance of technology (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, age, gender) and of those drawn from literature (perceived risk, perceived enjoyment and innovativeness) on the adoption of m-commerce in India. It also suggests implications of these for the consumer behavior theory practitioners and marketers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected using an online survey from 321 respondents, split into two groups (high and low adoption level users) based on the usage scores of the four categories of m-commerce- location-based, transaction-based, entertainment and content delivery. Logistic regression technique was used to identify the prominent factors among the nine identified influencers to understand the differences between the two groups.\nFindings: The findings of this paper are sample biasness, self-reported m-commerce adoption level, limited m-commerce categories and specific context.\nResearch limitations/implications: Except the two factors of performance expectancy and facilitating conditions, all other variables discriminate between low and high adoption levels of m-commerce services in India. Social influence, perceived enjoyment and innovativeness were the three main factors that were found to have the most significant impact on the discrimination levels of m-commerce service users in India. Further, it was found that women and the younger generation users of m-commerce showed a greater propensity for adopting m-commerce practices.\nPractical implications: Marketers need to focus on key factors like social influence, perceived enjoyment, perceived risk and effort expectancy to persuade the young and innovative consumer target groups increase their adoption of m-commerce services.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study of its kind to explore factors that distinguish users with low and high levels of m-commerce adoption, by taking into consideration all four categories of m-commerce (transaction-based, content delivery, location-based and entertainment). In doing so, it highlights the need for marketers to focus on factors beyond facilitating conditions and performance expectancy, to enhance the adoption of m-commerce practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Religion and accounting texts in eighteenth century Scotland: Organizational practices and a culture of accountability
|
[
"Religion",
"Scotland",
"Christianity",
"Accountability",
"Accounting history",
"Presbyterianism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Work on the impact of religion on accounting has challenged a division between the sacred and the profane, where accounting is seen to be proper to the latter (Laughlin, 1988; Booth, 1993; Carmona and Ezzamel, 2006; McPhail et al., 2005). Such a division assigns accounting to the profane world and, it has been argued, causes the faithful to seek to relegate it to, at best, a minor role in their affairs. Because of this, religion and religious practice cannot be seen as a significant influence on the development of accounting. This position has been convincingly challenged by work looking at religious traditions as diverse as the Church of Scotland, Wesleyan Methodism and Jesuitism (Jacobs and Walker, 2004; Jacobs, 2005; Espejo et al., 2006; Paisey and Paisey, 2011). Much of this work, however, has been carried out at the level of belief as promulgated in the official statements associated with central religious organizations. In a particularly valuable account, Paulo Quattrone, based on detailed archival research, has argued that:\nSources: The evidence for the paper is drawn from two principal sources. One is the corpus of printed guidance produced by the Church of Scotland, which was read for details, both explicit and implied, of organizing practices. This was an iterative process, as the details revealed by the examination of practice prompted a return to the printed corpus. The second is the extensive archives of the Church of Scotland in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. This constitutes some five million pages of records, which have been scanned to be made available through electronic means. This volume of records and the enhanced means of access means that, as Gorski argues, we can look for distributions rather than just illustrations. That is, limited access to archives has often meant that historians build an argument from illustrative examples; new means of accessing, collecting and analysing data allows the possibility of better indications of distribution. The extent to which we can produce such distributions, of course, is conditioned by record survival.\nReligion as social practice: Accounting practices are closely linked to broader questions of accountability for resources and conduct that lie at the heart of at least some of the major world belief systems, especially Christianity. As Soll (2014, p. xvi) argues \"financial accountability functioned better when accounting was seen not simply as part of a financial transaction but also as part of a moral and cultural framework\". However, his account, which notes the importance of Mair's work in particular, does not recognize some crucial differences between England and Scotland, conflating them under the rubric of Britain. In order to point to these differences in some detail, it is necessary to consider a little further the ways in which we can examine religion as a social practice (Quattrone, 2015).\nScotland: church and context: Scotland was a country in which Reformed Protestantism became established as the national religion, supported by the state (MacCulloch, 2004; Ryrie, 2006). Indeed, because of this it formed the site for the examination by Gordon Marshall of the Weber thesis as being the country noted for the most thorough implementation of Reformed Protestantism in Europe (i.e. that strand of Protestantism following the work of Calvin as opposed to Luther) (Marshall, 1980; MacCulloch, 2004). The distinctive feature of the form of governance adopted is that it was conciliar in form, with \"lay\" involvement at each stage. At the local level there was a \"kirk session\" for each parish (Mutch, 2015). Consisting of the minister (the ordained incumbent) and a number of \"elders\", this was responsible for the spiritual welfare of the congregation. As we will see, this responsibility went beyond the imposition of church discipline to encompass the relief of poverty, where accounting played a central role. The numbers of elders varied depending on both the circumstances of the parish and the availability of suitable candidates, but was of the order of six to ten in rural parishes but more like 20 in urban parishes.\nTheological statements: Given the interplay of formal belief and practice outlined above, it is worth starting our consideration of accounting practice in the Church of Scotland with some brief observations about the theological basis for the church and its discipline. This forms the ever-present backdrop to our more detailed examination of the interplay between guidance laid down at national level and practice at local level. For Reformed Protestants a key tenet was that salvation was through faith, not works. While the involvement in good works, such as the relief of the poor, might be indirect evidence of salvation it could not secure that salvation. This had organizational consequences, as poor relief could no longer be a matter of individual acts of charity, as it tended to be in Catholicism. As Chatellier (1989, p. 133) argues, \"It was not the poor person himself who counted, but the act accomplished in the sight of God or for the good of the Church\". The organizational consequences for Catholicism were that organizing activities were the purview largely of the church hierarchy, rather than those of the lay. As Chatellier (1989, p. 241) points out in his study of Catholic lay organizations, the congregations of the early eighteenth century, they, \"seem to have wished to inspire in their troops only sentiments of resignation and submission to authority of whatever sort\". While Reformed Protestantism in Scotland also had a strong regard for authority, it opened more avenues for lay involvement, avenues which were specified in documents which developed organizational principles and practices from theological commitments.\nGuidance: In 1696 a printed set of Overtures Concerning the Discipline and Method of Proceeding in the Ecclesiastick Judicatories in the Church of Scotland was presented for the consideration of the General Assembly (Mutch, 2014). They were debated at considerable length over the ensuing years. A significant section was enacted as the Form of Process in 1707 (Church Law Society, 1843) as part of efforts to preserve the distinctive Scottish religious settlement in the face of Union with England (which possessed a qualitatively different form of church governance, albeit also a Protestant one). This contained details about how church bodies should act as ecclesiastical courts, laying down rules of evidence. Much of the remaining guidance about how to govern the church at a local level was then incorporated in a publication by an influential elder, Walter Steuart of Pardovan. His Collections and Observations Methodiz'd; Concerning the Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland, published in 1709 and frequently reprinted thereafter, became the de facto standard text which continues to be referred to in discussions of Presbyterian polity (Steuart, 1709; Weatherhead, 1997). It is important to note that this text was aimed at an audience of lay officials in the church and evidence of its use can be found throughout the eighteenth century, in North America as well as in Scotland (Coldwell, 1999). Accordingly, although the church never achieved an authoritative official directory of discipline, it did possess, at considerable length, guides to its procedures.\nPractice: records: An analysis of the surviving church records (Mutch, 2012a) for separate accounting records (separate, that is, from the registers of acts and discipline) reveals that the first example was in Edinburgh in 1608 and the practice was largely confined to the surrounding areas in the seventeenth century. By the end of that century, 37 parishes had surviving separate accounts. By far the largest number of these were in the area covered by the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale. By the end of the following century, 232 parishes, or 26 per cent of the total, had surviving separate \"money registers\". Of particular interest is that 68 per cent of the parishes in the presbytery of Linlithgow had separate accounting books by this date. The examination of catalogue records was accompanied by the detailed inspection of the records for five presbyteries, comprising over 80 parishes. One of these presbyteries was Linlithgow, where the detailed inspection indicated that we can infer the existence of separate registers in all the parishes. This is reinforced by the detailed examination of accounting records for two parishes, Abercorn and Kirkliston, over the course of the eighteenth century. Here we find very detailed and well-presented accounts from the beginning of the eighteenth century, with half-yearly revision of accounts in Abercorn, quarterly in Kirkliston. As we will see below, this amounted to \"best practice\". Why might this be significant? It is because Walter Steuart was an elder in both the parish and presbytery of Linlithgow and his house of Pardovan bordered the parish of Abercorn. As a framer of the published guidance and, quite possibly, an influential voice in the formulation of the earlier Overtures, he (and his fellow framers) may have assumed that what was accepted practice in their locality was both followed and known about in the rest of the country. They may not, therefore, have seen the necessity for detailed advice. Practice indicates that this was a faulty assumption.\nPractice: consequences: Having established that detailed book-keeping was a feature of local practice, but that this book-keeping was not of a standardized form, what was the effect of this detailed recording? The continuous corporate form of the kirk session, coupled with detailed record keeping, meant that accounts could be used to adjust and monitor spending and this was manifested in the balances held at periodic reconciliations. The classic work on parish administration in England suggested that \"there was generally a debit balance to be met by the new officer\" (Tate, 1983, p. 18). The consequence was that only relatively wealthy individuals could afford to carry such debts, often having to wait beyond their term of office to be recompensed. An examination of 1,052 balances examined in 14 Scottish parishes (for details see Table AI) shows that, by contrast, only 38, or 4.3 per cent were negative. (A further 26 recorded a zero balance, 3 per cent of the total). It is possible through this analysis to find pockets where the keeping of detailed books failed to prevent runs of negative balances. Most noticeable was Kirkliston in the 1790s, where the elegance of its accounts could not help in tackling a structural imbalance between the demand for relief and the funds available. It is interesting to note that this was a parish where a wealthy treasurer stepped into fund the deficits, something much more akin to the English pattern. However, this analysis does suggest that financial control was aided by book-keeping practices. The keeping of detailed transaction records facilitated the completion of reconciliations between them, the cash and other vouchers held in the poor's box (of which more below) and the decisions recorded in the session register.\nLay involvement: Quattrone's account of accounting practices in the Society of Jesus notes, as a critical point, that:\nOther influences: The examination of both the guidance produced by the Church of Scotland and its local practice suggests that what we might term \"systemic accountability\" characterized its operations. That is, accountability was held to inhere in carefully specified roles supported by detailed record keeping. This was noticeably different from what we might term the \"personal accountability\" that operated at the same time in the Church of England (Mutch, 2013). Here accountability was held to be a property of the character of the office holder, with trust residing in their personal characteristics. We can already get a sense of why it might be that this Scottish \"culture of accountability\" might be an important backdrop to the production of accounting texts. However, there are two other factors, education and publishing, both with their roots in religious sensibilities, that require more consideration.\nConclusion: This examination of the distinctive features of Scottish Presbyterian religious practice provides a context for assessing its impact on the Scottish pre-eminence in accounting texts in the eighteenth century. As the junior partner in the enterprise that was Britain, Scots found that positions of military and political influence in the new state were largely closed to them. Economically, England was far more advanced and it took the Scots many years to catch up to a similar level of development (Devine, 1999). But the preservation of distinctive institutions in the shape of education, law and religion gave Scots some particular advantages, especially in the field of administration. Drawing on good basic education with a much stronger commitment to vocational training, Scots excelled in a number of emerging professional fields. While Scotland eventually benefited economically from the Union, this lagged well behind intellectual achievement (Broadie, 2001). The distinctive character of Scottish religious practice, with its culture of systemic accountability supported by careful record keeping, promulgated in books of order and featuring extensive lay involvement of the \"middling sort\" was an important contributor to the production of accounting texts. That religious tradition was also a powerful factor in moulding both good basic education, which had a particular emphasis on arithmetic and book-keeping, and a tradition of publishing. This is not to suggest that these were the only factors. Scottish economic practices, especially the merchant tradition with its exposure to Dutch practice, were surely also important. The broader intellectual climate of the Scottish Enlightenment may also have played a part. But if we accept that accountability needs to be seen in its wider moral and cultural context, then the distinctive nature of the Scottish religious context was of considerable importance.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which Scottish pre-eminence in accounting texts in the eighteenth century was influenced by religion. By so doing, to add to the literature on the relationship between religion and accountability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An examination of religion as social practice is conducted by examining the relationship between formal, printed, sources and the extensive archives of the Church of Scotland. A sample of five administrative units of the church is used to explore local practice in detail.\nFindings: Accountability was at the heart of the theology of the Church of Scotland. It shaped local practices of accountability to give what is termed \"systemic accountability\", which featured the detailed specification of roles and the recording of transactions. Lay involvement in this system was extensive amongst the \"middling sort\". This system formed the backdrop to the Scottish pre-eminence in accounting texts, facilitated by widespread literacy and a propensity to publish, both in turn shaped by the broader religious context.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is confined to Scotland and does not consider the wider impact on areas such as British North America. The value of examining religion as a relationship between belief and social practice could be extended to other belief systems, as the paper only considers the Reformed Protestant tradition of Christianity.\nOriginality/value: The value is in a detailed investigation of religion as a social practice, which has not been presented before in the context of accountability. It presents a new perspective on Scottish accomplishments in the field of accounting, accomplishments which have been of significance for the broader profession.\n",
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Influence of organizational culture on quality healthcare delivery
|
[
"Organizational culture",
"Quality of care",
"Health services",
"Managers",
"Quality costs",
"Ireland"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nLiterature review: The literature identifies the many and varied relationships between culture and health care. These relationships contribute to the multidisciplinary perspectives that assist us in reaching an understanding of culture and health (MacLachlan, 2006). MacLachlan (2006), in his exploration of the complexities of human experiences of health and illness across different cultures, talks of the need for a global health perspective, although he acknowledges that different cultural positions cloud the simplicity of this idea, thereby contributing to the complexity of providing optimal care to patients from differing cultural and ideological backgrounds. MacLachlan (2004) presents a further view on cultural themes, such as cultural sensitivity, migration and empowerment and he demonstrates how different cultural themes form the interplay between health and culture. This terrain is extensive and emerging and only a small part can be covered in this paper.What does the word \"culture\" mean? MacLachlan (2006) says that the word has been so widely used that its meaning will vary from one situation to another. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) in their review of the word \"culture\" found 150 definitions of the word. It is arguable that little consensus has been reached since then. Allen (1992) described seven ways to use the word \"culture\" that include generic and expressive uses, as well as holistic and pluralistic and MacLachlan (2006) takes a view that culture presents us with a set of guidelines for living. It is likely that Deal and Kennedy (1982) is taking this approach when they say that the culture of the organization is a critical driver of norms and the \"way we do things around here\", that according to Saffold (1988) plays a powerful and pervasive role in shaping the life of the organization. Wickens (1995) believes that culture is constantly being reinforced through employees behaving in a similar manner to their colleagues through a complex communications process.It is known that certain influences work together to form an organization's culture. Thorne (2000) and Fasting (2004) argue that whilst divergent cultures work alongside each other in an organization, shared cultural values are often present and have been associated with commitment, self-confidence and ethical behaviour (Carney, 2006b). One such influence is the ethos or values of the organization. Inglehart and Baker (2000), in their study of world values that encompassed 65 societies on six continents, found that even in the presence of strong cultural changes occurring in those continental societies between 1981 and 1998, distinctive traditional values existed. Values are the \"explicit and implicit elements of the care culture that serve to determine the individual's action system\" (Sarvimaki and Benko's (2001), with emphasis being placed on the ethical dimensions of multi-professional health care delivery. These ethical dimensions encompass concepts such as accountability, responsibility, trust, and professional standards of care. Hewison (2001) in his study of National Health Services values writes that \"the values of an organization are key factors that influence the way it is managed\", but he also acknowledges that there is not a single moral model or set of guidelines to assist in health care management.In exploring this dimension of culture further it is evident that a value-laden influence in health care delivery is value-for-money. This demand causes conflict and unrealistic expectations of care delivery among clinicians (Carney, 2004a), and as a result it is likely that some clinicians misunderstand the ethical tension existing between cost efficiencies and quality-of-care. Carney (2004a), in a study of 50 Directors of Nursing, found that the conflict existing between value-for-money and excellence in care delivery was an important barrier to clinical effectiveness. Other identified ideologically based conflicts in health service management include access to services, equity in delivery of care, managing risk, safety and healthcare reliability (Attree and Newbold, 2009; Riley, 2009) and caring approaches to care delivery (Carney, 2002). A compounding factor is that clinician values may be at variance with the perceived values and ethics of senior management in the areas of efficiency and cost effectiveness (Carney, 2004b). It appears that the new health service cost-effectiveness culture has yet to be accepted by some professionals (Thomas and Dunkerley, 1999), although a study undertaken in Finland found that the concepts for efficiency and cost effectiveness have been adopted by health professionals (Viitanen et al., 2007).Warburton (2009) acknowledges that tough decisions need to be made with limited resources, but equally so that applying strict cost effectiveness measures mean that interventions such as safety and quality may not be implemented or may be compromised. In Britain a seven-step process is being taken to create a safety culture (NPSA, 2004) thus encouraging staff to report when things go wrong by looking at \"what\" went wrong rather than \"who\" did it. Attributing causation to systems is far more time consuming than blaming individuals and less costly than blaming the system, and consequently inappropriate blame culture results (Merry and Peck, 1995; Reason, 2004). Armitage (2009) puts forward the view that as the dominant health care culture remains predominately grounded in medicine, healthcare remains reluctant to feeling comfortable in acknowledging practitioners' infallibility. Safety culture refers to a commitment to safety that should pervade the entire organization where risk is managed more effectively (Attree and Newbold, 2009). These authors also report that risk, error, adverse events and critical incidents are ever present in health care delivery and serve to undermine safety and quality and also that quality, safety and reliability levels in health care are not as high as they should be (Attree and Newbold, 2009). Therefore, understanding the bias resulting from values conflict such as cost versus quality is required by health care managers (Hoffman and Ventresca, 1999; Wade-Benzoni et al., 2002).Healthcare organizations are values driven and consequently strive for excellence in meeting the needs of their patients in a caring, healing, quality focused and safe environment (Carney, 2002). Developing a culture of healthcare safety is a global priority whereby open reporting where adverse events are reported, analyzed and learned is needed (NPSA, 2004). Kearsey (2003) found that a correlation existed between healthy workplace environments and healthy patients. Miller et al. (2009) say that technical and team competence are both necessary competencies needed to achieve high reliability in order to ensure safe patient care. Thus, clinical managers are well placed to deliver ethical health care, due to their professional background, that is firmly grounded in ethics and values and safe care, and because of their understanding of the ethical conflicts that can occur in health care delivery (Hewison, 2001; Thorne, 2000; Pulce, 2002; Carney, 2006b).A further factor, highlighted in the literature, is on how culture influences involvement in planning care delivery. A study by Floyd and Wooldridge (1992a) of 259 managers, in 25 mainly for-profit organizations, found that middle managers were involved in strategic planning. Strategic thinking is an important component of professionals' work so that they can respond to the challenging trends occurring in health service delivery. Carney (2002, Carney, 2006a, 2007) supports the importance of professionals becoming strategic thinkers and in proposing and developing new strategic initiatives for the organization, thereby assisting in shaping organizational culture. There is a requirement for professional clinicians and non-clinicians to know and understand the mission of the organization, and to have clear and focused strategic direction. Thus, senior managers need to invest time and effort to ensure that middle manager strategic thinking is developed and that organizational strategy is known and understood by them, thereby ensuring strategic planning occurs at this level (Ferlie and Pettigrew, 1996).Aim of study\nMethod: Sample\nFindings: The themes and sub-themes identified in the research are presented in Table I.Theme 1: excellence in care delivery\nDiscussion: Several cultural influences were identified that appear to indicate new cultural aspects that have the potential to influence the delivery of quality health care. The first cultural determinant identified was excellence in care delivery.Theme 1: excellence in care delivery\nConclusion: The aim of this study was to identify if aspects of organizational culture may indicate a new terrain in the cultural influences-quality healthcare relationship. This was found to be the case. Excellence in patient care delivery that is allied to positive value systems delivered through a multi-disciplinary team approach and utilizing strategic involvement, were the most important organizational cultural influences reported for optimum effectiveness in quality care delivery. The cultural aspects identified are well known themes in care delivery as stand-alone concepts. When these aspects are found collectively within an organization it appears that they have the potential to influence the quality of care delivered.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify if aspects of organizational culture may indicate a new terrain in the cultural influences-quality healthcare relationship. This research stems from the author's belief that viewing the role of head of department or directorate as pivotal to health care management is critical to health care planning and quality healthcare delivery.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Interviews were undertaken among 50 professional clinician and non-clinician managers working in the role of head of department, in acute care hospitals in Ireland. The sample was drawn from the total population of 850 managers, utilized in a previous survey study.\nFindings: - Organizational culture is more complex than was previously thought. Several cultural influences such as excellence in care delivery, ethical values, involvement, professionalism, value-for-money, cost of care, commitment to quality and strategic thinking were found to be key cultural determinants in quality care delivery.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Health care managers perceive that in order to deliver quality focused care they need to act in a professional, committed manner and to place excellence at the forefront of care delivery, whilst at the same time being capable of managing the tensions that exist between cost effectiveness and quality of care. These tensions require further research in order to determine if quality of care is affected in a negative manner by those tensions.\nOriginality/value: - Originality relates to the new cultural terrain presented in this paper that recognizes the potential of health service managers to influence the organizations' culture and through this influence to take a greater part in ensuring that quality health care is delivered to their patients. It also seems to be important that value-for-money is viewed as an ethical means of delivering healthcare, and not as a conflict between quality and cost.\n",
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Ways to maximize the triple bottom line of the telecommunication industry in Malaysia: The potentials of spiritual well-being through spiritual leadership
|
[
"Triple bottom line",
"Workplace spirituality",
"Spiritual leadership",
"Spiritual well-being"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Tremendous challenges are confronted by organizations nowadays on the path to success (Bigliardi et al., 2012), which are forcing them to acknowledge the need to develop a business model that emphasizes on ethical leadership, employees' well-being, sustainability, and social responsibility without compromising profitability, revenue growth, and other indicators of financial performance toward organizational sustainability (Vasconcelos, 2015; Lenssen et al., 2009; Hacking and Guthrie, 2008). Organizations acknowledge that in order to achieve sustainability, they need to be able to maximize their triple bottom line (TBL) through fair and beneficial business practices toward the people (the employees and the community), the environment (the natural capital), and the profitability derived by the economic values created by the organization after utilizing and manipulating the resources for revenue potentials (Elkington, 1998, 2004).\nEthical leadership, spiritual leadership, and performance: Leadership is a process of inducing others to achieve certain goals and to reach its goals, it must have effective leadership (Cavanagh et al., 2003). Aligned to the drive toward maximizing TBL, leadership paves its way into complementing its role with the moral and spiritual aspects in communications, by role modeling and by using appreciation systems to intrigue the employees to be accountable to ethical conducts (Brown and Trevino, 2006; Pawar, 2014; Brophy, 2015; Hyson, 2013). On that notion, SL is able to narrate the elements of ethics and integrity on the foundation of trust, which is proven to be significant in influencing the maximization of the TBL by effectively responding to the emerging force of global, societal, and organizational changes (Fry and Slocum, 2008).\nSpiritual leadership - inner life, visions, hope, faith, and altruistic love: It is a prerequisite to understand what spirituality is all about, and it is necessary when it concerns SL. It requires a process of transformations to become less ego-centered and more other-centered in striving to fulfill one's ultimate purpose through love and service to others (Fry et al., 2005, 2007; Fry, 2008; Fry and Cohen, 2009; Boorom, 2009; Karadag, 2009). It requires educating the spiritual nature which resides within us based on human beings' virtues, strengths, and goodness (Vasconcelos, 2015) known as the inner life. The main agenda of inner life is a sense of transcendence which goes beyond self-interest, giving the sense of purpose, connecting to something greater than own selves (Fry et al., 2005, 2007; Fry, 2003). The inner life of SL feeds into spiritual practices, not just about power and authority, but also concerns the emotional connections, authenticity, and spiritual values (Krishnakumar et al., 2015; Sweeney and Fry, 2012).\nResearch design: The research was conducted using the SL survey questions called SL balanced scorecard (Fry et al., 2010), which measures the SL dimensions, spiritual well-being against the measure for TBL of productivity, organizational commitment, and life satisfaction (Fry et al., 2010; Fry and Altman, 2013).\nResearch method: A set of questionnaires based on prior established instruments were sent to 140 telecommunication employees in Malaysia (Hair, 2010). The unit of analysis for the research is the organizations. The sample was calculated based on the 14 items linked to each of the variables studied: SL, measured by inner life, hope and faith, and altruistic love; spiritual well-being, measured by the sense of calling and membership; and TBL, measured by productivity, organizational commitment, and satisfaction with life (Sarstedt et al., 2014; Hair, Ringle and Sarstedt, 2012; Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper and Ringle, 2012), but there were only 65 sets of responses. Since it is more than 45 percent, therefore, the volume is considered as acceptable.\nResearch objective and research questions: The research aimed to examine the relationships between the construct of SL, spiritual well-being (Fry et al., 2005; Fry, 2003), and TBL within Malaysia's telecommunication industry based on the research questions as follows:\nResearch context an research model: From the literature, it was apparent that spiritual well-being however is not a direct outcome of hard work alone. In contrast, a spiritual leader needs to first initiate a workplace culture that contains the value of WS, formed out of his inner life based on altruistic love, vision as well as hope and faith (Fry, 2003; Fry and Altman, 2013). Psychologically, being human, employees want their efforts to be appreciated, regarded and valued, and they want to feel respected within the workgroup. These emotional gaps are eventually filled up by the sense of membership together with a sense of calling, a sense where work has meaning and purpose to produce the feeling of spiritual well-being. The spiritual well-being is actually the main ingredient of personal SL that drives individuals' efforts beyond their job scope, personal commitment toward productivity, positive health, peace of mind, and life satisfaction (Pawar, 2014; Sheep and Foreman, 2012; Sweeney and Fry, 2012; Fry and Cohen, 2009; Marques, 2008; Fry et al., 2005; Fry, 2003, 2008) (Figure 2).\nData collection and analysis: A total of 140 questionnaires were distributed among the four telecommunication organizations based on non-probability purposive sampling. The minimum number of respondents or sample size was 10:1 of the number of independent variables to be tested (Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper and Ringle, 2012; Hair, 2010; Hair et al., 2006). Only 65, however, responded. The response rate was considered as acceptable at 45 percent response rate, as such the 65 responses can be accepted for the purpose of the research (Baruch and Holtom, 2008). The average response rate for studies that utilized data collected from individuals should be 52.7 percent with a standard deviation of 20.4, while the average response rate for studies that utilize data collected from organizations should be 35.7 percent with a standard deviation of 18.8 (Baruch and Holtom, 2008). The research applied the Smart PLS-SEM tools as PLS-SEM studies in the strategic management discipline that relies on a much smaller sample size compared to other fields (Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper and Ringle, 2012) (Figure 3).\nReflective measurement models - internal consistency (composite reliability, CR and Cronbach's a): CR assesses the internal consistency of a measure (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). CR should be >0.798, if <0.60, there is lack of internal CR (Hair et al., 2013). Thus, the internal consistency for the study is illustrated in Table IV.\nConvergent validity: Factor loadings, CR, and average variance extracted (AVE) were used to assess convergence validity and measure the degree to which multiple items are measuring the same concept (Hair, Ringle and Sarstedt, 2012) (Table V).\nDiscriminant validity: Discriminant validity measures the extent to which a construct is truly distinct from other constructs by empirical standards, the extent to which factors are distinct and uncorrelated. Items should load more strongly on their own constructs in the model, and the average variance shared between each construct and its measures should be greater than the variance shared between the construct and other constructs (Compeau et al., 1999). We assessed by using cross loadings that should be more than 0.708 (Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper and Ringle, 2012) and the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of less than 1.00 to assess the correlations of indicators across constructs measuring different phenomena (Henseler et al., 2015) (Tables VI-VIII).\nCollinearity assessment: Collinearity refers to the non-independence of predictor variables. VIF measures a collinearity of more than 5 (VIF>5) in the predictor constructs as an indication of collinearity that is too high, where the constructs should be eliminated or merged with other predictors into a single construct or creating a higher order constructs to deal with collinearity problems (Table X).\nHypotheses testing: Once the construct measures were confirmed as reliable and valid, the PLS results were assessed based on the test of the five hypotheses generated. Next, we ran bootstrapping to assess the significance and relevance of the SEM relationships (Figure 4) (Tables XI and XII).\nDiscussions and summary: Leadership is no longer about power and authority. It is also about emotions, connections, authenticity, and spiritual values (Krishnakumar et al., 2015). Leadership plays an important role in creating models of influence within the organizations (Geh, 2014). SL, as a contributor to unit as well as organizational performance and transformations (Fry and Cohen, 2009; Fry et al., 2011; Fry and Matherly, 2006), has also been known to be instrumental in motivating and inspiring employees through a transcendent vision and a corporate culture of WS based on altruistic values to produce highly motivated, committed, and productive workforce that have a direct impact on the bottom line (Fry and Slocum, 2008). Thus, the research has successfully provided an empirical finding that SL significantly contributes to the TBL of the telecommunication industry in Malaysia, in terms of organizational commitment, productivity, and life satisfaction. The research has proven that organizations can still boost its profitability by adopting business models that acknowledge the importance of human values, the emotional and the spiritual part.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the potentials of spiritual leadership in maximizing the triple bottom line (TBL) (people, planet, and the profit) of the telecommunication industry in Malaysia. The research was conducted as a quantitative study based on the SEM Smart-PLS on four telecommunication organizations in Malaysia that represent the Malaysian telecommunication industry. The research was intended to prove that organizations can still develop a business model that adopts and adapts to spiritual, ethical, and moral leadership style as well as guarantees employees' well-being, organizational sustainability, and social responsibility without sacrificing its profitability by acknowledging the spiritual impact on management and employees' performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research was conducted using the spiritual leadership survey developed by Louis W. Fry (2010) called the spiritual leadership balance scorecard that measured the spiritual leadership dimensions, spiritual well-being against the measure for TBL of productivity, organizational commitment, and life satisfaction (Fry and Altman, 2013; Fry et al., 2010). A set of questionnaire was developed that combines prior established instruments, and sent to 140 employees working in the telecommunication organizations in Malaysia on a purposive sampling method, based on the SEM-PLS approach (Hair, 2010).\nFindings: The research has proven that organizations can still boosts its profitability by adopting to business models that acknowledge the importance of human values, the emotional part and the spiritual part. As the research has surprisingly proven that by having spiritual leaders on premise, a telecommunication provider will be able to awaken a sense that one's life has meaning, not just to his or her own selves, but to the community at large as well. The spiritual leaders are able to influence a sense that one's life has meaning and wanting to make differences in others life as when the employees, through the inner life, hope and faith given by the leaders in striving for the visions with altruistic love.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation of the study to include cultural values as a contributing factor to the spiritual values could have been an avenue for future research on the influence of spiritual leadership on the TBL of such organizations. As such, this may be the reason why the employees of the telecommunication organizations in Malaysia are scoring low in developing a sense of calling, when due to the culture of being Malaysian, scoring high in Hofstede's theory of culture on uncertainty avoidance and power distance (Ting and Ying, 2013).\nPractical implications: Adapting to spiritual leadership facilitate employee engagement by tackling the soft part of human resources, the inner sense. The inner sense is able to awaken the conscience and compassion, which can lead to effective working attitude, commitment, and engagement as reciprocal effects.\nSocial implications: Spiritual leadership is the agenda to win back employees' trust and confidence to the organizations which have proven to cause mishap in the current economic trend. The values brought by spiritual leadership are able to balance between work and life and in fulfilling the human needs to feel appreciated, regarded and respected and that being human, the urge to be connected to a community is unavoidable and to feel happy with what they are doing is the food for the soul.\nOriginality/value: No study has ever been conducted in the Malaysian context with regard to spiritual leadership and at the same time employing the balance scorecard developed academically into a practical context. On the other hand, the study also proved to be the first with regard to scientifically proving the importance of spiritual values to leadership style, workplace experience as well as to organizational performance in terms of job satisfaction, productivity, and satisfaction in life.\n",
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}
] |
The association between controls, performance measures and performance
|
[
"Organisational performance",
"Intensity of controls",
"Mutidimensional performance measures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While many management control system (MCS) studies have focussed on Simons's (1995) four levers of controls (i.e. belief, boundary, interactive and diagnostic) (Abernethy and Brownell, 1999; Bisbe and Otley, 2004; Henri, 2006; Simons, 2000), recent literature advocates the importance of examining MCSs as a holistic package (Bedford and Malmi, 2015; Herath, 2007; Malmi and Brown, 2008; Mundy, 2010; Nilsson, 2010; Sandelin, 2008). For example, Ferreira and Otley (2009, p. 266) suggest that \"managers must consider all four control systems when designing their control system (Widener, 2007, p. 782) to increase its effectiveness and thus translate it into organisational performance\". Hence, there are theoretical assertions to support the examination of the combined use of Simons's (1995) levers of control. However, with the exception of Spekle et al. (2014) the empirical evidence to support this claim is sparse. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the contingency-based literature examining the effectiveness of the intensity of control, with, the intensity of control representing the combined use of Simons (1995) four levers (i.e. boundary, beliefs and the interactive and diagnostic use of controls) (Spekle et al., 2014), and effectiveness assessed in respect to the operative perspective of organisational performance, measured in terms of cost, delivery and flexibility.\nLiterature review: The intensity of control\nMethod: Using the Onesource online database[1] the contact information of 1,335 chief financial officers and financial controllers within Australian manufacturing organisations was obtained. In total, 1,000 of these were randomly selected and telephone calls were subsequently made to the selected respondents to confirm their names, titles and addresses. Many of these (355) were deleted due to wrong phone-numbers, non-existence and non-willingness to cooperate, resulting in a final sample size of 645. Chief financial officers and financial controllers were chosen to complete the questionnaire due to their knowledge of the controls and PMSs within an organisation. The respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire focussing on their specific business unit as opposed to the larger organisation given individual business units are expected to develop their own measures (Lipe and Salterio, 2000).\nResults: Table II provides descriptive statistics including the mean, standard deviation and the minimum and maximum values for each of the variables. The mean scores in Table II indicate relatively high levels of intensity of control and organisational performance in respect to cost, delivery and flexibility in Australian manufacturing organisations. Table II also reveals that Australian manufacturing organisations use multidimensional performance measures to a moderate extent, with financial measures used to the greatest extent (mean =3.91), followed by quality (3.18), internal processes (2.96), customer (2.94) and learning and growth measures (2.22).\nDiscussion and conclusion: The objective of this study was to examine the associations between the intensity of control, the extent of use of multidimensional performance measures, and organisational performance, operationalized in respect to three aspects of operative process performance, cost, delivery and flexibility. Drawing on the theoretical constructs of Simons's (1995) levers of control, the study focussed on the impact of the intensity of control, a concept developed by Spekle et al. (2014) to reflect the combined use of all four levers of control (beliefs, boundaries, interactive and diagnostic). The findings reveal a positive association between the intensity of control and the extent of use of multidimensional performance measures, suggesting that a more extensive use of the four levers of control warrants the use of a balanced set of performance measures, i.e. using multidimensional performance measures to a greater extent.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the contingency-based literature examining the effectiveness of the intensity of control, which represents the combined use of Simons's (1995) four levers of control: beliefs, boundary, diagnostic use of controls and interactive use of controls. Specifically, the study examines the association between the intensity of control with multidimensional performance measures (financial, customer, learning and growth, quality and internal business processes) and organisational performance (cost, delivery and flexibility).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey questionnaire was distributed to either the chief financial officers or financial controller within 645 Australian manufacturing organisations identified in the Onesource online database. Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse the association between the intensity of control with multidimensional performance measures, and the association between multidimensional performance measures with organisational performance. The mediating effect of multidimensional performance measures on the association between the intensity of control and organisational performance was tested using the bootstrapping with bias-correct confidence intervals method.\nFindings: The intensity of control is associated with the extent of use of multidimensional performance measures with the latter found to mediate the association between the intensity of control and performance (cost, delivery and flexibility). Additional analysis suggests that the extent of use of financial and quality measures mediates the association between the intensity of controls and cost performance; the extent of use of internal process and quality measures mediates the association between the intensity of controls and delivery performance; and the extent of use of internal process measures mediates the association between the intensity of controls and flexibility performance.\nPractical implications: The findings imply that management should employ a broader perception towards the use of performance measures both as a means of supporting the implementation of controls and facilitating enhanced organisational performance.\nOriginality/value: The study addresses the concern raised that the existing management control systems (MCSs) literature remains \"piecemeal\" due to the lack of recognition of the interdependency between different controls and the inability of researchers to examine MCSs as a holistic package. Specifically, this study provides insights into how the combined use of the four levers of controls and multidimensional performance measures can enhance specific aspects of organisational performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Removing the boardroom glass ceiling
|
[
"Company board rooms",
"Gender imbalance",
"Quotas",
"Dual careers",
"Female management career development",
"Boards",
"Boards of directors",
"Gender",
"Sexual discrimination"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Pressure to remove the glass ceiling which is seen to prevent or inhibit women from becoming members of the boards of UK companies has been building over the past year. This pressure comes from women themselves, from shareholders and the Government. This article aims to give an overview of recent developments, a review of progress and suggestions for a way forward for the future.\nCurrent position: The Female FTSE Board Report 2010 on the boards of the top 100 FTSE companies showed that in 2010 there were only 12.5 per cent women directors and 5.5 per cent women executive directors on their boards. This was, however, a small improvement on the figures for 1999. There were no women directors at all on the boards of 14 companies on the list.In February 2010, Lord Davies of Aberoch, the former CEO of Standard Chartered, was tasked by the Government to produce a strategy to increase the number of women on the boards of UK listed companies. He called for the chairmen of the UK's biggest listed companies to state within six months how many women directors they would have on their boards by 2013 and 2015. A study by Pinsent Masons has shown that only eight FTSE companies had gone as far as indicating targets for the next few years. The position for the next 250 FTSE companies is no better, at 13 per cent.Lord Davies' strategy includes:* The long lists of potential boardroom candidates sent to FTSE chairmen must include at least three women candidates.* Head hunters are required to check with a company's board regarding company's standpoint on diversity and the number of women on their board.* Target of at least 25 per cent of board members of a company to be women by 2015.* Companies had until September 2011 to produce their plans to achieve their target.These proposals have been strongly backed by the 30 % Club which is also campaigning to break the glass ceiling across the UK's largest companies. However, despite Lord Davies' strategy, the results have been disappointing, with only 21 per cent of board appointments made since March of this year having been women. There are, however, a few large companies who have already reached the required 25 per cent. Amongst the most diverse boards are British Airways, Astra Zeneca and Sainsburys, according to Cranfield University FTSE 100 Board Report 2010.There is no shortage of legislation to support equality of the sexes. The Sex Discrimination Act came into effect in 1975. The implementation of the 1970 Equal Pay Act, amended in 1984, has been regrettably at times dogged by appeals and legal cases. Despite these, the pay gap between all men and women in full-time employment has been much reduced and even more so among the young generation of both sexes of professional workers. It is in the older age groups where the pay gap between men and women is more obvious. (McKenna and Beech, 2008).In recruitment and selection all companies are required to address the issue of equal employment opportunity. This can be difficult for multinational companies as national employment laws in foreign countries can be conflicting (Dowling et al., 1999).\nEuropean experience: In the rest of Europe there has been much greater progress in advancing women to have seats in the boardroom. Norway introduced a 40 per cent rule in 2003 when previously there were only 6 per cent women on company boards. It is now 41 per cent. In other North European countries, Sweden has 27 per cent, Finland 20 per cent, Denmark 17 per cent. However, there are only 13 per cent in Germany, 9 per cent in France, 8 per cent in Spain and as low as 3 per cent in Portugal. The differences between mainly Protestant Northern Europe with its strong work ethic and predominantly Catholic Southern Europe with the emphasis on the family, therefore remain.In France there has been considerable pressure by President Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UPM) to bring in legislation to increase the number of women on French company boards to 40 per cent despite much opposition to quotas in the Assemblee Nationale. This is a reflection of the need to first ensure equality of pay and promotion prospects. The French Government has now passed a law that sets minimum quotas for listed companies with the largest to have targets of 20 per cent on their boards by 2012 and 40 per cent by 2016. Germany is also considering introducing a quota. And Spain, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands already have legal quotas.\nQuotas: The imposition of fixed quotas for women is much debated. This method is opposed by many women themselves as well as by the companies and politicians, as it is considered the last resort. It begs the question whether there are enough well-qualified women, currently available and willing to take their seats in the boardroom. It has been criticised as merely a token gesture, verging on being patronising. However, supporters of the quota system argue that if all other persuasion fails, this is the only alternative. Companies themselves argue that they have a duty of care first and foremost to their shareholders to appoint the best candidates regardless of their sex.The larger head hunting firms have the opportunity to influence company chairmen and nomination committees to actively consider women candidates. There is evidence that they are doing this, perhaps inspired by the fact that law firms have large numbers of senior women, although only one woman is on the Supreme Court.\nInhibiting factors: There are a number of social factors that tend to inhibit women from wishing to pursue careers in senior positions. One of the main problems is the high cost of childcare, where State assistance is insufficient. Many women are also often reluctant to go back to full-time work after bringing up a family. They are concerned about the long hours and the acknowledged pressures that go with senior appointments. They may also lack confidence after a period away from the workplace and would need in many cases to update their professional knowledge. Increasing numbers of professional women have had their children later and consequently may feel threatened by younger colleagues who have stayed the course. In addition, some companies demand that candidates for non-executive directorships must have first held senior positions in other companies in order to acquire wider experience. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that in some companies it may be obligatory to put in what has been described as \"face-time\", i.e. the expectation that senior staff will stay long hours in the office and be available at weekends to extend hospitality to clients. These demands can be considered excessive by those who wish to separate their work and their family life (Schneider and Barsoux, 2003).Despite all these points, there are now more women at our universities than men, although the number of men and women in society are almost equal. This should, in theory, mean that the talent pool of educated women is sufficiently large to produce the desired number.\nDual careers: Another factor that has to be taken into consideration is the question of dual careers. Companies increasingly find they have employees who are married or living together, each of whom has his or her own job, professional career, considerable income and ambitions. These they do not wish to abandon if either one of them is offered an assignment overseas or elsewhere in the UK which would necessitate a family move or long periods of separation. Apart from the problem of children's education, there is that of career risk, particularly in the case of the female partner who may not be prepared to accompany her partner often at short notice. It is not only the loss of overall income that is considered significant, but also the frequent inability to find suitable employment in the new location. This situation is often exacerbated in any case by the difficulty of obtaining a work permit in some countries. A serious result of this situation is that multinational companies are being forced to select from a diminishing pool of candidates who may be less qualified or less suitable (Dowling et al., 1999).\nSpecial qualities of women senior managers: There has been much research to show that women in senior management positions have a beneficial effect on the boards of companies. They are considered to have a calmer approach and do not make quick and rash decisions. In a crisis situation, they are often risk averse and less driven by power and ambition. They are keen to work towards an acceptable compromise in many situations and use their experience of real life in bringing up families. Women's Matter, 2007 report by consultants McKinsey concluded that boards with a greater gender balance often tend to be more successful. This should not be really surprising for when it comes to the ability of women to hold senior positions in public life, there are strong examples of highly successful women, such as Margaret Thatcher, also female prime ministers in the past in India, Sri Lanka, Israel and currently Australia, Chancellor Merkel in Germany and Christine Lagarde, MD of the IMF.In the private sector there has been at least some progress, for example Marjorie Scardino, Chief Executive for Pearson, Alison Cooper for Imperial Tobacco and Mary Perkins and Barbara Stocking on the boards of Spec Savers and Oxfam respectively.In addition, there are a number of other women on the boards of hospitals, educational establishments and in retail and catering, all of which can be seen as service/caring sectors where their qualities are much in demand.\nInternational management development for women: Although women tend to be more sensitive to differences in other cultures and should therefore be able to work effectively with managers of other cultures, this does not always translate into more opportunities for these women to hold senior positions. The prejudices remain and the result is under-representation in senior level management in international companies (Edwards and Rees, 2006). They quote the work of the Women's Global Leadership Forum as instrumental in raising the awareness of the potential for women to hold senior management positions.Another inhibiting factor for women is that expatriate postings are often geared to men with families. As regards selection, there is concern for security in certain parts of the world, also hard living conditions and some hostility towards women. In certain Asian cultures, in particular Japan, Hofstede's most masculine culture, the men prefer not to report to female managers, particularly to foreign women. This attitude does inhibit UK companies sending women on senior overseas appointments to these countries, although with greater internationalisation this situation is gradually changing, even in Japan (Dowling et al., 1999). This is a welcome trend if women are to be given at a comparatively early stage in their career the opportunity to prove they have the potential in the future to sit on boards.\nPossible solutions: Beardwell and Claydon (2007) consider that women very often need support to improve their confidence in the face of male competition. They offer some practical measures to develop women managers and therefore future potential board members. These include:* integrating women's career development as part of mainstream HR development;* providing role models and mentoring;* promoting the networking of women;* reviewing selection, promotion and appraisal procedures; and* assertiveness training.However, they point out that care must be taken that these measures do not backfire and they argue that \"special treatment\" may be counterproductive and, as a result, worsen many of the obstacles women already experience.There is also the danger that women may continue to be characterised by common stereotypes:If they show typical feminine characteristics, it is thought they do not have the ambition to go further; whereas if they demonstrate assertiveness and determination, they can be considered to be too aggressive, pushy and masculine (Mullins, 2007).Taking the above into account, the following suggestions are offered as the way forward:* Ensuring school and university careers advice nurtures women's ambition and self-confidence. Marshawn Evans, the American writer on how women can succeed in business, quotes the tennis star, Martina Navratilova: \"I think the key is for women not to set any limits\"(Evans, 2009).* Creating a corporate culture where women are involved as managers within the organisation working with their male counterparts so that their qualities are recognised early in their career* Developing a mentoring system within the organisation which encompasses both men and women to provide them with greater visibility at a crucial stage in their development* Taking note of the gradual changes in society where men take more responsibility for childraising and the acceptance of the need for greater work-life balance. These points have been emphasised by the Equal Opportunities Commission Briefing Series: The Work Life Balance.* Women who are already in or moving into senior management posts within the organisation would benefit from being given more responsibility in subsidiaries for a set period of time.* Review of the UK's Corporate Governance Code to directly encourage gender diversity.* Encourage women with potential to take Executive MBA courses where tuition is mainly at weekends in the competitive company of male managers.* Recruit women from senior positions in other areas, such as law, accountancy and education.\nConclusions: The glass ceiling will be removed as the impetus for change gathers momentum and the cultural awareness of the majority of companies adapts accordingly. Lord Davies' strategy for change has many supporters among the large multinationals and there is a much greater awareness of the benefits that women can bring to membership of a board.However, change should be incremental, not forced by mandatory quotas, and should be backed by positive structural changes in recruitment, selection and career development within companies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to review progress to date in the UK on Government strategy to increase the number of women on company boards. It includes discussion on the proposed quota system and the factors that inhibit women's progress despite the acknowledged special qualities they can bring to the boardroom.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is a critical review of the current situation in the UK and rest of Europe, leading to recommendations for the way ahead.\nFindings: - Corporate culture in top companies is gradually changing and some, albeit slow, progress has been made. However more impetus is required and suggestions are included as to future additional strategies.\nPractical implications: - Additional suggestions, apart from the Government strategy, are given to improve women's career development in companies, in the educational system and in society in general.\nOriginality/value: - The paper puts forward practical suggestions to assist women's career development and visibility to enable more qualified and experienced women to be strong candidates for board appointments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Environmental sustainability features in large university campuses: Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) as a model of green university
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Green campus",
"Carbon foot print",
"Jordan University of Science and Technology",
"Semiarid region"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Institutes of higher education worldwide are change agents for sustainability (Huang and Lee, 2014) and are expected to be community role models and lead efforts in social and environmental responsibility. By the end of the United Nations decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), more attention has been directed toward higher education institutions and the sustainability of their operations. In collaboration with other United Nations agencies, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP, 2013) has launched an initiative called Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability (GUPES) to promote the integration of environment and sustainability concerns into teaching, research and community engagement.\n2. Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST): JUST was established in the year 1986 with a spacious campus that covers 1,100 ha, rendering it one of the largest campuses in the world. The campus is located in northern Jordan, to the east of the city of Irbid, as shown in Figure 1. Given the fact that the campus is located in a semiarid region with scarce water resources, operating and maintaining such a huge campus in a sustainable manner poses a real challenge.\n3. Methodology: The physical infrastructure of JUST campus includes offices, classroom complexes, laboratories, library and student activity complex and one of the country's largest hospitals with 600 beds. Running such a spacious campus requires significant amount of electric power, water and fuel.\n4. Results and discussion: Sustainability principles were considered back in the 1980s during the planning, design and implementation phases of the university campus. The campus territory at the time was bare soil with some plants that grow in a semiarid environment. Today, the campus is a green area with about one million different types of trees, in addition to the green lawns and landscape. The sustainability component in particular was highlighted and embedded in the mission statement of JUST's 2016-2020 strategic plan, as well as a dedicated key strategic goal.\n5. Conclusions and recommendations: Higher education institutions are major change agents in their communities, as they have a central role to play in spreading sustainability concepts. Having recognized this fact, JUST has decided to be a model of green sustainable university from the early days of its establishment and has introduced sustainability as part of its strategic mission. Despite its location in a semiarid and water-scarce region, JUST has managed to follow a successful campus greening approach that is action-oriented. This approach is mainly based on adopting environment-friendly practices in all aspects of campus operations so as to achieve environmental sustainability. This is evident by the levels of JUST energy consumption, carbon emissions, water consumption and solid waste generation, which are all far below the levels of their counterparts in other parts of the world. This has been reflected in the GreenMetric ranking of JUST, which emerged as the number one green university in the Arab world in 2014 and 2015.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the efforts undertaken to convert the large university campus of Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) into a green, resource-efficient and low-carbon campus by following an action-oriented strategy. Sustainability features of the campus were discussed and benchmarked. Challenges were identified and remedial actions were proposed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Taking 2015 as the baseline year, data on energy, water consumption and solid waste generation for the university campus were collected. Energy consumption for cooling, heating and transportation, besides electric power consumption, were reported, and the associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were estimated. By calculating the full time equivalent of students and employees, carbon emission and water consumption per capita were calculated. A comparison with other universities worldwide was conducted.\nFindings: Although located in a semiarid region with scarce water resources, JUST has set an example by greening its campus through an action-oriented approach. It was found that the per capita carbon emission for JUST campus was 1.33 ton of CO2 equivalent, which is less than the emissions from campuses of other universities worldwide. As for water, this study revealed that the daily per capita water consumption was about 56 L, which is approximately one-third of that for students in institutions in the USA. Furthermore, the findings of this study indicated that the average solid waste generation rate was 0.37 kg per student per day compared to 0.31 kg per capita per day when considering the university community (students and employees) collectively. These figures were less and thus compare favorably to the corresponding data for other universities in both developing and developed countries.\nOriginality/value: This research addresses the issue of greening JUST campus, which is one of the largest university campuses in the world. JUST campus is located in a semiarid, water-scarce country, which on its own poses a serious challenge. The originality and value of this study mainly stem from the facts that on the one hand, this is one of the unique and pioneering comprehensive studies of its type and, on the other hand, other universities with similar conditions can benefit from the findings of this research to meet the sustainability objectives on their campus operations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Interlending and document supply: a review of the recent literature; 94
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Document delivery",
"Copyright law",
"Open access",
"Higher education",
"Big deals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: After 15 years, this will be my last literature review as well as the last issue that I will edit. At 75, it is time to put down the editor's pen and turn to pastures new. All those books to read, those walks to walk, places to see and hopefully spend more time trying to make the world a better place - although I fear for all our children with the threats of resource exhaustion, climate change and war facing them. It is difficult not to be pessimistic.\nOpen access: OA publishing continues to grow but in more complex ways and more slowly than anyone might have thought. A substantial piece of research sheds light on one aspect, the credibility of OA journals for potential authors:\nInterlending and Document Supply: Users often request an item on ILL which is held locally in their library - a costly and unnecessary oversight. ILL librarians have various strategies for dealing with this, and one study notes that:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the current library and information science (LIS) literature for document supply, resource sharing and other issues such as open access (OA) that have an impact on the service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach is based on the scanning of about 150 journals, reports, websites and blogs.\nFindings: OA continues to grow and, hence, the impact of document supply. Improvements in the Interlending and Document Supply service are satisfying.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the only regular review of LIS literature in this subject area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Public involvement in health priority setting: future challenges for policy, research and society
|
[
"Legitimacy",
"Priority setting",
"Public participation",
"Authentic representation",
"Equitable health coverage"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The articles in this special issue demonstrate that public involvement in health priority setting remains a complex subject matter in which both the modes and the effects of participatory endeavours are highly contextualized. Bringing the country experiences and case studies together to draw conclusions for policy, research and society is therefore neither an easy nor straightforward undertaking. Nevertheless, at least two recurring themes emerge from the articles. An underlying theme is the importance, but also the challenge, of establishing legitimacy in priority setting. A second observation is that public participation takes a variety of forms that depend on the opportunity structures in a given national context. Given this variety the conceptualization of public participation needs to be expanded to account for the many patterns and forms of public participation. Both themes give rise to a plethora of research and policy questions on which this concluding article reflects.\nPublic participation, health priority setting and equitable coverage decisions: The paper follows the conceptualization of public participation found in the previous articles of this special issue, that is public participation is defined as a collective activity aimed at securing a decision on public policy and legal rules through consensus or contestatory modes of participation (Weale et al., 2016). It largely excludes decision-making processes at the individual level such as shared decision making in the clinical setting or participation in research. As Weale et al. (2016) note, this does not suggest that these forms of participation are unimportant, but because they have few implications beyond the individual patient level, they were excluded in the articles of this special issue. Nevertheless, this paper suggests that research on the relevance of this special issue's findings to the field of PPI in research would provide a useful contribution to the extant literature.\nPublic participation, legitimacy and routinization in health priority setting: It has been 15-20 years since Soren Holm (1998) said \"goodbye to the simple solutions\" for priority setting and Alan Williams took issue with Rudolf Klein over the respective merits of information and institutions as the means by which to improve decisions (Klein and Williams, 2000). Yet we are barely any closer now to priority setting being a routine feature of resource allocation processes. Arguably this is principally due to a failure to persuade a broad enough constituency that limit setting is a legitimate and necessary part of the management of health systems. Despite attempts to shift the centre ground, priority setting is still defined more by technocracy than democracy. Achieving wider public engagement is both the most urgent and the most important next step for priority setting. However, it is conceptually and practically fraught.\nMapping the research agenda: It follows from the above discussions that the future research agenda on public participation in health priority setting needs to take account of the importance of democratic legitimacy and better representation (Weale et al., 2016). The conditions under which public participation and priority setting exercises yield legitimate coverage decisions in health are largely unmapped. However, before providing an overview of the areas for future research, it is useful to draw on another discipline from which insights on the role PPI have emerged, namely, that of PPI in research, to consider how these insights may relate to the research agenda that is advocated here.\nConclusion: It is politically popular to involve the public in priority setting, and indeed, in any other aspect of health policy. To appear to be doing otherwise in the twenty-first century amounts to political suicide. We live in an age where politicians are expected to follow public opinion rather than to lead it. Views such as Loughlin's (1996) suggesting that there must be a query over how rational rationing can be when society may not in fact be rational are not in fashion. And yet there remain difficult questions about how serious policymakers are when it comes to public engagement and PPI in general. Do they really want and value engagement or do they want endorsement for their preconceived preferences? Is PPI largely symbolic or tokenistic or are its potentially disruptive properties to be positively welcomed and embraced?\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the findings of this special issue and discusses the future challenges for policy, research and society. The findings suggest that challenges emerge as a result of legitimacy deficits of both consensus and contestatory modes of public involvement in health priority setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on the discussions and findings presented in this special issue. It seeks to bring the country experiences and case studies together to draw conclusions for policy, research and society.\nFindings: At least two recurring themes emerge. An underlying theme is the importance, but also the challenge, of establishing legitimacy in health priority setting. The country experiences suggest that we understand very little about the conditions under which representative, or authentic, participation generates legitimacy and under which it will be regarded as insufficient. A second observation is that public participation takes a variety of forms that depend on the opportunity structures in a given national context. Given this variety the conceptualization of public participation needs to be expanded to account for the many forms of public participation.\nOriginality/value: The paper concludes that the challenges of public involvement are closely linked to the question of how legitimate processes and decisions can be generated in priority setting. This suggests that future research must focus more narrowly on conditions under which legitimacy are generated in order to expand the understanding of public involvement in health prioritization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A technology enabler for green machining: minimum quantity lubrication (MQL)
|
[
"Lubrication",
"Lubricating systems",
"Cooling systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Shortly after the Industrial Revolution in America, Frederick Winslow Taylor flooded the tool-work interface with a heavy stream of water and discovered that the cutting speed could be increased by a factor of 2 or 3. This initial application of a \"cutting fluid\" inspired today's impressive variety of extremely effective fluids. These fluids provide numerous advantages which include: mechanical and chemical lubrication thereby reducing friction; cooling of the work and tool; enhancing dimensional stability; inhibiting chip welding which further stabilizes dimensions; and, flushing away chips which improves surface finish, tool efficiency and makes automated material handling practical. Unfortunately, these fluids also share several negative characteristics. Many are costly to purchase; all are applied in volume; all must be periodically replaced; and, when improperly used and disposed off can lead to health and environmental issues. It is these negative characteristics that have prompted researchers to investigate alternative solutions to traditional cutting fluids and their method of application (flood cooling).\nBackground information: The current trend in the metal-cutting industry is to find ways to reduce cutting fluid use; the use of coolants in machining is thought to be undesirable for economical, health, and environmental reasons. Heins (1997) reported that coolant and coolant management costs are between 7.5 and 17 percent of the total manufacturing cost compared to only 4 percent for cutting tools. Ngoi and Sreejith (2000) stated that lubrication represents 16-20 percent of the product cost. Quaile (2000) reported that the coolant cost represents about 15 percent of the life-cycle operational cost of a machining process. According to a survey conducted by the European Automobile Industry, the cost incurred on lubricants comprises nearly 20 percent of the total manufacturing cost contrasted with the cost of the cutting tool which is only 7.5 percent of the total cost (Brockhoff and Walter, 1998).Chalmers (1999) reported that more than 100 million gallons of metalworking fluids are used in the USA each year and that 1.2 million employees are exposed to them and to their potential health hazards. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Aronson, 1995) and the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reported that the permissible exposure level for metal working fluid (MWF) aerosol concentration is 5 and 0.5 mg/m3, respectively, (US Department of Health and Human Services, 1998). However, the oil mist level in the US automotive parts manufacturing facilities has been estimated to be 20-90 mg/m3 with the use of conventional lubrication by flood coolant (Bennett and Bennett, 1985). The exposure to such amounts of MWF may contribute to adverse health effects and safety issues, including toxicity, dermatitis, respiratory disorders, and cancer. The mechanical infrastructure that sustains a flood coolant system is of such complexity that it hinders the rapid reconfiguration of equipment. In the conventional application of flood coolant, the chips produced are wet. They have to be dried before recycling, which incurs additional cost. Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), on the other hand, produces essentially dry chips, so the cost of drying them is reduced (Filipovic and Stephenson, 2006). The savings in cutting fluid and related costs could be significant if MQL was adopted.\nMinimum quantity lubrication: The concept of MQL was suggested a decade ago as a mean for addressing the issues of environmental intrusiveness and occupational hazard associated with airborne cutting fluid particles. The minimization of cutting fluid leads to economical benefits by saving lubricant costs. Workpiece, tool, and machine-cleaning time are reduced. The MQL technique consists of misting or atomizing a very small quantity of lubricant, typically of a flow rate of 50 to 500 ml/h, in an air flow directed towards the cutting zone (Autret and Liang, 2003). The lubricant is sprayed by means of an external supply system consisting of one or more nozzles. The amount of coolant used in MQL is about 3-4 orders of magnitude lower than the amount commonly used in flood-cooling condition.MQL, also known as \"Microlubrication\" (MaClure et al., 2007) and \"Near-Dry Machining\" (Klocke and Eisenblatter, 1997), is the latest technique of delivering metal cutting fluid to the tool/work interface. Using this technology, a little fluid, when properly selected and applied, can make a substantial difference in how effectively a tool performs.In conventional operations utilizing flood coolant, cutting fluids are selected mainly on the basis of their contributions to cutting performance. In MQL, however, secondary characteristics are important. These include their safety properties (environment pollution and human contact), biodegradability, oxidation, and storage stability. This is important because the lubricant must be compatible with the environment and resistant to long-term usage caused by low consumption (Wakabayashi et al., 2006). In MQL, lubrication is obtained via the lubricant, while a minimum cooling action is achieved by the pressurized air that reaches the tool/work interface. Further, MQL reduces induced thermal shock and helps to increase the workpiece surface integrity in situations of high tool pressure (Attanasio et al., 2006).Types of MQL systems\nSelected recent research on MQL: Recent MQL researches tend to emphasize drilling operations. Other process reported include: turning, milling, and grinding. Work piece materials reported include medium carbon steels, 4100 and 4300 series alloy steels, aluminum, nodular cast iron, and titanium. Various cutting tool materials, ranging from the common to the exotic, have been studied. Included are: coated and uncoated high-speed steel (HSS) and cobalt HSS; coated and uncoated carbide; aluminum oxide (Al2O3); cubic boron nitrite (CBN); and, polycrystalline diamond.The following studies are representative of research conducted in the area. Each highlights one or more contributions of this emerging technology to the field of manufacturing technology.MQL applied to drilling operations\nConclusions and future research: Findings from the forgoing research can be summarized under the categories of: \"Air quality\"; \"Capability and robustness\" and \"Cost\".Air quality\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is twofold. First review the relevant literature in machining using minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), contrast the economical, environmental, and technical attributes of this technology to conventional flood-cooling techniques. Second highlight areas of relevant future research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach consists of describing the essential elements of MQL as a technology, reviewing the relevant research by focusing on the most frequently used machining processes in this industry, highlighting the findings as they compare to flood cooling, and pointing to directions of required research in this technology.\nFindings: - The application of MQL in machining has shown better results in some processes; including in drilling, a cleaner environment, and a more cost-effective machining technology. Further research is required however to better understand the underlying cause an effect phenomena in machining using microlubrication technology including environmental and health effects of this technology.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides a body of knowledge required for all stakeholders to better use or design machining systems using microlubrications.\nOriginality/value: - This paper focuses on the state of the art of MQL and how it contrasts with conventional methods of machining.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Inter-organizational learning across levels: an object-oriented approach
|
[
"Learning organizations",
"Networking",
"Learning methods",
"Individual psychology",
"Psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The keen interest in inter-organizational collaboration has prompted researchers to discuss and reconsider the levels of analysis (Brass et al., 2004; Gittel and Weiss, 2004; Kekale and Viitala, 2003; Easterby-Smith et al., 2000) and the possibility to create a link between the levels of learning (e.g. Casey, 2005; Knight, 2000). It is widely accepted that human learning is socio-culturally embedded and mediated, which has strengthened collective organization-level and inter-organizational views. Paradoxically, a significant part of these studies are \"underpinned by individual cognitivist metaphors,\" as Araujo (1998, p. 317) put it some years ago. There is still a need for new theoretical and methodological perspectives on what we understand as inter-organizational learning.I will follow the socio-cultural tradition and analyze a small-firm network in its search for new collaborative ways of carrying out societal production activities. Learning is seen as a fundamentally collective socio-cultural and historical creation of knowledge that transforms itself into becoming the innovative learning provision for individuals, the idea of which is based on the work of Vygotsky (1978). The analysis presents an approach that differs from the conventional way of seeing the levels of learning. In the context of networked collaboration, the levels are constituted by heterogeneous, historically emerging activities. These levels are neither deterministically given to participants nor to the observing researcher. They are constructed through collaboration and have to be explored by following the emerging objects of activity, level by level. Learning, I will argue, takes place in a dialectical movement across the levels of collaboration and across the objects and outcomes created. To demonstrate this, the article puts forth the main findings of my study based on a longitudinal field research of a small-firm network called the Club (Toiviainen, 2003). The network was founded by 15 metal-industry subcontracting firms in Finland during the 1990s.Focusing on the objects of collaboration and levels of learning means that this article addresses the research methodology of inter-organizational learning, which is driven by the theorization and concepts offered by the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) (Chaiklin et al., 1999). In the following, the methodological concepts are first discussed in three subsections. The research project and the data, on which the analysis is based, are presented briefly. The case study of the small-firm network will demonstrate the use of methodology by revealing the developmental phases, contradictions, the key learning events, and the emerging levels of learning. The concluding section will discuss both theoretical and practical implications of the findings.\nMethodological toolkit: central analytical concepts: This section discusses: the notion of levels of learning of collaborative networks; CHAT perspectives on expansive learning, object-orientation and developmental contradictions; and the historically analyzed object-oriented learning event as the unit of empirical research.The notion of levels of learning of collaborative networks\nResearch data: The history of the small-firm network Club will next demonstrate the methodological ideas outlined. The collaborative object creation is analyzed as a process of expansive learning, proceeding through the learning actions and developmental contradictions as depicted in Figure 1. Excerpts of data from each phase/event of the Club's history give a glimpse of the focal tension, Phase/event 1 excluded, while temporally preceding the actual research project and data-gathering.The analysis is based on data gathered during the four years of my doctoral studies by using a wide range of methods and sources of data. The variety and the intense ethnographies of the network activity are needed to gain deep enough understanding of the object of research and to provide the validity and reliability of qualitative research. The methods of data collection used in this study included participant observation, shadowing, interview, investigation of archives, and development intervention. The data included video and audio tapings of collaborative events and interviews, as well as written documents.\nThe Club case study: object-oriented events and the creation of levels of learning: Starting-point\nConclusion and discussion: Learning in networks is a complex and evolving phenomenon that needs to be analyzed longitudinally and from multiple perspectives. The cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) offers conceptual tools to explore the levels of learning that are constructed in the activity of the network. In the case under review, analyzed learning was an expansive process in which each phase, shaped by contradictions, gave birth to a new level (Figure 3). These kinds of levels are not fixed. They are constructed by the participants in the concrete activity and are continually changing and reorganizing as the context of collaboration. Thus the levels of learning are actually levels of activity best captured by following the emerging objects of collaboration.Learning in this framework takes place in a dialectical movement from one level to another. Whether transitions across the levels happen is a critical question full of uncertainties. The network's innovative capacity to create intermediate levels seems to be crucial for learning. In the case of the Club, it is unlikely that the network-ideology alone would have motivated the members to maintain the activity. It needed the outcomes gained on the production level to analyze the potential for collaboration in general. The object creation at the project level was, in turn, drawing both from the production level (\"how we work\") and from the network-ideological level (\"as the Club\"). Finally, and most importantly, an intermediate level of partnership was needed to expand the networking activity to the worker level and to put the learning dialectics across the levels really in motion.The multi-level approach puts the basic concepts of CHAT to the test and challenges them to an ongoing elaboration. This analysis introduces the vertical dimension of collaboration to be discussed alongside that of the horizontal one (Engestrom et al., 1997; Engestrom, 2003). Not only are multiple activity systems participating in a shared activity, but these collaborative knots are creating a variety of activities as they evolve. At the same time, the whole notion of the activity and the object of collaboration to be analyzed become increasingly fuzzy and not-so-easy to capture and contain. Between the empirical observations and the theoretical foundations of CHAT, researchers need creative intermediate concepts to establish the temporal and ever-changing nature of the object of the network. The object-oriented learning event embedded in a network's history is one candidate for such a concept.The phase/events and the emerging levels explored in the case of the Club can now be compared with other approaches likewise based on a longitudinal and action-oriented research of inter-organizational networks. One point of comparison includes the network-topological interpretations. Actor-network theory (ANT) that has inspired many activity-theoretical network studies, mine included, rejects the idea of levels as contradictory to the very nature of the nonhierarchical, flat texture of networks: \"Social worlds remain flat in all points, without there being any folding that might permit a passage from the 'micro' to the 'macro'\" (Latour, 1996, p. 240). An equal status of all elements of a network means that, in the absence or withdrawal of one, the whole would break down, as Callon (1986), for instance, showed in his case study. My own analysis showed that different levels were constructed creatively in the activity. In case of a breakdown on one level, collaboration could be carried over on another level of network activity. Thus there are other possibilities for looking at a vertical dimension than that of power and subordination.Another point of comparison is provided by the participatory field studies of horizontal, voluntary interfirm networks historically coinciding with my analysis of the Club. Chisholm (2001) participated in the formation and development of a network organization involving 14 regionally dispersed rural local business incubators in Pennsylvania. The critical observations, or events, that stood out are comparable with the learning events and levels I observed and could as well be reinterpreted in the multi-level framework. Chisholm also reports on the expansion of the object and community summarizing, \"In brief, as the network development process progressed, CN Group members extended their definition of work to include a larger number of stakeholders and expanded their scope of thinking to include the state and the USA as a whole\" (Chisholm, 2001, p. 330). The most important difference between our studies comes from the method of the action research Chisholm was applying. The formation of the network was characteristically a researcher-led process, and Chisholm ends up discussing a researcher's possibilities to enhance learning in the course of network development. The development of the Club was primarily in the hands of the firms and other societal actors, my task being to follow the group and explore the learning potential of collaboration.Finally, an opportunity to follow the network development for many years may not often open up for a researcher. The research methods are laborious and resource-intensive and need continuous adjustment in order to capture what is going on in dispersed network activities. Are there alternative ways of analyzing the levels of learning in order to explore the collaborative potential of a given network? Wishing to contribute to workplace learning, I would like to see the multi-level framework being used by the network partners as a tool for analyzing collaboration. The role of a researcher as a \"learning interventionist\" would be to introduce the participants to the idea of the object-oriented activity and encourage them to gather data on their network collaboration. To start with, the questions addressed could be: Where did the network start its activity; why was it formed or forming? What were the phases which the network has lived through; how has the focus and the object of collaboration changed over its history? The questions would lead the network partners to model and analyze the present layers of collaboration, and evaluate learning across the levels. The model designed by the partners could be used for a critical examination, prioritization and reorganization of the levels of collaboration and for the exploration of the emerging levels, thereby setting out the future learning challenges for the network.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the research methodology of analyzing learning in inter-organizational networks based on an object-oriented approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws from the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), specifically from the concepts of the object of activity, developmental contradiction, and expansive learning. An intermediate concept, the \"learning event,\" is elaborated to study in a longitudinal way collaboration in a small-firm network.\nFindings: - Learning in inter-organizational networks is best captured by analyzing historically the expansive object-creation at multiple levels of activity. Learning takes place in a dialectical movement across the levels of collaboration and across the objects and outcomes created. Transitions across the levels are critical for learning apparently enhanced by a network's innovative capacity to create intermediate levels. This vertical dimension of collaboration alongside the horizontal dimension may enrich the CHAT approach.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The model of learning across levels is a generalization to be applied to analyses of learning in networks. The levels are historically emergent and are to be contextually explored case by case.\nPractical implications: - Network partners are encouraged to analyze and utilize the learning potential of network activity where models are needed as pedagogic and developmental tools.\nOriginality/value: - The paper introduces a novel way of conceiving the levels of learning, and strengthens the focus on the object of activity accompanied by contradictions and tensions energizing collaboration and learning, which are often omitted in inter-organizational studies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Developing international managers: the contribution of cultural experience to learning
|
[
"Emotional intelligence",
"Cultural adaptation",
"International managers",
"Cultural experience",
"Cultural intelligence",
"Intercultural capability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The phenomenon of globalisation has challenged the education objectives of governments and universities, with the advent of borderless education (Wood et al., 2005). This has required courses for the development of international managers and supporting the transition of international students (Volet and Ang, 2012). Research by Hutchings and Ratnasari (2006) indicates that if international managers are not adequately trained for cross-cultural transition challenges, negative outcomes such as culture shock and repatriation for self-initiated expatriates can occur (Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010). This study builds on previous work by the authors, with the aim of this present research being to assess the impact of cultural experience as a learning strategy, for the development of future international managers.\nPurpose and aims of the research: This research aims to evaluate the impact of multi-cultural experience on the development of international managers by identifying the relevant attributes required (Earley and Peterson, 2004, p. 100). In addition, this paper also attempts to propose an \"integrated theoretically sound framework\" appropriate for developing international managers which can be used for their training and education needs (Bailey, 2004, p. 99\nLiterature review and theoretical development: Identifying the required attributes for developing international managers\nTheoretical framework and model: The theoretical framework for this research is the Social Learning Theory of Bandura (1977a). This general framework has been adapted to include the concept of moving from living in known domains, to living in unknown domains. From a typological perspective, this is a learning model because expatriate adjustment is about learning new skills, in a situation of different re-inforcement contingencies (Mendenhall et al., 2002). In addition to Bandura's work, the Capability Framework has also been used to expand management capability from familiar to unfamiliar cultures (Stephenson and Cairns, 1999). It can therefore be stated in general terms that international management capability is IC (affective and behavioural categories) with domestic competencies (generally cognitive categories) (Briscoe et al., 2012).\nMethodology: Study 1\nResults: This section contains descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis conducted on the sample data collected, relevant to the hypothesis which examines the theoretical construct of IC.\nDiscussion: This research sought to evaluate the contribution of cultural experience, as a learning strategy, for developing the factors of international managers, specifically IC. Three outcomes are noted. First, the theoretical construct is supported by the data, hence supporting the academic theory by hypothesising and subsequently generating statistical support for the theoretical construct of the impact of cultural experience on the factors of IC, which include cultural adaptation, emotional intelligence and learning style. This possibly makes a reply to the finding of Earley and Peterson (2004) that a framework of cultural adaptation has not been presented to \"guide educational interventions\" (p. 112).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate cultural experience as a learning strategy for developing international managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an integrated framework, two quantitative studies, based on empirical methodology, are conducted. Study 1, with an undergraduate sample situated in the Asia Pacific, aimed to examine the relationship between cultural experience and intercultural capability (IC), an original theoretical construct representing the critical factors of international managers. Study 2, employing a more culturally experienced postgraduate sample from Ireland, sought to confirm the findings from study 1 and further test the relationship of cultural experience with the factor of cultural adaptation.\nFindings: Results identify a U-curve relationship of cultural experience and cultural adaptation for inexperienced students (study 1). A more linear, but less significant relationship between the above two with a maximum level of adaptation for more experienced students was found in study 2. This implies that there is a relationship between cultural experience and IC, within the limitations of the sample. However, whilst cultural experience is a major variable in developing IC, findings are that universities and industry training managers need to use a blended learning approach when developing international managers, hence, combining cultural experience (experiential learning) with didactic methods.\nOriginality/value: This is an original theoretical construct representing the critical factors of international managers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What do strategists mean when they talk about risk?
|
[
"Risk management",
"Strategic management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Few debates about strategy fail to mention risk. Yet risk is a neglected idea in much formal strategic thinking. The classic summary of major contributions from the 1970s and 1980s, Weitz and Wensley's Readings in Strategic Marketing has no index reference to risk (Weitz and Wensley, 1988). Nor does Michael Porter's highly influential Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980). The recent Oxford Handbook of Strategy, (Faulkner and Campbell, 2006) at near 1,000 pages has seven index references to risk. Even here comments are passing. Five relate corporate diversification to reducing risk, one suggests that more limited opportunities for product testing impose higher risks on service organisations compared to manufacturing and one draws a formal distinction between risk and uncertainty. This is not intended to be critical; all of these are excellent and rightly influential books. However it does show the extent to which the idea of risk is neglected within strategic management and when it is mentioned, the degree to which strategic thinking borrows from finance and economics.Ruefli et al. (1999) make a call for a broader range of approaches to thinking about risk in strategic management. This is a major opportunity. Modern economic psychology has developed a broad and rich picture of risk, not just as a technical concept, but as something that influences the way in which strategists think and make decisions about risk and act within their risky worlds.Strategic management has distanced itself from the notion that strategy development is a matter of programming the organization with a strategic plan (Mintzberg, 1994) to one where strategy creation is a process incremental crafting (Mintzberg, 1988; Courtney, 2001). So space exists to integrate the idea of risk as a psychologically human feature of strategists' decision-making and behaviour as well as the economic idea that appears in finance theory.This article explores eight perspectives on risk and invites strategic managers to think about risk in a fuller way. After a (brief) account of risk as it appears in finance and economics the article considers risk as something that enters into strategic managers' debates, as something that influences strategic choice, as something that influences managerial behaviour, as a factor in position and status (for individuals and organisations), as something that affects the way strategic managers think about and deal with information and, finally, as something that, like resources, is shared between the organisation and its stakeholders. The article concludes with some ideas on how strategic managers might develop a more holistic and integrated perspective on the risks they manage. A check list of questions that illuminate different facets of strategic options risk is provided.\nEight perspectives on risk: 1. Risk: its technical interpretation\nRisk: an integrated view: How then is the strategist to understand risk in order to work with and manage it? Should the economic, psychological, organizational and social approaches to risk be regarded as talking about quite different things? This would not be helpful. There is enough of a common theme running through all perspectives on risk - as lack of knowledge, variation in outcomes, fear of loss, a stimulus to decision making, something that shapes strategic choice and behaviour and an aspect of the organization's relationship with the wider world to maintain an integration in which these different perspectives play distinct and distinguishable parts. Table I is a check-list of questions the strategist might consider when evaluating the risk of different strategic options and managing that evaluation within their organizations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce strategic managers to a multi-perspective approach to thinking about risk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper takes the form of a review.\nFindings: - An eight-fold way of thinking about risk is suggested: as a formal idea in finance and economics; as fear of loss, often non-monetary and qualitative; as something that influences strategic choice; as something that influences strategic behaviour; as a factor in position and status; as something the brain is adapted to deal with - quickly and efficiently; as something that effects the way strategic managers deal with information and impacts on their cognitive processing; and as something that, like resources, is shared between the organisation and its stakeholders.\nPractical implications: - The article suggests a practical checklist for strategists to think about the risk(s) of different strategic options and how it impacts on strategy evaluation and implementation.\nOriginality/value: - The paper identifies the significant lacuna with regard to risk in modern strategic management.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Introduction of life cycle assessment and sustainability concepts in chemical engineering curricula
|
[
"Education",
"Employability",
"Carbon footprint",
"Key transferable skills",
"Sustainable pedagogy",
"Teaching LCA"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sustainable development was defined in 1987 as \"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs\" (WCDE, 1987). This concept has evolved during recent years and, nowadays, sustainable development and sustainability involve the integration of environmental, social and economic concerns into all aspects of decision-making processes (Emas, 2015). In parallel, the study of sustainable processes has evolved from an exclusively production-oriented analysis to a more comprehensive life cycle thinking approach where all the stages of the life of a product are assessed (e.g. raw materials extraction, transport, production, use and end of life). The fusion of the concepts of sustainability and life cycle thinking has resulted in the development and use of three different tools for assessing the environmental (life cycle assessment, LCA), economic (life cycle cost) and social aspects (social life cycle assessment).\n2. Sustainability, life cycle assessment and carbon footprint in current chemical engineering curricula: The presence of sustainability concepts, in particular of LCA and carbon footprint, in chemical engineering courses have been analysed across the top 25 chemical engineering schools in the world (QS, 2017). This was achieved by searching for terms like \"environmental engineering\", \"sustainability\", \"carbon footprint\" and \"life cycle assessment\" on the websites of the 25 top universities. Specifically, these concepts were sought in the description of the mission of the school, the definition of the role of a chemical engineer, the course contents for chemical engineering courses and research areas. If any of the terms were found, the context was analysed to see whether the university covers these topics in their mission statement, courses and research areas or when defining the role of a chemical engineer.\n3. Literature review of teaching life cycle assessment in chemical engineering: Across the literature, there are several examples of good LCA teaching practices applied in engineering curricula. Using key words such as \"LCA education\", \"teaching LCA\", \"LCA pedagogy\", \"teaching life cycle assessment\" and similar, in research engines including Scopus, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar, several articles were found. Then, they were selected on the basis of one criterion: application into chemical engineering curricula. Exceptions were made when innovative or cross engineering examples were found (Table I). When teaching-focused literature is reviewed, most of the publications on sustainability, particularly on teaching LCA, describe the approach taken by the authors through a detailed explanation of case studies and the resources used, such as specific software and databases (Malkki and Alanne, 2017; Gilmore, 2016; Riley, 2015), or the analysis of students' feedback related to the concepts learnt, the learning outcomes reached and the effectiveness of the teaching approaches and methods used (Mulder, 2017; Weber et al., 2014).\n4. Coursework case study: 4.1. Introduction\n5. Results and discussion: The outcomes of the coursework implementation described above are discussed in the following sections with reference to student feedback and with consideration of pedagogical, employability and practical aspects.\n6. Conclusions: Most of the top 25 chemical engineering schools (64-88 per cent) have research areas directly related with sustainability and/or environmental engineering, offer modules related with these topics or reference them when mentioning the mission of the school and/or when defining the future role of a chemical engineer. In the case of LCA and carbon footprint, 40 per cent of the schools conduct research involving these topics. However, this interest is not reflected in the introduction of LCA and carbon footprint in the syllabus as only 20 per cent of schools include these in their modules, with just one school (4 per cent) having a mandatory course.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The implementation of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprinting represents an important professional and research opportunity for chemical engineers, but this is not broadly reflected in chemical engineering curricula worldwide. This paper aims to present the implementation of a coursework that is easy to apply, free of cost, valid worldwide and flexible enough to cover such holistic topics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An analysis of chemical engineering curricula worldwide, a literature review and the implementation of a coursework case study are detailed. The latter combines practical exercises using free LCA software, oral presentations and debates.\nFindings: The coursework goes beyond the calculation of results, giving the students key transferable skills to increase their employability, such as the capacity to negotiate/discuss in groups, software learning and development of critical thinking. The course is affordable and flexible, enabling adaptation to different sectors and engineering schools. One limitation is the challenge of ensuring robustness and consistency in marking, but this has been already improved with a more explicit rubric. The feedback of the students confirms these findings, including the learning of transferable skills as the major advantage.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses, for the first time, the current state of \"life cycle thinking\" teaching in the curricula of the top 25 chemical engineering schools worldwide, a literature review of previous experience and a description of a novel coursework taking a theoretical and practical approach to LCA, carbon footprinting and socio-economic sustainability via a free software and a comprehensive range of didactic activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modeling the CSR barriers in manufacturing industries
|
[
"India",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Manufacturing organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the contemporary age of climate changing conditions, global warming, and increasing interdependence among economies, organizations are facing huge pressure to be more responsible for their actions and get involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to minimize the negative impact of business operations on the society and environment. Implementation of CSR activities has become the need of the contemporary age. There is a dire need that organization should behave as \"responsible corporate member.\"\n2. Barriers to CSR implementation in manufacturing companies: 2.1 Lack of top management commitment\n3. ISM methodology: ISM is used for finding and summarizing relationships among specific variables (Warfield, 1974). Different scholars have used the ISM MICMAC methodology to address various challenges in different fields of study. Some of the major studies from the literature are shown in Table I.\n4. Steps of ISM methodology: The steps involved in the ISM technique are (Warfield, 1974; Svensson, 2009) shown in Figure 1:\n5. Modeling, clustering and ranking of enablers for Indian manufacturing companies: In this study, experts from both manufacturing industry and academia were consulted. Experts were selected on the criteria of having more than ten years of dealing with CSR issues. Many sessions were organized to meet the study objective. In the first session, all the participants were briefed about the objective of the study to prepare them for the brainstorming session. In addition, the problems faced by the company were discussed to identify the appropriate barriers.\n6. SSIM: The relationships among the variables were established (e.g. i and j) by conducting a pair-wise comparison of variables and asking \"leads to\" types of questions. The associated direction of the relation, for example, whether i leads to j or vice versa, was questioned. Four symbols were deployed for finding the existing contextual link between the two concerned sub-variables (i and j). They are as follows:\n7. RM: A SSIM was used to develop the RM, indicating the association between the variables in binary arrangement. The different relationships among the variables depicted by symbols V, A, X, O used earlier in SSIM were substituted by binary digits 0 and 1. The following rules were used to substitute V, A, X, O of SSIM to get the RM:\n8. Partition of RM: After compiling the final RM, next step was partitioning. The objective of partitioning was to find the hierarchy of each variable. The partitioned RM helped to develop a conical matrix, as subsequently explained. The reachability and antecedent set for each variable were obtained from the final RM (Warfield, 1974).\n9. Developing a conical matrix: A conical matrix was achieved from the partitioned RM by reordering the elements according to their level, which means that all the elements having the same levels were put together, and then used for developing a final diagraph. Elements 7 and 8 were found at level I, whereas elements 2, 3 and 6 were at level II, and similarly all the elements were put together as per their level partitions as shown in Table VI. After rearranging, a conical matrix was obtained and is displayed in Table VII.\n10. Development of digraph: Based on the conical form of the RM, an initial digraph, including transitive links, was developed. If required, for the sake of simplicity, the indirect links may be eliminated. According to the conical matrix, the variable identified first was placed at the top. In this case, variables 7 and 8 had level I, hence it was placed on the top, followed by three variables 2, 3 and 6 which were found at level II, thus all the variables were kept at a predefined level as displayed in the conical matrix. The connectivity was shown among the variables according to the final RM. The final digraph was obtained by eliminating the indirect links. The final diagraph is shown in Figure 2.\n11. MICMAC analysis: In the MICMAC analysis, all the criteria were clustered into four categories as shown in Figure 3. Cluster I represents the autonomous criteria having both weak dependence and driving power, which are comparatively detached from the system, as they possess a few weak relations with other variables. Cluster II represents the dependent criteria having strong dependence but weak driving power. Cluster III represents the linkage criteria having both strong driving power and strong dependence. These variables are changeable based upon changes in the driving variables. Accordingly, changes in the linkage variables change the dependent variables. These are very important for achieving dependent variables. Cluster IV portrays the independent criteria having strong driving power but weak dependence.\n12. Discussion and conclusion: This study was based on the premise that many variables work as barriers in the implementation of CSR practices in the manufacturing organizations. An appropriate understanding of these barriers may help managers in developing required strategies to mitigate the effect of the same. The main objective of the study was to study and evaluate the interaction between different barriers in CSR implementation in manufacturing companies. Barriers related to consumption of time and passive attitude of the consumers have been found at the bottom of the ISM model. These two are major barriers in CSR implementation. On the other hand, top management commitment, lack of knowledge about CSR and lack of skills for CSR implementation are barriers which are dependent upon the investment required in term of time and money. CSR implementation needs proper attention and sponsorship from top management, especially at the initial stage CSR implementation may create some conflicts of interests. Top management's accountability and responsibility towards society should be very clear to them, so that it could be converted into a goal and communicated clearly to the lower levels of management. This strategic framework for CSR may raise the need to alter the existing structure of the organization. These three barriers are found at level 2 of the ISM model. Once the top management is committed for the CSR implementation, it will look for the necessary skills and knowledge required for understanding the CSR during its implementation. Level 3 of the ISM model has three barriers: lack of financial resources, lack of strategic planning and lack of training opportunities and employee participation. These barriers are directly dependent and connected to the top management commitment, lack of skill and knowledge of CSR. Hence, top management with required skills and knowledge look for the financial resources, training opportunities and information related to the current trends in CSR practices. Engagement in CSR issues should be at each level of management as everyone contributes for the success of organizational strategies. Top level of the ISM model consists of two barriers which are complexity in CSR implementation and no significant benefits of CSR implementation. Both of these variables are related to either the implementation or the outcome of CSR practices adoption. Hence, these variables must be highly dependent on other variables. Complexity of CSR implementation is basically based on the level of skill, knowledge, information, financial resource and training opportunity within the organization. CSR program should be coupled with proper training and education because implementation of CSR may need some new methodology and managers may need to change their style of working for effective implementation. Once the organization is able to generate enough resources in term of skill, knowledge, information and finance, then complexity of CSR implementation will be reduced. Similarly, the benefits of CSR implementation can be experienced by the organization when there is proper implementation of CSR practices. It is very important for the firms to have an internal motivation for their commitment towards CSR. As it is evidenced in the literature that in long run CSR may have a positive impact on the firm's profitability.\n13. Conclusion and future research: CSR is a subjective concept and hence it is important to evaluate CSR with much more broad perspective. Further, the role of government is very crucial in the CSR implementation and government's attention for this issue need to be evaluated carefully to promote this concept for various organizations in different industries with different sizes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and rank the various barriers of the CSR implementation in Indian manufacturing companies. Further, this paper also studies interaction of different barriers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was carried out using an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach to analyze the interaction among different barriers for corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in manufacturing companies in the Indian context.\nFindings: In the present study, ten CSR implementation barriers were identified through an extensive literature review followed by the expert's opinion. The present study outlines that lack of money and consumer's passive attitude towards CSR are the major barriers in CSR implementation in Indian manufacturing companies. On the other hand, top management commitment, lack of knowledge about CSR and lack of skills for CSR implementation are barriers which occur due to the investment required in term of time and consumer's passive attitude.\nOriginality/value: The present study is helpful to both academicians and practitioners by providing a model of CSR barriers. This study is important in the context of India which is a developing economy and this development is exerting pressure on the corporations to adopt CSR in their practices. This ISM-based model of barriers of CSR implementation in the manufacturing sector will help practitioners and managers to have enhanced knowledge about these barriers and to concentrate on important barriers to implement CSR activities in their organizations in an efficient manner.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Independent and interdependent self-views and their influence on clothing consumption
|
[
"Individual psychology",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Bulgaria",
"Market economy",
"Emerging markets",
"Eastern Europe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is widely acknowledged that cultural context has an important influence on consumer behaviour (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2010). The transforming socio-cultural, economic, and political organisation of Eastern European societies has proved to be a fruitful domain for consumer research due to their unique transition from a socialist to a capitalist order. The Communist collectivist ethos has been challenged through interaction with Western European cultural systems (Ashwin, 1999). There is limited knowledge of the implications of the interplay between cultural individualism and collectivism on consumer behaviour in these countries. This study explores the challenges that consumers' individualist or collectivist inclinations pose to marketers and retailers and evaluates their possible responses.This research aims at examining the effects of cultural individualism and collectivism, through the psychological constructs of the independent/interdependent self, upon various consumer behavioural phenomena. We argue first that independent/interdependent self-notions reflect internalisation of individualist and collectivist values and may therefore be better predictors of individual buying behaviour than are values measured at a cultural level. Second, the shift from more interdependent to more independent self-concepts occurring in the countries of Eastern Europe, as well as the centrality of the independent self-concept in the self-definitions of Western consumers, makes the exploration of the effects of this dual self-concept worthwhile. Further, the influence of the independent/interdependent self-concept on shopping attitudes and purchase behaviour has not been systematically investigated.We address this knowledge gap by examining how a consumer's in(ter)dependence may affect shopping attitudes and actual purchasing of clothing artefacts in the Bulgarian market. We also examine the effects of the independent/interdependent self-concept on consumer preference for self-expressive, affiliation and status signalling clothing. Although some evidence exists in support of the first two associations (Aaker and Schmitt, 2001; Lee and Kacen, 2000), the influence of the independent/interdependent self-concept on status consumption has not been systematically investigated. As a result, we can ask: how does the salience of one's independent or interdependent self-concept affect consumer preference for status goods? We develop and test a set of hypotheses on a nationally representative sample drawn from Bulgaria, a former socialist country, which embarked on market reforms in 1989 and became a member of the EU in 2007. A further objective is to identify groups of consumers exhibiting different levels of independence and/or interdependence, and to profile them in terms of key socio-demographic, attitudinal, and behavioural characteristics. Finally, managerial implications for marketers and retailers are identified.\nIndividualism/collectivism: Cultural individualism/collectivism relates to the extent individuals are integrated into groups. More individualist cultures are characterised by loose social ties. Typically, people tend to be self-reliant, looking mainly after themselves and their immediate family. Values such as independence, personal achievement, hedonism, and competition tend to be emphasised. Individual needs, interests, and preferences are main drivers of behaviour. Conversely, people in more collectivist cultures tend to belong to closely knit stable social groups. Norms and values such as conformity, family integrity, and harmony usually guide individual behaviour, and the in-group needs and goals have priority over individual ones (Hofstede, 2001).The cultural particularities of individualism and collectivism have a direct bearing on the independent/interdependent self-construct, which we discuss below. The independent/interdependent self-views comprise the psychological conceptualisation of cultural individualism/collectivism (Kagitcibasi, 1994) and, as such, they play an important mediating role between culture and individual behaviour.\nCultural context of Bulgarian consumers: The extent of individualism tends to vary across different cultural contexts. For example, the cultures of some Western countries appear to be more individualist, whereas a more collectivist ethos prevails in other countries such as China and Ecuador (Hofstede, 2001). According to Hofstede's analysis, amongst the Eastern European countries Hungarian culture is more individualist, whereas Bulgarian and Romanian cultures are more collectivist. However, the degree of individualism or collectivism can also vary within a national cultural context (Green et al., 2005). Currently, the cultural space of Eastern European societies is characterised by both individualist and collectivist dispositions, with the younger generations being more willing to embrace the individualist ethos, while the older generations are more likely to retain the value priorities and self-conceptions shaped under socialism (Rojsek, 2001; Topalova, 1997). Several studies suggest that the process of change in favour of greater individualisation has been slow - on the whole, people from the post-socialist countries seem still to adhere more to traditional, family-focused values (Delhey, 2004; Grunert and Beckmann, 1999; Wright and Kelemen, 2000).Existing studies do not provide conclusive evidence of the extent of any individualisation process in Bulgaria. According to some research, Bulgarians tend to be more collectivist (Schwartz and Bardi, 1997; WVS, 2000-2001). Yet, Davidkov's (2004) findings suggest that Bulgarians are neither individualist nor collectivist. Finally, a study conducted only two years after the introduction of market reforms found that the Bulgarian sample was the most individualist by comparison with respondents from British and Indian samples (Lalljee and Angelova, 1995).\nIndependent/interdependent self-concept: The independent/interdependent self-concept is a central component of a person's identity, deeply embedded in and conditioned by the socio-cultural environment in which people are raised. It affects the whole organisation of the individual self-system and is an important motivator of human action. The independent/interdependent self-distinction underscores the cultural variations in the focus of an individual's attitudes, inner feelings, motives, and behaviours (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Markus and Kitayama (1991, 1994) regard the independent self-concept as bounded, unitary, stable, autonomous, individualist, egocentric, self-contained, separate, and detached from the social context. This self-concept is perceived as a distinctive configuration of traits, thoughts and feelings that regulate individual behaviour and underlie individual strivings towards the fulfilment of personal goals such as \"realising oneself\". An individual's responsiveness to others is often derived from a personal quest for expressing or asserting internal attributes, and these \"others\" are considered to be important primarily for self-evaluation purposes.The interdependent self-concept has been defined as:[...] seeing oneself as part of an encompassing relationship and recognising that one's behaviour is determined, contingent on and, to a large extent, organised by what the actor perceives to be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others in the relationship (Markus and Kitayama, 1991, p. 227).The interdependent self-concept is intimately related to its social environment, is dependent on others, and is highly responsive to contextual influences (Singelis and Brown, 1995). Individuals with a strong interdependent self-concept tend to emphasise social roles and relationships, belonging and fitting to the in-group, occupying one's proper place and engaging in appropriate behaviour (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Singelis, 1994).The strength and manifestation of one's independent or interdependent self-concept varies depending on the particularities of the cultural environment (e.g. homogeneous or heterogeneous cultures), the individual's cultural background and specific situational factors (Trafimow et al., 1991; Triandis, 1993). In general, consumers whose value systems and behavioural patterns have been moulded under prevailing individualist norms and beliefs (e.g. USA, UK) tend to be more independent. In such cultures, the independent self-concept is more often activated. Conversely, stronger interdependent tendencies tend to be encountered amongst consumers brought up in collectivist societies (e.g. the Japan, the China) (Singelis et al., 1999). In these cultures, the interdependent self is of greater importance for self-definition, and thus sampled more often (Trafimow et al., 1991; Triandis, 1989).\nThe study: Only recently have scholars turned their attention to the role of the independent/interdependent self-concept in explaining consumer behaviour (Aaker and Lee, 2001; Escalas and Bettman, 2005). Most studies have been preoccupied with exploring the interaction effect between these two facets of the self and advertising appeal types (individualist or collectivist), and its influence on brand attitudes (Aaker and Schmitt, 2001; Wang et al., 2000), brand evaluations (Agrawal and Maheswaran, 2005), and attitude-towards-the-ad (Wang and Mowen, 1997). Besides, existing studies have primarily focused on countries exhibiting cultural extremes. However, many cultures cannot be allocated neatly in this way and this leads to the need for a more nuanced set of hypotheses.Research objectives\nMethodology: Procedure\nResults: Effects of independent/interdependent self-concept on preference for self-expressive and hedonic, affiliation, and status meanings of clothing artefacts\nDiscussion of results: Overview\nImplications for practice: Our findings suggest, in the Bulgarian context at least, that marketers and retailers will benefit from individualising their activities. Given the motivational properties of the independent self-concept and our discovery of a significant positive effect of independence tendencies on consumer preference for self-expressive and status-conveying clothing, advertising stimuli emphasising individual benefits (e.g. independence, individuality and distinctiveness, personal status, individual achievement, and self-enhancement) are likely to be better accepted, and thus to be more effective. As these benefits are derived from the symbolic attributes of clothing, marketers targeting the individualist consumer segment may seek to differentiate their offers on the basis of clothing attributes such as brand name, fashion style, and country-of-origin. The more frequent visits of independent consumers to clothing shops to inspect new merchandise present additional opportunities for fashion retailers to influence the purchase decision-making process: through more frequent introduction of new merchandise, continuing small scale in-store promotions, and an emphasis on creating a stimulating store atmosphere and pleasing merchandise presentation. When this is combined with our finding that independent consumers tend to be financially better off, to make more frequent clothing purchases, and to spend more money on clothing than less independent ones, this segment shows a significant market potential. The disadvantage is that it is relatively small (17.6 per cent).Given the goals of interdependent consumers and the lack of significant associations with clothing status consumption dispositions, frequency of shop visits and of clothing purchases, as well as its weak significant negative association with money spent on clothing, this market segment is not an attractive target for clothing goods in general, and status attire, in particular. Status clothing artefacts should be clearly positioned as products aimed at the independent consumer.Our research found that the largest segment of Bulgarian consumers (30.8 per cent) were those exhibiting both independent and interdependent tendencies. Importantly, its members are the heaviest buyers of expensive formal and evening/party clothes and leatherwear, as well as casual and sports attire. This suggests that promotional activities subtly combining both independent and interdependent themes, and employing both self and social imagery may have a greater impact on attracting consumers' attention, creating positive brand attitudes, and stimulating actual purchases. As the decision-making process of this type of consumer tends to be influenced by \"important others\", who are also very likely to accompany the buyers during a shopping trip, retailers should focus their sales efforts on both the buyers and their companions.Given the combined size (48.4 per cent) of the independents and the independents-interdependents segments, and the finding that the two groups share similar purchasing power, as well as some consumption-related characteristics, they appear to be the most attractive market segments for both fashion manufacturers and retailers. Furthermore, given their shared independent views, independent advertising appeals may work well for both segments. However, subtle rather than strong emphasis on individualist values would need to be used given the mixed values embraced by the largest segment and the finding that the independents hold neutral (and not negative) attitudes towards group-related values and influences.\nStudy limitations: There are some natural limitations associated with this study. The conclusions and implications of the research are limited to the factors considered in the conceptual model. The use of face-to-face interviews can lead to intentional or unintentional influencing of the survey results by the interviewer. Survey evidence also suggests that during face-to-face interviews respondents occasionally seek to present themselves in a more positive light. The use of self-reporting in the structured interview raises the possibility of acquiescence. Tackling these limitations required our research to employ widely used scales, with well-established validity and reliability. In addition, the questionnaire was thoroughly pre-tested before its administration. The potential problem of acquiescence was addressed by mixing together items from different scales. To reduce any possible effect related to an interviewer's influence, a reputable international market research agency was commissioned to collect the data.\nContribution of the research: This research makes four important contributions to knowledge in relation to independent/interdependent self-views. First, it develops further our understanding of the effects of individualism and collectivism at an individual level through the independent/interdependent self-concept on diverse consumption phenomena and provides empirical evidence in support of the proposed conceptual model using a nationally representative sample. Second, the study demonstrates the significant potential of the independent/interdependent self-concept as a means of market segmentation. Third, we identify important distinctions between groups of consumers - such as those exhibiting more pronounced independent or interdependent tendencies, or both - and profile them in terms of socio-demographic, attitudinal, and behavioural characteristics. Finally, to the best of our knowledge, this is the only study to test a conceptual model of this kind in an Eastern European country. This serves to demonstrate both the validity of the concepts and the kinds of nuanced and complex contexts in which they need more realistically to be tested.\nConclusion: The transition to a market economy has led to significant cultural changes within Eastern European countries including, but not limited to, the ways in which people relate to each other. Conceptions of the self have been shifting from a more interdependent to a more independent orientation. Our research found evidence that these facets of the self exert an important influence on consumer behaviour. The findings are also of considerable value to marketers and retailers, as these new insights will permit them to develop better targeted and more differentiated marketing campaigns. The way that this dual self-concept relates to consumer behaviour has not been a subject of systematic investigation in the context of Eastern Europe, nor has the expectation that this relationship may evolve alongside the advancement of market reforms in the countries from this region. In view of this, further research in the Eastern European societies is likely to prove fruitful.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of individualism and collectivism at an individual level, in the context of an emergent market economy of Eastern Europe. More specifically, the effects of the psychological constructs of independent/interdependent self on a number of clothing-related consumer behaviour phenomena are examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected through a home-based face-to-face survey of some 1,000 Bulgarian respondents.\nFindings: - Evidence was found supporting the notion that the relationship between individualism and collectivism is complex, and individualist and collectivist values do not characterise two opposing cultural dimensions. Additionally, being autonomous or being interrelated with important, others were found to play an important part in consumer preference for self- and social-symbolic meanings of clothing artefacts, as well as on shopping attitudes held and actual purchase behaviour.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Conclusions and implications of the research are limited to the factors considered in the conceptual model. The use of face-to-face interviews can lead to the interviewer's intentional or unintentional influencing of the survey results. The use of self-reporting measures in the structured interview can result in acquiescence.\nPractical implications: - Findings suggest that marketers and retailers will benefit from individualising their activities.\nOriginality/value: - The paper develops further our understanding of the effects of the independent/interdependent self-concept on diverse consumption phenomena and provides empirical evidence in support of the proposed conceptual model using a nationally representative sample.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Experiencing documents
|
[
"Museums",
"Transactions",
"Documents",
"Numinous",
"Reader response",
"Rosenblatt",
"John Dewey"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The world is filled with documents - physical things that signify. Everywhere we look there are documents - in our homes, our libraries, our museums, our daily path to work. There are, in fact, so many documents in our lives that we begin to take them for granted. But what is our relationship with documents? How do they affect us (and how do we affect them)? In other words, what is the lived experience with a document? Lived experience refers to the immediate, dynamic and direct experience of the world as it is lived by a person. It is the active experience of the lifeworld, the sum of these immediate experiences and activities that make up the world of an individual. This world we live in is filled with things, with objects that we experience, encounter, appreciate, take-for-granted, use, make and keep. Many of these things are documents, things upon which we humans ascribe meaning.\nTransaction (not interaction): Because the words interaction and transaction are used often in many modern circumstances, it is important to clarify their specific meanings here. The prefix \"trans-\" means \"across,\" \"beyond,\" \"through,\" \"changing thoroughly,\" \"transverse,\" and coupled with \"action\" we get something that is active and immersed. On the other hand, the prefix \"inter-\" means \"between,\" \"among,\" \"in the midst of,\" indicating something that is happening between two or more distinct things. From these meanings, we can already see a difference between interaction and transaction[3]; \"interaction has dualistic overtones, suggesting the action of separate and distinct entities on one another whereas transaction is used to designate a two-way relationship in which one shapes and is shaped by the other\" (Rosenblatt, 1981, p. 18). This distinction is quite important, having ramifications that are at the root of differing epistemological views of scientific inquiry (Rosenblatt, 1985a, b). Knowing is a transactional relationship, since a known implies a knower and vice versa (Rosenblatt, 1981, 1993). To help illustrate the difference we can use the metaphor of a machine for an interaction, with separate elements that act on one another (Rosenblatt, 1985a, b). Or we could use the example of two billiard balls colliding, each going their separate (and unchanged) ways (Rosenblatt, 1994). Transaction is more organic and can be likened to a living organism. The human and his/her environment are not acting upon each other, but are rather parts of a total event or system (Rosenblatt, 1985a, b); it is more active and process oriented.\nTransactions and documents: Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) were focussing on domestic objects in the home (anything from photographs, to stereos, to carpets) but these are only a small part of a much larger category of documents. Likewise, Rosenblatt was specifically referring to the \"literary work\" in her model, not necessarily defined as a physical object[4]; and Dewey referred to \"art objects.\" But all of these categories fall into a broader, more useful category of document. In this paper, the term document goes beyond everyday usage of the word as a record or paper with writing or other graphical information on it. Here, it is defined using Suzanne Briet's definition of, \"any concrete or symbolic indexical sign [indice], preserved or recorded toward the ends of representing, of reconstituting, or of proving a physical or intellectual phenomenon\" (Briet, 2006, p. 10). According to Briet, a document need not be text on paper but should be understood more broadly as a representation of something and must have materiality, be evidential, processed and perceived as a document (Buckland, 1997). Lund's (2010) holistic approach to researching documents further expands this definition as, \"any results of human efforts to tell, instruct, demonstrate, teach or produce a play [...] by using some means in some ways\" (p. 743). Understanding documents this way unlocks Rosenblatt's theory for the realm beyond text and expands Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton's research on household objects and Dewey's art objects to any objects that mean something to somebody. With such a definition, we can begin to understand human experience with a variety of physical things - buildings, antiques, photographs, all kinds of electronic devices and even other humans. Using Rosenblatt's theory, we can create a set of strategies to help us understand transactions with documents. Studying the user experience of documents allows insights into the lifeworld - the immediate, dynamic and direct world that a person inhabits.\nIllustration of one kind of document transaction: In this section, we explore a specific document experience as a way to illustrate elements of Rosenblatt's theory. Museum objects, as documents - as \"things that signify\" - are one kind of document (Latham, 2012). What better place to illustrate and converse about people's relationships with documents using the transactional theory and concepts than the museum? In order to illustrate a \"predominantly aesthetic\" (Rosenblatt, 1994) document transaction, my example is of a poem, an encounter found at the aesthetic end of the continuum. It comes from a study I conducted in 2009 (Latham, 2009; Latham, 2013) about people's deeply felt encounters with museum objects. Numinous is a term that comes from religious studies (Otto, 1917) - a \"non-rational\" state of mind that is experienced qualitatively, a feeling of power, transcendence, majesty. In turn, a numinous museum experience has been described as a meaningful, transcendent experience that results in a deep connection with the past (Cameron and Gatewood, 2000, 2003; Gatewood and Cameron, 2004). The goal of the current study was to find out more about these encounters, as there had been little empirical research on them to date and to specifically find out more about human relationships with objects. The aim was to gather descriptions of these encounters from experiencers, identify any patterns or themes, and contribute to the overall understanding of museum user experience. Data collection and analysis were done using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a qualitative approach to psychological research that aims to offer insights into how a given person, in a particular context, makes sense of a particular phenomenon. I worked with five American institutions - all museums - and conducted 18 interviews. In the end, I used five of those interviews for my study. In IPA, you stop analyzing the data once you have reached redundancy. As a result, four essential themes that characterize the numinous experience with museum objects came out of the participant descriptions:\nStrategies for studying person-document transactions: In order to bridge the conceptual nature of Rosenblatt's (and Dewey's) concepts into something more useful for analysis and practice, we need a set of strategies or guides to draw from in the study of documents. In this section, an attempt is made to begin the process of working toward a useful set of strategies to be used in thinking about person-document transactions. The list below lists the features of a general transaction (not necessarily efferent); according to Rosenblatt, all transactions have these characteristics.\nA conclusion of sorts: Emerging from details of Rosenblatt's theory and from the illustration, it seems that a few points are apparent enough to be made about document experiences, even in this trial state:\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to invite further consideration of how people experience documents. By offering a model from Reader Response theory - Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory of Reading - as well as examples from research on numinous experiences with museum objects, the author hopes to open further avenues of information behavior studies about people and documents. The goal is to incorporate more aspects of lived experience and the aesthetic into practice with and research of documents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Theoretical scope includes Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory of Reading, John Dewey's concepts of transaction and experience and lived experience concepts/methods derived from phenomenology.\nFindings: Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory explicates the continuum of reader response, from the efferent to the aesthetic, stating that the act of \"reading\" (experience) involves a transaction between the reader (person) and the text (document). Each transaction is a unique experience in which the reader and text continuously act and are acted upon by each other. This theory of reading translates well into the realm of investigating the lived experience of documents and in that context, a concrete example and suggested strategies for future study are provided.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a holistic approach to understanding lived experience with documents and introduces the concept of person-document transaction. It inserts the wider notion of document into a more specific theory of reading, expanding its use beyond the borders of text, print and literature. By providing an example of real document experiences and applying Rosenblatt's continuum, the value of this paper is in opening new avenues for information behavior inquiries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Happiness and productivity in the workplace: The role of transformational leadership
|
[
"Transformational leadership",
"Employee well‐being",
"Work engagement",
"Career success",
"Employees",
"Employees attitudes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Intense competition and economic uncertainty are prevailing characteristics of today's business world. Such a challenging context demands rigorous endeavor on the part of any firm aiming to acquire or sustain a competitive edge.\nWhy employees matter: It is widely acknowledged that a company's best asset is its workforce. Consequently, success is arguably much likelier for those boasting employees who are willing, competent and able to perform effectively throughout their working lives.People are significantly more productive when they are content. That much is obvious. The key then appears to lie in nurturing a workplace environment in which individuals can feel happy and fulfilled. Achieve this goal and motivation levels will rise accordingly. Simple.Much of the responsibility for creating a positive employment setting falls on those holding supervisory positions. Few would argue with such claims. Equally apparent is the fact that adopting the right management style helps facilitate the conditions needed for workers to flourish.One striking development is the growing realization of the merits of transformational leadership. Plenty evidence supports the belief that leaders who embrace this concept persuade employees to adopt a more energetic and committed approach to work. This can subsequently translate to organizational prosperity and career advancement for the individuals concerned.\nKey aspects of transformational leadership: So how do transformational leaders influence the psychological health and well-being of their workforce? Essentially, this desired outcome is attained through leadership that serves to influence, motivate, stimulate and which regards employees as individuals with their own unique abilities and needs. More specific manifestations of these four elements of transformational leadership include leaders:* functioning as role models for appropriate behaviors;* providing visionary leadership that is powerful and engaging;* instilling employees with strong feelings of pride, direction and purpose;* effectively communicating visions, goals and values that subordinates buy into and find compelling;* encouraging followers to be creative and take risks;* promoting independent thinking;* actively inviting various perspectives to help solve problems;* becoming aware of the respective strengths and weaknesses of each team member so that workers can be tasked with meaningful and positive challenges which are appropriate to their ability levels;* valuing the ideas and contributions made by all ranks of employee;* respecting others and recognizing what every individual is able to contribute to the team;* providing feedback that is positive, constructive and aids employee development; and* functioning as mentors who give individual coaching, empathy and support to the workforce.Trust is imperative in any business context and it's certainly no different here. This is clearly not lost of those who consistently demonstrate these and other relevant behaviors. By doing so, transformational leaders can gain the trust, respect and admiration of their followers. And when employees have this degree of faith in their leader, the adoption and internalization of his or her ideals occurs naturally.Transformational leadership clearly requires substantial commitment from the managers involved. But the valuable rewards that are attainable make all their efforts worthwhile. Followers exposed to such leadership principles habitually:* exhibit greater positivity in the workplace;* perceive more congruity between work and self;* proclaim higher degrees of job satisfaction; and* feel an increased level of self-worth.By placing a heavy emphasis on providing support, encouragement and recognition, leaders are essentially meeting some of the higher order needs of their employees. In return, it is feasible to expect increased commitment and a workplace environment that is optimistic, vibrant and innovative.The value of transformational leadership lies in its capacity to inspire workers to go above and beyond the call of duty. Employees are happy and enthusiastic and consequently more deeply immersed in their work. From the organizational perspective, this results in a favorable impact on business outcomes that include productivity, profit and customer satisfaction. In addition, having dedicated employees should guarantee that absenteeism and staff retention do not emerge as serious issues.\nUsing transformational leadership to enhance work engagement: Some reports suggest that women are more prone to stress in the workplace than men. That being the case, the supporting mechanism that is transformational leadership might have a more substantial effect on female workers' career satisfaction. Women are likelier to feel content in their job when they experience a greater sense of connection to their role. Having the ability to increase work engagement ensures that transformational leadership is able to help in this respect too.It makes sense for human resource management (HRM) to focus on devising ways to increase work engagement among all employees, not just females. This can be achieved through:* the provision of social support and other job resources;* constructive comment on performance;* greater autonomy and control for workers; and* access to learning opportunities which are appropriate and varied.Feedback is especially important to women, as are working conditions. Job tasks need to be interesting and challenging within a supportive workplace environment that is invigorating. Such factors help increase the skills and aptitude of female workers and to cultivate a positive mindset that favorably impacts on their engagement levels.Some focus on the well-being of older workers is equally necessary. Key knowledge and expertise that is lost to early retirement obviously has a detrimental effect. It is thus in any company's best interests to use transformational leadership as a means to keep such employees motivated.The extent to which transformational leadership succeeds may depend on the presence or absence of certain workplace or personal characteristics. Practitioners must also be aware that any positive impact might prove transitory in some cases. When constantly high performance is expected, the inevitable pressure is likely to take its toll. The danger that a negative effect on employee well-being might materialize in time is therefore real.\nComment: The review is based upon: \"Transformational leadership, work engagement, and occupational success\" by Sylvie Vincent-Hoper, Clara Muser and Monique Janneck. A comprehensive account of how transformational leadership can impact on employee performance and career success is offered. Vincent-Hoper et al. describe the four elements of the concept and the leadership behaviors that relate to them. The value of the article is increased further by the inclusion of recommended specific approaches towards different employee groups and its implications for leadership training.\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: - Intense competition and economic uncertainty are prevailing characteristics of today's business world. Such a challenging context demands rigorous endeavor on the part of any firm aiming to acquire or sustain a competitive edge. It is widely acknowledged that a company's best asset is its workforce. Consequently, success is arguably much likelier for those boasting employees who are willing, competent and able to perform effectively throughout their working lives. People are significantly more productive when they are content. That much is obvious. The key then appears to lie in nurturing a workplace environment in which individuals can feel happy and fulfilled. Achieve this goal and motivation levels will rise accordingly. Simple.\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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] |
How to strengthen the business model of an Italian family food business
|
[
"Innovation",
"Cultural identity",
"Tradition",
"Food sector",
"Family businesses",
"Territory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The food sector is a relevant context in many countries because of its impact in terms of company revenues and employment (Giacosa, Giachino, Bertoldi and Stupino, 2014; Vrontis et al., 2016). Mostly - and Italy is a good example - this is due to a combination of high-quality product ranges valued in both domestic and international markets (Broccardo et al., 2015), the natural richness of the local region, a favourable climate, and the strong entrepreneurship of new and historical producers (Bigliardi and Galati, 2013; Bresciani, Ferraris, Santoro and Nilsen, 2016; Bresciani, Culasso, Giacosa and Broccardo, 2016). In this context, Italy has a strong food tradition in its entrepreneurial fabric (Giacosa, Giovando and Mazzoleni, 2014; Bresciani, Ferraris, Santoro and Nilsen, 2016; Bresciani, Culasso, Giacosa and Broccardo, 2016). As in Europe the food sector is characterized by the presence of numerous small- and medium-sized companies that are mainly family businesses with a long-standing tradition and developed skills (Conto and Lopez, 2008; Maietta et al., 2017).\n2. Literature: 2.1 Product and process innovation in the food sector\n3. Methodology: In order to fill the gap observed in the literature and to achieve the aim of this research, our research question is the following:\n4. Case study: Golosita dal 1885: 4.1 The history of the company\n5. Discussion: The above combination plays a dominant role in increasing competitive advantage, especially in a mature sector (Costa and Jongen, 2006), characterized by the need to offer a differentiated and innovative range of products and services to overcome the market saturation (Drucker, 1985), while respecting traditional and cultural local values (Orth et al., 2012).\n6. Conclusions, implications, and limitations: Golosita dal 1885 is characterized by a strong combination of tradition and innovation, both in the products and processes. This combination allows them to achieve or maintain a competitive advantage in the long term. Without such a smooth union of the two approaches, the company risks being either highly innovative, while failing to cultivate the traditional values that distinguish it from others on the market and on which its reputation is based, or risks emphasizing the traditional principles of its operations, without paying heed to the need to innovate. Therefore, to manage and grow a successful competitive family business, innovation and tradition should coexist. In addition, its innovative strategy is matched by the passion and traditional values: its business model requires the input of innovation to achieve fine-quality products, while respecting traditional values.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on how a medium-sized company operating in the food sector should strengthen its business model, thanks to a combination between tradition and innovation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research focuses on one case study. The subject of the case study under analysis is Golosita dal 1885, an internationally recognized fine food Italian company.\nFindings: Golosita dal 1885 is characterized by a strong combination of tradition and innovation, both in products and processes. The company's competitiveness is the result of a balanced management of innovation, in respect of the family's values, thanks to the active presence of two family generations.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is characterized for some limitations, related to the method and to the choice of a single case study. In terms of theoretical implications, the study emphasizes the importance of the link between the food sector and the region it is rooted in.\nPractical implications: Practical implications relate to different groups of stakeholders: for owners and management, for investors, for organizations and institutions working on a territory promotion and in the tourism sector, and for politicians and local authorities.\nOriginality/value: The originality of the research is represented by a focusing on how a strategy based on an effective combination between tradition and innovation should increase the competitive advantage, especially in a mature sector - as the food one - characterized by the need to offer a differentiated and innovative range of products and services for overcoming the consumptions crisis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Past, present and future challenges in health care priority setting: Findings from an international expert survey
|
[
"Strategic management",
"Hospital management",
"Resource management",
"Health and medicine",
"Health authorities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Whether faced with times of surplus that enable investment or times of scarcity that necessitate disinvestment, all organizations must face the difficult task of priority setting. In health care, this exercise can prove to be especially controversial and difficult to accomplish as situations of life and death are regularly faced. Within this field, priority setting can be characterized as \"decisions about the allocation of resources between the competing claims of different services, different patient groups or different elements of care\" (Klein, 2010). For example, at a micro level: should one patient be seen before another in an emergency department, or at a meso level: should resources from an acute care facility be re-allocated to serve preventative health functions, or at a macro level: should incremental investments be directed toward rural areas with more significant disease burden (Martin and Singer, 2003). To address these difficult decisions, scholars and practitioners have looked to multiple disciplines for guidance including ethics, economics, and political science (Hurley, 2010; Williams et al., 2011). It was in this spirit of collaboration that the International Society for Priorities in Health (ISPH) was created in 1996 with a mission to \"strengthen the theory and practice of priority setting in health care\" (International Society For Priorities in Health Care, n.d.; Baltussen et al., 2017).\n2. Methods: 2.1 Research design\n3. Results: The survey was sent to 485 individuals with current contact details held by the ISPH with additional targeted distribution to academics and decision makers from lower- to middle-income countries. Following the reminder e-mail, 103 responses were received, of which 100 were sufficiently complete to include in analysis (response rate 21 percent). This included 62 researcher/academics, 23 health care leader/decision makers, 15 \"others\" (including those with both roles). Although responses came from individuals in 16 nations, they reflect a bias toward respondents from North America (46 percent) and Europe (37 percent) with the rest distributed across Australia and New Zealand (12 percent), Asia (3 percent), and Africa (2 percent). This distribution is partly a reflection of the profile of the ISPH membership but also reflects a higher response rate from those in North American and European institutions (albeit many of these are researchers with an interest in priority setting in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs)).\n4. Discussion: Although the survey focused on notable achievements, challenges, and areas for further research, there was considerable overlap in responses across these questions. For example, evidence and engagement were consistently suggested as areas where both achievements have been realized and further development must take place. To facilitate interpretation of findings, themes from each question have therefore been categorized into three overarching domains:\n5. Limitations: The survey responses presented here are intended to provide a cross-sectional view of the achievements, current challenges, and areas for future research in the discipline of health care priority setting. Respondents included attendees from past ISPH conferences including researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from countries around the world. This may bias the results toward a narrower range of perspectives than would have been obtained with a more broad sampling technique. However, it increases the likelihood that respondents are deeply engaged and therefore highly knowledgeable in this area.\n6. Conclusions: Whilst the study reaffirms the continued importance of many longstanding themes in the priority setting literature, it is possible to also discern shifting emphasis as the discipline progresses in response to new challenges. The survey responses support the notion that a shift is taking place in the field from its more technocratic roots toward recognition of the complex task of application in \"real-world\" settings. The survey further suggests that the creation of decision-making frameworks and bodies has received ample attention, and future work should therefore seek to \"build and refine\" rather than to \"reinvent\" that which has been undertaken so far. The next phase of empirical development requires us to understand how best to support the implementation of existing priority setting approaches, methods and tools into complex system settings. This requires a relative shift in focus from the intervention (i.e. the priority setting process) to the context (i.e. the organization or system) and the outcome (i.e. through evaluation of the costs and impacts of priority setting).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Current conditions have intensified the need for health systems to engage in the difficult task of priority setting. As the search for a \"magic bullet\" is replaced by an appreciation for the interplay between evidence, interests, culture, and outcomes, progress in relation to these dimensions requires assessment of achievements to date and identification of areas where knowledge and practice require attention most urgently. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An international survey was administered to experts in the area of priority setting. The survey consisted of open-ended questions focusing on notable achievements, policy and practice challenges, and areas for future research in the discipline of priority setting. It was administered online between February and March of 2015.\nFindings: \"Decision-making frameworks\" and \"Engagement\" were the two most frequently mentioned notable achievements. \"Priority setting in practice\" and \"Awareness and education\" were the two most frequently mentioned policy and practical challenges. \"Priority setting in practice\" and \"Engagement\" were the two most frequently mentioned areas in need of future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: Sampling bias toward more developed countries. Future study could use findings to create a more concise version to distribute more broadly.\nPractical implications: Globally, these findings could be used as a platform for discussion and decision making related to policy, practice, and research in this area.\nOriginality/value: Whilst this study reaffirmed the continued importance of many longstanding themes in the priority setting literature, it is possible to also discern clear shifts in emphasis as the discipline progresses in response to new challenges.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Charity ethical investments in Norway and the UK: A comparative institutional analysis including the impact of a sovereign wealth fund
|
[
"Institutional theory",
"Charities",
"Ethical investment",
"Sovereign wealth fund"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper examines charity ethical investment practices in two distinctive institutional fields - Norway and the UK. Drawing on the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Charity Commission, 2011) we define ethical investment as \"investing in a way that reflects a charity's values and ethos and does not run counter to the charity's aims\". The paper's aims are to outline the existence and nature of the ethical investment policies of the charities in our samples (in terms of screening and engagement); and to explore the origins of these practices and the reasons for national differences by drawing on a blend of institutional theory and social origins theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Salamon and Anheier, 1998; Souitaris et al., 2012).\n2. Theoretical framework and expectations: The literature exploring charity ethical investment practices has tended to focus on the composition of ethical screens, reasons for their development (e.g. pressure from donors, reputational risk and staff morale) and different potential influences on the nature of ethical investment policy (e.g. avoiding conflict with the aims of the charity; maximizing investment returns and so on) (see e.g. Green, 2003; Kreander et al., 2009; Sparkes, 2002). We draw on this literature to inform our first aim of describing the nature of charity ethical investment in the UK and Norway. However, over and above describing and identifying different ethical investment practices, our second aim is to understand potential reasons for any differences we observe. We draw on institutional theory[9] and social origins theory to identify three theoretically informed expectations regarding differences in practice between Norway and the UK. We present these expectations at the end of this section.\n3. Research methods: The study used mixed methods. Building on existing evidence for the UK (Kreander et al., 2006, 2009), additional interviews and a questionnaire survey were undertaken in Norway for this comparative study (see Lillis and Mundy, 2005). Our choice of method aligns with calls for more interview-based research within institutional theory, to uncover why certain practices are adopted (Suddaby, 2010). The mixed methods approach also facilitates method triangulation (Jick, 1979; Patton, 2002). For example, Lounsbury (2008) argues for a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to advance institutional theory. Statistical tests are used to analyse our questionnaire findings. The findings are examined using a blend of institutional theory and social origins theory. The use of multiple theories and methods in accounting is advocated by Hoque et al. (2013).\n4. Findings: The discussion of our findings is structured around the two aims of this paper, first to outline the practice of ethical investment in Norway in comparison to the UK, and second, to explore reasons for any differences in those practices. Section 4.1 provides descriptive evidence regarding: the existence of ethical investment policies in both countries; the different reasons given for establishing an ethical investment policy; the composition of the ethical investment screens; and the perceived influences on the nature of the policy adopted. Section 4.2 explores the reasons for the differences based on institutional theory and social origins theory.\n5. Conclusions: There is little research on the nature of ethical investment practices of charities. The literature that does exist hints towards variations in practices across different countries (Schaefer, 2004; Green, 2003; CFDG, 2010), consistent with findings in relation to the CSR literature more generally (Maignan and Ralston, 2002; Bengtsson, 2008b; Midtun, 2013). However, few studies have attempted to understand the institutional factors that lie behind these variations (Kreander et al., 2009; Schaefer, 2004).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore whether, how and why ethical investment practices of charities differ between two countries with quite different ideological and institutional frameworks - Norway and the UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses mixed methods and a cross-sectional field study design to explore the ethical investment practices of 300 of the largest charities by investments in the UK and Norway. Practices are theorized using the dual lens of institutional theory and social origins theory.\nFindings: The paper provides evidence on why charities established the practice of ethical investment. The results show that large charities were more likely to have an ethical policy; that charities with moderate public sector funding were more likely to have an ethical policy. In line with institutional theory some Norwegian charities with public sector funding mimic the policy of the Government Pension Fund, and the ethical investment policy of Norwegian charities was more influenced by donors. Institutional entrepreneurs (charity founders) had a more prominent influence in UK charities.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper highlights that more research is needed on sovereign wealth funds, their investment practices and how they affect charities.\nPractical implications: The findings of this paper highlight the potential role that the ethical investment practices of sovereign can play a soft regulatory function in changing the behaviour of other investors.\nSocial implications: To the extent that ethical investment practices are construed as having a positive social impact, then this study shows how a government sovereign wealth fund can influence the spread of ethical investment practices.\nOriginality/value: This paper, which sits at the nexus of the charity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures, contributes by responding to calls for more research on charity practices in different countries and CSR practices in different countries. This comparison also contributes to the development of institutional theory by shedding light on the institutional influence of a sovereign wealth fund and its impact on others. The paper will be of value to academics, policy setters and regulators.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Comparing the performance of national public sectors: conceptual problems
|
[
"Governance",
"Performance (public administration)",
"Europe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The demand for indicators that allow comparing the performance of countries' public sectors internationally is increasing. This trend existed for some time already in the development community, where such indicators are used -or at least referred to- in decisions whether or not to give development aid to certain countries (Arndt and Oman, 2006). The trend is somewhat newer in a European context. In recent years, both OECD and the European Institutions have stepped up efforts to contribute to the debate, and the former's \"Management in Government\" project intends to improve the availability of current data.While some international country competitiveness rankings have included information on the functioning of countries' public sectors for several years, they have always focused on just a very limited aspect of the public sector. Likewise, we have seen a steady increase in the efforts to measure and compare national health and education sectors. Attention for measuring the performance of public sectors in general is much more recent. In Europe, we can trace its origins back to a working paper by the European Central Bank on \"Public Sector Efficiency\" in 2003 (Afonso et al., 2003), and subsequent efforts by the Dutch Social and Cultural Planning Office (Social and Cultural Planning Office, 2004). At the same time, several existing data sources, notably two international competitiveness rankings, and the World Bank Governance Indicators (Kaufmann et al., 2006), allow to some extent to rank European countries based on the performance of their public sectors.The need for such indicators is chiefly motivated by two factors. One is to use the information for naming and shaming countries with a low score and to stimulate them to improve the performance of their public sectors. By making information available, countries would become more aware of their comparative strengths and weaknesses and be challenged to reform. The other factor is related to countries' reputations as efficient or as bureaucratic. Countries may not always deserve their reputation, but these reputations do influence people: businessmen are likely to refrain from investing in countries notorious for their bureaucracy, highly-skilled expats may be unwilling to work in countries with bad health and education systems, and donors are reluctant to give aid to developing countries known for waste and corruption. Public sector performance indicators may help to reassess these reputations.Problems of data quality with the currently existing indicators have in the meantime become well-documented (Boyle, 2006; Van de Walle, 2006; Arndt and Oman, 2006). They include biased or unreliable samples, an excessive reliance on subjective evaluations, and uncomfortable methods of aggregation. Yet, I argue in this article that problems of data quality are not the most pressing ones, because, with some effort, they can be overcome.The main argument in this article is that, if we want to compare the performance of countries' public sectors, we have to agree on common definitions. In an international comparative context, we are dealing with public sectors that are organised in quite different ways. Simple concepts such as \"public sector\", \"administration\", or \"government\" may mean quite different things in different countries. Furthermore, to decide whether one country's public sector is performing better than that of another, we need to use a common definition of \"performance\". In current sets of indicators, this conceptual discussion is generally ignored, and the problem defined away.I will first, however, provide a broad overview of where we stand now, and summarise how European countries' public sectors are ranked in terms of their performance, using the main indicator sets. I continue by discussing the two main challenges in measuring and comparing the overall performance of public sectors. The first is defining the public sector: What is government? Where does government end and society begins, and how can we define government in such a way that international comparison becomes possible? The second challenge is to determine when a certain government output should be seen as a positive improvement. In other words: what is good performance?\nPublic sector performance: how do European countries rank?: Several studies and indicators have become available in recent years to compare countries' public sectors. Not all of these indicators have been specifically developed to make this comparison, but do contain elements related to public sector performance. In this section, I have a closer look at four of these, and how they rank European countries. Table I summarises the characteristics of each of the four indicator datasets. Interested readers are referred elsewhere for a detailed treatment of the strengths and weaknesses of these indicators (Boyle, 2006; Van de Walle, 2006; Arndt and Oman, 2006; Besancon, 2003).A first study is the European Central Bank's working paper \"Public sector efficiency: an international comparison\" (Afonso et al., 2003). One of the elements in the comparison, apart from health, education and public infrastructure efficiency, was the performance and efficiency of the public administration. A comparison was made of 23 OECD countries, and resulted in a performance and an efficiency score for these countries. Results are shown in Figure 1. The higher the score, the better the performance and efficiency.Switzerland is the country with the highest public sector performance and efficiency, while Italy is the country with the lowest overall score in the report. This working paper was one of the first attempts at comparing public sector performance and efficiency across countries in a comprehensive way and deserves praise for that. At the same time, however, the study failed to recognise the problems with the data used to measure the performance of public administrations, and it suffered from a small government bias in its efficiency measurement. As these problems have been dealt with elsewhere, I will not repeat them here (Van de Walle, 2006).A second indicator is the Government Effectiveness indicator, which is part of the World Bank Governance Indicators dataset. This government effectiveness indicator is currently the most comprehensive indicator for assessing the performance of public administrations, even though the indicator is of a quite general and sometimes even vague nature. The indicator currently covers 213 countries or territories worldwide. It measures government effectiveness by looking at \"the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies\" (Kaufmann et al., 2006, p. 4). According to this indicator, the Scandinavian countries receive the highest scores, while Italy, Poland, and Greece are dangling at the lower end of the ranking (see Figure 2).A final source of information are the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) and the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), which have a Public Institutions and a Government Efficiency Index, respectively. These publications are primarily concerned with measuring the competitiveness of a country. A public sector that is conductive to business is an important factor in this competitiveness. The figure shows how the public sectors are scored in 19 EU countries, whereby a higher score means a better performing public sector. The Scandinavian countries and Austria get good scores, while Italy, Poland and Slovakia score quite bad on the public institutions index and the government efficiency ranking respectively (see Figure 3).\nA problem of definition: The indicators in the previous section appear to offer a straightforward ranking and measurement of countries' public sectors. They do, nonetheless, have a number of technical problems, as mentioned in the introduction. What is however more important is that there also are a number of conceptual problems. Developing a suitable indicator depends on deciding on a number of conceptual and political-philosophical issues. These issues, however, cannot easily be solved. When we want to measure the performance, the efficiency or quality of a public sector, we need to agree on a definition of \"government\" and \"the public sector\", and we need to find a means to agree on what we consider as \"good\" performance.What is government?\nConclusion: Demand for indicators that allow for comparing the performance of public administrations internationally is increasing. A diverse range of actors is interested in indicators for measuring the quality of bureaucracies at the macro-level, rather than at the micro-level of specific services. These actors include inter- and supranational organisations, the international donor community, and scholars. Demand in comparative public management remains rather limited, but it is to be expected that public management scholars will speed up their efforts to compare the performance of countries' administrations.The supply of indicators is also rapidly increasing. A growing number of datasets is being developed and promoted, with the World Bank governance indicators as one of the best-known examples. Yet, many of these indicators and datasets suffer from conceptual and data quality problems, making them less suitable for comparative public management scholars. I have argued in this article that, despite the fact that there are still many quality problems, the main problem with developing indicators for measuring and comparing the performance of public sectors at large is not a technical problem, but a conceptual one. Measuring the performance of government or the public sector requires we have a definition of government or the public sector, and that we can determine where government ends and society begins. With many new and old types of private and citizen involvement in government, and with different roles and positions of government in society, such a definition is not straightforward. Even when we would be able to define \"government\", there would remain discussion about when its overall performance was to be considered good or improving. On top of this come difficulties in attributing certain social outcomes to the intervention of government.There is a real risk that the indicator boom may lead to superficial international comparisons. When comparative public management wants to build a research programme around the comparison of the performance of public administrations, it can build on the work that has been going on for decades in other disciplines. Blind reliance on existing data, however, is likely to endanger the quality of research. Public management scholars need to adapt the existing indicators to new developments in the definition of government, and need to raise the methodological standards of some of the older datasets.And the same goes for policy makers. Every time a new indicator or ranking is released, the results are taken at face-value: our country's public sector is doing better/worse than that in country X. I hope to have demonstrated that such comparisons are good for putting the issue of service improvement on the public and political agenda, yet that they tell us very little about the performance of the public sector.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - A number of studies and indicators have ranked European countries in terms of the performance of their public sectors. This paper aims to demonstrate that there are important conceptual problems with such rankings and comparisons.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the existing indicators, the paper first shows how European countries' public sectors are ranked. It then goes on to show how conceptual problems with these indicators may lead to incorrect conclusions.\nFindings: - Countries' public sector performance cannot be summarised using a single indicator because of inability to define \"the public sector\" and the disagreement on what it means for public sectors to perform.\nPractical implications: - Despite increasing demand and supply in policy circles for international public sector indicators, the existing ones are unreliable.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends the assessment of international public sector indicators beyond a mere technical evaluation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Quantitative research in tourism and hospitality: an agenda for best-practice recommendations
|
[
"Quantitative research",
"Tourism and hospitality",
"Best-practice recommendations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Interest in quantitative methodologies across various areas of tourism and hospitality research has increased significantly in recent years. To provide some best-practice recommendations, this article identifies primary areas of concern and provides an agenda for methodological improvements. We rely on comments from several methodological experts in the field, as well as our main observation of the literature. In particular, we focus on the following issues: \"building better regression models,\" \"checking and remedying the effect multicollinearity,\" \"properly testing for shape, main effect and moderation in curvilinear models,\" \"assessing the predictive ability of the model,\" \"do not abuse the p-value,\" \"thinking beyond conventional regression methods,\" \"more dependence on panel data,\" \"more dependence on the Bayesian approach for hypothesis testing and model estimation\" and, finally, \"shifting toward better practices in structural equation modeling (SEM)\".\n2. Building better regression models: keep it simple and report all diagnostics: It is common among young researchers to think that estimating more complicated regression models leads to better outcomes. However, this is not necessarily true. It is important to keep models \"sophisticatedly simple\" (Zellner, 2001). Model selection should depend on the appropriate specification tests to ensure the selection of the appropriate functional form and the \"correct\" variables. No such thing as a \"correct\" model exists, so, here, the term \"acceptable\" means that a given model has sufficient support in the light of the data and after a set of diagnostic tests has been passed.\n3. Checking and remedying the effect of multicollinearity: Checking for multicollinearity is another important robustness check that should accompany the building of better regression models. It is important to highlight this issue separately because of some common problems that exist in the field. The following issues, in particular, require careful consideration:\n4. Properly testing for shape, main effects and moderations in curvilinear models: Along with the above, we recommend more consistent and correct testing of curvilinear regression models. Despite being highly common in hospitality and tourism research, researchers in this field tend to make the following four mistakes when analysing such models.\n5. Assessing the predictive ability of your model: The focus in the field has always been on using statistical models to explain a certain causal theory. Very little focus has been placed on the predictive ability of these models. For instance, simply comparing the performance of regression or other related models based on the value of R2 is never sufficient. A more effective way to test the predictive ability against other models is to conduct out-of-sample validation, which means estimating the model on one part of the data, and then test the predictability ability of the model on the rest of the data, also known as \"hold out sample.\" Examining the out-of-sample performance can reveal any deficiency in the model. For a visual representation, one can also plot the deviations between actual and predicted values out-of-sample. Of course, the sizes of the two sub-samples must be selected so that we have enough observations in both the fitting and validations samples.\n6. Do not abuse the p-value: To improve the replication of existing studies, there is an ongoing debate across several science fields as to whether the p-value threshold should stay at the arbitrary level of 0.05 or become even lower (Barach et al., 2018). There are also some misconceptions that exist in the field about the true meaning of p-value. With a p-value that is lower than 0.05, for instance, it is common to state that \"we reject the null\". This interpretation, however, is problematic, as \"the p-value is derived with the assumption that the null is true, so how it can be also the probability that the null is false?\" (Assaf and Tsionas, 2018a, p.18). In other words, \"a p-value of 0.05 does not mean that there is a 95 per cent chance that a given hypothesis is correct. Instead, it signifies that if the null hypothesis is true, and all other assumptions made are valid, there is a 5 per cent chance of obtaining a result at least as extreme as the one observed\" (Baker, 2016, p.531).\n7. Thinking beyond conventional regression methods: The use of common regression methods such as linear regression has always been the norm in the field. Other types of regression models such as quantile regression and non-parametric regression (NPR) have recently started to gain some attention in the literature (Hung et al., 2010; Lew and Ng, 2012; Masiero et al., 2015). We strongly recommend more use of these methods as they provide several important advantages and robustness to the findings. The conventional regression methods, for instance, only allow estimation of the average relation between the covariates and the outcome variable, whereas quantile regressions assess the covariate effects at different quantiles of the outcome variable (Li, 2015; Assaf and Tsionas, 2018b). Hence, they provide a more complete picture and richer information for hypothesis testing. In areas such as tourism, where many empirical applications involve heavy-tailed distribution, quantile regressions can bring an additional advantage.\n8. More dependence on panel data: The use of panel data for the estimation of regression and other related models is also always encouraged. By panel or longitudinal data, we mean observations that are repeated over time across cross-sectional units such as individuals, firms and countries. Obvious advantages of panel data are the more accurate and easier estimation and inferences of model parameters, given the higher degrees of freedom and sample variability. Panel models are also better equipped to control for unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variable bias. With larger data, one can also test for complicated behavioral hypotheses. Finally, panel models can uncover some interesting dynamic relationships in the data.\n9. More dependence on the Bayesian approach for hypothesis testing and model estimation: The use of the Bayesian inference for model estimation is rapidly growing across several fields, including management, marketing, psychology and tourism, as is evidenced by the recent publications and special issues on the topic (Zyphur and Oswald, 2013). The method does not simply add more flexibility to model estimation but is a completely new paradigm that deserves special attention. So far, the sampling theory approach to model estimation (e.g. maximum likelihood [ML], ordinary least squares [OLS], etc.) has been the most common in tourism research. It is not until recently that some papers have called for more use of the Bayesian approach across several tourism fields, such as performance modeling (Assaf et al., 2017), SEM (Assaf et al., 2018c) and forecasting (Wong et al., 2006; Assaf et al., 2018d).\n10. Shifting toward better practices in structural equation modeling: All nine issues we discussed above equally apply to SEM, which continues to be one of the most popular and particularly useful multivariate analysis methods in the field. At the same time, many studies show serious problems in the model estimation and results evaluation. Oftentimes, this is a problem not merely with the method but also the researchers who simply abuse the tool for their purposes (Petter, 2018). For this reason, we would like to highlight some \"best-practice recommendations\" to ensure more rigor, consistency and transparency in future research. We divide this section into three parts. First, we provide recommendations in terms of reporting the SEM results. Second, we focus on the importance of method selection, in particular the difference between covariance-based SEM (CB-SEM) and partial least squares SEM (PLS-SEM). Finally, we discuss the use of Bayesian SEM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to serve as an important guide for more rigorous quantitative research in tourism and hospitality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper relies on comments from several methodological experts in the field, as well as the authors' main observation of the literature.\nFindings: This paper identifies ten important areas of concern. In each of these areas, the authors provide recommendations for best practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: There are certainly other issues and concerns that are not covered in this paper. However, the issues addressed can be applied or generalized to most methodological contexts.\nOriginality/value: This paper does not present results from original research but provides interesting and comprehensive recommendations for more rigorous quantitative research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Copac developments and the Copac Collection Management service
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Collection development",
"Collaborative collection management",
"National monograph strategy",
"Union catalogues"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Copac is a freely available union catalogue, providing access to the merged catalogues of an increasing number of national, academic and research libraries within the UK and Ireland[1]. Our contributors range from the British Library, through major academic libraries, to small specialist libraries such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. We standardize incoming data, deduplicate and provide an easy-to-use interface to make the merged catalogues available to researchers and library staff everywhere. We also make the data available for re-use by individuals and other services through a number of machine-to-machine interfaces.\nRebuilding Copac: July 2014 saw the culmination of a major project with the release of a new Copac interface and a completely new database, followed, in July 2015, by our move onto a cloud system, giving us a faster, more robust platform and completing the behind-the-scenes rebuilding of the service. Some of the results of this activity are more visible than others, but all has been working towards building a robust and flexible platform both to support future development and to widen the range of services we can offer based on the Copac data, beginning with the Copac Collection Management (CCM) project[2].\nCollection management tools: enhancements and access: The Copac enhancements outlined above provide a reliable high-quality data environment for the additional functionality provided by our collection management tools, as they move from prototype to fully-fledged Copac service. The origins of the tools as a community-driven initiative have been instrumental in their success, and enhancements to the user interface and access will deliver additional benefits to existing and new users.\nCopac and the National Monograph Strategy: future developments: The National Monograph Strategy aims to provide a practical framework for the collaborative development of a distributed national research collection for the UK. This has the potential to provide benefits right across the academic community. The future direction of the Copac service is currently under review, but the database itself forms an important element within the National Monograph Strategy, and this work has created an opportunity to look more widely at the role of Copac within the UK academic sector as a whole. Copac continues to grow with the addition of catalogues from a range of specialist libraries, for example, English Heritage, focusing on collections of particular value to the research community. However, in this context, the CCM work illustrates that, whilst the collection management tools can offer value to any library, there is greatest benefit to those whose collections are included within Copac. So as we move CCM into service and gradually increase the user base, we are also looking at how best to open up the range of academic contributors to Copac beyond the current RLUK libraries, reaching out initially to university libraries that wish to contribute their catalogue and have a commitment to maintaining their data contribution over the long-term.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to describe major developments at Copac, including changes that facilitate use for interlibrary loan activity, introduce the Copac Collections Management project and look toward future developments in the context of the UK's National Monograph Strategy. The Copac service gives access to the merged catalogues of 95 UK and Irish national, academic and specialist libraries, and is still growing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is a descriptive account.\nFindings: This paper identifies and describes some of the implications of the reengineering of Copac; addresses the role and benefits of the Copac Collections Management project; and looks ahead to forthcoming development areas.\nOriginality/value: This paper is a valuable update on the service provided by Copac, as well an overview of the forthcoming Copac Collections Management tools service, and an introduction to future developments within the National Monograph Strategy context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Investigating preferred vs actual working hours: Are workers with disabilities more restricted?
|
[
"Work-life balance",
"Disability",
"Mismatch",
"Working hours",
"Actual hours",
"Preferred hours"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: One of the most important elements of a job that employees consider is the number of working hours required. This has huge effects on life outside of the job and finding a work-life balance. Ideally, the number of hours an employee wishes to work should be the same as the number of hours they actually work; that is, preferred hours should match actual hours. In reality, there is often a mismatch between the two. This can happen for a number of reasons, for example: legal limits on the number of hours (plus overtime) allowed to work in a week, productivity, budgets for wages, employer preferences, and market factors.\nInvestigating working hours: Pagan (2018) investigated working hours, underemployment, overemployment, and matched hours for employees in Germany, focusing on the differences in the number of hours between employees with disabilities and employees without disabilities. The study investigated two hypotheses:\nResults: Underemployment, matched and overemployment\nMismatch of working hours in the workplace: The study proved that there is indeed a mismatch between the actual and preferred working hours for employees, and this is more intense for employees with disabilities.\nComment: The review is based on \"Are workers with disabilities more likely to be constrained in their working hours?\" by Pagan, R. published in Employee Relations.\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: The number of working hours is an important issue for employees and employers, and there is often a mismatch between the actual and preferred working hours. This mismatch is more intense for employees with disabilities, who may be unable to find preferred conditions of employment and who need flexibility for daily life, travel, and medical appointments. A mismatch in working hours can lead to stress, fatigue, low morale, and low productivity. It is important for managers to manage the mismatch for all employees, especially those with disabilities, to increase satisfaction, productivity, and work-life balance.\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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] |
Responding to service failures with prevention framed donations
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Service recovery",
"CSR",
"Service failures",
"Regulatory focus",
"Donation",
"Prevention",
"Promotion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Failures are inevitable during service delivery (Tax and Brown, 1998). It is therefore no surprise that in recent decades a large number of normative and positive investigations into service recovery or the actions an organization takes in response to a service failure (Gronroos, 1988) have been conducted (Smith et al., 1999; Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011). This research stream has identified various \"rules of thumb\" regarding service recovery, including encouraging complaining behavior, offering an apology, acting quickly and empowering the front line (Hart et al., 1990). In an oft-cited study on service recovery, Hoffman et al. (1995) identified seven service recovery strategies that can be categorized into three types: compensatory, corrective response and no action taken. While this research stream has offered a number of alternatives for firms to enhance the service recovery experience, there still exist other compensatory service recovery strategies.\nHypotheses: Regulatory focus\nStudy 1: Regulatory framing of the corporate social responsibility service recovery method: The primary objective of Study 1 is to test H1, which suggests that when included in a service recovery, the regulatory framing of a donation will create variations in recovery satisfaction. Testing this hypothesis helps answer the question of whether companies should focus on prevention or promotion framing when providing donations as part of service recovery efforts.\nResults: To test the relative effectiveness of the framing of the donation as promotion or prevention focus, recovery satisfaction was submitted to an ANOVA with regulatory framing (promotion or prevention) as the independent variable. As expected, participants in the prevention-framing condition reported greater recovery satisfaction (M = 4.73, SD = 1.39) compared to participants in the promotion-framing condition (M = 4.14, SD = 1.33), F(1,151) = 6.97, p = 0.01.\nStudy 2: the mediating role of warmth and competence: Participants and design\nResults: To examine the parallel mediation model suggested by H2 and H3, we used Hayes (2013) PROCESS macro (Model 4; 5,000 bootstrap resampling). The two scenarios were entered as the independent variables, with prevention focus coded as 0 and promotion focus coded as 1, warmth and competence as the mediators and repurchase intent as the dependent variable. Results suggested that warmth mediates the relationship between regulatory frame and repurchase intention (indirect effect = -0.17; CI: -0.46 to -0.01), thus providing support for H2. However, this was not the case with H3, which proposed a mediating effect of competence on the relationship between regulatory frame and repurchase intentions (indirect effect = -0.11; CI: -0.40 to 0.11). Table II reports the means, standard deviations and p-values of the effect of the framing of the service recovery on the dependent variables.\nStudy 3: the moderating role of message trust: Study 3 aims to build on Study 2 by demonstrating that the influence of regulatory framing on warmth and competence is moderated by whether the consumer trusts the CSR message. Specifically, Study 3 helps provide evidence of a boundary condition, the extent to which consumers have trust in the CSR message, on the relationship between message framing and warmth and competence.\nResults: The moderating effects of message trust on the relationship between regulatory framing and distributive justice through warmth and competence were examined using Hayes' (2013) PROCESS macro (Model 7; 5,000 bootstrap resampling). While we only hypothesized a moderating effect of message trust on the relationship between regulatory framing and warmth (H4) and competence (H5), using Model 7 allows us to test this effect within the broader context of our research model and therefore is a test of moderated mediation. Accordingly, the analysis included regulatory framing as the independent variable, with prevention focus coded as 0 and promotion focus coded as 1, message trust as the moderator, warmth and competence as the mediators, and distibutive justice as the dependent variable.\nGeneral discussion: Consumers align their purchases with companies that communicate CSR because doing so provides them with a feeling of warm glow, enhances the perceived value of their purchase and helps to express their identity (Green and Peloza, 2011; Winterich and Barone, 2011). Companies have leveraged CSR to highlight the human aspects of their business and enhance relationships with consumers (Bolton and Mattila, 2015; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001; Sen et al., 2006). Service failures can anger consumers to the point where they seek not only compensation but also vengeance (Bougie et al., 2003). CSR can protect companies from losing customers by reminding them of the human aspect of the company through its perceived warmth (Bolton and Mattila, 2015). Nevertheless, the findings of this research show that careful consideration is needed when including a donation in the service recovery in terms of the regulatory framing of the message and the level of trust the consumer places in the company's donation message.\nManagerial implications: Companies that choose to incorporate a donation as a component of their service recovery strategy need to stimulate a prevention focused mindset among consumers. This can be achieved by formulating the message about the cause the company benefits as prevention focused such as emphasizing that the cause provides safety and protection. A company that provides a service or a good that is prevention focused will attract consumers with a prevention-focused mindset. For example, a company that provides an alarm system will benefit from providing a donation in the service recovery because it will appeal to prevention focused consumers.\nLimitations and future research: Research has shown that consumers' reactions to service failure are different based on the context of the study (Smith and Bolton, 2002). This study only had consumers experience failure in a hotel context but future researchers should replicate the service failure in various contexts. Furthermore, this research uses a percentage of the bill as the compensation amount without providing participants with a reference point based on the price of the hotel. Future researchers could replicate this study and include the actual amount given as compensation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Service failures are common and companies must decide how best to respond to these incidents. The purpose of this study is to examine service recovery efforts that incorporate a donation component, in addition to financial compensation. More specifically, the relative effectiveness of these recovery efforts was explored according to the regulatory focus framing (i.e. prevention- or promotion-focused) of the donation message.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three experiments are conducted to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Drawing from regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), the authors determined that prevention framing (e.g. highlighting the negative outcomes avoided by a donation) leads to better service recovery outcomes compared to promotion framing (e.g. highlighting the positive outcomes of a donation) the donation message. Furthermore, warmth (e.g. perceptions of caring and helpfulness) and competence (e.g. perceptions of capability and usefulness) underlie this effect and message trust moderates the effect of regulatory framing on warmth.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study offers several theoretical and managerial implications. First, a novel recovery approach that benefits multiple stakeholders was illustrated, particularly when the donation message is prevention (vs promotion) framed. The authors focused on donations in particular, but future researchers should explore other corporate social responsibility activities such as those pertaining to sustainability, ethical labor practices or educational training.\nPractical implications: Companies should consider incorporating donations into service recovery efforts. Moreover, companies should use prevention as opposed to promotion frames in their donation messages. Using a prevention frame enhances perceptions of company warmth and competence.\nOriginality/value: Very little research has explored the effectiveness of donations following service failures despite evidence that companies use donations in this context. This research highlights the importance of regulatory focus framing and demonstrates how a donation, paired with financial compensation, is more/less effective according to the framing of the communication. Thus, this research demonstrates a novel effect, identifies its underlying mechanism through warmth and competence and establishes an important boundary condition according to message trust.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Leadership style and the process of organizational change
|
[
"Change",
"Structural equation modelling",
"Transformational leadership",
"Change process",
"Recipient change reaction",
"Transactional leadership"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Organizational change has become the rule rather than the exception for many organizations (Kieselbach et al., 2009). At the organizational level, change has been associated with intention to quit (Holt et al., 2007; Oreg, 2006), absenteeism (Martin et al., 2005), reduced productivity, and increased health care expenses (Mack et al., 1998). At the individual level, change has been found to influence time pressure, psychological well-being (Probst, 2003), job satisfaction (Amiot et al., 2006; Holt et al., 2007; Oreg, 2006), and stress (Axtell et al., 2002). Accordingly, organizational change is associated with a series of potentially negative outcomes for both organizations and individuals.\nDeveloping positive appraisals of change: Within change reaction research, studies have focused on the first and last stages of the change recipient reactions model, i.e. pre-change antecedents (e.g. cognitive and affective anticipation and readiness for change) (Oreg et al., 2011) and consequences of change (e.g. job satisfaction, job involvement, intention to quit and depression, and other health problems) (Grunberg et al., 2008).\nLeadership styles and manager change engagement: Transformational leadership style is characterized by four factors: idealized influence/charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Bass, 1985). Transformational leaders act as role models, create a sense of identification with a shared vision, instil pride and faith in followers, inspire and empower followers, encourage followers to rethink their conventional practice and ideas, and give individual attention and recognize individual needs (Bass, 1999). Transactional leadership style is characterized by two factors: contingent reward and management by exception (Bass, 1985). The management by exception factor has later been divided into two elements: active and passive (Lowe et al., 1996). Transactional leadership style occurs in a leader-follower exchange relationship in which corrective actions are an exception and followers are rewarded when meeting certain clearly defined goals. Where a transformational leadership style encompasses values and visionary leadership, a transactional leadership style is more closely related to the recognizing and rewarding of specific follower accomplishments.\nIndirect mechanisms in followers' change appraisal: To achieve successful change, managers should seek to align their espoused and enacted values (Eisenbach et al., 1999). Such alignment would in Simons' (1999, 2002) terminology be defined as behavioural integrity. Within the behavioural integrity theory, we see transformational and transactional leadership styles as transporting managers' espoused values, and change engagement as transporting managers' enacted values. Thus, in successful change processes, both transformational and transactional leadership styles (transporting the espoused values of change) would align with more specific manager change engagement (transporting the enacted values of change).\nDirect mechanisms in followers' change appraisal: Another aim of this paper is to investigate how leadership styles impact followers' appraisal of change directly. While transformational leadership correlates positively with the successful implementation of change (Oreg et al., 2011), transactional leadership fits an organizational situation which maintains status quo and achieves specific goals (Gersick, 1994).\nThe present study: While the purpose of our study is to empirically examine the antecedent mechanisms to followers' appraisal of change, our hypotheses relate to the expression of these mechanisms and how they contribute to our understanding of the process of organizational change. The mechanisms we look at encompass direct and indirect relationships. Focusing on indirect relationships, we look at associations between leadership and manager engagement (H1), and between manager engagement and followers' appraisal of change (H2). We also look at the direct relationships between leadership styles and change appraisal (H3 and H4).\nMethod: Procedure\nResults: Initially, all scales were tested for reliability and were found to be satisfactory (see Table II).\nDiscussion: Two major outcomes emerge from our study: first, we found that - through manager engagement in change - leadership style is indirectly related to the change appraisal of followers. Corresponding to our hypotheses, both transformational and transactional leadership styles were positively related to the engagement of managers. Both leadership styles - as general expressions of espoused leadership - therefore constitute a platform for enacted engagement to be expressed. Thus, leadership styles relate positively to all three manager engagement elements, those being participation, information delivery, and commitment. Additionally, supporting our expectation, we found that followers' change appraisal was influenced by manager engagement.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify processes which may contribute to followers' positive reactions to change. By focusing on the relationship between change antecedents and explicit reactions, the authors investigate the direct and indirect relationships between leadership styles (transformational and transactional) and followers' appraisal of change through manager engagement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data from a longitudinal survey among 351 followers in two Danish organizations, the study tracked the planned implementation of team organization at two different times. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: Transformational and transactional leadership styles were positively related to the engagement of managers. Managers' engagement was associated with followers' appraisal of change. The two leadership styles also had a direct, long-term effect on followers' change appraisal; positive for transformational leadership and negative for transactional leadership.\nPractical implications: The results have potential implications for change management, as followers' change appraisal may be improved by developing managers' leadership style and engagement.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to provide longitudinal evidence of the direct and indirect effects of leadership styles on followers' change appraisal.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Where is the fun in that? Understanding employees and where they find excitement at work
|
[
"Workplace",
"Employee relations",
"Organizations",
"Human resources",
"Fun"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: The horror of the office Christmas party. The sheer terror of the Summer work barbecue. The unfathomable awfulness of the corporate celebration. Everyone has undergone these rituals and everyone tends to agree that they are forced, lacking in any spontaneity and often hugely embarrassing for all concerned. So why do the Human Resources (HRs) consultants, training and textbooks all encourage firms to \"celebrate success\" and \"bond\" when the people these events are aimed at are cringing inside?\nThree times the fun: One person's idea of fun will clash mightily against others, and this is the challenge of any HR department tasked with engaging employees through injecting some fun into the workplace. Before people break out the bunting for that Friday-after-work-karaoke-party, it makes sense to define exactly what people's ideas of fun in the workplace actually are. This is exactly what Plester et al. (2015) did in their article \"The fun paradox\". Combining interviews and follow-up surveys with four companies in New Zealand, the authors derived some insightful points for HR departments to consider when contemplating employee engagement activities.\nPriming a paradox: Having defined what might constitute fun in the workplace for most people - some will consider submitting their resignation as the most fun, but let's remain constructive - the authors then look to contextualize these definitions and how they relate to each other. Are they mutually exclusive or do they overlap? The authors contend that by treating them as paradoxical in the first place, they can then develop a model which will show how they may or may not cut across each other and determine if they are \"either/or\" concepts or \"both/and\".\nDelivery and delusion: First and foremost, it is evident that the biggest impact from fun is associated by what the researchers terms as organic fun - this type of fun was included in the majority of employees' definitions and reactions to the concept of fun in the workplace. Perhaps not surprisingly, managed fun was the least popular definition with only 20 per cent recognizing this, and it also elicited the most negative comments.\nHouse of fun: So how can we take advantage of these findings and spread a little more excitement in the workplace? Firstly, the pluralistic nature of how fun is experienced in the workplace must be taken into account, with the focus on how individuals can express themselves and have fun on the job and with others in some productive way, rather than in a forced manner (although the Christmas party will probably live on). Furthermore, the worrying observation by one chief executive officer (CEO) in the study was that by installing karaoke, which he himself had enjoyed, meant that others had also had fun; this must be seen as a failure by senior management to place themselves in the shoes of their staff.It can so easily have the opposite effect than intended.\nComment: The article entitled \"The fun paradox\" by Plester et al. (2015) does exactly what it says on the tin. It analyzes exactly what is meant by fun in the workplace by assessing the conflicts and overlaps of their definitions. Through this, some real insights are made for HR managers in terms of how they can introduce and manage levity in their organizations, chief among them being to steer clear as much as possible of orchestrated events.\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: The horror of the office Christmas party. The sheer terror of the Summer work barbecue. The unfathomable awfulness of the corporate celebration. Everyone has undergone these rituals and everyone tends to agree that they are forced, lacking in any spontaneity and often hugely embarrassing for all concerned. So why do the Human Resources consultants, training and textbooks all encourage firms to \"celebrate success\" and \"bond\" when the people these events are aimed at are cringing inside?\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"
}
] |
Breaking the myths on emerging consumers in retailing
|
[
"Retailing",
"Low pay",
"Consumer behaviour",
"South America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The low-income segment in Latin America is estimated in 250 million of consumers who spend around $120.000 million annually only in consumer products, representing a significant portion of \"emerging markets\". Additionally, significant economic growth during the 1990s brought new entrants to the region, attracted by the opportunity of serving these \"emerging consumers\". However, serving these segments has proved to be no easy task. Market intricacies and apparently irrational consumer behaviour seem to raise barriers to growth both for manufacturers and organized retailing. The retail sector in Latin America has been especially resilient to modernization, with traditional small-scale formats holding anywhere between 40 and 60 per cent of sales in spite of the advent of hypermarkets, supermarkets and organized retailing during the 1990s.Further understanding of consumer behaviour then seems necessary for helping marketers effectively address the needs of the lower-income segments. However, a review of the literature shows that most of the studies have taken place in the USA and Canada, with some research being done in Europe and little in developing regions such Asia, Latin America or Africa. Our research was then set for understanding consumer behaviour in the emerging segments, regarding product and retail format needs and how they are addressed by traditional small-scale retailers. Ultimately it was aimed at answering: what is retail value for emerging consumers?The relevance of this study comes not only from the size of this segment, but also from the interest of marketers to emphasize the social contribution of the discipline. In terms of size, \"four billion people reside in the emerging consumer base at the bottom of the pyramid, where per capita income is less than $1,500 (PPP) per year\". (Prahalad, 2001, p. 76). And in terms of absolute spending in consumer products, in spite of being perceived as \"poor\" emerging consumers as a group in fact represents a significant amount of money. Finally from a social responsibility and business ethics perspective, given the social impact of the marketing actions, it addresses the possibility of generating actions that improve lower-income segments' quality of life (Loe and Ferrell, 2001). Although retailing is essentially a local business, we understand that many of the findings may be useful in other emerging regions apart from Latin America.This paper is organized in two parts. The first part takes a retrospective look at the literature on modern retail systems[1] in its role of serving and understanding the needs of disadvantaged consumers. The second part, breaking the myths about emerging consumers, analyses the actual truth behind a number of myths around this segments' consumers behaviour. The study that is described in this paper was made for the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council.\nPrior research: A general overview of past related research shows that most of the studies regarding low-income consumers were motivated by both social and ethical concerns. Figure 1 shows the stream of thought followed. Within this view, Caplovitz (1963) \"in a seminal sociological analysis found that deceptive practices were extensive among merchants in a low-income section of New York City (US)\" (Conners, 1995). More than a decade later, Conners (1995) suggested that marketing researchers should extend the knowledge in this area and should demonstrate its progress to the society.1960s and 1970s\nMethodology: Consumer research for this study came from both primary and secondary sources. The methodology employed for primary research was qualitative. Four focus groups were conducted in each one of the six selected countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico - resulting in a total of 208 participants. According to IMF (International Monetary Found) the selected countries represent an 84,5 per cent of Latin America region GDP (PPP). Target consumers were women from the emerging socio-economic strata (SES) who:* typically make the bulk of household purchases for food, beverage, personal care, and cleaning products categories; and* shop regularly in at least one type of small-scale retail format.It is important to note that socio-economic segments ratings are relative to each country and presents multiple methods for classifying consumers into SES. We adapted these different methods to produce a common set. Therefore, in this study SES are often referred to in the conventional letter format: A, B, C, D, and E. These letters roughly translate into \"upper class\" (A), \"middle to upper class\" (B), \"lower middle to middle class\" (C), \"lower class\" (D), and \"subsistence level\" (E). These ratings are typically based on a number of variables including asset ownership, occupation, and education. Income does not usually enter into the SES rating since this information is notoriously difficult to verify.Finally, this study draws upon a wealth of general secondary research and data sources: syndicated data sources such as A.C. Nielsen; local retail-oriented associations such as ABRAS in Brazil and ANTAD in Mexico; journal and popular press articles, SES profiles and previously published, relevant consumer studies, and the like.\nBreaking the \"MYTHS\" about emerging consumers: In Latin America, lower income segments represent a significant and growing percentage of fast-moving consumer products consumption. Therefore, for purposes of this study, the \"emerging consumer\" was considered to belong to the low \"C\" or \"D\" SES. A \"typical\" household has one wage earner, who earns anywhere from $US 80 to $US 300 per month in a working class profession. Many emerging consumer households have stay-at-home mothers, who are responsible for making the bulk (but not all) of the household purchases.Our objective was to understand not only what and where these consumers buy, but why they make these choices. Focus groups conducted in this study revealed that while there are many salient differences between emerging consumers across the six countries, several common purchase patterns and behaviours emerged that contradict the conventional wisdom about these consumers. These similarities allow to analysed emerging consumers all together - as an unique segment - comparing to consumer groups from upper SES. However, a closer look into low-income consumer segment indicates that there are probably many meaningful differences that make possible to discriminate sub-segments based on variables such as size and stability of income. Next we will look at the \"truth\" about emerging consumers, in relation to six common myths found in previous research literature.Myth No. 1: low-income consumers have little money to spend\nConclusions: opportunities, challenges and further research in emerging consumers field: Emerging consumers in Latin America represent roughly 50-60 per cent of the population and approximately 30-40 per cent of the purchasing power. This segment in aggregate spends a significant amount on food, beverage, personal care, and cleaning products; individually, low-income households spend a much higher percentage of income on consumer goods. So, although having significantly smaller per capita purchasing power, lower segments are very relevant when it comes to consumer products.In summary, research across six Latin American countries breaks six common myths about emerging consumers. Although \"poor\" relative to the upper SES, these consumers spend a great deal of money on consumer products. When shopping, they follow a quite rational and sophisticated behaviour as they seek to reconcile preferences with their economic reality. They have a distinct set of product and format needs - which does not necessarily include whatever is lowest cost, credit, or responding to shelf prices. The personal relationships and sense of community they seek is a strong incentive to shop in small-scale retail formats. Furthermore, differences within emerging consumers imply that companies - both manufacturers and retailers - need a differentiated proposition to address the needs of this group. Also sub-segments could be identified among emerging consumers, based on economic or behavioural patterns (not necessarily on a geographical or country criteria).The findings from this research identified several avenues for further research. In relation to consumers, further investigation is necessary to understand how the product offering adjusts to their needs. Segmentation is required in order to identify the needs of different consumers' clusters. Research should also be conducted in order to understand how retailers' different value offers adjust to the different segment needs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The research objective was to understand what low-income or emerging consumers living in the Latin American region understand as value when considering retail offerings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology employed for primary research was qualitative. Six of the major markets were selected: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. Four focus groups were conducted in each country, resulting of a total of 208 participants. Target consumers were women from the emerging socio-economic strata (SES). Secondly, this study relies upon a wide selection of secondary research and data sources: syndicated data sources such as A.C. Nielsen; local retail associations such as ABRAS in Brazil and ANTAD in Mexico; journal and popular press articles, SES profiles and previously published, relevant consumer studies.\nFindings: - Rather than emphasizing their limited income, emerging consumers as a group represent a sizable market for consumer products. But they should not be addressed as a single group: peculiarities among them underline the need for further segmentation, as in higher income segments. Their needs should be better defined as basic instead of just simple, and they do not just go for the lowest prices or second brands, as they have marked preferences that characterize them. This also reflects in their shopping habits, which partly explains the resilience of the traditional/small format retailers. The findings underline these segments' relevance for consumer products, their rational behaviour as they try to reconcile their preferences with their economic reality, and how this explains their distinct set of products and format requirements.\nPractical implications: - Marketers and retailers interested in catering to lower-income segments will find clues to understanding the preferences, habits and needs of these segments that represent a significant portion of emerging markets.\nOriginality/value: - Conclusions are presented here in the form of six common myths on emerging consumers that are contradicted by the findings. The relevance of this study comes not only from the significant size of this market but also from the possibility of marketers to emphasize the social contribution of business.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
End-user perspectives on use of project extranets in construction organisations
|
[
"Project management",
"Internet",
"Electronic commerce"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With the proliferation of the internet, companies across several industries are increasingly leveraging the internet to achieve competitive advantage (Cheng et al., 2003). The construction industry is no exception. Web-based tools such as project extranets are being used to manage construction projects. Such tools can be used to monitor, control, manipulate and store project information and to make it available to all participants of the construction supply chain (Alshawi and Ingirige, 2002). Examples of web-based tools include a computer-mediated tendering system for services or contracts, purchasing of materials via the internet by a contractor, project extranets for project management and specifying products online by a manufacturer (ITCBP Intelligence, 2002). All these web-based tools can be encompassed under a single banner of e-commerce tools for construction as they facilitate trading, exchange of data and information and the automation of the business processes and workflows (Kalakota and Whinston, 1996).Earlier research studies (Ruikar et al., 2001; Anumba and Ruikar, 2002) and recent industry and research publications have documented the possible benefits and business opportunities for companies using e-commerce tools such as project extranets. However, the results of a recent survey (Ruikar et al., 2002) have shown that the construction industry has been relatively cautious in using the internet to conduct day-to-day business. As with most technologies, it can be difficult to gauge the quantitative return on investment (ROI) from using such tools and project extranets are no exception. Also, since the technology is relatively new there is a limited availability of information or feedback on the tools' performance on previous construction projects. Hence, there is an element of risk involved (not knowing what to expect), which most construction companies are not willing to take. However, there are a number of technology-oriented construction companies that have successfully managed construction projects using web-based project management tools such as project extranets. It is, therefore, essential to examine the effects of incorporating project extranet applications into the business processes of these end-user construction companies.Case studies were conducted to examine the impact of one such project extranet application on the business processes of its end-user companies. The case study application is one of UK's leading project extranet applications and has been identified as Product A in this paper. This paper presents the findings of the case studies and covers the following four topics:1. drivers for successful implementation of project extranets within end-user organisations;2. effects of project extranets on traditional processes of end-user organisations;3. end-user viewpoint on the benefits of using project extranets; and4. end-user viewpoint on barriers to implementation of these tools within the industry.\nCase study background: Currently there are several web-based project management tools available on the market. These tools have the same primary goal - management of project data and documents. The tool selected for the case studies (Product A) is amongst the market leaders in UK (Alshawi and Ingirige, 2002) and has a well established end-user base who have used the tool to manage several construction projects. Product A is a project extranet tool that allows construction industry professionals to collaborate with other project partners using web technologies. The framework of the application is such that it facilitates management of construction projects and provides structured access to all project and project-related documents or information. It also generates a permanent database of all project data that includes drawings, revisions, comments made to prompt such revisions, documents, meeting minutes, progress on site, site photographs and other project-related data. Using Product A, members of the construction supply chain can communicate and archive information (records of what was done, when, by whom, etc.) throughout the lifecycle of a construction project.The case studies were carried out in the following two stages:1. initial review process; and2. impact review process.The initial review process involved the analysis and detailed study of Product A. This was based on a thorough literature review of product and process information obtained from different sources within participating organisations (e.g. promotional brochures, demonstration CDs, training brochures/user guides, and hands-on usage of the application to study its functionality and working, etc.). Semi-structured telephone interviews were also carried out with Product A staff in order to capture key company and product-specific information. Such information provided an in-depth insight into the background, scope and functionality of Product A.For the impact review process, end-users of the case study applications were interviewed. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted for this purpose and each interview lasted between an hour and an hour and a half. This was done to assess the impact of the case study project extranet on its end-user's business processes. The end-user companies interviewed for case studies were randomly selected from a list provided by the application service provider (ASP). Table I gives an overview of the end-user companies interviewed.During the interviews, the participants were encouraged to elaborate on topics, if deemed necessary. The interviews were recorded with the full consent of the participants and the data was then transcribed and documented. Analysis of the data was carried out qualitatively. The next section presents the main case study findings.\nMain case study findings: Drivers for technology adoption\nSummary and conclusions: This paper has shown with the help of case studies, the effects of project extranet applications on the business processes of end-user construction-sector companies. End-user companies have accrued benefits in terms of improved project performance by removing redundant processes. Technologies such as project extranets facilitate the construction process and increase the probability that the project will meet its target cost and time schedule. In this respect, project extranets contribute towards improving project performance.The application of the technology adoption cycle for project extranets in construction indicates that the technology is still within the early adoption phase in the industry. Findings show that management buy-in is vital for implementation of project extranets within construction organisations. The companies interviewed are amongst the early adopters of this technology and have used it to improve business benefits and gain competitive advantage. For project extranets to be widely adopted it is essential to get buy-in from the early majority. It is possible to encourage the early majority to adopt such tools when they see \"visionaries\" and \"market leaders\" such as those within this case study, benefiting from the tool and leading the way to its wider adoption.Adoption of any technology brings about change and is therefore likely to be met with resistance. The case studies indicate that cultural issues are one of the major barriers to implementing project extranets within construction. ASPs should be aware that the construction industry is a conservative industry and does not welcome change easily. The change must be introduced gradually. The tool should be developed by staff who have a full understanding of the construction process and its complexities. It should be easy to implement and use. Software tools that \"do too much\" or are complex to use, are not easily adopted by the industry. Therefore, ASPs and software vendors must be careful not to develop technology-led solutions that force end-user organisations to drastically change their methods of working. They need to fully understand that the technology tool they develop is merely a facilitator of the process and not the process itself. Currently, collaboration tools like the one used within this case study, work well, because of their minimal impact on individual businesses. Current industry practice for adoption of e-commerce tools requires software vendors to change or modify their solutions to meet individual company needs. Such practice may work in the short-term, but has certain limitations in that the end-users are not necessarily making full use of the technology and hence not deriving full benefits from it. Instead of regarding e-commerce as an extension of IT and fitting it into the existing business processes, construction companies need to recognise that it is a radically different approach to conducting business and therefore should explore new processes and opportunities, which may only be possible because of e-commerce. E-commerce should not be viewed as a \"passing phase\". The early adopters warn that e-commerce is here to stay and it will not be long before it becomes an industry-wide norm.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Web-based technologies such as project extranets have introduced a new concept for communication and collaboration during construction projects. Project extranets have been used in the industry for some time now to manage information and document flows throughout the lifecycle of construction projects. Very few end-user companies already using project extranets have documented and disseminated information about the implications of using this technology in terms of the impact on their businesses, benefits incurred and possible drawbacks. This paper aims to present findings from the UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology is case studies conducted with end-users of a leading project extranet application in the UK.\nFindings: - Findings suggest that some of the perceived drawbacks of using project extranets are in fact not viewed as drawbacks by end-user companies. Also, the benefits incurred appear to outweigh some of the issues. The end-user organisations believe that an increasing number of organisations will be encouraged to use project extranets when they see \"visionaries\" and \"market leaders\" such as themselves, benefiting from the technology and leading the way to its wider adoption.\nOriginality/value: - Wider dissemination of this knowledge will encourage more construction companies to adopt the technology which has a proven record of success on projects for which it has been used. The paper highlights the drivers for the adoption of this technology and its impact on end-user business processes. It also documents the end-user viewpoint on the benefits and drawbacks of using project extranets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Brand credibility, customer loyalty and the role of religious orientation
|
[
"Pakistan",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Brand loyalty",
"Marketing competitiveness",
"Relationship marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Customer experiences are major driving forces behind their decision-making related to brand re-purchase and re-use. Majority of companies have failed to adopt the marketing mix that dwells upon the needs of the consumers, as the customer would love to buy the way he wants it to. These companies misunderstand the power of the present-day customer and are unable to assure them. As a result, the customer becomes unsatisfied and may sometimes be over-promised. All this, directly and indirectly, affects the credibility of the brand and the customer's loyalty towards it.As a starting point, trust-building is the most basic yet significant milestone facing a brand manufacturer. Customer satisfaction develops trustworthiness of the brand with the consumer. They, as a result, start perceiving better quality from the manufacturer, welcome any modifications and innovations into the products and show devotion towards any new products from the same brand manufacturer. Both trustworthiness and perceived quality lead towards brand credibility. Customers' perceived value of the product is dependent on three significant stages: pre-purchase expectations, during transaction experiences and post-purchase experiences. Special efforts are made by brand managers to provide better and efficient services to its customers in order to develop a long-term credibility.Literature contains numerous studies that have found positive relationships between trustworthiness - brand credibility, perceived quality - brand credibility and brand credibility - customer loyalty. These relationships are theoretically and empirically justified in various studies conducted around the globe. What these relationships fail to account for is the emotional aspect of it. Customers having different religious views may respond differently towards a brand. Brands not conforming to an individual or society's religious beliefs may not get positive response from them. Therefore, the present study utilizes this potential and reality-based aspect of brand selection and utilization to provide an insight into the relationships between trustworthiness, perceived quality, brand credibility and customer loyalty; incorporating the religious thoughts and beliefs of the customers.Religious orientation[1] plays a vital role in countries like Pakistan, where Islamic thoughts prevail and any subsequent product positioning that contradicts their beliefs may lose its credibility as well as loyalty of the customers. We coin up the term \"religious orientation\" to account for the choices of people in accordance to their religious views, where they may develop some sort of non-acceptance for brands basically owned by non-Muslims or thought to be non-conforming to their religious beliefs. As such, they may have doubts about the ingredients of the product or they may think that the actual profits will end up to the people for whom they have an aversion/dislike. To be clearer on the customers' perception on this issue, let's have the example of Pepsi Cola. PEPSI is considered to be the acronym for \"Pay Every Penny to Save Israel\". Although wrong[2], the conceptions in this regard tilt the customers' attitude towards alternate beverages.The above discussion clearly shows that \"religious orientation\" is an important aspect of customers' choices and therefore must be incorporated into marketing models dealing with brand's credibility and customers' loyalty towards the brand.Rest of the paper is organized as: Section 2 discusses the conceptual framework of the study. Section 3 focuses on review of the literature and hypotheses development. Section 4 describes the research methods employed in the study, followed by Section 5 which presents the results of the research. Section 6 discusses the findings of the paper, the implications and also mentions the limitations of the study.\n2 Conceptual framework: 2.1 Theory of planned behavior\n3 Review of literature and hypotheses development: 3.1 Brand credibility\n4 Method: 4.1 Experimental design\n5 Results: 5.1 Exploratory factor analysis\n6 Discussion: 6.1 Summary of the findings and their implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study brand credibility, customer loyalty and the impact of religious orientation in the Pakistani setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In a study of 263 respondents, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted in order to check the fit of the data and the presence of common method variance. Correlation and hierarchical regression analysis was performed to evaluate the hypothesized relationships between the variables.\nFindings: - Significant and positive relationships were observed between trustworthiness and brand credibility, perceived quality and brand credibility, brand credibility and customer loyalty, religious orientation and customer loyalty. Brand credibility was also found to mediate the relationship between trustworthiness, perceived quality and customer loyalty. Religious orientation was observed to moderate the relationship between trustworthiness and brand credibility.\nOriginality/value: - The paper evaluates brand credibility and customer loyalty in relation to trustworthiness and perceived value in a Pakistani setting. Religious orientation is a term coined up for this research and its impact as a moderator is also evaluated.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Policing class and race in urban America
|
[
"United States of America",
"Policing",
"Social class",
"Race",
"Social control",
"Police force strength",
"Conflict theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Social scientists have long tried to identify what determines police force strength, especially in the USA (Jackson, 1989; Koper et al., 2001; Sever, 2003; Stults and Baumer, 2007). Conflict theory (Turk, 1969) is a core theoretical strand explaining police force strength, and it has two main variants. The first attributes increases in the number of police officers to class conflict and the second to racial conflict (D'Alessio et al., 2005). Specifically, the class perspective argues that increased economic disparities result in heightened police presence, while racial conflict theorists argue that enhanced police force strength is due to greater racial and ethnic minority threat. Considerable support has been found for both the class perspective (Jacobs, 1979; Harrington, 1983; Jacobs and Helms, 1997; Kent and Jacobs, 2005) and the race perspective (Liska, 1992; Brandl et al., 1995; Sharp, 2006), with support for the race perspective being more consistent (Koper et al., 2001; Kane, 2003; D'Alessio et al., 2005).Within the conflict theory strand, the class perspective (Quinney, 1975; Chambliss and Seidman, 1982) and the race perspective (Blalock, 1967; Carter, 1987; Kane, 2003) tend to be kept separate under the premises of having \"unique measures and associated underlying logic\" (McCarthy et al., 2013). Even though both perspectives share the assumption that the police protect the interests of dominant groups (Weber, 1978; Chambliss, 1994; Brandl et al., 1995), most researchers persist in treating class and racial factors separately in assessing the determinants of police force strength (Jackson and Carroll, 1981; Jacobs and Helms, 1997; Sever, 2001; Holmes et al., 2008 are notable exceptions). As a result, insufficient attention has been paid to how the interplay of class and race affect police staffing. This is unfortunate because class and race intersect and consolidate one another (Blau and Blau, 1982; Chambliss, 1994; Collins, 2000) and it is the effect of this class-race interplay that scholars should be more attentive to.By building upon a recent article that assesses the determinants of police force strength for larger cities in the USA (Sharp, 2006), this paper attempts to rectify the aforementioned oversight by merging conflict theory's class perspective and race perspective in an effort to explain police force size. Elaine B. Sharp's article was selected because of its theoretical advance in exploring the interplay of class and race in determining police force size. The article is the first study that \"assesses the potential impact of all the elements of conflict theory (racial threat, inequality, and racial disturbance) on contemporary police strength\" (Sharp, 2006, p. 296). However, the article is unable to unveil the complex ways class inequality and racial threat influence police force size and, instead, concludes that race, not class, affects police force size. Using the same data as the original article, this study presents alternative regression models and reveals a more nuanced relationship between class and race than previously reported.\nTheory: Testing both functionalist and conflict theory explanations, Sharp (2006, p. 92) questions the \"broad-brush depictions made by critics of the criminal justice state\", which presume that US police departments have grown dramatically in size across the board. Instead, she seeks to demonstrate that the size of police forces differs by city.Functionalist explanations (workload demands, organizational innovation opportunities, fiscal capacity, population density, and institutional legacies)\nData and methods: Data source\nResults: Sharp's model\nConclusion: Few conflict theorists have attempted to integrate class inequality and racial threat in order to explain the strength of police forces (Jackson and Carroll, 1981; Jacobs and Helms, 1997; Sever, 2001 are notable exceptions). According to the racial economic inequality version of conflict theory, \"social control efforts in the form of enhanced police strength are expected where economic disparities between racial groups are greater\" (Sharp, 2006, p. 294, emphasis original). Sharp (2006) argues that no support has been found for such a theory and her own study is no exception. This paper argues that her findings of the irrelevance of class factors - including the racial economic inequality variable - are due to a model specification problem and alternative regression models are presented. The average poverty rate is interpreted as a measure of class threat (Chamlin, 1989) and a hypothesis about the interplay of class threat and racial economic inequality in explaining police force size is formulated. Alternative regression models demonstrate, successfully, how racial economic inequality interacts with poverty (class threat) and how they jointly affect police force size. This adds further nuance to the argument of the complex causal interaction of class and race and supports the theoretical shift within conflict theory that blends class inequality and racial threat to explain police force size (Jackson and Carroll, 1981). The alternative models also include a more appropriate measure of fiscal capacity than the original regression models. Furthermore, to be consistent with the current literature on racial context and police force size, this study controls for the effect of population density.The following conclusions are drawn: first, cities are more likely to heighten policing if they encounter high degrees of poverty and racial economic inequality at the same time. A combination of substantial poverty and racial economic inequality is likely to be understood as a serious threat and that enhances the pressure on city governments to increase police force strength. Second, after properly taking into account the effects of inequality, poverty, fiscal capacity, and population density, one of the central findings of Sharp's study, i.e. racial threat measured by the presence of minority population causes police force enhancement - is no longer supported by the empirical evidence. This surprising finding could be the result of including too many independent variables in the regression model with a relatively small number of observations. It is recommended that future studies gather data from more cities and increase the number of observations in the regression analysis. Third, the effects of racial insurgency on police staffing - another key finding of the original study - turn out to be much weaker than reported in the original article. The alternative models also better estimate the effects of racial threat and racial disturbance.Evidence provided here underscores the importance of racial economic inequality and class threat, and thus, contributes to understanding the complex law enforcement politics in larger US cities. In short, both class and race matter. What is more, class and race interact. Racial segregation, for example, increases racial inequality by concentrating poverty and other social problems, such as crime, in disadvantaged minority communities. Furthermore, the intersection of minority status and poverty continues to give rise to definitions of a \"dangerous class\" that, in turn, becomes the primary target for urban police activity (Monkkonen, 1981). Racial segregation, concentrated poverty, and disproportionate levels of crime in central cities remain defining characteristics of urban America (Squires and Kubrin, 2005).Additionally, these facts and our results grant further support to the fact that social scientists need to be more attentive to intersectionality (Collins, 2000). Race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other social divisions are not independent of one another, instead, they intersect on many levels and buttress systematic inequality. This is evident by the scholarship on gender, ethnicity, race, and class identities and inequalities (Anthias, 2001; Anthias et al., 1992). Our theories, data, methodologies, and policies must reflect this fact (Squires and Kubrin, 2005). The literature on police force strength, for example, rarely addresses the issue of gender and then only indirectly with variables such as female headed households (Levitt, 1997; Sever and McSkimming, 2004). The same goes for this study. There is, obviously, work to be done.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to integrate conflict theory's class and race perspectives to explain police force size in large cities in the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data on US cities with populations of 250,000 or greater (n=64) are used to test whether class and/or racial factors impact police force size. The data are analyzed using OLS regression.\nFindings: - This study finds that class and race factors combine to impact police force size concurrently. By adjusting the model specifications of a recent article, which concludes police force size in large US cities is determined by racial factors and not class, this study shows that two class-related factors - racial economic inequality and poverty - significantly influence police force size. Additionally, this analysis calls into question the importance of racial factors; specifically, the threat caused by minority presence and a city's history of racially coded violence.\nOriginality/value: - Few conflict theorists have attempted to integrate class and race in order to explain police force size. The results of this study show that racial economic inequality interacts with poverty (class threat) and that they jointly affect police force size. This adds further nuance to the argument of the complex causal interaction of intersectionality and supports theoretical, methodological, and public policy shifts that blend class inequality and racial threat to explain police force size.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
When and how country reputation stimulates export volume
|
[
"Exports",
"Empirical study",
"Imports",
"Trade"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Companies and countries rely on international trade - exports in particular - to grow (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2003, 2011). As a result, many managers and policy makers are looking for new ways to stimulate export volume. For example, in his state of the Union address in 2010, President Obama announced the National Export Initiative, which was designed to increase gross domestic product, create jobs, and improve public welfare by helping US companies sell in foreign countries. The USA is hardly alone in spearheading these sorts of efforts; Jamaica, Australia, Korea, Turkey, Greece, and many others have export initiatives of their own.\nWhen and how country reputation affects exports: It is no secret that individual corporations can develop a reputation for being a trustworthy business partner, or in some cases, an untrustworthy one. Corporate reputation, or stakeholders' perceptions of a company's ability (relative to competitors) to create value along dimensions that are relevant to the exchange context (Rindova et al., 2005), is an asset that can generate substantial benefits for the company and its customers (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990) because it reduces uncertainty about present and future exchanges (Wernerfelt, 1988) that buyers must confront when deciding among potential sellers. When the exchange environment is uncertain, buyers often search more carefully for information about product quality before making a decision, and such searching frequently involves attending to reputational signals (Erdem et al., 2006). Thus, under such conditions, reputation building activities are especially likely to increase perceptions of quality and expected utility (Erdem et al., 2006).\nMethod: We test the hypotheses using the well-established structural gravity model of international trade. In this section, we review the structural gravity model and show how we extend the model to capture the effects of country reputation. Then, we describe the measures of the key variables employed in our econometric model.\nResults: We first estimate the impact of products and people reputation on export volume for aggregate manufacturing, and for nine manufacturing industries classified at the two-digit ISIC level (Table III). Several general properties of the estimates from Table III stand out. First, with an R2 statistic ranging from 0.74 to 0.97, our results confirm the strong explanatory power of the gravity model. Our estimates of the coefficients of the standard gravity variables are in accordance with estimates from prior studies. In particular, we find that distance (DIST) is a significant impediment to export volume, but that sharing a common border (BRDR) and having a common language (LANG) promote export volume. In terms of magnitude and significance, the estimates of the effects of bilateral distance, contiguous borders, and sharing a common official language are readily comparable to the corresponding summary indexes obtained by Head and Mayer (2014) using meta-analysis based on 2,508 estimates from 159 gravity papers. The estimate for colonial ties (CLNY) is not statistically significant for most manufacturing industries. This result is consistent with the findings from Anderson and Yotov (2010, 2015), who speculate that the insignificant estimate of the effect of colonial ties is due to the fact that former colonial relationships are losing their influence on trade in recent years giving way to comparative advantage forces and trade policy (Anderson and Yotov, 2010, 2015). In sum, the estimates we obtain for the standard gravity variables are highly consistent with prior research.\nDiscussion: The notion that country reputation can contribute to international trade is intuitively appealing, yet to date, it has been based mostly on conjecture and anecdotal evidence. This is the only study to our knowledge that empirically tests the relationship between country reputation and export volume using one of the most successful models in the economics literature, the gravity model of international trade. The evidence supports our prediction that a country's reputation for its products and its people is associated with increased export volume to the country in which the reputation is held. We find this result even after accounting for widely known drivers of international trade and country specific effects.\nLimitations and conclusion: Our study cannot claim to fully demonstrate causality between country reputation and export volume. However, we have taken steps to mitigate the risk of endogeneity present in so many studies of this kind. First, we use export volume figures from two years after our measure of country reputation; thus we eliminate the possibility that export volume could cause country reputation from two years prior. Second, we apply an advanced econometric model that includes control variables which explain more than 90 percent of variables in export volume. These controls include all possible fixed characteristics of the individual exporter and individual importer country, as well as characteristics of the country pair (e.g. distance between countries, common language). The rather substantial effects we find are significant over and above those effects and are robust at the overall and industry level.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between bilateral country reputation and export volume to the country in which that reputation is held.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The unique bilateral data set consists of 861 country pairs. Country reputation measures are from a global survey, in which respondents in 20 countries rate the reputation for products and people of 50 other countries. This data set is then analyzed against actual export data for each country-pair using the well-established structural gravity model of international trade.\nFindings: The authors find that each improvement in a world ranking of a country's reputation for products (in a target country) is associated with a 2 percent increase in exports to that particular country; the effect is equivalent to the importing country decreasing a tariff by as much as 2.9 percent. Furthermore, the authors find that different aspects of country reputation - for its products and its people - attenuate distinct forms of uncertainty, and thereby stimulate export volume in distinct ways.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study shows that the relationship between country reputation and export volume is a substantive and empirically valid topic of study. For public policy makers looking to stimulate exports to a specific country, improving their respective country's reputation in that country appears to be a viable alternative to other levers (e.g. trade negotiations, free trade agreements). For business leaders at international companies, the findings suggest that companies may consider country reputation as a factor when choosing to which countries they wish to expand.\nOriginality/value: The notion that country reputation can contribute to aggregate export volume has intuitive appeal. Yet, aside from research on country-of-origin effects which has concentrated on the individual consumer level, the notion of country reputation contributing to aggregate effects has so far been based mostly on conjecture and anecdotal evidence. This is the only study to the authors' knowledge that empirically tests this relationship using a bilateral measure of reputation as a determinant of export volume within one of the most successful empirical frameworks, the structural gravity model of international trade. The findings suggest that for many countries, their reputation may contribute to billions of dollars in export volume.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Challenging trickle-down approach: Modelling and simulation of public expenditure and human development - the case of Pakistan
|
[
"Human resource development",
"Public policy",
"Public finance",
"Economic growth",
"Pakistan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The concept of human development (HD) puts people at the center stage of all aspects of the development planning. It is a process of enlarging people's choices by expanding human capabilities and functioning allowing them \"greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services\"[1]. At all levels of development the three essential capabilities for HD are: for people to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable and to have a decent standard of living. If these basic capabilities are not achieved, many choices are simply not available and many opportunities remain inaccessible[2].HD is as an end in itself and a means to achieve higher productivity (Streeten, 1994). Considering public policy, the level of public spending on HD is the key policy tool for the government to pass on the benefits of economic growth to the economically deprived segments of the society and reflects the level of government's commitment to the desired level of HD in the country (Anand and Ravallion, 1993; Chakraborty, 2003). However, the strength of this effect depends entirely on the effectiveness of expenditure targeting and delivery (Ranis et al., 2000). On the other hand from individual perspective, effective distribution of the increased income from economic growth presents a strong impact on HD since poorer households spend a higher proportion of their income on food, education as well as health which directly promote HD (Birdsall et al., 1995; Ranis et al., 2000).Education is one of the various components of HD which not only creates enabling environment but also has positive impact on economic growth. Evidence suggests that education has strong effects on labor productivity, faster technology adoption and technological change (Butt, 1984; Birdsall et al., 1995; Keller, 2006). Health has also demonstrated positive effects on economic growth beyond its inherent desirability as an end in it. Improvement in health and nutrition improves productivity and income (Arora, 2001; Chang and Ying, 2006). Higher and effective allocation of public resources in education and health services by advanced Asian countries hold useful lessons for developing countries like Pakistan (Mundle, 1998; Rao, 1998). Improvement in current level of education and health in a society not only affect level of HD but may also have strong positive impact on future level of education, health and demographics as well as on economic growth and distribution of income ensuring equity (Behrman and Wolfe, 1987; Anand and Ravallion, 1993; Psacharopoulos, 1994; Gradstein and Justman, 2002; Glewwe and Jacoby, 2004).Pakistan presents a paradoxical case. It is 6th largest country by population[3] but is placed at 135th position out of 177 countries in terms of HD Index and Education Index[4]. Since, 1981 it has a good 5 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate but its HD indicators have been consistently poor as a result of poor public spending on HD; less than 2 percent of GDP on education and less than 1 percent on health during this period. Ranis et al. (2000) label this phenomenon as \"economic growth lopsided\" nation and argue that there may be various reasons including government corruption, low social expenditures, or inequitably distributed incomes. Their results suggest that good economic growth not accompanied by increases in HD may prove to be ultimately unsustainable. Moreover, studies suggest that Pakistan may have lost considerable earnings due to under investment in HD (Birdsall et al., 1993; Husain, 2005).Population has emerged as the most critical factor in a country's development planning. Knowing the size of a country's population and its development over time is on one hand fundamental to estimate the quantity of goods and services that will be required to meet future needs of human centered development, and on the other hand is also necessary to assess the productive capacity of her economy and its impact on the demographic transition. It is therefore, imperative to have better estimate of country's population cohorts as a basis for its development planning. The processes that generate the momentum of population development intertwine various quantifiable and unquantifiable factors through a complex network of nonlinear feedbacks that govern these processes involving delays. This study focuses on the basic causal structure of the system and includes unquantifiable variables instead of ignoring when they are important (Randers, 2000). This study develops system dynamics (SD) based model to estimate population, primary education rate and access to basic health care under assumed different levels of public spending on education and health to estimate its impact on different indicators of HD and consequential impact on containment of population.Apart from the introduction presented in section 1, section 2 depicts the modeling framework, introduces the model and data sources to estimate parameters, section 3 discusses the model validation and calibration, section 4 presents the policy design, section 5 converses the analysis, and finally section 6 is about the conclusions drawn and policy implications.\n2 The model - framework and description: The conceptual framework of the model is based on the demographic transition theory (Thompson, 1929; Notestein, 1945) and empirical observations which suggest a definite relationship between population change and socio-economic development and provide an effective generalized picture of the population development on an aggregated level that serves the purpose of the model (Pathak and Murty, 1982; Sathar, 1992; Aziz, 1994; Qureshi and Adamchak, 1996; Bryant, 2007).The births, deaths and net migration are three flows that bring changes in level of human population in a country over time. Demographic literature has identified a variety of determinants of human births and deaths. However, any population model that tries to include each separate determinant soon becomes hopelessly confusing (Meadows et al., 1972). To avoid such problem without compromising the fundamental objective, this model[5] is also an effort to represent simplified causal structure. The Figure 1 shows the \"demographic feedback\" loops[6] \"R 1\" and \"B 1\" which represent common knowledge that births increase and deaths decrease population (Meadows et al., 1972).Centuries back, Malthus had struck a pessimistic note in predicting misery and poverty as natural outcome of unchecked exponential growth in population (Chandna, 1998). A relatively high growth momentum of Pakistan's population is also challenging that may have serious implications for her sustainable development. Controlling the total fertility rate will help contain population growth. The theories of fertility decline and empirical demographic studies of Pakistan advocate that higher literacy levels, better access to basic healthcare, control on child mortality, higher contraceptive prevalence rate, better economic growth and income distribution help reduce fertility rate reducing births per year helping containment of population (Flegg, 1982; Pathak and Murty, 1982; Behrman and Wolfe, 1984; Sathar, 1992; Aziz, 1994; Qureshi and Adamchak, 1996; de la Croix and Doepke, 2003; Haupt and Thomas, 2004; Bryant, 2007).The feedback loop \"B 2\" in Figure 2 shows that thread of fertility decline and HD literature which suggests that higher public spending on education will make more per capita education services available resulting into improved adult literacy rate after some delay that improves the level of human development. The consequent cognitive development will improve the reproductive behavior of the couples. Moreover, literate people are observed to delay marriage. The resultant decreased total fertility rate will help contain the population, please see Pathak and Murty (1982) and Aziz (1994).The studies suggest that HD level, employment and improved economic growth coupled with its equitable distribution delay/reduce fertility. Moreover, improved per capita income improves access to social services improving HD level (Pathak and Murty, 1982; Aziz, 1994; Qureshi and Adamchak, 1996; Ranis et al., 2000; Bryant, 2007). The feedback loops \"B 3\" and \"B 4\" in Figure 3 operationalize these studies into the model. Moreover, the dotted links reflect the empirical observations that working population has delayed and reduced fertility (Aziz, 1994; Bryant, 2007).The Figure 4 shows feedback loops \"B 5\" and \"B 6\" that signify the role of public expenditure on health to provide per capita health services to help improve life expectancy as well as to reduce mortality rate. The higher infant and under-five mortality rate in Pakistan and other developing countries are one of the reasons of higher fertility rates. Couples are observed to have more children so that few may survive considering higher mortality rate (Flegg, 1982; Wolfe and Behrman, 1982; Sathar, 1992).The loops \"R 2\" to \"R 5\" illustrate the reinforcing dimension of \"virtuous cycle\" (Ranis et al., 2000) (Figure 5). The loops \"R 2\" and \"R 3\" depict the supply-side management of HD which suggests that increase in public spending on education and health will improve the supply these services and consequently will improve the level of HD. While the loops \"R 4\" and \"R 5\" portray the demand-side management which suggests that an equitable increase in per capita income improves access to the social services improving the level of HD.The simulation model is developed using Vensim(r)[7] and gets its inspiration from T21 of MI[8]. The model assumes GDP as exogenous. For a given GDP, tax rate policy and consequent given budgetary revenue the model objective is to assess the impact of different rates of economic growth and HD related public expenditure on different HD indicators. Heavy reliance on indirect taxes and persistently low tax-GDP ratio despite measures taken by successive governments indicate a narrow tax base (Pasha and Iqbal, 1994; Pasha, 1995; Ahmed, 1998; Fasih and Swati, 2006). Assuming that pro-growth policies are successful, this study attempts to see if growth is sufficient condition for improvement in HD. Moreover, improvement in HD level may also supplement GDP growth in future, which is missing in this study and would be addressed in future studies. However, the current poor HD level in Pakistan and continuity of poor allocation to HD during last over 25 years the limitation of exogenous GDP may not materially affect the model objective and its robustness.\n3 Model validation and calibration: The SD models are causal models and should generate the right behavior for right reasons. The structural validity of the model comes from the descriptive knowledge about the system structure and the comparison of the model behavior with the real system behavior establishes the behavioral validity (Barlas, 1989; Barlas, 1996; Sterman, 2000). The causal structure of the model as described in section 2 is grounded in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature which establishes its structural validity. The data sources to estimate model parameters and to initialize the model for this study are the World Development Indicators of the World Bank, the United Nations' World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, and various issues of Pakistan Statistical Year Book of the Government of Pakistan. The model time horizon is 1981-2050. The model has been calibrated to represent the historical time series data of 1981-2005 which establishes its behavioral validity. While, simulation output for 2006-2050 will depict the expected behavior of different variables of interest under different policy options.\n4 Policy design: The SD method seeks to characterize dynamically the behavior pattern of variables of interest over time, which shows how these have evolved and how these might develop given the continuity of current trends. Such a characterization is called \"Reference Mode\" (Sterman, 2000). The current average trend of GDP growth rate and public spending on HD is called reference values. These may also assume values high and low as compared to reference values. The two dimensions of policies may assume three different values resulting into nine different policy scenarios as shown in Table I.The time series data of 1981-2005 indicates an average GDP growth rate of 5 percent and average public spending on HD, i.e. education and health of 2 percent and 1 percent of GDP, respectively. These values are taken as reference. We assume high and low GDP growth rates as 7 percent and 3 percent; high and low public spending on education as 3 percent and 1 percent of GDP; and high and low public spending on health as 2 percent and 0.5 percent of GDP.The scenario 1, 2 and 3 represent the trickle-down approach that the benefits of economic growth will ultimately reach everyone. On the other hand, scenarios 4 and 7 represent the competing \"human development\" approach which requires high allocation to human development even if the economy grows at a relatively lesser rate. The scenario 5 is the \"Reference Mode\" for this study. The comparison of behavior patterns of different indicators of HD under scenarios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 with the behavior pattern under scenario 5 gives likely impact of assumed public policies on HD in Pakistan given different rates of economic growth. If the need be, the behavior pattern of the remaining scenarios will also be discussed.\n5 Analysis: The model was simulated under the assumptions of different scenarios as described in Table I. The following sections present this analysis.5.1 The demographics\n6 Conclusions, policy implications and future research: This study develops a SD based simulation model to understand dynamics of public spending on education, health, and demographic and HD of Pakistan assuming exogenous GDP. Its finding that only high economic growth may not result into better HD indicators is in conflict with the trickle-down approach of economic growth which advocates the economically disadvantaged segments of the society ultimately reap the long-term benefits of economic growth. On the contrary, high spending on education and health will improve HD indicators even if the economy grows at a relatively lower rate. Moreover, it suggests a threshold of 3 percent of sustained economic growth rate as a pre-requisite to plan for HD in Pakistan. These conclusions suggest that the demographic and human development of Pakistan has strong linkages with the public expenditure on HD and weak links with the economic growth. The policy implication of this conclusion is that the government should adhere to high public spending on education and health for HD which is not only an end in itself but is also a must for sustainable development. The future research requires relaxing of exogenous assumption for GDP to make it endogenous to reflect how HD affects total factor productivity in the country to improve GDP in the long run.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Successive governments in Pakistan have been pursuing pro-growth trickle-down approach with the proclaimed intent that benefits of growth will ultimately reach all. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this intent with a systemic model and suggest alternative policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper develops a model of system structure of public expenditure and human development (HD) using System Dynamics method. The theoretical and empirical literature provides the conceptual framework to model the paradoxical case of Pakistan.\nFindings: - The simulation results show that high economic growth may not result into better HD indicators. This is in conflict with the trickle-down approach of economic growth which advocates the economically disadvantaged segments of the society ultimately reap the long-term benefits of economic growth. On the contrary, high spending on education and health will yield better results even if the economy grows at a relatively lower rate. This paper suggests that the demographic and human development of Pakistan has strong linkages with the public expenditure on HD and weak linkages with the economic growth.\nPractical implications: - The paper suggests a threshold of 3 percent of sustained economic growth rate as a pre-requisite to plan for HD in Pakistan. With that in place the government should adhere to high public spending on education and health for HD which is not only an end in itself but is also a must for sustainable development.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper assumes exogenous gross domestic product (GDP). The future research requires relaxing of exogenous assumption for GDP to make it endogenous to reflect two-way feedback relationship of HD and GDP in the long run. Moreover, it will be useful to model the role of HD to promote equitable income distribution in this context where asymmetric income distribution is especially pronounced and may have causal links with HD.\nOriginality/value: - A detailed and robust population cohorts' structure that provides demographic development over time is a unique feature of the model developed for this paper. This is a conscious effort to reflect the causal links of economic growth and HD that involve nonlinearity and delays.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Processes of vulnerability in England? Place, poverty and susceptibility
|
[
"Place",
"Poverty",
"Vulnerability",
"Disasters",
"Process",
"Susceptibility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: On-going conditions of austerity in England give rise to concern regarding the possible perpetration of poverty[1]. The consequent contribution that poverty may make to causative processes of physical and socio-economic vulnerabilities to natural hazards is a matter for urgent attention (Gaillard et al., 2014; UNSDR, 2009a; Lewis and Kelman, 2010; Lewis, 2013b). Disasters are not discrete, isolated phenomena (Wisner et al., 1994, p. 5; Lewis, 1999, pp. xi-xiii; Burton et al., 1968); the pre-conditions they impact, and which they expose, are brought about by processes that have preceded them and which have created their contexts (Lewis, 1999, pp. 27-30; Lewis and Kelman, 2012).\nVulnerability: In disasters terminology, \"vulnerability\" is defined as \"The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard\" (UNISDR, 2009b). Not always regarded as satisfactory (e.g. Wisner, 2009), and persistently interpreted as relating hazard and place, vulnerability is integrated into disaster risk reduction and management. \"Characteristics and circumstances\", therefore, are necessarily required to include those social, commercial or political impositions which may have contributed to vulnerability (Cannon, 2008). Additional impositions, subsequently imposed upon the vulnerable and expressing their \"susceptibility\", have been identified as phenomena additional to vulnerability itself, \"susceptibility\" being retained for the subsequent condition in its own right (Lewis, 2014a, b).\nVulnerability of place: England: As the largest component of the UK, England has a land area of 130,373 square kilometres (50,337 square miles: Encyclopaedia of the Nations, 2014), with coastlines to the east, west and south. Fifty-two-and-a-half million people occupy England (ONS, 2013a) at an average density of 407 per square kilometre, a density higher than that of Japan or India (CIA World Factbook, 2006). The overall population of the UK as a whole is projected to increase from 63.7 to 73.3 million in the next quarter of a century (e.g. ONS, 2013a).\nPoverty: Poverty is more often a topic of concern on behalf of developing countries (e.g. ODI, 2014a; Cranfield et al., 2013).\"The poorest groups\" are identified as the first to suffer from the impacts of environmental hazards related to poor housing conditions (e.g. Hardoy and Satterthwaite, 1989, p. 203),\"low income people\" being the least likely to have access to emergency assistance (Goldstein, 1990, p. 213). In global contexts of natural hazards (UNSDR, 2009a), poverty and vulnerability also are recognised, amongst others, by Baird et al. (1975), Blaikie et al. (1994, pp. 60-61), Lewis (1999, pp. 48 and 154), Wisner et al. (1994, pp. 77-78 and 144) and D'Aragon (2013, p. 2).\nPoverty: contributors, indicators and consequences: Three principal sectors in which processes indicative of accretive poverty have been identified are: incomes, increased living costs and debt; housing, welfare payments and homelessness, and food, nutrition and health, including mental ill-health and other disabilities. Together, they may make for uncomfortable reading, each item being more usually read in separate documents at separate times, but being taken together more closely represents aggregated realities of accretive poverty and of vulnerability that may ensue.\nSusceptibility of the vulnerable: Vulnerability may be either entirely \"place-based\", a physical or psychological condition brought about by political or commercial action or inaction (Lewis and Kelman, 2012), or a combination of these. Whatever the single or combined cause, cases arise where its victims have become susceptible to political or social stigmatisation to the extent of consequential victimisation and cruelty (Hallie, 2001; Lewis, 2014a, b). A definition of susceptibility has been proposed as: \"Social behaviours and political constraints superimposed upon the vulnerable, which may bring about additional depletions of capacity to protect, resist and recover\" (Lewis, 2014a, b); poverty itself, therefore, is no longer \"the last stigma\" (Seymour, 2009b).\nMutuality of poverty and vulnerability: Examples from contemporary and longer-term contexts (Lewis and Kelman, 2012), have demonstrated the extent to which \"vulnerability drivers\" emanate from, amongst other behaviours, greed, the misuse of political and commercial power, mismanagement and incompetence; all of which display social disregard.\nConclusion: This paper has indicated how \"poverty\" represents assemblages of diverse physical, mental, social and economic conditions that contribute to reduced well-being and capacity of individuals, families and communities. In this way, a variety of consequences cause, subscribe to or exacerbate vulnerability to hazards. All of the contributors, indicators and consequences of poverty and vulnerability, examples of which have been identified, therefore need to be acknowledged as eligible for inclusion within the \"characteristics and circumstances\" of the UNISDR (2009b) definition of vulnerability. The definition therefore requires enlargement, not to relate only to the qualifying circumstances of the present but, also, to recent, historic and long-term processes identified as being potentially, directly or indirectly, responsible for those characteristics and circumstances.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to emphasise how vulnerability is not only \"place-based\" and to explore by example how vulnerability to hazards in England may comprise additional economic, social and psychological contributors to poverty. The mutuality of poverty and vulnerability is demonstrated, as are examples of susceptibility of the vulnerable to stigmatic disregard and cruelty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: \"Place-based\" vulnerability is exemplified by coastal vulnerabilities and causes of their increase. Poverty and its causes are explained, followed by examples of possible contributors, indicators and consequences in incomes, living costs and debt; housing welfare and homelessness; food, nutrition, health and mental ill-health. Susceptibility to stigmatic behaviours exacerbate personal vulnerabilities.\nFindings: Dynamics of mutual inter-relationships between poverty and vulnerability are demonstrated. Behavioural responses to either condition by individuals and by society at large, to which those who are vulnerable or in poverty are susceptible, are described in the present and from history.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings form a \"theoretical reality\" upon which some measures may follow. An additional need is identified for long-term social field research to follow adults' and childrens' experiences, and consequences of poverty in vulnerable situations.\nPractical implications: Vulnerability accrues irrevocably between disasters, the results of which may be exposed by disaster impacts.\nSocial implications: Recognition of linkages between economic and social vulnerability and disasters is essential for subsequent action to reduce the impact of disasters upon society.\nOriginality/value: Though vulnerability has been explored for many years, the dynamics of its contributing processes require further explanation before their wider comprehension is achieved.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Integrated resort employee competencies: a Macau perspective
|
[
"Competency",
"Employee development",
"Human resources",
"Integrated resort",
"Mismatch"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent decades, the emergence of \"integrated resorts\" (IRs) has attracted the world's attention due to the significant financial benefits generated by such operations (Eadington and Doyle, 2009). An \"IR\" is a multi-purpose resort offering such facilities as a casino, hotel, convention and shopping centers, exhibition facilities, concert hall, theme parks, museums and leisure sports facilities (Park and Park, 2014, p. 117). Among the benefits of these resorts are the considerable revenue they generate for the owners and local governments. They also create employment opportunities in the community and enhance the appeal and popularity of the destination, thereby attracting more tourists (Eadington and Doyle, 2009; Haven-Tang and Jones, 2006).\nLiterature review: Brief review of integrated resorts in Macau\nMethodology: This exploratory study used a multiple-stage mixed method to gain a holistic understanding of the research inquiries. At Stage 1, the modified Delphi method (Sekayi and Kennedy, 2017), a method for soliciting information from a panel of experts, was used to develop the competency clusters. Four IR experts were invited to provide their perspectives of IR competency and discuss the 25 competency clusters gleaned from previous studies and the face validity of the instrument. In round one, the panel experts were individually asked to brainstorm a list of competencies that an IR entry-level employee should have. In round two, the researchers combined the group responses with the 25 clusters adopted from Spencer and Spencer (1993) and Coll and Zegwaard (2006). The experts were given the composite list of competencies and asked to add, delete or revise the list. In round three, experts' endorsements were solicited by ranking the list of items resulting from round two based on a five-point Likert scale (1 = definitely delete, 5 = definitely keep). In the final fourth round, the group means calculated from round three were presented to experts. The experts were asked to decide to keep or change their scores after comparing with the group means. Consensus was achieved by selecting items rated with a 4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale by at least 75 per cent of the experts (Sekayi and Kennedy, 2017). The Delphi method resulted in 28 clusters with three additional competencies: work ethic (hardworking), obedience to supervisors and raising suggestions to improve efficiency. The initial survey questions were piloted on 52 respondents representing the study's four target groups. Cronbach's alpha analysis was conducted to ensure internal consistency. The Cronbach's alphas of the competency clusters ranged between 0.907 and 0.615. Three competency clusters with a Cronbach's alpha of less than 0.7 were deleted, yielding 25 competency clusters with 67 sub-items. The respondents were asked to rate the importance of each item based on a five-point Likert scale (1 = not important, 5 = extremely important). The second part of the instrument included demographic questions, such as gender, age, and residence. The survey was initially written in English and then translated into traditional Chinese. Back translation was conducted to confirm the accuracy of the translation.\nFindings and discussion: The researchers' utmost goal in data collection was to include IR professionals who held different positions across a variety of departments in the six IRs and college students from diverse majors. Seven hundred questionnaires were distributed among the four target groups, 625 of which were returned after 14 months of data collection, yielding an 89 per cent response rate. Of the 625 returned questionnaires, 29 were eliminated due to incompleteness of more than half of the items, resulting in 596 responses usable for data analysis.\nConclusion: The rapid growth of IRs has created abundant job opportunities in Macau. However, the limited supply of workers and lack of understanding of IRs have made it difficult for IR managers to recruit qualified employees. This study intended to resolve this human capital issue by proposing a competency model specifically for the IR industry and to investigate the perceived competencies gap between IR professionals and college/high school students, who are a potential source of labor for IRs.\nLimitations and future studies: This study contributes to the IR industry by developing a competency model for IR entry-level employees through the insights gleaned from IR professionals in Macau. This model can serve as a pragmatic reference for universities and institutes to check on their curricula's alignment with industry needs. However, this study has several limitations. Due to time and resource constraints, convenience sampling was used, and data were collected in Macau, limiting the generalization of the study. Thus, future studies can extend data collection globally to establish a global IR employee competency model. This study suspected that the culture of Macau could have an impact on the IR competencies; therefore, further study can investigate the role of culture in determining the components of the competency model. The competency model developed from this study is limited to the competencies of IR entry-level employees. Future studies can be extended to the supervisory, managerial, and executive levels to develop a comprehensive view of the competency model for IR.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to develop an employee competency model for integrated resorts (IRs) in Macau through insights gleaned from IR professionals and to investigate whether any differences emerge in competency perception between IR professionals and college and high school students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed-method approach was adopted to answer the research questions. The Delphi approach was used, and four IR experts were invited to refine components of the IR competency for the survey questionnaire. Quantitative data were collected from 596 IR professionals and college/high school students. Fisher's least significant difference test was used to test the competency gaps between groups. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 respondents to gather their comments on the survey results.\nFindings: The IR competency model consists of 15 critical competencies. A strong work ethic and customer service orientation were ranked as important attributes of employee competency among the four target groups. A mismatch in IR competency perceptions emerged among IR managers, employees and students.\nPractical implications: The IR competencies can serve as a pragmatic reference for IRs in terms of employee recruitment and training. This model can also serve as a guideline to ensure the alignment between IR industry needs and the course offerings in higher education institutions in Macau.\nOriginality/value: The IR competencies contribute to resolving human capital issue challenging Macau's IRs and provide insights for Macau's IR stakeholders to improve the IR workforce development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Workplace spirituality governance: impact on customer orientation and salesperson performance
|
[
"Salesforce",
"Customer orientation",
"Sales management",
"Sales strategies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, an increasing number of incidents in which salespeople mistreat customers has damaged customers' confidence in companies. Huge fines have been imposed on a number of companies on charges of mis-selling, which is understood as the engagement of salespersons in \"inappropriate and misleading (unethical) sales behavior that can undermine consumer confidence and cause an individual harm\" (Yi et al., 2012, p. 404).\nTheoretical framework: The relevance of workplace spirituality to sales organizations\nDiscussion: This paper has attempted to make a contribution to the sales management literature by proposing a new system of governance based on workplace spirituality. Unlike the agency system of governance where employees' efforts are directed by the leaders and monitored closely with the use of extrinsic rewards and punishments, workplace spirituality governance aligns leaders' vision with that of employees and provides autonomy to employees to achieve that vision. Employees collectively work to fulfill that vision by leading each other in and across tasks or projects and sharing responsibility to complete those tasks. Employees in the collective group exert and receive social pressure to work toward that common vision to which they are strongly aligned to. Thus, directive leadership and monitoring mechanisms may be totally unnecessary in this system of governance.\nConclusion: In sum, this paper provides that workplace spirituality-based governance is built on the essential systems of:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Many sales organizations use traditional control systems such as agency theory, which entails motivating salespeople using rewards and punishments, as if they are mechanical beings that are devoid of emotions and spirit. Research shows that such control leads to dissatisfied customers, disengaged salespeople and poor organizational reputation. The purpose of this study is to present governance based on workplace spirituality as an alternative approach, wherein salespeople's emotional and spiritual development is given primary importance. This is proposed to result in favorable performance and behaviors in alignment with organizational and customer goals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study builds a conceptual model from an extended literature review.\nFindings: The developed conceptual model for workplace spirituality-based governance in sales organization consists of organizational structural factors, such as control and reward systems, as antecedents of psychological experiences of workplace spirituality in salespeople. These experiences are then proposed to result in salespeople's increased customer orientation and objective performance, with organizational commitment as a mediator.\nPractical Implications: The study has implications for organizations that govern salespeople by fiddling constantly with their salespeople's incentive plans but find that most of these changes have little effect. The study proposes that companies will have more satisfied customers and successful salespeople, if they manage their salespeople's emotional and spiritual side.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to devise a governance system in selling organizations that is based on workplace spirituality.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Applications of benchmarking and classification framework for supplier risk management
|
[
"Performance measurement",
"Classification",
"Benchmarking",
"Business performance",
"Supplier management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The need for process improvement is apparent in all organizations (Kuula and Putkiranta, 2012). Continuous process improvement reflects effective management processes which consists of measurement, analysis, and improvement (Ropret et al., 2012). These activities are explicitly stated in several quality management models such as ISO 9001: 2008 (Requirement 8) and the Malcolm Balridge National Quality Award (Criterion 4). Ensuring the effectiveness of a management process stems from the fact that personal experiences may overshadow the importance of performance information when making decisions or taking actions (Dobni, 2011; Fasil and Osada, 2011). Moreover, the pressure on good governance and accountability has resulted in the increasing use of performance measurement (Sciulli, 2009).\nProblem statement: The study is an integral part of the project with the company on strengthening the Purchasing Department's capability to handle its key suppliers. The company, to be remained anonymous as requested by its executive committee, was established in 2001 as an affiliated unit for a large international trading firm in Thailand. The company, considered as a medium size, has become a manufacturer, exporter, and distributor of fruit beverage drinks in Thailand. Currently, the company is employing 275 staffs with the daily production of 180,000 bottles and the annual sale value of more than US$ 37 millions. The company's business philosophy is to assure high quality of products which promote health and well-being of customers at all ages from local raw materials.\nObjectives: The primary aim of the project is to develop a supplier risk framework. The framework is important so that the company's purchasing department can be prepared to undertake necessary steps to minimize the future risk to production and operations. The project's primary benefit is to help classify the company's current suppliers into different risk groups. In addition, the recommended actions within the Purchasing Department and together with the Quality Assurance Department (which is responsible for the suppliers' quality audits) are to be proposed. An awareness of the risk relating to the suppliers is helpful for the Purchasing Department in trying to enlist and register potential new suppliers.\nMethodology: The methodology for this project consists of several key steps. The efforts to collect the data are assisted by the Senior Purchasing Engineer. These steps are as follows:\nResults: The discussion session is first held between the staffs from the Purchasing and the Quality Assurance Departments. They agree to focus on the packing materials suppliers since their poor quality have critically resulted in more production delays, lower quality, and higher cost (of rushing the orders at the last moments to the suppliers not on the vendor list). The formal complaints made by the company's Purchasing Department are summarized and combined over the three-year period during 2010-2012. The above complaints deal primarily the non-compliance with the agreed specifications and requirements, the on-time delivery, the missing proof of delivery, the damages, and others. The three-year period should be used as a foundation for supplier risk classification. This is due to how the company has organized the supplier list in accordance to ISO 9001: 2008 since 2010. See Table I.\nDiscussion: The information from Table V is presented to gather feedback and to outline the future steps. The possible next steps are important since the supplier list was earlier developed without much consideration of supplier risk. The manager from the Purchasing Department generally agrees with the overall findings. It is somewhat surprising to realize the most suppliers for the raw materials are classified as medium- to high- risk. There are two key discussion points raised during this discussion session. They can be summarized as follows.\nConclusion: The project is derived from the company's one-department-one-improvement policy. The company's executive committee has chosen the Purchasing Department to initiate a pilot project for this policy. After having reviewed the reports from the internal quality audits, required by ISO 9001: 2008, the need to explicitly consider and integrate supplier risk is proposed. Together with a research team from Kasetsart University, the Purchasing Department's manager and staffs have blended the concepts of benchmarking and classification (e.g. the ratio-format indicator and the attempt to indicate the nature of the suppliers' risk levels, respectively). Based on the results, with the four agreed criteria, there are four risk levels. From the discussion session, the use of the classification concept with the benchmarking provides useful findings for future supplier risk management. In addition, additional activities are developed and blended into the Purchasing Department's procedures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a supplier risk framework. The framework provides the information about the risk level in which a supplier is classified. This study is part of the company's one- department-one-improvement policy. This policy encourages all departments to look for way to improve process management. For this study, the Purchasing Department attempts to extend its supplier management practices by integrating the risk consideration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This work is considered as a case study. The study integrates the benchmarking and classification concepts for this extension. The involvement from the company's purchasing department is critical. There are several steps that have been undertaken. Included are the selection of the supplies to be considered (i.e. packaging), the analysis of the formal complaints by the ratio-format indicator, the four criteria used for the classification, the risk level identification, and the next steps for improving supplier management. The results are verified by the use of cluster analysis. The data are from departmental staffs and manager.\nFindings: Based on the results, with the four agreed criteria (e.g. regional location, ownership type, joint venture, and registered capital and size), there are altogether four risk levels which are high, medium, low, and minimal.. For the packaging materials, most suppliers belong to the low and minimal risk levels (or 19 out of 27 suppliers). Future activities are then developed and added into the company's ISO 9001: 2008 manual.\nPractical implications: The suppliers' risk levels with corresponding future actions represent positive contributions to the purchasing department. Integrating supplier risk is based on the applications of benchmarking (i.e. the use of the ratio-format indicators) and classification (i.e. the need to understand the nature of the risk level) frameworks. Future actions to mitigate the risk are also proposed and incorporated into the purchasing department's procedure.\nOriginality/value: The project underlines the roles and importance of benchmarking in strengthening the supplier management processes. It also highlights the practicality and benefits of benchmarking when linking with the classification concept for addressing today business problems.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Linking improvisational behavior to customer satisfaction: the relational dynamics
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Exercised coercive power",
"Industrial selling",
"Relationship cordiality",
"Salesperson improvisation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the current marketing environment, conditions in firms can change quickly (Gurhan-Canli et al., 2016). Thus, industrial customers' needs and the demands they make on salespersons are often set in a context of surprise and urgency (Hill et al., 2017). Accordingly, recent business-to-business (B2B) scholarship suggests that salespersons' ability to satisfy customers is contingent on the ability to diagnose conditions in sales situations (Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2016; Roman and Martin, 2014; Singh and Koshy, 2010) and respond to them.\nConceptual background and hypotheses: The salesperson's boundary role and improvisation\nMethods: Study sample and setting\nAnalysis: Measurement model estimation\nResults: Table II presents the results of the hypothesis tests detailing the coefficients, fit statistics, and variance explained in the criterion variables. We find that relationship cordiality, exercised coercive power and adaptive selling explained 11 per cent of the total variance in salesperson improvisation and 30 per cent in customer satisfaction. The total variance explained by relationship cordiality, exercised coercive power, adaptive selling and the two interactions in customer satisfaction is 36 per cent. This indicates that the two interactions explain additional 6 per cent of the variance in customer satisfaction over and above the direct effect paths. The largest variance inflation factor across the estimated models is 1.26, suggesting that multicollinearity does not undermine stability of the findings.\nDiscussion: Conditions surrounding sales situations and how these impinge on salespersons' ability to satisfy customer continue to engage scholarly attention. By virtue of their boundary role, salespersons have the responsibility of ensuring customers are kept happy (Gabler et al., 2017). Increasingly, this means being able to resolve their unexpected and urgent challenges. Thus, while it may be useful to plan sales strategies, prevailing market conditions require salespersons to improvise to situational demands as well. According to Tom and Lucey (1997), customer satisfaction is directly linked with the timeliness of salespersons' response to their problems. Accordingly, where customer problems are urgent and unexpected, a reasonable salesperson response is to improvise. However, this cannot occur in a vacuum given the relationship-laden nature of B2B selling (Andersen and Kumar, 2006). We argued, therefore, that the nature of the existing relationship may either propel or inhibit salespersons' improvisational behavior. Additionally, the customer-salesperson relational tone may further determine whether or not customers are impressed by salespersons who improvise.\nPractical implications: The study's findings portend a number of implications for sales practitioners and managers. First, if as shown, improvisation drives customer satisfaction, salespersons may consider employing it more when facing exigent sales situations. Building on extant evidence of its value to sales performance, this link between improvisation and customer satisfaction is further support to its usefulness in specific situations. Accordingly, industrial salespersons hoping to strengthen their relations with customers through increased satisfaction should employ improvisation under conditions of surprise and urgency. For sales managers, the insight is to train their sales personnel to develop the capacity to think and act on their feet. Managers of salespersons selling in highly competitive and unpredictable markets should also encourage them to improvise more in the interest of customer satisfaction.\nLimitations and future research directions: A common concern in sales management literature is the challenge of relying on single informants' subjective responses for both predictor and criterion variables. In this study, we address this challenge by obtaining our data from multiple sources. Data for predictor and control variables were collected from industrial salespeople while data on the customer satisfaction variable was obtained from customers. By following this strategy, we were able to account for what is perhaps the most common shortcoming in sales research (Rich et al., 1999).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Contemporary sales scholarship suggests that salespersons pursuing customer satisfaction should improvise (think and act on their feet) to find solutions to customers' emergent problems. A missing link in this literature, however, is the relational context within which improvisation takes place and becomes effective. This study aims to examine how the tone of the salesperson-customer relationship (whether cordial or coercive) drives and conditions salesperson improvisation and its implications for customer satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study tests the proposed model using dyadic salesperson-customer data from business-to-business (B2B) markets in Ghana. The relationships are tested using structural equation modeling technique.\nFindings: The study finds that salesperson improvisation is associated with customer satisfaction. It also finds the extent of cordiality between salespersons and their customers predicts but does not enhance the value of improvisation for customer satisfaction. The reverse is true for customer exercised coercive power which is not a significant driver of improvisation but can substantially alter its benefits for the worse.\nPractical implications: By implication, salespersons should improvise more to be able to satisfy customers. However, such improvisation must be tempered with a consciousness of the relationship shared with customers and the level of power they exercise in the relationship.\nOriginality/value: Because improvised behavior deviates from routines and may be unsettling for customers, improvising salespersons must first understand whether their customers would be willing to accommodate such deviations. Yet, the literature is silent on this relational context surrounding improvisation. This study, by exploring facilitating and inhibitory relational variables implicated in improvisation, addresses this gap.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A relationship between corporate sustainability and organizational change (part two)
|
[
"Transformation",
"Corporate sustainability",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Change management",
"Business culture"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the past several decades, firms have seen an increasing need to manage an ever rougher sea of challenges such as technology, economic, industry growth and decline, competition, market, and environment (Rosenberg and Mosca, 2011). Firms that fail to adapt to these factors, at best, risk losing business and, at worst, gamble obsolescence (Self and Schraeder, 2009; cited in Rosenberg and Mosca, 2011). Increasingly, there has been greater attention given to \"strategic implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR)\" (McWilliams et al., 2005, p. 4). This seems logical given that the more frequent corporate collapses and greater market and economic volatility have called into question some of the fundamental aspects of companies' relationships with society; specifically questions of long-term sustainability (Robinson and Boulle, 2012).\nConsiderations for implementing corporate sustainabilty: Business culture\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the present kaleidoscopic business landscape the concepts of corporate sustainability are increasingly affecting corporations' relationships with society and shaping how business leaders interpret changes to their organizations. The path to sustainability is best viewed as an organizational change initiative for which the \"how\" and \"why\" must be considered. Broadly, change initiatives have a notably poor success rate, which is likely related to discord between an initiative and the people undertaking it. Corporate sustainability is a transformational change that impacts business culture and a firm's relationship with its community. To better understand implications of undertaking sustainability change initiatives in today's global environment the corporate-societal relationship needs to be examined in this three-part paper in terms of value creation, for whom, and how sustainability is becoming an increasingly significant portion of this equation. First, a basis for corporate sustainability and the concepts surrounding who the stakeholders need to be examined, after which the reasons for attempting sustainability, in terms of value creation, and considerations for the implementation (culture, identity, attachment) of said change initiative will be explored. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical and practitioner research papers were reviewed to illustrate the meaning and approaches to corporate sustainability and analyze how organizational change initiatives can best be used to facilitate organizational transformation.\nFindings: There is no consensus on the meaning of corporate sustainability, rather there continues to be an evolution of ideas and theories shaping the evolution of corporate sustainability. To implement any form of corporate sustainability requires that managers understand their objective and the cultural and psychological barriers of organizational change. Better engagement with those undertaking organizational change and clear articulation of the change's purpose can better lend themselves to an initiative's success. However, there is no panacea and managers must recognize that approaches may need to be altered.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research tends to occupy one of two spheres, either corporate sustainability or change initiatives. More linkage between these two concepts and empirical research of the effectiveness of organizational change practices for corporate sustainability is needed.\nPractical implications: A better understanding of organizational change theories, practices, and procedures may benefit managers and organizations that endeavor to realize corporate sustainability.\nSocial implications: Given the implications of recent corporate collapses and their perceived malice, there is now greater thought about the role these organizations have in society. Concepts regarding shared value and mutual benefit to society and corporations can be expected to remain at the forefront of the public decorum.\nOriginality/value: This paper sought to draw stronger ties between corporate sustainability and organizational change, highlighting that the two are codependent.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Agreement on service performance ratings between frontline employees and their supervisor
|
[
"Performance",
"Employee",
"Supervisor"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the service industry, the contribution of individual employees matters given firms' heavy dependence on frontline employees to deliver quality services. Service workers are boundary spanners that represent their company during service interactions with customers. In particular, in discussing the service profit chain model, Heskett et al. (1994) argued that service firms need to treat employees like customers so that employees might then treat customers in ways that enhance customers' perceptions of value. This is expected to result in customer loyalty and increased revenue. Similarly, Hansen et al. (2003) empirically demonstrated that customers' commitment to the individual service provider would be translated into their commitment to the service company and the intention to stay with it. Hence, it is of particular importance for service organizations to ensure the effectiveness of the performance of individual customer contact employees. Employee's service performance is an essential criterion that both managers and researchers aim to measure and explain.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Service performance ratings: supervisor vs self\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample and data collection process\n4. Results: Table I presents the results of bivariate correlations between study variables along with the descriptive statistics (i.e. means and standard deviation). To compare our data to that of previous studies for level of agreement we used bivariate relationships between subordinate self- and supervisor-ratings of performance, and to examine inflation of subordinate self-ratings we used comparisons of means between subordinate self- and supervisor-ratings). Subordinate self-rated service performance (M=5.85; SD=0.98; CI=5.71-5.98) had a higher mean score than supervisor-rated service performance (M=5.39; SD=1.19; CI=5.22-5.55). As the 95 percent confidence interval of self-reported service performance does not overlap that of supervisor-rated service performance.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Key findings and their implications for research and practice\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether agreement between frontline employee self-ratings and supervisory ratings of service performance functions as an indicator of healthy supervisor-subordination relationships above and beyond what might be indicated simply by either supervisory ratings or self-ratings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research hypotheses were tested using a sample of 220 matched pairs of frontline service workers and their immediate supervisors from nine full service hotels in the USA.\nFindings: The results show that higher levels of agreement in service performance ratings between employees and supervisors is associated with higher levels of leader-member exchange (LMX) and organizational commitment.\nPractical implications: Senior managers can refer to the level of performance rating agreement between customer service employees and their supervisors in assessing supervisors' competency to manage their work relationship with their subordinates.\nOriginality/value: This study examined rating agreement in a service performance context and found rating agreement between subordinates and their supervisor may have a unique effect on service worker effectiveness, producing a unique incremental effect on LMX and organizational commitment. This is important given that few attempts have been made to examine service performance from both subordinates' and supervisors' perspectives and the implication that rating agreement may have for improving employee service performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Kouzes and Posner's transformational leadership model in practice: The case of Jordanian schools
|
[
"Leadership",
"Transformational leadership",
"Jordan",
"Public schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the past three decades, changes in technology, economics, social, political, and cultural aspects of the world have imposed changes and forced reforms on many developed countries' educational systems. Surprisingly, in the panoramic survey of the education landscapes across the developed countries, one is struck with the uniformity and rapidity of change that is reshaping the nature of schools' external environments. Educators are bewildered by the rigor of demands and increasing responsibilities that their governments specifically and the public in general have imposed upon them (Lam and Pang, 2003). Therefore, it is a fairly common phenomenon in developed countries that public schools are undergoing rapid changes associated with government initiated reform movement (Lam, 2002).\nTheoretical background: Despite the fact that leadership has been a topic of interest to historian and philosophers since ancient times, it was only around the turn of the century that scientific studies began. Johnson (2002) pointed out that rigorous study of the leadership phenomenon began with the work of sociologist Max Weber in the early part of this century and that the study of leadership can be divided into three stages. Each stage can be characterized by a prominent research strategy and focus of interest. The earliest stage attempted to identify traits of leaders, and the next stage focused on the behavior of leaders. The third stage centered on the fit between leadership style and the situation a leaders face (Tirimizi, 2002).Inconsistent findings and methodological problems resulting in increasing dissatisfaction with trait, behavioral, and contingency based leadership research had set the stage for a paradigm shift in leadership research. Leadership theories in this new paradigm differ from earlier theories in that they seek to explain extraordinary leadership and performance beyond expectations (Paul et al., 2002) This shift was catalyzed by the publication in 1978 of an influential book by Burns entitled \"Leadership\" which conceptualized the differences between ordinary (transactional) leaders and extraordinary (transformational) leaders (Barnett et al., 2001)Kouzes and Posner's model in transformational leadership\nPurpose of the study and research questions: The purpose of this investigation was to determine the degree to which school principals in Jordan practice Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model in their schools as measured by Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). In more detail, the following research questions guided this investigation:1. To what degree do Jordanian school teachers perceive their principals to be practicing Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model in their schools?2. Do leadership practices as perceived by teachers differ based on selected teacher variables, specifically, gender, years of work experience, and type of school (basic or high school)?\nSignificance of the study: The timing of this study is but one of several reasons that is significant and important. Currently, there are both internally and externally increasing pressure being placed upon schools in Jordan to enact reform. Calls for school reform and restructuring, in Jordan, over the past two decades have emphasized the importance of effective school leaders. Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model provides school principals with practical guidance on how to lead, as well as, practical suggestions on how to act during reform agenda. The results of this investigation, therefore, served as a basis for school principals to assess their leadership strengths and weaknesses, and used the findings to become more effective school leaders.Furthermore, it is hoped that this research will be seen as a starting point for research in Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model in Jordanian schools and stimuli for further research to provide valuable insight for both academics and practitioners. To date there is no evidence or reported study identifying the degree to which school principals in Jordan practice Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model or studying its effects on reform agenda or other educational outcomes.\nMethodology: Research design\nResults: Question 1 addresses the degree to which school principals in Jordan practice Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model in their schools as perceived by their teachers. Means and standards deviations were used to answer this question. Starting with the means, it is observable from Table II that the lowest mean of practicing Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model is (2.76) and the highest mean is (3.36). This result indicated that teachers perceived their principals moderately practice the Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model (3.07).With regard to the means and standard deviations of the five dimensions of the LPI Scale, the mean of enabling others to act is higher than all other means (3.36), followed by encouraging the heart (3.23) and modeling the way (3.09) respectively. Challenging the process, (2.90), and inspiring a shared vision (2.76) are both the lowest means. Further, the variability of scores in both enabling others to act (SD=0.91) and encouraging the heart (SD=0.91) dimensions is equal and greater than other dimensions (see Table II).Question 2 concerns the significant differences among Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model dimensions and the following individual demographics of teachers: gender, school type, and number of years teaching. T-tests for independent samples were used to examine the difference in means between male and female teachers and basic and high school teachers in each dimension of LPI Scale. However, one-way analysis of variance was utilized to identify whether the variances of the three level groups of experience of teachers were equal or significantly different.Table III shows that there were no significant differences at the 0.05 level between male and female teachers in challenging the process dimension (p=0.54) and enabling others to act (p=0.25). However, Table III illustrates that there were significant differences at the (0.05) level between male and female teachers in the dimensions of inspiring a shared vision (p=0.025). Male teachers scored more than females in this particular dimension. Furthermore, there were significant differences at the (0.05) level between male and female teachers in the dimensions of modeling the way (p=0.00), encouraging the heart (p=0.00), and LPI overall (p=0.00). Female teachers perceived their principals as more transformational in these dimensions than male teachers did.Regarding the significant differences between teachers who teach in basic schools and teachers who teach in high schools, Table IV reports that there were no significant differences at the (0.05) level in challenging the process dimension (p=0.54) of LPI scale. However, there were significant differences at the (0.05) level in inspiring a shared vision (p=0.006), enabling others to act (p=0.00), modeling the way (p=0.047), encouraging the heart (p=0.00), and LPI overall (p=0.00). Basic schoolteachers perceived their principals as more transformational in these dimensions than high school teachers did.On the other hand, utilizing one-way analysis of variance, as can be observed in Table V, shows that there were no significant differences among the three experience level groups (new hiring, middle career, and long experience) in each dimension of LPI Scale. In other words, there were no significant differences among the three experience level groups in the dimension of challenging the process (F=2.82, p=0.06), inspiring a shared vision (F=2.48, p=0.08), enabling others to act (F=1.64, p=0.19), modeling the way (F=2.60, p=0.07), and encouraging the heart (F=1.87, p=0.15).\nDiscussion and conclusions: In recent years, there has been a significant growth in the number of articles, studies, dissertations, and academic research in the area of transformational leadership. With the exception of a few indigenous non-western research studies in a few select countries, little scientific work on transformational leadership exists, especially in the third world (Tirimizi, 2002). Jordan is no exception. Several theories and models and their respective measurement instruments have been developed and used to measure leadership behaviors. However, validity and availability of leadership theories and instruments across cultures makes a strong case for developing new models of transformational leadership or examining these models outside the western context. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine, in practice, Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model in Jordanian schools as perceived by teachers.Results such as these in this study might point to a substantial gap in understanding of the influence of societal culture and context on educational leadership. This gap is especially critical for those in non-western countries, as Jordan, struggling to apply new knowledge and technology from the West while, at the same time, attempting to preserve their own cultural identities. Most writings about transformational leadership have paid little attention to this contextual consideration (Yu et al., 2002). Furthermore, these kinds of studies make it easier for international researchers to do their comparisons between western countries and non-western countries in applying different models of transformational leadership in school contexts.The findings of this study revealed that Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model in Jordanian schools as perceived by teachers are practiced moderately. This result can be justified given the narrow knowledge and experience in this model in Jordanian schools. More attention, thus, should be given to Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model in Jordanian schools taking in consideration that this Model has been recognized by many researchers as truly representative of highly effective leadership practices and serve as a basis for school principals to assess their leadership strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it can be suggested that more workshops in Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model should be conducting in Jordanian schools for practical purpose. In the words of Kouzes and Posner (1995) this model is \"a set of skills. And any skills can be strengthened, honed, and enhanced if we have the proper motivation and desire, along with practice and feedback, role models and coaching (p. 323).However, practicing inspiring a shared vision is placed at the lowest extreme of the moderate range. This result, which is inconsistent with the vitality of a shared vision in any school as cited in educational literature, confirmed the fact that vision as a domain of knowledge and practice is still new and unclear in Jordanian schools' culture. Scholars, policy makers in Jordanian Ministry of Education, and stakeholders in schools should not neglect this result and study it deeply. Many researchers are finding a consistent relationship between the presence of teachers' and principals' visions and the effectiveness of their schools (Barth, 1991). Therefore, a special emphasis should be placed on the elements of inspiring a shared vision. Workshops and training courses should be conducting for principals and teachers on how to share, articulate, communicate, and implement the shared vision. \"A good vision is a prod that - if it is really powerful - creates a pull. It attracts commitment and energizes people, creates meaning in workers' lives, establishes a standard of excellence, and creates a bridge between present and future\" (Espejo et al., 1996, p. 12). Scholars in management came to believe that building a shared vision is vital for bringing people in any enterprise together to foster a commitment to a shared future they seek to create (Appelbaum and Goransson, 1997). Shared vision gives people a real sense of purpose that promotes focus, an excellent achievement level, and a long-term commitment to organizational effectiveness and survival because it reflects their own values and norms (Appelbaum and Goransson, 1997; Morrison and Rosenthal, 1997; Strachan, 1996).Another strand of results regarding demographic variables distinguished between male and female teachers in the dimensions of challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision. Means of male teachers were greater than females. However, means of female teachers were greater than males in the dimensions of enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart. This result is consistent with the comparison between male and female participants conducted by Kouzes and Posner (1995). Means of males on Kouzes and Posner's study were greater than females in the dimensions of challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision. But, means of females were greater than males in the dimensions of enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart. However, this study is inconsistent with Kouzes and Posner's study in that the mean of female teachers in encouraging the heart was the only significant dimension and greater than males in their study. Whereas, modeling the way and encouraging the heart are both significant for females and inspiring a shared vision is significant for males in this study.This result might be justified. Communicating a vision with others and dedicating the time for it is easier and more available for males comparing with females in Jordanian culture. However, female teachers perceived their principals better in practicing LPI dimensions overall and in modeling the way and encouraging the heart. This result is consistent with anecdotal, survey, and experimental evidence all point out that woman in leadership positions are seen by their subordinates and colleagues to be, as leaders, somewhat more transformational than their male counterparts, and more effective and satisfying, slightly, but significantly (Bass, 1998).In the practice of the five leadership dimensions in basic and high schools, it might be appropriate to release the conclusion from the collected data that basic school teachers perceived their principle practicing leadership dimensions overall and dimensions of inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart more than high school teachers did. This result could be justified with the increased numbers of teachers in high schools and the expanding of span of control in high schools comparing with basic schools. At the same time, it is consistent with the argument that high schools are highly fragmented organizations where \"[c]ontrol based on fragmented specialization appears to be a logical way to organize schools\" (Senge et al., 2000, p. 45).Results also confirm that years of teaching experience of teachers had no effect on teachers' perceptions of their principals' practicing of Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model. This result may support looking for other demographic variables might have more impact on practicing the Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model.Finally, there is still much to be learned about Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model in Jordanian schools and other educational institutions. Hopefully, the current study opens the door for Jordanian researchers to adopt Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model in their research in the field of educational leadership. Furthermore, it is hoped that this research will encourage new projects sponsored by Jordanian Ministry of Education such as discovery schools and school as a development unit to adopt Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model and to train principals of these schools on how to apply this model in their schools.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree to which Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model is being practised by Jordanian school principals. Currently, there are both internally and externally increasing pressures on Jordanian schools to enact reform. The empirical literature on leadership has shown that transformational leadership is positively associated with principals' effectiveness in implementing reform agenda. Kouzes and Posner's Transformational Leadership Model provides school principals in Jordon with practical guidance on how to lead, as well as practical suggestions on how to act during reform agenda.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research paper is quantitative in nature and was conducted using a survey design. Means, standard deviations, t-test, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze gained data.\nFindings: - The findings indicated that Kouzes and Posner's model is being moderately practised by Jordanian school principals. Female teachers and basic schoolteachers more than male teachers and high school teachers identified their principals as transformational. Finally, there were no significant differences among the three experience level groups of teachers in their perceptions of each dimension of Kouzes and Posner's Model.\nOriginality/value: - The paper suggests that more workshops and training courses in Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model should be conducted in Jordanian schools. Moreover, it is hoped that this research will encourage new projects sponsored by the Jordanian Ministry of Education such as \"Discovery Schools\" and \"School as a Development Unit\" to adopt Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Model in their schools.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Guanxi as impetus? Career exploration in China and the United States
|
[
"Social interaction",
"Culture",
"Careers",
"Jobs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Social networks have often been considered an important means to search for employment. Handbooks on effective job search commonly urge job seekers to tap their social networks to identify employment opportunities through informal networks (Arthur et al., 1989; Bolles, 2005). This is further supported by empirical research suggesting that social networks are useful in securing employment opportunities in different cultural contexts (Granovetter, 1974; Watanabe, 1987; Bian, 1997).\nFramework and hypotheses: Social capital theory and guanxi search\nMethods: Procedures\nResults: Before presenting the data related to hypothesis testing, we will first describe the process and the data analysis used to establish measure equivalence. Mullen (1995) suggests that four different confirmatory factor analyses need to be tested: having all parameters set to be equal across groups, having the loadings vary across groups, having the loadings and error variances vary across groups, and have only error variances vary across groups. Then using the standard Chi-square difference test, these four models could be compared, and the best fitting model could be detected.We conducted multiple group comparisons in the LISREL 8 program. The results shown in Table I indicate that the fourth model with unequal path loading and error variances has good fit indicators compared to other three models. The Chi-square change between the fourth model and the first model is significant, Dkh2=12.38\\;(p<0.05). Thus, the construct of \"guanxi search\" does not have equal construct equivalence in the USA and Chinese samples. This result supports H1.The means, standard deviations and correlation matrix for the overall sample, USA sample and Chinese sample are reported separately in Tables II, III and IV.Hierarchical linear regressions were used in hypotheses testing (Table V, VI and VII). We entered the control variables of age, gender and GPA in the first block. Then, independent variables were entered in subsequent models.To test H2, Table V demonstrates the impact of guanxi search on search intensity. guanxi search positively predicts job search intensity in USA sample (Model 2, Beta=0.14, p<0.05, DR2 =0.02, p<0.05). However, this relationship is not supported in the Chinese sample (Model 6, Beta=-0.06, p>0.10, DR2=0.00, p>0.10). Thus, H2 receives partial support.Table VI shows the main effect of search intensity on job search confidence, as well as the moderating role of guanxi search on the relationship between search intensity and guanxi search. Model 6 shows that search intensity is positively related to job search confidence in the Chinese sample (Beta=0.22, p<0.01, DR2=0.05, p<0.01). However, in the USA sample (Model 2, Beta=-0.01, p>0.10, DR2=0.00, p>0.10), search intensity is not positively related to job search confidence. Therefore, H3 receives partial support.H4a and H4b regarding the moderation effect of guanxi search on the relationship between job search intensity and job search confidence are tested in Model 4 and Model 8 in Table VI. According to Model 8, guanxi search in the Chinese sample is detrimental to the relationship between search intensity and job search confidence (Beta=-1.35, p<0.05, DR2=0.04, p<0.05). Thus, H4b receives support in the Chinese sample. However, H4a fails to receive support in the USA sample (Model 4, Beta=0.31, p>0.10, DR2 =0.00, p>0.10).Table VII presents the testing of H5 on the relationship of job search confidence to job satisfaction. In Model 4, job search confidence is positively related to job satisfaction in the Chinese sample (Beta=0.26, p<0.05, DR2 =0.06, p<0.05) but not in the USA sample (Model 2, Beta=-0.00, p>0.10, DR2=0.00, p>0.10). So, H5 receives partial support.Figure 2 and 3 present summaries of the empirical results of Chinese sample and the USA sample accordingly. We use dotted lines, solid lines and double dotted lines to indicate negative, positive and no relationship separately in both figures.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The role of guanxi search in the career exploration process in cross-cultural settings is examined in this study. The results support the use of guanxi search as a predictor of job search intensity in USA sample. Guanxi search could thus be regarded as a type of social capital that provides environmental support to the job seekers. Social contacts act as effective channels in conveying job-search-relevant information.We found that guanxi search is positively related to job search intensity for USA sample, whereas it has no such relationship for Chinese sample. This might be due to the differences of guanxi search in the two samples. Luo (1997) mentioned that information accessed through Guanxi in China usually is more trustworthy, richer, and more useful. We thus infer that in China, job seekers who rely on strong ties guanxi search will not bother to apply a great variety of job search tactics, and their job search intensity level is low. Whereas in the USA, the guanxi search approach involves many shallow contacts and people will apply more variety to secure the job search results.On the other hand, we report that the use of guanxi search in China tends to reduce job seekers' confidence in making vocational decisions despite active job search behaviors. These results are distinctly different from the American sample.Viewed from social capital theory, guanxi search might have different implications to job seekers in different cultural settings. For example, in the USA with an individualistic culture, job seekers might rely more on individual search behaviors than on guanxi to gather information. When they do use social networks, as reflected by guanxi search, job seekers appear to be more confident and engaged in active searching behaviors. Furthermore, because the social networks are based more on weak ties than strong ties, job seekers are likely to see guanxi search as tool to only open doors of opportunity. They understand that they need to sell themselves in order to get a job offer.However, in the Chinese job market, while guanxi search may help job seekers to get access to job information, they might rely on guanxi so much that they would question the effectiveness of other active job search behaviors in vocational decision-making. This style of job search, which is based more on strong ties than weak ties in China, can lead to a type of job search that could be called interdependent job search. The job search is more dependent on social connections than one's personal efforts to find employment.More importantly, job seekers may lose confidence in making vocational decisions because of social obligations and concern for protecting \"mianzi\" if the corresponding job information were provided through guanxi. Thus, guanxi search in China has negative impact on the relationship between job search intensity and job search confidence.One caveat is that the incremental variance explained by job search intensity on job search confidence is small (DR2=0.05, p<0.01), which signals the possibility that other variables would influence job search confidence, such as locus of control. The DR2 for the interaction term of guanxi search and search intensity is also low, with its value 0.04 (p<0.05). This might be related to modernization in China. For example, Ralston et al. (2006) found convergence in work values between Hong Kong and mainland China in the 12 years since 1989. Thus, the distinctions between guanxi search and social networking in western society might not be as large as before.This research may have some important implications for career theory. Using guanxi search in China suggests that career decision-making has some interdependent aspects. Social networks may help to identify employment opportunities but may constrain job choice. Similar principles may be operating in other Asian countries such as Japan in which the individuals see themselves as having less control of their career than in the USA (Kato and Suzuki, 2006). The same principles may be operating in the USA but to a lesser extent. Career choices in the USA are seldom examined from an interdependent perspective and strong ties can influence career choices (Werbel and Roberg, 1989). In this study, the USA sample focused on undergraduate students who are not commonly exposed to strong ties. Later career stages, in terms of dealing spousal concerns or in some cases of elder care, may lead to interdependent decision styles. In these cases, the job search influenced by strong ties may lead to lower levels of job satisfaction. While the categories of relationships that entail strong ties may be different between China and the USA, strong ties may operate similarly in both countries. A different type of sample would be needed to assess the degree to which this occurs in the USA. Similarly, one wonders if weak ties in China would be as useful to secure jobs as it is in the USA. As cultural change continues to occur, weak ties may come to play a more important role in China.While social networks are often seen as being useful, there can be costs associated with using them. Future research needs to assess other ways in which social network may have unintended and undesirable consequences. Some scholars already questioned the ethics of guanxi in the business world (e.g. Dunfee and Warren, 2001). The possible negative impact of guanxi search specifically in the career search process has not received much attention.From a practical perspective, this research could inform career counselors. First, the ability to generalize career search practices based on career practices in the USA may be limited to countries that operate with similar labor market practices. Asian countries with a different emphasis on strong ties in the search process, pose some different challenges to career counselors. Perhaps issues related to guanxi search need to be more carefully considered. For example, some Asians may tend to over-rely on traditional search methods which may put them into a more passive position in the job search process. Perhaps, career counselors in an Asian context need to diversify job search strategies.This study may also have some implications within an American context. Little research has been conducted about interdependent job search processes. For example, issues about job search with a trailing spouse would be an excellent example. If the leading spouse requires the employer to find employment for the trailing spouse as a condition of employment (strong ties), does this impact the trailing spouse's job search confidence and subsequent successful adjustment to the job? Additional research would be needed to investigate this topic.The study warrants several limitations. The reliability of the measure of guanxi is low, which signals the need of future development of the Guanxi construct. The three types of guanxi (Chia-jen, Shou-jen and Sheng-jen) could be included as separate factors in the future development of this measure.This study also has limitations concerning external validity. There are numerous sampling concerns of this study. The sample was relatively small, especially in China. The sample largely focused on young business students and both studies were collected during periods of low unemployment. While the similarities in samples provided some natural controls, the degree that these results could be replicated in other contexts warrants a need for further research.In summary, this research has conducted cross cultural comparison of job search practices in China and the USA and differences were reported in the use of guanxi between these two countries with undergraduate subjects. One of the purposes of cross cultural research like this is to determine to what extent career theories that have largely been generated by Americans are applicable across other cultural and economic situations. This research attempts to address the degree that constructs are universal or to assess the degree that constructs tend to be culturally specific (cf. Yang, 1994).To some extent, this research may suggest both are possible. Differences were clearly noted. However, it is also important to mention that the types of relationships that form strong ties are different in China and the USA. Thus, this research may, in part, attempt to address the need to conduct more research regarding the effects of strong ties in the job search process within the USA. This research may then have an opportunity to redirect theoretical issues within the career choice literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The present paper seeks to analyze the role of social networks in the process of career exploration, including its main effect on search intensity, and moderation effect on the linkage between search intensity and job search confidence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - It is a longitudinal design with 239 USA and 165 Chinese graduating students.\nFindings: - Social networks in job search have greater effects on job search intensity in the USA sample. Moderation effects could be detected in the Chinese sample, and guanxi search (a Chinese reference to social networks) minimizes job search confidence and job satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Social networks, particularly guanxi search in China, could reflect interdependency in job search process, and might constrain job choice.\nOriginality/value: - The paper examined the cultural differences of guanxi search construct, and compared the role of social networks (guanxi search) in cross-cultural settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Beyond branding: from abstraction to cubism
|
[
"Brands",
"Customer relations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There is an adage in marketing - indeed it may be the adage - that it pays to be close to the customer, suggesting a communion between the customer and the organization in an almost intimate way with both sides willing to open up to each other. Close indicates transparency and reciprocity. The primary way organizations have tried to do this has been through the vehicle of market research, which has been a key driver in transforming many organizations from being production led to customer focused. However, there are challenges in using traditional research as a means of getting close to customers and also in the way organizations sometimes misuse research to aid decision-making.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To point out the limitations of on over-scientific approach to branding.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Discussion of case studies in a philosophical theoretical framework.\nFindings: - \"Getting close to the customer\" is a flawed concept. Rather the emphasis should be on people and the nature of relationships.\nPractical implications: - Brand managers should become unified with the customer rather than thinking they are close to the customer through the abstraction of market research.\nOriginality/value: - Points out that credibility is not derived from statistical analysis alone, but through a genuine and deep understanding of the customer.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Growth expectations for side activities in rural areas
|
[
"Side activities",
"Growth expectations",
"Rural small businesses",
"Rural development",
"The Netherlands",
"Small enterprises"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, diversification of economic activities has become a prominent theme in rural development studies (Bezemer et al., 2003; O'Connor et al., 2006). The wide range of emerging activities in rural areas offers the promise of ameliorating negative developments in rural areas including agricultural decline, rural depopulation and a one-sided sector composition. In addition, diversification aligns with new societal demands and it can rejuvenate the social vitality of rural communities (Broekhuizen et al., 1997; Daalhuizen et al., 2003; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2009). In particular, successful emerging businesses can add great value to local community development (see Henderson, 2002). Small firms, by creating jobs, increasing incomes and wealth, are often regarded as important vehicles for rural development. They play a crucial role in revitalizing stagnated economies and in helping to improve the quality of life and well-being in rural areas (North and Smallbone, 1996). Sustainable and expanding firms thus constitute an important factor if small-scale activities are to have an impact on the rural economy. Shepherd and Wiklund (2005) argue that it is hard to imagine that small businesses will have an economic impact in the absence of growth and expansion.Side activities\nSmall business growth perspectives: Although there is no research that addresses the growth expectations of side activities directly, there is ample research on factors that are responsible for the growth of small businesses[1]. Given the similarities of the two types, we take this literature as the point of departure for the theoretical discussion.There are two basic approaches to studying growth. One can study either the actual growth or the growth expectations of firms. Although inherently different, the two approaches are closely linked with respect to their outcomes. Previous research suggests that growth expectations/aspirations are a good predictor of actual growth (see Bird, 1992; Gray, 2000; Morrison et al., 2003; Sexton and Bowman-Upton, 1991). On the basis of these studies, we assume that, although rural development is fuelled by the actual growth of firms, growth aspirations can predict actual growth quite well. Given the difficulties in identifying and following side activities over time, actual growth is very difficult to measure. We therefore focus on growth aspirations, which can provide an indication of the magnitude of the growth of side activities and as a consequence a prediction for the development of rural communities.To grow or not to grow?\nData and methodology: The analysis draws from a survey on side activities by non-farmers in rural areas in The Netherlands. Since side activities are invisible in the records of professional organisations or other institutions[3], it was necessary to physically go out into rural areas and search for them. Fortunately, because many side activities involve touristic activities, services and selling home-grown products, these are often indicated on signposts and roadside signs. Making an inventory of side activities thus involved canvassing rural areas by different means of transportations (e.g. by car, bicycle, boat, or local transportation) and spotting roadside signs for such business activities. Then, the owners were asked whether the activity spotted fitted the criteria of side activities (i.e. providing a supplementary income, home-based, non-farmers). The aim was to locate all side activities in the selected research areas. To minimize missing cases and include non-visible side activities, a snowballing method complemented the identification using road signs. Five per cent of all respondents were found through snowballing.After identifying the side activities, a detailed survey was conducted among owners. This approach was chosen as a variety of information was required to obtain an overview of the side activities in a short period of time. A survey is an effective method to gather such information (Rossi et al., 1983). The survey was executed by means of face-to-face interviews with the owners and it covered a variety of topics, including, basic information about side activities (e.g. age, size, sector) and their owners (e.g. age, gender, education, marital status, number of children, income level), start-up motives (open- and close-ended questions) and issues that may have influenced the decision to start (e.g. availability and necessity of start-up resources). The survey also included questions connected to the future prospects and factors that may influence the development/growth of side activities[4].The side activities were found in a selected number of municipalities, which were selected in a stratified way. Given the focus on rural areas, urban centres and their direct surroundings were excluded from the sampling frame. Very highly urbanized municipalities (12 municipalities) and highly urbanized municipalities (59 municipalities) were dropped from the sampling frame[5]. In addition, in order to minimize the influence of these urban centres in the selection, municipalities within 15 km of the 12 very highly urbanized municipalities and municipalities that were inside a range of 7.5 km from the 59 highly urbanized municipalities were also excluded. By excluding the above municipalities, the sampling frame covered a total of 137 municipalities[6]. Fieldwork was carried out in 36 municipalities, 28 randomly (from the sampling frame) and seven that were purposely selected (in the Veenkolonien; for details see Markantoni et al., 2011). Municipalities in the Veenkolonien were oversampled as this area (in the Northeast of the country) is generally considered as the most remote rural areas of The Netherlands[7].Following the procedure already described, 506 side activities were identified in total. From these, 260 respondents completed the survey, which represents a response rate of 51 per cent. This rate is relatively high compared to small business studies (e.g. Cliff, 1998; Greenbank, 2001) probably because of the personal interaction with the respondents. This generally reduces the non-response (Singleton and Straits, 2001).The data analysis of this study consisted of two steps. Firstly, a descriptive analysis reports the growth expectations and the associated explanations. Secondly, a binary logistic regression analysis examines the combined effect of the factors that influence growth expectations.\nResults: What are the growth expectations of owners of side activities?\nConclusions: In this article, we set out to examine the growth expectations for side activities in rural areas. The article presented an explorative analysis describing both the actual intentions to expand side activities and an exploratory analysis of the factors that influence the growth of such activities.The largest proportion of entrepreneurs engaged in side activities have no aspiration to expand the business, not in terms of employees, time spent or other inputs nor in terms of income generated. Although some side activities were initiated because of economic motives, the main reason for starting a side activity relates to attaining personal development goals. These findings are very much in line with existing studies on small businesses (see Atterton and Affleck, 2010; Raley and Moxey, 2000).On the one hand, the lack of intention to increase the scale of business may have to do with the rural setting of the side activities. In rural areas, size and structural as well as institutional deficiencies appear to be important challenges that confront businesses. Therefore, rural areas are not characterised by high-growth entrepreneurs but more by lifestyle entrepreneurs who are in search of a (rural) lifestyle that enhances the quality of life in rural communities (see Henderson, 2002). On the other hand, growth expectations can be explained, and more clearly so, by accounting for personal and firm characteristics. In relation to that, our findings suggest that for the group of side activities, internal factors and more specific motives play a more important role than external factors in predicting growth. The internal factors include personal characteristics such as age and gender. However, motivation seems to stand out as being particularly significant to growth. Start-up motives related to economic gain and independence are important in explaining the expected growth. At this point, we have to iterate that side activities are supplementary activities and not a main source of income, meaning that owners of side activities who are economically secure may not strive for economic growth but may aim for another type of pay-off, related to personal growth, development and the search for a rural lifestyle (see also Townroe and Mallalieu, 1993).Given their lack of ambitions for commercial expansion and the fact that these activities are already small, the economic impact in terms of turnover and employment is likely to be small. However, there may be other important effects of side activities that are found mostly in terms of the social impact generated by these activities. Moreover, the side activities are found in rural areas and they use rural space and rural qualities for their operation (e.g. mini campsite, tea garden, canoe rental). As such, they enhance the attributes of the physical rural environment.The findings have two contributions to policy development. Firstly, the findings indicate that in order to spot growth-oriented side activities, individual characteristics such as age and gender as well as motives related to personal and economic well-being have to be identified. Policies aimed at strengthening the rural economy through side activities should focus primarily on the people involved in the side activities and less so on the environment. Secondly, the policy question related to the spatial land use regime is addressed. Side activities are small-scale activities located in the direct vicinity of the home. As such they do not seem to claim or seek much space and additional land. Therefore, we argue that side activities should not be considered to be threats to rural attributes, nor would these activities require changes in rural land use planning. That said, local governments in The Netherlands should not consider side activities as an element that taints and threatens the character of rural areas. Specific policies and regulations that inhibit their growth are out of place.Although the findings in this study have shaped our interpretations, it needs to be acknowledged that our quantitative approach does have drawbacks. It does not provide an in-depth understanding of the reasons for the potential growth of side activities. Therefore, our recommendation for further research is a qualitative approach that could yield valuable insight into the actual growth of these activities and their impact on the socio-economic development of rural communities, preferably in a specific geographical location.In terms of broader implications, we would argue that although the rate of growth of side activities is not expected to be proceed at a fast pace in the coming years, it does not mean that they will not have an impact on rural development. In contrast with the mainstream small business growth literature (see Shepherd and Wiklund, 2005), Atterton and Affleck (2010) argue that even if rural small businesses do not grow, they still play a vital (socio-economic) role in their locality. In our case, we would argue that by offering a variety of services/facilities, touristic and recreation activities and by diversifying the rural economic base, side activities can be of great value for the development of rural areas - regardless of whether the majority of the side activities remain small in scale. Growth is not an imperative.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to examine growth expectations and factors influencing growth of side activities in rural areas.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected in the rural areas of 36 Dutch municipalities by means of a detailed survey. This resulted in 260 response cases. The analysis consists of a descriptive account of respondents' intentions to expand a side activity and a logistic regression explaining growth expectations of these activities.\nFindings: - The main conclusion is that although growth is not expected in a large number of side activities, there is a group of owners who clearly aspire to expand the scale of their activities. Their personal aspirations and aspirations for economic well-being are the most common motivations. These characteristics also have a bearing on the future growth of side activities and consequently their impact on rural development.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Since this article examines growth expectations and not actual growth, the findings cannot be interpreted directly in terms of economic impact on rural development.\nOriginality/value: - Scholars and policy makers have paid little attention to side activities in rural areas and specifically to their growth potential. This article enhances our understanding of the growth expectations of those who carry out side activities and shows the potential of such activities in diversifying and revitalizing rural areas.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Reliability test plan for a series system with variable failure rates
|
[
"Reliability",
"Optimization",
"Exponential distribution",
"Consumer’s risk",
"Life testing",
"Producer’s risk"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: While designing reliability test plans for any system (series/parallel or mixed), the primary objective is to evaluate the reliability of the system and demonstrate that it will perform all intended functions satisfactorily, prior to actual deployment in the related field. Most of the component reliability test plans existing in the literature consider the lifetime distributions as exponential with constant unknown failure rates; they either stop at the rth failure or stop after a fixed time limit. Some examples are Gal (1974), Yan and Mazumdar (1986), Easterling et al. (1991), Altinel (1992, 1994), Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996, 1997), Mazumdar (1977), and Altinel and Ozekici (1998).\n2. Problem description: Let Xi denote the lifetime of ith component, 1in. Assume Xi~Exp(li(x)), and are independent. The parameters li(x) of the exponential distributions depend upon k environmental factors (x=(x1,x2, ..., xk)) through linear relationships. Here, it is assumed that xj>0 for 1jk. Therefore, li(x) can be written as:\n3. Optimal design and solution: Using the acceptance rule defined in Section 2, the formulated optimization problem can be written as follows:\n4. Numerical results and comparison: In this section, we present some numerical results to illustrate the test plan developed in Section 3. Further these results are compared with those results obtained by Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996). For this comparison purpose, let n=6, k=3, R0=0.8 and R1=0.99; X denotes the vector of environmental factors. The common sample size and the optimal cost obtained through the test plan of Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996) are denoted, respectively, by r* and z*. Parameters\n5. Conclusion: In the reliability test plan proposed by Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996), one has to test all component equally irrespective of the testing cost. Through this work, it is shown that for a series system, the optimum design depends on the cost of the individual components and that all components need not be tested equally. Unlike most of the plans available in literature, in the proposed plan, the acceptance constant d* and the optimum sample size for each component depend upon the testing costs of individual components. Also, it is observed that no test plan in the literature uses prior information in the form of an upper bound that is a function of environmental factors. However, through the proposed plan, it is observed that use of prior information and incorporation of environmental factors have the advantage of savings in testing cost as illustrated through Examples 1 and 2. In Example 1, the optimal testing cost of the proposed model is 162 with optimal sample sizes (30, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3). Comparing this result with Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996), their optimal sample size is 19 for all 9 components and corresponding optimal cost is 855. In this case, the optimal cost is deduced by about 81 percent. Examples 1-4 given in Table 1 show that for the different values of given inputs, that is a, b, X (environmental factors vector), ci (cost of ith component per unit) and ui (upper bound of ith failure rate) for i=1, 2, ..., n, our plan has significant reduction in saving testing cost as compared to Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996). In Example 1, optimal numbers of components to be tested are 3, 18, 3, 3, 3, 3 and optimal testing cost is 146.5. For the same inputs, the optimal number of components to be tested for failure in Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996) is 14, which is a common sample size for all components in the system, and the optimal testing cost is 543.2. Comparing to Rajgopal and Mazumdar (1996) our plan has about 73 percent savings in the total testing cost.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper considers a series system consisting of n different components having unknown and variable failure rates, where the lifetime of components follow exponential distribution having non-constant failure rates. Moreover, the failure rates are bounded by above and are dependent on environmental factors such as temperature, pressure, through linear relationship. The purpose of this paper is to design a component reliability test plan for such a series system with an unknown variable failure rate.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The reliability of the system is estimated with the help of the unbiased estimator of failure rate. The testing procedure is stopped when a fixed number of failures occur for each component.\nFindings: An optimal reliability test plan is designed and the resultant non-linear integer optimization problem is formulated satisfying the constraints of producer's and consumer's risks. The obtained results are compared with the results available in the literature. Some examples are considered to illustrate the approach.\nOriginality/value: It is observed that use of prior information in the form of an upper bound and incorporation of environmental factors have the advantage of savings in the total testing cost.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Safety management module to create social sustainability skills
|
[
"Social sustainability",
"Safety",
"Engineering education",
"Discipline-specific engineering skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Naval architecture is a mechanical engineering discipline that considers (technical) systems for maritime use; such systems include boats, ships, offshore platforms and underwater systems. The use of these systems, for example, in transport, shipping and oil industry, largely shape the conditions for today's societies. Typically, today's engineering education at KTH generally and in the KTH naval architecture master program considers sustainable development (SD). However, mostly limited to areas such as energy efficiency and CO2 emission. Also, ship safety and economic aspects are discussed (Rosen, 2017). Does this approach really address the interaction between societal changes and engineering that is needed from the engineers of the future?\n2. Approach and methodology: 2.1 Program context and previous studies\n3. Data: 3.1 Education structure and courses\n4. Analysis: This analysis is based on the framework presented in Section 2 and analyzes lessons learned in two performed course offerings, one in 2018 and one in 2019.\n5. Discussion: This study has a scope limited to a specific course and changes. There is a need for more studies on the specific interaction between different disciplines their tools and sustainability. It is also suitable to further investigate the real-world impact of this type of change in the curriculum.\n6. Conclusions: This study has a scope limited to a specific course and changes. The students are during the program already exposed to sustainability aspects have discussed engineering applications from a sustainability perspective and understand the basic concepts within SD. This study shows that the specific module here studied, with a focus on the discipline-specific skill of maritime social sustainability development, differ from more general sustainability literacy. The new module showed the students that safety is not a constraint, it is a design parameter that affects several value-creating social aspects of the ship's life cycle. The course module also introduced the socio-technology system perspective into the program. Therefore, the new perspective affected the thinking about the core of the students' studies, ship design, in a way general knowledge on sustainability has not. This was achieved with a combination of suitable tools and perspectives in relation to contextual knowledge and a frame of reference. The central contextual knowledge and a frame of reference is here present in education as a result of relating the sustainability case to the core of the program. This allowed for a suitable combination of theory and practice that the students were forced to reflect upon that meet the ambitions of the CDIO approach to creating a discipline-led approach that educates for professional practice. However, to reach all the way to an engineer that always/automatically will strive for change more time need to be spent on change itself and the interactions between social and technical system components. In the module here studied such aspects were only implicitly discussed. Further development is needed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study has a scope limited to a specific course and changes integrated to the core of the KTH naval architecture master program. The students in the program have earlier experience from engineering applications in a general sustainability perspective and understand the basic concepts within sustainability. Therefore, to introduce further steps a new course module was introduced in 2018 focusing on safety management and social sustainability. The purpose of this study is to identify and document the pedagogic lessons for a course module where sustainable development (SD) is discipline-specific.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a case study that qualitatively investigates the stainability effects of the implementation of the new course module. The course and program activities are compared to the results of a previous study in 2017 on the sustainable development learning elements (SDLEs) in the program and discussed in relation to more general SD initiatives.\nFindings: From the analysis, it is identified that the perspectives presented were new to a substantial part of the students. This study also shows that the effects of the specific module here studied, with a focus on the skill of maritime social sustainability development, differ from more general sustainability literacy. The new perspective affected the thinking about the core of the students' studies, ship design, in a way that general knowledge on sustainability has not. This was achieved with a combination of suitable tools and perspectives in combination with contextual knowledge and a frame of reference. The contextual knowledge and a frame of reference are here present in education as a result of relating the sustainability case to the core of the program.\nOriginality/value: The result relates the pedagogical change described to SDLEs and to the ambition of conceive, design, implement and operate approaches. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a discussion on how social sustainability can be implemented in engineering education and the role of integrated discipline-specific sustainability modules.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
UNDP on good governance
|
[
"Individual development",
"Governance",
"Society",
"State",
"Government"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The term, \"good governance\" was first mentioned, causally, in the World Bank's (1989) report: Sub-Sahara Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth - A Long-Term Perspective Study. Within a decade, the idea crystallized into the most popular international development policy project. The major bilateral and supranational donor agencies put the project at their apex policy agenda and redefined the conceptual framework of their aid policies. One of the organizations, which took particular interest in the idea, is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The mission and mandate of UNDP is to materialise sustainable human development in the developing world, which is inseparable good governance. This proposition was forcefully forged in the 1997 policy paper Governance for Sustainable Human Development - A UNDP Policy Document (UNDP, 1997):Governance and human development are indivisible. Human development cannot be sustained without good governance. Governance cannot be sound unless it sustains human development. The UNDP believes that developing the capacity for good governance is a primary means of eradicating poverty.And the UNDP believes that it has added advantages in promoting good governance in the developing world compared to other external development partners.The UNDP has remained true to its promise. In 2008, it allocated 34 per cent of its budget to democratic governance, 72 per cent of this money was invested in making democratic institutions more accountable and responsive to citizens and 46 countries are receiving parliamentary supports from UNDP (2009a). Besides, the UNDP, other supranationals, like the World Bank and bilateral agencies like, United States agency for international development (USA), Canadian international development agency (Canada), Japanese international cooperation agency (Japan) and Department of international development (UK) are supporting good governance projects in the developing countries.Yet, the outcomes of these impressing external efforts are far remote from their expectations. In his 2005 report to Economic and Social Council, the UN Secretary-General was highly critical about the achievement of good governance (United Nations (UN), 2005). The progress of the LDCs as a group, the report reveals, was insufficient to meet the goals of the Brussels Programme of Action and its objectives of eradicating poverty, sustained growth and sustainable development. It also identifies the major obstacles persistently hampering implementation of the Programme of Action, which are weakness in three crucial areas - country ownership, national capacity and resources.From governance perspective, country ownership is most critical. It signifies political mobilization within a country to implement its developmental strategy, including the externally aided projects, programs and policies. Naturally country ownership requires the political party in power to garner sufficient support in favour of its development strategy among stakeholders both within and outside of government (World Bank, 2009). This includes line ministries, parliament, sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private sector groups.Evidently, country ownership is critically important for good governance in any sovereign nation. When people in power fail to mobilise their citizens around their policies and activities, it simply means, in political term, that they are governing without \"general consent\" - an indicator of poor governance. Thus, the international development community needs to investigate factors responsible for the unsatisfactory improvement in country ownership. This investigation can be pursued from different angles. However, the angle that appears under-explored is the conceptual foundations of \"governance\" and \"good governance\" and the key institutions supposed to achieve these goals - the state, private sector and civil society organisations. For example, ordinary understanding about the ideas of governance and good governance is that they are somehow related to the performance of government, the political institution responsible for exercising the executive power of the state. Yet, the literature hardly talks about the performance of the regime in power. They constantly talk about the state and its relation with the civil society and the private sector. Does this mean that the state and government are synonymous? Do these words refer to the same political institution?To highlight these conceptual confusions, this paper uses the 1997 policy paper of UNDP document mentioned above, as the ruling reference material. A precis of the main concepts and their relations articulated in the UNDP policy papers are presented in Section 2. Section 3 describes the main concepts of good governance - social contract, civil society, the state and government - from their historical perspectives. Section 4 critically examines the key ideas and their conceptual connections conceived in the UNDP policy document, and the paper is concluded in Section 5.\n2 Governance for sustainable human development: Human development is a process of enlarging people's choices, achieved through expanding human capabilities and functionings (UNDP). The process includes three essential capabilities for human development - leading long and healthy life, be knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. However, the realm of human development goes further: essential areas of choice range from political, economic and social opportunities for being creative and productive to enjoying self-respect, empowerment and a sense of belonging to a community. There are five aspects to sustainable human development that particularly affect lives of the poor and vulnerable: empowerment, cooperation, equity and sustainability and security.As noted above, the mission and the mandate of the UNDP are to promote sustainable human development in the developing world. Accordingly, the policy document conceptually connects good governance idea with organisation's mandate. It first defines and discusses governance and good governance, and then describes their conceptual connections with the state, private sector and civil society. The following is a precis of each of these concepts.Governance\n3 Social contract, civil society, the state and government: The UNDP policy document includes six key concepts - human development, governance, good governance, the state, private sector and civil society. Human development is the goal; good governance is the means; and the state, private sector and civil society are the political and non-political institutions/agencies involved in the governance process. The achievement of a social/political goal is conditional upon the sound conceptualisation of the linkages among key institutions involved. This in turn requires factual description of each of these institutions. One might suspect whether the UNDP document fulfils this requirement of logics.With a view to shedding some light on this point, this section explores the conceptual connections among four political vocabularies - social contract, civil society, the state and government - from the perspectives of political philosophy. The justification for doing this is that the state is a political institution and is founded on political values and beliefs, which are codified and justified in the political philosophy literature. Naturally, to understand the problems of governance in the developing world and the UNDP's proposal and policy to improve this situation by coordinating the activities of the state, private sector and civil society, we need to know those values and beliefs. These cannot be found in the governance literature, although its authors freely use those concepts as they find them convenient to support their conceptions.The governance issue has received utmost attentions from some of the humanity's wisest minds including Plato and Aristotle. However, the writings, particularly relevant for this discussion, are those of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Locke begins Second Treatise on Government with the proclamation that individuals, ambitious of ruling or exercising \"political right\", must seek people's consent. Rousseau on the other hand, introduces The Social Contract with these words:I want to inquire whether there can be some legitimate and sure rule of administration in the civil order, taking men as they are, and laws as they can be. I will always try in this enquiry to bring together what right permits with what interest prescribes, so that justice and utility do not find themselves at odds with one another.The good governance literature, a closer look would reveal, also deals with the same problem but in a different time and a different context.Social contract\n4 Some critical observations: The theories of political philosophy briefly reviewed above are not just empty words; these are the theories on which modern democratic states are founded. A simple survey of the constitutions of democratic countries would testify this truth. All democratic constitutions, unambiguously and unequivocally, preamble that people, individually called citizen, are the sovereign authority of the state. But for obvious reasons, people cannot carry out the functions of public administration; this job requires the creation of a political institution that is separate from the state or body politic but is morally and legally accountable to it. This political institution is called government.All modern governments consist of three departments - legislature, executive and judiciary. Of these three, judiciary, composed of appointed legal experts, is totally professional and bureaucratic. The legislature, which enjoys exclusive power of lawmaking, is totally political. The executive branch - that enjoys the right to exercise the state's sovereign power and hence is responsible for executing the laws and policies passed by the legislature - consists of both civil and military bureaucrats and elected politicians. The civil and military bureaucrats are professionals, trained to perform the jobs assigned to them. They take orders and instructions from their political bosses who are elected by people. Naturally, any conceptualisation linking governance with related political and social institutions will be policy-effective only if it truthfully describes those institutions and their inter-relationships. This is the guiding principle of critical scrutiny of the UNDP governance conception that follows.Social contract\n5 Conclusion: Conclusions deducible from the above analysis are fairly general, even though they concern the policy paper of only one supranational organisation. First, descriptions of civil and political institutions involved with governance process are very confusing. Governance is a political issue; this is perhaps the reason why the document picked up jargons of political philosophy - social contract, civil society, the state and government. However, the policy paper does not describe the conceptual connections among these concepts in their historical contexts or current institutional forms. For example, the state and government are very distinct political institutions, both theoretically and practically. The state is a political association of individuals living in a well-defined territory, meaning it is sovereign. Government, on the other hand, is another political institution where people's supreme power remains entrusted. It is subordinate to the state, because the people periodically elect its administrators. The UNDP document makes no such distinction; it treats government and the state synonymous.Second, the document assigns an all-impressing role to CSOs in promoting good governance in the developing world. They stand in-between the state and private sector and mediate their differences and protect the rights of all citizens:Civil society is more than just society. It is the part of society that connects individuals with the public realm and the state - it is the political face of society.In reality, CSOs are deeply involved in poor governance in the developing country.Finally, the conception - governance is a process - misconceives the true nature of governance problem in the developing world and diverts world attention from real political factors responsible for creating all sorts of governance problems there. Governance, an out-and-out political issue, must be treated as the performance of a regime or administration, so that the regime can be held accountable if governance is poor and credited for good governance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Since the 1990s, most bilateral and supranational donor agencies have been pursuing \"good governance\" as their priority development policy. Yet, in their own evaluation, the speed of progress of this gargantuan governance project has remained unsatisfactory. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes of this slow progress by scrutinizing its conceptual foundation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The analytical approach of this paper is purely speculative, which is occasionally supported by real world data and socio-political evidences. Since the paper uses Governance for Sustainable Human Development - A UNDP Policy Document as the ruling reference material, the paper has been so titled.\nFindings: - First, defining governance as a process misrepresents its problematic nature, which is primarily political and therefore diverts world attention from its root-causes. Second, governance literature treats the state and government as synonymous and by that confuses their political nature. Finally, the paper assigns an all-impressing role to civil society organizations (CSOs) in promoting good governance in the developing world. However, experience shows that they are deeply involved in the creation and continuation of poor governance in the developing country.\nPractical implications: - Humankind now lives in a global village divided into territorially demarcated political units. Accordingly, the peace and prosperity of the global village critically depend upon how democratically each of member state is governed. Good governance in turn hinges on politically trained intelligent and ethical individuals running public administration. The analytical opinions of the paper underline this notion.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that the ongoing development discourse on good governance revolves around a faulty conceptual foundation. By reviewing the major ideas of the governance paradigm, it clarifies the conceptual connections between political theories and democratic governance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Unified trust establishment by leveraging remote attestation - modeling and analysis
|
[
"Trust",
"Remote attestation",
"Integrity measurement",
"TPM",
"Formulization",
"Pervasive computing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Pervasive computing coined by Weiser (1991) is an emerging research field that has brought innovative concepts and ideas in computer science. It provides ambient services and applications that allow users, devices, and applications in different physical locations to communicate unobtrusively. In a pervasive computing environment, the devices are interconnected and embedded in physical objects to collect, process, and transport information with the least human participation.\nII. Application scenario: Healthcare smart space is considered as the motivating scenario for our research. Implementing healthcare applications over pervasive computing infrastructure gives a considerable improvement in terms of quality, productivity and agility. However, the conventional healthcare systems which normally are accessed by stationary computers are not efficient yet, since retrieving information from them interrupts the workflow at the time of need whereas ubiquitous information access as in pervasive environment is designed to reduce the human error and saves time and effort.\nIII. Related work on trust models: The term of trust has a wide variety of definitions within different research disciplines. In social context, trust is a complicated concept related to belief in the honesty, truthfulness, competence, reliability, etc. of a person or service. In computer science, according to RFC 2828 (Shirey, 2000), a system is trusted if it \"operates as expected, according to design and policy.\"\nIV. Remote attestation and integrity measurement: TC is supported and promoted by two major groups, Trusted Computing Group (TCG) (2011b) and open trusted computing (OpenTC) (2011). The main aim of these groups is to define the standards and specifications for TC and extend them for multiple platform types.\nV. Proposed unified trust formalised model: In our previous work, we introduced unified trust model (UTM; Khiabani et al., 2010) and pointed out its components. In this paper, we take a step further and extend our previous work and formalise the components and properties of the process for calculating entities' trustworthiness.\nVI. UTM analysis: In this section, we describe our simulation approach and its finding for the proposed model.\nVII. Conclusion and future works: In this paper, we have reviewed the most notable existing remote attestation techniques to see which one is suitable for our model. We also highlighted the need for a comprehensive trust model which unifies several factors in trustworthiness calculation among peer nodes in pervasive systems. We described healthcare smart space as an application scenario which is one of the important pervasive computing use cases. A UTM that aggregates history, recommendation, context, and platform in trustworthiness factors was proposed. A solution for the initialisation process and the formal representation of the model were presented and we described how TPM can be incorporated for measuring trustworthiness of a collaborative peer node within the pervasive system. We concluded with the evaluation analysis of the proposed model and demonstrated its responsiveness and strength in solving the uncertain situations by assigning appropriate initial trust values. As our future work, we will use a trust model simulation tool to prove the capabilities and accuracy of our trust calculation, and then we would compare the result with the other-related models.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Ambient service provisioning with the least human participation in a pervasive computing environment, which is composed of interconnected devices and sensors, raises several trust and security issues. Accurate measuring of the integrity of the nodes that are willing to interact in this intimate environment can boost the trust evolution process, particularly in the uncertainty state and initiation phase. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper presents a unified approach in calculating the trust value among the nodes by leveraging some trusted computing functionalities. The approach aggregates different trust metrics like context, recommendation, and history to compute the trust index of each party more accurately. The paper also describes several existing remote attestation techniques including the chosen attestation technique for the model. The paper simulated the behaviour of the model in different scenarios and evaluates its responsiveness when the trustworthiness among peer nodes can be attested.\nFindings: The results obtained from different simulated scenarios demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed model. It is shown that trust evaluation process in the proposed model is very granular and also can be fine-tuned according to the application and context. The model strength in solving the uncertain situations and assigning appropriate initial trust values is shown, as well. Finally, the paper describes the future research plan to evaluate the accuracy of the model.\nOriginality/value: The novel idea of applying remote attestation in trust determination may open up new avenues of research in the study of trust management and trust models.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The environment-strategy-structure fit and performance of industrial servitized SMEs
|
[
"Financial performance",
"Organizational design",
"Environmental factors",
"Servitization strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The process of \"servitization,\" introduced by Vandermerwe and Rada (1988), is defined as the transformational process of shifting from a product-centric business model to a service-centric approach. Servitization is considered to be \"a means of increasing competitiveness, turnover, and market power\" (Kowalkowski, Gebauer, Kamp and Parry, 2017, p. 1). However, this process involves a deep reconfiguration of the firm's resource base, organizational capabilities and structures and, in certain cases, a redefinition of the shared norms and values (Baines et al., 2009). Although the literature on servitization is growing (Kowalkowski, Gebauer, Kamp and Parry, 2017), the financial consequences of this strategy have not been studied in depth, despite the major study by Fang et al. (2008) on the relationship between the servitization process, the firm's financial value and its slack resources. Scholarly research has only recently begun to address the question on a systematic basis (Cova and Salle, 2007; Eggert et al., 2014; Evanschitzky et al., 2011; Gebauer, Ren, Valtakoski and Reynoso, 2012; Kastalli et al., 2013; Valtakoski, 2017). Kowalkowski, Gebauer and Oliva (2017) indicate that more empirical research is clearly needed to understand if and how adding additional services improve the firms' financial performance. Although it is often assumed that there is an implicit positive relationship between servitization and financial performance, the empirical results do not show unanimous support for this assumption. In fact, the \"service paradox\" concept has been developed in this context and posits that substantial investments in extending the service business lead to increased service offerings and higher costs but do not generate the expected correspondingly higher returns (Gebauer et al., 2005). Reallocating the financial and managerial resources previously dedicated to the development of products is not easy, and the related consequences are difficult to predict. Neely (2008) notes that the cost of employment, working capital and total assets per employee - in addition to the overall failure rate - are all higher in servitized firms than in other firms. These mixed results call for a better understanding of the means by which manufacturing companies can develop successful servitization strategies and benefit from including services in their product offerings (Gebauer, Paiola and Edvardsson, 2012) while overcoming the hidden pitfalls often associated with servitization (Ostrom et al., 2015; Valtakoski, 2017). A recent study by Benedettini et al. (2017) sets out to investigate the effect of more extensive service offerings on the likelihood of firm bankruptcy. The authors showed that offering more services does not consistently increase the firm's chances of survival. However, additional services can lead to increased survival chances when properly complemented by firm-level contextual factors, including slack resources (Benedettini et al., 2017, p. 10).\n2. The servitization process: a multiform notion: The servitization trend is characterized by manufacturing firms' growing propensity to develop service offerings that extend beyond their traditional product offerings. However, there is little homogeneity in servitization implementation among firms. Indeed, various servitization strategies have been identified that correspond to different types of service offerings. Therefore, different classifications have emerged in the literature, ranging from basic services that are merely added onto products (maintenance and support) to integrated and customer-centric combinations of goods and services (Gebauer, 2008; Mathieu, 2001; Tukker, 2004). In developing the \"servitization\" concept, Vandermerwe and Rada (1988) first established the idea that there is a continuum from the manufacturing company (i.e. the producer of goods) to the service company (i.e. the producer of pure services). The academics further proposed that this continuum includes a variety of intermediate forms of product-service bundles. However, the concept of servitization as an incremental and linear process along a continuum has recently been challenged (Windahl and Lakemond, 2010). Rather than moving along a linear continuum from goods to services, firms need to balance elements of both the product and service logics, as well as manage the increased customer-supplier interdependencies entailed by integrated solutions. Indeed, in today's business environment, providers have increased responsibility - and its implications - within the customer activity chain (Gebauer, Edvardsson, Gustafsson and Witell, 2010). It engages academics and practitioners to consider servitization strategies as a global managerial approach including the characteristics of the firm's offering but also the pattern of relationships it sustains with its customers (Hakanen et al., 2017). This conducts to different servitization strategies with different levels of involvement in the customer activity chain.\n3. Research framework: 3.1 Organizational design: a driver to financial performance\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Results and discussion: The findings detailed below indicate that analyzing firm performance at the servitization strategy level is particularly relevant and instructive.\n6. Implications and limitations: 6.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the environment-strategy-structure fit in the context of industrial servitization and its impact on the profitability of manufacturing SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with the CEOs of 184 French manufacturing SMEs. These primary data were complemented by the indicators extracted from a financial database to ensure objective measures of financial performance. Analyses were conducted by means of partial least squares structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The research tests the impact of the organizational design (customer interface, service delivery system and service culture (SC)) on financial performance. It also tests the moderating effect on this relationship of servitization strategies adopted by the firm (added services (AS), activities reconfiguration (AR) and business model reconfiguration (BMR)) and the environment in which the firm is situated (industry dynamism, competitive intensity and industry munificence).\nResearch limitations/implications: This study considers the coalescence of the environment-strategy-structure to be a driver of firm performance in the context of industrial firms' servitization. Three specific servitization strategies (AS, AR and BMR) are suggested based on the service offering's impact on the customer's activity chain or business model.\nPractical implications: The research proposes some optimal organizational design depending on servitization strategy and environmental factors; for example, SC has a strong impact on financial performance when BMR is adopted.\nOriginality/value: This empirical study is based on an extended sample of 184 SMEs and provides quantitative support for the claim that good alignment between strategy and organizational design based on environmental factors increases profitability.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The "silent killers" of a STEM-professional woman's career
|
[
"STEM",
"Intersectionality",
"Discourses",
"Anchor points",
"Critical sensemaking framework"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Humans have been fascinated with the idea of space and its exploration since we first looked up at the stars and wondered about them. The space industry, as we know it today, grew from this curiosity to attempts to control the heavens via the Cold War between the USA and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Hartt et al., 2009). During these military attempts to control space, the Canadian space industry was brought to the attention of the global space community with the USA-provided launch of the Canadian-designed and built Alouette satellite in 1962 (CSA, 2012b), marking Canada as the third spacefaring nation after the USA and the USSR. These global space military efforts would eventually lead to global capitalist concerns with respect to space. To this end, the contemporary Canadian space industry is now recognized for its strengths in such areas as satellite-based communications, earth observation and space robotics (AIAC, 2015). The Canadian arm of the global capitalist space industry generated, in 2012, revenues totaling $3.32B (CSA, 2013). A diversity[1] of individuals work together to achieve these capitalist goals, holding various professional[2] occupational positions including scientific/technical/engineering and administrative/corporate roles. Specifically, 7,993 individuals worked in the Canadian space industry in 2012, where 2,932 were engineers/scientists/technicians and 671 were managers (CSA, 2013).\nThe engineering/science professions and space literatures: There were, and continue to be, important influences from the military in Canada's efforts to explore space (Godefroy, 2011). To better understand these influences, I turned to the literature on engineering/science professions. These professions have historical roots in male-dominated military institutions (Hacker, 1989; Royal Military College, n.d.). Notably, West Point, the first US military and engineering school established in 1802, was based on the French military system of the Ecole Militaire/Ecole Polytechnique (Fox, 2006). Rigid military discipline along with the goal of creating the best engineers, mathematicians and officers were central concerns of these military-based systems (Hacker, 1989). The Military College of Canada, founded in 1874, was based on these US and French military systems. The Canadian military college system was, and continues to be, focused on military tactics, fortification, engineering and objective/positivist scientific knowledge acquisition (Hacker, 1989; Royal Military College, n.d.).\nAnchor points theoretical framework: How to fill this epistemological vacuum required a theoretical framework that could address the complexities of revealing an individual and her lived experiences. As I introduced earlier, I turned to the notion of identities, embracing a poststructural/sociological perspective focused on social interactions and social constructions. Social interactions were considered as relationships among individuals that created the self and the mind (Anderson, 2016). The social world and the individual interacted together, mutually constituting each other in the processes of these everyday social interactions. This social-interactionist perspective, which would later become symbolic interactionism (Anderson, 2016), embraced a social world that was always evolving and how individuals were shaped by that social world. This implied that the social individual was evolving, and being reshaped and, importantly, doing the reshaping in the social world. This perspective, in contrast to Erikson's (1963, 1964, 1968) work on who I am, did not define the identity concept as having a centrality to it. The Eriksonian identity concept relied on sameness or selfsameness, within an individual, and on the identity's constant, stable continuity that was independent from the dynamics of social interaction. Symbolic interactionists, such as Mead (1932, 1934), were more interested in \"social interaction, mediated through shared symbolic systems\" (Gleason, 1983, p. 917), and of how the self can be shaped, and influenced, into being.\nResearch methodology: How does one find anchor points? The CSM framework (Helms Mills et al., 2010) was one possible approach that could be used to find them. To guide my application of this CSM framework, I asked the following research questions:\nFindings: anchor points, rules and formative contexts: The first question that guided this investigation was centered on finding the range of attributed anchor points for one STEM-professional woman working in the Canadian space industry. By focusing on finding this range of anchor points, via the application of the CSM framework to Vigrine's discourses, the reader was invited to discover the individual and her experiences, before delving into the rules and social values that were at work in her context.\nAnalysis: revealing the exclusionary order: I now move to the analysis of the relationship between anchor points and the rules and social values presented in the previous section, and how the exclusion of STEM-professional women in management positions in the Canadian space industry can plausibly be explained. I summarize, in Table II, the range of anchor points, the rules and social values found in Vigrine and Ormyr's data. I also summarize the relationship between this range of anchor points and the rules and social values in this table.\nDiscussion: anchor points and social justice initiatives: I now turn to a discussion on anchor points as the chosen theoretical framework to showcase the complex individual and her Othering experiences. I then consider micro-political resistance initiatives (Davies and Thomas, 2004) to begin to undo Vigrine's Othering experiences.\nConclusion: This work showcased a social constructionist theoretical framework, focused on anchor points. By untangling identities along with organizational contexts in this poststructural/sociological study, the self moved beyond our own self-perception of who I am. The complex individual and her lived experiences, as I demonstrated, can include social interactions and their influences on who I am becoming. The empirical evidence and its analysis reflected one possible how with respect to the exclusion of a STEM-professional woman from management within the Canadian space industry. Vigrine's stories and narratives, coupled with her former supervisor's discourses, showcased a spectrum of power-relations and CSM processes related to her Othering experiences. These power-relations were not broken down into a binary man vs woman type of treatment. Vigrine's state of being and of becoming as the other was a complex dance across fractured and fragmented identities. This complex dance foregrounded that the silent killers of this STEM-professional woman's career are no longer hidden; they become an opportunity for micro-political resistances to be enacted in order to undo attributed anchor points.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to provide a plausible answer to how there are so few science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-professional women managers in the Canadian space industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author showcased one such individual and her experiences of the exclusionary order in this industry, by focusing on her discourses and those of her former supervisor. The author applied the critical sensemaking (CSM) framework to unstructured interview data and to various collected written documentation. To guide the author's application of this CSM framework, the author asked and answered the following questions: what is the range of identity anchor points associated with, and available to, a STEM-professional woman within the Canadian space industry? What is the relationship between these anchor points and organizational rules and social values? And, how do these anchor points and their relationship with rules and social values influence the exclusion of STEM-professional women from management positions within this industry?\nFindings: The author surfaced a STEM-professional woman's range of ephemeral identities, captured within her range of attributed anchor points. The author also revealed some of the rules and social values of the organizational context she worked in. The author then analyzed the how of her exclusionary social order, by studying the relationship between these anchor points and these rules and social values.\nSocial implications: In addition to addressing the lack of STEM-professional women in management and to filling a gap in the literature, this study made a contribution to our understanding of social-identities, represented by anchor points, and to their discursive reproduction within organizational contexts. The author also suggested micro-political resistances to undo this social order for one particular individual.\nOriginality/value: This study's value can be measured by its contribution to the postpositivist cisgender and diversity literature focused on intersectionality scholarship, specifically in the area of identity anchor points and their (re)creation within social interactions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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